The killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO has sparked a lot of conversations about political violence and also about health insurance in the U.S. and the many frustrations people have with their coverage.

Today on The Metro, we discuss the state of health insurance and health care in metro Detroit and beyond with three guests; and look at how things like medical debt affect a person’s quality of life. 

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Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal is the senior contributing editor for health news analysis at the Kaiser Family Foundation. She’s also the author of “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.”

She says health care has placed too much of an emphasis on profits.

“We are talking about not a health care system, as we used to do, but a health care industry,” Rosenthal said. “It’s not a system, right? It’s a bunch of big businesses and poor patients are left struggling in this land of the giants to just get the care they need.”

While medical innovation ranks well in this country, things like insurance coverage, quality, and cost are all pretty bad compared to other First World nations. 

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, director for the Wayne County Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services, says his department is working with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to relieve residents from medical debt. 

“We realized that there was an opportunity for us to step in and take on the scourge of medical debt for our county,” El-Sayed said. “We identified the fact that we ranked No. 8 for medical debt in the entire country, and that this was an opportunity for us to be able to wipe clean $700 million in debt.” 

Oakland County launched a similar program last year in partnership with RIP Medical Debt.

David Kendall, a senior fellow for Health and Fiscal Policy at Third Way — a think tank that champions modern center-left ideas — also joined The Metro to share his ideas on how to improve health care in America. 

He discussed how some states are giving tax exemptions to hospitals extending care to people below a certain poverty level. 

“The thing about it is that Michigan hasn’t done this yet, so about half the states have,” Kendall said. “So if you’re out there thinking about what to do on this issue, that would be a good first thing to contact your state legislator and say, ‘Can we get the hospitals to, you know, provide a certain minimum level of charity care?”

In the second hour of The Metro, we asked listeners:

“Have you ever avoided seeing a doctor or not gotten a prescription because of the cost of health care? Have you ever struggled with medical debt?”

Adam in Detroit said: “My company is located out of Utah, and they don’t cover anything. They don’t cover anything that I actually need. Like, what I will need is Adderall basically, right? But what they cover is the generic version. And right now there’s a shortage of amphetamines in the United States, which is really crazy. So like, I’ll go to the pharmacy after getting this doctor’s visit that was really hard to schedule, and then I’ll go from the doctor’s visit to the pharmacy, and they’ll be like, ‘Oh we don’t even have that.’”

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More from The Metro on Dec 17, 2024: 

• Detroit Youth Choir is ready to strut its stuff and branch out a little bit this holiday season. If you’re not familiar with the young performers, they have lit up stages from “America’s Got Talent” to Carnegie Hall. This Friday, DYC will perform two concerts for audiences. The first half of the concert will include soulful renditions of classic Christmas songs. To discuss the concerts, as well DYC’s new album released this fall, Detroit Youth Choir Director Anthony White joined the show.
• The Michigan Poison & Drug Information Center has seen more and more calls about nitrous use and how it’s making people sick — prompting a new state law banning the sale of nitrous oxide paraphernalia. Varun Vohra, a professor at Wayne State University and senior director of the Michigan Poison & Drug Information Center, joined The Metro to discuss the growing problem.
• Stellantis is going through some changes. The automaker that includes the Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands among others is going into 2025 without its CEO, Carlos Tavares, who has led the company since its formation in 2021 until abruptly resigning on Dec. 1. Automotive News Executive Director and host of the Daily Drive podcast Jamie Butters joined the show to help us understand what’s next for the company.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.