American Healthcare continues to go backward

[OrangeFan69]

America gets such little bang for the buck in healthcare.

If either political party committed to subpoenas for Healthcare, Pharma and Insurance CEOs and held their feet to their fire and caused change they could run on that for multiple election cycles. It's unfortunate that very few politicians have the political gumption to do the right thing.

It's part of the reason people like Bernie Sanders. He calls out the BS

 

[RxCowboy]

America gets such little bang for the buck in healthcare.

If either political party committed to subpoenas for Healthcare, Pharma and Insurance CEOs and held their feet to their fire and caused change they could run on that for multiple election cycles. It's unfortunate that very few politicians have the political gumption to do the right thing.

It's part of the reason people like Bernie Sanders. He calls out the BS

It depends entirely on what you mean by “bang for the buck”. On the high end we are still the world innovators. When someone needs innovative, highest end healthcare they still look to the United States to provide it. It’s providing primary care and preventive care where we fail, well, and getting people to live basic healthy lives… public health.

Most people toddle along in their basic unhealthy lives not accessing basic primary and preventative care because they can’t afford it and/or they don’t believe in it until they have a catastrophic health event. Then they access really expensive care, which they also can’t afford, when much less expensive care might have prevented the catastrophic event. I’ve spent my whole career trying to prevent the catastrophic events.

It’s not just the system though. My “specialty” is cardiovascular risk reduction. I just underwent my annual review. One of my performance measures is percentage of diabetics and patients with 10 year cardiovascular risk greater than 7.5% on statins. But here in Nothern Michigan there is a strong anti-statin, statins reduce the risk of heart attack (and stroke to a lesser extent), bias and it is a performance measure that my supervisor admits is impossible for me to achieve because of that. It is societal. Look at the MAHA movement and the antivaxxers. These people are actually anti things that reduce healthcare costs.

Congress might be able to call some pharma and insurance CEOs to the carpet, but what can they do about anti-statin and anti-vax in Northern Michigan?

 

[steross]

America gets such little bang for the buck in healthcare.

If either political party committed to subpoenas for Healthcare, Pharma and Insurance CEOs and held their feet to their fire and caused change they could run on that for multiple election cycles. It's unfortunate that very few politicians have the political gumption to do the right thing.

It's part of the reason people like Bernie Sanders. He calls out the BS

The CEOs would simply point to the fact that they are fully following the laws that congress has made. The congress has made the laws that overwhelmingly favor them due to lobbying.

To fix this, congress will be required to go against their own personal best interest and for the American people. So far, it is better for them to scream "Socialism" or "they want to take your Medicare" rather than fix anything.

 

[steross]

San Francisco files 1st-of-its-kind lawsuit against largest ultraprocessed food manufacturers

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Kellogg, and Kraft Heinz are some of the 10 major corporations being sued by San Francisco, which is arguing they unfairly marketed ultraprocessed foods and products they knew would make people sick.

abc7news.com

This could be huge if successful somehow.

San Francisco files 1st-of-its-kind lawsuit against largest ultraprocessed food manufacturers​

Bay City News
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 10:11PM

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco filed a lawsuit Tuesday against several major companies that manufacture ultra-processed foods, alleging that the corporations knowingly created unhealthy and addictive products in order to boost sales.

"These products in our diets are deeply linked to serious health conditions," said City Attorney David Chiu in a speech during a briefing on the lawsuit. "Our case is about companies who designed food to be harmful and addictive and marketed their products to maximize profits."

Ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, are foods that have been created with chemical additives that have limited nutritional value and little to no food uses outside of processing. They include products like certain brands of chips, boxed macaroni, breakfast cereals, soda, cheese, candies, and processed meats.

Chiu stood in his office along with supporters of the suit like Supervisor Shamann Walton, San Francisco Public Health Director Daniel Tsai, and several members of the medical field.

"Ultra processed foods themselves cause unique health risks because of their chemicals and because of how those chemicals are combined," Chiu said. "You can see a few of the worst offenders right there."
Chiu pointed to a table covered in products considered to be ultra-processed, such as Oreo cookies, Lunchables, Cheetos, Hot Pockets, and Pringles.

"My mother used to bribe me with Pringles to get me into the pool to take swim lessons," Chiu said. "I still crave them to this day, but just in recent months, I've learned about the specific harms of just this product alone."

Studies have shown that overconsumption of UPFs can lead to adverse health conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and depression.

The suit was filed against major food manufacturing companies including The Kraft Heinz Company, Mondelez International, The Coca-Cola Company, Nestle USA, General Mills, PepsiCo, Kellanova, WK Kellogg Co., Mars Incorporated, Conagra Brands, and Post Holdings.

 

[cowboyinexile]

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[RxCowboy]

To fix this, congress will be required to go against their own personal best interest and for the American people. So far, it is better for them to scream "Socialism" or "they want to take your Medicare" rather than fix anything.

Even if they "fix" it they can't make people do what is needed to be done to actually reduce costs, like live healthier lives. You can lead a horse to water...

 

[RxCowboy]

"My mother used to bribe me with Pringles to get me into the pool to take swim lessons," Chiu said. "I still crave them to this day, but just in recent months, I've learned about the specific harms of just this product alone."

The problem is proving cause and effect, which is damn near impossible. His evidence is going to be shredded by defense experts. Yet, it's pretty damn simple, eat garbage food and you get fat, and the more garbage food you eat the fatter you get, and losing weight after getting fat on garbage food isn't as simple as stopping eating garbage food.

