Here’s a spoiler for our chapter on health insurance: it’s absurd! And who better to help explain the absurdity of health insurance than the kids from South Park…
“The medical director’s job is just to say no” is a real doozy. And while it’s not strictly true all the time, it’s certainly true often enough that South Park’s satire veers into documentary territory here.
As we move through this chapter, it’s important to keep in mind how insurance is supposed to work versus how it actually works in present reality. It’s important to understand the ways the system is broken. And it’s important to understand that until we fix the way insurance works (and extend its benefits to all Americans), our ability to innovate and create new life-saving medicines will remain at risk. Because when insurance doesn’t cover a medicine someone needs (or does cover it but saddles patients with high out-of-pocket costs), the companies that make medicines are often portrayed as the bad guys. And this can then lead to policies that stifle innovation.