The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

Dr. Adam Cunningham Discusses Medical Tourism

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:16:49 GMT

Listeners are all well aware US healthcare is increasingly unaffordable. Among other stats nearly 50% of Americas are either uninsured, at 8% or 27 million, or underinsured, at 41% or 120 million. Upwards of 4.8 million Americans are expected to drop their ACA coverage; the average commercial family plan comes w/a $6,800 annual premium and 42% of Americans are now enrolled in high-deductible commercial health plans. As a result 36% of all adults now skip or postpone medical care. Though I’ve likely previously cited, the Noble Prize-winning Princeton economist Angus Deaton concluded in 2020, the US healthcare industry,

“is a cancer at the heart of the economy, one that has widely metastasized, bringing down wages, destroying good jobs and making it harder and harder for state and federal governments to afford what their constituents need. Public purpose and wellbeing of ordinary people are being subordinated to the private gain of the already well off. None of this would be possible without acquiescence – and sometimes enthusiastic participation – of the politicians who are supposed to act in the interest of the public.”

Georgetown's Professor Katie Keith Unpacks HHS's Recent Proposed Affordable Care Act Rule

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 13:42:21 GMT

Over the past 12 years the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has reduced the total number of uninsured Americans and low-income individuals more specifically by over 50% and by over 66% for young adults. In 2025 the ACA insured a record breaking 45 million Americans: 24 million through the federal and state exchanges; and, 21 million via the ACA’s expansion of the Medicaid program. Having been under nearly continual attack by Republicans, the proposed 2027 ACA rule, announced February 9^th (with comments due March 13), was highly anticipated. Within a week after it was announced, Professor Keith and her colleague Matthew Fielder authored three lengthy essays unpacking numerous proposed rule provisions. Top of line the authors noted the proposed, if finalized, will decrease marketplace enrollment by 2 million in 2027 (marketplace enrollment is already down this year by one million due to the Congress’s refusal or failure to extend COVID-era enhanced premium tax credits) and will increase ACA-related reporting & record keeping by approximately $1.34 billion every year.

The first of three Health Affairs’ Forefront essays by Katie Keith and Matthew Fielder is at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/hhs-proposes-sweeping-changes-2027-marketplace-plans-part-1

The second is at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/hhs-proposes-sweeping-changes-2027-marketplace-plans-part-2

The third is at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/hhs-proposes-sweeping-changes-2027-marketplace-plans-part-3

The proposed rule is at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-11/pdf/2026-02769.pdf

CMS’ related press release is at: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/hhs-notice-benefit-payment-parameters-2027-proposed-rule

Professor Shannon Mussett Discusses Entropic Philosophy's Relevance to Our Health and Health Care

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:22:42 GMT

Podcast listeners are aware US healthcare, the largest industry in the world’s largest economy, consumes- and wastes a massive amount of carbon-based energy made painfully evident by the fact annual greenhouse gas emissions account for over 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. Healthcare’s extraordinary or excessive energy consumption means it is a high entropy producer, one that is s responsible for a great deal of (literally) unaccounted for waste, termed more formally negative externalities. What this means in sum is the US healthcare industry works directly against itself. For example, the annual social costs of just three industry greenhouse gas emissions are has high as more than total annual Medicare and Medicaid spending, or ~ $2 trillion. For this reasons and others entropic philosophy as a root metaphor can explain our infatuation with modern entropic nihilism and can offer or a way out of or overcoming it.

Prof. Mussett’s 2022 work, “Entropic Philosophy, Chaos, Breakdown and Creation,” is at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/entropic-philosophy-9781538165188/.

Drew Dalton’s related Aeon essay published last August and discussed here, “Reality is Evil,” is at: https://aeon.co/essays/philosophers-must-reckon-with-the-meaning-of-thermodynamics.

Attorney Alissa Smith Discusses Delivering Healthcare in the Face of (ICE) Immigration Enforcement

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 15:13:28 GMT

Listeners may recall I interviewed Ms. Smith early last March because the Trump administration immediately abandoned a decades old policy that forbade immigration enforcement at “protected [or sensitive] areas” that include healthcare facilities. Now a year later, ICE contingents have been sent to over 15 cities including of course Minneapolis. Beyond ICE arrest operations resulting in gunshot wounds, blunt force and psychological trauma and a constellation of subsequent health harms via arrest and detention, ICE agents have been appearing moreover in community health center and hospital ED waiting rooms, accessing facility medical examination rooms and pursuing Medicaid and other patient record resources. As a result, patients are effectively being “ICE-d Out of healthcare.” A recent Kaiser survey found, e.g., 14% of lawfully present immigrants, 8% of naturalized citizens and 48% of undocumented immigrant adults said they or a family member have avoided seeking medical care this year. In turn, healthcare providers are in sum left to determine how they can meet their professional responsibilities to effectively render timely care while managing or deescalating intimidation and avoiding possible obstruction charges.

