View Message in Browser

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

mailto:[email protected]

[link removed]

A Weekly Health Policy Round Up From Health Affairs            

**November 8, 2020**

IN THE JOURNAL

NEW ISSUE:
HEALTH SPENDING, MEDICAID & MORE

In addition to the final versions of five papers originally published
online, four of which relate to COVID-19, this month's issue of Health
Affairs covers a range of topics, including health spending, Medicaid
policy, equity, and global health.

Read the November 2020 table of contents.

Read "From the Editor-in-Chief."

[link removed]

Listen to an introduction to the issue from

Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil.

MEDICAID

Trends In State Medicaid Eligibility, Enrollment Rules, And Benefits

By Ashley M. Fox, Wenhui Feng, Jennifer Zeitlin, and Elizabeth A. Howell

This study provides a broader picture of state Medicaid programs beyond
Medicaid expansion by comprehensively measuring state Medicaid policy
across four dimensions over the period from 2000 to 2016-18. Read More
>>

Indiana's Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver And Interagency Coordination
Improve Enrollment For Justice-Involved Adults

By Justin Blackburn, Connor Norwood, Dan Rusyniak, Amy Lewis Gilbert,
Jennifer Sullivan, and Nir Menachemi

Providing Medicaid coverage as adults transition from incarceration to
living in the community can yield significant health and social
benefits. Justin Blackburn and coauthors examine how Indiana combined
Medicaid expansion through a Section 1115 waiver with additional
policies designed to maximize Medicaid coverage for low-income
justice-involved adults.
Read More >>

CONSIDERING HEALTH SPENDING

Geographic Variation In Medicare Per Capita Spending Narrowed From 2007
To 2017

By Yongkang Zhang and Jing Li

Geographic variation in Medicare spending has long been viewed as
evidence of health system inefficiency. With administered pricing,
Medicare spending variation reflects different patterns of care that
cannot be explained by population health characteristics. Analyzing
fee-for-service data between 2007 and 2017, Yongkang Zhang and Jing Li
report that the risk- and price-adjusted gap in spending between the
highest and lowest-decile hospital referral regions declined by 14
percent. Read More >>

MATERNAL HEALTH

Medicaid Expansion Increased Preconception Health Counseling, Folic Acid
Intake, And Postpartum Contraception

By Rebecca Myerson, Samuel Crawford, and Laura R. Wherry

The period before pregnancy is critically important for the health of a
woman and her infant, yet not all women have access to health insurance
during this time. Rebecca Myerson and coauthors evaluated whether
increased access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act
Medicaid expansions affected ten preconception health indicators. Read
More >>

PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE

Racial/Ethnic And Income-Based Disparities In Health Savings Account
Participation Among Privately Insured Adults

By Jacqueline Ellison, Paul Shafer, and Megan B. Cole

High-deductible health plans (HDHPs), which are increasingly prevalent
among people with private health insurance, are often paired with health
savings accounts (HSAs) to improve access to care before the enrollee
meets their deductible. Using survey data, Jacqueline Ellison and
coauthors identify racial and ethnic, as well as socioeconomic,
disparities in enrollment in HDHPs and HSAs. Read More >>

****

Podcast:
A
First Take On Health Policy After The 2020 Election

Less than 24 hours after the final polls closed, Health Affairs' Alan
Weil sat down with Kimberly Leonard, senior health care reporter at
Business Insider, and Shannon Muchmore, editor at Healthcare Dive, to
share his perspective on what the future of health policy may look like
when the election is in the rearview mirror.

Listen here.

[link removed]

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

FOLLOWING THE ACA
What Biden's Election Would Mean For The Affordable Care Act

By Katie Keith (11/5/20)

In what otherwise appears to be a status quo election, what does a Biden
victory mean for the Affordable Care Act? This post attempts a first
pass at an answer. Read More >>

Even In 14-Point Text, 'Buyer Beware' Is No Organizing Principle For
Insurance Reform

By Margaret A. Murray and Heather Foster (11/3/20)

Brian Blase and Doug Badger recently attempted to justify a Trump
administration regulation that encourages Americans to abandon
Affordable Care Act-compliant plans in the Marketplace in favor of
short-term limited-duration plans. As lead litigants in a case to stop
the administration from inflicting these junk insurance plans on
American consumers, we offer the following rebuttal. Read More >>

Open Enrollment Begins, New Basic Health Plan Methodology

By Katie Keith (11/3/20)

Even with all eyes on the 2020 election, the 2021 open enrollment period
began in most states on November 1, 2020, and extends through December
15, 2020. This post discusses additional data and resources from the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in light of the open
enrollment period and a new proposed methodology for the Basic Health
Program (BHP) for 2022. Read More >>

COVID, Elections, And Health Insurance: What Would Tim Do?

