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A Weekly Health Policy Round Up From Health Affairs            

**August 9, 2020**

IN THE JOURNAL

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NEW ISSUE:
COVID-19, HOME HEALTH & MORE

The August issue of

**Health Affairs** includes studies focusing on aspects of home health,
disparities in access to care, and comparative multicounty surveys on
different global health policy topics. The issue also includes a broad
range of perspectives related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the August 2020 table of contents
.

L
isten
to an introduction of the issue from Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil.

Read "From the Editor-in-Chief."

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FAST TRACK AHEAD OF PRINT

COVID-19

COVID-19 Has Increased Medicaid Enrollment, But Short-Term Enrollment
Changes Are Unrelated To Job Losses

By Chris Frenier, Sayeh S. Nikpay, and Ezra Golberstein

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented number of job
losses, disrupting health insurance for millions of Americans who had
relied on employer-based coverage. Chris Frenier, Sayeh S. Nikpay, and
Ezra Golberstein looked for a relationship between increased Medicaid
enrollment and unemployment during the first few months of the COVID-19
pandemic. The authors reviewed available monthly Medicaid enrollment
data for March-May 2020 from twenty-six states to document changes in
Medicaid enrollment during this period, as well as how the extent of job
loss might be reflected in increased Medicaid enrollment. Read More >>

RESEARCH ARTICLE: AGE-FRIENDLY HEALTH

Receipt Of Home-Based Medical Care Among Older Beneficiaries Enrolled In
Fee-For-Service Medicare

By Jennifer M. Reckrey, Mia Yang, Bruce Kinosian, Evan Bollens-Lund,
Bruce Leff, Christine Ritchie, and Katherine Ornstein

More than seven million older Americans are considered homebound,
leaving home rarely, if at all, and only with difficulty or assistance.
Jennifer Reckrey and coauthors analyze Medicare claims data and find
that a very large number of people who could benefit from home-based
medical services are not receiving them. This article appears in a new
Health Affairs series on Age-Friendly Health supported by the John A.
Hartford Foundation. Read More >>

RESEARCH ARTICLE: HEALTH EQUITY

Income Disparities In Access To Critical Care Services

By Genevieve P. Kanter, Andrea G. Segal, and Peter W. Groeneveld  

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of intensive care
unit (ICU) beds in treating the critical respiratory needs of patients.
However, the availability of ICU beds is highly variable across the
United States. Genevieve Kanter and coauthors examined disparities in
community ICU beds by US communities' median household income.
Read More >>

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LEADING TO HEALTH: DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

From Rural Germany, Integrated Care Grows Into A Global Model

By Michele Cohen Marill  

Fifteen years after a precursor to the accountable care organization
(ACO) formed in the Black Forest region, a value-based approach to
health care gains traction. Writer Michele Cohen Marill takes readers to
rural Germany in this Leading To Health article, which is part of a
series on transforming health systems published in Health Affairs with
support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Read More >>

HEALTH AFFAIRS REQUEST FOR ABSTRACTS-Border Health and Immigration

**Deadline: August 31, 2020**

**Preparation and formatting** guidelines

**Submit abstracts via our** online submission form

**Queries:** [email protected]

**Health Affairs** is planning a theme issue on border health and
immigration, to be published in July 2021. We plan to publish
approximately 20 peer-reviewed articles including original research,
analyses, and commentaries from leading researchers, scholars, analysts,
and health care stakeholders.

**Health Affairs** thanks the California Health Care Foundation and the
Con Alma Health Foundation for their generous support of this issue.

Please see our request for abstracts

for a list of topics of interest, and visit our FAQs

page for additional submission requirements.

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

COVID-19

Maximizing Use Of Claims Data To Address COVID-19: We Need To Revisit
Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual

By Carmel Shachar, Sara Gerke, and I. Glenn Cohen (8/7/20)

Information from all-payer claims databases (APCDs) could help states
address COVID-19 in a variety of ways, but the Gobeille decision has
significantly reduced the amount of data APCDs can collect. Immediate
action is needed at the federal level so that states can marshal all
available data resources to understand and combat the pandemic. Read
More >>

Fighting The COVID-19 Crisis By Protecting American Health Insurance

By James A. Klein and Frederick Isasi (8/7/20)

If Congress fails to protect families' health insurance, the health
and economic crisis caused by the pandemic will spread, as people who
lose their insurance stop seeking diagnosis and treatment promptly,
families' economic security is threatened, and the economic viability
of first responders and the health care sector worsens. Read More >>

How To Increase Flu Vaccination During The COVID-19 Pandemic

By Jenna Clark (8/6/20)

The same old strategies that have kept flu vaccination rates stagnant
for years won't be enough. If we want to save lives, we need to move
beyond myth busting and education into tackling the real reasons why
people don't get vaccinated. Read More >>

Millions Of Children Have Lost Their Health Insurance-What's Our
Plan?

