The Doctor's Lounge
Episode Summary
Jared Rhoads, founder of the Center for Modern Health and senior lecturer in health policy at the Dartmouth Institute, joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio for a wide-ranging conversation on the philosophical foundations of healthcare policy. Rhoads — an Objectivist in the tradition of Ayn Rand — argues that physicians have a right to pursue health, not a right to be given it, and walks through what that distinction means for real policy debates: FDA drug approval, prior authorization, the ban on physician-owned hospitals, private equity in medicine, and foreign-trained physician licensure. The episode is a rare attempt to make the moral case for free markets in medicine, not just the efficiency case.
Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction and guest background
01:52 What is the Center for Modern Health?
04:25 Objectivism, Ayn Rand, and rational self-interest
11:19 Healthcare as a private good vs. community good
13:58 Policy mistakes made for edge cases
16:58 You have a right to pursue health — not to be given it
20:14 Does Medicare violate rights?
22:47 Positive vs. negative rights in healthcare
24:47 The FDA, drug approval, and the Prasad/McCary departures
31:08 A two-tier FDA review proposal: private vs. public payers
42:25 Breaking up Big Medicine — the Hawley-Warren bill
49:43 Prior authorization: structural problem or reform target?
55:22 High-deductible plans and why price consciousness hasn't taken hold
57:43 Price transparency laws: do they actually work?
01:02:49 Section 6001 and the de facto ban on physician-owned hospitals
01:06:04 Stark Law, Medicare Advantage, and a possible reform path
01:11:19 Private equity in medicine: where are the actual rights violations?
01:19:02 Free markets and monopolies: the standard objection answered
01:21:12 Foreign-trained physician licensure
01:34:11 Immigration, physician workforce, and the battle of ideas
01:37:40 Center for Modern Health summer fellowship
Co-Host Handles
@anish_koka and @drdigiorgio
Show Handle
@drsloungepod
Subscribe Links
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/44vw8eirsKKnjgNIrdDvrR
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-doctors-lounge/id1832097658