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Luke Messac

@lukemessac.bsky.social
226 followers 162 following 30 posts

Historian and Emergency physician

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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Awesome event, every minute of it.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Health care rentiers are eating your raises. We’ve got solutions: single payer, public production of pharmaceuticals, enforce laws against corporate practice of medicine. Time to stop pretending this is hopelessly complicated. www.wsj.com/health/healt...
wsj.com
The Average Cost of a Family Health Insurance Plan Is Now $27,000
Higher spending on chronic diseases, weight-loss drugs and hospital bills helped drive the increase.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
You don’t realize just how bad the shortage of primary care doctors has become until you move and look for a new one. Yes, we are accepting new patients, I heard with relief today. But, the receptionist continued, the first appointment available is August 2027.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
The evil is boundless www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/u...
nytimes.com
U.S. Pauses Visitor Visas for Gazans After Right-Wing Outcry
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
This is courage. youtu.be/X7hRVAH3gQA
youtu.be
US Labor Leader Kidnapped, Beaten By IDF: IGNORED By US Diplomats
YouTube video by Breaking Points
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
if you need hope from someone who actually deserves to inspire it, check out @abdulelsayed.bsky.social, a doctor who lives up to what medicine should be about: an insistence that all lives are worthy. Oh, and he’s running to be a U.S. Senator from Michigan. youtu.be/xhS6_Xoz09g
youtu.be
Full 1-on-1 interview with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed
YouTube video by Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV
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KaminskiMed @kaminskimed.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
1/n Presidents of 5 Universities in Israel call on Israeli government to take action against famine in Gaza, mention the holocaust as an obligation to prevent indiscriminate harm to innocents, use the term 'crimes against humanity'. Lt - original letter in Hebrew Rt - my translation to English
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Rhode Island passed solid legislation this year on medical debt. Previously one of nation's worst ion medical debt protections. Now the state outlaws wage garnishment for medical debt, capped interest rates on repayment, and banned credit reporting. www.insidearm.com/news/0009373...
insidearm.com
Rhode Island Enacts Two Laws Regulating Medical Debt - insideARM
On June 26, the governor of Rhode Island signed into law S0169, which amends the state’s deceptive trade practices laws to prohibit credit reporting agencies from reporting a consumer’s medical debt. ...
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Anyone who votes for this reconciliation can never claim to care about medical debt. States that expanded Medicaid after the ACA saw a 50 percent decrease in medical debt. By kicking over 10 million off Medicaid, this bill will reverse many of those gains. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
At a conference in Oslo last week, a medical student from Gaza showed photos of the textbooks she had to burn to cook amid bombardment. For more on medicine in Gaza, read emergency physician Clayton Dalton in the New Yorker. The ending is gut-wrenching: www.newyorker.com/newsletter/t...
newyorker.com
A Doctor on What He Saw in Gaza
From the daily newsletter: a report detailing the wreckage he witnessed.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
One of my most inspiring teachers during residency is in the midst of a 25 hour long protest against Medicaid cuts. When I went to visit him at midnight he was surrounded by ED colleagues coming off of shifts. These are people worth following. turnto10.com/news/local/e...
turnto10.com
Emergency physician protests healthcare cuts by sitting on State House steps for 25 hours
An emergency physician is making a silent stand for federal cuts to healthcare by sitting on the State House steps for 25 straight hours.From the front lines to
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
The destruction of USAID is the betrayal of a devotion to dignity that crossed party lines. I wrote about the human and spiritual toll in America Magazine: www.americamagazine.org/politics-soc...
americamagazine.org
The end of bipartisan support for global AIDS treatment: 20 years of progress is on the line
The longer PEPFAR remains hobbled, the greater the number of patients who will suffer the terrifying consequences of stopped treatment—a kind of reverse Lazarus effect.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
For the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social, I wrote about three recent books by @victorroy.bsky.social, Colleen Grogan, and Gardiner Harris and the conquest of medicine by financial logics. lareviewofbooks.org/article/medi...
lareviewofbooks.org
Medicine and Lucre | Los Angeles Review of Books
While looking at three recent books, physician Luke Messac explains why the public has legitimate reasons to distrust our healthcare system.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
This is awesome. Was he really like this? lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...
lareviewofbooks.org
The Questionnaire: Mike Davis | Los Angeles Review of Books
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
No one in a major newspaper is documenting the mass murder that Trump is committing better than @stephanienolen.bsky.social. This could be reversed in a moment. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/h...
nytimes.com
Tuberculosis Resurgent as Trump Funding Cut Disrupts Treatment Globally
The United States was the major funder of tuberculosis programs. Now hundreds of thousands of sick patients can’t find tests or drugs, and risk spreading the disease.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
I’d been waiting to read this Hochschild book, maybe because it seemed even more dismal than his others (loved them all), but it is time. www.goodreads.com/book/show/60...
goodreads.com
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and …
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling historia…
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
This is the best explanation I’ve heard of what is happening in higher ed, and what is to come (also, the Boston Globe’s reporting and analysis are just awesome right now): www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/07/m...
bostonglobe.com
‘His way has to be the model’: Team Trump turns to Hungarian strongman for inspiration on higher ed - The Boston Globe
For American conservatives, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary is willing to do what it takes to reclaim universities from the left.
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Brandon Wolf @brandonwolf.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Remember when the WH insisted that global HIV prevention & treatment was exempt from the freeze? When it seemed MAYBE they understood that cutting off medicine could put the entire planet at risk of drug resistant HIV strains? Wrong. Elon Musk’s interns were simply shutting payments off manually.
Excerpt from the linked story
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Absolute comic book villainy here. Bono used to talk about “ending stupid deaths.” This administration is just hell-bent on maximizing them. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/h...
nytimes.com
Emergency Food, TB Tests and H.I.V. Drugs: Vital Health Aid Remains Frozen Despite Court Ruling
The Trump administration appears to be flouting a judge’s order pausing the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D.
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Astra Taylor @astra.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Listening in on this mass organizing call -- Cori Bush currently on the line buildtheresistance.org/BuildingOn50...
buildtheresistance.org
Mass Training Call: Building on 50501
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Trevor Noah’s podcast is really good
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Brian Schatz @schatz.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
There is literally HIV being transmitted from mom to baby because of the illegal shutdown of US AID and now Trump’s State Department wants to spend 400 million dollars on Tesla cyber trucks. This is not about efficiency. It’s a smash and grab.
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LPE Blog @lpeblog.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Today, @lookheron.bsky.social argues that, if we are lucky, a left-liberal coalition may soon have the chance to build new and better institutions out of the wreckage. However, unless policy scholars work on developing relatively detailed proposals now, we will squander this opportunity.
lpeproject.org
On Writing Down Our Dreams During a Living Nightmare
When it's time to rebuild from the wreckage of the Trump-Musk rampage, the left may have the opportunity to implement a truly transformative agenda. However, unless we have relatively detailed…
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
In Stellenbosch a decade ago, my wife and I stayed in a B&B on a street of gated homes with private security. A few miles away were huge shantytowns; the cooks and cleaners boarded buses there each morning. The owner complained he was “too male, too pale” to make it in South Africa.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Those talented lawyers who chose public interest over corporate law are having their moment. One of the orgs filing successful lawsuits against Trump’s illegal actions is the Public Citizen Litigation Group, an arm of the group founded by Ralph Nader in the 70s. www.citizen.org/about/staff/...
citizen.org
About Public Citizen Litigation Group - Public Citizen
Public Citizen Litigation Group, founded in 1972, is the litigating arm of Public Citizen. A public interest law firm litigating…
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Seems like an effective thing to do now, if you’ve got the means, is to donate to groups filing lawsuits to defend us from Trump’s illegal actions. Groups like Democracy Forward, who halted (for now) the federal spending freeze and mass firings. democracyforward.org
democracyforward.org
Democracy Forward - We go to court for democracy
Democracy depends on a government that works for all people. We fight vigorously in court against abuses of power and attempts to undermine a government that works for people who need it most.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Today’s top story on the debt collector listserv I follow. The stop work order at CFPB (which published incredible reports on medical debt and took action to limit its harms) is a joy to the industry, though the industry worries state regulators will fill the void www.insidearm.com/news/0009277...
insidearm.com
CFPB Activity Ordered to Stop Under New Director - insideARM
If you missed it, news broke on Saturday that Rohit Chopra is no longer at the helm of the CFPB. Scott Bessent was named as acting director yesterday morning. Politico, reported that by noon yesterday...
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
This is so good. How North Carolina’s plan to fight medical debt became reality, in the face of hospital lobby opposition. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
kffhealthnews.org
How North Carolina Made Its Hospitals Do Something About Medical Debt - KFF Health News
State officials threatened to withhold public money from hospitals, pioneering a strategy that could become a national model.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
This is just straight up mass murder. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/h...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Halts H.I.V. Drug Distribution in Poor Countries
PEPFAR’s computer systems also are being taken offline, a sign that the program may not return, as Republican critics had hoped.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
This would be a disaster. I just voted for Sen Whitehouse for reeelection as my Senator. A vote to confirm RFK jr would raise the risk of so many needless deaths. Vaccines are one of the greatest advances in human history. Any senator who won’t vote to defend them does not deserve our trust.
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Craig Spencer MD MPH @craigspencer.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
PEPFAR is one of the most successful global health programs ever It provides HIV treatment for 20 million people And now it faces a funding delay of up to 6 months Without access to treatment, HIV can rebound in less than a month. This is self-defeating stupidity. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/u...
nytimes.com
Trump Pauses Disbursements to Program Supplying H.I.V. Treatment Worldwide
Pepfar, which is estimated to have delivered lifesaving treatment to as many as 25 million people in 54 countries, faces a funding delay of as long as 180 days.
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
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-i...
racepowerpolicy.org
ARPA Investments Building Toward an Equitable Economy: Envisioning an End to Medical Debt - Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy
Join us on Tuesday, January 28 at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 pm ET for the second installment in our webinar series, “From Local Innovation to Systemic Change: ARPA Investments Building Toward an Equitable Ec...
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Can’t wait for this one
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Luke Messac @lukemessac.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
We worked with Dollar For 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. www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/...
healthaffairs.org
US Nonprofit Hospitals Have Widely Varying Criteria To Decide Who Qualifies For Free And Discounted Charity Care | Health Affairs Journal
US nonprofit hospitals are required by law to have a charity care policy, but hospitals have significant discretion in determining specific eligibility criteria. Using a novel national database, this ...
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