By Doug Strane, Rebecka Rosenquist, and David Rubin (8/5/20)

The abrupt loss of employer-sponsored insurance for tens of millions of
families creates urgency for policy makers to ensure that children's
coverage does not decline in the coming years. New, bolder approaches
will be necessary to prevent a significant erosion of children's
coverage. Read More >>

The Case For A National Universal Masking Mandate

By Vineet Arora, Shikha Jain, Megan Ranney, and Helen Burstin (8/5/20)

Encouraging mask use has not been enough. The time is now for a
universal mask mandate. In this post, we discuss what such a mandate
could look like and how we could get there.
Read More >>

When Storms Collide: Evictions, COVID-19, And Health Equity

By Craig Evan Pollack, Kathryn M. Leifheit, and Sabriya L. Linton
(8/4/20)

A rising tide of COVID-19-related housing evictions is threatening an
already fragile national health system, economy, and society at large.
Policy solutions exist to prevent evictions and address their root
causes, thereby advancing health and racial equity. Read More >>

3.5 Million Social Needs Requests During COVID-19: What Can We Learn
From 2-1-1?

By Matthew W. Kreuter, Rachel Garg, Irum Javed, Balaji Golla, Jennifer
Wolff, and Cindy Charles (8/4/20)

During COVID-19, the volume of requests to 2-1-1 helplines has increased
dramatically. We have monitored these data throughout the pandemic and
are sharing the findings online in more than 65 reports, spanning many
dimensions of health, social, and economic impact across the US. Here,
we synthesize these findings into four broad observations and discuss
their implications. Read More >>

COVID-19, Market Consolidation, And Price Growth

By Laura Tollen and Elizabeth Keating (8/3/20)

Health care market consolidation-which will likely accelerate
post-COVID-19-is often cited as a factor in rising prices and
increased growth in overall spending. The Health Affairs Council on
Health Care Spending and Value asked what impact market consolidation is
likely to have on spending growth, and what could or should be done
about it. Read More >>

COVID-19 Job Losses Threaten Insurance Coverage And Access To
Reproductive Health Care For Millions

By Adam Sonfield, Jennifer J. Frost, Ruth Dawson, and Laura D. Lindberg
(8/3/20)

The current upheaval in employer-sponsored insurance can be expected to
have substantial consequences for people seeking sexual and reproductive
health. Publicly supported clinics and insurance programs will be asked
to serve more people and face new financial and logistical pressures,
compounded by years of sustained political attacks by opponents of
reproductive rights. Read More >>

FOLLOWING THE ACA

New Guidance Allows Premium Credits For Consumers
By
Katie Keith (8/6/20)

On August 4, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued
guidance to enable insurers in the individual and small-group markets to
temporarily reduce monthly premiums via a premium credit. A premium
reduction could significantly help consumers, especially those facing
financial instability from the pandemic. Read More >>

California, House File Reply Briefs in Texas

By Katie Keith (8/4/20)

New briefs from the House of Representatives and California in
California v. Texas argue that 1) the individual and state plaintiffs
lack standing to sue; 2) the individual mandate, with a $0 penalty,
remains constitutional; and 3) the mandate, even if unconstitutional, is
severable from the rest of the ACA. Read More >>

Fifth Circuit Upholds Certification Rule For Medicaid MCOs

By Katie Keith (8/3/20)

On July 31, 2020, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that the government owed six
states about $479 million for the Affordable Care Act's health
insurance tax as applied to Medicaid managed care entities from 2014 to
2016. Read More >>

****

WOMEN'S HEALTH

Broadening The Focus During Pregnancy To Total Women's Health, Not
Just Healthy Babies

By Eugene Declercq (8/7/20)

The goal is a system that values women's health as an end in itself,
rather than maternity care policies and programs that treat pregnant
women as vessels solely tasked with delivering a healthy baby. Read More
>>

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About Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal
at the intersection of health,
health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal
is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found
through healthaffairs.org , Health Affairs Today
, and Health Affairs Sunday
Update .  

Project HOPE is a global health and
humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local
health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has
published Health Affairs since 1981.

Copyright © Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

Health Affairs, 7500 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States

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