Few patients appeal a health insurance denial, but a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment. Here’s what experts say you need to know.

Republicans refused to renew ACA subsidies. Premiums will spike, and millions will lose coverage. Meanwhile in Japan, universal health care is taken for granted—and it works. @citizencohn.bsky.social shows what a better system looks like, and what America is choosing to give up.

Only in America!

Everyone should read this paper, especially in light of the FDA’s new attacks on science and vaccines as reported today in the Washington Post.

“I had hemophilia for nearly five decades. I went to Philadelphia and had a 45-minute infusion, and my hemophilia was gone.” Genes-> Medicine nature.com/articles/s41...

Yale & Penn found that literally tens of thousands of people will die because of the Trump Administration’s cuts to healthcare. I will never stop fighting for a right to quality, affordable care for every American. ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/res...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: THE DEFINITIVE AMERICAN METAPHOR

We were actually getting somewhere, too. 😞 @sbmitche.bsky.social www.library.hbs.edu/working-know...

NEW: If you've ever fought with your health insurer -- and, let's be honest, who hasn't? -- then this explainer on external reviews from @deldeib.bsky.social of @propublica.org will surely help you. www.propublica.org/article/heal...

Just gonna keep tapping the sign* *𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦

I miss my 50-year streak of not knowing who the Secretary of Health is or anything about them.

Susan Monarez says RFK Jr. told her to commit to decisions in advance, without reviewing evidence and to dismiss vaccine experts.

BALDWIN: We're left wondering who's advising Kennedy or if his own conspiracy theories are enough to dictate who can get a vaccine. Did you ever brief him? HOURY: No B: You were chief medical officer at CDC. Would you say it's harmful to the public if he's not informed by experts? H: Very much so

On the Trump administration's cruel disbanding of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium: my op-ed @statnews.com My 12-year-old son died from brain cancer. This research would have helped children like him www.statnews.com/2025/09/15/p...

The effect on premiums if enhanced ACA tax credits expire is confusing. Average out-of-pocket premiums would increase by over 75% with smaller tax credits. Total premiums charged by insurers would also increase 4 percentage points more than expected as healthier people drop coverage.

extremely funny

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

I wrote about Trumpian culture, the Liver King, scams, frauds, corruption—and the new structural economic and political incentives that have caused us to enter a new era of inequality dominated by hucksters, which I call: The Grifted Age. www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-grifte...

Early reports of a school shooting this morning at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis (I was baptized at the church there). As always: it's the guns. The US is the only country in the world that politically tolerates and legally ensures the routine mass slaughter of its own citizens.

It's time to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr from government before he kills us all

Are vaccines safe? Let's ask this guy who sounds like a dying refrigerator compressor

RFK Jr. will kill Americans, sure as death. You have the GOP to thank you for that.

There can’t be any gun restrictions because we have to protect against federal government tyranny, and if kids get shot we just have to live with it. Also the President can send troops to cities because the federal government can do whatever it wants. These two ideas are consistent and reasonable.

Dr. Michael Osterholm cuts to the chase on why cutting mRNA research funding is such a dangerous idea.

“Trump calls our trade deficits a ‘50 year emergency’ — that’s an oxymoron… I have a chronic, incurable trade deficit with my barber. I buy a haircut from her, she buys nothing from me.” Conservative George Will clowns Trump’s trade war, says Congress has abandoned their duties

1/ Wow—a devastating column by Michael Bloomberg, on his namesake Bloomberg News, about RFK Jr. No pay wall.

The Supreme Court should preserve the status quo until legal questions are resolved and explain the disposition of cases for the public. They are abdicating basic principles of equity and failing to fulfill their institutional role. They aren’t pretending to try. There isn’t even the veneer of law.

This is really well described, and since it’s REALLY important these days (trade deficits, tariffs, trade wars and how stupid Trump and his people are about the economy), you should definitely watch it, and definitely share it. Every single repost does some real good.

Torres: If the bill is so popular, why are the cuts largely delayed until after the midterm election? And if the bill surgically targets fraud, waste and abuse, why is it necessary to set up a $50 billion stabilization fund for rural hospitals?

“This is Trumpcare. And Trumpcare means 15 to 17 million Americans more not having coverage. It means rural hospitals closing across this country. And when you decimate a critical leg of the health care stool, you are impacting all patients who will see higher premiums, see longer wait times.”

The myth of able-bodied adults abusing Medicaid debunked “Among adults under age 65 with Medicaid who do not receive benefits from the Social Security..programs..92% were working full or part-time..or not working due to caregiving responsibilities..illness or disability..or school attendance”

More than 16 million Americans are at risk of losing their health care because Republicans in Congress are rushing to pass a bill that would cut federal funding for Medicaid and weaken the Affordable Care Act.

But “we’re broke”, right? We can’t afford health care, housing, education, etc right? A budget is a moral document. 🇺🇸

Trump's big, ugly bill just got uglier. It strips healthcare and food assistance from millions, guts clean energy tax credits, and adds $4 TRILLION to the U.S. debt. All to give tax breaks to billionaires. I'm heading to DC to vote NO.

Murkowski and Sullivan voting for this is single most cruel, irresponsible vote they have ever taken. They are willing to see tens of thousands of Americans die. Sullivan is up in 2026. Boot him out. Collins voted to proceed. End her career.

It’s a terrible bill. It will literally kill people. The most vulnerable among us will suffer as the wealthiest benefit. It’s perverse. I wish there were something I could do. But alas, I am only a U.S. Senator from Alaska whose “no” vote would kill the bill. So I voted yes. You get it.

the Senate's small-state ultra-bias is never more maddening than when one senator uses it to get benefits for her 740,000 constituents while openly acknowledging the bill she's supporting will harm the nation's 339 million other residents.

Incredible — a plain-faced ‘soak the poor’ agenda.

Our own @stuartpstevens.bsky.social lays bare what Trump's Big Stupid Bill means: hospital closures, loss of healthcare, and everyone but the billionaires get screwed. Watch him on @msnbc.com

If Dems and their backers are not right now cutting ads featuring Tillis to be played in Maine, Alaska, Missouri, Louisiana, and elsewhere, it’s political malpractice.

New, from me: They are trying to shove through the massive reconciliation bill as quickly as possible. Stepping back, the bill is: *an assault on the poor to benefit the richest *an assault on freedom *an assault on the future donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-re...

I want to be very clear about what’s happening: Senate Republicans know the parliamentarian will say they can’t use 312 to pretend tax cuts are free (because two have two Byrd rule problems). So they are refusing to meet with her so they can pretend they never ignored her when they do it anyway.

On tonight's @lastweektonight.com, John Oliver cited @savmargaret.bsky.social's reporting about the bureaucratic hurdles and technical glitches Georgians have faced under the state's Medicaid work mandate, as the GOP rushes to implement a national work requirement: propub.li/4kfg2SE

The nonpartisan CBO’s preliminary analysis of the Senate’s Big Ugly Bill shows that  the Republican plan will cut Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion.

Tillis: What do I tell 663,000 people in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of medicaid because the funding's not there anymore, guys?

“ This bill will raise your electricity costs and cook the planet to give tax cuts to the richest people ever.” - Sen Schatz “Trump is jamming through a bill that rips away health care, closes hospitals, raises grocery and utility bills to give tax breaks to billionaires.” - Sen Warren

Pretty simple Dem message: If it’s a good thing to exempt individuals in the two “noncontiguous” states from health care cuts—which the Republicans have conceded it is—let’s do the right thing and exempt Americans in the other 48 states. By defeating this bill.