Claim OwnershipThe Pursuit of Health: a podcast on health policy for a free and modern society.
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© Center for Modern Health 2026
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Health and free choice in American medicine—a podcast on how individual rights, freedom, and mutual trade should guide patients and doctors in the pursuit of health. We challenge the moral and political ideas shaping healthcare and champion a system where individuals are free to think, choose, and pursue health in the American healthcare system. The Pursuit of Health covers topics like the morality of the profit motive in healthcare, why healthcare requires freedom, and how to advocate for policy change. Join us for insights at the crossroads of medical practice, policy, and philosophy.
18 Episodes
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American healthcare for decades has proven immune from disruption in how healthcare is paid for and delivered. This has started to change with the likes of Mark Cuban disrupting how we pay for drugs. Can such disruption now change the rest of healthcare? Or does disruption require something more than simply challenging vested interests? We discuss these questions and more in this episode on how disruption can be used as a vehicle for changing healthcare.To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.
How we pay for healthcare is broken. Some insist that we just need to fix health insurance as the main way of paying for most of our healthcare. Others are developing new ways to shop for healthcare that does not require insurance, such as direct primary care and cost-plus pharmacies. In this episode we discuss the practicality and morality of shopping for healthcare. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.
Direct pay models in healthcare are growing yet face many barriers, both cultural and regulatory. CMH's Jared Rhoads shares his story of testifying for a bill that would make it possible for direct-pay medical facilities to operate in New Hampshire, by allowing them to legally refuse certain kinds of payments, such as health insurance. Legalizing and normalizing alternative forms of paying for healthcare is critical to freeing up American healthcare.You can listen to Jared's live testimony here.You can read Jared's prepared testimony here.To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.
Foreign-trained doctors face numerous barriers to practice medicine at a time when a shortage of doctors, especially in rural and primary care, means that many Americans struggle to access the healthcare they need. CMH's Jared Rhoads has been engaged in the fight to make it easier for foreign-trained doctors to practice in Vermont. Jared shares his insights on state-level healthcare reform and CMH's unique approach to advocating for more freedom in healthcare that is both principled and that seeks to make real gains through policy change.You can listen to Jared's live testimony here. You can read Jared's prepared testimony here. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley have proposed a bill that would break up vertically integrated healthcare corporations in an effort to increase competition, choice, and the affordability of healthcare. In this episode, we discuss how this bill identifies legitimate problems but that giving the government more power to shape healthcare is not the solution. Instead, we show how we can make big healthcare corporations accountable to patients and providers by giving patients and providers more freedom to shape the healthcare market. You can read Colleen Smith's article on this bill here.To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health (CMH), you can make a tax-deductible donation here.
American healthcare is in crisis. Yet the debate about how to fix American healthcare has not fundamentally changed. In this episode of the pursuit of health, Jared Rhoads, Colleen Smith, and Reinier Schuur expose the hidden assumptions behind how we debate our healthcare, and how a new view of health as a value can move us to a freer pursuit of health on a free market.You can read Jared's article on reshaping the American healthcare debate here. You can support our show, and the Center for Modern health, by donating here.
The un-affordability of healthcare is not merely an economic issue, but an issue of justice and what we have a right to in healthcare. In this episode, Colleen Smith and Reinier Schuur argue that the view that we have a right to healthcare without consideration of cost is unjust and leads to its un-affordability. What we do have a right to is the freedom to have a relationship with doctors that does consider cost, which justly rewards doctors and drives down costs.
A real alternative to the ACA enhanced subsidies, let alone Obamacare itself, remains elusive. Why? In this episode we expose how Obamacare represents a failure to move beyond the false promise of having insurance pay for most of healthcare while preserving our freedom. To develop a real alternative to Obamacare requires fully embracing freedom as our moral ideal.
Healthcare reform is back in the national spotlight. But what are the prospects that the broken American healthcare system will be reformed in a way that not only preserves the little freedom that remains within it, but actually expands it? In this episode Reinier Schuur, Colleen Smith, and Jared Rhoads expose the shortcoming of both the progressive and conservative approaches to reforming American healthcare and present their pro-freedom alternative.
The profit motive is often blamed as the reason for why medical professionals have lost their freedom to practice medicine as they see fit in American healthcare. In this episode of rethinking American healthcare, Drs. Colleen Smith and Reinier Schuur argue that the exact opposite is the case; medical professionals have lost their freedom to practice precisely because they are not free to pursue profits as they see fit.
A free market in healthcare is based on the recognition that your health is your own. Yet there is a legitimate role of government in the realm of public health. In this episode, Reinier Schuur discusses with Dr. Amesh Adalja the crucial distinction between private and public health, and what the legitimate and illegitimate roles of government are in the realm of public health.
In this episode of Rethinking American Healthcare, Drs. Colleen Smith and Reinier Schuur expose how American healthcare has been socialized from its very inception and discuss how liberating American healthcare requires Americans to rethink and reclaim freedom in medicine.
Academic programs in health policy have a bias against free-market ideas, leaving students who want a market-oriented perspective with no real alternatives in academia. In this episode, Jared Rhoads shares how he came to launch the Center for Modern Health, which aims to fill that gap and help train the next generation of health policy advocates for free markets.
American healthcare is not a free market and never has been. Why? Some economists have argued that healthcare cannot be sold on a free market like other goods and services. But the idea that healthcare should be 'above the market' predates modern economics. In the second episode in our series on 'Rethinking American Medicine', Drs. Colleen Smith and Reinier Schuur expose why the early American medical profession, through the AMA, prevented doctors, patients, and businessmen from developing a mature free market in American healthcare.
Lin Zinser shares her story of how she got involved in advocating for free-markets in healthcare by successfully fighting against the Colorado 208 commission in 2008. Get inspiration and practical advice on how you too can become an advocate for free-markets in healthcare.
The way that American healthcare has been debated has failed to resolve the problems and deliver the values that Americans face in their pursuit of health. In this episode, Reinier Schuur and Colleen Smith expose what is wrong with the American healthcare debate and present a roadmap for rethinking and changing it.
Colleen Smith shares her story of how she got into emergency medicine and what she is doing to advocate for her values in the American healthcare system.
Caspar Safarlou interviews Reinier Schuur about how he got into health policy, his vision for Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, and the purpose of the Pursuit of Health podcast.
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