David Johnson: No surprise that the No Surprises Act is driving medical inflation
Healthcare inflation has come roaring back. PwC projects that commercial medical costs will increase 9% in 2027, the highest rate in 17 years.a For a family with a $25,000 annual health insurance premium, 9% inflation adds $2,250 in just one year. Compounding does the rest. At that rate, the cost of health insurance will double…
Susan Dentzer: Anti-immigrant policies threaten to hobble U.S. healthcare
As some immigrant healthcare workers were fired from their jobs recently due to loss of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency began equipping many former TPS recipients with ankle monitors pending their possible deportation. The monitors are a tragic but apt symbol at a time when the U.S. government…
Hospital financial performance strained by payer mix and rising costs
Hospital financial performance remained uneven in the second quarter as policy changes and broader economic pressures affected the not-for-profit (NFP) and for-profit segments. In the NFP sector, median health system operating margin ticked upward to 0.4% year-to-date (YTD) through May, according to monthly data from Strata Decision Technology. But the metric wasn’t quite as steady…
Rural hospitals seeing signs of financial hope
After years of struggling with financially precarious positions, rural hospitals saw their overall finances begin to improve in 2025. Both individual hospital strategies and external payment changes could determine whether that trend continues. The finding of overall improvement in rural hospital finances nationwide came from Chartis in its annual report tracking their finances.a From 2023…
Bold Conversations for a Healthier System
With support from: Dear Colleagues, It is an unmistakable reality that the U.S. healthcare system is becoming less affordable and more financially unsustainable — and all without improvements in health outcomes to show for it. Now is the time for healthcare leadership to change the conversation and pursue real solutions. That’s why I want to…
Zeev Neuwirth: How to unravel our nation’s wicked healthcare problem
Our nation’s healthcare system is grossly underserving the American public and is on an unsustainable course. Over the past two decades, the healthcare system’s value proposition has continued to decline around critical metrics such as access to care, affordability, chronic disease burden and healthy lifespan. While these facts are well known, what is less well…
The Vitalic Health movement: HFMA initiative pursues affordability, financial sustainability in U.S. healthcare
Growing up in rural Iowa, miles away from a paved road, instilled in C. Ann Jordan a deep appreciation of the struggles rural communities face around healthcare access, delivery and affordability. The farming community of Boone, Iowa — Jordan’s hometown — features a 25-bed critical access hospital. The hospital offers a range of services that…
Jeff Goldsmith: A healthcare system (and society) out of balance and how to fix the problem
After nearly 15 years of cost stability, where U.S. health spending remained at or near 17.5% of GDP, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted our healthcare system and our politics and gave rise to a sharp and ongoing increase in health spending. The prospect of fresh increases in their health benefit costs has frightened employers. Some…
The OBBB’s Medicaid work requirements and the hidden risks for hospitals
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), passed this summer, contains a provision of great consequence for hospitals: Medicaid work requirements. The new law requires a subset of beneficiaries to log at least 80 hours of employment, volunteering or schooling each month to maintain coverage. The changes carry significant administrative and reputational risk for health systems.…
How specialty drugs are remaking healthcare and driving up costs
This article has been updated with news of additional policies announced by the Trump administration. Accelerating healthcare costs have less to do with traditional hospital and physician services than with surging drug spending, an industry expert says. “When we can’t really see any trends in healthcare utilization increasing, the only thing that consistently shows up…