#healthcare

In 2025, America’s healthcare system is collapsing by design. There is no universal coverage, ACA tax credits have vanished for millions, and costs remain opaque and predatory. One illness can still mean debt or bankruptcy. This is not care—it’s organized insecurity.

Tying healthcare to employment has made everything worse. Jobs are no longer stable, yet coverage depends on them. Americans stay trapped in bad work or delay care out of fear. Meanwhile, college-educated workers in technology and healthcare are pushed aside as employers lean on H-1B visas and rush AI deployment to cut wages and labor costs. Workers lose jobs—and with them, their healthcare—while executives call it “efficiency.”

The deeper problem is political capture. Politicians have embedded themselves in healthcare policy while being financed by insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital lobbies. Legalized bribery masquerading as campaign finance has turned public policy into a profit shield. As long as money writes the rules, reform will fail.

The solution is clear: delink healthcare from employment, make coverage universal and portable, and get politicians—and their donors—out of our healthcare decisions. End the corruption, end the chaos, and put people before profit.

The main Miami Valley Hospital campus including the South campus does a overall poor job in delivering health care. I recently had a family member admitted to both campuses and was shocked what I witnessed there. A lot of the Nurses, including RNs are not adequately trained, or required to undergo reoccurrence training. I witnessed more than several nurses not knowing how to use specific medical equipment they should have been trained to use which was really shocking to see. It was obvious that more than some nurses didn't even know what they were doing. Several nurses, at both campuses should not even be in nursing or working in the health care field to start with. These nurses came off being rude, lacked compassion, couldn't communicate or even seemed remotely interested in what they were doing. As far as the quality of doctors go. Most of the doctors were poor in communicating. They also assign a Hospitalist doctor. There is absolutely zero value to patients having a hospitalist doctor, but I'm sure MVH bills insurance companies for them. Overall, I believe Miami Valley Hospital as a whole does a poor job in delivering health care to patients in need, due to a poor systems engineering approach they have in place plus, they have way too many people involved in a patients care; a lot of them are non-essential including Physician Assistants and some doctors. Most of these people, especially the PA's I observed, did NOT act promptly enough to bring in a Specialist when they should have because it was obvious the patients' medical needs were outside the PA's medical knowledge. I felt that one of the PA's in particular just liked to hear themselves talk; maybe it was an ego thing for this PA. The PA eventually did bring in a Specialist to provide medical care, for my family member but only after I and my other family member' instance from having been told by a good ER doctor, who had the ability to communicate well to do so. By the time the Specialist got involved and due to some setbacks at the fault of several nurses it was too late for my family member.
I am really disappointed in Miami Valley Hospital after witnessing my family members medical care there. I regret I did not take my family member to Kettering hospital instead.

They're looking to downsize 19 full time employees serving healthcare workers. It's bad out here in Canada rn.

They say his highest spot ever. I am wondering how much advertising we need to buy to get him to the top 5. Maybe we can pay a consulting company millions of dollars, so they can give us a strategy to get there. We can do it!

The settlement requires the largest divestiture of outpatient healthcare services to resolve a merger challenge (by number of facilities) and imposes a $1.1M civil penalty for false certification
The United States District Court for the District of Maryland today entered the Final Judgment proposed by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, together with its state co-Plaintiffs, requiring broad divestitures to resolve Plaintiffs’ challenge to UnitedHealth Group Incorporated’s (UnitedHealth) $3.3 billion acquisition of Amedisys Inc. In addition, Amedisys must pay a $1.1 million civil penalty to the United States for falsely certifying that it had provided “true, correct, and complete” responses under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

“Under President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, this Department of Justice has moved quickly to resolve transactions, ensuring Americans see the benefits sooner,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. “This settlement preserves competition where it matters most for American families – healthcare.”

“This is a tremendous outcome for competition in the healthcare industry, where competition itself is critical to the public interest and the well-being of all Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “I commend the Antitrust Division’s Staff for prosecuting this case throughout a contentious litigation to reach this settlement on behalf of seniors, hospice patients, nurses, and their families.”