 

[Polds4OSU]

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted to end a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

http://www.wpbf.com/article/cdc-review-hep-b-birth-dose/69644752

 

[Polds4OSU]

534K views · 18K reactions | Can the people who never took a chemistry class, please stop ‘teaching’ us about chemistry? 🙃 | Jessica Knurick, PhD, RD

Can the people who never took a chemistry class, please stop ‘teaching’ us about chemistry? 🙃

www.facebook.com

 

[cowboyinexile]

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted to end a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

http://www.wpbf.com/article/cdc-review-hep-b-birth-dose/69644752

Hope you don't need a new liver in about 40-50 years.

 

[steross]

Hope you don't need a new liver in about 40-50 years.

As someone who has held a kid as he died from hepatocellular carcinoma while his mom laid her head on his chest and cried this makes me sick.

 

[cowboyinexile]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/ozempic-glp1-consumer-spending/?utm_campaign=wp_must_reads&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Now for some good news. We talk about healthier lifestyles improving health which seems obvious. According to this people on GLP-1 medication are eating healthier and exercising more.

As someone on the medication I can concur. Im down about 35 lbs since August and Im certainly eating healthier and getting more exercise. It helps that I moved in October and now have room for a designated exercise space but energy levels are night and day. It also comments on lower alcohol intake. I stopped drinking before I got on the medication (it was weight gain after stopping drinking that led me to the medication) so I don't know personally but I do know others on it who have limited or eliminated alcohol intake afterwards.

I know there are some who question the effectiveness of the medication and a lot of patients who just think its a magic shot and you don't need to do anything different with your lifestyle but if you do it right you end up doing some of the stuff you should have been doing in the first place.

 

[steross]

I remember years ago in the Air Force I trained for CCAT- critical care air transport. A pretty cool program, but the flight nurses who escorted the regular patients were considered flight crew and the CCAT team taking care of the critical patients were medical. Therefore, they had mandated breaks and sleep time, we did not and just kept working. This crazy double standard was never more apparent until that moment.

 

[RxCowboy]

I remember years ago in the Air Force I trained for CCAT- critical care air transport. A pretty cool program, but the fight nurses who escorted the regular patients were considered flight crew and the CCAT team taking care of the critical patients were medical. Therefore, they had mandated breaks and sleep time, we did not and just kept working. This crazy double standard was never more apparent until that moment.


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Can we talk about Walgreens and CVS?

 

[KK10]

Can we talk about Walgreens and CVS?

Sure
Dunno about CVS, but I can vouch for Walgreen's being a trash company and I'd encourage anyone who will listen to shop elsewhere. They treat their pharmacists like garbage and I'll never forgive them for the way they treated my Dad.
Walgreen's can choke on a chicken and I've told them so personally.

 

[RxCowboy]

Sure
Dunno about CVS, but I can vouch for Walgreen's being a trash company and I'd encourage anyone who will listen to shop elsewhere. They treat their pharmacists like garbage and I'll never forgive them for the way they treated my Dad.
Walgreen's can choke on a chicken and I've told them so personally.

CVS is an order of magnitude worse.

 

[Polds4OSU]

CVS is an order of magnitude worse.

Our insurance forces us to buy through CVS because thye OWN CVS

If we don't buy through CVS we can only get 30 day supplies and lose our insurance coverage on 90 day supplies

 

[steross]

Health insurance premiums rose nearly 3x the rate of worker earnings over the past 25 years

While hospital CEO salaries and health insurance premiums have increased, health care quality has not.

theconversation.com

Health insurance premiums in the U.S. significantly increased between 1999 and 2024, outpacing the rate of worker earnings by three times, according to our newly published research in the journal JAMA Network Open.

……

Hospital CEOs prioritize profit​

Hospitals are aggressively raising their prices because hospital CEOs have incentives to do so.

One study found that for nonprofit health systems, the greatest pay increases between 2012 and 2019 went to hospital CEOs who grew the profits and size of their organizations the most. However, the financial reward of delivering above-average quality of care declined. Increased charity care – free or discounted health services nonprofit hospitals must provide some of their patients who cannot afford medical care – was not significantly tied to CEO compensation.

Board members set performance criteria that determine the base salary and bonus payments for CEOs. Over half of board members at top U.S. hospitals have professional backgrounds in finance or business. As a result, researchers and advocates have raised concerns that financial success is the dominant priority at these institutions.

 

[RxCowboy]

Health insurance premiums rose nearly 3x the rate of worker earnings over the past 25 years

While hospital CEO salaries and health insurance premiums have increased, health care quality has not.

theconversation.com

Health insurance premiums in the U.S. significantly increased between 1999 and 2024, outpacing the rate of worker earnings by three times, according to our newly published research in the journal JAMA Network Open.

……

Hospital CEOs prioritize profit​

Hospitals are aggressively raising their prices because hospital CEOs have incentives to do so.

One study found that for nonprofit health systems, the greatest pay increases between 2012 and 2019 went to hospital CEOs who grew the profits and size of their organizations the most. However, the financial reward of delivering above-average quality of care declined. Increased charity care – free or discounted health services nonprofit hospitals must provide some of their patients who cannot afford medical care – was not significantly tied to CEO compensation.

Board members set performance criteria that determine the base salary and bonus payments for CEOs. Over half of board members at top U.S. hospitals have professional backgrounds in finance or business. As a result, researchers and advocates have raised concerns that financial success is the dominant priority at these institutions.

During my residency at Saints I had once sith down discussion with Bobby Thompson the CEO.* He said, and I quote, "There's no such thing as a non-profit."

*"sith down" was a typo but I decided to leave it.