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A Weekly Health Policy Round-Up From Health Affairs            

**November 1, 2020**

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

COVID-19

The COVID-19 Pandemic Can Help Us Understand Low-Value Health Care

By Allison H. Oakes and Jodi B. Segal (10/27/20)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a novel sense of scarcity, which has
forced health systems to cut profitable services and prioritize
seriously ill patients. At the same time, it has revealed a previously
unseen counterfactual: a health system in which there is no low-value
care. These circumstances can be leveraged to advance the low-value care
research agenda. Read More >>

COVID-19 And Health Disparities: Insights From Key Informant Interviews

By Harold A. Pollack and Caroline Kelly (10/27/20)

More than 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19; more than eight
million have been infected. No part of the US has been fully spared, but
the burdens are unequally distributed. This post draws upon key
informant interviews with physicians, nursing and medical leaders,
epidemiologists and health services researchers, and policy scholars to
explore causes of these disparities and to examine proposed solutions.
Read More >>

Against Weighted Lotteries For Scarce COVID-19 Treatments

By Joseph Millum (10/26/20)

Weighted lotteries to allocate scarce COVID-19 treatments and vaccines
give the appearance of balancing competing ethical considerations. But,
as I will show, they actually lead to unjust outcomes. Read More >>

FOLLOWING THE ACA

New COVID-19 Rule Addresses Coverage, Medicaid Waivers

By Katie Keith (10/30/20)

A new federal interim final rule with comment period addresses coverage
policies for a not-yet-developed COVID-19 vaccine and offers an option
for states to request modifications to public comment requirements for
state innovation waivers. Read More >>

Honoring The Ever-Prolific Tim Jost

By Abbe Gluck and Sara Rosenbaum (10/29/20)

It is our privilege to introduce this Health Affairs Blog short series
celebrating the pioneering work of Timothy Stoltzfus Jost. Perhaps no
other legal scholar has touched more areas of the field, or done more to
explain the field to generations of lawyers, health policy makers,
practitioners, and government officials. Read More >>

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ACCESS TO CARE

Will Connectivity Be The Next Cure? Health Care Implications Of 5G
Cellular Technologies

By Faiz Gani (10/30/20)

The potential implications of 5G cellular technology within health care
remain unexplored. Targeted policies aiming to facilitate safe and equal
access to technologies leveraging 5G will be pivotal to the success of
these technologies in improving quality and access to care.
Read More >>

MEDICAID
Accelerating Science-Driven Reimbursement For Digital Therapeutics In
State Medicaid Programs

By Andrey Ostrovsky and Morgan Simko (10/30/20)

Digital therapeutics have particular potential value for Medicaid
patients. Yet the very technologies that may be able to help Medicaid
beneficiaries achieve better health in times of COVID-19 and beyond
cannot reach those patients because Medicaid benefit coverage processes
in most states are nebulous and driven more by consultant relationships
than by evidence. Read More >>

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

How Much Has The Number of Uninsured Risen Since 2016-And At What Cost
To Health And Life?

By Adam Gaffney, David Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler (10/29/20)

Declining insurance coverage during the Trump administration has come at
a heavy cost in physical and mental health, financial security, and loss
of life. If the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, 19.9
million individuals could lose health coverage. The life and health
ramifications of this case-and of November's election-are
enormous. Read More >>

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

A Business Case For Improving The Well-Being Of Essential Shift Workers

By Megan McHugh, Claude R. Maechling, and Jane L. Holl (10/29/20)

Essential workers are more likely to do shift work-outside of
traditional daytime work hours. Numerous studies have shown that such
work is associated with higher rates of many chronic diseases. Such
underlying conditions increase the risk for serious illness from
COVID-19. A foundation-funded study estimated the health effects, and
excess health care costs incurred per year, for 2,600 workers doing
shift work at a manufacturing company. The authors have suggestions for
employers relying on shift workers. Read More >>

TELEHEALTH

Too Many Rural Americans Are Living In The Digital Dark. The Problem
Demands A New Deal Solution

By Mark E. Dornauer and Robert Bryce (10/28/20)

Now is the time for a new federal program that will energize rural
broadband in the same way that the New Deal brought electricity to rural
America and will bring rural patients out of the digital dark. Read More
>>

LEGAL & REGULATORY ISSUES

Honoring Tim Jost: The Legal Services Years

By James Weill (10/29/20)

Tim Jost came to work at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago 45
years ago, in 1975. Much of Tim's focus was on the Uptown community,
at the time a classic example of a predominantly low-income neighborhood
feeling the impacts of the great 1960s and 1970s wave of
deinstitutionalization. Read More >>

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IN THE JOURNAL

CHILDREN'S HEALTH

Children's Health Insurance Coverage: Progress, Problems, And
Priorities For 2021 And Beyond

By Joan C. Alker, Genevieve M. Kenney, and Sara Rosenbaum

Despite significant coverage gains between 2008 and 2015, the proportion
of children in the US with health insurance has fallen in recent years.
Observing that "policy makers have made enormous strides in coverage of
children, but there is still a distance to go," Joan Alker and coauthors
propose strategies ranging from a unified, national program to policies
that expand on Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA Marketplaces. Read More >>

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Spreading Fear: The Announcement Of The Public Charge Rule Reduced
Enrollment In Child Safety-Net Programs

By Jeremy Barofsky, Ariadna Vargas, Dinardo Rodriguez, and Anthony
Barrows

Programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC provide critical support to
children. Jeremy Barofsky and colleagues seek to determine whether the
Trump administration's announcement of plans to consider use of these
programs in considering whether a lawful permanent resident is a "public
charge" led to reductions in enrollment. Read More >>

Racial And Ethnic Inequities In Children's Neighborhoods: Evidence
From The New Child Opportunity Index 2.0

By Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Clemens Noelke, Nancy McArdle, Nomi Sofer,
Erin F. Hardy, Michelle Weiner, Mikyung Baek, Nick Huntington, Rebecca
Huber, and Jason Reece

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia and coauthors present and analyze the Child
Opportunity Index 2.0, a composite measure of children's neighborhood
opportunity. Inequities are profound, with an overall Child Opportunity
Score of 73 for White children compared with 33 for Hispanic children
and 24 for Black children in the largest 100 metropolitan areas. Read
More >>

New podcast!

In this episode of A Health Podyssey,

**Health Affairs** Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Brandeis
University's Dolores Acevedo-Garcia to discuss her research on racial
and ethnic inequities in children's neighborhoods.

Listen here.

Economy-Sensitive Conditions: Are Some Pediatric Hospitalizations
Triggered By Economic Recessions?

By Jeffrey D. Colvin, Troy Richardson, Donna K. Ginther, Matt Hall, and
Paul J. Chung

Jeffrey Colvin and colleagues examine associations between county-level
unemployment and pediatric hospitalizations in fourteen states every
third year from 2002 to 2014. Read More >>

GRANTWATCH

Funding Children's Health: COVID-19 And Beyond

By Lee L. Prina

The October 2020 GrantWatch column follows the children's health theme
of that

**Health Affairs** issue. The column highlights selected foundations'
efforts around the country to improve children's health related to the
pandemic and more. Subjects covered include food insecurity, mental
health, home visiting, emergency child care, COVID-19 in Africa,
national paid family leave policy, childhood trauma, and more. In the
Key Personnel Change section, read about the temporary move to state
government by Sandra Shewry of the California Health Care Foundation.
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 .  

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health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has
published Health Affairs since 1981.

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