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A Weekly Health Policy Round Up From Health Affairs            

**October 4, 2020**

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THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

FOLLOWING THE ACA

MLR Guidance, Short-Term Plans, And The Revised Heroes Act

By Katie Keith (10/3/20)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released guidance on how
insurers should treat risk corridors recovery payments in medical loss
ratio and rebate calculations and confirmed that those impacted by the
Oregon wildfires are eligible for a natural disaster special enrollment
period. The NAIC and CBO released new data and analysis on short-term
limited duration insurance, and House Democrats passed an updated
version of the Heroes Act.
Read More >>

COVID-19

Surviving The Waves Of A Pandemic Storm: How To Fix The Supply Chain
Flaws Exposed By COVID-19

By Susan DeVore (9/30/20)

While governments and private-sector organizations were equipped with
disaster plans and some form of stockpiles at the outset, COVID-19
exposed a number of supply chain vulnerabilities. In this post I
describe those critical challenges and suggest ways that policy makers
and stakeholders can avoid being submerged, and how they can strengthen
our nation's response to this and future pandemics. Read More >>

VALUE

Higher Health Care Value Post COVID-19

By Paul Hughes-Cromwick, George Miller, and Beth Beaudin-Seilor
(10/2/20)

How can we use the changes wrought by COVID-19 to help create a better
health care system in its aftermath? Paul Hughes-Cromwick and coauthors
at Altarum introduce a series highlighting positive opportunities in the
chaos. Read More >>

COSTS AND SPENDING

Taming The Paper Tiger

By David Cutler (10/2/20)

Reducing administrative costs is attractive for several reasons.
Administrative costs are high, perhaps a quarter of health spending, so
reductions in administrative costs could yield a good deal of savings.
Further, the goal of medical care is clinical care, so reducing
administrative staff likely has a smaller effect on quantity and quality
of care than would reductions in clinical staff. Finally, excess
administrative hassles adversely affect peoples' ability to receive
care, so reducing administrative hassles could improve the timeliness of
care received. Read More >>

POLITICS

What Does Senator Kamala Harris' Record As California's Attorney
General Tell Us About Her Health Policy?

By Richard M. Scheffler and Surina A. Khurana (10/1/20)

Kamala Harris' record as California's attorney general shows her
deep understanding of key health policy issues, and her engagement in
matters pertaining to antitrust, pharmaceuticals, and the Affordable
Care Act illustrates her willingness to take bold steps to make health
care more affordable and accessible for Americans. Read More >>

CONSIDERING HEALTH SPENDING

Congress Should Restore Health Care Competition, Not Let Providers
Exploit COVID-19 To Raise Prices

By Glenn Melnick (10/1/20)

Congress is contemplating a stimulus bill to address the consequences of
the COVID-19 pandemic. Any new bill should focus on reducing the ability
of dominant hospital systems-which have taken over our health care
system-to use their monopoly power, especially over out-of-network
emergency patients, to charge high prices that harm consumers. Read More
>>

NURSING

Health Equity And The Future Of Nursing, Post-COVID-19

By Susan B. Hassmiller (10/1/20)

The nursing field must be socially and politically engaged in advocacy
efforts to address the health inequities laid bare by COVID-19. This
view was clearly conveyed by a panel at a recent National Academy of
Medicine (NAM) webinar. Information gleaned there will be included in
the second Future of Nursing report, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation and to be released by NAM in 2021. Also, one panelist called
for a plan to provide mental health support for nurses. Read More>>

LEGAL & REGULATORY ISSUES

The Right Prescription For Health Data Privacy: Reflections On The
AMA's New Privacy Principles

By Deven McGraw, Dena Mendelsohn, and Mark Savage (9/28/20)

In response to new regulations enabling patients to use smartphones and
third-party apps to collect and manage their health information, the
American Medical Association (AMA) released a set of Privacy Principles
more robust than HIPAA's requirements. In this blog post, we highlight
some laudable advances in the AMA's Principles but express some
concerns about the AMA's exemption of covered entities. Read More >>

FOOD

Meals As Medicine: Feed The Hungry To Treat The Tuberculosis Pandemic

By Pranay Sinha and Natasha S. Hochberg (9/30/20)

Treatment for undernutrition should be integrated into tuberculosis
prevention and care practices. This will require strong international
social protection programs, but it has the potential to save millions of
lives worldwide. Read More >>

HEALTH AFFAIRS ANNOUNCEMENT

Stay tuned for updates as we unveil our new podcast series next week. In
our weekly program, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil will bring
you in-depth conversations with leading researchers and influencers
shaping the big ideas in health policy and the health care industry.
Going beyond the pages of Health Affairs to tell the stories behind the
research and share policy implications, we will journey to the
intersection of health, health care, and policy.

