Vermonters adjust to a health care landscape without Medicare Advantage  - VTDigger For some, the transition has been relatively smooth. For others, the accumulation of many disparate costs is smothering.

Vermonters don't need Medicare Advantage plans to protect them from high costs. Medicare Advantage actually costs taxpayers 14% more than traditional Medicare while limiting access to care. They need an out-of-pocket spending cap in traditional Medicare!

Claude is the worst intern imaginable. This is a fireable offense!

As usual, the cruelty is the point. People with low-incomes, women, and racial and ethnic minorities are harmed by Trump's petty grudges against blue states.

States no longer have to report Medicaid, CHIP vaccination rates to CMS, further undermining immunization Medicaid and CHIP cover almost half of American children. A new CMS policy means we will know less about their health.

Medicaid & CHIP cover almost half of American children. A new CMS policy means we’ll know less about their health. My colleague @jillrose.bsky.social explains: tinyurl.com/bdn2bzkt

Live Updates: Reiners’ Son Booked for Murder in the Stabbings of Director and His Wife

RIP Rob Reiner. “This Is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “The Princess Bride" are as responsible as my parents for turning me into who I am today. Such a tragic loss (and getting more tragic).

Senate Republicans’ HSA Plan Can’t Replace the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits The Senate Republican response to the looming expiration of the ACA’s enhanced tax credits is a patchwork of policies that will shift costs onto patients and weaken insurance markets.

Don't be fooled: Health Savings Accounts aren't insurance and can't replace enhanced premium tax credits. CAP Health explains @nzmurphy.bsky.social @americanprogress.bsky.social

Opinion | I Was Once a Broken Reader. I Found My Way Back to Books.

I didn’t realize that I am a broken reader until I read this. Thank goodness there’s hope!

5 Consequences of Private Equity’s Expansion in Health Care Services The rapid rise of private equity’s influence over health care providers such as hospitals, nursing homes, and physicians’ practices threatens competition, affordability, patient safety, and worker wel...

New report from Alex Thornton, Claire Koyle, and myself reveals how private-equity’s short-term focus on profit is concerning in health care, where quality of care and patient safety should be the highest priorities. @americanprogress.bsky.social

The Great Medicare Bazaar Is Back — and So Are the Sales Pitches Insurers once again flood seniors with “free” Medicare Advantage offers. Consumer protections, like those enacted by Congress to address Medigap marketing practices years ago, are urgently needed.

It's Medicare open enrollment time! If you or anyone you love is signing up for Medicare, please read this column. And don't get tricked by a Medicare Advantage sales pitch!

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional

ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

State Fact Sheets: How the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans Are Increasing Costs for American Families This series of fact sheets provides insights into how the OBBBA and the administration’s policies will increase the costs of health care, food, energy, and borrowing in each state in the near future.

How will the passage of Trump's megabill affect your state?
@americanprogress.bsky.social explains, state by state: ⇣ www.americanprogress.org/article/stat...

Health care across the country is in DANGER. If Planned Parenthood is “defunded,” nearly 200 health centers could close, and more than 1.1M patients could lose access to care. Contact your senator and tell them not to “defund” Planned Parenthood: ppact.io/care

Family Sues UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and Walgreens Over Son’s Preventable Death The price of 22-year-old Cole Schmidtknecht’s inhaler jumped from $70 to $500 overnight. Days later, he was gone.

Our health care system prioritizes profits over patients. This is the inevitable result. Maybe we should have different priorities. Just a thought.

Trump Administration Live Updates: Trump Is Said to Be Getting Qatari 747 for Air Force One, and Post-Presidency Travel

You know how you keep thinking, "Nothing can surprise me anymore?" Wow. That keeps being super wrong. This is absolutely unbelievable. At least we can rest easy knowing that Congress will exercise its authority and remove him from office for this massive unconstitutional grift. My head is spinning.

Trump’s push to privatize Medicare would be a disaster for seniors Medicare Advantage is more costly for Americans than traditional Medicare. So why does Trump favor it?

Trump and Dr. Oz's push for fully privatized Medicare should alarm all of us. @andreaducas.bsky.social and David Lipschutz explain why for @MarketWatch.com: www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps...

