For all the discussion around healthcare reform in the United States, one issue continues to sit at the center of the problem: We still spend far more treating disease than preventing it.

Most people think progress in cancer research happens in big moments. A breakthrough. A headline. A new treatment. What they don’t see is everything that happens before that. The years of work. The failed experiments. The collaboration across institutions. The early ideas that don’t yet have enough data to qualify for traditional funding. That’s where a lot of the real progress starts. And it’s where cancer research philanthropy can make a meaningful difference.

When people talk about the FDA approval process, the conversation usually splits in two directions. One side argues it takes too long. The other argues it exists for a reason. Both are right. The challenge isn’t choosing between speed and safety. It’s understanding that the FDA approval process is designed to manage risk in a system where the consequences of getting it wrong are significant. That makes the balance more complicated than most headlines suggest.

For more than a decade, policymakers have promoted value-based care as the future of American healthcare. Pay for outcomes. Reward quality over volume.Lower costs while improving patient care. On paper, it makes sense. In theory, it aligns incentives. In practice? The results are more complicated. If we’re serious about healthcare reform, we need to ask a straightforward question: Is value-based care actually delivering measurable results, or are we just relabeling the

Everyone agrees the healthcare system needs to change. But almost no one agrees on how to change it. And even when they do? It takes forever.

Transparency sounds like a good thing. And in many cases, it is. But in healthcare policy, I’ve seen a troubling pattern: Transparency gets weaponized. Not to inform decisions. Not to improve outcomes. But to delay progress, justify inaction, or create political cover.

You get results: faster, sharper, and more aligned with what patients truly need. That was the driving force behind the 9th annual JKTG Symposium, held October 15, 2025 in Washington D.C. This year’s theme, "Improving Breast Cancer Outcomes: Revealing and Targeting Tumor–Immune Interactions," was more than a title. It was a call to action.

When most people think about the cost of healthcare, they look at billing, drug prices, or insurance premiums. What they don’t see is the hidden cost that providers shoulder to comply with the rules. Every regulation comes with a price, not just in dollars, but also in terms of time, infrastructure, staffing, and attention. And when policymakers underestimate that cost, it distorts everything from reimbursement to patient access...