Adam Gaffney
@awgaffney.bsky.social
Pulmonary & ICU doctor, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, past president PNHP, author "To Heal Humankind", dabbler, tweets my own. Webpage: https://dradamgaffney.com/ Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KChlDTsAAAAJ&hl
Wrote about the pseudoscience and conspiracy theory beliefs underlying RFK Jr.'s supposed plan to tackle Lyme disease for good. My thanks to @awgaffney.bsky.social for some of his thoughts! gizmodo.com/rfk-jr-s-new...
RFK Jr.'s New Lyme Plan Is More Conspiracy Than Science
Chronic Lyme disease is a dubious medical diagnosis, but that isn't stopping RFK Jr. from boosting it.
gizmodo.com
I wrote about patient autonomy and children vaccine mandates and why they have nothing to do with each other — with some insights from the ICU. www.statnews.com/2026/05/18/p...
‘Patient autonomy’ has nothing to do with childhood vaccine policies
Opinion: Vaccine policy it is not a matter of autonomy at all, because infants do not decline vaccination — their parents do.
statnews.com
I wrote about patient autonomy and children vaccine mandates and why they have nothing to do with each other — with some insights from the ICU. www.statnews.com/2026/05/18/p...
‘Patient autonomy’ has nothing to do with childhood vaccine policies
Opinion: Vaccine policy it is not a matter of autonomy at all, because infants do not decline vaccination — their parents do.
statnews.com
Will the coming cuts to Medicaid spare the "truly needy"? History suggests that they won't, a study finds. @awgaffney.bsky.social www.medpagetoday.com/publichealth...
Will the Coming Cuts to Medicaid Spare the 'Truly Needy'?
History suggests that they won't, a study finds
medpagetoday.com
Our new paper was just published in @atsblueeditor.bsky.social Authored by the Lung Health Policy Tracking Group — a panel of lung specialists & public health experts — our paper explores impacts of Trump policies on Lung Health in 10 domains. Open access link to "online first" version:
Implications of Year 1 Trump Administration Policies for Americans’ Lung Health
Adam W Gaffney, MD, MPH, Steffie Woolhandler, MD MPH, David C Christiani, MD, MPH, MS, Mary B Rice, MD MPH, John Balmes, MD, C Corey Hardin, MD PhD, Cecile
academic.oup.com
Tearing down the Stalinist monuments to this regime will be such a satisfying, salubrious, democratizing endeavor once the time comes. People will fill the streets, I suspect, but who knows.
It is journalistic malpractice by CBS to use a debunked photo of an alleged UFO as a caption for this tweet without mentioning that it has been debunked. What a stupid era we are living through.
UFO conspiracism, ivermectin conspiracism, chemtrails conspiracism, anti-vaccine conspiracism etc. etc. are part and parcel of the same obscurantist, right-wing, anti-Enlightenment, dark ages brain fog that is settling over the US states.
“Medicaid’s origins,” writes Adam Gaffney(@awgaffney.bsky.social), “lie in a state-centric welfare model ideologically predicated on the same distinction between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ that underpins the Trump administration’s new work requirements.”https://go.nybooks.com/46HtWJn
Medicaid Undone | Adam Gaffney
One year ago President Donald Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid. Alas, his affection for the public insurance program was short-lived. The
nybooks.com
“We need to restore Medicaid, and to improve it,” writes @awgaffney.bsky.social. “But the best way to advance its mission in the long term would be to replace it with something better.”
Medicaid Undone | Adam Gaffney
One year ago President Donald Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid. Alas, his affection for the public insurance program was short-lived. The
nybooks.com
I have an essay in the New York Review of Books about the Trump Administration’s cuts to Medicaid, and more broadly about the program’s origins, strengths, & flaws — and why the best way to advance its mission might be to replace it with something better. www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
Medicaid Undone | Adam Gaffney
One year ago President Donald Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid. Alas, his affection for the public insurance program was short-lived. The
nybooks.com
Among participants in a survey on healthcare expenses, 17.4% and 9.9% said they experienced cost burdens or catastrophic cost burdens at least once over 4 years. @awgaffney.bsky.social www.medpagetoday.com/publichealth...
