While Nurses Continue to Rank Top in Honesty and Ethics, Americans’ Respect for All Professions is Tanking
While nurses continue to rank high for honesty and ethics, Americans’ trust in the nations’ professions is tanking, found in this year’s Gallup Poll update titled, Nurses Continue to Lead in Honesty and Ethics Ratings. Nurses perennially top this chart, usually followed by doctors and pharmacists. But this year, it’s military veterans who garner the second spot in the Gallup Poll, with doctors and pharmacists in positions 3 and 4. Ranking at the bottom as least-respected for honesty and ethics are Members of Congress, again garnering the low-point in this study, with telemarketers trailing the
A Primer on Health Consumers for CES 2026 – How Macro Consumer Trends Will Shape Healthcare Consumers in 2026
Increasingly, people are engaging more in health care decision making due to many factors impacting their personal medical choices — from the cost and access to health insurance to co-payments for prescription drugs and the supply of primary care doctors, more patients developed and exercised their health consumer muscles in 2025, For 2026, the health consumer muscle-building will grow as people will be re-shaped by macro market factors we are currently gleaning from forecasts looking into the new year: for personal finances, social issues, technology adoption, views on AI and privacy, and other issues. Here are some data points to
Navigating a Constellation of Uncertainties: Health/Care in 2026 (My Un-Forecast)
Almost from the first year of launching Health Populi in 2007, I’ve written a “TrendCast” for the coming year of health care. Over many years, there weren’t so many blogs devoted to health care which featured such prognostications, and so readers could divine signal from noise and move forward into new years with manageable lists of What To Expect Next Year in Healthcare. Here’s one from ten years ago that brings a sense of déjà vu: most of the findings are consistent with what we know for sure about 2026 and it’s useful to look back with today’s eyes to
On Labor Day 2025: From Health Care “Revenue Bounty Hunters,” Medical Bills Back into FICO Scores, the Rise of “Cute Debt,” and Tariffs — U.S. Consumers’ Face Eroding Financial Health
On this U.S. Labor Day 2025, the physical and the fiscal, with the mental, converge as I ponder what working Americans are facing….packing kids up for school, sorting out college payments and loans, dealing with rising costs of daily living, and feeling a growing pinch of what President Trump’s tariffs have had in store now that they’re hitting SKUs around the household. This post will cover most days this week as my own workflows will be heavy as clients return to face returns-to-work and updating scenario plans. We start this post with a headline: “Why Hospitals Are Hiring ‘Revenue Bounty
Prescription Drug Pricing in America – a 3-Part Update, From the Over- the-Counter OPill and “Half-Price” Ozempic to Most-Favored-Nation Rx (Part 3)
Welcome to Part 2 of 3 in my consideration of Prescription Drug Pricing in America. You can catch up with yesterday’s Part 1 post here, and Part 2 here. The macro-context for these 3 posts are the forecasts for health care spending for the coming year. Health care cost increases forecasted for 2026 will, in significant part, be driven by prescription drug trend. This graphic from this week’s release of the Business Group on Health’s employer survey on healthcare cost growth to 2026 illustrates a key finding that’s echoed in other similar studies recently released and covered here in Health Populi.
What U.S. Consumers Are Thinking About Tariffs’ Impacts on Health Care: Looking to Ipsos, QCentrix and Goldman Sachs
Most Americans, thinking as health consumers, believe that tariffs could impact peoples’ ability to pay for costly prescription drugs and be priced out of paying for check-ups and medical supplies, based on results from two studies on consumers’ views on tariffs and their health care from Ipsos and Q-Centrix. Ipsos’s consumer survey found that younger consumers, people earning lower incomes, and folks living in the suburbs feel even more stressed about tariffs’ impact on medical care — along with more people identifying as Democrats or Independent voters. With
Women Walk a Financial Tightrope: What That Means for Women’s Health, Mind, Body, & Wallet
Financial stress and anxiety have an ‘outsized’ negative impact on the well-being of women in America, compared to male counterparts, we learn in Health. Wealth, and Happiness – Helping to overcome roadblocks to women’s well-being, a report from the Guardian Life Insurance Company. This report is part of Guardian’s annual research program called Mind, Body, Wallet, which the company launched 14 years ago. The goal of Mind, Body. Wallet is to assess how health citizens define “well-being” in daily living, making the crucial connections between mental health (“Mind”), physical health (“Body”), and money
The Patient as Consumer – Updates from Fidelity on Retiree Health Care Costs ($172,500), Delaying Care, Tariff Impacts on Spending, and Roche Going DTPatient for Rx’s?