The recently published JAMA article, “Patients Are Getting ICE-d Out of Health Care” is at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2845182.

The recently published Stateline article, “Health care workers want ICE Out of Hospitals, and Blue States Are Responding,” is at: https://stateline.org/2026/02/09/health-care-workers-want-ice-out-of-hospitals-and-blue-states-are-responding/.

Resources for the Future Senior Fellow (and Former EPA Official) Dr. Bryan Hubbell Discusses the EPA's Assault on Clean Air

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:31:46 GMT

Over the past few weeks the Trump administration has significantly upped its game to eliminate greenhouse gas regulations that protect human and global health. The Sabin Center on Climate Change Law’s “Climate Backtracker” database presently identifies over 320-related administrative and regulatory actions that in sum undermine the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Most recently, the US has withdrawn from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and 65 other related international organizations, rescinded National Environmental Protection Act’s (NEPA) implementing regulations and moved to roll back automotive fuel efficiency standards by nearly 33%. Concerning the Clean Air Act, initially passed in 1963, the EPA is expected to soon finalize a 2025 proposed rule to rescind its Endangerment Finding that provides the legal basis for the agency to regulate six greenhouse gasses and recently announced the agency is no longer estimating the monetary value of lives saved in establishing the limits of two major air pollutants: ozone; and, fine particulate matter frequently noted as PM 2.5.

The Columbia University Sabin Center “Climate Backtracker” database is at: https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/climate-backtracker.

Information on Resources for the Future is at: .https://www.rff.org/.

Dr. Hubbell’s bio is at: https://www.rff.org/people/bryan-hubbell/.

Prof. John Abraham Discusses the Ongoing and Outrageous Rise in Ocean Heat Content

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:04:05 GMT

To begin my 14th year of podcasting, my 335th interview is with John Abraham, Professor of Thermal Science and Fluid Mechanics at the University of St. Thomas. Prof. Abraham joins me for a fifth time or for a fifth consecutive year to discuss ocean warming in 2025 and the increasingly frightening consequences thereof.

Last Friday, Prof Abraham along with 54 research colleagues published in “Advances in Atmospheric Sciences” the article, “Ocean Heat Content Sets Another Record in 2025.” Their research found that in 2025 oceans absorbed 23 zetajoules (n followed by 21 zeros) of heat (30% more than in ’2024), a finding consistent with the fact that nearly every year since the start of the millennium has sent a new ocean heat record. In turn, the authors note long-term ocean heat accumulation contributed to extreme climate-related events in 2025 that included increasingly intense tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, heavier downpours (e.g., in late October Central Vietnam received 5.5 feet of rain in 24 hours), greater flooding, landslides, wildfires, longer marine heatwaves, increasingly decimated sea life, ice sheet loss and sea level rise that in sum impacted billions around the world. As I noted in previous years, ocean surface temps are now warming 40 times faster than 40 years ago. Because ocean heat content plays a fundamental role in the Earth’s energy, water and carbon cycles, warming ocean temperatures disrupt marine life that substantially threaten the availability of food we eat and the oxygen we breathe.

Abraham and colleagues’ article, “Ocean Heat Content Sets Another Record in 2025,” is at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-026-5876-0.

Child Psychiatrist Frank Putnam Discusses His Soon-To-Be-Published book, "Old Before Their Time, A Scientific Life Investigating How Maltreatment Harms Children and the Adults They Become"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:03:44 GMT

At least one in four girls suffers childhood sexual abuse. For example, the Department of Justice (DoJ) concluded Jeffery Epstein trafficked over 1,000 girls, some as young as 14. Nevertheless, six years after Epstein’s reported suicide, the Trump Administration’s 2026 budget proposes to entirely delete a subsection of federal law that requires DoJ’s Office of Violence Against Women to be “a separate and distinct office” and proposes to cut the Office of Violence Against Women’s budget by nearly 30%. Per the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study, launched over 25 yrs ago, at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys are sexually abused. Among numerous other sobering stats, ACEs-related health consequences cost the US an estimated $14.1 trillion dollars annually in direct medical spending and lost healthy-life years. Dr. Frank Putnam, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the U. of North Carolina’s Medical School who has spent his 35-year professional life investigating the effects of childhood sexual abuse on child development and adult outcomes, has recently completed “Old Before their Time” an autobiographical account of his research work and findings. In Dr. van der Klok’s introduction to the book, he states childhood sexual abuse “embeds itself in a child’s mind, body and behavior and is expressed across generations.” Deterrence “is the most powerful target for the prevention of mental illness and for reducing premature death from common illnesses.”

