Affordable Care Act Under Attack
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Aspirin News
In a study of more than 100,000 people, researchers found that people with a less healthy lifestyle (higher BMI, greater smoking, greater alcohol consumption, less physical activity, poorer diet quality) had a greater reduction in risk of colorectal cancer associated with aspirin use, compared to participants with a healthier lifestyle. Participants with a healthier lifestyle had a lower baseline risk of colorectal cancer, and their benefit was less pronounced. The study's findings could encourage a more nuanced approach to preventive aspirin use. (Mass Brigham General)
Talk to your doctor first because of the blood thinning properties of aspirin to see of it is safe for you.
Cancer and Younger People
Generation X and Millennials are at an increased risk of developing certain cancers compared with older generations, a shift that is probably due to generational changes in diet, lifestyle and environmental exposures, a large new study suggests.
In a new study published Wednesday in the Lancet Public Health journal, researchers from the American Cancer Society reported that cancer rates for 17 of the 34 most common cancers are increasing in progressively younger generations. The findings included:
Cancers with the most significant increased risk are kidney, pancreatic and small intestine, which are two to three times as high for millennial men and women as baby boomers.
Millennial women also are at higher risk of liver and bile duct cancers compared with baby boomers.
Although the risk of getting cancer is rising, for most cancers, the risk of dying of the disease stabilized or declined among younger people. But mortality rates increased for gallbladder, colorectal, testicular and uterine cancers, as well as for liver cancer among younger women.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 23.5 million patients who had been diagnosed with 34 types of cancer from 2000 to 2019. They also studied mortality data that included 7 million deaths from 25 types of cancer among people ages 25 to 84 in the United States. What this means is that the Law of Large Numbers is on their side and their results are statistically significant.
Screening for cancers at a younger age will help mitigate the damage as will having both doctors and patients aware of the increased risks. That way symptoms are not dismissed with no thought to cancer being a possible cause of symptoms. (Washington Post)
Pharmacy Benefit Managers - Congressional Budget Office
On May 23, 2024, the House Committee on the Budget convened a hearing at which Chapin White, the Congressional Budget Office’s Director of Health Analysis, testified about how consolidation among hospitals and physicians affects the federal budget.1 After the hearing, Chairman Jodey Arrington and Representatives Drew Ferguson and Rudy Yakym submitted questions for the record. The CBO’s answers are available at www.cbo.gov/publication/60278.
I don’t want to republish the entire list of questions and answers but here is a summary of the first one.
When asked if the integration of Pharmacy Nenefit Managers (PBMs) and Insurance companies and retail pharmacies had an effect - after lots of weasel words, the answer was that if PBMs and pharmacies were integrated then consumers get the short end of the stick. Again.
To quote “Recent evidence on that issue comes from a 2023 study by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) of six therapeutic classes of drugs.3 MedPAC found that in the majority of cases, the highest prices (net of manufacturers’ rebates) were paid by vertically integrated plans to vertically integrated pharmacies.”
Did you catch that? The objective Congressional Budget Office investigation found that when PBMs are vertically integrated they screw the consumer.
Another good reason to dump them and go with Universal Healthcare - where all prescription drugs are negotiated.
Attempts to Impede the ACA
An ongoing federal lawsuit aims to strike down the Affordable Care Act’s preventive care coverage requirements for private insurers. It would create an environment “in which insurers and employers pick and choose which services they want to cover or which services they want to charge for.
The suit is brought by a group of so-called Christian business people who don’t want their insurance plans to cover preventive HIV medications since it violate their religious rights. I’m not sure why but I will leave that to your imagination.
Determining what preventive services fall under ACA plans is the responsibility of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) They are advised by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) who make recommendations on other kinds of care that the ACA requires insurers to cover as well.
On June 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a ruling saying that the USPSTF had not been properly appointed, and therefore its recommendations made after the ACA was signed into law were unconstitutional - but they only applied the ruling to those who brought the case - not the whole country.
Plaintiff challenges to the recommendations made by HRSA and ACIP — including those on contraception were sent back to a lower court to consider. Reed O’Connor, a federal judge in Texas, is likely to get the case. He is well known as the judge who has issued decisions undermining the ACA, including a ruling striking down the entire law that the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned.
Apparently he is a “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, kind of a guy.
You already know what fixes this - It is Universal Healthcare. A public Insurance Trust paying private provides that negotiates all prescription drugs, covers preventive care, and has built in safe nursing staffing levels, and global budgets to make sure medical facilities can keep operating - all at more than $400 billion/year less than we pay now (per the 2020 Congressional Budget Office report).
ACTION
Call or email your Senators and Members of Congress and tell them that you favor Universal Healthcare, like HR 3421. You can reach them at this link, https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials.
Or use RESISTBOT via [Apple Messages / WHATSAPP / MESSENGER] or by texting SIGN PRHPNZ to 50409 on your cell phone to send that message to our Senators.
“I am your constituent and I want you to know that health care is under attack again. Vertically integrated Pharmacy Benefit Managers are cheating consumers, lawsuits pop up over and over about what medications and procedures the ACA should or should not cover. Enough is enough. Patients have a hard enough time getting to a doctor and trying to recover without pharmacy benefit managers cheating them on drug prices or special interest groups suing the government to make sure that preventive services are not covered.
We sent you to Congress to help us. So how about it? I want you to pass Universal Healthcare, like HR 3421, that will negotiate all drug prices, cover all of us cradle to grave and do it for $400 billion less each year (per the CBO).
Here is a link to a news story about the most recent attack on the Affordable Care Act and the link to the CBO report I mentioned.
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/lawsuit-could-change-state-rules-birth-control-coverage/
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56898
Thank you.”
Lecture/Notes on Private Equity
I have delivered lectures on private equity in the healthcare industry to communities that were seeking to keep public facilities public. If you’d like my presentation or would like me to present to your group just let me know in the comment section.
Resources
Find My Elected Officials
Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email
Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water RESISTBOT write up
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Increasing cancers among younger people may also be related to the now ubiquitous microplastics found in our foods, water, and now our bodies. Plastics are endocrine disruptors which is known to have an effect on cancer development.