Why Does Healthcare Cost So Much?

Sick by Design is a podcast exploring the stories, history, policy, and incentives that shape the American healthcare system—one question at a time.Why does the United States spend more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet so many patients still struggle to afford care?It's one of the biggest questions in American healthcare—and there isn't a single answer.In this episode of Sick by Design, we begin a new series exploring how our healthcare system evolved over the past century. Rather than searching for a single culprit, we examines healthcare as a collection of interconnected systems built over decades to solve different problems. Along the way, we introduce the framework that will guide the rest of the season: following real stories backward through history, policy, and incentives to understand why the system works the way it does today.This episode lays the foundation for future discussions on prescription drug pricing, patents, pharmacy benefit managers, prior authorization, employer-sponsored insurance, hospital financing, medical research, and more.If you've ever wondered why healthcare feels so expensive—and so complicated—this is where the investigation begins.Have a healthcare story to share?Whether you're a patient, caregiver, physician, nurse, pharmacist, researcher, administrator, attorney, or someone who has simply struggled to navigate the healthcare system, I'd love to hear from you.Submit your story using the link below. You can remain anonymous, and your experience may help shape a future episode of Sick by Design.Share your story with us.You don't need to have a dramatic story. Sometimes the most revealing healthcare experiences are the ordinary ones—a delayed prescription, a confusing bill, a referral that never happened. Those everyday experiences often reveal the biggest systemic issues.