PLUS: COVID-19 is unraveling major disparities in the way health care centers bill patients - known as surprise billing - and it's not good. 

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As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the globe, no country has been hit harder than the United States. America leads the world in Covid-19 deaths and confirmed cases. Unemployment has reached levels ([link removed]) not seen since the Great Depression, and national output has cratered as lockdowns have put the formerly robust U.S. economy into a self-induced coma.

January 12 ([link removed]) , 2017 ([link removed]) - Speaking at Georgetown University, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urges the incoming Trump administration to be prepared for outbreaks of viral diseases. “If there’s one message that I want to leave with you today based on my experience, it is that there is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases.”

Despite ample early warnings that America would likely face a contagious disease at some point in its tenure, the Trump administration was utterly unprepared for the outbreak of coronavirus last December. As the disease spread from China, the president at first refused to take it seriously. This cost the United States precious weeks when the federal government should have been taking vigorous action to contain the pandemic. The delay was deadly: Had the country started social distancing and locking down on March 1 rather than March 14, 54,000 fewer Americans ([link removed]) would have died, according to disease modelers at Columbia University.

February 13 ([link removed]) , 2018 ([link removed]) - DNI Coats again warns Congress about the threat of a global pandemic.

Even after President Trump grudgingly acknowledged the severity of the pandemic, he failed to mobilize the federal government’s resources to contain its spread, or even to provide the public reliable information about the disease. Passing the buck to governors, he refused to marshal his full executive powers to make and deliver masks and other protective equipment, produce a sufficient supply of tests and ventilators, and charge federal health agencies with helping the states set up rigorous contact tracing systems.

January 29 ([link removed]) , 2019 ([link removed]) - DNI Coats again warns Congress that the United States remains “vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”

Now, with an eye to the upcoming November election, President Trump and his party are trying to shift the blame to China, and to convince the public the debacle they have been witnessing is a mirage.

January 6 ([link removed]) , 2020 ([link removed]) - The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan, China following reports of the outbreak of a new infectious disease.
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COVID-19 is unraveling the issue of surprise billing in America
by Arielle Kane, Director of Health Care

Back in December, Congress failed to reach an agreement on “surprise billing” legislation. A surprise bill is when patients get an out-of-network bill from a provider at an in-network facility. Now in the era of Covid, this failure is coming home to roost.

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PODCAST: Scoring a Better Future — Getting Facts on Credit Scores & How They Work
Paul Weinstein, Jr., Senior Fellow

Join Paul Weinstein, Jr., Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and Joanne Gaskin, Vice President of Scores and Analytics at FICO, for a discussion on the changes FICO has made to its models, and how they may impact credit scores, particularly for millennials and GenZ.

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** Community Health Centers + COVID-19
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by Arielle Kane, Director of Health Care

Funding is an important first step to helping CHCs provide care to the 28 million low-income and disproportionately uninsured patients they see annually. But it’s not the only issue at play.

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** The EU Goes Fishing for an Antitrust Case Against Apple - But There's One Problem
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by Alec Stapp, Chief Economic Strategist

On Tuesday, the EU announced ([link removed]) it had opened two antitrust investigations into Apple — one concerning the company’s mobile payment system, Apple Pay, the other looking into Apple’s conduct in managing its App Store and how it treats third party developers.

For some apps, Apple requires developers to use its proprietary in-app purchase system and forbids developers from telling users in the app that they can make purchases outside the app (and thus let the developer avoid paying Apple’s fee). The European Commission will investigate whether these policies violate EU competition rules.

The announcement from the EU offers no details on what the Apple Pay investigation will entail, but it might look into the limits Apple has placed on access to the Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality — which enables contactless payments — of its iPhone and Apple Watch devices.

In the US, under the consumer welfare standard, an investigation like this would need to show (1) that Apple was dominant in a relevant product market, (2) that its conduct was anticompetitive, and (3) that it harmed consumers. In a hypothetical US case, Apple could plausibly argue in its defense that a tight integration between hardware and software is a key selling point for consumers, including Apple Pay for payments. Apple might also point out that a tightly curated App Store benefits consumers by improving security and increasing trust.
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