Call me a bit jaded, but I have a friend sitting at home for several days now with a broken and displaced collarbone. She needs surgery and is in pain. She pays thousands to be insured, but her employer doesn’t have an “agreement” with the local orthopedic surgeons and the local hospital. There is more broken here than a collarbone, but addressing the high-cost healthcare racket in this country is not in my lane.
So, my eyebrows raised when I read this story about healthcare systems like Aetna and Kaiser Permanente investing in affordable housing projects. It turns out that providing safe, affordable, and stable housing also provides health benefits to the people who live in them. Go figure!
Health systems are, however, not acting as banks, said David Zuckerman, Healthcare Anchor Network’s president and founder. “They’re filling the gap that has been created by the financial sector not properly investing in affordable housing and the public sector not providing the necessary subsidy to make it all work,” he said.