Podcasts about Commonwealth Fund

  A new report from researchers at the national Commonwealth Fund finds that North Carolina has made enormous strides in assuring that people receive the right health care at the right time and are able to avoid hospital stays and emergency room visits by receiving timely care. The percentage of North Carolina adults who reported […]

Congressman Seth Moulton joins us to discuss Trump's weekend bombing campaign in Iran. Then we open the phone lines to get listener reactions to escalating violence in the Middle East.Boston Globe business columnist Shirley Leung discusses the latest with the Celtics' sale, and takes a look at the Commonwealth Fund, which was established in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Heidi Riccio, superintendent of Essex North Shore Technical & Agricultural School, Michael Jonas of the CommonWealth Beacon and Chris Huffaker of the Boston Globe join for a discussion on vocational technical school admissions.Princeton's Khalil Gibran Muhammad discusses the Trump administration's latest efforts to strangle higher education, and what the president's so-called “historic” deal with Harvard University could actually entail.

Over half of Americans now live with at least one chronic condition, yet our healthcare system still revolves around episodic, reactionary care instead of continuous, coordinated support.We talk with Dr. Jaewon Ryu—former CEO of Geisinger and now CEO of Risant Health—about how integrated delivery systems are reshaping the way care is paid for and delivered. With decades of experience spanning medicine, law, government, and leadership at some of the most respected healthcare institutions, Dr. Ryu offers a rare inside look at what it takes to scale value-based care in a fragmented system.We cover:

This episode was taped live on Friday, May 30, at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Los Angeles. Host Julie Rovner moderated a panel featuring Rachel Nuzum, senior vice president for policy at The Commonwealth Fund; Berenice Núñez Constant, senior vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services; and Anish Mahajan, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The panelists discussed the national, state, and local implications of funding cuts made over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration and the potential fallout of reductions that have been proposed but not yet implemented. The panelists also took questions from health reporters in the audience.Visit our website to read a transcript of this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 26, 2025: Amy Oliver, VP of Marketing at Panda Health, joins Sarah for the news. What does World Health Day 2025's focus on maternal health reveal about global disparities, and how can digital solutions bridge these gaps? The conversation delves into alarming statistics showing the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, with 80% of these deaths being preventable. How are states addressing social determinants of health for pregnant Medicaid beneficiaries, and what role does technology play in connecting clinical care with social services? Sarah and Amy examine the Commonwealth Fund's 2024 State Scorecard, highlighting dramatic geographic disparities in women's health outcomes across America, discussing how health systems can tailor strategies to address regional challenges and implement digital tools that track improvement metrics. Key Points: 01:49 World Health Day 2025 07:29 Social Determinants  10:23 Technology and Maternal Health 16:55 Innovation and Women's Health News Articles: World Health Day 2025 Spotlights Maternal and Newborn Health Addressing Social Determinants for Pregnant and Postpartum Medicaid Beneficiaries X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Rural Health News is a weekly segment of Rural Health Today, a podcast by Hillsdale Hospital. Watch Jill & James' story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuK94jLJxNk  News sources for this episode: Leighton Ku, et. al, “How Potential Federal Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP Could Trigger the Loss of a Million-Plus Jobs, Reduced Economic Activity, and Less State Revenue,” March 25, 2025, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2025/mar/how-cuts-medicaid-snap-could-trigger-job-loss-state-revenue; The Commonwealth Fund.  American Hospital Association, “The Growing Impact of Medicare Advantage on Rural Hospitals Across America,” April 17, 2025, https://www.aha.org/system/files/media/file/2025/02/growing-impact-of-medicare-advantage-on-rural-hospitals.pdf. Arielle Zionts, “Some Rural Hospitals Ditch Medicare Advantage,” April 11, 2025, https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/the-week-in-brief-rural-medicare-advantage-pushback/  Alexa McKinley Abel, “The top 5 policies to transform rural health,” January 23, 2025, https://www.ruralhealth.us/blogs/2025/01/top-5-policies-to-transform-rural-health, National Rural Health Association. Rural Health Today is a production of Hillsdale Hospital in Hillsdale, Michigan and a member of the Health Podcast Network. Our host is JJ Hodshire, our producer is Kyrsten Newlon, and our audio engineer is Kenji Ulmer. Special thanks to our special guests for sharing their expertise on the show, and also to the Hillsdale Hospital marketing team. If you want to submit a question for us to answer on the podcast or learn more about Rural Health Today, visit ruralhealthtoday.com

In a special podcast episode, Health Affairs Scholar Associate Editor Loren Adler interviews Elizabeth Popp-Berman about the Health and Political Economy series of papers recently published in Health Affairs Scholar. The series asks how might the U.S. build a more just and inclusive political economy for health rather than take the status quo for granted. This paper collection was developed in partnership with the The New School's Health and Political Economy Project (HPEP), a field catalyst initiative advancing a just and inclusive economy for health, and supported by the Commonwealth Fund.Read the Collection:Health and political economy: building a new common sense in the United StatesAdvancing a political economy approach to health using lessons from US antitrust and climate policyReviving public provisioning in US health careThe fundamental importance of social insurance for health equityCentering marginalized care: Home care cooperatives and system change

In a special podcast episode, Health Affairs Scholar Associate Editor Loren Adler interviews Elizabeth Popp-Berman about the Health and Political Economy series of papers recently published in Health Affairs Scholar. The series asks how might the U.S. build a more just and inclusive political economy for health rather than take the status quo for granted. This paper collection was developed in partnership with the The New School's Health and Political Economy Project (HPEP), a field catalyst initiative advancing a just and inclusive economy for health, and supported by the Commonwealth Fund.Read the Collection:Health and political economy: building a new common sense in the United StatesAdvancing a political economy approach to health using lessons from US antitrust and climate policyReviving public provisioning in US health careThe fundamental importance of social insurance for health equityCentering marginalized care: Home care cooperatives and system change

Send us a textWe sit down today with Dr. Torian Easterling to talk about the challenges of working in health equity and care delivery for the most vulnerable in these uncertain times, the importance of checking in, being steady and steadfast in our goals, understanding that while it is important to promote justice and preserve the progress, the status quo wasn't completely working for those that are the most vulnerable and that it is important to rebuild our programs with true equity at the forefront and not performative DEI by building relationships and collaborations with non science or non health entities (law, community organizations, laundromats!) to get everyone to live the lives that we all deserve to live. We cannot go back and NYC is leading the way through the work of NYC Commission on Racial Equity.Dr. Easterling is a distinguished physician and public health leader, currently serving as the Senior Vice President for Population and Community Health and Chief Strategic and Innovation Officer for One Brooklyn Health (Brookdale, Interfaith and Kingsbrook- Jewish). In this senior leadership role, Dr. Easterling spearheads the Office of Community Health and Health Equity- with a mission to strengthen the system's capacity to address health inequities and improve the health and well-being of the communities served.Prior to his tenure at One Brooklyn Health, Dr. Easterling held the positions of First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Equity Officer at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). In these roles, he led New York City's equity response to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensured equitable distribution of vaccines to vulnerable populations and communities.Dr. Easterling is a member of several boards and commissions, including the NYC Commission on Racial Equity (NYC CORE). He continues to drive local policy and planning efforts to improve community health. Dr. Easterling is the Co-Founder and Director of Education for the Young Doctors Project, intergenerational mentoring program for high school boys of color.Book Recommendation:We Are The Leaders We Have Been Looking For By: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.Health Insurance 101Medicare And Commercial Health Insurance: The Fundamental Difference", Health Affairs Blog, February 15, 2012Cindy Mann and Adam Striar, “How Differences in Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial Health Insurance Payment Rates Impact Access, Health Equity, and Cost,” To the Point (blog), Commonwealth Fund, Aug. 17, 2022NYC Racial Equity Legislation and InfrastructureNYC City Charter Section on Racial EquityMayor's Office of Racial EquityNYC CORENY 1. Commission calls on city to release Racial Equity Plan by March 21Link to Charter Preamblehttps://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCcharter/0-0-0-4Thanks to Jeff Jeudy for providing the music!Email your questions and comments to drtonianddraimee@gmail.com

Medicaid is a program jointly funded by the federal and state governments. It provides health care coverage to nearly 80 million people, primarily those with low incomes, people who are living with disabilities or are in long-term care. On this episode we discussed the nuts and bolts of how Medicaid is financed and how states are handling some new challenges in the post-pandemic world. The pandemic affected both who Medicaid covered and the share paid by the federal and state governments.  In the first segment, NCSL's Kathryn Costanza was joined by Akeiisa Coleman from the Commonwealth Fund to break down the details of how the program is funded, including how the federal-state share is determined for each state. They also discussed the key drivers of cost in the Medicaid system. On the second segment, guests Neda Jasemi from the National Association of Medicaid Directors, and Robin Rudowitz from KFF talk about what they are hearing from Medicaid officials around the country. They discussed how the post-COVID unwinding of patients who had remained on the rolls during the pandemic had significant effects on the program. They also discussed steps states are taking to try to ensure access for Medicaid patients and how states are preparing for any changes in the program at the federal level. ResourcesCommonwealth Fund/MedicaidHealth Costs, Coverage and Delivery State Legislation Database, NCSLHow We Pay for MedicaidKFF/Medicaid“Medicaid Financing 101,” NCSL“Medicaid Toolkit,” NCSLNational Association of Medicaid Directors“Results from an Annual Medicaid Budget Survey for State Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025,” KFF“State Legislatures Address Medicaid Coverage and Payments in the 2024 Legislative Session,” NCSL“State Tax Actions: 2024,” NCSL“Top five Medicaid budget pressures for fiscal year 2025,” NAMD

  The Friday Five for March 14, 2025: Design Overhaul Coming to Apple OS? Google, Chrome & uBlock Origin Content Marketing Gamification Ritter Roadshows are Back for 2025! CMS 2025 Marketplace Integrity & Affordability Proposed Rule   Design Overhaul Coming to Apple OS? Clark, Adam. “Apple Plans Major Software Overhaul, Says Report. Why the iPhone Maker Needs a Change.” Barrons.Com, Barron's, 11 Mar. 2025, www.barrons.com/articles/apple-price-stock-iphone-ios-update-10249921. Mehta, Ivan. “Apple's next Major OS Updates Will Bring the Biggest Design Overhaul in Years.” Techcrunch.Com, TechCrunch, 11 Mar. 2025, techcrunch.com/2025/03/11/apples-next-major-os-updates-will-bring-the-biggest-design-overhaul-in-years/. Jackson, Fiona. “iPhone 17 Leaks Show Off Groundbreaking Designs.” Techrepublic.Com, TechRepublic, 10 Mar. 2025, www.techrepublic.com/article/apple-iphone-17-leaks/. Barr, Kyle. “Your iPhone Home Screen Could Look Entirely Different Very Soon.” Gizmodo.Com, Gizmodo, 11 Mar. 2025, gizmodo.com/your-iphone-home-screen-could-look-entirely-different-really-soon-2000574330.   Google, Chrome & uBlock Origin: Weatherbed, Jess. “Google's Chrome Extension Cull Hits More uBlock Origin Users.” Theverge.Com, The Verge, 3 Mar. 2025, www.theverge.com/news/622953/google-chrome-extensions-ublock-origin-disabled-manifest-v3. Maxwell, Thomas. “Google Is Hobbling Popular Ad Blocker uBlock Origin on Chrome.” Gizmodo.Com, Gizmodo, 4 Mar. 2025, gizmodo.com/google-is-hobbling-popular-ad-blocker-ublock-origin-on-chrome-2000570878. Wallen, Jack. “Once uBlock Origin Stops Working on Chrome, You Have 2 Options.” Zdnet.Com, ZDNET, 4 Mar. 2025, www.zdnet.com/article/once-ublock-origin-stops-working-on-chrome-you-have-2-options/. Yee, Alaina. “Ublock Origin Is Officially Dead for Chrome, but Ad Blockers Live On.” Pcworld.Com, PCWorld, 25 Feb. 2025, www.pcworld.com/article/2595287/ublock-origin-is-officially-dead-for-chrome-but-ad-blockers-live-on.html.   Content Marketing Gamification: Sadick, Barbara. “6 Most Expensive Medical Procedures, Ranked.” Health.Usnews.Com, U.S. News & World Report, 3 Mar. 2025, health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/most-expensive-medical-procedures-ranked.   Ritter Roadshows are Back for 2025: Learn More About the 2025 Season of Ritter Roadshows: https://ritterim.com/roadshows/   CMS 2025 Marketplace Integrity & Affordability Proposed Rule: “2025 Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Proposed Rule.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 10 Mar. 2025, www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2025-marketplace-integrity-and-affordability-proposed-rule. “CMS Takes Aim to Reduce Improper Enrollments and Promote More Affordable Health Insurance Marketplaces for Millions of Consumers.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 10 Mar. 2025, www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-takes-aim-reduce-improper-enrollments-and-promote-more-affordable-health-insurance-marketplaces. “Enhanced Premium Tax Credits for ACA Health Plans: Who They Help, and Who Gets Hurt If They're Not Extended.” Commonwealthfund.Org, Commonwealth Fund, 18 Feb. 2025, www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/explainer/2025/feb/enhanced-premium-tax-credits-aca-health-plans. “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Marketplace Integrity and Affordability .” Cms.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 10 Mar. 2025, www.cms.gov/files/document/MarketplacePIRule2025.pdf.   Resources: Clarification on HHS Proposed Rule Comment Periods: https://lnk.to/asgf20250307 CMS Finalizes Improvements to Marketplace Plan Selection with 2026 Final Rule: https://lnk.to/asg652 Diversify Your Insurance Portfolio & Reap Real Rewards: https://lnk.to/asg651 On the Road with Damon Logan: https://lnk.to/FCJ7Mg On the Road with Jason Meyers: https://lnk.to/j6QzBq   Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim X, https://x.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance     Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/   Contact the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Medicare or any government agency.