Information regarding “Old Before Their Time” is at: https://www.amazon.com/Old-Before-Their-Time-Investigating/dp/1032974826.

Dr. Frank Putman’s bio is at: https://www.med.unc.edu/psych/people/frank-w-putnam-md/.

Harvard Professor Eram Alam Discusses Her Just-Published Book, "The Care of Foreigners, How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:55:35 GMT

The US has effectively always suffered a physician shortage. Last year the AMA estimated a shortage of 86,000 by 2035. US policymakers have since 1965 addressed this problem by recruiting foreign born physicians (termed Foreign Medical Graduates or FMGs), mostly from Southeast Asia, largely India. Today FMEs, that account for 25-30% of the physician workforce, are disproportionately employed in Health Professional Shortage Areas or HPSAs in which there remains or persists a strong demand, e.g., HRSA recognizes over 7,500 primary care HPSAs. Nevertheless, Prof. Alam concludes stratifying our medical system can be interpreted in part as a cover up to a problem of long-term disinvestment in rural healthcare and minority health. Simply growing the work force has had, Prof Alam argues, both a minimal impact on the equitable distribution of US healthcare resources while intensifying global health inequalities resulting from substantial brain drain.

Information about Prof. Alam’s book is at: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53838/care-foreigners?srsltid=AfmBOopgVAOX_1s9S7NaIMoKsXgrUS2htC4_HaE0zTYDrfQJltnIpRK7.

Georgetown Professor Linda Blumberg Discusses Commercial Health Insurance "Middlemen"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 23:39:45 GMT

Over roughly the past year Prof. Blumberg and her Georgetown Center for Health Insurance Reform (CHIR) colleagues have been researching healthcare providers and payers increasing use of third-party entities they collectively termed “middlemen” with whom providers and payers contract to provide various supportive administrative or financial services. For example, payers frequently use of Third Party Administrators/TPAs and providers of Revenue Cycle Managers/RCMs. The use of middlemen is a problem because these entities are “rent seeking,” meaning they profit without creating new or additional value, thereby reducing economic efficiency and competition and driving prices up. In CHIR’s October report titled, The Complex Web of HC Fin Interests & Their Implication for Even Higher Spending,” Prof. Blumberg and her colleagues concluded relationships with middlemen have “resulted in a complex web of cost increasing incentives, money flows, and conflicts of interest. The complexity is so tremendous that it is virtually impossible to capture the entire picture of the existing financial relationships.” (Listeners may recall interviewed Leigh’s Prof. Katz-Olson in March 2022 regarding her related work, “Ethically Challenged, PE Storms US Health Care.”

CHIR writings discussed during this interview include:

https://chir.georgetown.edu/events/why-health-care-costs-are-rising-the-role-of-corporatization-and-bipartisan-solutions-to-increase-affordability/

https://chir.georgetown.edu/evidence-on-private-equity-suggests-that-containing-costs-and-improving-outcomes-may-go-hand-in-hand/

https://chir.georgetown.edu/third-party-administrators-the-middlemen-of-self-funded-health-insurance/

https://chir.georgetown.edu/independent-dispute-resolution-process-2024-data-high-volume-more-provider-wins/

CHIR’s publication page is at: https://chir.georgetown.edu/search/?filter=publications

Prof. Troy Brennan Discusses His Just-Published, "Wonderful and Broken, The Complex Reality of Primary Care in the US"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 14:44:48 GMT

Even though PC is the only component of healthcare shown to increase life expectancy and is crucial to achieving healthcare equity, outcomes, quality and value PC remains on life support. For example, an August National Academy of Medicine report concluded, “despite PC’s essential value for the health of the nation, more than 100 million people across rural and urban communities in the US are experiencing a calamitous lack of access to primary care.” Among numerous problems: PC accounts for less than 5% of total healthcare spending; there are too few primary care clinicians and too many, at 7,501, HRSA PC shortage areas; PC clinicians are inadequately reimbursed and maldistributed. Consequently, PC struggles to adequately address prevention, the social determinants of health, integrate care particularly behavioral health services and ultimately achieve optimal value. In “Wonderful and Broken,” Prof. Brennan discusses how PC care can be improved and organizations that are at least on the path toward stable and effective PC delivery. (Listeners may recall I interviewed Prof. Brennan in October 2024 regarding his just published previous work, “The Transformation of American Health Insurance” & that this is at least my 5^th PC discussion dating back to 2013.)

