We've Got You Covered

New Ep is up! Today we have our first returning guest, Dr. Amy Finkelstein, economics professor at MIT, co-author (with Liran Einav) of today’s subject, the book We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care, but also co-author of Risky Business: Why Insurance Markets Fail and What to Do About It, the subject of an interview from earlier this year. Amy and her co-authors are experts in insurance generally, and health insurance specifically. I mention that because in the interview I rave about this being a textbook example of Edward De Bono’s lateral thinking and blank page creativity, which seem to come most often from “outside the box.” What I meant by that was as much as she’s studied health insurance, Amy hasn’t worked in the health care industry for 20 years or worked in public policy in Washington. So, from that perspective, I suggest she lacks institutional bias and has an outsider’s advantage. The title undersells what the book is offering, which is a blueprint for, I believe, the best way to run health care in America, which is universal coverage with free, basic coverage for all. That’s a tease, there’s so much more to it, and the book provides evidence from around the world including not just countries from Europe to the UK and Norway to Singapore and Australia, but also states like Massachusetts and Oregon, to support the authors’ research. And, I know I always say this, but in this case it’s especially true because of the enormity of the subject matter, but you do really have to read the book. With that said, the most elegant solutions are often the simplest, and by that measure, Amy and Liran have crushed it again. The solution, the final product if we could start from scratch, is amazingly straight forward. One more thing to entice you into reading the book. If you start from first principles as the authors did, you find that there is actually a lot more consensus on the building blocks of this recommended framework from the right, left, and middle, than there is disagreement. Other than me screwing up the term “supplemental” insurance and instead saying “premium” a couple of times, it’s a clean interview, thanks to Amy’s mastery of the subject. If you can overlook that error, and apologies for any confusion that causes, you’re going to leave the interview miles ahead of your friends, family, and work associates on the subject. But don’t be greedy. Share it with all of them! And send it to you representatives in Washington. Read more about Amy here, and coauthor Iran Einav on X. Buy the book here or at your favorite bookstore.