  The Friday Five for March 7, 2025: Starbucks and Dunkin' Spring 2025 Menus Amazon Announces Alexa+ Changes to MA and Part D Disaster/Emergency SEP Effects of ACA Subsidy Expiration by Demographic Clarification on HHS Proposed Rule Comment Periods   Starbucks and Dunkin' Spring 2025 Menus: Beams, Sophia. “Dunkin' Brings Back Two Fan-Favorite Drinks Just in Time for Spring.” Bhg.Com, Better Homes & Gardens, 5 Mar. 2025, www.bhg.com/dunkin-spring-menu-2025-11690288. Tyko, Kelly. “Dunkin' Spring Menu Launches, Nondairy Surcharge Removed.” Axios.Com, Axios, 5 Mar. 2025, www.axios.com/2025/03/05/dunkin-spring-menu-2025-dunkalatte-pistachio-coffee. “New Iced Cherry Chai Joins Lavender Drinks on Starbucks Spring Menu.” About.Starbucks.Com, Starbucks, 3 Mar. 2025, about.starbucks.com/stories/2025/new-iced-cherry-chai-joins-lavender-drinks-on-starbucks-spring-menu/. Palan, Michael. “We Tried Starbucks' New Spring Menu Items, and These 2 Drinks Stole the Show.” Tastingtable.Com, Tasting Table, 3 Mar. 2025, www.tastingtable.com/1801587/starbucks-reserve-new-spring-menu-2025-drinks-food/.   Amazon Announces Alexa+: “50 Things to Try with Alexa+.” Aboutamazon.Comt, Amazon, 26 Feb. 2025, www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-top-features. Haselton, Todd, et al. “Amazon Alexa Event Live Blog: All the News from the Keynote.” Theverge.Com, The Verge, 26 Feb. 2025, www.theverge.com/news/618261/amazon-alexa-event-live-blog-2025. Panay, Panos. “Introducing Alexa+, the next Generation of Alexa.” Aboutamazon.Com, Amazon, 26 Feb. 2025, www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-generative-artificial-intelligence. Diaz, Maria. “Not All Echo Devices Will Get Alexa+ Initially - See If Yours Made the List.” Zdnet.Com, ZDNET, 28 Feb. 2025, www.zdnet.com/article/alexa-plus-will-run-on-select-echo-devices-see-if-yours-is-on-the-list/. Ellis, Cat. “Want to Try Alexa+? Here Are the Echo Devices It'll Work On.” Techradar.Com, TechRadar, 27 Feb. 2025, www.techradar.com/home/smart-speakers/want-to-try-alexa-plus-here-are-the-echo-devices-itll-work-on. Aten, Jason. “With Its AI-Powered Alexa+, Amazon Just Put Apple on Notice.” Inc.Com, Inc, 26 Feb. 2025, www.inc.com/jason-aten/with-its-ai-powered-alexa-plus-amazon-just-put-apple-on-notice/91153371. Stanley, Alyse. “You Can Get Alexa+ Early — Here's How to Sign up.” Tomsguide.Com, Tom's Guide, 1 Mar. 2025, www.tomsguide.com/ai/you-can-get-alexa-early-heres-how-to-sign-up.   Changes to MA and Part D Disaster/Emergency SEP: Crowe, Edward. “New Medicare FEMA SEP Rules.” Pfsinsurance.Com, Pinnacle Financial Services, 29 Jan. 2025, pfsinsurance.com/blog/new-medicare-fema-sep-rules-crowe-associates. “Change to Beneficiary Use of the SEP for Individuals Affected by a Government Entity-Declared Disaster or Other Emergency.” Cms.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 3 Dec. 2024, 20178637.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/20178637/42%20ea%20-%20Product%20Profile.pdf.   Effects of ACA Subsidy Expiration by Demographic: Lambrew, Jeanne. “Enhanced ACA Marketplace Tax Credits Worked—And Shouldn't Be Eliminated.” Tcf.Org, The Century Foundation, 7 Aug. 2024, tcf.org/content/commentary/enhanced-aca-marketplace-tax-credits-worked-and-shouldnt-be-eliminated/. Richards, Carson, and Sara  R. Collins. “Enhanced Premium Tax Credits for ACA Health Plans: Who They Help, and Who Gets Hurt If They're Not Extended.” Commonwealthfund.Org, Commonwealth Fund, 18 Feb. 2025, www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/explainer/2025/feb/enhanced-premium-tax-credits-aca-health-plans. Sullivan, Jennifer. “Enhanced Tax Credits Keep ACA Marketplace Coverage Affordable for 2025.” Cbpp.Org, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 18 Nov. 2024, www.cbpp.org/blog/enhanced-tax-credits-keep-aca-marketplace-coverage-affordable-for-2025. “How Much More Would People Pay in Premiums If the ACA's Enhanced Subsidies Expired?” Kff.Org, KFF, 18 Dec. 2024, https://www.kff.org/interactive/how-much-more-would-people-pay-in-premiums-if-the-acas-enhanced-subsidies-expired/ Ortaliza, Jared, et al. “Inflation Reduction Act Health Insurance Subsidies: What Is Their Impact and What Would Happen If They Expire?” Kff.Org, KFF, 26 July 2024, www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/issue-brief/inflation-reduction-act-health-insurance-subsidies-what-is-their-impact-and-what-would-happen-if-they-expire/. Banthin, Jessica, et al. “Who Benefits from Enhanced Premium Tax Credits in the Marketplace?” Urban.Org, Urban Institute, June 2024, www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Who_Benefits_from_Enhanced_Premium_Tax_Credits_in_the_Marketplace.pdf. Lo, Justin, and Cynthia Cox. “Who Might Lose Eligibility for Affordable Care Act Marketplace Subsidies If Enhanced Tax Credits Are Not Extended?” Kff.Com, KFF, 28 Feb. 2025, www.kff.org/policy-watch/who-might-lose-eligibility-for-affordable-care-act-marketplace-subsidies-if-enhanced-tax-credits-are-not-extended/.   Clarification on HHS Proposed Rule Comment Periods: “Compilation of the Social Security Laws.” Ssa.Gov, Social Security Administration, www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title18/1871.htm. Accessed 5 Mar. 2025. “HHS Rescinds Policy Regarding Notice-and-Comment Rulemaking – Implications for Health Care Industry.” Www.Hoganlovells.Com, Hogan Lovells, 3 Mar. 2025, www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/hhs-rescinds-policy-regarding-noticeandcomment-rulemaking-implications-for-health-care-industry. “Policy on Adhering to the Text of the Administrative Procedure Act.” Federalregister.Gov, Federal Register, 3 Mar. 2025, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/03/2025-03300/policy-on-adhering-to-the-text-of-the-administrative-procedure-act. Goldman, Maya. “RFK Jr. Move to Kill Public Comment Roils Providers.” Axios.Com, Axios, 3 Mar. 2025, www.axios.com/2025/03/03/rfk-transparency-rule-elimination-fallout. Cueto, Isabella. “RFK Jr. Moves to Eliminate Public Comment on HHS Decisions.” Statnews.Com, STAT, 28 Feb. 2025, www.statnews.com/2025/02/28/rfk-jr-eliminating-public-comment-hhs-decisions-richardson-waiver/. Muoio, Dave. “RFK Jr. Orders HHS to End ‘extra-Statutory' Notice, Public Comment Process in Rulemaking.” Fiercehealthcare.Com, Fierce Healthcare, 3 Mar. 2025, www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/rfk-jr-orders-hhs-end-notice-public-comment-process-rulemaking. Howe, Amy. “Supreme Court Strikes down Chevron, Curtailing Power of Federal Agencies.” Scotusblog.Com, SCOTUSblog, 26 July 2024, www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/.   Resources: Diversify Your Insurance Portfolio & Reap Real Rewards: https://lnk.to/asg651 FAQs About Registering with Ritter Insurance Marketing: https://ritterim.com/blog/faqs-about-registering-with-ritter-insurance-marketing/   How To Better Market Yourself: https://ritterim.com/blog/how-to-better-market-yourself/   Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Do's and Don'ts: https://lnk.to/oRft1p SNP Summit Registration is Live: https://lnk.to/asgf20250228   Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim X, https://x.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance     Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/   Not affiliated with or endorsed by Medicare or any government agency. Contact the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail.

As we transition into a new administration, our hosts reflect on President Biden’s legacy in healthcare policy, focusing on three major areas that impacted patients: the COVID-19 response, the opioid crisis, and the Inflation Reduction Act. They discuss key achievements such as vaccine rollouts, reduced overdose deaths, and efforts to lower prescription drug costs, while also examining ongoing challenges and concerns. With the health policy landscape set to shift in 2025, this episode breaks down what patients need to know and how to stay engaged in advocacy for better care. Among the highlights in this episode: 00:40: Steven Newmark, Chief of Policy at GHLF, outlines three key areas where the Biden administration made a significant impact in health care: COVID-19 response, the opioid crisis, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) 01:28: Steven highlights the Biden administration’s mass vaccination campaign, which saved an estimated 3.2 million American lives, according to the Commonwealth Fund 01:49: Zoe Rothblatt, Director of Community Outreach at GHLF, gives credit to Operation Warp Speed under Trump for fast-tracking vaccine development but emphasizes that the bulk of vaccinations happened under Biden 02:43: Zoe reflects on how the pandemic's threat level has changed, largely due to vaccines and continued booster developments 02:58: Steven shifts the discussion to the opioid crisis, explaining that overdose deaths were rising at 31% per year when Biden took office 03:35: Steven discusses how the administration's overdose prevention efforts led to a 14.5% decrease in overdose deaths — the largest reduction in U.S. history 04:17: Zoe explains how removing barriers to Naloxone access reduces response time during an overdose emergency 04:50: Steven discusses how Biden removed an outdated waiver requirement that expanded opioid treatment access by 15 times 06:11: Steven shifts focus to the IRA, explaining that it was one of Biden’s most significant health care policies 06:27: Zoe highlights a major win: capping Medicare Part D out-of-pocket prescription costs at $2,000 per year, down from $3,500 07:29: Steven explains why this is life-changing for seniors and people with disabilities, as many rely on multiple expensive medications 08:48: Zoe discusses the $35 monthly cap on insulin prices for Medicare patients, ensuring those with diabetes have affordable access to life-saving medication 09:11: Steven explains the potential downside of IRA’s Medicare drug price negotiations, which could reduce incentives for drug companies to develop new treatments 10:32: Zoe reminds listeners that with the upcoming presidential transition, health policies could change significantly, and GHLF will continue advocating for patient needs 11:01: Steven encourages listeners to join GHLF’s 50-State Network, stay informed, and share their stories to help shape health policies. Join GHLF’s 50 State Network, share your story, and get involved in advocacy to make a difference, email us at advocacy@ghlf.org Contact Our Hosts Steven Newmark, Chief of Policy at GHLF: snewmark@ghlf.org Zoe Rothblatt, Director of Community Outreach at GHLF: zrothblatt@ghlf.org A podcast episode produced by Ben Blanc, Associate Director, Digital Production and Engagement at GHLF. We want to hear what you think. Send your comments in the form of an email, video, or audio clip of yourself to podcasts@ghlf.org Catch up on all our episodes on our website or on your favorite podcast channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Le système de santé américain est pointé du doigt, au cœur d'un fait divers aux États-Unis. Le patron de United Healthcare, une compagnie privée d'assurance, a été abattu le 4 décembre en pleine rue. Cet assassinat met en lumière le mécontentement des Américains envers leur système de santé. Décryptage. Sur la scène de crime, des douilles portant les inscriptions « Delay, Deny, Depose », traduisez : retarder, refuser et poursuivre en justice. Ces éléments font sans doute référence aux tactiques et stratégies que les assureurs santé sont réputés appliquer pour ne pas rembourser. C'est un jeune homme de 26 ans qui fait office de principal suspect. Il ne conteste pas les faits qui lui sont reprochés. Il les revendique même. Lorsqu'il a été arrêté, il était en possession d'un document critiquant ce système qu'est l'assurance santé aux États-Unis. Car ce système est très critiqué, il est souvent accusé de privilégier les profits au détriment de la prise en charge de soins. Pas de couverture universelle Dans le pays, il existe une couverture de santé publique qui n'est pas universelle et qui contient notamment deux grands programmes. Le premier, Medicare, destiné aux personnes âgées de 65 ans et plus ainsi qu'à certaines personnes de moins de 65 ans présentant des incapacités ou un handicap. Il s'applique au niveau fédéral, qu'importe l'État, tous les bénéficiaires ont les mêmes droits. À lire aussiÉtats-Unis: vague de soutien pour Luigi Mangione, accusé d'avoir tué le patron d'une entreprise d'assuranceLe second, Medicaid, aide à couvrir les coûts médicaux pour les Américains aux revenus et ressources limités. En revanche, il est régi par les États. Chaque gouverneur est donc libre de mettre au point une règlementation spécifique. Cette couverture publique ne concerne pas toute la population américaine. C'est là qu'interviennent les structures privées. Les États-Unis en haut du classement D'après le bureau du recensement, les deux tiers des Américains ont souscrit à une assurance privée. Là est le cœur du sujet, puisqu'ils paient souvent des milliers de dollars par an pour être couverts en cas de souci médical. Mais ces entreprises mettent tout en œuvre pour ne pas rembourser ou rembourser le moins possible leurs assurés sur leurs frais de santé. Ces tactiques qui ont un coût pour les Américains, puisque les dépenses de santé représentent près de 18% du PIB. À titre de comparaison, en France, c'est 11%. Les États-Unis sont d'ailleurs en haut du podium mondial sur ce type de dépenses. Cela a une double conséquence. D'abord pour ces assureurs privés, conséquence naturellement positive puisqu'ils génèrent de gigantesques profits. L'an dernier, United Healthcare, pour ne citer que ce groupe, a versé 15 milliards de dollars à ses actionnaires. Conséquence aussi pour les Américains évidemment, négative cette fois. D'après une étude du Commonwealth Fund, un Américain sur cinq en âge de travailler renonce aux soins en raison de leur coût et de leur non prise en charge des assureurs. Et il y a une tendance qui s'amplifie d'années en années, c'est l'endettement médical des ménages, cela alors que l'espérance de vie chute aux États-Unis, et que Donald Trump, le futur président américain, entend bien réduire ces dépenses d'assurances publiques au profit du privé, qui révèle, on vient de le voir toutes ses limites ! 

