MedPage Today (02/25/26) Firth, Shannon

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told attendees at the American Medical Association's National Advocacy Conference that medical school should be free, saying high tuition and heavy debt push students toward higher-paying specialties and away from underserved communities. A free tuition model, he said, would let schools require service in healthcare deserts, for example, and widen the pool of people able to enter medicine. He noted that average annual costs for medical school now approach $60,000 and argued that removing financial barriers would produce a more diverse, better-qualified physician workforce. Cuban also urged physicians, especially independent practices, to advocate far more forcefully in Washington, comparing their financial pressures with those that once squeezed independent pharmacists and warning that rising costs and inadequate reimbursement are threatening access to care. He then turned to his pharmaceutical start-up, saying healthcare is easy to disrupt because pricing is opaque. His company posts the actual cost of thousands of generic drugs and sells them with a small markup to build trust, though he added that Food and Drug Administration fee waivers would allow them to offer a wider range of medications.

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