Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA

Universalist polymath decoding complex systems using multiple disciplines. Legally blind, married, 3 kids, and a corgi who is the Queen.

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

He is just cherry picking metrics. Technically California has the highest poverty rate when cost of living is taken into account- this isn't a normal number to cite.
Unemployment figure is a lie. He chose total homeless population rather than per capita, so of course Califor ia is highest.
Income inequality is high but not the highest so thst was a lie.
Affordadability and opportunity are out of US News so 'correct' as far as you trust US News.

Now the main thing here is that every metric here is directly affected by Cali's affordability crisis. Essentially all of these #1s indirectly measure affordability and are therefore related metrics.

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Cofounder Clinical Strategy and Analytics at Ten Ten Ten!

Here's a stat that should make you angry: The United States spends more than any other nation on earth on healthcare and ranks #48 globally in health outcomes.
We have the most advanced clinical infrastructure in the world and the worst system for delivering it.

Mothers die in childbirth at rates that would embarrass peer nations. We rank #72 in healthy life expectancy. And medical bills remain the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

After years working in healthcare economics and startups, I kept looking for the right lever to pull. I found it.
Ten Ten Ten is a nonprofit with an audaciously simple mission:

🎯 Top Ten health outcomes globally
🎯 Ten Percent of GDP (down from 18.5%)
🎯 In Ten Years

No ideology. No politics. Just transparent methodology, public accountability, and relentless focus on what actually works.

We're building the Index to track progress. A Certification program to separate signal from noise. And a movement of people who refuse to accept that the richest country in history can't figure out how to keep its citizens healthy without bankrupting them.

Warren Buffett called medical costs "the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness." It's time to remove it.

👉 Sign the pledge: https://t.co/HjxkKIXWLy

👉
Organizations: Let's talk about partnership.

#healthcare #healthcarereform #startup #nonprofit #tententen

[tententenorg @tententenorg]

Ten Ten Ten is live. Our North Star is simple: Top Ten outcomes. Ten Percent of GDP. Ten Years.

Here is our announcement: https://t.co/9MAwhWbP9R

If you’re done accepting poor outcomes at ridiculous cost, sign the pledge: https://t.co/oPlWYLDmEG

#TenTenTen

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

New KevinMD post is live!

https://t.co/yXqMZliOzY

#HealthcareReform #allegory #PhysicianVoices

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Gaming STARS v28 for Fun and Profit: The Outcomes Illusion https://t.co/OtMITuVuhn via @LinkedIn

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Just dropped a 🔥 podcast with @kevinmd:
“Why Our Fear of AI Is Really a Fear of Ourselves”
🎧 https://t.co/5as0hOwT9n

We talk:
🤖 AI bias ≠ tech flaw—it’s a human mirror
🏥 Why healthcare fears AI (and what that reveals)
🧠 The myth of machine objectivity

If you’re in medicine, tech, or policy—this one hits deep.
What do you fear most about AI?

#AIethics #KevinMD #Healthcare #UniversalisRMD #PodcastDrop

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

🎤 Curious whether AI will replace doctors? Go to a music festival.

Thousands pay top dollar to see artists they could stream for free. the acoustics suck, the bass is too loud and no one who doesn't know the song can understand the lyrics.

Why do they go? Because humans crave what Spotify can’t offer: shared human experience, connection, presence.

Medicine’s no different.

I tell physicians: if you act like an algorithm, you’ll be replaced by one.

Next time your have a diabetic demanding Ozempic instead of changing their diet or an opiod patient relapsing for the third time in as many months. remember one thjng. That emotional churn? That imperfect empathy? It’s the shared human experience.

And that’s the point.

Despite our exhaustion, we still share something with those patients: ears open, heart slightly cracked, searching for meaning amid the mess.

I went to a festival knowing zero artists, zero lyrics. Still had a blast. Why? Because I showed up with open ears and a shared heart.

(Admittedly, I did have to scrub the Gen Z off me when I got home.)

🧠🩺 So no—AI won’t replace doctors. But doctors who lose sight of the human experience soon will fsce their own obsolescence.

#AIinHealthcare #HumanExperience #FestivalThinking #OutsideLamds

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Why did the EOB got the therapy?
Too many unresolved claims.

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Let's take a deeper look at why United Healthcare Group has annoucned plans to exit Medicare Advantage plans serving over 600,000 enrollees across multiple states, ostensibly due to higher than expected medical costs. The numbers seem to support that narrative, with cost growth reaching 7.5% vs. projected and priced in 5%, representing 6.5B higher than expected costs. ((https://t.co/pAtpnD2uGM)

But let me ask you a question: Just because you got the projections somewhat wrong one year, does that mean you exit the market? Or do you improve the product? No, I don't believe you would exit a market and a captive and sticky customer base - the long term value of 600,000 members is way more than that.

For example, when UHG's 2024 medical loss ratio increased 2.3% to 85.5%. UHG explicitly attributed it to "the revenue effects of CMS's Medicare funding reductions". Meanwhile, their operating efficiency actually *improved*, with operating costs dropping from 14.7% to 13.2% of revenue, proving the pressure comes from the revenue side, not uncontrolled medical costs.(https://t.co/WlQm8BzBDs )

Their own analysts have pointed out that the V28-driven revenue drop is at $4–6 billion for UnitedHealth’s MA plans in 2025 and 2026. Optum's operating margins have dropped to 1% from 5% in 2023, again attributed to V28 and their failure to 'offset' these funding cuts.(https://t.co/gOq3ST75Ze)

Point is: The full impact of V28 hit before UnitedHealth could adjust its care models or coding strategies. They, and many other plans affected by V28, have to find a different way to game V28.