Information on Prof Brennan’s book is found at: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/54051/wonderful-and-broken?srsltid=AfmBOor4SJMCBvCYWck_6Aobdxk-ZUJgusnceOxxT-eghoU8CkPc3kMl.

Dr. Sachin Jain Discusses Ethical Erosion in Healthcare

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:33:13 GMT

Because healthcare today can be increasingly defined as commodified, expedient, financialized, myopic, reductionist and failing to transcend politics, the question of healthcare’s ethics or the roll ethics plays should play is increasingly begged. For example, last October Health Affairs launched an “Ethics and Health Systems Change” series that to date has simply complained about private equity and corporate medicine, federal immigration and gender care policies and de-professionalization. What fidelity does healthcare have to normative ethics when, for example, 27 million Americans and counting are uninsured, over 100 million lack a primary care provider and over 90 million cannot afford care if they needed today.

Dr. Jain, President and CEO of the SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan, discusses the causes of healthcare’s ethical erosion and how begged ethical issues or questions can be addressed.

The two Forbes articles authored by Dr Jain and discussed during this interview are at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sachinjain/2025/09/22/ethical-erosion-how-good-people-lose-their-way-in-healthcare/ and https://www.forbes.com/sites/sachinjain/2025/01/21/who-me-ethical-erosion-and-the-deafening-silence-of-americas-healthcare-leaders/.

Drs. Michael Liu and Rishi Wadhera Discuss CMS's WISeR Medicare Demonstration

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 19:21:50 GMT

This past summer CMS, more specifically CMMI, announced a six-year Medicare Part A demonstration that would require hospitals in six states to submit claims for prior authorization (PA) approval by non-medical, CMS-contracted, 3^rd party entities using enhanced technologies, i.e., AI, for 17 medical items and services. Private/commercial Medicare or Part C Medicare Advantage plans have for years extensively used PAs though data suggests Medicare Advantage PA use has been excessive, e.g., a very high percentage of PA denials are reversed upon appeal) and widely viewed as a tool to enhance profit taking. CMMI-contracted tech/AI companies will be compensated based on a share the money saved from PAs contractors’ deny though subject to meeting quality criteria. The WISeR demo has attached a fair amount of criticism, e.g., 12 Senate Democrats and 17 House Democrats each wrote letters to HHS/CMMI noting their concerns that include the demo will present patient roadblocks, cause some patients to abandon care, risk denying necessary care, inflict substantial administrative burden on clinicians, perversely incent AI contractors and they argued Americans do not want AI involved in their healthcare decisions.

The July 1 Federal Register WISeR notice is at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-07-01/pdf/2025-12195.pdf.

The CMS/CMMI WISeR website is at: https://www.cms.gov/priorities/innovation/innovation-models/wiser.

Liu and Wadhera’s NEJM Perspective essay re: the WISeR demo is at: https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMp2510451.

Don Berwick and Andrea Ducas’s STAT opinion essay re: the WISeR demo is at: https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/25/medicare-advantage-prior-authorization-cms-innovation-center-wiser-project/.

Mr. Michael Millenson Discusses the (Tragic) State of Patient Safety

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 23:29:48 GMT

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines patient safety as “a framework of organized activities to reduce risks, lower the occurrence of avoidable harm, make errors less likely, and minimize their impact when they occur.” Over this past summer the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) published three patient-safety reports. (Since 2008 the OIG has published at least 24 related studies.) One published in July found hospitals failed to capture half of harm events that occurred among hospitalized Medicare patients, few were investigated and even fewer led to hospitals making PS improvements. These findings were sadly unsurprising since the OIG previously found in 2008 that 27% of Medicare patients experienced harm during hospital stays, a decade later, or in 2018, still 25% experienced harm. In an July 24 OIG letter to CMS Administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the OIG noted in part that while CMS and states require hospitals to publicly report just 15 of 94 harm events, hospitals reported only 5 of 15, or 5% of all 94 harm events. HHS has yet to publicly respond to the OIG’s recent reports much less recognize them. Dedicated podcast listeners may recall I’ve previously discussed patient safety in 2015, 2017 and in 2020.

