Episode #78
Who Owns Your Healthcare? The Hidden Cost of Corporate Medicine with Emma Freer Part 1
Who is really making decisions about your healthcare: your doctor, your insurance company, or a corporation focused on shareholder returns? In Part 1, Emma Freer joins In Good Company: Age Better to examine how corporate consolidation, private equity, and insurance conglomerates have reshaped American healthcare. Emma is a Senior Policy Analyst for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project, where she studies the consequences of concentrated corporate power across the healthcare sector. Emma explains how healthcare shifted away from independent, clinician-led practices and toward increasingly powerful corporate systems. She also discusses how this transformation can influence clinical decisions, raise costs, reduce transparency, and make it harder for healthcare professionals to provide the care they believe patients need. The conversation explores Medicare Advantage, the moral injury experienced by clinicians, and the difficulty patients face when trying to determine who actually owns their doctor’s office, nursing home, pharmacy, or healthcare agency. Emma also explains why independently and clinician-owned providers may be placed at a disadvantage when families cannot easily compare ownership models. Part 1 also looks at the pressures that lead independent providers to sell, the short-term profit model behind many private equity acquisitions, and the need for greater transparency and stronger protections for patients, clinicians, and local communities. #InGoodCompanyPodcast #AgeBetter #EmmaFreer #CorporateMedicine #PrivateEquity #HealthcareConsolidation #MedicareAdvantage #IndependentHealthcare #PatientCare #HealthcarePolicy #BigMedicine #HealthcareTransparency
