For the Media

 “Despite what their reduction-in-force notices may have said, all of these workers are essential to our nation’s health. These areas serve core functions for our nation that allow us to accurately track disease, prevent death, inform Congress about the latest science, and effectively maintain CDC operations.” — M. Daniele Fallin, PhD

"The real issue for Medicare is how to balance the volume of physician services with payment. Medicare tries to limit the rate of growth in physician total payments, which means that providers need to see more patients to adjust for decreased revenue. As an alternative to the “doc fix” campaign, one proposed solution to effectively manage billions of physician services is making updates to the physician fee schedule, with an annual update based on a portion of the growth in the Medicare Economic Index." — Edmund Becker, PhD

"More general reasons premiums are increasing include: new and expensive drugs, general inflation, and shifts in the insurance market—mergers and acquisitions that limit competition—which is also happening with hospitals/provider groups. Another issue is lack of transparency of what hospitals or, indeed, providers prices are. As consumers we aren’t aware of these until it is too late. Of course, the changes to subsidies on the marketplace will raise those premiums due, in part, to those healthier and younger leaving that market. The general factors raising costs affect those insurance companies in that market as well." — Kathleen Adams, PhD