A summary of the HHS OIG’s adverse events/patient safety work with a list of its publications can be found at: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/featured/adverse-events/.

Information regarding Mr. Millenson is at: https://millenson.com/.

Mr. Millenson’s recent medical errors essay in Forbes is at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmillenson/2025/09/12/lessons-from-the-medical-error-that-orphaned-a-cabinet-secretary/.

Prof. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field Discusses Excess Deaths

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 13:41:01 GMT

Recently published research by Prof. Wrigley-Field and her colleagues found that between 1980 and 2023 the total number of US excess deaths equaled 14.7 million. Between 2010 and 2023 excess deaths ranged between 120% and 130% higher compared to other HIC (High Income Countries). Possibly more disturbing the authors found US excess deaths were moreover among working-age adults, for example, in 2023 excess deaths among US adults aged 25-44 were 2.6 times higher than in other HIC. That same year excess deaths remarkably made up almost 23% of all deaths and 46% of excess deaths were among people younger than 65 years. The causes of excess deaths since 1980 have on balance largely been the result of preventable cardiometabolic causes and drug overdoses. About these findings, Prof Wrigley-Field’s coauthor, Prof. Jacob Bor, commented, “if the US simply performed at the average of our peers, one out of every two US deaths under 65 years is likely avoidable. Our failure to address this is a national scandal.”

Prof. Wrigley-Fields writings discussed during this podcast are at:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2834281

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2829783

https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-031021-105213

Devin Kellis Argues for Extinction Medicine as a Medical Specialty

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:53:25 GMT

The greatest threat to human health is us. Humans are the only species capable of self-annihilation. For at least the past 30 years it has been acknowledged that the earth is presently experiencing its sixth mass extinction entirely caused by anthropogenic GHG emissions. Per research published in 2023, current generic extinction rates are 35 times higher than expected background rates prevailing in the last million years under the absence of human impacts. Research published in Proceedings, the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2022 concluded, “There is ample evidence that climate change could be catastrophic. We could enter such “endgames” at even modest levels of warming.” “Facing a future of accelerating climate change while blind to worst-case scenarios is naïve risk management at best and fatally foolish at worst.”

Mr. Kellis’s August article (and related podcast), “Why Should Extinction Medicine Be a Specialty?” appears in the recent AMA Journal of Ethics special issue on extinction medicine, at: https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/issue/existential-health-care-ethics

The recent SSRN pre-print on extinction medicine is at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5109482

The recent IPPNW-AMA Journal of Ethics webinar on the ethics of human extinctions:

To sign up for the Extinction Medicine Reading Group, a new IPPNW Medical Student Movement initiative that will promote international, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary discussion on writings on the science, ethics, and medicalization of human extinction, go to: https://forms.gle/pLspc5URhu9VcuS37

Mr. Kellis can be reached via : www.devinkellis.com

The Sabin Climate Law Center's Dr. Maria Antonia Tigre Discusses the ICJ's Recent Climate Advisory Opinion

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:21:05 GMT

On July 23rd the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced its highly-anticipated climate advisory opinion. The opinion represents a watershed moment because the court ruled states or countries are accountable for contributing to anthropogenic warming or for their GHG emissions. Consequently, the ICJ concluded countries are legally obligated to ensure the climate is protected from GHG emission, if not, countries - and private actors such as healthcare - can be held culpable for failing to do so. Though an advisory opinion the ICJ ruling has significant implications for US healthcare largely because US healthcare annually accounts for a massive amount of GHG emissions at over 600 MMT of CO2e and the federal government has neither enacted legislation nor promulgated regulations that require healthcare mitigate its GHG emissions. Not surprisingly, healthcare has ignored the 2023 UN resolution that requested the ICJ opinion and now the opinion.

