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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
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
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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
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 >>
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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.
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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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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.
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