“I think the idea of me is better than the reality of me.” This may be what Elon Musk said to President Trump when he was awarded the National Medal of Science, but probably not. Instead, it is a line from the cleverly-named new movie “Verity.” It is the film version of a (super-creepy) romantic thriller novel (written by American author Colleen Hoover) about how the truth is difficult to ascertain when a story is told by a romantic thriller novelist. For the vocabulary-challenged, “verity” is a noun meaning the quality of being true or real or accurate. Such a good theme – truth and accuracy – for the One Thoughtful Paragraph health policy issue discussed below!
We think this news reflects the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as far as we know:
- CMS received more than 43,000 comments on the Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule. And just in case CMS wanted one more opinion, 32 U.S. House (bipartisan!) lawmakers sent a letter urging the agency to refrain from finalizing its proposed Medicare payment changes that would block third party organizations from participating in remote monitoring programs.
- Utah’s Office of AI Policy announced new health AI pilots and six third-party evaluators to vet and audit them. One of the evaluators is Vega Health, who published a helpful article about how this type of rigorous health AI evaluation in live workflows will build trust in new technology.
- FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) released its proposed priorities for 2027, including finalizing recommendations on marketing submission and lifecycle management of AI-enabled device software and drafting guidance on generative AI mental health chatbots. Comments on the priorities are due Nov. 30, 2026. As a reminder, comments are due on FDA’s discussion paper on the regulation of GenAI-enabled medical devices by Oct. 19, 2026 here.
“You must have questions.” This is what the husband (played by Josh Hartnett) says to the writer hired to finish a novel (played by Dakota Johnson) that his wife Verity (played by Anne Hathaway) can no longer finish due to her (not real?) full paralysis that was caused by a (maybe not accidental?) car accident in the movie Verity. I have questions too. But mine are about the health care price transparency rule updates just published by the three federal agencies with jurisdiction over health plans (HHS, Labor, Treasury). I also have questions about this really long analysis, written by some of the smartest health care math people, about the hospital price transparency rules. My first question is, are we finally going to know what health care prices are now? I mean, someone, somewhere has got to translate this endless set of spreadsheets with health care prices on them so I can finally know what the MRI is going to cost me BEFORE I get it done. And my other question is why did someone think it was important for cost-sharing information to be made available to members by phone? Is there someone that WANTS to talk to their health plan on the phone? And really, when are we going to stop the endless complexity of this system? What is true? What is reality? What is possible? AAAARGHHH. It is like our protagonist says in the movie Verity: “This place is insane. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
