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The

Commonwealth

Fund Connection

A roundup of recent Fund publications, charts, multimedia, and other timely content.


February 13, 2020

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What's New


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The Prognosis for Health Care Reform in 2020

In a post for To the Point, Billy Wynne and colleagues discuss the variety of congressional proposals, regulatory priorities, and forces that could shape health care reform in the lead-up to the 2020 elections. With health care a major concern for many voters, policymakers facing tough reelections may be “caught between doing something and doing enough on health care,” they write.

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TOP TWEET


Compared to peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes and the highest rate of avoidable deaths.


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Access and Coverage


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Requiring Immigrants to Predict Future Medical Costs

A new Trump administration policy blocks legal immigrants from entering the United States if they lack health insurance or can’t prove they can pay for future medical expenses. But an analysis by New York University’s Sherry Glied and Benjamin Zhu finds that the administration’s rule won’t save the health system much money at all.

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Delivery System Reform


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Measuring Maternal Mortality

New data show that maternal mortality rates in the U.S. are higher than in other developed nations, and there are stark disparities along racial and ethnic lines. But the new data provide opportunities for progress, say the Commonwealth Fund’s Laurie Zephyrin, M.D., and Boston University’s Eugene Declercq on To the Point.

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Case Study: Building Healthier Lives in the Rural South

Martha Hostetter and Sarah Klein show how one large federally qualified health center, CareSouth Carolina, has joined with other South Carolina health centers to use quality incentives earned from Medicaid managed care companies and other resources to meet patients’ medical and social needs in their homes, schools, and communities.

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What Can We Learn from the Camden “Hot Spotting” Evaluation?

In a post on the Health Affairs Blog, the Commonwealth Fund’s Eric Schneider, M.D., and Tanya Shah provide new perspective on the disappointing results from the recently completed evaluation of “hot spotting” at the Camden Coalition in New Jersey. However, it’s misleading, they say, to conclude that hot-spotting — identifying a small number of patients who account for a disproportionate share of high health care costs and then targeting them with intensive case management services — has no value. It’s also unwise, they argue, to reject the findings out of hand.

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Buying Health, Not Just Health Care

On To the Point, Mandy Cohen, M.D., secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, and colleagues discuss the recent launch of a standardized fee schedule allowing North Carolina Medicaid to fund health-related social needs in four areas: housing, interpersonal violence/toxic stress, food, and transportation. The fee schedule is part of a pilot, but if it’s deemed effective, the state will seek to implement the services statewide.

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Postpartum Home Visits Spread

New York is the latest city to
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announce the launch of a home-visiting program to help new mothers cope with anxiety, postpartum depression, or other mental health problems. Similar programs exist in Chicago and Durham, N.C.; Oregon recently passed legislation to set up a universal home-visiting program for parents and newborns. In a recent issue of Transforming Care, the Fund’s Martha Hostetter and Sarah Klein described several efforts to offer more continuous support to women after childbirth, beyond the six-week postpartum visit.

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Prescription Drug Costs


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The Dose: Controlling Drug Costs

On the latest episode of The Dose podcast, host Shanoor Seervai sits down with the Commonwealth Fund’s Lovisa Gustafsson to talk about how prescription drugs could be made more affordable. Gustafsson believes some important issues are missing from the drug pricing debate, including a broken patent system, high launch prices, and the lack of cheaper medical treatments.

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Medicare and Medicaid


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State of Play for Medicaid Work Requirements

Some states have implemented work requirements as a condition of people getting Medicaid coverage. On To the Point, Sara Rosenbaum of George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and colleagues explore the uncertainty over these requirements amid growing evidence that they come with enormous administrative costs and cause people to lose health coverage.

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Getting Medicare Beneficiaries Dental, Vision, and Hearing Services

Traditional Medicare includes no dental coverage and few vision or hearing services. Commonwealth Fund–supported researcher Amber Willink and colleagues point out in a new Health Affairs study that while Medicare Advantage is helping to fill the gaps, high out-of-pocket spending remains a big issue for many seniors.

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What New Block Grant Guidance Means for Medicaid

Last month the Trump administration announced a new model for funding Medicaid: states can apply for “capped funding” — also commonly known as a block grant. Manatt Health’s Cindy Mann writes on To the Point about what this will mean for Medicaid, the states, and Americans who get their health care through the program.

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International Health Policy and Practice Innovations


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U.S. Has Highest Suicide Rate Among Wealthy Nations

The United States outspends other wealthy nations on health care, according to a new report from Commonwealth Fund researchers Roosa Tikkanen and Melinda Abrams. The analysis, which compares the U.S. to 10 other high-income nations, also finds the U.S. has the highest suicide rate. Tikkanen and Abrams outline steps that could help Americans live longer, healthier lives.

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Focusing on How Corporate Practices Affect Health

In a commentary for The Lancet, 2019–20 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice Nason Maani and colleagues outline ways to advance research on the “corporate determinants of health": how firms that manufacture harmful products such as tobacco, alcohol, processed food, and fossil fuels affect population health, the generation of science and knowledge, and public discourse.

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Affordable, quality health care. For everyone.

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