u/Silver_Guidance4134

Crisis in Care: Finding Solutions Together

Guest Speakers: Sen. Hasegawa, Comissioner Kuderer, Director Lowe (virtual), Dr Gilmer and Ross from Heritage University and Dr. Mittelman from PNWU.

Place: Heritage University - Smith Family Hall

Date and Time: 8/24/2026 5:30pm-8pm

Join us to hear from our elected leaders and advocates!

Universal Heatlhcare will be covered by Whole Washington, the largest universal healthcare group in Washington State! Executive Director Andre Stackhouse, Board Chair Carey Wallace and Volunteer Thomas Kennedy will be outlining the solution!

Economic Liberties put out a report on prior authorization this month (Aug 2026) and one number in it is striking.

CMS estimates every provider loses about 700 hours a year to prior authorization. Run that across the physician workforce and it works out to the equivalent of 99,290 full time clinicians. The projected US physician shortage right now is 96,430.

So we're short about 96,000 doctors, and we spend about 99,000 doctors' worth of time asking permission to treat people. Plus another 213,474 clinic staff. The bill is up to $32.7 billion a year.

To be clear, this is a time equivalent, not 99,000 doctors sitting around unemployed. Same way you'd say traffic costs a city X million work hours. But the hours are real and they come out of the same pool of people you're trying to get an appointment with.

When you can't see a specialist for four months, everyone tells you it's a shortage. Some of it is. A lot of it is that the doctor who could see you is on the phone with someone whose job is to say no.

Other things from the report worth knowing:

Medicare Advantage plans ran almost 53 million prior auth requests in 2024. That's 1.7 per enrollee. Traditional Medicare ran about 628,000, or 0.02 per enrollee. Same kind of patients, same care, 85 times the vetoes. And Medicare Advantage still costs 22% more per patient, about $83 billion a year.

When people do appeal, UnitedHealthcare overturns 58% of appealed denials and Humana overturns 65%. So most denials don't survive being challenged. Most people never challenge them. 60% of doctors say they've learned from experience that appealing won't work.

New brand name drugs got denied 70% of the time on first request in 2025, up from 57% in 2021. A year later that drops to 24%. Same patient, same drug, same chart. The only thing that changed is somebody fought.

I mapped the 25 categories of middlemen between a patient and a doctor (see my earlier posts). Prior auth isn't one of them, it's three. The utilization review firm that writes the criteria, the prior auth vendor that decides, and the denial management vendor the hospital hires to fight the result. UnitedHealth bought NaviHealth, its own adjudicator, for $1.1 billion in 2020. Cigna bought EviCore in 2018. The company deciding whether you need the care and the company that would pay for it are now the same company.

71% of voters want it banned. 69% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats. There is almost nothing else in American healthcare polling like that.

How long did you wait for your last specialist appointment, and did anyone tell you why?

Source: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/cbsnews_20260816_1.pdf

We are going for the ballot in 2027. Help us get it done!

Some of the great folks behind the nonprofit, Healthcare For All Oregon https://www.hcao.org/
just launched a new podcast and it looks to be a pretty great primer for what a path towards single payer healthcare could look like. In case you didn't know, Oregon is actually on track to have a proposal for review by the state legislature this fall and could be going to statewide vote by 2028.

Certainly a good thing to follow if you want to learn more about the work being done to make this a reality even if you aren't in Oregon. Can find it on most of the podcast apps but here's the Apple link.

Please give it a review if you like it. They could use the signal boost.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-health-care-for-all-podcast/id6799660740

Crisis in Care: Finding Solutions Together

Guest Speakers: Sen. Hasegawa, Comissioner Kuderer, Director Lowe (virtual), Dr Gilmer and Ross from Heritage University and Dr. Mittelman from PNWU.

Place: Heritage University - Smith Family Hall

Date and Time: 8/24/2026 5:30pm-8pm

Join us to hear from our elected leaders and advocates!

Universal Heatlhcare will be covered by Whole Washington, the largest universal healthcare group in Washington State! Executive Director Andre Stackhouse, Board Chair Carey Wallace and Volunteer Thomas Kennedy will be outlining the solution!

🔥It's Primary Day! Drop your ballot in a ballot box (do not mail) TODAY.

We cannot let 2026 turnout lag! Get out there and support real fighters who will defend our community!

Our guide shows candidates and incumbents who have gone on the record for universal healthcare and our campaign:
wholewashington.org/know-before-...

Anyone can attend!

1. Civic Action Fair, 7/25 Vancouver
2. South King County Meetup, 7/26 Burien
3. Monthly All Hands, 7/27 Zoom
4. Lacey Medicare Day, 7/30 Lacey
5. Hellbent Brewing, 8/1 Seattle

Find our more on our events page! https://wholewashington.org/events

🩺Is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE your litmus test?
🔔Don't forget to vote in the August 4th Primary!

Learn more about the candidates at:

Stephen Szczurko-Walton (LD 31 rep): https://stephen4district31.com/issues/

Tamara Stramel (LD 31 sen): https://www.togetherwithtamara.com/

Natasha Laitila (LD 29 rep): https://www.votenatasha.com/

Get involved to win #healthcareforall in #WashingtonState 🍎

All three of these candidates have signed the Patients over Profits Pledge from National Nurses United.

🩺Is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE your litmus test?
🔔Don't forget to vote in the August 4th Primary!

Learn more about the candidates at:

Krisitin Lillegard (LD 23): https://www.kristin-for-kitsap.com/

Natalie Bornfleth (LD 26): https://www.electnataliebornfleth.com/

Jim Pierson (LD 35): https://www.electjimpierson.com/

Get involved to win #healthcareforall in #WashingtonState 🍎

🩺Is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE your litmus test?
🔔Don't forget to vote in the August 4th Primary!

Learn more about the candidates at:

Patrick Depoe (LD 24): https://www.depoeforwashington.com/

Nemo Callaway (LD 24): https://noroly.chapters.dsausa.org/endorsements/ld24/

Kaylee Kuehn (LD 24): https://votekayleekuehn.com/

Learn more about us at r/WholeWashington

🩺Is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE your litmus test?
🔔Don't forget to vote in the August 4th Primary!

Learn more about the candidates at:

Patrick Depoe (LD 24): https://www.depoeforwashington.com/

Nemo Callaway (LD 24): https://noroly.chapters.dsausa.org/endorsements/ld24/

Kaylee Kuehn (LD 24): https://votekayleekuehn.com/

Get involved to win #healthcareforall in #WashingtonState 🍎

r/WholeWashington and National Nurses United have officially launched the Patients Over Profits campaign here in Washington State! We are now asking every candidate and elected office holder in Washington to say NO to corporate healthcare money and to put Patients Over Profits!

Can you take a moment now to do this easy online action contacting your state & federal legislators asking them to pledge?

Contact Your Legislators

The pledge:
"CEOs and lobbyists for Big Pharma, corporate insurers, and private hospitals have formed a front group called Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future that wants to exploit our health care system to make money off of keeping us sick.

I pledge to put patients over profits and not take contributions over $200 from the executives, lobbyists, and PACs affiliated with the corporate health care industry, including private insurers, pharma corporations, and private hospitals who are organizing to take over our health care system."

🩺Is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE your litmus test?
🔔Don't forget to vote in the August 4th Primary!

Learn more about the candidates at:

Luc Jasmin III (LD 3): https://electluc.org/

Pam Kohlmeier (LD 3): https://www.peoplefordrpam.com/

Michaela Kelso (LD 6): https://www.kelso4wa.com/

Get involved to win #healthcareforall in #WashingtonState 🍎