Luke Messac
@LukeMessac
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emergency physician, author of Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine. Opinions my own. attending @BrighamWomens, @harvardmed
Providence, RI
Joined March 2018
Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine (coming November 1) is available for pre-order, with a discount code (AAFLYG6) for 30% off. You can also access the discount with the QR code below. It's filled with reasons for rage and reasons for hope.
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*NEW STUDY in JAMA Internal Medicine* Where do our healthcare dollars go? We looked at one part of the answer: corporate shareholders.
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I’m an emergency physician and a constituent of @SenWhitehouse . I called his office to talk to his health leg assistant about how dangerous RFK Jr would be for my patients, and for all Americans. The staffer didn’t have time to take my call. https://t.co/eQ1Mtt4UBB
talkingpointsmemo.com
Wanted to share some information on the RFK Jr. nomination before the...
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How can we translate momentum to cancel #MedicalDebt into efforts that prevent debt in the first place? Join us and @RacePowerPolicy on Tuesday, January 28 for a conversation on "Envisioning an End to Medical Debt." Learn more and RSVP:
racepowerpolicy.org
Join us on Tuesday, January 28 at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 pm ET for the second installment in our webinar series, “From Local Innovation to Systemic Change: ARPA Investments Building Toward an Equitable...
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As Trump claims immigrants are carriers of disease to justify cruelty, journalists should talk to historian Beatrix Hoffman to understand how this is an old reactionary trick. Her new book, Borders of Care, couldn’t come at a more necessary moment. https://t.co/wJCPFzTwSP
press.uchicago.edu
Probes the relationship between the immigration and health care systems in the United States. For the roughly ten million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, federal health care...
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The rosy spin at the end of this article is really not the right way to close. There doesn’t always have to be a silver lining.
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The defunding of global health (eg Global Fund, GAVI) will be the deadliest policy shift of the next Congress. It will lead to millions more deaths from preventable and treatable diseases like HIV, TB, and malaria, but it won’t be well covered. https://t.co/UJukNmgSZD
nytimes.com
The U.S. provides nearly half of the aid for global health, including childhood vaccination, H.I.V. treatment and disease surveillance.
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We worked with @Dollarfor_ to show the huge range of income cutoffs and other reqs for charity care at nonprofit hospitals. Some hospitals offer no free care at all, others offer free care to a family of 4 making $180k. Higher cutoffs in richer areas. https://t.co/1UtYpGdDyh
healthaffairs.org
US nonprofit hospitals are required by law to have a charity care policy, but hospitals have significant discretion in determining specific eligibility criteria. Using a novel national database, this...
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Virtual: Tu, Sep 17 @ 12pm - "The Transformation of Medical Debt Collection and the Financialization of Health Care Delivery" @LukeMessac @UCBerkeleySPH @OxUniPress - https://t.co/afoFveIU4A
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Grateful for the thoughtful review of Your Money or Your Life by Marianne Amoss in Health Affairs Forefront today:
In her new #HAReads review, @mkamoss, Associate Editor @Health_Affairs, reviews "Your Money or Your Life" by Luke Messac, which she calls a "concise yet comprehensive look at the rise in medical debt...and the impact this has had on Americans."
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Millions of Americans are burdened by medical debt With negative consequences for their finances, healthcare access, and physical and mental health Since day one, @VP Kamala Harris has spearheaded @WhiteHouse policy to reduce this burden
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So great to talk with @MaikenScott about medical debt collection. Listen to 2nd half for a truly harrowing story of medical deportation, a problem I knew nothing about before hearing it here.
Health care is a billion-dollar industry, and the business aspect often impacts the treatment and care patients receive. On this episode, we explore how money shapes our health care system — from treatment, to medical debt, to the pharma industry. 🔗 https://t.co/mRfSrlcpJK
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We are the only major country on Earth where an emergency visit to a hospital can cause patients to lose their homes and their life savings because of the high cost of medical care. Getting sick in America should not mean going bankrupt, losing your home, car, or life savings.
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Just want to underscore the level of heroism underway here: Sen. Tammy Duckworth has been working to evacuate Dr. Adam Hamawy (who saved her life after her helicopter crash) from the hospital the IDF is besieging and bombing. But he and his colleagues have insisted they not leave
🚨Update: Israel offered to evacuate Dr. Hamawy and others from the hospital but refused to allow new medical aid workers to replace them. Five volunteers accepted the offer but Dr. Hamawy refused, insisting on staying with his patients. He sends this comment through a
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Ever wonder why your insurer charges a copay for statins (and other high-value meds)? Don’t they want to prevent heart attacks, strokes, etc? Copays never made sense to me. In this new paper in @QJEHarvard, we show copays kill. 🧵 https://t.co/3PHeckLiZM
academic.oup.com
Abstract. What happens when patients suddenly stop their medications? We study the health consequences of drug interruptions caused by large, abrupt, and a
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Some day, when our grandchildren ask, most of us will have always been against the slaughter of so many babies, aid workers, journalists, doctors, mothers, and fathers. I am grateful for the brave students organizing peaceful protests to stop it, while we still can.
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A statement by our faculty at Columbia and Barnard. More to come. I am behind every word.
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I don’t usually endorse quick fixes to societal ills, but here is one: presumptive eligibility for hospital financial assistance would avert billions in medical debt for low-income patients. The @IRSnews has been too lax on hospitals since the 60s, but it can change course.
Today, @LukeMessac explains how nonprofit hospitals use administrative hurdles to deny financial assistance to patients, and what the IRS could do to mitigate this problem. https://t.co/FPMkYx0VHL
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How can we build an economy enabling all people to have what they need to experience wellbeing? Excited to announce a new Health & Political Economy Project to tackle such questions. @DarrickHamilton @victorroy Join us for our 4/2 launch event in NYC! https://t.co/CnYbHLUsRB
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Afrikaners in S Africa were put in concentration camps by the British decades before they instituted apartheid. Freed US slaves who emigrated to Liberia denied political rights to the native majority. The oppressed in one historical moment can oppress in another.
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I learned from @anshelpfeffer's book Bibi how much effort Netanyahu has put into cultivating US cable news personalities, and training to use TV to set the terms of political debate. In the early 80s, he hired coaches to learn TV skills and worked to become their favored guest.
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