2026: The Year Of The Patient
2026: THE YEAR OF THE PATIENT
Mark Cuban closed out the year the same way he spent it. Talking about fixing healthcare in another room that already agrees with him.
Just yesterday, he showed up in The Bulwark for yet *another* long and winding kvetch-fest about transparency, drug pricing, and how broken the system feels. Same venue. Same framing. Same audience. Same outcome. Rinse. Repeat. Occam's Razor all day every day. 🤦🏻♂️
Like the 19M cancer survivors in America, I know this system from the inside. I was 21 years old with brain cancer in 1995 at Memorial Sloan Kettering. My family and I learned very quickly who mattered. It was never my care team. It was the people who authorized care, delayed care and made our lives a living hell for years after my treatment ended.
Today it's worse with PBMs, hospital administrators, and employers who accept the math and passed the damage downstream.
Mark certainly understands drug pricing. Cost Plus proves that. But transparency does not scare power. Power only moves when the people being harmed organize and force it to move. Right now patients appear as anecdotes and screenshots, not as leverage. That choice keeps conversations safe and keeps the system intact.
Explaining healthcare to policy insiders maybe *feels* productive. (It definitely generates nods and praise, which I know Mark likes). But it does not change who controls access at 11 pm when a scan gets delayed or a prescription gets rationed and someone dies waiting for approval.
Those people do not fear his podcasts or panels. They fear organized patients who know their names, their contracts, and their numbers, and for whom healthcare is #1 on their political priorities for 2026.
I expected more by now from Mark.
Not because he knows my name, follows my shit, enjoys my cartoons or lacks intelligence or intent, but because he continues to repeat the same playbook jumping from echo chamber to echo chamber while expecting different outcomes. All while wasting time patients—especially cancer patients—certainly do not have anymore.
🏀 Switches to First Person 🏀
My friend – STOP convening wonky experts. STOP telling me "You just don't see the value." That's like when my kid told me he didn't like corn when he never even tried it. So be like Mikey from the LIFE cereal commercials. Convene patients. We guarantee you'll like it—and we know exactly who to bring to that table in Washington DC whenever you're ready.
Then we can build something insurers, employers, lobbyists and politicians cannot ignore. Because if 2025 was the year patients stopped asking for permission, you bet your basketball-loving ass 2026 will be the year of the patient, for the sick shall inherit the ballot.
And keep telling us you're filthy rich while we're dying on hold. We already know you don't care about money. Good for you.
Happy New Year, Mark. See you when I see you.