In Episode 458 of Relentless Health Value, host Stacey Richter speaks with Dr. Komal Bajaj about innovative strategies for addressing staffing shortages in the healthcare sector. They explore the importance of cultural alignment within organizations, emphasizing trust and shared values to retain staff.  Dr. Bajaj shares surprising findings from surveys indicating that healthcare workers are motivated by the goal of providing high-quality, planet-friendly care. The discussion highlights the interconnectedness of environmental sustainability and healthcare quality, presenting tangible ways to engage and empower healthcare workers while addressing both local community health and broader environmental concerns. The episode underscores the strategic importance of aligning organizational goals with the aspirations of the workforce to foster trust and mitigate staffing shortages. Stacey's guest today is Dr. Komal Bajaj. Dr. Bajaj is an ob-gyn who serves as the chief quality officer for a couple of hospitals in the Bronx, New York, that are part of the municipal health system of New York. She also now serves as medical director of sustainability for the municipal health system NYC Health + Hospitals. === LINKS ===

What does the upcoming Trump presidency mean for the care economy and the over 105 million family caregivers in our country? In this post-election bonus episode, caregiving expert and policy advocate Ai-jen Poo returns to tell us what challenges lay ahead for families and care workers, and how we can keep fighting for a better system that allows us to truly show up for care.  This season of Uncared For is presented by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation making grants to promote an equitable, high-performing health care system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2024 annual report from the Commonwealth Fund describes in detail that Americans face greater barriers to accessing and affording healthcare than those in peer nations. Now, nurses are overcoming those barriers to access through a new, growing medium: podcasting. In our Power of the Podcast series, we explore how nurses are taking their expertise to the airwaves to share evidence-based care solutions, offering patients and the public vital, practical, and trusted information while also providing healthcare colleagues tools to improve education and care delivery. Through podcasting, nurses are bridging gaps in education, care availability, and professional development, fostering better health outcomes and stronger communities.    In the third episode of our three-part series, geriatric nurse practitioner Melissa Batchelor PhD,RN, FNP, FGSA guides us in exploring aging, Alzheimer's, and moving towards an age-friendly world. By 2030 there will be more older adults than children on the planet for the first time in human history. Through her podcast This is Getting Old: Moving Towards an Age-Friendly World, she is building a global community of caregivers and covering a wide range of age-related topics from navigating healthcare, understanding technology, and evaluating social services and policy to the very practical matters of caregiving and managing dementia. Through interviews with experts, professionals, and individuals with personal experiences, we gain insights into the current state of aging and explore potential solutions so that we can all age well.   Find this episode's resources at www.seeyounowpodcast.com and for information on the podcast bundles visit ANA's Innovation Website at www.nursingworld.org/innovation. Have questions for the SEE YOU NOW team? Feedback? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

About this episode: Since the 2022 Dobbs decision, women's healthcare in the U.S.—which was already underperforming in everything from access to maternal mortality rates—has faced a new set of challenges. In today's episode: All about a Commonwealth Fund report that updates the status of women's health care and reproductive health across the nation and why even services not related to reproductive care—like cancer screenings and having a primary care provider—have been disrupted. Guests: Dr. Sara Collins is senior scholar and vice president for health care coverage and access and tracking health system performance at The Commonwealth Fund. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. Show links and related content: 2024 State Scorecard on Women's Health and Reproductive Care—The Commonwealth Fund These are the states that rank highest and lowest for women's health in new report—CNN How Does Your State Rank on Women's Health and Reproductive Care?—Ms. Magazine OB-GYN Training and Practice in Dobbs' Shadow—Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @‌PublicHealthPod on X @‌JohnsHopkinsSPH on Instagram @‌JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @‌PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here's our RSS feed

The 2024 annual report from the Commonwealth Fund describes in detail that Americans face greater barriers to accessing and affording healthcare than those in peer nations. Now, nurses are overcoming those barriers to access through a new, growing medium: podcasting. In our Power of Podcast series, we explore how nurses are taking their expertise to the airwaves to share evidence-based care solutions, offering patients and the public vital, practical, and trusted information while also providing healthcare colleagues tools to improve education and care delivery.  Through podcasting, nurses are bridging gaps in education, care availability, and professional development, fostering better health outcomes and stronger communities.   In the second episode of our three-part series, critical care nurse practitioner Kali Dayton DNP, AGACNP shares how her podcast Walking Home from the ICU is mission-critical to improving ICU care and preventing the physical and cognitive impacts of long-term sedation and immobility by following the ABCDEF Bundle and keeping ICU patients awake, communicative, mobile, and autonomous and their families engaged and participating in care. Walking Home from the ICU dives into research from experts, experiences of survivors, and evidence-based practices of critical care teams to ensure that research is accessible, applicable, and practical for ICU clinicians so patients can indeed walk home from the ICU and return fully to their lives!   Find this episode's resources at www.seeyounowpodcast.com and information on the podcast bundles visit ANA's Innovation Website at www.nursingworld.org/innovation. Have questions for the SEE YOU NOW team? Feedback? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

Looking to drive meaningful change in the health care ecosystem? Look to the Deloitte Health Equity Institute.Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Avni Gupta of the Commonwealth Fund about her recent paper that explores cost-associated unmet dental, vision, and hearing needs among low-income Medicare Advantage Beneficiaries.Order the October 2024 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone.

  The Affordable Care Act Marketplace can be a lucrative market for agents in Medicare. Listen to find out 8 reasons why selling ACA plans will benefit your business and help your clients and their families.   Read the text version   Contact the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail.   Resources: 6 Reasons Insurance Agencies Selling Medicare Products Should Sell ACA: https://ritterim.com/blog/6-reasons-insurance-agencies-selling-medicare-products-should-sell-aca/ ACA 101: Selling Under-65 Health Insurance: https://ritterim.com/blog/aca-101-selling-under-65-health-insurance/ Medicare Isn't Just for Seniors: Selling to the Under-65 Market: https://ritterim.com/blog/medicare-isnt-just-for-seniors-selling-to-the-under-65-market/ Meet Your Sales Team: https://app.ritterim.com/public/registration/ Products & Carriers with Ritter Insurance Marketing: https://ritterim.com/products/by-carrier/ Register with Ritter: https://app.ritterim.com/public/registration/ State of the ACA Market in 2024: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG610 Steps to Get Ready for OEP: Federal Exchange States & State-Based Exchanges: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG6215   References: “CMS Extends Open Enrollment Period and Launches Initiatives to Expand Health Coverage Access Nationwide.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 17 Sept. 2021, www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-extends-open-enrollment-period-and-launches-initiatives-expand-health-coverage-access-nationwide. McDermott, Daniel, and Cynthia Cox. “Insurer Participation on the ACA Marketplaces, 2014-2021.” KFF, KFF, 23 Feb. 2021, www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/insurer-participation-on-the-aca-marketplaces-2014-2021/. “New, Lower Costs on Marketplace Marketplace Coverage.” HealthCare.Gov, HealthCare.gov, www.healthcare.gov/more-savings/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024. Keith, Katie. “New Special Enrollment Period for Low-Income People Could Boost Coverage.” Commonwealth Fund, The Commonwealth Fund, 7 Sept. 2021, www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2021/new-special-enrollment-period-low-income-people-could-boost-coverage. “Registration and Training for Marketplace Agents and Brokers.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, www.cms.gov/marketplace/agents-brokers/registration-training. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.   Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim X (fka) Twitter, https://twitter.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance    Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/

    The Affordable Care Act Marketplace can be a lucrative market for agents in Medicare. Listen to find out 8 reasons why selling ACA plans will benefit your business and help your clients and their families.    Read the text version   Contact the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail.   Resources: 6 Reasons Insurance Agencies Selling Medicare Products Should Sell ACA: https://ritterim.com/blog/6-reasons-insurance-agencies-selling-medicare-products-should-sell-aca/ ACA 101: Selling Under-65 Health Insurance: https://ritterim.com/blog/aca-101-selling-under-65-health-insurance/ Medicare Isn't Just for Seniors: Selling to the Under-65 Market: https://ritterim.com/blog/medicare-isnt-just-for-seniors-selling-to-the-under-65-market/ Meet Your Sales Team: https://app.ritterim.com/public/registration/ Products & Carriers with Ritter Insurance Marketing: https://ritterim.com/products/by-carrier/ Register with Ritter: https://app.ritterim.com/public/registration/ State of the ACA Market in 2024: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG610 Steps to Get Ready for OEP: Federal Exchange States & State-Based Exchanges: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG6215   References: “CMS Extends Open Enrollment Period and Launches Initiatives to Expand Health Coverage Access Nationwide.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 17 Sept. 2021, www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-extends-open-enrollment-period-and-launches-initiatives-expand-health-coverage-access-nationwide. McDermott, Daniel, and Cynthia Cox. “Insurer Participation on the ACA Marketplaces, 2014-2021.” KFF, KFF, 23 Feb. 2021, www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/insurer-participation-on-the-aca-marketplaces-2014-2021/. “New, Lower Costs on Marketplace Marketplace Coverage.” HealthCare.Gov, HealthCare.gov, www.healthcare.gov/more-savings/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024. Keith, Katie. “New Special Enrollment Period for Low-Income People Could Boost Coverage.” Commonwealth Fund, The Commonwealth Fund, 7 Sept. 2021, www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2021/new-special-enrollment-period-low-income-people-could-boost-coverage. “Registration and Training for Marketplace Agents and Brokers.” CMS.Gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, www.cms.gov/marketplace/agents-brokers/registration-training. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.   Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim X (fka) Twitter, https://twitter.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance    Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/

Joining us in the Pulse Pod studio this week is Rachel Dunscombe, CEO of OpenEHR International and Director at the ECHA Alliance. Rachel is a key figure in advancing digital health systems globally, working with governments all over the world to advance their digital health agendas. She recently addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, on the topic of "Leveraging AI for Global Healthcare Delivery".It's a longevity, healthspan, preventative health focused data week on the pod. George and Louise discuss:Are governments spending enough of their health budget on preventative health? Are we taking advantage of digital health to enable a proactive and healthspan focused approach to healthcare?Have humans already maxed out our expected longevity? What happens with our aspirations don't align with the science?The Commonwealth Fund ranks the performance of health systems in 10 countries. Where did Australia land? What happens when you look under the hood of the headlines? Which country ranked the worst?We predict that AI will revolutionise patient triage. The question is not will it, but when will it? What does this mean for consumers, patients, clinicians and the broader workforce?Two thirds of Australian GPs reckon they are innovators and early adopters. The Aussie government is making waves in aged care and charging ahead in digital health, including measuring digital maturity in primary care and residential aged care. Follow Rachel Dunscombe on LinkedInResources: Study on public health funding of preventive health. LinkNature Ageing study on life expectancy limits. LinkDiagnostic accuracy study. LinkCommonwealth Fund report. LinkAI and patient triage at UK GP practice. LinkVisit Pulse+IT.news to learn more, engage in this rapidly growing sector, and subscribe to breaking digital news, weekly newsletters and a rich treasure trove of archival material. People in the know, get their news from Pulse+IT – Your leading voice in digital health news.Follow us on LinkedIn Louise | George | Pulse+ITFollow us on X Louise | George | Pulse+ITSend us your questions pulsepod@pulseit.newsProduction by Octopod Productions | Ivan Juric

A new annual report from the Commonwealth Fund describes in detail that Americans face greater barriers to accessing and affording healthcare than those in peer nations. Now, nurses are addressing the ongoing disparities that result through a new, growing medium: podcasting. In a new series for SEE YOU NOW, we explore how nurses are taking their expertise to the airwaves to share evidence-based care solutions, offering patients and the public vital, practical, and trusted information while also providing healthcare colleagues tools to improve education and care delivery.  Through podcasting, nurses are bridging gaps in education, care availability, and professional development, fostering better health outcomes and stronger communities.    In this episode, we meet stroke nurse navigator and podcast creator and host Rosa Hart, BSN, RN, SCRN, who witnessed patients and families struggle to grasp complex post-stroke guidance as they were being discharged. In the Stronger After Stroke podcast, she brings together stroke survivors and medical specialists and dives into common questions, hard-to-discuss topics and everything in between. Tune in to learn how Stronger After Stroke reaches patients, people, and professionals far outside of her local community feel supported and informed on their recovery journey.   Find this episode's resources at www.seeyounowpodcast.com and more information on the podcast bundles visit ANA's Innovation Website at www.nursingworld.org/innovation. Have questions for the SEE YOU NOW team? Feedback? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

Kay Tillow, Harriette Seiler, Hamza Jamal, Evan Hawthorn, and Paul Hoppe of Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare discuss the poor ranking of our healthcare in this country based on a Commonwealth Fund report comparing industrialized nations.

