Healthcare in the United States has increasingly become a financial enterprise that sometimes delivers care. Financial actors including private equity firms, corporate investors, insurance companies, and hospital systems buy healthcare facilities and prioritize generating profits over the health of people and communities. Consumers feel the effects when costs rise, healthcare facilities merge and close, and there are not enough healthcare professionals. How did we get here, and what will it take to change?

Experts Jamila Headley (The Patients Hub), Alankrita Olson (Physicians for a National Health Program), and Erin C. Fuse Brown (Brown University School of Public Health) join host Anton Gunn to break down the history of healthcare financialization, examine the root causes and actors behind the harm, and share how patients can start to reclaim power through community-driven solutions.