The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

With the Congress adjourned for summer recess and the mid-terms now 83 days away, August is a good time to discuss substantive or systematic HC reform. Listeners, and/or anyone paying attention to mid-term campaigns and primaries (think: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed) are well aware healthcare is again on life-support largely due to increasing unaffordability and political acquiescence.
In “Beyond Medicare for All,” Mr. Terry essentially argues healthcare can be achieved without dismantling private insurance or expanding single-payer government health delivery by creating a bifurcated or two-tiered delivery and financing model that would be led in part by independent primary care physicians.
Information regarding Mr. Terry’s book is available via his website at: https://kevinmd.com/post-author/ken-terry


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As everyone is well aware, healthcare, particularly acute care (think: hospitals) has become increasingly more unaffordable. For the four-year period ending next year ERISA or employer-sponsored health insurance plans will increase employee premiums by ~25%; this year the average employee family premium is ~$27,000; by the end of this year six million are expected to lose ACA coverage; and, to really on one’s surprise a recent survey found less half of Americans, regardless of income, believe they have the ability to pay for needed medical visits.
The answer seems to be legislating hospital price transparency. Earlier this month both the House Energy and Commerce and the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) committees passed price T bills out of committee. Regarding the Senate effort, HELP Committee Chair, Dr. Bill Cassidy, stated, “I'm very optimistic that it will pass . . . and I'm confident that it will."
Information on Turquoise Health is at: https://turquoise.health/patients.
Testimony presented during the June 10 House E&C hearing noted during this interview is at: https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-lowering-health-care-costs-all-americans-examining-policies.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

In May 2024, Vermont enacted entirely unprecedented legislation that attempts to mitigate climate-charged disaster events and associated financial fallout inflicted on Vermont residents.
Vermont climate superfund legislation, followed seven months later by New York (and presently pursued by at least ten other states), is in response to climate-charged disaster events that over the ten- yr period ending in ’25 cost Vermonters upwards of ~$2 billion. The legislation, premised on a deeply entrenched polluter pay principle, e.g., modeled after the federal toxic waste Superfund program, requires so called carbon majors, here oil and gas companies, to meet their unpaid, externalized costs by making compensatory payments. New York law is targeting a $75 billion fund. These dedicated funds will generally finance climate adaptation and infrastructure resiliency. Not surprisingly, these laws face of aggressive legal challenges by among others the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, West Virginia-led state attorneys general and the Trump administration that has filed federal lawsuits against both VT and NY. Among numerous related interviews, listeners will recall I discussed advances in attribution science with Stanford’s Chris Callahan in May 2025.
Information re: Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act is at: https://climatechange.vermont.gov/climate-superfund.
Information re: Vermont’s Conservation Law Foundation is at: https://www.clf.org/serving-new-england/vermont/.
(Apologies to Ms. Mihaly, at one point I call her Emily!?!)


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

During this podcast I read part two of a draft, yet-to-be-published essay titled, “Institutional Betrayal: HHS and the National Academy of Medicine’s Failure to Decarbonize the US healthcare Industry.” That the window formally closed in January 2025 means healthcare will not approach reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in 2030. HHS will continue to intentionally fund the industry’s harm-treat-harm business model meaning healthcare is by design traumatic. Iatrogenesis is built-in. Americans will become increasingly consumed by, not consumers of, healthcare.
Comments are of course welcomed.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

During this podcast I read part one of a draft, yet-to-be-published essay titled, “Institutional Betrayal: HHS and the National Academy of Medicine’s Failure to Decarbonize the US healthcare Industry.” That the window formally closed in January 2025 means healthcare will not approach reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in 2030. HHS will continue to intentionally fund the industry’s harm-treat-harm business model meaning healthcare is by design traumatic. Iatrogenesis is built-in. Americans will become increasingly consumed by, not consumers of, healthcare.
Comments are of course welcomed.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com