Carter's healthcare record deserves a more nuanced evaluation. More than any other modern president, he took on the healthcare industry, as well as his own allies, by attempting to address the high costs of American healthcare. And his healthcare proposals pushed his party toward the policy strategies that eventually produced the landmark Affordable Care Act in 2010. Carter's willingness to tackle the politically perilous task of trying to rein in healthcare costs offers a template for the kind of leadership and focus needed to address the healthcare system's enduring flaws in 2024.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a busy sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan, was escorted into a New York courtroom Monday where he pleaded not guilty to state murder and terror charges. The hearing marked Mangione’s first opportunity to formally address the accusations brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The 26-year-old faces 11 counts in New York, including one of murder in the first degree and two of murder in the second degree, along with other weapon and forgery charges.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is now facing new federal charges of stalking and murder, which could bring the death penalty if convicted.
Kathleen Sebelius, who led HHS under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2014 talked with the health policy podcast Tradeoffs about the power of the position, and the checks and balances Kennedy may face in enacting some of his priorities. "The [HHS] secretary is in a position to do a lot of good, but also potentially do a lot of harm," she says.
Governor Maura Healey defended her record Tuesday on Steward Health Care, saying she "did all that I could do" to address the now-bankrupt hospital chain's collapse, which a recent Globe Spotlight Team investigation found was enabled by years of lax state scrutiny. Healey placed the blame for the hospital chain's subpar care and massive financial losses on former Steward chief executive Ralph de la Torre, who resigned in October and is now a focus of a federal corruption investigation. "What happened with Steward is attributable to one man, Ralph de la Torre, and those around him who enabled and furthered greed and corruption," Healey said in an interview following an unrelated news conference Tuesday. Her comments came as federal and state lawmakers redoubled calls for greater oversight of health care companies in the wake of the Spotlight investigation. The report, which was published Saturday, revealed how years of weak scrutiny across several state administrations contributed to a health crisis that has harmed communities and cost lives. "There's plenty of blame to go around, and it dates back for years and years of lax oversight," Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a brief interview. "We need accountability throughout the system."
The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare's CEO has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Tuesday as they worked to bring him to a New York court from from a Pennsylvania jail. Luigi Mangione already was charged with murder in the Dec. 4 killing of Brian Thompson, but the terror allegation is new. Under New York law, such a charge can be brought when an alleged crime is "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping." Mangione's New York lawyer has not commented on the case.