Imogen Cecil

Yes, please! This is much needed and hopefully should have bipartisan support.

@MorePerfectUS Yes, please! This is much needed and hopefully should have bipartisan support.

Senator Chris Murphy and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon have introduced a bill to effectively ban private equity from owning hospitals and nursing homes. The bill would make PE-owned facilities ineligible for Medicare funding. Nearly 500 hospitals + nursing homes are now PE controlled.

SECRETARY RUBIO: In the first two months of this year, Venezuela generated more revenue from oil sales than most of last year. The money is not being stolen anymore. It is flowing to the Venezuelan government to help people fund hospitals and pay teachers.

14 years ago, one of the most censored health figures on social media was asked: "What are your thoughts on the whole premise of these kinds of drugs [statins]?" Dr. Leonard Coldwell replied: "It's mass murder, it always leads to hardening of the liver, it always cuts off at least 20 years of your life span." His rationale behind this answer: "Your brain is made from cholesterol. A statin is a cholesterol lowering drug. So if you want to have a brain the size of a marble, just keep on taking them." If your parent is on a statin or other medications and you're worried it's doing more harm than good, read the tweet below.

@DrDiGiorgio My personal opinion, bring Medicaid back to federal control where it should have been to begin with.

I’m not usually in favor of the federal government telling states what to do. But Medicaid is different. Washington pays a huge share of state Medicaid costs, sometimes more than 80 percent. That means the federal government has a direct financial interest in whether states are actually trying to control healthcare costs or simply protecting local incumbents and sending the bill to federal taxpayers. That is why federal leverage is justified. If a state insists on certificate-of-need laws that block competition and protect existing hospital systems, it should receive a smaller federal Medicaid match. If the state wants to keep those laws, it should pay for the higher costs they create. The same goes for anti-competitive state directed payments. When states steer those funds toward large hospital systems while sidelining independent physicians, independent hospitals, rural hospitals, and community hospitals, they are encouraging consolidation and higher prices. They should not be free to do that while expecting the federal government to pick up the tab. Time for the federal government to use its leverage for good.

Very! Many people do not understand what patients go through, even their own physicians. Patients are the ones seeing the broken system and fraud firsthand with no voice to get it fixed. Their cases and appeals sit out there for years (or forever) untouched. We need something different and the same corporate voices at the table will not get us there. Americans will suffer more because of this.

@Imogen_Cecil @DrOzCMS @SecKennedy So true! That insight could be invaluable.

Today, we’re announcing the members of our new Federal Healthcare Advisory Committee, which will develop recommendations for how @SecKennedy and I can improve Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. This committee was designed to drive modernization in the health care system and improve patient outcomes. These members bring deep expertise across care delivery, financing, innovation, and patient engagement, and we can’t wait to hear what they come up with! cms.gov/newsroom/press…

@DutchRojas Just like their new committee. So disappointed. You should have been part of it.

The people who defend the CMS fee schedules have never had skin in it. They are academics, administrators, consultants. They bear none of the downside. The physician bears all of it. This is not a design flaw. Systems without skin in the game always, always migrate toward the interests of those who run them. Always. The surprise would be if it hadn’t happened.

@STzorfas You are exactly the type of physician that should be on a committee like that. So disappointing. There has got to be a way for patients and Americans to have a voice, not just corporate interests.

@Imogen_Cecil I applied for a seat at this table. As a solo private practice neurologist, I have over 30 years of chronic disease management experience. We need more private practice physicians and Medicare just does not seem interested in working on making this better.

With leaders from health systems, insurers, investors, and government all represented, where is the actual patient representation; the people who are navigating the broken system every day? How can a committee tasked with modernizing healthcare claim to represent all Americans without a single patient advocate at the table?

@datasolids @SecKennedy @DrOzCMS Incredibly disappointing. Not one true patient advocate on this committee. All this time and money will be spent on new programs, processes, procedures... just for Americans to be in the same place with the exact same broken system and fraud.

Do patients have a place at this table? If not, that's a nontrivial blind spot. You won't be able to achieve even a tenth of what you're proposing without involving the patients...they're the only practical path forward. We get the "what & why"....we need more clarity on the "how".

