Every year I leave ASCO with hundreds of selfies that become one giant mosaic. This year’s image tells a bigger story than the science alone. It captures the people, conversations, and growing realization that the next challenge in cancer care isn’t discovery. It’s making sure patients can reach it.

A retired firefighter’s denied cancer treatment reveals a larger truth about American healthcare. Administrative friction has become an economic strategy that shifts costs onto patients and physicians while delaying care in ways the system rarely measures but patients always feel.

Mark Cuban attacks healthcare through pricing transparency and market discipline. I would attack it through patient infrastructure, legal protection, accountability, and civic power. Together, those strategies could finally begin realigning the incentives driving American healthcare.

We The Patients LIVE Raleigh brought patients clinicians policymakers and journalists into the same room to confront how healthcare harm actually forms. What emerged was clarity accountability and the beginning of a different kind of conversation about power trust and consequence.