Bob Herman launches series on crumbling employer health insurance
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- Bob Herman launched a multi-part series for STAT examining the crumbling employer-based health insurance system, publishing it through his Health Care Inc. newsletter.
- The series is framed under the headline "U.S. workers and businesses are getting soaked," positioning the cost burden as falling on both employers and employees.
- STAT is cross-posting the series from Herman's newsletter into the D.C. Diagnosis politics-and-policy newsletter with the author's blessing, with the work appearing on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- The full reporting is gated behind a STAT+ paywall, with the free preview offering only the framing and authorship details.
- The newsletter also briefly notes that WWE star Cody Rhodes, Triple H, and Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon helped kick off the return of the presidential fitness test — a separate D.C. Diagnosis item unrelated to the insurance series.
Why it matters: STAT is devoting sustained multi-part editorial attention to the employer-based health insurance system — the dominant U.S. coverage model — with reporter Bob Herman's lead framing that both workers and businesses are "getting soaked." A series treatment signals the story is structural rather than a single policy flashpoint, and the paywall placement underscores STAT's bet that subscribers will pay for ongoing accountability reporting on health-care costs.