As of August 2025, U.S. patients of all demographics and geographies face many uncertainties with respect to their care. Issues such as health plan coverage, prescription drug costs, and access to services, among other challenges, continue to re-shape patients-as-health-consumers seeking transparency, clinical choices, and trust-worthy relationships with touchpoints in their personal health ecosystems. Four just-breaking stories across the health/care ecosystem illustrate several of these uncertainties and forces in U.S. health care — some adding friction and angst in a patient’s life, others perhaps providing some relief for certain health consumers. These news items address health care costs in retirement, the
Medicare at 60: Prior Authorizations Are a Problem for People in the U.S., Regardless of One’s Political Party, Income, or Insurance Type
Happy 60th Anniversary Medicare, today marking six decades since the passage of this law which was a landmark milestone for The Great Society, U.S. style. Since its inception and implementation, Medicare quite often leads in adoption of new medicines, new processes, new technologies in health care. But as I track the phenomenon of health citizenship in the U.S., I observe growing consensus among American patients — cross health plan type — increasingly impatient for health care access. We can now add Americans’ growing dissatisfaction with the prior authorization process, an opinion that now spans majorities of consumers regardless of their
National Health Spending in the U.S. in 2033: What 20.3% of the GDP Will Be Spent On
By 2033, national health spending will comprise 20.3% of the U.S. GDP, based on the latest national health expenditure projections developed by researchers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This growth will be happening as CMS projects coverage of insured people to decline over the period. Earlier today, I attended a media briefing hosted by Health Affairs to receive the CMS team’s top-line forecast of NHE from 2024 to 2033 discussing these findings. Fuller details on the projections will be released in the July issue of Health Affairs on 7
What GoFundMe and Crowdfunding Campaigns Tell Us About Healthcare in America
“Can people afford to pay for health care?” a report from the World Health Organization asked and answered, with a focus on European health citizens. The same question underpins a new research paper published in Health Affairs Scholar, Insights from crowdfunding campaigns for medical hardship, Here, crowdfunding is a proxy for “can’t afford to pay for health care” in America. Here in blazing colors we have a snapshot of the study’s data in the form of a “heatmap.” FYI, a heatmap is a data visualization format that represents the magnitude of values of a dataset as a color — generally
A Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, a Playground Set, or Healthcare for a Family of 4: What $35,119 Can Buy in 2025 According to Milliman
If you went shopping for something that cost $35,119 in 2025, which would you most value? A new 2025 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid with some extras on board? A Canyon BYO playground set for your yard, school, or social-athletic club? Or, Healthcare coverage for a family of 4 in the form of a PPO? Welcome to this year’s 20th anniversary edition of the Milliman Medical Index (MMI), which I’ve looked forward to reviewing for most of its two-decade history. [You can read my annual takes on the MMI here in Health Populi by searching “MMI” and the year of publication in
The Next Version of Medical Tourism: Medical Immigration?
