'Sick in a Hospital Town': The American health care industry is booming while patients struggle

Health care is a huge chunk of the American economy. It’s almost a fifth of all the spending in the U.S., and that figure has risen sharply in recent decades.

That has helped revive formerly industrial downtowns in places like Cleveland and Buffalo. It’s also coincided with a steep increase in how much Americans pay for health care, despite seeing worse health outcomes than most other developed nations.

One place where that disparity is impossible to ignore is Albany, Georgia.

ProPublica’s Ginger Thompson has spent years reporting from there to try to answer a question that will resonate with anyone who’s ever struggled to get the health care they need. Why are people in Albany so sick when its most powerful institution is a hospital?

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Thompson about her series "Sick in a Hospital Town."