GoozNews

As of October 3, 2020, I am excited to announce the relaunch of GoozNews as a subscription-based email newsletter. You can also find it as a "blog" online at GoozNews.substack.com, where some posts will be available exclusively to subscribers. By signing up, you are backing independent journalism that prioritizes facts and gaining insights from an experienced professional with over four decades in the news industry, including more than 20 years of dedicated focus on healthcare.

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Die now, eat healthier later

1 week ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Indiana today where GOP Gov. Steve Braun, a former Senator and business owner, unveiled nine executive orders that underscored all the contradictions in the Make America Healthy Again movement.
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1 week ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

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The FDA and the inadequate vetting of new medical devices

1 week ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

The law governing the regulation of medical devices allows companies to claim their new product is “substantially equivalent” to something already approved by the FDA and needn’t undergo clinical trials in humans. All too often, this new device contains a significant change that winds up killing patients.
Health insurers' big win

2 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

Health insurer stocks are soaring today after the Trump administration doubled their Medicare Advantage plans’ payment boost for next year. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ final rule gave the plans a 5% bump compared to the 2.2% increase proposed by the Biden administration in late November. It’s too soon to say whether the decision reveals the hidden hand of CMS administrator Mehmet Oz, who owned insurance stocks and touted MA plans for years on his television show.
Vaccine hesitancy's #1 enabler backs measles shots

2 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

It would take an Arthur Miller to do full justice to the gothic plot twists in the two deaths from the widening measles outbreak in Texas. Both young girls belonged to a religious community that dresses in black and avoids seeking help from the health care system. Over half the children in some area schools go unvaccinated.
Housing is health care

2 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -27:27Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. For my second podcast, I’ve invited on Will Fischer, the housing policy director for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Washington think tank best known for its excellent studies showing how government policies affect poor and working class Americans. Will has been following government housing policy at CBPP for over 20 years.
Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs

3 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

As the news about the Trump regime’s purge at every HHS agency poured in yesterday, it dawned on me that this could be the beginning of next great recession. Beyond the massive cuts already underway, there is more to come in Medicaid and possibly even Medicare as the GOP advances legislation to extend corporate tax breaks. This will lead to a sharp reduction in household spending, which drives the economy. Health care represents 18% of that economy.
The cost of social insecurity

3 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

The Pitt, a new TV series on Max, dramatizes work life and patient strife in an urban hospital emergency room. Noah Wyle plays the lead ER doc, Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. Both in hunk-a-lunk looks and heroic demeanor, Wyle is an able successor to the just-passed Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr. Kildare in the 1960s, and George Clooney, who rose to fame in the 1990s playing one of the two lead physicians in the first six seasons of ER.
FDA, CDC will be slammed by latest job cuts

4 weeks ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. swung his meat axe at the Health and Human Services Department yesterday, leaking plans to the Wall Street Journal that he plans to lay off 10,000 workers or about 12% of the department’s workforce. If he follows through on the plan, the largest layoffs will come at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the two sub-agencies that drew his greatest ire while running for president.
Does value-based care have a future?

1 month ago | gooznews.substack.com | Merrill Goozner

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -24:38Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Medicare has launched numerous experiments aimed at improving the quality of care while lowering overall program costs. It was dubbed the value-based care movement. Some programs succeeded and have been embraced by a growing number of hospitals and and physician practices. Others failed and have been abandoned.