October 4, 2024: In this episode of Today in Health IT, Kate Gamble and Sarah Richardson discuss the findings from the Commonwealth Fund's 2024 study, which highlights the U.S. healthcare system's underperformance in cost, accessibility, and outcomes. They explore the urgent need for systemic reform and how healthcare leaders can drive change at the local level by advocating for improved access and outcomes. Sarah shares insights on how leveraging data, partnerships, and technology can help address disparities and improve patient care.01:12 Healthcare Reform and Access Disparities02:28 Challenges and Solutions in HealthcareSubscribe: This Week HealthTwitter: This Week HealthLinkedIn: Week HealthDonate: Alex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Send us a textSurprise, surprise, the US healthcare system is still the most expensive and lowest performing. That's the message from the latest Commonwealth Fund report called Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System.   In this episode of CareTalk, John and David dive into the report's findings to uncover why U.S. healthcare remains so broken—and explore what, if anything, can be done to fix it.This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/caretalk and get on your way to being your best self.As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.

In this episode of Medical Matters Podcast, Dr. Peter Brier and Nurse Practitioner Kelly McCormack remind listeners it is time to think about getting your flu shot and updating with the new COVID vaccine.The main focus of the podcast is the annual Commonwealth Fund report for 2024, which compared the US healthcare system to nine other highly developed nations to determine not only where we stand, but in an effort to find areas of improvement. The report is divided into nine sections that include overall performance, access to care, health outcomes and especially, what the US can do to improve. The full report can be read here.

The United States is unique among industrialized nations. Lucky for us, we can accumulate medical debt! Most industrialized and some developing nations have national healthcare programs that guarantee care to their residents. But we in the richest nation in the world have the freedom to get insurance through the free market, and go into debt when it doesn't cover the care we need! USA USA USA! According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), while over 90% of Americans have health insurance, we owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people owe more than $1,000, and about 3 million owe more than $10,000. When the debt is cast more widely to those who have put medical bills on their credit cards or borrowed money to pay them, KFF found that 41% of adults have healthcare debt. According to the US Census Bureau in 2021, Black and Latinx households are disproportionately affected by medical debt.   Today we'll dive into the topic of medical debt: who has it, who profits off it, and what can we do about it?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZPd1kFbEuE Show Notes What causes medical debt? Believe it or not, our freewheeling use of the healthcare system is not to blame. In the US medical debt is caused by the high prices charged by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies. While most industrialized nations have some means of controlling prices, in the United States the healthcare industry sets prices more or less however they want. As a result, according to a nationwide poll in 2022, over a five year period more than half of US adults report going into debt because of medical bills.  Debt is preventing Americans from saving for retirement, paying for college, or buying a home.  The 2022 poll found that 1 in 7 people reported being denied care due to unpaid bills. Two-thirds of those polled reported putting off necessary care due to cost.  This is all despite the Affordable Care Act expanding insurance coverage to more Americans than ever before. Insurance companies increasingly shift costs onto patients, with higher deductibles and more claim denials. According to the 2022 KFF poll, 61% of insured Americans had medical debt in the previous five years.  What makes medical debt so dangerous? We know health systems are denying care to patients who have unpaid bills. And we know people put off care so they don't incur more debt. Those barriers to care make us sicker, and they disproportionately impact people with higher rates of chronic conditions. The Commonwealth Fund found that 54% of people with employer coverage who skipped or delayed care reported getting sicker; 61% in individual market plans and 63% with Medicare reported the same. A 2024 study published in the Journal of American Medical Association found that medical debt is associated with higher mortality and premature death. What happens when you can't pay your medical debt? When you think about all the real people on the end of those medical debts, that makes it all the harder to swallow a fact that gets relatively little attention in the broader conversation. Medical debt collection is a for-profit business. In many cases, non-profit hospitals sell debts to for-profit medical debt collections agencies. Some health systems even operate their own for-profit debt collection arms. Think of it: They set the prices for their services as high as they want, and on the other end of the equation, they're making money off debt collection.  Dr. Luke Messac of Brigham and Women's Hospital testified at a July hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he learned that his and many other hospitals as well as collection agencies report sick, vulnerable patients to credit bureaus, garnish wages, seize bank accounts, and seek warrants for their arrest. And again, we have to highlight the evil practice of hospital systems that restrict patients from getting n...

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.Senseonics has received FDA clearance for a one-year continuous glucose monitoring system. The company's commercial partner, Ascensia, is in talks with insulin pump manufacturers to create an automated insulin delivery system. Zimmer is pulling its hip implant off the market due to fracture risk, Bausch + Lomb is considering a sale, and Masimo investor claims a proxy war win as CEO Joe Kiani fails to retain a board seat. The wearables market is expected to see significant growth, with adhesives playing a vital role in development. Other noteworthy stories include DermaSensor's skin cancer detection device, a Senate committee holding Steward CEO in contempt, and Medtronic detailing a study of adaptive neurostimulation in Parkinson's disease.Brisk Iced Tea brought back its classic claymation ad campaign featuring Doja Cat to target Gen Z. E.l.f. launched a skincare campaign with "Sinfluencer" Megan Stalter. Pizza Hut put resumes on boxes to help job seekers stand out. Frito-Lay used burner phones in a campaign targeting Gen Z for Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Chipotle planned a digital scavenger hunt to give out $1 million in free quesadillas. Customers' trust in AI is low, impacting purchasing decisions.Cigna is scaling back its Medicare Advantage footprint in 8 states next year, affecting roughly 5,400 members, mostly in Florida. Johnson & Johnson is facing sanctions over a plan to rebate 340B drugs, while Express Scripts is suing the FTC over a report criticizing pharmacy benefit managers. The US is behind other wealthy nations in healthcare despite spending the most, with a Commonwealth Fund analysis ranking the US last in access to care and health outcomes.Cigna is reducing its Medicare Advantage footprint in 8 states, affecting around 5,400 members, mainly in Florida. CarePoint Health may lay off 2,600 employees due to financial struggles. The House committee passed a bill to extend telehealth flexibilities in Medicare for another two years. Steward Health Care auctioned assets, with Christus Health set to purchase a Texas-based medical center for $4.5 million.MilliporeSigma is partnering with an experienced viral vector CDMO to offer solutions for the production of cell and gene therapies. They invite attendees of the Mesa conference in Phoenix to visit their booth or schedule a meeting to learn about their viral vector development and manufacturing capabilities.The Senate has voted to hold Steward CEO in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena. The US healthcare system lags behind other wealthy nations in performance despite spending the most. Oak Street Health pays $60 million to settle allegations of a kickback scheme, and J&J faces sanctions over a plan to rebate 340B drugs.Medtech news from September 19, 2024, includes updates on various companies and developments in the industry. Masimo's proxy fight is coming to an end, with a shareholder vote looming. Axonics wins a patent dispute against Medtronic, while Boston Scientific's proposal to buy Axonics is still under review.A startup from George Church's lab has raised $75 million to develop 'supercell' medicines, claiming it can create off-the-shelf therapies from induced pluripotent stem cells faster and simpler than current methods. Roche's Xofluza has shown promising results in reducing flu transmission in a phase 3 study, marking the first time an antiviral drug has achieved this in a global trial.The text discusses the latest advances in oncology research presented at the ESMO conference, focusing on the challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry in expanding patient access and improving cancer research outcomes.The text promotes a webinar by QT Group on September 26th focusing on continuous compliance for medical software, specifically addressing how to maintain software quality and compliance with medical standa

Our CXO Podcast host Jasmaine McClain brings on special guest Dr. Joseph Betancourt, President of the Commonwealth Fund, to discuss health equity and the work being done to improve healthcare for diverse populations. Dr. Betancourt highlights the role of the Commonwealth Fund in advancing health equity and emphasizes the importance of addressing issues such as primary care, Medicaid payment and reimbursement, and the social drivers of health. Welcome to the Health System CXO Podcast, sponsored by The Health Management Academy, featuring content designed for Health System Nurse Executives, Health Equity Officers and Strategy Executives provided by our company SME's - Anne Herleth, Jasmaine McClain, Ph.D. and Jackie Kimmell. Subscribe today and receive the latest insights from the country's leading Health System CXO experts regularly, helping you remain current and guide your health system strategy with thought leadership and success.The Health System CXO Podcast activates health system leaders towards outcomes and scalable solutions you can implement now.About The Health Management Academy:Since 1998, The Health Management Academy has cultivated the premier community of healthcare's most influential changemakers from the top U.S. health systems and innovative industry partners. We power more than 2,000 health system senior executives and 200 industry organizations through exceptional peer groups, original market insights, world-class leadership development programs and novel member alliances. Our industry-leading programs and solutions enable members to facilitate meaningful relationships, navigate strategic transformation and address critical industry issues. To learn more, visit hmacademy.com and follow The Health Management Academy on ...

