Why We Will Still Be Dying On Hold In 2026 📉

Sachin H. Jain, MD, MBA dropped his healthcare crystal ball predictions for 2026 in Forbes and likely unintentionally (I forgive you) buried the lede in “Prediction #5: Patient discontent will boil over.”

Boil over, bro? We’re already deep fried on the dinner plate next to a steaming pile of out-of-network mashed bullshit.

But, finally... Someone with a platform naming what we all feel. (TY 🙏🏻)

“Prediction #5” (Sounds like the next Christopher Nolan film) reads like a war correspondent’s dispatch: Medical debt. Bankruptcy. Surprise billing. Byzantine appeals. Patients “justifiably abused” by the system. Healthcare professionals “inflamed by flattening wages and corporatization.”

But perhaps this is not buried lede, rather truth telling in an industry that usually speaks in euphemisms.

The good doctor gets what most prediction pieces miss: The human wreckage isn’t a side effect. It’s the main story. When he writes about health equity disappearing overnight then making a “modest comeback,” he’s documenting the industry’s moral bankruptcy in real time.

“Values were rented, not bought. We see you.” 👀

That line alone is worth more than every AI prediction combined (James Cameron be damned). Because he’s calling out the whole conference circuit that applauds disruption while protecting dysfunction.

The other predictions matter. AI adoption, GLP1 expansion, digital health IPOs all matter. But Sachin seems to understands they matter significantly less than the 40M Americans who comprise the cancer community or the 135M Americans with chronic conditions who are not-so-slowly realizing we’re products, not patients.

What I appreciate most: He admits the system “must change but persistently refuses to.” No false optimism. No “healthcare innovation will save us” platitudes. (Dear Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, etc...)

Dr. Jain’s take was just an honest assessment that legislative activity will produce little action while consolidation continues. The discontent he predicts isn’t future tense though.

Eric Tennant already died waiting for approval. Mount Sinai Queens is already forging discharge papers. Credit scores already determine cancer survival. Cancer research budgets are eroding before our very eyes.

But having someone like Dr. Jain document this reality in Forbes is progress because when industry insiders start saying the quiet part out loud, the quiet part gets harder to ignore.

2026’s real story won’t be which startups IPO. It’ll be whether patient rage becomes organizing power—and he sees it coming (Intentional emdash).

The question is whether the rest of the industry will listen to their own oracle.

Psst Mark Cuban – did you read this? 🤷🏻‍♂️ 🏀 🇺🇸

hashtag#WeThePatients hashtag#HealthcareReform hashtag#2026Predictions

SOURCE ➡️ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sachinjain/