More Americans Experience Troublesome Healthcare Costs Than Previously Thought
Findings of nationally representative survey suggest need for 'abolishing price tags'
medpagetoday.com
Our new study just up in JAMA IM: we track Americans' out-of-pocket health spending longitudinally over a four-year period, showing that risks mount year after year. Whereas 11.8% of adults experience healthcare financial strain after 1 year, risk rises to 26.7% over four years
Our article in Health Affairs Forefront on the “real waste, fraud, and abuse” in healthcare — Medicare and Medicaid privatization — is now up. MA Overpayments & excess Medicaid managed care overhead could cost as much as $1.9 trillion in coming decade. www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/f...
I feel like this fake big animal sightings are too common!
🗞️Hot off the press in @atsblueeditor.bsky.social! Our analysis shows that unfavourable social and environmental exposures explain a much larger share of racial disparities in lung function than previously thought. Details: doi.org/10.1164/rccm... @msafavi.bsky.social @awgaffney.bsky.social
Social Determinants of Health and Racial Disparities in Lung Function: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2007–2012 | American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care...
doi.org
It's not clear to me how to respond to this endless stream of unrepentant, shameless lying from unrepentant, shameless liars like this. To be clear: I believe in taking care of everyone no matter where they're from, so I'm not so interested in these distinctions. But for those...
Easy to feel despondent now, but it’s important to remember that there is a real possibility that the Trumpian political project crashes & burns, anyone remotely associated with it is permanently discredited politically & morally, & a window opens for substantive positive change.
"Unless you are extraordinarily rich, it is effectively not possible to save enough money to cover the costs of a serious illness or major trauma,” Gaffney said. “For the uninsured, medical debt and bankruptcy is just one major illness or injury away.” www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
‘It’s only gotten worse’: As ACA premiums are set to climb, some Americans opt to go uninsured
Enhanced subsidies for Obamacare have kept premiums affordable. Absent action from Congress, they will expire at the end of the year.
nbcnews.com
So an anonymous billionaire Trump ally is dispersing $130 million in personal cash to US troops. Truly crossing new rubicons weekly www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
Excellent thread
Adam Gaffney@awgaffney.bsky.social · 12mo agoIn wake of the CDC shooting, so-called "post-vaccination syndrome" has come back into discussion, as this report from @nbcnews.com describes. The assailant attributed health issues including depression to COVID-19 vaccines. I'm quoted, & wrote about the... www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...
In wake of the CDC shooting, so-called "post-vaccination syndrome" has come back into discussion, as this report from @nbcnews.com describes. The assailant attributed health issues including depression to COVID-19 vaccines. I'm quoted, & wrote about the... www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...
Anti-vaccine myths surged on social media ahead of the CDC shooting
Before the shooting, social media companies relaxed their protocols around misinformation.
nbcnews.com
In wake of the CDC shooting, so-called "post-vaccination syndrome" has come back into discussion, as this report from @nbcnews.com describes. The assailant attributed health issues including depression to COVID-19 vaccines. I'm quoted, & wrote about the... www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...
Anti-vaccine myths surged on social media ahead of the CDC shooting
Before the shooting, social media companies relaxed their protocols around misinformation.
nbcnews.com
A quick short post on Thursday's Senate HELP hearings on healthcare affordability: open.substack.com/pub/healthcl...
Senate HELP Committee Hearings: Healthcare Affordability, the "Big Beautiful Bill", and Medicare for All
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to present at the Senate HELP Committee at a hearing entitled "Making Health Care Affordable: Solutions to Lower Costs and Empower Patients." Chairman Sen.
open.substack.com
The AP has a story on the impact of Medicaid cuts for patients and our study quantifying those effects nationally — the accompanying video is powerful as it presents the story of a patient with cancer worried about falling between the cracks. apnews.com/article/medi...
Debt and delayed care forecast for some who lose insurance under tax and spending law
Delayed treatments, canceled doctor visits and skipped prescriptions: Researchers say all will increase because of the tax and spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump earlier this…
apnews.com
I testified today for the Senate HELP Committee on issue of healthcare affordability. The “Big Beautiful Bill” will worsen the crisis of healthcare affordability — and cause thousands of deaths. Medicare-for-All will deliver full coverage for everyone, at an affordable price for the nation. Link:
ISVP
senate.gov
Let’s not move on from the “Big Beautiful Bill” so quickly? The law will shred the US healthcare safety net. The deaths it causes may seem invisible — medical neglect causes heart attacks, kidney failure, strokes — that will register as “natural,” but will be something more.
fresh audio product: • Adam Gaffney @awgaffney.bsky.social on Trump & Co.’s cuts to health care and research • Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social tries to make sense of Trump’s nonsensical trade policy www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S...