We've all heard the rhetoric. The US has the best health care in the world. That's true for some who can afford to pay for it. But on average, that's not true.  On today's show we are going to look at a report published by the Commonwealth Fund a little over a year ago. It was also reported in the American Journal of Managed Care earlier this year.  Now you might wonder why we would focus on this on a real estate podcast. Well, it's because anywhere there are problems, there is a solution waiting to be implemented. Often, any large scale solution has a real estate component to it.  According to the Commonwealth Fund report, United States experiences the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation. ------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Francis Collins is a veritable national treasure. He directed the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. Prior to that he led the National Human Genetics Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1997-2009, during which the human genome was first sequenced. As a physician-scientist, he has made multiple seminal discoveries on the genetic underpinnings of cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, neurofibromatosis, progeria, and others. This brief summary is barely scratching the surface oh his vast contributions to life science and medicine.A video clip from our conversation on hepatitis C. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with external inks and links to audioEric Topol (00:06):Well, I am really delighted to be able to have our conversation with Francis Collins. This is Eric Topol with Ground Truths and I had the chance to first meet Francis when he was on the faculty at the University of Michigan when I was a junior faculty. And he gave, still today, years later, we're talking about 40 years later, the most dazzling Grand Rounds during his discovery of cystic fibrosis. And Francis, welcome, you inspired me and so many others throughout your career.Francis Collins (00:40):Well, Eric, thank you and you've inspired me and a lot of other people as well, so it's nice to have this conversation with you in the Ground Truths format.Eric Topol (00:49):Well, thank you. We're at the occasion of an extraordinary book you put together. It's the fifth book, but it stands out quite different from the prior books as far as I can tell. It's called The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust, these four essential goods that build upon each other. And it's quite a book, Francis, I have to say, because you have these deep insights about these four critical domains and so we'll get into them. But I guess the first thing I thought I'd do is just say, how at some point along the way you said, “the goal of this book is to turn the focus away from hyperpartisan politics and bring it back to the most important sources of wisdom: truth, science, faith and trust, resting upon a foundation of humility, knowledge, morality, and good judgment.” So there's a lot there. Maybe you want to start off with what was in the background when you were putting this together? What were you really aiming at getting across?Reflections on CovidFrancis Collins (02:06):I'm glad to, and it's really a pleasure to have a chance to chat with you about this. I guess before Covid came along, I was probably a bit of a naive person when it came to how we make decisions. Yeah, I knew there were kind of wacky things that had gone out there from time to time, but I had a sort of Cartesian attitude that we were mostly rational actors and when presented with evidence that's been well defended and validated that most people will say, okay, I know what to do. Things really ran off the rails in the course of Covid. It was this remarkable paradox where, I don't know what you would say, but I would say the development of the vaccines that were safe and highly effective in 11 months using the mRNA platform was one of the most stunning achievements of science in all of history up until now.Francis Collins (03:02):And yet 50 million Americans decided they didn't want any part of it because of information that came to them that suggested this was not safe or there was conspiracies behind it, or maybe the syringes had chips that Bill Gates had put in there or all manner of other things that were being claimed. And good honorable people were distracted by that, lost their trust in other institutions like the CDC, maybe like the government in general like me, because I was out there a lot trying to explain what we knew and what we didn't know about Covid. And as a consequence of that, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 230,000 people died between June of 2021 and April of 2022 because of a decision to reject the opportunity for vaccines that were at that time free and widely available. That is just an incredibly terribly tragic thing to say.Francis Collins (04:03):More than four times the number of people who died, Americans who died in the Vietnam War are in graveyards unnecessarily because we lost our anchor to truth, or at least the ability to discern it or we couldn't figure out who to trust while we decided science was maybe not that reliable. And people of faith for reasons that are equally tragic were among those most vulnerable to the misinformation and the least likely therefore, to take advantage of some of these lifesaving opportunities. It just completely stunned me, Eric, that this kind of thing could happen and that what should have been a shared sense of working against the real enemy, which was the SARS-CoV-2 virus became instead a polarized, divisive, vitriolic separation of people into separate camps that were many times driven more by politics than by any other real evidence. It made me begin to despair for where we're headed as a country if we can't figure out how to turn this around.Francis Collins (05:11):And I hadn't really considered it until Covid how serious this was and then I couldn't look away. And so, I felt if I have a little bit of credibility after having stepped down after 12 years as the NIH Director and maybe a chance to influence a few people. I just have to try to do something to point out the dangers here and then to offer some suggestions about what individuals can do to try to get us back on track. And that's what this book is all about. And yeah, it's called The Road to Wisdom because that's really how I want to think of all this in terms of truth and science and faith and trust. They all kind of give you the opportunities to acquire wisdom. Wisdom is of course knowledge, but it's not just knowledge, it's also understanding it has a moral character to it. It involves sophisticated judgment about difficult situations where there isn't an obvious answer. We need a lot more of that, it seems we're at short supply.Deconvoluting TruthEric Topol (06:13):Well, what I really loved about the book among many things was how you broke things down in just a remarkably thoughtful way. So truth, you have this great diagram like a target with the four different components.in the middle, necessary truth. And then as you go further out, firmly established facts, then uncertainty and then opinion, and truth is not a dichotomous by any means. And you really got that down and you explained each of these different facets of truth with great examples. And so, this among many other things that you broke down, it wasn't just something that you read somewhere, you really had to think this through and perhaps this experience that we all went through, but especially you. But because you bring so much of the book back to the pandemic at times with each of the four domains, so that and the spider web. The spider web of where your core beliefsare and then the ones further out on the web and you might be able to work on somebody out further periphery, but it's pretty hard if you're going to get to them in the middle where their main thing is science is untrustworthy or something like that.Eric Topol (07:36):So how did you synthesize these because the graphics are quite extraordinary?Francis Collins (07:44):Well, I will say the artist for the graphics is a remarkable graphic design student at the University of Michigan who happens to be my granddaughter. So it was nice having that ability to have my scratches turned into something actually looks like artwork. The concepts I got to say, Eric, I was feeling pretty unsure of myself. I never took a course in philosophy. I know there are people who've spent their entire careers going all the way back to Socrates and on up until now about what does truth mean and here's this scientist guy who's trying to say, well, let me tell you what I think about it. I'm glad to hear that you found these circles useful. They have been very useful for me and I hadn't thought about it much until I tried to put it in some sort of framework and a lot of the problems we have right now where somebody says, well, that might be true for you, but it's not true for me, that's fine if you're talking about an opinion, like whether that movie was really good or not.Francis Collins (08:43):But it's not fine if it's about an established fact, like the fact that climate change is real and that human activity is the main contributor to the fact that we've warmed up dramatically since 1950. I'm sorry, that's just true. It doesn't care how you feel about it, it's just true. So that zone of established facts is where I think we have to re-anchor ourselves again when something's in that place. I'm sorry, you can't just decide you don't like it, but in our current climate and maybe postmodernism has crept in all kinds of ways we're not aware of, the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth even seems to be questioned in some people's minds. And that is the path towards a terrible future if we can't actually decide that we have, as Jonathan Rauch calls it, a constitution of knowledge that we can depend on, then where are we?Eric Topol (09:37):Well, and I never heard of the term old facts until the pandemic began and you really dissect that issue and like you, I never had anticipated there would be, I knew there was an anti-science, anti-vaccine sector out there, but the fact that it would become so strong, organized, supported, funded, and vociferous, it's just looking back just amazing. I do agree with the statement you made earlier as we were talking and in the book, “the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid in record time as one of the greatest medical achievements in human history.” And you mentioned besides the Kaiser Family Foundation, but the Commonwealth Fund, a bipartisan entity saved three million lives in the US, eighteen million hospitalizations. I mean it's pretty extraordinary. So besides Covid, which we may come back to, but you bring in everything, you bring in AI. So for example, you quoted the fellow from Google who lost his job and you have a whole conversation with Blake Lemoine and maybe you can give us obviously, where is AI in the truth and science world? Where do you stand there and what were you thinking when you included his very interesting vignette?Perspective on A.I.Francis Collins (11:17):Well, I guess I was trying to talk about where are we actually at the point of AGI (artificial general intelligence) having been achieved? That is the big question. And here's Blake Lemoine who claimed based on this conversation that I quote in the book between him and the Google AI apparatus called LaMDA. Some pretty interesting comments where LaMDA is talking about having a soul and what its soul looks like and it's a portal to all sorts of other dimensions, and I can sort of see why Blake might've been taken in, but I can also see why a lot of people said, oh, come on, this is of course what an AI operation would say just by scanning the internet and picking out what it should say if it's being asked about a soul. So I was just being a little provocative there. My view of AI, Eric, is that it's applications to science and medicine are phenomenal and we should embrace them and figure out ways to speed them up in every way we can.Francis Collins (12:17):I mean here at NIH, we have the BRAIN Initiative that's trying to figure out how your brain works with those 86 billion neurons and all their connections. We're never going to sort that out without having AI tools to help us. It's just too complicated of a problem. And look what AI is doing and things like imaging radiologists are going to be going out of business and the pathologists may not be too far behind because when it comes to image analysis, AI is really good at that, and we should celebrate that. It's going to improve the speed and accuracy of all kinds of medical applications. I think what we have to worry about, and I'm not unique in saying this, is that AI when applied to a lot of things kind of depends on what's known and goes and scrapes through the internet to pull that out. And there's a lot of stuff on the internet that's wrong and a lot of it that's biased and certainly when it comes to things like healthcare, the bias in our healthcare system, health disparities, inadequacies, racial inequities are all in there too, and if we're going to count on AI to fix the system, it's building on a cracked foundation.Francis Collins (13:18):So we have to watch out for that kind of outcome. But for the most part, generative AI it's taking really exciting difficult problems and turning them into solutions, I'm all for it, but let's just be very careful here as we watch how it might be incorporating information that's wrong and we won't realize it and we'll start depending on it more than we should.Breathtaking AdvancesEric Topol (13:42):Yeah, no, that's great. And you have some commentary on all the major fronts that we're seeing these days. Another one that is a particularly apropos is way back when you were at Michigan and the years before that when you were warming up to make some seminal gene discoveries and cystic fibrosis being perhaps the first major one. You circle back in the book to CRISPR genome editing and how the success story to talk about some extraordinary science to be able to have a remedy, a cure potentially for cystic fibrosis. So maybe you could just summarize that. I mean that's in your career to see that has to be quite remarkable.Francis Collins (14:32):It is breathtaking, Eric. I mean I sort of like to think of three major developments just in the last less than 20 years that I never dreamed would happen in my lifetime. One was the ability to make stem cells from people who are walking around from a skin biopsy or a blood sample that are pluripotent. My whole lab studies diabetes, our main approach is to take induced pluripotent stem cells from people whose phenotypes we know really well and differentiate them into beta cells that make insulin and see how we can figure out how the genetics and other aspects of this determine whether something is going to work properly or not. I mean that's just astounding. The second thing is the ability to do single cell biology.Francis Collins (15:16):Which really 15 years ago you just had to have a bunch of cells and studying diabetes, we would take a whole eyelid and grind it up and try to infer what was there, ridiculous. Now we can look at each cell, we even can look at each cell in terms of what's its neighbor, does the beta cell next to an alpha cell behave the same way as a beta cell next to a duct? We can answer those questions, and of course the third thing is CRISPR and gene editing and of course the first version of CRISPR, which is the knockout of a gene was exciting enough, but the ability to go in and edit without doing a double stranded break and actually do a search and replace operation is what I'm truly excited about when it comes to rare genetic diseases including one that we work on progeria, which is this dramatic form of premature aging that is caused almost invariably by a C to T mutation in exon 11 of the LMNA gene and for which we have a viable strategy towards a human clinical trial of in vivo gene editing for kids with this disease in the next two years.Eric Topol (16:24):Yeah, it's just the fact that we were looking at potential cures for hundreds and potentially even thousands of diseases where there was never a treatment. I mean that's astounding in itself, no less, the two other examples. The fact that you can in a single cell, you can not only get the sequence of DNA and RNA and methylation and who would've ever thought, and then as you mentioned, taking white cells from someone's blood and making pluripotent stem cells. I mean all these things are happening now at scale and you capture this in the book. On Humility and Trust Now the other thing that you do that I think is unique to you, I don't know if it's because of your background in growing up in Staunton, Virginia, a very different type of world, but you have a lot of humility in the book. You go over how you got snickered by Bill Maher, how you had a graduate student who was fabricating images and lots of things, how you might not have communicated about Covid perhaps as well as could. A lot of our colleagues are not able to do that. They don't ever have these sorts of things happening to them. And this humility which comes across especially in the chapter on trust where you break down who do you trust, humility is one of the four blocks as you outlined, competence, integrity, and aligned valueSo maybe can you give us a little brief lesson on humility?Eric Topol (18:06):Because it's checkered throughout the book and it makes it this personal story that you're willing to tell about yourself, which so few of us are willing to do.Francis Collins (18:17):Well, I don't want to sound proud about my humility. That would not be a good thing because I'm not, but thanks for raising it. I do think when we consider one of the reasons we decide to trust somebody, that it does have that humility built into it. Somebody who's willing to say, I don't know. Somebody's willing to say I'm an expert on this issue, but that other issue you just asked me about, I don't know any more than anybody else and you should speak to someone else. We don't do that very well. We tend to plunge right in and try to soak it up. I do feel when it comes to Covid, and I talk about this in the book a bit, that I was one of those trying to communicate to the public about what we think are going to be the ways to deal with this worst pandemic in more than a century.Francis Collins (19:06):And I wish Eric, I had said more often what I'm telling you today is the best that the assembled experts can come up with, but the data we have to look at is woefully inadequate. And so, it very well could be that what I'm telling you is wrong, when we get more data, I will come back to you as soon as we have something better and we'll let you know, but don't be surprised if it's different and that will not mean that we are jerking you around or we don't know what we're talking about. It's like this is how science works. You are watching science in real time, even though it's a terrible crisis, it's also an opportunity to see how it works. I didn't say that often enough and neither did a lot of the other folks who were doing the communicating. Of course, the media doesn't like to give you that much time to say those things as you well know, but we could have done a better job of preparing people for uncertainty and maybe there would've been less of a tendency for people to just decide, these jokers don't know what they're talking about.Francis Collins (20:10):I'm going to ignore them from now on. And that was part of what contributed to those 230,000 unnecessary deaths, it was just people losing their confidence in the information they were hearing. That's a source of grief from my part.His Diagnosis And Treatment for Prostate CancerEric Topol (20:24):Well, it's great and a lesson for all of us. And the other thing that along with that is remarkable transparency about your own health, and there's several things in there, but one that coincides. You mentioned in the book, of course, you wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post back in April 2024 about your diagnosis of prostate cancer. So you touched on it in the book and maybe you could just update us about this because again, you're willing to tell your story and trying to help others by the experiences that you've been through.Francis Collins (21:00):Well, I sure didn't want to have that diagnosis happen, but once it did, it certainly felt like an opportunity for some education. We men aren't that good about talking about issues like this, especially when it involves the reproductive system. So going out and being public and saying, yep, I had a five year course of watching to see if something was happening, and then the slow indolent cancer suddenly decided it wasn't slow and indolent anymore. And so, I'm now having my prostate removed and I think I'm a success story, a poster boy for the importance of screening. If I hadn't gone through that process of PSA followed by imaging by MRI followed by targeted biopsies, so you're actually sampling the right place to see if something's going on. I probably would know nothing about it right now, and yet incubating within me would be a Gleason category 9 prostate cancer, which has a very high likelihood if nothing was done to become metastatic.Francis Collins (22:03):So I wanted that story to be out there. I wanted men who were squeamish about this whole topic to say, maybe this is something to look into. And I've heard a bunch of follow-ups from individuals, but I don't know how much of it impact it hit. I'm glad to say I'm doing really well. I'm four months out now from the surgery, it is now the case I'm pretty much back to the same level of schedule and energy that I had beforehand, and I'm very happy to say that the post-op value of PSA, which is the best measure to see whether you in fact are now cancer free was zero, which is a really nice number.Eric Topol (22:45):Wow. Well, the prostate is the curse of men, and I wish we could all have an automated prostatectomy so we don't have to deal with this. It's just horrible.Francis Collins (22:58):It was done by a robot. It wasn't quite automated, I have stab wounds to prove that the robot was actually very actively doing what it needed to do, but they healed quickly.The Promise of Music As Therapy in MedicineEric Topol (23:11):Right. Well, this gets me to something else that you're well known for throughout your career as a musician, a guitarist, a singer, and recently you hooked up with Renée Fleming, the noted opera singer, and you've been into this music is therapy and maybe you can tell us about that. It wasn't necessarily built up much in the book because it's a little different than the main agenda, but I think it's fascinating because who doesn't like music? I mean, you have to be out there if you don't enjoy music, but can you tell us more about that?Francis Collins (23:53):Yeah, I grew up in a family where music was very much what one did after dinner, so I learned to play keyboard and then guitar, and that's always been a source of joy and also a source of comfort sometimes when you were feeling a bit down or going through a painful experience. I think we all know that experience where music can get into your heart and your soul in a way that a lot of other things can't. And the whole field of music therapy is all about that, but it's largely been anecdotal since about World War II when it got started. And music therapists will tell you sometimes you try things that work and sometimes they don't and it's really hard to know ahead of time what's going to succeed. But now we have that BRAIN Initiative, which is pushing us into whole new places as far as the neuroscience of the brain, and it's really clear that music has a special kind of music room in the brain that evolution has put there for an important reason.Francis Collins (24:47):If we understood that we could probably make music therapy even more scientifically successful and maybe even get third parties to pay for it. All of this became opportunity for building a lot more visibility because of making friends withRenée Fleming, who I hadn't really known until a famous dinner party in 2015 where we both ended up singing to a trio of Supreme Court justices trying to cheer them up after a bent week. And she has become such an incredible partner in this. She's trained herself pretty significantly in neuroscience, and she's a convener and an articulate spokesperson. So over the course of that, we built a whole program called Sound Health that now has invested an additional $35 million worth NIH research to try to see how we can bring together music therapy, musician performers and neuroscientists to learn from each other, speak each other's language and see what we could learn about this particularly interesting input to the human brain that has such power on us and maybe could be harnessed to do even more good for people with chronic pain or people with PTSD, people with dementia where music seems to bring people back to life who'd otherwise seem to have disappeared into the shadows.Francis Collins (26:09):It's phenomenal what is starting to happen here, but we're just scratching the surface.The Big Miss vs Hepatitis CEric Topol (26:14):Well, I share your enthusiasm for that. I mean, it's something that you could think of that doesn't have a whole lot of side effects, but could have a lot of good. Yeah. Well, now before I get back to the book, I did want to cover one other relatively recent op-ed late last year that you wrote about Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C, one of the most important medical advances in the 21st century that we're squandering. Can you tell us about that? Because I think a lot of people don't realize this is a big deal.Francis Collins (26:47):It's a really big deal, and I confess I'm a little obsessed about it. So yes, you may regret bringing it up because I'm really going to want to talk about what the opportunity is here, and I am still the lead for the White House in an initiative to try to find the 4 million Americans who are already infected with this virus and get access to them for treatment. The treatment is fantastic, as you just said, one of the most major achievements of medical research, one pill a day for 12 weeks, 95% cure in the real world, essentially no side effects, and yet the cost is quite high and the people who need it many times do not have great healthcare and maybe also in difficult circumstances because you get hepatitis C from infected blood. And the many ways that happens these days are from shared needles from people who are experimenting with intravenous drugs, but they are family too, and many of them now recovering from that, face the irony of getting over their opioid addiction and then looking down the barrel of a really awful final couple of years dying of liver failure. I watched my brother-in-law die of hepatitis C, and it was just absolutely gruesome and heartbreaking.Francis Collins (28:04):So this isn't right. And on top of that, Eric, the cost of all this for all those folks who are going to get into liver failure need a transplant or develop liver cancer, this is the most common cause now of liver cancer it is astronomical in the tens of billions of dollars. So you can make a very compelling case, and this is now in the form of legislation sponsored by Senators Cassidy and Van Hollen that in a five-year program we could find and cure most of those people saving tens of thousands of lives and we would save tens of billions of dollars in just 10 years in terms of healthcare that we will not have to pay for. What's not to love here? There's a lot of things that have to be worked out to make it happen. One thing we've already done is to develop, thanks to NIH and FDA, a point of care viral RNA finger stick test for Hep C. You get an answer in less than an hour.Francis Collins (29:00):FDA approved that the end of June. That was a big crash program so you can do test and treat in one visit, which is phenomenally helpful for marginalized populations. The other thing we need to do is to figure out how to pay for this and this subscription model, which was piloted in Louisiana, looks like it ought to work for the whole nation. Basically, you ask the companies Gilead and AbbVie to accept a lump sum, which is more than what they're currently making for Medicaid patients and people who are uninsured and people in the prison system and Native Americans and then make the pills available to those four groups for free. They do fine. The companies come out on this and the cost per patient plummets and it gives you the greatest motivation you can imagine to go and find the next person who's infected because it's not going to cost you another dime for their medicine, it's already paid for. That's the model, and I would say the path we're on right now waiting for the congressional budget office to give the final score, it's looking pretty promising we're going to get this done by the end of this year.The PledgeEric Topol (30:04):Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, your work there alone is of monumental importance. Now I want to get back to the book the way you pulled it all together. By the way, if anybody's going to write a book about wisdom, it ought to be you, Francis. You've got a lot of it, but you had to think through how are we going to change because there's a lot of problems as you work through the earlier chapters and then the last chapter you come up with something that was surprising to me and that was a pledge for the Road to Wisdom. A pledge that we could all sign, which is just five paragraphs long and basically get on board about these four critical areas. Can you tell us more about the pledge and how this could be enacted and help the situation? Francis Collins (31:03):Well, I hope it can. The initial version of this book, I wrote a long piece about what governments should do and what institutions should do and what universities should do and what K through 12 education should do. And then I thought they're not reading this book and I'm not sure any of those folks are really that motivated to change the status quo. Certainly, politicians are not going to solve our current woes. It seems that politics is mostly performance these days and it's not really about governance. So if there's going to be a chance of recovering from our current malaise, I think it's got to come from the exhausted middle of the country, which is about two thirds of us. We're not out there in the shrill screaming edges of the left and the right we're maybe tempted to just check out because it just seems so discouraging, but we're the solution.Francis Collins (31:56):So the last chapter is basically a whole series of things that I think an individual could start to do to turn this around. Beginning with doing a little of their own house cleaning of their worldview to be sure that we are re-anchoring to things like objective truths and to loving your neighbor instead of demonizing your neighbor. But yeah, it does go through a number of those things and then it does suggest as a way of making this not just a nice book to read, but something where you actually decide to make a commitment. Look at this pledge. I've tried the pledge out on various audiences so far and I haven't yet really encountered anybody who said, well, those are ridiculous things to ask of people. They're mostly things that make a lot of sense, but do require a commitment. That you are, for instance, you're not going to pass around information on social media in other ways unless you're sure it's true because an awful lot of what's going on right now is this quick tendency for things that are absolutely wrong and maybe anger inducing or fear inducing to go viral where something that's true almost lands with a thud.Francis Collins (33:07):Don't be part of that, that's part of this, but also to make an honest effort to reach out to people who have different views from you. Don't stay in your bubble and try to hear their concerns. Listen, not that you're listening in order to give a snappy response, but listen, so you're really trying to understand. We do far too little of that. So the pledge asks people to think about that, and there is a website now which will be as part of the book up on the Braver Angels website and Braver Angels is a group that has made its mission trying to bring together these divided parties across our country and I'm part of them, and you can then go and sign it there and make a public statement that this is who I am, and it will also give you a whole lot of other resources you could start to explore to get engaged in being part of the solution instead of just shaking your head. I think what we're trying to do is to get people to go beyond the point of saying, this isn't the way it should be to saying, this isn't the way I should be. I'm going to try to change myself as part of fixing our society.Eric Topol (34:14):Well, I'm on board for this and I hope it creates a movement. This is as you tell the stories in the book, like the fellow that you wrangled with about the pandemic and how you listened to him and it changed your views and you changed his views and this is the health of different opinions and perspectives and we got to get back there. It used to be that way more at least it wasn't always perfect, and as you said in the book, we all have some entrenched biases. We're never going to get rid of all of them, but your wisdom about the road, the pledge here is I think masterful. So I just want to pass on along and I hope listeners will go to the Brave for Angels website and sign up because if we got millions of people to help you on this, that would say a lot about a commitment to a renewed commitment to the way it should be, not the way it is right now. Well, I've covered a bunch of things, of course, Francis, but did I miss something that you're passionate about or in the book or anything that you want to touch on?Francis Collins (35:32):Oh my goodness, yeah. You did cover a lot of ground here, including things that I didn't pay much attention to in the book, but I was glad to talk to you about. No, I think we got a pretty good coverage. The one topic in the book that will maybe appeal particularly to believers is a whole chapter about faith because I am concerned that people of faith have been particularly vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation, and yet they stand on a foundation of principles that ought to be the best antidote to most of the meanness that's going on, and just trying to encourage them to recall that and then build upon the strength that they carry as a result of their faith traditions to try to be part of the solution as well.Eric Topol (36:12):I'm so glad you mentioned that. It's an important part of the book, and it is also I think something that you were able to do throughout your long tenure at NIH Director that you were able to connect to people across the aisle. You had senators and the Republicans that were so supportive of your efforts to lead NIH and get the proper funding, and it's a unique thing that you're able to connect with people of such different backgrounds, people of really deep commitment to religion and faith and everything else. And that's one of the other things that we talk about Francis here, and many times I gather is we don't have you at the helm anymore at NIH, and we're worried. We're worried because you're a unique diplomat with all this heavy wisdom and it's pretty hard to simulate your ability to keep the NIH whole and to build on it. Do you worry about it at all?Francis Collins (37:23):Well, I was privileged to have those 12 years, but I think it was time to get a new perspective in there, and I appreciate you saying those nice things about my abilities. Monica Bertagnolli is also a person of great skill, and I think on the hill she rapidly acquired a lot of fans by her approach, by some of her background. She's from Wyoming, she's a cancer surgeon. She's got a lot of stories to tell that are really quite inspiring. I think though it's just a very difficult time. She walked in at a point where the partisan attitudes about medical research, which we always hoped would kind of stay out of the conversation and become so prominent, a lot of it politically driven, nasty rhetoric on the heels of Covid, which spills over into lots of other areas of medical research and is truly unfortunate. So she's got a lot to deal with there, but I'm not sure I would be much better than she is in trying to continue stay on message, tell the stories about how medical research is saving lives and alleviating suffering, and we're just getting started, and she does that pretty well.Francis Collins (38:34):I just hope the people who need to listen are in a listening mood.Eric Topol (38:38):Yeah. Well, that's great to hear your perspective. Well, I can't thank you enough for our conversation and moreover for a friendship that's extended many decades now. We're going to be following not just your progeria research and all the other things that you're up to because juggling a bunch of things still, it isn't like you're slowed down at all. And thanks so much for this book. I think it's a gift. I think it's something that many people will find is a pretty extraordinary, thoughtful and easy read. I mean, it's something that I found that you didn't write it for in technical jargon. You wrote it for the public, you wrote it for non-scientists, non-medical people, and I think hopefully that's what's going to help it get legs in terms of what's needed, which is a sign the darn pledge. Thank you.Francis Collins (39:42):Eric, thank you. It has been a privilege being your friend for all these years, and this was a really nice interview and I appreciate that you already had carefully read the book and asked some great questions that were fun to try to answer. So thanks a lot.*******************************************************Thanks for listening, reading or watching!The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Please share this post/podcast with your friends and network if you found it informative!Voluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for 2023 and 2024.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

