Health is a social problem, not a technical one. It will be solved socially and politically, or not at all.

Here is my latest for @msnbc.com, on Trump's ill-advised concept of a plan for health care, which entails repealing the ACA, and redistributing private insurers' tax breaks to the people for what would essentially amount to an HSA, which is unhelpful if not wealthy. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

My colleague, Chris Howard, has a great op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the consequences of demolishing the ACA tax credit in Virginia:
www.wm.edu/as/publicpol...

You can now pre-order on Amazon my forthcoming book Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States! This book was a labor of love, combining a survey, administrative data, and interviews to illuminate the American exceptionalism of health insurance barriers a.co/d/iBTKSLG

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda.

This is corruption.

Adherence to ‘loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

Texas A&M’s President just removed a dean and department head from their positions after they supported a professor whose lesson on gender was challenged by a student. www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

Happy Labor Day! As a proud public health professor and member of USW, some articles showing the public health benefits of labor unions.

Unions promote safer working conditions and better contract-protected benefits, along with a sense of community. ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/...

As long as tenure is the primary way to protect academic freedom (which all faculty should have, not just the 23% who are tenured), it should be as accessible as possible. Make it less of a status competition and more like the probationary period for new union members.

Everyone in higher ed should read this Chris Rufo interview and take it seriously and literally

This is no surprise... and I'm wondering if there are any datasets with close to real-time data on emergency department visits? A lot of EDs publish current wait times, which seems like it could serve as a signal for which communities are avoiding care right now.

Tens of millions of people would be at risk of losing #Medicaid coverage under recent red-tape-laden work requirement proposals. State level estimates in our new paper: www.cbpp.org/research/hea...

#AllPolicyIsHealthPolicy

“Using the most conservative estimates or the mean estimates from this literature, we estimate that every $1,000 investment in paid parental leave would generate, respectively, $7,275 or $29,406 in present discounted net social benefits.”

Me, a public health person, just sitting over here reflecting on the fact that the US has experienced a 7% increase in infant mortality post-Dobbs.

Like, do you realize what that says about this society from an ethical perspective? That we made policy choices that caused this?

#PHEthx

Historically, MDs have been pivotal to health care reform efforts, and their interests have often aligned with other stakeholders invested in the status quo. But there's a political opportunity to get MDs on board with bigger reforms by promising autonomy from private insurers. Drive that wedge.

Over lifetime, each additional year of union membership reduces the odds of mortality by 1.5%. Effects primarily occur between ages of 41 and 67.

Nice work @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Given the deep discontentment with the status quo of U.S. health care, I can't help but wonder how the election might have played out differently if Harris had stuck with her previous support for Medicare for All.