The settlement requires UnitedHealth and Amedisys to divest at least 164 home health and hospice locations (including one affiliated palliative care facility) across 19 states, accounting for approximately $528 million in annual revenue. By number of facilities, this is the largest divestiture of outpatient healthcare services to resolve a merger challenge. In addition, the proposed settlement:

Obligates UnitedHealth to divest eight additional locations if it fails to obtain regulatory approval for the divestiture of associated facilities without the additional locations;
Imposes a monitor to supervise UnitedHealth’s divestiture of the assets and compliance with the consent decree;
Provides the divestiture buyers with the assets, personnel, and relationships to compete against UnitedHealth in the overlap areas;
Incorporates robust protections to strengthen adherence to the decree and deter interference with the divestiture buyers’ ability to compete; and
Requires Amedisys to pay a $1.1 million civil penalty and train its corporate and field leadership on antitrust compliance for falsely certifying that the company had truthfully, correctly, and completely responded to the United States’ requests for documents.
The Court has appointed William E. Berlin, of Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman, to serve as monitor in this matter.

UnitedHealth is a vertically integrated insurer, healthcare provider, pharmacy benefit manager, and healthcare software and services vendor headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. UnitedHealth acquired Amedisys’s home health and hospice rival LHC Group Inc. (LHC) in 2023. Amedisys was a home health and hospice

Full article pasted below.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/health-care/hcsc-top-execs-got-big-raises-2024-despite-income-drop

Top executives at Health Care Service Corp. received hefty raises, including multimillion bonuses, in 2024 despite a 54% drop in net income for the parent of Illinois' largest health insurer, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois.
CEO Maurice Smith earned $34.4 million, a 23% increase from the previous year's total compensation of nearly $28 million, according to financial records obtained by Crain's through a Freedom of Information Act request. Smith's salary in 2024 dropped by $161,000, but he pulled in nearly $33 million in bonuses. The double-digit pay raise in 2024 followed a 26% raise from 2022 to 2023.
The raises, which are in line with traditional hikes in salary and bonuses at Chicago-based HCSC, came at a time when insurance premiums were skyrocketing and health care costs continued a decades-long escalation.
The pay hikes also came during a year in which HCSC recorded an increase in total revenue from $54 billion in 2023 to $62.8 billion in 2024. However, the company saw its own benefit expenses and administrative expenses rise and its insurance underwriting post a loss of $572 million dollars, compared with a gain from underwriting in 2023 of more than $1 billion. All that led to net income of $659 million, down 54% from the $1.445 billion in net income in 2023.
Smith's compensation eclipses his counterparts at publicly traded, nationwide health insurers.
The average CEO compensation across seven leading companies in 2024 amounted to $20.9 million, up 1% compared with 2023, Crain's sister brand Modern Healthcare reported.
Total compensation increased for the chief executives of UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Centene and Molina Healthcare, while it declined for the CEOs of CVS Health, Elevance Health and Humana, according to filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty led the pack with $26.3 million in compensation. His compensation rose 11.9%. Cigna President, CEO and Chair David Cordani and Centene CEO Sarah London saw double-digit percentage increases in their total pay to $23.3 million and $20.6 million, respectively.
The 10 highest-paid employees at HCSC received a combined $104 million in 2024, up about 17% from 2023.

For a company that is based around healthcare- customer service reps can’t even use the bathroom in between breaks without getting nasty messages from supervisors. I wouldn’t recommend my worst enemy to come to Humana.

Wells Fargo sure picked some doozy insurance companies. I’m paying for all my prescriptions and MetLife won’t pay out on critical illness insurance. Aetna never had any co-pays when I picked up my prescriptions. United healthcare won’t even cover Ozempic. I wonder how much kickback these companies are giving Wells Fargo leadership.

RIF'd after 29 years with company.
I'm retirement eligible, but there are absolutely ZERO retirement BENEFITS!!
Seriously.....extremely high healthcare costs, and a 25% disc on cell service.
That's an insult to any employee that stuck around this sh---y company for so long!!

DO NOT WASTE YOUR CAREER HERE....LEAVE NOW!!!

Proposed (new) U.S. retirement plan.

Wall Street will love this.

Sometimes, a stock market crash can take a full decade to recover from; it (has been proven throughout U.S. economic-financial history).

*** Example - The "Lost Decade" from 2000-2009 whereby the S&P 500 had a Negative average return (-0.95%).

Australia is a much smaller country.

Australia also operates differently than the U.S. without having $38.4 Trillion in U.S. National debt (add $3.74 Trillion from the Trump Tax bill) with $969.0 Billion a year in Interest being paid (almost a Trillion a year) by the U.S. taxpayer to outside Investors (U.S. based, Japan; China: etc.) who finance it, per usdebtclock.

On a side note -

ACA Healthcare subsidies are set to expire with 24 Million U.S. citizens having 100% increased healthcare premiums (on average) or (no) healthcare (at all), with (no) replacement in sight from the Trump administration.

ACA enrollees include small business owners (and their employees), lower income-poor; etc.