As the health sector grapples with evolving challenges, sustainability in healthcare emerges as a critical focal point. The healthcare industry faces increasing pressure to adapt amid global conflicts, inflation, and rising environmental concerns. According to The Commonwealth Fund, healthcare contributes 8.5% of the U.S. carbon footprint. With this backdrop, healthcare organizations must explore ways to implement sustainable practices. But how can they effectively balance sustainability with budget constraints and operational efficiency?In this episode of Highway to Health, host David Kemp sits down with Jim Donovan, the CEO of ADEC Innovations, to discuss sustainability in healthcare. They explore near- and long-term strategies for integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into healthcare operations, offering insights on how healthcare leaders can navigate compliance and regulatory changes.Key Points:• Sustainability efforts in healthcare should begin with a gap analysis to assess current practices.• Investing in sustainable infrastructure, such as green hospitals and renewable energy, is crucial for long-term success.• Data management is vital for understanding environmental impact and making evidence-based decisions.With over 27 years of leadership experience, Jim Donovan is a sustainability and global operations visionary. Under his leadership, ADEC Innovations has grown into a multinational organization that champions ESG initiatives across healthcare, finance, and supply chain sectors. Donovan's military background instilled a focus on teamwork and perseverance, which have driven ADEC's expansion and innovative sustainability solutions.Article by MarketScale

