Out of Patients
with Matthew Zachary
Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot.
Prior Authorization Works Exactly as Designed and That Is the Problem
Prior authorization persists because it works for the system that created it. This essay explains how cost control, risk management, and delay shape patient outcomes, why reform keeps falling short, and what must change to align financial incentives with timely care.
What Happens If More Patients Appeal Insurance Denials?
Only 0.2% of patients appeal insurance denials, yet 80% succeed. This article examines how even small increases in appeals could shift insurer behavior, raise costs, influence Wall Street expectations, and reshape the economics of American healthcare.
American Harmcare: The System Working Exactly As Designed
A 30 year brain cancer survivor breaks down how insurance delays, denials, and red tape harm patients by design. This is not dysfunction. This is the business model.
This Week In Cuban: Our Patron Saint Is Still Doing The Lord’s Work.
Mark Cuban is stepping in where insurers fail, funding care and challenging the system. But real change will not come from policy alone. A unified patient voting bloc could reshape healthcare power in America.
I went on Humanity Rx to say the quiet part clearly and attach names, timelines, and consequences to it.
Matthew Zachary joins Humanity Rx to break down how modern cancer care improves survival while leaving patients exposed to medical debt, prior authorization delays, and financial risk, and why policy change depends on organized patient power.
Medicare Advantage Works Until the Math Changes
UnitedHealth dropping Medicare Advantage plans for 600000 beneficiaries exposes a structural flaw in how private insurers manage public healthcare risk as costs from emergency care and specialty drugs accelerate faster than payment models can adjust.
These Are The People Who Believed In My Book Before It Existed
National healthcare leaders put their names on We The Patients because they recognize what patients have endured for decades. From Scientific American to former Medicaid and CDC officials, these endorsements validate a movement to reclaim power from a system that failed the people it was built to serve.
Healing The Sick Care System
A personal reflection on Gil Bashe’s Healing the Sick Care System and the growing revolt against insurance driven harm. From hospital memories to national accountability, this piece calls out who holds the wheel and why 2026 signals the rise of the patient voter bloc.
How Prior Authorization Punishes the Sickest Patients
Insurance companies promise reform while patients absorb delay and denial. From IVIG rejections to cancer imaging hold ups, this essay documents how prior authorization functions in real life and why patients now recognize the pattern.
Freedom to Go Broke
After surviving brain cancer at 21, Matthew Zachary examines how modern healthcare policy repackages risk as freedom. From cash subsidies to math free promises, this essay exposes why consumer style healthcare fails the moment illness enters the room.
It’s Time For A Second Opinion
A blinking answering machine. That's how I found out I had brain cancer. I was 21. Thirty years later, I wrote a book about it. "We the Patients" isn't a memoir—it's a manual. The system isn't broken. It was built this way. Don't try to fix it. Rig it in your favor. This book shows you how.
30 Years Cancer Free
I was 21. Brain cancer came via a blinking answering machine. There was barely an internet. No young adult programs. We kind of all just died back then. But I didn't. I've watched three decades of impossible become ordinary—and it's been the greatest terrible privilege. 2026 is the Year of the Patient.
[WHAT IF?] Mark Cuban Ran for President on Healthcare?
The next national election will be shaped by a reality pollsters struggle to explain: one insurance letter or specialist bill can wipe out a family. What if Mark Cuban ran for president on healthcare, and only healthcare, treating it as the defining economic issue of American life?