This will (also) weigh on the U.S. economy, with Trump tariffs potentially leading to a Major recession in 2026.

Evernorth Care Group, a health-care provider, announced it would stop clinical care operations and sell its assets to HonorHealth. The sale will close in January, and will result in the closure of one location in Peoria and the transition of a clinic in Tempe to HonorHealth.

The moves will result in 143 layoffs that will occur Jan. 1, Matt Totterdale, senior vice president of Evernorth, said in a letter to the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

Healthcare marketers love to talk about the “Four Ps” — Product, Price, Place, Promotion — as if patients were shoppers and hospitals were department stores. It’s a neat framework, but it conveniently ignores the one thing most responsible for Americans’ suffering: the system itself.

Nowhere in the glossy brochures or strategic plans will you hear about the forces that actually make people sick, broke, and broken. Not the staggering prices set by hospital monopolies, the insurance denials that delay care, or the dr-g costs that rival mortgage payments. Not the administrative maze that swallows billions while offering little in the way of better outcomes.

Marketing can tell you where to get care, but not why care is so hard to afford. It can promise convenience, but not accountability. It can craft messages about “patient experience,” but never about why the experience so often ends in medical debt.

The problem isn’t that healthcare marketing is shallow — it’s that the system it serves is. Until we confront the perverse incentives that reward treating illness over preventing it, or profit over public health, no amount of branding will fix what’s fundamentally broken.

Americans don’t need better healthcare marketing.
They need a healthcare system that doesn’t need marketing at all.

Boeing plans to lay off approximately 17,000 employees, representing about 10% of its workforce, in response to ongoing financial struggles and production delays, with significant impacts expected in 2026.
The layoffs are expected to affect employees across various levels, including executives and managers. This move is part of Boeing's efforts to stabilize its operations and address the financial strain caused by the prolonged strike and production setbacks. The company is also facing rising healthcare costs for employees, which may further complicate its financial outlook in 2026.

We had a patient call the office and stated that she did not understand why she’s being taken off the supportive care program. She switched from a different insurance to a United healthcare advantage plan just for the coverage and whoever she spoke to just advised her that Wellmed supportive care is not accepting United healthcare so there’s no coverage for the supportive care within her benefits. It seems like they are letting the patients know in advance so they can transition back to the clinic and get scheduled in office before they do the layoffs.

Just a thought. Next round might be 12/18

Cigna has introduced Clearity, a new copay-only health plan designed to eliminate deductibles and coinsurance while giving members upfront prices and simpler navigation. The plan uses Cigna’s new AI tools to help users check coverage, estimate costs, and find care with verified reviews and transparent copay information.

Clearity offers five plan designs with tiered in-network copays and one out-of-network tier, all built on the Open Access Plus network to avoid narrowing access. Cigna says the model is meant to address consumer frustration with unpredictable bills and complex benefits, offering employers a more predictable option for workers who skip care due to high deductibles.

The plan pairs Cigna’s AI-powered virtual assistant, already in use for claims, benefits questions, and provider search, with natural-language “find care” tools that surface total out-of-pocket costs before the visit. Cigna positions Clearity as a simpler, more transparent alternative for consumers who want upfront pricing and fewer barriers to care.

“By combining our latest AI technology with simplified, transparent costs, we are helping employers offer innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of their workforce. Clearity by Cigna Healthcare is more than a health plan – it’s a simpler, more predictable way for customers to get the health care they need.” – Eva Borden, chief product officer of Cigna Healthcare’s U.S. Employer business.

“We designed the Clearity plan to support a wide range of people who are looking for a simpler health insurance experience. From tech-savvy employees and healthy individuals who prefer pay-as-you-go options to those who may skip care due to high deductibles and financial barriers, Clearity by Cigna Healthcare offers a better path to care.” – Erin Lenox, president of national accounts for Cigna Healthcare’s U.S. Employer business.

https://coverager.com/cigna-launches-new-ai-powered-medical-plan/

A class-action lawsuit was filed against Thomas Jefferson University this week after the company announced it was laying off 1% of its workforce back in October.

The Philadelphia-based health care system had announced that the layoffs were because of "financial headwinds" and would impact 600 workers.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/jefferson-health-sued-after-layoffs/4308409/

We hear about layoffs on this thread but we usually don't know which division they're in.

"Division Names Within Optum Insight
Here are the specific names of the major divisions within Optum Insight:
Optum Analytics
Optum Consulting
Optum Technology Solutions
Optum Clinical Services
Optum Market Access
Optum Value-Based Solutions
Each of these divisions focuses on distinct areas within the health care landscape, aiming to improve efficiency, quality of care, and patient outcomes."

