A massive health system in the Northeast on the brink of collapse, private equity waiting (hiding?) in the wings, and hundreds of thousands of patients at risk of losing care?  We need to talk about Steward Health.

To put it bluntly, private equity is laundering their greed through the good will of healthcare. Brendan Ballou, a federal prosecutor who served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and author of “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America”, joins us to talk about how PE has taken over healthcare, and what we can do about it.

What happens when “Feelings Bro” and “A Guy Who’s Good At Science and Can Lift 300lbs Directly Over His Head” meets Dr. and Lady Glaucomflecken?  Laughs, of course, but also a deadly serious conversation about how to use humor and insight not just to entertain, but to mobilize change in the US healthcare system.

Is it a podcast?  A movement?  A random show title that Wendy came up with because she couldn’t think of anything else?  What the f**k does “43cc” actually mean?!?  Matt and Wendy explain what “43cc” is, but more importantly, why it is.

Healthcare professionals have long thought that insurance companies were lying to us. According to our next guest, we’re right. Wendell Potter, former Senior VP of CIGNA, opens up about ‘how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns to mislead the press and public.’

Earlier this year, Wendy shared a post from a physician friend who saw news of a door blowing off a Boeing 737 as a metaphorical omen for the state of US healthcare. That post struck a nerve.

Last week, we aired a show about a rural hospital in Ohio.  As it turns out, the former CEO of that very hospital, Phil Ennen, was listening.  And he called in.  Here is our conversation.

Brian Alexander, author of The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town, joins us to talk about how rural hospital culture and independence are collapsing under pressures to consolidate and corporatize, and how, ironically, those epicenters of care have precious little control over the factors most important for health.

Why, as doctors, do we do what we do?  Through a series of personal stories – from Matt, Wendy, and several of our listeners, we’ll take a look at the human experience of clinicians. We’ll talk about the stories, emotions, experiences – and patients – we carry with us and how that impacts who we are and how we care for others.