“Just do it.” This may be what someone said to the person who took a knife to the recently-installed blue lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of the 250th celebration of our nation’s Independence Day. Not clear what happened there, if it was a dare or a protest or something else entirely, but the “just do it” line is more recognizable as Nike’s long-time slogan. A couple of weeks ago, Nike celebrated “Just Do It Day” to kick off to its marketing campaign for the 2026 World Cup. That reminded me of the movie “Air” — the real-life story about Nike’s recruitment of Michael Jordan. Did you know that the “Just Do It” slogan was inspired by a convict in Utah who was about to be executed by firing squad in 1977 and they asked him “what are your last words?” (To be clear: he responded “just do it”). That is at least interesting, but surprising too. I discuss more interesting and surprising things about health policy in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.
Other interesting and maybe surprising news this week:
- Academic medical experts in Germany examined whether autonomous AI can navigate broader clinical action (i.e., order and interpret labs, generate differential diagnosis for patient cases spanning multiple diagnoses) as opposed to isolated tasks. In a sandboxed electronic health record environment, the AI agent outperformed human physicians in diagnostic accuracy and formulated evidence-based treatment plans while maintaining strict medication safety protocols.
- The Peterson Health Technology Institute published a new report about how health technology is driving new outcome-based payment models, like CMMI’s ACCESS model.
- Approximately 90% of consumers who access health information using AI and digital tools trust it nearly as much as their doctor, according to the ZS Impact Institute’s 2026 Future of Health Report.
People are going to build you up … because when you’re great and new, we love you. But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re gonna tear you back down – it’s the most predictable pattern. This was part of the truly fantastic speech that Sonny Vaccaro gave to then-rookie Michael Jordan in 1984 (as dramatized in the movie Air with actor Matt Damon playing Sonny). Nike, then a struggling, not-famous shoe company, made the strong bet that Michael could help their brand as the go-to basketball shoe. The risk ran both ways – Michael bet on Nike, and Nike bet on Michael – both were relatively unknown. That’s now happening in health policy. Last night, Chris Klomp was nominated to be the HHS Deputy Secretary. He is betting that he can, as a government outsider, pull policy levers that will help the health care system. The federal government – both the Trump administration and now Congress – will be betting that Chris can help do that too. Just like Nike, the federal government has been making shoes for a while, but it needs serious help with this new type of shoe – health technology. And Chris Klomp, who is also from Utah like the convict that inspired Nike, and will soon be in front of the “firing squad” that is Congress during his Senate confirmation hearings. He has proven himself during his rookie days — but now must be out front as the guy who can help make health technology the go-to shoe for health care policy. Or maybe he will have trouble selling the shoes. This is a pivotal time in our health care system’s history, and so that great Sonny Vaccaro speech came to mind. Worth watching the whole thing, but this is the challenge that Sonny serves up to Michael Jordan: “Can you summon the will to fight on, through all the pain, and rise again? Who are you Michael? That will be the defining question of your life. And I think you already know the answer, and that’s why we’re all here. A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it. Then it has meaning. The rest of us just want a chance to touch that greatness. We need you in these shoes not so you have meaning in your life, but so that we have meaning in ours.”