Good luck talking to anybody at viabenefits to get healthcare questions answered.

To update everyone on the 2026 COBRA costs, I just received the official document outlining costs so wanted to share. Appears costs are up about 15% from 2025 COBRA when averaging Medical/Dental/Vision. Looking about $900 monthly for single, $1637 for primary & domestic partner, and $2296 for family. This is an Anthem BCBS plan so other plans may vary.

OUCH!

I thought this deserved to be on top for more people to see. Thanks, @27c+1k9rdcg3n.

Are y’all hearing about the “spans and layers” conversation? Am being told demotions are on the cards as well? Is there no bottom?

I need at least one night of decent sleep, or I will fall apart.

How likely is that we'll see major layoffs of clinical nurses and medical assistants in 2026?
I see rumors but it's hard to figure out.

What’s going to happen to Optum in the long run?

Legit question and please correct me if I have this wrong. But how does that occur? If there are people paying nothing for health insurance who don’t even work, I can understand why the American people have a bad taste about this. Love to hear this explained for my own understanding

USA should pass a law that says, any corporation laying off or firing anyone in USA who is under the age of 65 will get free paid Healthcare until they reach age 65 when Medicare kicks in.

At Providence Swedish, the 3.8% workforce reduction will affect the system’s Seattle-based Swedish First Hill Campus, Seattle-based Cherry Hill Swedish, the Swedish Issaquah (Wash.) Campus, the Seattle-based Swedish Ballard Campus and the Swedish Medical Group, according to a Nov. 18 news release.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/providence-to-cut-446-roles-in-oregon-washington/

The layoffs, announced Tuesday, affect employees across Providence’s hospitals, outpatient clinics and its insurance arm, Providence Health Plan.

Most of the eliminated positions do not involve direct patient care, officials said, but they did not indicate which services or locations would be affected.

https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2025/11/providence-oregon-lays-off-more-than-150-workers-in-latest-round-of-job-cuts.html

Chicago-based Oak Street Health is laying off 219 people early next year as its owner, CVS Health, restructures parts of the business and closes health centers across the country.

About 80 of those employees are in Illinois, and the rest report to people who work in the Chicago office, said spokesperson Amy Thibault, in a statement.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/18/oak-street-health-layoffs/

Are healthcare contributions paid in full by Vz, or is the affected employee still responsible for the portion he or she has been paying all along? Are dental and vision included in the coverage along with health?

I was laid off on October 28th from the Lafayette facility (ACM). Was anybody else laid off from that facility on that date?

Santa Barbara County is aiming to avoid layoffs and focus on budget cuts instead, despite budget shortfalls in two departments.

Social Services will eliminate 58 unfilled roles, and County Health announced it has stopped transferring undocumented patients

https://www.noozhawk.com/santa-barbara-county-to-avoid-layoffs-but-will-eliminate-unfilled-positions/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjwg197855o

I know RIF casualties are supposed to get a few weeks of medical coverage after we depart, but assuming you don’t quickly find another job, what’s your plan for medical coverage? ACA? COBRA? Private plan?

https://healthpoint.com/technology/why-is-unitedhealthcare-cutting-remote-monitoring-coverage/

The biggest loss in a layoff is losing your Healthcare. If we had universal Healthcare you could go work anywhere for a paycheck and it wouldn't hurt so bad. Hanging the healthcare carrott over our heads is what allows companies to keep us scared to leave or be let go.

I've never thought universal healthcare was a good idea but this has opened my eyes. Not having it keeps us scared, stuck, and deters us from taking a leap for a potentially better opportunity elsewhere.

Layoffs at Pottstown Hospital are raising new concerns about access to medical care in western Montgomery County, writes Jim Melwert for KYW Newsradio. The cuts are part of a 350-person reduction across Tower Health’s network.

https://bucksco.today/2025/11/health-care-desert-pottstown-hospital/

I found the yearly price of Atena Healthcare of about 18k. However, it is unclear if dependents are covered, at a cost extra, or if allowed at all..

A subsidiary of Cigna Corp. that is in the process of being acquired by Scottsdale-based HonorHealth is laying off 143 employees in metro Phoenix.

Evernorth Care Group, the medical practice division of Cigna, confirmed the layoffs in a WARN letter sent to the state of Arizona on Nov. 11.

https://www.abc15.com/news/business/cigna-division-to-lay-off-phoenix-metro-employees-in-anticipation-of-acquisition

My last day January 30, 2026. There were 142 associates on the call. Associates from Virginia, Georgia, California, Missouri. God help us all with the economy.