At HHS, we reject the idea that our health system is too broken to fix. Today, @DrOzCMS and I are announcing a new Healthcare Advisory Committee—top experts from across the country coming together to provide insight on how to cut costs, reduce red tape, and put patients first. Real reform starts now.

@MedicalQuack I'm not even sure they're doing it on purpose. And even though anything is better than the last administration, I just had high hopes. It is disappointing to say the least.

To be fair I used to pick on the prior HHS secretary about his puppy cam crap-well at least they weren't private equity puppies like what's being shoved in there now. Yeah with all the big United healthcare Optum serve contracts I used to post questions as to how many Optum NDAs did they have to sign to get their government jobs, and who knows maybe these guys did too🧐

This is a joke as this federal healthcare advisory committee will be comprised of private equity firms, health insurers, and then also another section for patients and doctors to have their bitch sessions which goes nowhere. Yeah we've seen this before, we know what the road to nowhere looks like with a gilded perception, way too many of those have been rolling out lately from the federal government.💤

@HeathVeuleman 100% accurate.

@Imogen_Cecil You know, I don’t think our expectations are too high. I think that government and bureaucracy continue to fail the American taxpayer.

Committee Members: - Robert Bessler, MD — CEO, Honest Medical Group (value-based primary care provider) - Kimberly Brandt, JD (ex officio) — Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) - Sebastian Caliri — Partner, 8VC (venture capital firm; leads healthcare AI, health-IT, and innovation investments; previously with Palantir) - Stephanie Carlton (ex officio) — Deputy Administrator and Chief of Staff, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) - David Carmouche, MD — Executive Vice President and Chief Medical & Commercial Officer, Lumeris (value-based care technology and services; previously with Ochsner Health and Walmart Health) - Elizabeth M. Fago — Healthcare entrepreneur and investor (focus on nursing homes, long-term care, and post-acute services) - Clive K. Fields, MD — Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, VillageMD (primary care and value-based care platform) - William J. Gassen, JD — Healthcare attorney and policy expert (specific current employer/affiliation not detailed in initial announcement) - Jenni Gudapati, PhD, MBA, RN — Director, Value-Based Healthcare Program, Boise State University - Valerie D. Huhn — Director, Missouri Department of Mental Health - Dennis Laraway — Healthcare finance and operations expert (specific current employer/affiliation not detailed in initial announcement) - Dan Liljenquist, JD — Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Intermountain Health - Andrew Lynch, PhD — Chief Strategy Officer, Acadia Healthcare - Ursel J. McElroy — Healthcare policy and delivery expert (specific current employer/affiliation not detailed in initial announcement) - Kyu Rhee, MD — President and CEO, National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC; previously Chief Medical Officer at Aetna) - Tony Robbins — Motivational speaker, author, and peak-performance coach (advises on lifestyle medicine and chronic disease prevention as part of MAHA focus) - Russ Thomas, JD — Healthcare executive and attorney (specific current employer/affiliation not detailed in initial announcement) - Linda Thomas-Hemak, MD — President and CEO, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education and The Wright Center for Community Health

With leaders from health systems, insurers, investors, and government all represented, where is the actual patient representation; the people who are navigating the broken system every day? How can a committee tasked with modernizing healthcare claim to represent all Americans without a single patient advocate at the table?

@MedicalQuack It is so crazy to me this is being allowed to happen. All of the MDs on this board have PE involvement. No patient representation remotely near it. Americans don't have a voice anymore. And we wonder why all this fraud was allowed to occur. It will never go away.

@Imogen_Cecil Oh yeah nobody mentions that Dr. Oz's son is a private equity executive too which I believe now he's become an owner of Zorro RX which is a 340 B company that helps hospitals maximize their profits from drugs how about that, company started by Oz and his son.

Exactly, well said.

One of the members is the mother of a man who plead guilty to tax evasion in his home health business. We have to do better than that. syracuse.com/state/2026/02/…

With leaders from health systems, insurers, investors, and government all represented, where is the actual patient representation; the people who are navigating the broken system every day? How can a committee tasked with modernizing healthcare claim to represent all Americans without a single patient advocate at the table?

Today, @HHSGov and CMS are proud to announce the members of the Healthcare Advisory Committee, a federal advisory body composed of leaders from across healthcare who will help modernize and strengthen the U.S. healthcare system.