For years, Kim Moy cared for her kids and husband, while helping to care for her parents – an experience she describes as being in a “pressure cooker.” Being a caregiver to any loved one can be emotionally draining, but caring for a spouse can be a whole new level of lonely. In our final conversation of the season, Kim talks about the tradeoffs of being a spousal caregiver, grieving the loss of someone who's still there, and how she's learned to let go of the way things used to be.  Kim Moy's Caregiver Wisdom offers resources and workshops for those who take care of loved ones with chronic debilitating illnesses. Learn about the monthly support group, workshops, and one-on-one coaching here.  Dr. Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss, which Kim talks about in the episode. Learn more about ambiguous loss and Dr. Boss at ambiguousloss.com.  This season of Uncared For is presented by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation making grants to promote an equitable, high-performing health care system. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow SuChin Pak on Instagram @SuchinPak and Lemonada at @lemonadamedia across all social platforms. Want to become a Lemonada superfan? Join us at joinsubtext.com/lemonadasuperfan.   Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was talking to one health plan sponsor, and she told me if she sees any charges for value-based care anything on any one of the contracts that get handed to her, she crosses them off so fast it's like her superpower. For a full transcript of this episode, click here. If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter to be a member of the Relentless Tribe. What, you may wonder? Shouldn't employers and plan sponsors be all over value-based care–type things to do things preventatively because we all know that fee-for-service rewards, downstream consequences–type medical care, no money in upstream. Let's prevent those things from happening. Listen to the show with Tom Lee, MD (EP445); Scott Conard, MD (EP391); Brian Klepper, PhD (EP437). My goodness, we have done a raft of shows on this topic because it is such a thing. So, why wouldn't a plan sponsor be all over this value-based care opportunity? Now, I'm using the value-based care words and big old air quotes. Let's just keep that very much in mind for a couple of minutes here. I'm stressing right now that value-based care isn't a one-to-one overlap with care that is of value. So, let me ask you again, why wouldn't a plan sponsor be all over this air-quoted value-based care opportunity? Let me count the ways, and we'll start with this one. Katy Talento told me about this years ago. She said, it's not uncommon for dollars that a plan sponsor may pay to never make it to the entity that is actually providing the care to that plan sponsor's plan members. So, I'm a carrier and I say, I'm gonna charge you, plan sponsor, whatever as part of the PEPM (per employee per month) for value-based care or for a medical home, or pick something that sounds very appealing and value-like. Some of that money—not all of it, because the carrier's gonna keep some, you know, for administrative purposes—but whatever's left over could actually go to some clinical organization. Maybe it's the clinical organization that most of the plan's members are attributed to. Or maybe it's some clinical organization that the carrier is trying to make nicey nice with, which may or may not be the clinical organization that that plan sponsor's patients/members are actually going to. Like, the dollars go to some big, consolidated hospital when most of the plan's members are going to, say, indie PCPs in the community, as just one example. So, yeah, if I'm the plan sponsor in this mix, what am I paying for exactly and for how many of my members? I've seen the sharp type of plan sponsors whip up spreadsheets and do the math and report back that there ain't much value in that value-based care. It's a euphemism for, hey, here's an extra fee for something that sounds good, but … The end. Then I was talking to Marilyn Bartlett the other day and drilled down into some more angles about how this whole “hey, let's use the value-based care word to extract dollars from plan sponsors” goes down. Turns out, another modus operandi beyond the PEPM surcharge is for carriers to add “value-based fees” as a percentage increase or factor to the regular claims payments—something like, I don't know, 3.5% increase to claims. These fees are, in other words, hidden within billing codes. So, right, it's basically impossible to identify how much of this “value-based” piece of the action is actually costing. These fees are allowable, of course, because they're in the contract. The employer has agreed, whether they know it or not, to pay for value-based programs or alternative pay, even though the details are not at all, again, transparent. And that not at all transparent also includes stuff like, what if the health systems or clinical teams did not actually achieve the value-based program goals? What if they failed to deliver any value-based care at all for the value-based fees they have collected? How does anybody know if the prepaid fees were credited back to the plan sponsor, or if anything was actually accomplished there with those fees? Bottom line, fees are not being explicitly broken out or disclosed to the employers. Instead, they are getting buried within overall claims payments or coded in a way that obscures the value-based portion. So, yeah, charges for value-based care have become a solid plan to hide reimbursement dollars and make carrier administrative prices potentially look lower when selling to plan sponsors like self-insured employers. Justin Leader touches on this in episode 433 about the claims wire, by the way. Now, caveat, for sure, it's possible that patients can get services of value delivered because someone uses that extra money. And it's also possible that administrative costs go up and little if any value is accrued to patients, right? Like one or the other, some combination of both. It goes back to what Dr. Tom Lee talked about in episode 445. If there's an enlightened leader who gives a “shed,” then indeed, patients may win. But if not, if there's no enlightened leader in this mix, it's value based alright for carrier shareholders who take bad value all the way to the bank. Al Lewis quotes Paul Hinchey, MD, MBA, who is COO of Cleveland-based University Hospitals. And Dr. Hinchey wrote, “Value-based care has increasingly become a financial construct. What was once a philosophy centered on enhancing patient care has been reduced to a polarizing buzzword that exemplifies the lack of alignment between the financial and delivery elements of the healthcare system.” And then on the same topic, I saw William Bestermann, MD, he wrote, “The National Academy of Medicine mapped out a plan to value-based care 20 years ago in detail. We have never come close to value-based care because we have refused to follow the path. We could follow it, but we don't, and we never will as long as priorities are decided by businessmen representing stockholders. It is just that simple.” Okay, now. Let's reset. I'm gonna take a left turn, so fasten your seatbelts. Just because a bunch of for profit and not-for-profit, nothing for nothing, entities are jazz-handing their ways to wealth by co-opting terminology doesn't mean the intent of value-based care isn't still a worthy goal. And it also doesn't mean that some people aren't getting paid for and providing care that is of value and doing it well. There are, for sure, plenty of examples where an enlightened leader was able to operationalize and/or incentivize care that is of value. Occasionally, I also hear a story about a carrier doing interesting things to pay for care that is of value. Jodilyn Owen talked about one of these in episode 421. Justina Lehman also (EP414). We had Larry Bauer on the show (EP409) talking about three bright spots where frail elderly patients are getting really good care as opposed to the really bad care that you frequently hear about when you even say the words frail elderly patient. And all of these examples that he talked about were built on a capitated model or on a model that facilitated patients getting coordinated care and there being clinicians who were not worried about what code they were gonna put in the computer when they helped a patient's behavioral health or helped a patient figure out how they were gonna get transportation or help them access community services or whatnot. There are also employers direct contracting with health systems or PCPs and COEs (Centers of Excellence) and others, contracting directly with these entities to get the quality and safety and preventative attention that they are looking for. And there are health systems and PCPs and practices working really hard to figure out a business model that aligns with their own values. So, value-based care—the actual words, not the euphemism—value-based care can still be a worthy goal. And that, my friends, is what I'm talking about today with Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of the Purchaser Business Group on Health (PBGH). PBGH members are really focused on innovating and implementing change. We talk about some of this innovation and implementation on the show today, and it is very inspiring. Elizabeth argues for for-real alternative payment models that are transparent to the employer plan sponsors. She wants prospective payments or bundled payments, and she wants them with warranties that are measurable. She wants members to get integrated whole-person care in a measurable way, which most health plans (ie, middlemen) either cannot or will not administer. Elizabeth says to achieve actual care that is of value, cooperation between employers, employees, and primary care providers is crucial (ie, direct contracts). She also says that this whole effort is really, really urgently needed given the affordability crisis affecting many Americans. There's been just one article after another lately about how many billions and billions of dollars are getting siphoned off the top into the pockets of the middlemen and their shareholders. These are dollars partially paid for by employees and plan members. We have 48% of Americans with commercial insurance delaying or forgoing care due to cost. If you're a self-insured employer and you're hearing this, don't be thinking it doesn't impact you because your employees are highly compensated. As Deborah Williams wrote the other day, she wrote, “Co-pays have gotten high enough that even higher-income patients can't afford them.” And she was referencing a study to that end. So, yeah … with that, here is your Summer Short with Elizabeth Mitchell. Also mentioned in this episode are Purchaser Business Group on Health; Tom X. Lee, MD; Scott Conard, MD; Brian Klepper, PhD; Katy Talento; Marilyn Bartlett; Justin Leader; Laurence Bauer, MSW, MEd; Al Lewis; Paul Hinchey, MD, MBA; William Bestermann, MD; Jodilyn Owen; Justina Lehman; and Deborah Williams.   You can learn more at PBGH and by connecting with Elizabeth on LinkedIn.   Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of the Purchaser Business Group on Health (PBGH), supports the implementation of PBGH's mission of high-quality, affordable, and equitable healthcare. She leads PBGH in mobilizing healthcare purchasers, elevating the role and impact of primary care, and creating functional healthcare markets to support high-quality affordable care, achieving measurable impacts. Elizabeth leverages her extensive experience in working with healthcare purchasers, providers, policymakers, and payers to improve healthcare quality and cost. She previously served as senior vice president for healthcare and community health transformation at Blue Shield of California, during which time she designed Blue Shield's strategy for transforming practice, payment, and community health. Elizabeth also served as the president and CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), a network of regional quality improvement and measurement organizations. She also served as CEO of Maine's business coalition on health, worked within an integrated delivery system, and was elected to the Maine State Legislature, serving as a state representative and chair of the Health and Human Services Committee. Elizabeth served as vice chairperson of the US Department of Health and Human Services Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee, board and executive committee member of the National Quality Forum (NQF), member of the National Academy of Medicine's (NAM) “Vital Signs” Study Committee on core metrics and now on NAM's Commission on Investment Imperatives for a Healthy Nation, a Guiding Committee member for the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network. She now serves as an appointed board member of California's Office of Healthcare Affordability. Elizabeth also serves as an advisor and board member for healthcare companies. Elizabeth holds a degree in religion from Reed College, studied social policy at the London School of Economics, and completed the International Health Leadership Program at Cambridge University. Elizabeth was an Atlantic Fellow through the Commonwealth Fund's Harkness Fellowship program.   10:36 What are members and providers actually asking for in terms of value-based care? 10:56 Why won't most health plans administer alternative payment models? 12:17 “We do not have value in the US healthcare system.” 12:57 Why you can't do effective primary care on a fee-for-service model. 13:30 Why have we fragmented care out? 14:39 “No one makes money in a fee-for-service system if people are healthy.” 17:27 “If we think it is not at a crisis point, we are kidding ourselves.”   You can learn more at PBGH and by connecting with Elizabeth on LinkedIn.   @lizzymitch2 of @PBGHealth discusses #valuebasedcare on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcareleadership #healthcaretransformation #healthcareinnovation #vbc   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Dr Will Shrank (Encore! EP413), Dr Amy Scanlan (Encore! EP402), Ashleigh Gunter, Dr Spencer Dorn, Dr Tom Lee, Paul Holmes (Encore! EP397), Ann Kempski, Marshall Allen (tribute), Andreas Mang, Abby Burns and Stacey Richter