The ICJ opinion is at: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/187/advisory-opinions

The Columbia University Sabin Center’s Climate Change Law Blog ICJ symposium writings are at: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/category/blog-series/

Stanford's Mark Jacobson Discusses the Likely Climate Effects of the OBBBA & the Current Status of Renewable Energy Development

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 15:29:43 GMT

The climate crisis is not a tragedy. It’s a crime. The July 4 signing of HR1, is the latest if not the greatest climate crime considering the current state of the earth’s energy imbalance or the ever-increasing amount of atmospheric GHG emissions that trap infrared radiation (heat) causing planetary warming. It’s estimated the OBBBA will over just the next five years add an extra seven billion tons of GHG emissions into the atmosphere - equal to more than one-years’ worth of total annual US carbon emissions. While it had been projected the US would reduce GHG emissions this decade by upwards of 43%, or get close us to a 50-52% reduction to align with the 2015 Paris Accord, the OBBBA will now reduce carbon emissions this decade by just 17%. The legislation rescinds virtually all IRA renewable energy tax credits while further subsidizing fossil fuels.

Prof. Jacobson’s considerable contribution to understanding and addressing climate breakdown can be found at: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/.

Information regarding his most recent book, “No Miracles Needed” (U. of Cambridge Press, 2023), is at: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSNoMN/NoMiracles.html.

Prof. Jacobson’s LinkeIn page is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-jacobson-1b58b38/.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking's Thomas Ferguson Discusses Congressional Realities That Explain Passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 12:56:55 GMT

Last week’s signing of the OBBBA serves as federal policymakers’ latest reverse Robin Hood effort, or to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich. Per a February RAND report, over the past 50 years $79 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. The 2017 Trump tax cult left billionaires $6 trillion richer and the OBBBA, otherwise termed the Bill for Billionaires Act, is expected to achieve similar of not greater results largely because the number of billionaires has dramatically increased to nearly 2,000 over the past decade. The legislation is (partially) offset moreover by cutting Medicaid spending by upwards of $1 trillion that is expected to lower Medicaid enrollment by 11 million and cause 17,000 premature deaths annually. SNAP spending will be reduced $300 billion leaving three million even more hungry. The bill will add an estimated 3.8 trillion to the deficit, atop the $8.4 trillion left by the first Trump administration. Financing the deficit that approximates $1 trillion annually represents more than the DoD’s budget or money that could be spent on other things - like healthcare. Largely because of increasingly regressive tax policies and unaffordable healthcare, studies conclude the bottom 60% of US households by income are unable to achieve what is s defined as a "minimal quality of life" or one in which families can afford adequate housing, healthcare, child care and food.

See these two related research efforts by Prof. Ferguson, “Political Investments” at: https://www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/thomas-ferguson/ and Ferguson, et al., “How Much Can the US Congress Resist Political Money?” at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3593916.

The World Council of Churches' Ms. Frederique Seidel Discusses the WCC's Recently-Published Handbook, "Hope for Children Through Climate Justice, Legal Tools to Hold Financiers Accountable"

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:05:34 GMT

Anthropocentric warming, the greatest threat to human health and survival, disproportionately threatens children. Children pay the greatest climate penalty. Per the World Health Organization, children suffer more than 80% of climate crisis-related injuries, illnesses & deaths being more vulnerable to carbon-polluted air, extreme heat, drought and innumerable other climate-charged disasters and diseases. Nevertheless, the US healthcare accounts for an ever-increasing amount of carbon pollution and refuses to divest in fossil fuels. As for federal policymakers, the White House and Congressional Republicans remain intent on committing ecocide. To the surprise of no one, in late May Our Children’s Trust, on behalf of 22 plaintiffs age 7 to 25, sued President Trump and five administrative offices and departments arguing in part several White House Executive Orders will increase fossil fuel use and dismantle climate research, warnings and response infrastructure. The lead plaintiff in Lighthiser v Trump stated White House policy amounts to a “death sentence for my generation.”

The WCC handbook available at: https://www.oikoumene.org/news/wcc-publishes-resource-on-legal-tools-for-climate-justice.

The Lighthiser v Trump complaint is at: https://climatecasechart.com/case/lighthiser-v-trump/.

Among related discussions, I interviewed the Michael Burger at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in May 2020 and again in June 2024 and Andrea Rodgers with Our Children’s Trust this past January.

I discuss with curie.md a wide range of issues starting with drug pricing

David Introcaso, Ph.D. — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 13:00:09 GMT

Last week I discussed at some length with curie.md’s Andrew Yukawa the White House’s May 12 drug pricing executive order and what it says about the US healthcare market more generally, the federal government’s role, healthcare efficiency and effectiveness, care quality the industry’s success and its future.

The interview is at: