So, I’m up at 3am to take basal and I can’t go back to sleep.
But I have been wondering this - how has the federal government addressed my concerns submitted via an FTC and DOJ complaint? Are they helping me?
Lets investigate their progress …
Concern #1. Concerns about the quality of patient care in the hospital
RATING: No Progress
Notes: I didn’t really expect any progress on this. This is WAY down the list of concerns for everyone in industry and the government. The hope is that with a functioning market, we have the possiblity of progress here.
That being said, there has been an erruption of dialog about how the hospital systems are functioning. We recently saw the FTC issue letters of warning to the largest hospital systems in the country. That’s a big deal. That’s a regulatory agency firing warning shots that they are prepared to take action over any disregard of the recent work on price transparency. That’s important to our advocacy orgs. (Oct 5th, 2026: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/10/ftc-issues-letters-warning-hospitals-against-deceptive-pricing-practices?utm_source=govdelivery)
Concern #2. Concerns by Doctors about their freedom to practice medicine
RATING: No Progress
Notes: No concrete organization out of the doctors. They are a mess. Some of them are getting busted for Medicare/Medicaid fraud. Patient advocacy organizations are coming to their rescue by launching an attack on their only advocacy organization - the American Medical Association (AMA) (Aug 21, 2026: The People v. The White-Coat Cartel).
Doctors had launched one prior, really successful attack on AMA. That made our advocacy orgs happy because it forced them to publicly support our policy objectives. It’s something. (Sep 29th https://www.ama-assn.org/health-care-advocacy/access-care/what-are-pharmacy-benefit-managers-pbms-and-why-we-need-reform)
They passed a bill in California. They introduced that bill in a federal context (which is a significant move for them). It’s not gonna pass anytime soon…maybe in 5 years. They didn’t put in any prep work to achieve bipartisan support, so it’s really just a flimsy campaign stunt right now. Federal Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) Ban Introduced
Concern #3. Concerns over the quality of medical tech and software
RATING: Some progress
Notes: Medtronic divested its diabetes leg. However, the board remains unchanged. So, is that progress? Maybe. It’s something. (MiniMed completes separation from Medtronic | MedTech Dive) They have a long history of an inability to innovate that this move could impact positively, but as always the focus will probably continue to be shareholder value thru market fixing.
FTC has launched a preliminary investigation of Epic software. That has the potential to be a big deal if they follow through. Epic has suspended all development until it handles a bunch of security problems. (Sep 22, 2026: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ehrs/epic-says-development-roadmap-unchanged-amid-cybersecurity-push/)
We have a diabetic and a doctor up for FDA comissioner. I think this counts as a win for us because it’s someone who actually understands our tech.
I looked at some really interesting public comments that the government is collecting on AI in medical devices. That means they are preparing to conduct rulemaking at some point in the future. I don’t think they have any idea how to handle it. Rulemaking could be far in the future, but they are attempting to learn and stay ahead of it. Public comments are open until October 19th. They are very interesting to read. Regulations.gov
Concern #4. System complexity
RATING: Unknown
Concern #5. Previous Rules
RATING: They gave me exactly what I asked for
Notes: I told them that their responsibility was to protect individual citizens and giant corporations - giant corporations can take care of themselves. They actually seem to have suspended the entire rulemaking process. Companies had asked for guidence on how to interpret the laws. That whole process just stopped dead. Kinda strange because they haven’t even posted public comments on the matter. That’s unusual because they are legally required to post those prior to rulemaking. That whole process just seized up, last I checked. Super strange. Regulations.gov
Concern #6. Market Remedies
RATING: Vast Progress
The state AG in PA just filed suit the other day. A bunch of states are suing over insulin price gouging. (https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/ag-sundays-antitrust-section-takes-action-against-insulin-makers-pbms-for-pricing-scheme-resulting-in-patients-paying-more-for-life-saving-meds)
At least 11 states in total have filed suit - Delaware, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Florida filed in 2026, while Arizona, Utah, Kentucky, and Ohio are also listed as states that sued. Those are states with active litigation.
MN sued the insulin manufacturers previously (c. 2018), but not the PBMs.
CA has active litigation (filed in 2023) with both the PBMs and the insulin manufacturers.
Texas sued. They are additionally claiming criminal conspiracy. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/texas-sues-pbms-manufacturers-over-insulin-conspiracy
The total landscape of potential market remedies is too extensive to list, but this is one of the most directly impactful for us, in the short term.
The biggest shortfall is that the government is focusing exclusivley on public money. They are doing very little for people on private insurance. For example, you don’t see any fraud cases there. You don’t see any movement to remedy the markets much at all. That’s pretty typical, but dissapointing.
Concern #7. Medical negligence
RATING: Some Progress
Notes: This is hard to quantify. There’s a variety of pending legislation to, for example, prohibit prior authorizations used to delay/prevent care & medical treatment. There’s some effort to prevent insurance companies from dictating how medicine is practiced. There’s threats against doctors who are potential recieving financial incentives to provide certain types of care. There’s a lot of people stabbing at this is a wide variety of ways and we don’t actually know who will take office after the midterms, so I withold verdict on this until the gov is up and running again for a few months.
Concern #8. I asked them for help repairing my local market in Minneapolis
RATING: They went wild on that ■■■■
Notes: DOJ and FTC flew here. My state is a target, specifically. There’s warefare between political partisans. I have no idea what the result of that could be. Seems like the feds and the state are cooperating, at least to some degree, at least on combating concerns over fraud. That’s positive. Hard to say what happens after the elections. The thing to watch is what happens with the insurers because we are the headquarters for the largest health insurance company in the country. My brother says that I might destoy our local economy by baiting wolves. If we go down, but it helps the rest of the country (and patients more broadly), economically, I guess I am OK with that. But maybe nothing happens to the insurers. Giant monopolies are incredibly resilliant. As hard as the government works, they might not have the power or motivation to fix that.
One interesting recent development was this: JD Vance Slams Microsoft for Hiring ‘Foreign Indentured Servants’ Punishes Company for Visa ‘Fraud’
They are pounding on Microsoft and the labor markets. https://cybernews.com/news/microsoft-h1b-visa-fraud-green-card-ban-foreign-workers/