The Connection

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

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February 12, 2024

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Health Care Providers Can Respond to Gun Violence

A growing number of clinicians and hospital leaders are insisting the U.S. health care system play a greater role in preventing gun violence in all its forms. The latest issue of Transforming Care highlights the efforts of health care providers to develop a more comprehensive response to gun violence. Modeled on effective public health campaigns targeting cigarette smoking and car accidents, these new prevention efforts focus on screening and surveillance to identify people at risk and reveal patterns of injury.

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Webinar: Health Care Workers’ Observations of Discrimination

Join the Commonwealth Fund and the African American Research Collaborative on Thursday, February 15, from 11:00 a.m. to 12 noon ET for a virtual event unveiling a new report based on a nationwide survey of thousands of health care workers. It reveals an alarming prevalence of discrimination and racism in hospitals, clinics, and health care facilities nationwide. Leading experts and researchers will present the findings and discuss solutions to address the discrimination experienced by patients and health care staff.

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FEATURED CHART

All You Need to Know About Medicare Advantage

With the growing popularity of private Medicare Advantage plans — about half of Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in one in 2023 — it’s more important than ever that policymakers, the media, and the public understand how Medicare Advantage works, the key issues around costs and value, and ways to ensure plans provide effective, efficient, and equitable care. In our newly updated primer, you’ll learn about: the differences between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare; how the government pays plans, and why those costs are greater than those for traditional Medicare; and what the future of Medicare coverage may look like.

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Health Care Workers Want Climate Action from Employers

Although many health care organizations have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and build a more sustainable health system, progress has been mixed. A new Commonwealth Fund survey finds that most U.S. clinicians believe hospitals and health systems should address climate change. According to the survey of more than 1,000 nurses, doctors, and other health care workers, nearly 80 percent believe addressing climate change is critical to their hospital’s mission while 75 percent want to reduce their own environmental impact at work.

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Helping the Health Sector Reduce Emissions

As health care professionals seek to uphold the core value of “do no harm,” they must take initiative to reduce health care’s contributions to climate change, say Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow Clémence Marty-Chastan and Jodi D. Sherman, M.D., on To the Point. They believe that professional medical societies have a crucial role to play in creating momentum on this front, especially through environmental sustainability committees dedicated to improving knowledge, research, practice, and policy.

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How to Strengthen Access to Behavioral Health Care

Many people with behavioral health issues have problems accessing the care they need, even when they have health insurance. But as the need for these services grows, there’s a shortage of providers, particularly in rural areas, and many providers don’t participate in any plan networks. Georgetown University’s JoAnn Volk, Christina L. Goe, and Justin Giovannelli outline policy strategies for improving access to behavioral health care. While the Affordable Care Act set network standards for behavioral health services, the authors show how some states have gone further.

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Unmet Social Needs Shape Health Outcomes Worldwide

Social drivers of health, including secure housing and access to nutritious food, can account for up to 50 percent of health outcomes. People with unmet social needs are more likely to require intensive and expensive medical interventions, visit emergency rooms, and experience steep financial barriers to care. As the Commonwealth Fund’s Munira Gunja notes in International Insights, across countries, adults with lower or average incomes are more likely than their counterparts with higher incomes to have at least one unmet social need.

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Expanding Substance Use Disorder Treatment

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently approved New Mexico’s request to deploy mobile crisis intervention teams ([link removed] ) to provide services to Medicaid beneficiaries experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis. In Transforming Care, you can learn about some of the other approaches states and counties have used to expand access to these services ([link removed] ) , including establishing nonarrest pathways to treatment.

Joseph Betancourt on the U.S. Health Care Landscape

The year 2023 was one of both progress and setbacks in U.S. health care. In a new essay, Commonwealth Fund President Joseph R. Betancourt, M.D., recalls these shifts as well as one constant: the Fund’s clear vision and its wide-ranging impact in areas like health equity, Black maternal mortality, affordability of health care, and access to behavioral health services. “In many ways, 2023 was just the tip of the iceberg,” he writes, looking ahead to a critical election season. “We are already preparing for how we can best contribute to what undoubtedly will be another year of disruption and transformation in health care and health policy.”

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Strong Labor–Employer Alliance Could Slow Health Costs

In this era of historic labor union victories, how should employers, who cover more than half of all insured Americans through tax-subsidized health benefits, tackle soaring health care costs? In Harvard Business Review, David Blumenthal, M.D., Robert Galvin, M.D., and the Commonwealth Fund’s Lovisa Gustafsson argue the time is ripe for an approach to cost control that involves workers in designing and managing health care benefits. They say Taft-Hartley health plans, which arose out collective bargaining, are a model to emulate for building greater employee engagement and trust and for maintaining the viability of “the unique American reliance on employer-sponsored insurance.”

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Affordable, quality health care. For everyone.

The Commonwealth Fund, 1 East 75th Street, New York, NY 10021

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