By MICHAEL MILLENSON
January
In a blistering commentary, the American Medical Association’s flagship journal, JAMA, condemns the corrosive effect on patient care of the profit-seeking practices of health insurers. Separately, the organization announces that it’s selling the 13 journals in its JAMA Network to a private equity firm for $375 million “in order to enhance our mission of promoting the betterment of public health.”
February
Quickly following up on a campaign pledge to slash the federal budget, the Trump administration announces a radical consolidation of various entities at the Department of Health and Human Services. The new organization will be known as the Agency and Bureau for Children, Drugs, Explosives, Firearms, Families and Food (ABCDEFFF). Reflecting the new president’s strong personal preferences, “alcohol” will no longer be permitted in any agency name.
March
Bipartisan legislation demanding transparency from Pharmacy Benefit Managers dies in committee after industry executives explain that secret rebates to PBMs are like secret political action committee contributions to politicians: they allow you to loudly proclaim you’re an “advocate” for those supposedly paying you while actually serving the interests of those who are really paying you.
April
Pfizer announces that its once-a-day pill version of the wildly successful GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs will shortly be submitted for government approval, and also that the company is moving its headquarters from New York to Louisiana, a state with a 40 percent obesity rate. Coincidentally, Louisiana is also the home state of Republican senators Cassidy and Kennedy, senior members of the Senate committees overseeing health care and all federal appropriations.
May
The new private equity owners of the JAMA Network say that all staff except one editor at each journal will be replaced by ChatGPT. A source at the private equity firm tells the Wall Street Journal that OpenAI won out over Gemini “because our CEO is a Leo” and over Claude “because nobody likes the French.”
June
Controversial right-wing firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, long the subject of rumors that she’s had cosmetic surgery, is diagnosed with a serious infection after an unspecified procedure. The House quickly schedules its first hearing on medical error in over two decades, but then cancels when the American Hospital Association points out the official term for what the Georgia Republican contracted was a “healthcare-associated infection,” so it’s entirely possible she accidentally brought the infection with her to the pristine hospital. Meanwhile, with House leadership telling Members they were free to vote their conscience, a resolution to send Greene a “Get Well” card passes unanimously after deletion of the word, “Soon.”
July
Following through on years of promises to reveal a “really great” replacement for the Affordable Care Act, President Trump on July 4 announces the “100-100-100” Make America Healthy Again plan. In keeping with the GOP’s advocacy for “skinny” plans with low premiums that encourage “consumers” to “comparison shop,” the plan will cover 100 percent of any medical bill for up to $100 a day for a premium of just $100 a month. Separately, Elon Musk tells a meeting of health insurance executives the plan can also replace both Medicare and Medicaid, enabling the federal government to cut spending by almost as much as the market capitalization of Tesla.
August
Before Congress recesses, a coalition of progressive organizations issues a press release declaring that all basic health services, whether provided by government agencies or the private sector, should be “available to the entire population according to its needs.” Shortly afterwards, the coalition is forced to make an embarrassing retraction after ChatGPT alerts the lone editor of JAMA that the coalition accidentally re-released a section of the report of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, formed in 1927.
September
The Business Roundtable says its members are committed to improving the quality of health care for all employees because “quality health care is good business.” An 85-year-old freelancer for The New York Times notes that this was the exact title of a September, 1997 policy paper by a Roundtable task force in which an executive for Sears, which at the time operated over 3,500 stores, declares, “We believe that quality health care is lower-cost health care.” Sears currently has about a dozen stores.
October
Medicare Advantage plans step up their advertising expenditures after public opinion polls show that nobody anymore believes the portrayal of happy and healthy seniors playing pickleball instead of writing tear-soaked letters pleading for approval of hip surgery. The trade associations for hospitals, drug and device companies and PBMs call on Congress to provide greater oversight of greedy insurers. The editor of JAMA resigns after ChatGPT writes an editorial extolling the merits of MA plans run by for-profit companies.
November
The National Rural Health Association says that in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, its members will accept live turkeys in partial payment of the medical debts that now affect 99.99 percent of all Americans after passage of the administration’s “100-100-100” Make America Healthy Again plan. A KFF survey explains that the number is not 100 percent because Congress retained conventional health insurance for itself and top federal officials and because America’s billionaires had opted for self-pay.
December
A Washington Post editorial declares, “The bottom line is that if we want to contain spending, we will have to make critical choices about how care is delivered, to whom, and under what conditions.” Different chatbots differ on where that quote originally came from, but agree that if any humans believe the American public is ready to make critical choices, they’re hallucinating.
Michael L. Millenson is president of Health Quality Advisors & a regular THCB Contributor
