Our article in Health Affairs Forefront on the “real waste, fraud, and abuse” in healthcare — Medicare and Medicaid privatization — is now up. MA Overpayments & excess Medicaid managed care overhead could cost as much as $1.9 trillion in coming decade. www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/f...

I feel like this fake big animal sightings are too common!

🗞️Hot off the press in @atsblueeditor.bsky.social! Our analysis shows that unfavourable social and environmental exposures explain a much larger share of racial disparities in lung function than previously thought. Details: doi.org/10.1164/rccm... @msafavi.bsky.social @awgaffney.bsky.social

Another great PNHP annual national conference !

It's not clear to me how to respond to this endless stream of unrepentant, shameless lying from unrepentant, shameless liars like this. To be clear: I believe in taking care of everyone no matter where they're from, so I'm not so interested in these distinctions. But for those...

Easy to feel despondent now, but it’s important to remember that there is a real possibility that the Trumpian political project crashes & burns, anyone remotely associated with it is permanently discredited politically & morally, & a window opens for substantive positive change.

"Unless you are extraordinarily rich, it is effectively not possible to save enough money to cover the costs of a serious illness or major trauma,” Gaffney said. “For the uninsured, medical debt and bankruptcy is just one major illness or injury away.” www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

So an anonymous billionaire Trump ally is dispersing $130 million in personal cash to US troops. Truly crossing new rubicons weekly www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Excellent thread

In wake of the CDC shooting, so-called "post-vaccination syndrome" has come back into discussion, as this report from @nbcnews.com describes. The assailant attributed health issues including depression to COVID-19 vaccines. I'm quoted, & wrote about the... www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...

In wake of the CDC shooting, so-called "post-vaccination syndrome" has come back into discussion, as this report from @nbcnews.com describes. The assailant attributed health issues including depression to COVID-19 vaccines. I'm quoted, & wrote about the... www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...

A quick short post on Thursday's Senate HELP hearings on healthcare affordability: open.substack.com/pub/healthcl...

The AP has a story on the impact of Medicaid cuts for patients and our study quantifying those effects nationally — the accompanying video is powerful as it presents the story of a patient with cancer worried about falling between the cracks. apnews.com/article/medi...

I testified today for the Senate HELP Committee on issue of healthcare affordability. The “Big Beautiful Bill” will worsen the crisis of healthcare affordability — and cause thousands of deaths. Medicare-for-All will deliver full coverage for everyone, at an affordable price for the nation. Link:

Let’s not move on from the “Big Beautiful Bill” so quickly? The law will shred the US healthcare safety net. The deaths it causes may seem invisible — medical neglect causes heart attacks, kidney failure, strokes — that will register as “natural,” but will be something more.

fresh audio product: • Adam Gaffney @awgaffney.bsky.social on Trump & Co.’s cuts to health care and research • Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social tries to make sense of Trump’s nonsensical trade policy www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S...

Adam Gaffney (@awgaffney.bsky.social), David U. Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler on Trump’s destruction of America’s health care system buff.ly/u2EyUzj

May this heartbreaking moment prompt us to come together around a vision of a health care system better for patients, providers, & public health Single payer is more effective, equitable, & efficient Thanks @abdulelsayed.bsky.social @awgaffney.bsky.social @nationalnurses.bsky.social & more for ⬇️

The reconciliation bill barreling forward in Congress towards Trump’s desk will inflict thousands of medically-preventable deaths annually to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. This is a horrifying assault on the health, medical care, and lives of our lower-income patients.

"Consider the mortality impacts of this legislation, which would save money mostly for the purpose of tax cuts for the wealthy." -- @awgaffney.bsky.social, of Cambridge Health Alliance, on estimated preventable deaths from #Medicaid cuts. www.medpagetoday.com/publichealth...

Our study examining health impacts — including deaths — from Medicaid cuts was just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine Overall, the Big, Beautiful Bill Act could lead to more than 16,500 medically-preventable deaths due to these cuts 🧵 www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

The Medicaid cuts in Trump's budget bill are projected to cause more than 16,500 premature deaths ANNUALLY. Over 1.9 MILLION people could lose access to a physician. Over 1.3 MILLION people could go without needed medications. Americans will die for billionaires to thrive.

Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 preventable deaths annually The cuts would also result in 7.6 million people losing coverage www.statnews.com/2025/06/16/m...

Proposed Medicaid cuts could lead to thousands of deaths, study finds www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

[email protected] has a forum asking "How Did We Fare on COVID-19", centered on Macedo & Lee's critique of our pandemic response — with responses from @cailinmeister.bsky.social & James Owen, @adamjkucharski.bsky.social, @jonathanpjwhite.bsky.social, and myself. Interesting discussion...