One in three Americans could imagine leaving America for good as expatriates — with access to affordable and reliable health insurance the top consideration, according to research conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of GeoBlue and International Citizens Insurance (ICI). “Thirty-one percent of potential expats cite concerns about healthcare coverage abroad being the reason they haven’t yet taken the leap to move abroad. This trumped concerns about their work and social life abroad,” the survey found. Earlier this year, The Harris Poll’s American Expats Survey, published in February 2025, found that health care accessibility
Health, Wealth, and How Business Can Support Consumers in an Era of “Uncertainty on Steroids”
Facing uncertainties across everyday life flows, U.S. consumers look to economic and health security — and welcome businesses to support these, we learn in an analysis from The Conference Board. The Conference Board (TCB) polled 3,000 U.S. consumers gauging their perspectives on uncertainties emerging out of the new Trump administration’s policy changes introduced in the first quarter of 2025. The chart details people’s financial/fiscal responses in blue, and the health (mental, social, and physical aspects) in yellow: Consumers’ fiscal strategies for coping with uncertainty are to seek out more affordable brands and retailers, adjusting
How Consumers’ Economic Sentiments Are Shaping Peoples’ Financial and Emotional Well-Being (Spoiler: Not So Good): Learning from CivicScience
When it comes to health, the words “fiscal” and “physical” are morphing as peoples’ economic feelings (the “fiscal”) are shaping physical and emotional health, we find in U.S. consumer data presented by John Dick, Founder and CEO of CivicScience. The Consumer Technology Association convened a special session with John, who painted a portrait of the U.S. consumer at a point in time — late April 2025 — reminding us more than once during the hourlong session that, “Everything is constantly changing.” One certainty that we can be sure of, in the dismal-scientist way
Consumers Are Financially Stressed – What This Means for Health/Care in 2025
People define health across many life-flows: physical health, mental health, social health, appearance (“how I look impacts how I feel”) and, to be sure, financial well-being. In tracking this last health factor for U.S. consumers, several pollsters are painting a picture of financially-stressed Americans as President Trump tallies his first six weeks into the job. The top-line of the studies is that the percent of people in America feeling financially wobbly has increased since the fourth quarter of 2024. I’ll review these studies in this post, and discuss several potential impacts we should keep in mind for peoples’ health and
Think Quintuple Aim This Week at #HIMSS25
As HIMSS 2025, the largest annual conference on health information and innovation meets up in Las Vegas this week, we can peek into what’s on the organization’s CEO’s mind leading up to the meeting in this conversation between Hal Wolf, CEO of HIMSS, and Gil Bashe, Managing Director of FINN Partners. If you are unfamiliar with HIMSS, Hal explains in the discussion that HIMSS’s four focuses are digital health transformation, the deployment and utilization of AI as a tool, cybersecurity to protect peoples’ personal information and its use, and, workforce development. I have my own research agenda(s) underneath these themes
Improve Sleep, Improve the World and Health: ResMed’s Look at Global Sleep Trends
The world would be a better place if we had more, and better quality sleep. That’s the hopeful conclusion from the fifth annual Global Sleep Survey from ResMed. ResMed’s global reach with the sleeping public enabled the company to access the perspectives of over 30,000 respondents in 13 markets, finding that one in 3 people have trouble falling or staying asleep 3 or more times a week. We now live in “a world struggling with poor sleep” — “a world without rest,” ResMed coins our sleepless situation. The irony is that most people believe
Workers Feel “Stuck,” Under-Insured, Financially Stressed, and Neglecting Mental Health
“It’s the economy stupid,” Jennifer Tescher, CEO of the Financial Health Network, titles her latest column in Forbes. Published two weeks after the 2024 U.S. elections, Jennifer’s assertion sums up what, ex post facto, we know about what most inspired American voters at the polls in November 2024: the economy, economics, inflation, the costs of daily living….pick your noun, but it’s all about those Benjamins right now for mainstream American consumers across many demographic cuts. With that realization, we must remind ourselves as we enter a new year under a second-term President Trump that health care spending for everyday people
Health Care Costs and Access On U.S. Voters’ Minds – Even If “Not on the Ballot” – Ipsos/PhRMA
Today marks eight days before #Election2024 in the U.S. While many political pundits assert that “health care is not on the ballot,” I contend it is on voters’ minds in many ways — related to the economy (the top issue in America), social equity, and even immigration (in terms of the health care workforce). In today’s Health Populi blog, I’m digging into Access Denied: patients speak out on insurance barriers and the need for policy change, a study conducted by Ipsos on behalf of PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — the pharma industry’s advocacy organization (i.e., lobby