We need to stop gaslighting providers and patients. We keep passing the blame to those who have the least power to change cost of care. Providers often operate at low margins and patients are at the mercy of insurance providers.

UPDATE: I hinted on comments here on an article looking into the government's culpability in creating a flawed payment model. See here for that article, just dropped!: https://t.co/VApRDhy61C

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

🕵️‍♂️ Did you hear how Sherlock Holmes cut his ankle and went to the ER?
It was a Study in Scarlet, the game was afoot. but he couldn’t master the art of the deductible.

#HealthcareDadJokes

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Did you hear about the restaurant that signed a 'value-based' contract?
Nobody got any food…
…but they did receive a “nutritional coordination benefit,”
...and everyone was coded with HCC “nutritional deficiency.”

#HealrhcareDadJokes

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Check out my latest article: The Impressionless Path https://t.co/EhP6cb9JQo via @LinkedIn

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Healthcare Dad Jokes

#HealthcareDadJokes #HealthPolicyHumor #MedicalHumor #HealthEconomics

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

New KevinMD article drop! https://t.co/4blt0HICni

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Minnie is not happy with the current situation
#Corgi #CorgiCrew #corgiplanet

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

The Universalist Saturday Feels: Alpine Lakes and Cosmic Truths

There's a unique brand of peace that you can only find when submerged in the crystalline water of an alpine lake. It’s a feeling of being held by the earth, where the only sounds are the ones that are supposed to be there: the whisper of wind through the pines, the distant call of a bird, and the gentle lapping of water against the shore.

This past Wednesday, that profound quiet was punctuated only by the persistent efforts of a Christian evangelist attempting to convert a thoroughly uninterested sunbather nearby. As someone who has been on the receiving end of many such well-intentioned tirades, including from that exact evangelist, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the lady. But I must admit, a quiet wave of schadenfreude washed over me as I floated, blissfully anonymous in the water.

The water itself is a revelation. It’s so clean, so pure, that you emerge feeling renewed. There’s no need for a shower upon returning home; you’ve already been cleansed by the mountain. It's a baptism in nature, a return to a simpler, cleaner state of being.

Perhaps the greatest gift of this place is the enforced disconnect. With barely a flicker of cell signal, the temptation to doomscroll vanishes. The phone stays in the bag. Instead of hunching over a glowing screen, you stretch out, look at the sky, and actually talk to the people you're with. You have real conversations, laugh with your whole body, and reconnect in a way that modern life rarely permits.

You feel a connection to everything. It reminds me of what the great Carl Sagan said in one of my favorite series of all time, *Cosmos*, "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."(https://t.co/EEMwKzHBQB)

That quote changed my perspective entirely, what Neil Degrasee Tyson likes to call 'the cosmic perspective'. It's an understanding that nothing we do affects the Universe in any substantial way. Therefore, the only things that matter is how we treat our fellow man. Funnily enough, that's exactly what the evangelist was going on about, though he was oblivious to the fact that 'fellow human' does include the uninterested woman trying to sunbathe in peace.

In the end, we come from that star stuff, and we will return to it. Fannying about with my kids in an alpine lake feels like a beautiful homecoming. I hope everyone gets to experience that.
#SaturdayFeels #DigitalDetox #NatureTherapy #StarStuf

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

💰 $2.7 Million Per Physician. Gone. Every Year.
Over the past two articles, I’ve broken down how private insurers quietly siphon away billions in physician earnings—while reshaping how care is delivered across America. The math is incontrovertible.

🧠 So... what would you do with an extra $2.7 million per year?
🏥 Build a rural care center?
📚 Wipe out student loans or medical debt?
🤖 Invest in AI-powered clinical tools?
✍ Write your manifesto on healthcare reform?
📣 Drop off the face of the Earth and retire into your own Texas ranch?

It's Saturday! Take a break and go on a fanciful trip. Share your vision below of what you would do with $2.7 million per physician working for you. Tag a colleague to answer the same question. Spread the word. Real equity starts with economic truth.

Links to the two articles in case you missed them:
👉 The Medicare Advantage Fallacy: https://t.co/i7MprmtOlH
👉 Physician Pay: https://t.co/t3Jy4k5tAo

#MedicareAdvantageReform #PhysicianEconomicJustice #ValueBasedResistance

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

I started coding AI at 16. Decades later, I don’t ask if AI will replace doctors—it’s already happening. The system made that tradeoff long ago.
👉 Read the full KevinMD article: https://t.co/DgP9QD9mdL

Also UniversalistMD is expanding! Follow me on TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, and YouTube , all @universalistmd. Content is currently sparse, but new content will be posted regularly on all these platforms, including unique content. A podcast is in the works; follow me here for updates on that as well!

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Universalism is not theology, ethics, socialism, or physics. It's a mindset for approaching complex systems.

Check out my new article on why I call myself a universalist, and see if you are too!

https://t.co/dPTRqpekaj

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Just heard the details on the Iran strike. Amazing precision and estimated battle damage on the site. Proud of our troops and defense industry that is second to none.

Both Israel and the US used fifth gen stealth fighters. To do this without a single known shot fired is testament to the JSF program and stealth technology.

Could have done without Goebbels singing the praises of his Fuhrer though. Nauseating. This was clearly a strike that was already planned out and part of the option list for a long tjme. Trump will always push the red button when presented it.

#IranIsraelConflict #IsraeliranWar #IranVsIsrael #Trump #IranUnderAttack

[Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA @universalistmd]

Minnie would like to remind everyone who is doom-scrolling that there is still a lot of good in this world.

#corgi #CorgiCrew #CorgiLover #IranVsIsrael #IsraeliranWar #IranIsraelConflict