Using original survey data from April, @povertyscholar.bsky.social and I demonstrate three key themes about public opinion about Medicaid: 1) people support the program -- including across red (74%) and blue (78% states) {thread}

Our study examining health impacts — including deaths — from Medicaid cuts was just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine Overall, the Big, Beautiful Bill Act could lead to more than 16,500 medically-preventable deaths due to these cuts 🧵 www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

“If Congress passes this law, it is saying quite clearly that the health and the lives of the poor matter less than the bank balances of the wealthy.” @awgaffney.bsky.social on his new study showing the health impacts that will come from Trump's "big beautiful bill." gizmodo.com/trumps-big-b...

🚨3 medical journals have received letters from federal prosecutors questioning their editorial processes.🚨 Medscape first covered this — my response below — now in multiple publications. www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

A new study confirms that Medicaid work requirement take away people's healthcare with zero effect on employment. This confirms earlier studies of Sommers et al. with a much larger survey (ACS). I put key results for Arkansas in figure below; the DiD results are consistent. 1/X

A federal prosecutor sent a letter to the @accpchest.bsky.social editor-in-chief, probing whether the publication is "partisan" when it comes to "various scientific debates." @awgaffney.bsky.social www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

From reporting I’ve seen, at least 3 essential federal health surveys are at risk of being destroyed by cuts: (1) Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) (2) Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) (3) National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Are there others?

Members of the Harvard faculty, we must not mince our words. This is an authoritarian, McCarthyite assault on academic freedom. This is repression & this is blackmail by a thuggish, corrupt, & law-breaking regime. Craven capitulation will only invite more repression. Fight back.

Members of the Harvard faculty, we must not mince our words. This is an authoritarian, McCarthyite assault on academic freedom. This is repression & this is blackmail by a thuggish, corrupt, & law-breaking regime. Craven capitulation will only invite more repression. Fight back.

I do not feel that it is hysterical overreach to label this form of virulent, unhinged xenophobic rhetoric & policy — coming from the very top of the US government — a species of fascism.

Have not read "Abundance" yet, but the essay I wrote for Phenomenal World last year critiqued a supply-side "abundance"-oriented vision for healthcare. Central to argument is that for services whose basic value rests fundamentally on time spent delivering them —e.g. healthcare

Even after the Covid vaccine was available, I continued to see unvaccinated patients with overwhelming Covid pneumonia in the ICU, some who died. Vaccine hesitancy is a real and complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Now they are banning NIH from studying it.

Here's a key datapoint when considering the Trump administration's plan to fire 80,000 workers at the VA. The VA is **already** more administratively lean than the private healthcare sector, with 22.5% of its workforce in administration, vs. 29.3% in private sector.

“Post-vaccination syndrome” is a dubious diagnosis based on shaky science. In this article I describe what was wrong with the recent Yale study that claimed to uncover its biology, and which went viral on right-wing anti-vaccination Twitter. www.statnews.com/2025/03/03/p...

“Post-vaccination syndrome” is a dubious diagnosis based on shaky science. In this article I describe what was wrong with the recent Yale study that claimed to uncover its biology, and which went viral on right-wing anti-vaccination Twitter. www.statnews.com/2025/03/03/p...

The people responsible will never have to see, with their own eyes, the suffering and deaths this will inflict.

You let an anti-vaccine zealot take charge of our nation’s leading health agency.

Passage of the House Budget resolution is a major step forward for Congressional Republican goal of slashing Medicaid funding by up to $880 billion.

Deep cuts to Medicaid — which could take healthcare coverage and services from millions — will no doubt be framed by the White House as mere efficiency measures to reduce fraud and waste, not as what they are, which are deep cuts.

Spoke with @awgaffney.bsky.social about RFK's now-sealed nomination to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—and why it's dark days for the country's public health. gizmodo.com/its-official...

Trump has said he will "love and cherish" Medicaid but the just released House Budget resolution calls for enormous, $880 billion cuts from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which would seem to require giant Medicaid cuts . 1/3

The chance that an asteroid named “2024 YR4” will hit earth in 2032 has risen from 1.2% to 2.2%, apparently.

In my 20s and 30s, I had no access to health insurance. Once I was kicked off my parents' plan post-college, I couldn't afford my own plan until the ACA launched. I took a LOT of damage in those years from untreated chronic conditions. It's not physician underutilization; it's unaffordability.

Meanwhile, Congress is poised to advance a devastating attack on Medicaid, relied upon tens of millions of working class Americans. These billionaire kleptocrats are ready & willing to sacrifice however many lives necessary to incrementally expand their account balances.

Very believable, these people are only invested in fighting antisemitism at Harvard Medical School, they are of course not trying to quash dissent about US support for atrocities committed by the Israeli military, they only care about fighting bigotry, of course, of course.