Cutting Care From Patients Saves Only a Fraction of What Cutting Insurance Abuse Would Lawmakers say cuts to Medicaid and CHIP will save money — but patients will pay with their lives, while Big Insurance cashes in.

A great summation from Rachel Madley at HEALTH CARE Un-Covered of how Congress wants to cut the lifesaving care real people receive when cutting actual fraud being committed by giant corporations would save more money.

Arkansas first state to ban PBMs from owning pharmacies - Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis Arkansas has become the first state to ban pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed House Bill 1150 into law April 16.  The legislation, sponsored by s...

A small step toward reform of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), but it shows that D's and R's are aligned on this. Congress can and should pass the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) Transparency Act! @cantwell.senate.gov

Behind the Assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | Milbank Memorial Fund Upon taking office, President Trump terminated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs throughout the government. Federal agencies, including the

This informative piece by @americanprogress.bsky.social senior fellow @shwoolf.bsky.social on the assault on DEI explains how failing to track racial disparities will lead to tragic outcomes. @milbankfund.bsky.social

Supreme Court Lets Trump Suspend Grants to Teachers In boilerplate letters, the administration told recipients that the grants supported diversity efforts and were wasteful.

This does not bode well.

Medicaid made my brother’s final weeks more peaceful • NC Newsline disability rights advocates calls on Congress not to cut or limit Medicaid benefits via work, requirements, block grants, or lifetime caps

Medicaid access provides peace of mind to millions of Americans. No one understands this better than my colleague @seemiaroll.bsky.social. In this op-ed for @NCNewsline, she shares vulnerably about her family’s experience:

POLITICO's 2025 Health Care Summit - POLITICOPOLITICOSearchSearchClose

Oh goddess... Calley Means at #POLITICOHealth just said NIH research hasn't been cut, just bureaucracy. Do these clowns believe the garbage they are spewing? Apparently research can happen without paying for buildings, janitorial services, and equipment.

POLITICO's 2025 Health Care Summit - POLITICOPOLITICOSearchSearchClose

Watching Calley Means at #POLITICOHealth twist himself into a pretzel explaining how corporations profiting off making kids sick aren't profiting off making kids sick, the way to stop them is to fire regulators, regulations aren't regulations, these are not the droids you're looking for...

The Confessions of Health-Insurance Executives Champagne for record profits. Being ordered to “execute some hostages.” Why four men quit and spoke out.

Former health insurance execs like @wendellpotter.bsky.social
and Ed Weisbart of @pnhp.bsky.social know how desperate the situation is. We should listen to them.

Dr. Oz and the Plot Against Medicare Medicare Advantage plans are killing seniors and bankrupting hospitals. Now the Trump administration is preparing to make them mandatory, ending Medicare as we know it.

Great piece from @dropsitenews.com explaining how they are coming for your Medicare. Fight back, before it's too late!

'Segregated facilities' are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts The Trump administration cut a clause from federal contracting rules that had been on the books since the 1960s: Companies are no longer explicitly prohibited from having segregated facilities.

Make America Segregated Again! This may not (immediately) lead to separate drinking fountains, but it is going to allow contractors to discriminate against trans people. And this was done without notice or public comment, the new standard for this administration. Bad news for democracy and justice.

Four of these five heath care companies that filed for bankruptcy protection last year are partially or fully owned by private equity firms. Coincidence? Or are private equity and health care incompatible? (Hint: it's not coincidence.)

The flue vaccine committee meeting in secret might not seem like the biggest deal, but this is democracy dying in darkness, in real time. First they came for my flue vaccine and I said nothing....

I've been fantasizing about challenging Schumer in a primary since 2020. I think it's time to form an exploratory committee. Any volunteers?

Cutting Medicaid would harm Iowa's health and economy All Iowans would bear the burden of lost revenues to the state and the associated job losses, provider shortages, and closed businesses.

If Congressional Republicans slash Medicaid funding, Iowa’s economy could lose $8 billion over the next decade. Read my piece with @suedins.bsky.social on Bleeding Heartland.

The Pitt | Official Trailer | Max YouTube video by Max

The best thing about our tragically dysfunctional health care system? Nursing shortages, corporate profit motives, unaffordable care, impossible wait times, lack of insurance, and violence against health workers combine to make great TV!*

*A small price to pay for our worsened lives.