Luke Messac

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.

*NEW STUDY in JAMA Internal Medicine* Where do our healthcare dollars go? We looked at one part of the answer: corporate shareholders.

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. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dems-wo…

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/event/arpa-inv…

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. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

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.

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. nytimes.com/2024/12/19/hea…

@geniusliberator @Dollarfor_ Don’t know of one, would be great to have.

@LukeMessac @Dollarfor_ @LukeMessac is there a database of also which hospitals require contracted doctors/providers who may bill separately to adhere to the same policies as well?

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. healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hl…

Virtual: Tu, Sep 17 @ 12pm - "The Transformation of Medical Debt Collection and the Financialization of Health Care Delivery" @LukeMessac @UCBerkeleySPH @OxUniPress - mailchi.mp/berkeley.edu/v…

@jonshaffer Thanks so much, Jon.

Grateful for the thoughtful review of Your Money or Your Life by Marianne Amoss in Health Affairs Forefront today:

@ChinoNwakama Thanks, Chino, glad to see more work on this

Medical debt and the cost of care are two topics that are rarely discussed in medical education. @LukeMessac discussed this in his well written book: Your Money Or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine.

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

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.

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.

@AlexJankeMD Thanks, Alex. Some really affecting testimony from the other witnesses. Really worth a listen!

@jonshaffer Feels like the best parts of the global justice movement, the movement that brought such solidarity and purpose to our younger lives, are just fading away.

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 unless the IDF allows in a new rotation, otherwise the patients will all die and the IDF will overrun the hospital and leave it in ruins as they have done to every other hospital in Gaza. Five staff were evacuated today but Hamawy refused to go, leaving his body on the line to defend and to treat his patients. He is effectively saying, if they are going to kill everyone in the hospital, they'll have to kill him too.

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. 🧵 tinyurl.com/nhk4v93f

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.