Where Democrats and Republicans Agree on Health Care Policies – From Medicare and Prescription Drugs to Gun Safety
In a super-divided electorate like the U.S. with about 60 days leading up to the 2024 Elections, we might assume there are no “purple” areas of agreement between the Red (Republicans) and the Blue (Democrats) thinking in PANTONE color politics. Surprisingly, there are many health policies on which Democrats and Republicans concur, as found in a series of YouGov polls conducted in May 2024. YouGov fielded the health policies poll in five waves online, each among roughly 1,100 U.S. adults in May 2004. This bar chart summarizes health
Women’s Health Outcomes in the U.S.: Spending More, Getting (Way) Less – 4 Charts from The Commonwealth Fund
Women in the U.S. have lower life expectancy, greater risks of heart disease, and more likely to face medical bills and self-rationing due to costs, we learn in the latest look into Health Care for Women: How the U.S. Compares Internationally from The Commonwealth Fund. The Fund identified four key conclusions in this global study: Mortality, shown in the first chart which illustrates women in the U.S. having the lowest life expectancy of 80 years versus women in other high-income countries; Health status, with women in the U.S. more likely to consume multiple prescription
What the “Vibe-Cession” Means for Health Care in the U.S. – Spending is Personal
People living in the U.S. continue to feel a “vibe-cession” malaise, based on the American Mindset July 2024 update from Dentsu’s Consumer Navigator research. Notwithstanding generally good news about the American macroeconomy — in terms of growth, downward ticking inflation, and expected interest rate relief come September from the Federal Reserve — one in two Americans still thinks the country is in a recession. And this context is important for consumer’s personal spending on health care, fitness, and wellness, because, as Dentsu puts it, “consumers think in terms of personal finances.” As
Medical Debt, Aflac on Eroding Health Benefits, the CBO’s Uninsured Forecast & Who Pays for Rising Health Care Prices: A Health Consumer Financial Update
On June 11, Rohit Chopra, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the agency’s vision to ban Americans’ medical debt from credit reports. He called out that, “In recent years, however, medical bills became the most common collection item on credit reports. Research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2022 showed that medical collections tradelines appeared on 43 million credit reports, and that 58 percent of bills that were in collections and on people’s credit records were medical bills.” Chopra further explained that medical debt on a consumer credit report was quite different than other kinds
A 2025 Subaru Forester, a Year at U-New Mexico, or a Health Plan for a Family of Four: the 2024 Milliman Medical Index
Health care costs for an “average” person covered by an employer-sponsored PPO in the U.S. rose 6.7% between 2023 and 2024, according to the 2024 Milliman Medical Index. Milliman also calculated that the largest driver of cost increase in health care, accounting for nearly one-half of medical cost increases, was pharmacy, the cost of prescription drugs, which grew 13% in the year. The big number this year is $32,066, which is the cost of that employer-sponsored PPO for a family of 4 in 2024. I’ve curated the chart of the MMI statistic for many
Consumers Are So Over Their Paper Chase in Health Care Payments
As we start the month of April 2024 in the U.S., it’s tax season in America with Federal (and other) income taxes due on the 15th of the month. This is also the time my research clock alarm goes off for an important annual report that describes the latest profile of the patient-as-payer in the U.S. ‘Tis the season for J.P. Morgan’s InstaMed team to analyze health care payments data, describing the experiences of consumers, providers and payers in the Trends in Healthcare Payments Fourteenth Annual Report. The overall takeaway for
Peering Into the Hidden Lives of Patients: a Manifesto from Paytient and Nonfiction
Having health insurance in America is no guarantee of actually receiving health care. It’s a case of having health insurance as “necessary but not sufficient,” as the cost of deductibles, out-of-pocket coinsurance sharing, and delaying care paint the picture of The Hidden Lives of Workplace-Insured Americans. That’s the title of a new report that captures the results of a survey conducted in January 2024 among 1,516 employed Americans who received employer-sponsored health insurance. The study was commissioned by Paytient, a health care financial services company, engaging the research firm Nonfiction to conduct the study
I'm grateful to be part of the Duke Corporate Education faculty, sharing perspectives on the future of health care with health and life science companies. Once again, I'll be brainstorming the future of health care with a cohort of executives working in a global pharmaceutical company.I'm grateful to be part of the Duke Corporate Education faculty, sharing perspectives on the future of health care with health and life science companies. Once again, I'll be brainstorming the future of health care with a cohort of executives working in a global pharmaceutical company.