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Surging inflation has set the table for heated negotiations between providers and insurers. In May, year-over-year price increases of consumer goods and services outpaced healthcare inflation, bucking the historical trend. The consumer price index rose 8.6%, the steepest gain since December 1981. Medical expenditures grew 3.7% in May, the biggest year-over-year jump since September 2020, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inflation spike will ripple throughout the healthcare industry. It may push more providers to cut services or seek merger partners as supply costs rise, wages grow and access to capital drops. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75 of a percentage point to curb consumer spending, increasing health systems' borrowing costs and likely slowing capital projects— and a similar increase could come in July. (Kacik and Tepper, 6/28)

KHN: Government Watchdogs Attack Medicare Advantage For Denying Care And Overcharging

Congress should crack down on Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that sometimes deny patients vital medical care while overcharging the government billions of dollars every year, government watchdogs told a House panel Tuesday. Witnesses sharply criticized the fast-growing health plans at a hearing held by the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. They cited a slew of critical audits and other reports that described plans denying access to health care, particularly those with high rates of patients who were disenrolled in their last year of life while likely in poor health and in need of more services. (Schulte, 6/29)

Company officials have broken ground on a new campus in western Louisville that will house a hospital and a headquarters for Goodwill Industries. The new hospital will be the first in the predominantly African American area west of Ninth Street since a Marine hospital closed in the 1930s. (6/29)

Kaiser Permanente is eyeing the conversion of a big office building in San Jose to medical uses, an effort that could greatly expand the health care titan’s Silicon Valley footprint. The building on Kaiser’s radar screen is at 1600 Technology Drive in North San Jose and totals about 198,000 square feet, according to San Jose city planning documents. “As one of the largest not-for-profit health care providers in the country, Kaiser Permanente is continuously looking for opportunities to better meet the needs of our members, and support the communities we serve,” Kaiser Permanente said in comments emailed to this news organization. (Avalos, 6/28)

The doctor-patient relationship is an important part of helping and healing. But it can be hijacked by racial or other biases that either party holds. A novel study published Monday using the placebo response as a measure of bias shows how patients’ unconscious reactions to their doctor’s gender or race may have lingering physiological effects and even steer health outcomes. (Gilyard, 6/28)