A Call for Healthcare Cuts — But Not the Kind You’re Thinking Of

After my daughter was born prematurely, I received a hospital bill that was nearly 30 pages long. The total? Just pennies shy of $1 million.

I didn’t panic. I knew I wouldn’t be responsible for the full amount. I expected to pay close to my out-of-pocket max, and I was fortunate enough to be in a position where I could.

But I still found myself overwhelmed. 

Page after page, I tried to decode what I owed, what insurance would cover, what was still pending, and how it all connected to the other bills I’d already received — from anesthesiology, labs, specialists, and services I didn’t even realize we’d used. 

All I could think was: 

How is anyone supposed to understand this? Who do you call? Who do you trust?

The system wasn’t built to be cruel — but that doesn’t change how it feels. In that moment, it was confusing, disorienting, and deeply isolating. It was harmful. It was mean.

And that’s what too much of our healthcare system has become.

When we hear about healthcare “cuts,” it usually sounds like bad news: fewer covered services, shrinking networks, rising premiums. 

But what if the kind of cuts we should be talking about are the ones that actually make care better? Like cutting confusion. Because for many people, the biggest barrier to healthcare access isn’t cost or availability – it’s complexity.

Even with insurance, trying to find a provider, check coverage, and schedule an appointment often feels like navigating a maze. It’s frustrating, slow, and full of dead ends.

Then there’s the cost confusion. Surprise bills and unclear pricing leave people second-guessing whether to seek care at all. If you have to spend hours on the phone just to understand your coverage, it’s no wonder so many delay or avoid care.

And that confusion doesn’t end after the appointment — it keeps people from following through on care. Roughly 50% of people with chronic conditions don’t take their medications as prescribed. Follow-up visits are missed. Referrals go unscheduled. Patients don’t get the guidance they need.

Every day, emergency rooms see patients that, because folks don’t know where else to turn – because the system is so confusing and difficult to use – they wind up there. Even when a person feels well, the system is confusing. But think about how pain diminishes our capacity to problem-solve? 

Consider a patient with diabetes who requires a trip to the ER for dangerously high blood sugar and spiking blood pressure. The ER addresses the issues in the moment – but patients are often discharged without a clear plan. The result is repeated return trips to the ER for patients like this, who need coordinated care and condition management. 

These stories aren’t rare. When care isn’t clear, chronic conditions worsen, small problems snowball, and costs rise — for patients and employers alike. 

Cutting through the confusion seems impossible, unless you are friends with a top doctor or have a healthcare-savvy friend who can help navigate where to go, who to see, and get you in fast. The ability to navigate healthcare shouldn’t be a privilege — it should be built into the system.

Confusion shouldn’t be such a big barrier. And healthcare shouldn’t require insider knowledge to access. 

One of the biggest opportunities for change is in employer-sponsored healthcare. Over 50% of Americans get healthcare through work, yet most employees don’t fully understand their benefits. At the same time, employers are bombarded with too many point solutions, too many choices, and too little time to make sense of them.

Many CEOs only spend about 15 minutes a year reviewing healthcare decisions during the budget process. But that 15 minutes affects employees every single day. It deserves more time — and more clarity. 

If benefits are hard to navigate, they go unused. And when that happens, costs pile up — some obvious, like rising claims, and some more subtle, like absenteeism, disengagement, and declining health.

Instead of stacking on more portals, more steps, and more complexity, we should be asking: what can we remove?

Healthcare solutions shouldn’t just be about addition — sometimes, the answer is subtraction.

Healthcare should be simple, accessible, and human. That means they need to be virtual-first and offer flexible care for busy lives. People are much more likely to engage — and stay engaged — with their healthcare if doing so fits into their lives. Solutions also need to include pre-vetted, high-quality providers to help eliminate patient guesswork and research. Finally, they need to remove (or keep low) out-of-pocket costs so employees can actually afford to use the benefits that have clear ROI on spend and clinical outcomes.

It’s not just about expanding access. It’s about building a healthcare system that works for people, not against them.

If we want a healthcare system that works, we need to stop adding noise – and start cutting through it. 

Photo credit: Aleksei Morozov, Getty Images

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