AHEAD OF PRINT

COVID-19

After A COVID-19 Vaccine: Collaboration Or Competition?

By Harris Meyer

As COVID-19 vaccines and therapies emerge, critical questions remain
about access and affordability around the world. Read More >>

IN THE JOURNAL

THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE

Primary Care Practice Finances In The United States Amid The COVID-19
Pandemic

By Sanjay Basu, Russell S. Phillips, Robert Phillips, Lars E. Peterson,
and Bruce E. Landon

Sanjay Basu and coauthors used a microsimulation model incorporating
national data on primary care use, staffing, expenditures, and
reimbursements to estimate the potential incoming financial loss for
primary care practices. This paper appears in an ongoing Health Affairs
article series, The Practice of Medicine
, which is
supported by The Physicians Foundation. Read More >>

HIV/AIDS

State-Level Discrimination Policies And HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
Adoption Efforts In The US

By Stephen Bonett, Steven Meanley, Steven Elsesser, and José
Bauermeister

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a drug regimen recommended for people
at high risk of getting HIV to prevent them from being infected. Little
research exists on how state-level policies might be related to
differential PrEP uptake across the United States. Stephen Bonett and
coauthors examined HIV criminalization, nondiscrimination laws for
sexual and gender minorities, Medicaid expansion, Ryan White funding,
and sociodemographic characteristics in relation to the PrEP-to-need
ratio, a measure of PrEP uptake. Read More >>

COVID-19

Shelter-In-Place Orders Reduced COVID-19 Mortality And Reduced The Rate
Of Growth In Hospitalizations

By Wei Lyu and George L. Wehby

By April 6, 2020, 42 US states plus the District of Columbia had adopted
shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs), also known as stay-at-home orders, to
mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Wei Lyu and George Wehby examined daily
death and hospitalization growth rates for states with SIPOs compared to
states without SIPOs. Read More >>

COVID-19 And Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Health Risk, Employment, And
Household Composition

By Thomas M. Selden and Terceira A. Berdahl

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the United States, research has
shown that racial and ethnic minorities bear a disproportionate burden
of illness and death. Thomas Selden and Terceira Berdahl used
prepandemic data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS),
sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to explore
potential explanations. Read More >>

Designing Pull Funding For A COVID-19 Vaccine

By Christopher M. Snyder, Kendall Hoyt, Dimitrios Gouglas, Thomas
Johnston, and James Robinson

Christopher Snyder and coauthors propose a way to incentivize late-stage
development for COVID-19 vaccines by awarding advance purchase
agreements to bidding firms.
Read More >>

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the United States, the place
hardest hit was New York City. New York City Health + Hospitals, the
city's safety net system-and the largest such system in the
country-became "the epicenter of the epicenter." Three articles
published in this issue provide in-depth commentary on coping with
trauma, technological solutions for improving patient care, and meeting
complex social needs in the era of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 Shadow Pandemic: Meeting Social Needs For A City In
Lockdown

By Jenifer Clapp, Alessandra Calvo-Friedman, Susan Cameron, Natalie
Kramer, Samantha Lily Kumar, Emily Foote, Jenna Lupi, Opeyemi Osuntuyi,
and Dave A. Chokshi

Coping With Trauma, Celebrating Life: Reinventing Patient And Staff
Support During The COVID-19 Pandemic

By Eric Wei, Jeremy Segall, Yvette Villanueva, Linh B. Dang, Vladimir I.
Gasca, M. Pilar Gonzalez, Matilde Roman, Ivelesse Mendez-Justiniano,
Andrea G. Cohen, and Hyung J. Cho

Using Information Technology To Improve COVID-19 Care At New York City
Health + Hospitals

By R. James Salway, David Silvestri, Eric K. Wei, and Michael Bouton

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How Administrative Burdens Can Harm Health

A new health policy brief
from
Health Affairs with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
examines the administrative burdens that can block access to some
safety-net programs and, as a consequence, undermine a person's
health. This brief joins

**Health Affairs'** ongoing series of policy briefs on social
determinants of health.

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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
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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.

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