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HEALTH AFFAIRS EVENTS

AGING AND HEALTH: IMPROVING CARE FOR OLDER ADULTS

September 24, 2019
10:00 am – 12:00 pm Eastern
National Press Club – 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC
Registration Open

On September 24, join Health Affairs and The John A. Hartford Foundation for a robust policy conversation featuring authors from the journal’s Aging & Health series, as well as other experts in the field, to discuss topics including:
Moving Serious Illness Care from Hospital to Home
Disparities in Home- and Community-Based Care
Impact of Caregiving on Spouses and Need for Support

In addition to Terry Fulmer, President of The John A. Hartford Foundation, confirmed speakers include:
Timothy G. Ferris, CEO, Massachusetts General Physicians Organization
Ann Hwang, Director, Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation, Community Catalyst
Tamara Konetzka, Professor of Health Services Research, Department of Public Health Sciences and Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago Biological Sciences, on “A National Examination Of Long-term Care Setting, Outcomes, And Disparities Among Elderly Dual-Eligibles” (July 2019)
Bruce Leff, Professor of Medicine and Director, Center for Transformative Geriatric Research, Division of Geriatric Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Katherine A. Ornstein, Associate Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and Research Director, Institute for Care Innovations at Home, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, on “Spousal Caregivers Are Caregiving Alone In The Last Years Of Life” (June 2019)
Brad Stuart, Chief Medical Officer, Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, on “A Large-Scale Advanced Illness Intervention Informs Medicare’s New Serious Illness Payment Model” (June 2019)
Jennifer Wolff, Eugene and Mildred Lipitz Professor and Director of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

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ACA Round-Up: Health Insurance Tax, Mental Health Parity, and SEPs

By Katie Keith (9/10/19)

Federal regulators have recently released an estimate of the health insurance tax plan for year 2020, frequently asked questions on mental health parity, and special enrollment periods for those affected by Hurricane Dorian.
Read More >>

CONSIDERING HEALTH SPENDING

The HHS Proposed Rebate Rule And The Problem Of Scoring Proposed Regulations
By Dan Crippen (9/13/19)

Congress should not be constrained in its oversight responsibilities by the estimate of the fiscal impact of a regulation that has not, and may never, become final. Read More >>

PAYMENT

There’s No Pain-Free Way To Get Beyond Silver Loading
By Stan Dorn (9/10/19)

Until further research demonstrates the effects of such alternative policies and identifies win-win solutions with outcomes that far surpass the results described here, policy makers should think long and hard before discarding the silver-loaded fruits of actuarial wisdom.
Read More >>

POPULATION HEALTH

How States Can Use County Health Rankings To Make Population Health—Not Process—Their Bottom Line
By Harris Allen (9/10/19)

Georgia would be the first state to use county health rankings data to structure explicit county competitions. Read More >>

ACCOUNTABLE CARE

ACO Participation Numbers Worth Watching As CMS Changes Take Root
By David Pittman, Allison Brennan, and Clifton Gaus (9/11/19)

Payment and delivery reform will remain a key policy lever to control health spending, and total-cost-of-care models have the greatest opportunity for savings and quality improvement. Read More >>

QUALITY OF CARE

Pathway To Patient-Centered Measurement For Accountability
By Aparna Higgins, Dana Gelb Safran, Nick Fiore, Elizabeth Murphy, and Mark B. McClellan (9/12/19)

We look forward to working with relevant stakeholders to develop a road map of patient-centered outcomes measures that extends beyond the federal alignment called for in the executive order to alignment between public and private participants. Read More >>

ADDICTION

Saving A Life From Opioid Addiction Requires Bold Action From Loved Ones
By Janet Edwards (9/9/19)

Taking the time to educate and empower yourself and others in the fight against opioid addiction is a critical first-line defense to ending the impact of opioid abuse for all.
Read More >>

PHARMACEUTICALS & MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Considerations For Expanding International Reference Pricing Beyond Medicare Part B
By Loren Adler, Steven M. Lieberman, Christen Linke Young, and Paul B. Ginsburg (9/9/19)

Given the complications inherent in an international reference pricing approach, it might prove preferable to have the US government directly handle drug price regulation, potentially based on an assessment of the value of different treatments, rather than piggybacking on other countries and undermining their efforts to control drug costs.
Read More >>

IN THE JOURNAL

AHEAD OF PRINT

Trends In Public Opinion On US Gun Laws: Majorities Of Gun Owners And Non–Gun Owners Support A Range Of Measures
By Colleen Barry, Elizabeth Stone, Cassandra Crifasi, Jon Vernick, Daniel Webster, and Emma McGinty

This new study, being released ahead of print, used data from the National Survey of Gun Policy from the years 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019. The surveys were administered by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, which sampled adult gun owners and non–gun owners alike. The findings show that large majorities of both owners and nonowners strongly support a range of measures to strengthen US gun laws. Read More >>

This study will also appear in the October issue of Health Affairs, a theme issue with studies focusing on violence and health.

ACCESS & USE

ACA’s Contraceptive Coverage Requirement: Measuring Use And Out-Of-Pocket Spending
By Carol S. Weisman, Cynthia H. Chuang, Ashley H. Snyder, Guodong Liu, and Douglas L. Leslie

The ACA requires most private health insurance to cover contraception without cost sharing. Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) are among the most effective—and have the highest upfront costs for people without health insurance. Carol Weisman and coauthors examined trends in LARC insertions and out-of-pocket spending for LARCs before and after the ACA requirement was implemented, using data from the Truven Health MarketScan claims database for the period 2006-16. Read More >>

CONSIDERING HEALTH SPENDING

The Relationship Between Health Spending And Social Spending In High-Income Countries: How Does The US Compare?
By Irene Papanicolas, Liana Woskie, Duncan Orlander, E. John Orav, and Ashish Jha

Irene Papanicolas and coauthors evaluated data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on 35 OECD member states spanning the period 1980–2015, to answer three questions: How does the US compare to other OECD countries in terms of social spending? Do countries that spend less on social services spend more on health care? Is there any evidence that increases in social spending over time are associated with decreases in health care spending? Read More >>

DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Financial Incentives Increase Purchases Of Fruit And Vegetables Among Lower-Income Households With Children
By Alyssa Moran, Anne Thorndike, Rebecca Franckle, Rebecca Boulos, Heather Doran, Aarohee Fulay, Julie Greene, Dan Blue, Jason P. Block, Eric B. Rimm, and Michele Polacsek

Alyssa Moran and coauthors conducted a randomized controlled trial, enrolling some 600 low-income families with children, one-third of whom participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), at a supermarket in rural Maine. About half of the participants received a 50 percent discount at checkout on fruit and vegetables. The authors found that the participants who received the discount showed a 27 percent increase in spending on fruit and vegetables each week, with no increase in purchases of other, less healthful foods. Read More >>

Revisiting Health Justice
By William M. Sage

William Sage reviews Essentials Of Health Justice: A Primer, by Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler and Joel B. Teitelbaum, finding it, "as much a reintroduction as an introduction to its subject, refreshing readers’ recognition that America’s health reflects not only its health care system but also its sociolegal heritage." Read More >>

Welcoming Medicine To The Machine
By Dhruv Khullar

Dhruv Khullar reviews Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, by Eric Topol, "an exhaustive tour-de-force review of the past, present, and future of AI in medicine." Read More >>

A Crisis Behind The Acronyms
By Emily F. Peters

Emily Peters reviews Well: What We Need To Talk About When We Talk About Health, by Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. Read More >>

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.

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