Pennsylvanians are expected to find out today if Governor Josh Shapiro will be Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate on the Democratic ticket. Shapiro is among the finalists. New study shows fewer teachers are getting certified in Pennsylvania, and more are leaving the profession entirely. Fewer than half of U.S. adults fight medical bills or an insurance denial for their health care. The biggest reason why is because they don't know they have a right to do so - that's according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund. A new study shows pollution risks from gas stoves are greater in small homes.  Beginning next year, drivers on the Turnpike drivers bound for Philadelphia from Lancaster County will be tolled at highway speeds. Members of a Pennsylvania National Guard unit is preparing to deploy to the Middle East. A report admonishes Justice Department officials for mishandling details from an investigation into an error that became fodder for fraud accusations.  Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A big chunk of family caregivers in this country are part of the “sandwich generation” – people caring for young children and aging parents at the same time. Robert Ingenito was one of them. After caring for his dad and raising his young daughter while working, Robert came to a breaking point. He decided to move his dad to an assisted living facility. It wasn't an easy decision, and it's one he still grapples with today. Learn more about respite care, including respite care opportunities in your area, at ARCH National Respite Network's website. The website provides a National Respite Locator Service, and information on how to pay for respite care. This season of Uncared For is presented by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation making grants to promote an equitable, high-performing health care system. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow SuChin Pak on Instagram @SuchinPak and Lemonada at @lemonadamedia across all social platforms. Want to become a Lemonada superfan? Join us at joinsubtext.com/lemonadasuperfan. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Texas is the second to worst state in the country to be a woman with health issues, according to new findings from the Commonwealth Fund, a research foundation dedicated to improving health care; Dallas to combine departments, eliminate jobs to save more than $1 million; a multinational North Texas real estate developer has finalized plans for one of the largest mixed-use developments in the region. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some Mississippi lawmakers want to make it easier for families to choose private or charter schools for their children. But critics say these new measures could undermine public school funding.Then, Mississippi ranks at the bottom of the nation for access to reproductive health.Plus, a new book follows the earliest efforts to integrate the military and some manufacturing jobs in the Deep South during World War II.The Commonwealth Fund provides support for Gulf States Newsroom health equity coverage. News and business departments operate independently. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every person brings their own cultural background into their encounters with the healthcare system. But this doesn't mean that every healthcare provider needs to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of every culture in order to provide equitable, high-quality care to every patient. “The truth of the matter is: that could never be done. I'm Puerto Rican, Latino, and even among Puerto Ricans, there's a great difference in lived experience, exposure to health care and the like,” says Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund. But there will be times when a person's cultural background affects their ability to access the health care they need. In those cases, Betancourt says it's important that providers be equipped with the right tools and resources to assess how those cultural factors may come into play. Health Disparities podcast host Dr. Mary O'Connor speaks with Betancourt about the importance of culturally competent care — what it is, and what it's not. They also discuss the need for ongoing training to address cultural differences and structural barriers, and share about recent developments in health policy and health care that give them hope. Never miss an episode – subscribe to The Health Disparities podcast from Movement Is Life on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's Headlines: President Biden made headlines with strong comments on two major fronts. In an interview with Time Magazine, he suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be extending the Gaza operation for political reasons, given Netanyahu's plummeting popularity and pending corruption charges. Biden also signed an executive order temporarily shutting down asylum requests at the southern border when crossings exceed 2500 per day, marking the most severe immigration policy enacted by a Democratic president in modern history. This move comes after House Republicans twice rejected a bipartisan border bill.The Senate is set to vote on the Right to Contraception Act, aiming to protect access to contraception, though it is not expected to pass in the House. Additionally, a new study by the Commonwealth Fund revealed that childbirth in the U.S. is deadlier than in any other high-income nation, with a particularly high maternal mortality rate among Black women. The study emphasizes that most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable with better access to care and paid parental leave. In legal news, Wisconsin's attorney general has filed felony charges against three of Trump's advisors for their roles in a fake electors scheme during the 2020 election. This case is part of broader efforts to address election interference, with similar charges filed in Arizona and Georgia. Finally, new ProPublica reporting revealed that several witnesses in criminal cases against Trump have received significant financial benefits, such as high-paying jobs and severance packages, potentially influencing their testimony. Resources/Articles mentioned in this episode: The Guardian: Biden: ‘every reason' to believe Netanyahu is prolonging Gaza war for political gain NBC News: Biden signs executive order drastically tightening border Axios: Schumer: Senate to vote on "Right to Contraception" Wednesday WA Post: Childbirth deadlier for Americans, especially Black women, study finds AP News: Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul files felony charges against attorneys, aide who worked for Trump  Pro Publica: Multiple Trump Witnesses Have Received Significant Financial Benefits From His Businesses, Campaign Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage alongside Bridget Schwartz and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Dr. Joseph Betancourt's vision for the future of U.S. health care, “any patient who goes to any health care system around the country should get the highest quality of care, no matter who they are or where they're from.” As the Commonwealth Fund's new president, he's tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the U.S. health system while trying to ensure equity is embedded in health care policy, coverage, technology, and practice.  Join Joel Bervell, host of The Dose podcast, for a wide-ranging conversation with Betancourt about AI and health care, America's primary care crisis, and what the corporatization of health care means for doctors and patients. 

Michigan isn't providing fair and equal health care services to all races, according to a new report from the nonprofit research firm The Commonwealth Fund. Plus, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was in metro Detroit Thursday evening for a short visit. Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Just this Monday, we celebrated Martin Luther King Day, a tribute to one of the great leaders of the movement for racial justice – but something that often gets forgotten in the flurry of MLK quotes that become memes this time of year is that equity in healthcare was a crucial part of King's vision. Throughout his career in activism, he often stated his conviction that “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhuman.” Sadly, over 50 years after his death, racial inequity in healthcare is even more shocking and inhuman. Today, we're joined by public health expert Walter Tsou to do a deep dive into the horrifying world of racial health injustice, how we got here, and how we make real change. https://www.youtube.com/live/yiq7TBVYc6g?si=QCbGU114cZviZe0G Show Notes The show is joined on MLK Day by Dr. Walter Tsou - past president of the American Public Health Association and former health commissioner of Philadelphia! Gillian asks how Walter dedicated his life to health access and health equity. When Walter graduated from med school he stumbled into a job at a public health clinic in West Philadelphia that treated patients lacking private insurance or the money to afford medications, which gave him his first window into the deep economic, racial, and health divides in the U.S. This launched his career in public health advocacy. Walter served as the Health Commissioner of Philadelphia from 2000 - 2002, and to him the most stark racial inequity he had to deal with was the gap in infant mortality - black infants at that time were 2.5 to 3 times as likely to die before reaching age 1 than white infants. Walter looked up the most recent statistics in preparation for the podcast, and the number had barely changed. The traditional way that states are pretending to do something about infant mortality is to create an Office of Equity contained inside their Department of Health that has maybe two staff people. To make a real difference in infant mortality, Walter says, you have to tackle the largest social determinants of health - education, job opportunities, housing, transportation, and so on. Two or four people in an Equity Office aren't going to make a difference - it's window dressing. On top of this, Walter says, the U.S. has abandoned most of its community health work, which was widespread under LBJ's Great Society programs after WWII, when community nurses would go into communities and address social determinants of health. Gillian backs up to share some of the big-picture distressing findings from the Commonwealth Fund's scorecard on racial equity in U.S. healthcare: Provisional life expectancy report released by the CDC in 2020 shows that Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native people live fewer years on average than white people (see data here) Black/AIAN individuals more susceptible to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension Higher rate of pregnancy related complications, higher infant mortality rate (see our episode on maternal health for more details) Poor healthcare outcomes are driven by higher poverty rates, higher-risk environments, less access to healthcare among communities of color Less likely to have health insurance, more likely to incur medical debt, more cost-related barriers to care, less preventative care These unequal health outcomes persist across all states in the U.S. Black women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at later stages and to die from breast cancer than white women Uninsured rates are much higher in communities of color, particularly states that have not adopted Medicare expansion Black Medicare beneficiaries are more likely than white beneficiaries to be admitted to a hospital or to seek care in an emergency department for conditions typically manageable through good primary care Lower rates of vaccination - example - Black, AIAN,

This Conversations with Chanda podcast episode features a powerful live discussion moderated by Chanda Smith Baker at the Nonprofit Board Lab 2023: New Commonwealth Fund Panel. Joining her are guests Dr. Makeeba McCreary at the New Commonwealth Fund and Quincy Miller, Eastern Bank, who share insights on their experience with creating and leading an organization focused on racial equity and social justice. Join Chanda, Dr. Makeeba, and Quincy as they address systemic racism, the challenges of philanthropic systems, and the importance of honest conversation.

ERIC CALCIANO - LEAD BENEFITS ADVISOR AT NEW CITY INSURANCE JOINS DAWN ON INSURANCE AND ECONOMIC TRENDS - US CITIZENS WITH HEALTHCARE STILL STRUGGLE TO PAY THEIR BILLS?! HOW CAN WE ADDRESS THIS - ERIC REACTS TO THE PROMPT BELOW... (CBS MoneyWatch)Many Americans... say they are unable to get the medical care they need despite carrying health insurance. Roughly 30% of working-age adults in the U.S. with health coverage said rising medical costs make it hard to afford essentials like food, utilities, car payments and loans, according to a recent survey from The Commonwealth Fund. That forces millions of people to take on debt to pay for care or make difficult tradeoffs. Read more.Why are even insured Americans struggling to pay for health care? What can employers do to fix this? Eric Calciano can weigh in on this. He is Lead Benefits Advisor with New City Insurance, an employee benefits consulting firm. Tune in 10 AM - 12 PM EST weekdays on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT; or on the Audacy app!

David Smith watched as chronic pain and addiction transformed his loving father into a vengeful man who was unrecognizable. David has spent a lifetime trying to outrun his father's fate - but now he's looking for answers. How can we build a better healthcare system and stop the cycle of sickness, trauma and loss? In episode one, we explore his family's story, covering everything from childhood tragedy and generational trauma to opioid abuse and Mormon excommunication.  Keep up with David on twitter @CHIDavidSmith.  Have you been hit with a surprise bill or had an infuriating run-in with the health care system? If you want to submit a patient story, email us at costofcare@lemonadamedia.com or leave us a voicemail at 833-453-6662.  Support for this episode of The Cost of Care comes from Healthline.com, America's leading digital health brand. Visit healthline.com/costofcare now, and stay connected by following @healthline on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Healthline: Powering healthy actions and supporting you on your journey to well-being.  Support for this podcast comes from The Commonwealth Fund, a health care research foundation working to improve the U.S. health system. Visit commonwealthfund.org/costofcare, and stay connected by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Commonwealth Fund: Affordable, quality health care. For everyone. You can click this link for a full list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows. To follow along with a transcript and/or take notes for friends and family, go to https://www.lemonadamedia.com/show/thecostofcare/ shortly after the air date. Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day as they count down to what may be Biden's final State of the Union. Emma and Sam first dive into updates on the growing death toll in Turkey and Syria in the wake of this weekend's earthquake, the speakers to watch for tonight, the center-right folding on the debt ceiling, the future of abortion rights, and various labor news in the political media sphere. Next, explore Judge Janine Pirro's takedown of Biden's first three years in office, and his failure to prove his worth to the voters, despite massive decreases in prescription drug prices (for some), and an incredibly high employment rate. They also walk through Shannon Bream's discussion with Jared Bernstein, once again, on what Biden has actually accomplished, Kevin McCarthy singling out the national debt as the biggest threat to America, and Matt Gaetz using that tack to turn his sights on the impoverished. Wrapping up the free half, Sam and Emma parse through the Commonwealth Fund's recent report on the US' floundering healthcare system, paying more (both from the government and the people's pockets) for less, worse, and more dysfunctional care than any other country in the OECD, all serving to put the US well behind in life expectancy and other quality-of-life measurements. And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma watch Rep. James Comer try to dance away from questions about the GOP-led House's bogus investigations, discuss various reactionary members of the dumdum “left,” and Charlie Kirk has Kari Lake walk through her plans on running for one political seat while claiming occupation of another. Bobby from Maine dives into the impact of the Medicare/Medicaid debate on actual people, James from Boston takes on the devastating impacts of the “school choice” drive on public education, and Candace Owens claims that history education has completely undermined ahistorical arguments. Valerie from Arizona dives into the defunct relationship between crime and housing, plus, your calls and IMs! Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app Check out today's sponsors: Aura: Go to my sponsor https://aura.com/majority to try 14 days free and let Aura go to work protecting your private information online HoldOn Bags: To shop plant based bags and replace single use plastics all over your home, visit https://holdonbags.com/MAJORITY or enter MAJORITY at checkout to save 20% off your order. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattBinder @MattLech @BF1nn @BradKAlsop Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/ Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder - https://majorityreportradio.com/

In this 153rd in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we discuss the state of the world through an evolutionary lens. This week, we discuss the committee newly empaneled by Florida governor Ron DeSantis to explore Covid policy and treatment, in which Bret is a part. It has been roundly mocked in the media, who cite a truly remarkable piece of non-research that contains no new data, no references, and methods and results that cannot be assessed. We discuss Science magazine's editorial that deifies Fauci, Nature magazine's editorial claiming that science is hard and we'll never know what happened during Covid, and the White House's Summit on Equity and Excellence in STEMM, which threatens to create Harrison Bergeron University. Finally: do female snakes experience sexual pleasure? Tune in to find out all about hemiclitores. ***** Our sponsors: Allform: Get 20% off any order (of a beautiful sofa) from Allform at https://allform.com/darkhorse. LMNT: Electrolyte drink mix with all the good salts, and none of the bad stuff. Free sample pack of all 8 flavors with any purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/DARKHORSE. ReliefBand: Get relief from nausea without drugs. Go to https://www.reliefband.com, use code DARKHORSE, and you'll receive 20% off plus free shipping. ***** Our book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, and signed copies are available here: https://darvillsbookstore.indielite.org Check out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org Heather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.com Mentioned in this episode: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis holds an accountability roundtable for mRNA shots: https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1602683363994705920 Fauci responds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuXUelJezeM&t=291s Stephen Colbert responds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBzD14v1g8U&t=81s Fitzpatrick et al 2022. Two years of U.S. Covid-19 Vaccines have Prevented Millions of Hospitalizations and Deaths. The Commonwealth Fund: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations Thank you, Tony! Editorial in Science, by the editor-in-chief of Science:https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/09_december_2022/4063695/  Missing data mean we'll probably never know how many people died of COVID. Nature editorial:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04422-9 Msemburi et al 2022. The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.  Nature (12-14-22): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05522-2 White House Summit on Equity and Excellence in STEMM, livestreamed 12-12-22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6l4ynrYnUTg Folwell et al 2022. First Evidence of Hemiclitores in Snakes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 289: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1702Support the show