We the Patients: Navigating Healthcare in a Broken System with Matthew Zachary

n this episode of The Architecture of Health, I talk with Matthew Zachary — cancer survivor, patient advocate, founder of Stupid Cancer, and co-founder of We The Patients — about what happens when people are forced to rely on the US healthcare system at one of the hardest moments of their lives.This conversation is a little different from many of my episodes. I often talk about movement, prevention, and how to stay out of the medical system as much as possible. But Matthew works in the world of people who do not have that option — people facing cancer and other high-stakes diagnoses.We talk about his own experience with cancer, and about the larger system patients are thrown into when the stakes are high: insurance denials, shocking prices, and the strange reality that so much of American healthcare operates like a business, even when it carries the label “nonprofit.”This is not an episode about avoiding Western medicine. It is about seeing the system more clearly — especially when you or someone you love may need it most.Because when things get serious, it helps to understand what you are walking into.www.matthewzachary.comwww.wethepatients.comwww.wethepatients.org