On today’s show: Vox’s Dylan Scott reports on the deep roots of Americans’ hatred of their health-care system. Jacob Soboroff and Errol Morris discuss whether Trump could revive his family-separations policy during his second term, in this week’s episode of Apple News In Conversation. The National Labor Relations Board says contestants on Netflix’s ‘Love Is Blind’ are employees. Deadline has more. And the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum, a recent Apple News In Conversation guest, speaks with us about how the ruling could transform reality TV as we know it. Plus, a DOJ report says the FBI did not incite the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, why the electrification of the U.S. Postal Service’s fleet will take longer than expected, and an incredible breakthrough in the fight against HIV. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Full Episode
Good morning. It's Friday, December 13th. I'm Shamitha Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, what family separations could look like under a second Trump term, how treating reality TV stars as paid employees could change the industry, and an incredible breakthrough in preventing the spread of HIV.
But first, to the American health care system, which has left so many people feeling overwhelmed, helpless and in some cases betrayed. Over the past week, we've witnessed a tremendous public outpouring of that frustration after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the arrest of his alleged shooter. Americans have been feeling this way for a while now.
Confidence in the quality of U.S. health care is at an all-time low, according to Gallup. Public approval of doctors and hospitals has dropped over the last decade by more than 10 percent. Only 18 percent of the public views the pharmaceutical industry favorably.
Vox's Dylan Scott told us so many people can relate to the dread of having to call up your health insurance to figure out whether an urgently needed procedure is covered.
When people go through those experiences, it's one of the most fraught moments of their lives. Like they or somebody they love is probably experiencing a medical emergency. And on top of that, they're entering this, you know, Kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmare.
He says part of what makes our current system such a nightmare for consumers and what makes it so hard to correct is that no single person or industry is responsible for the failures of the U.S. health care system. And everyone involved is busy pointing fingers at each other.
There's this ongoing blame game within the healthcare industry that makes it just really confusing to understand, like, why this problem exists in the first place.
He says insurance companies blame hospitals and drug companies when consumers are upset about high premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Meanwhile, doctors say dealing with insurance companies and trying to convince them to pay for their patients' care is getting worse. And hospitals blame drug companies for charging high prices.
We saw an example of this blame game gone wrong recently, just in the past week, when Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield announced it would no longer pay for anesthesia if a procedure goes past a certain time limit. The public response to this was overwhelmingly negative. Typical big bad insurance company, people were saying. And Anthem ended up walking back the new policy.
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