By Theodore Marmor and Frances Miller (11/2/20)

In considering what the coronavirus catastrophe could mean for
America's health insurance reform, we ponder how Tim Jost might take
the COVID-19 "lemon" and squeeze it into something tasting more like
universal coverage "lemonade." What framework would Tim find helpful for
addressing this and other questions facing America right now? Read More
>>

Georgia Gets Green Light On Waiver To Restructure Individual Market

By Katie Keith (11/2/20)

On November 1, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) and the Department of the Treasury approved Georgia's waiver
under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Georgia is now
authorized to establish a state-based reinsurance program and eliminate
the use of HealthCare.gov. This is the broadest waiver yet approved
under Section 1332. Read More >>

Trump Administration Finalizes Transparency Rule For Health Insurers

By Katie Keith (11/2/20)

On October 29, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury,
and Labor issued the "transparency in coverage" final rule. The rule
imposes new transparency requirements on group health plans and health
insurers in the individual and group markets. Under the final rule,
plans and insurers must disclose cost-sharing estimates at the request
of an enrollee and publicly release negotiated rates for in-network
providers, historical out-of-network allowed amounts and billed charges,
and drug pricing information. Read More >>

COVID-19

Universal Testing To End The Pandemic

By Reda Cherif, Fuad Hasanov, and Michael Mina (11/6/20)

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we urgently need an all-out effort
to set up a universal testing infrastructure. The technology to develop
rapid, convenient, and cheap tests already exists. Producing these tests
at the needed scale can be achieved quickly, and the annual cost would
be miniscule compared to the cost of the pandemic. Read More >>

What COVID-19 Exposed In Long-Term Care

By Karen Wolk Feinstein (11/5/20)

We cannot bring back those who have died in skilled nursing facilities
during the pandemic, but we can honor them by implementing decisive and
needed reforms for nursing facilities, says this author. A bipartisan
opportunity now exists for humane reforms. The author, who heads a
foundation, also describes its efforts to improve the long-term care
system over the decades. Read More >>

The Potential Role Of Open Data In Mitigating The COVID-19 Pandemic:
Challenges And Opportunities

By Sunyoung Pyo, Luigi Reggi, and Erika G. Martin (11/2/20)

Investment in the ongoing development and release of open health data
about the pandemic has the potential to generate new solutions from
diverse users, start to rebuild public trust in government, and
strengthen open-data efforts in the long term. Read More >>

Averting "Generational Catastrophe": How We Can Safely Reopen Our
Schools

By Gregg Bloche, Kenneth Beckman, Daniel Wikler, and Joshua Goodman
(11/2/20)

Americans from across the political spectrum believe that it's urgent
that we reopen our schools, both to save our children from devastating
effects on their development and to avert a childcare crisis. There's
a path toward doing so without risking thousands of lives, even absent
an effective coronavirus vaccine. School districts can make this happen
through routine, low-cost testing-if the federal government provides
the wherewithal now. Read More >>

PUBLIC HEALTH

Facebook's Latest Attempt To Address Vaccine Misinformation-And Why
It's Not Enough

By Ana Santos Rutschman (11/5/20)

Facebook's newest set of measures to combat vaccine misinformation
constitutes an improvement over the status quo, but it leaves the
sources of the problem largely untouched. As the COVID-19 pandemic has
led to an increase in pages that push health misinformation, rethinking
current approaches taken by social media platforms toward this problem
is imperative. Read More >>

LEGAL & REGULATORY ISSUES

Origins: Our Health Law Casebook And Tim Jost

By Barry R. Furrow, Thomas L. Greaney, Sandra H. Johnson, and Robert L.
Schwartz (11/6/20)

One day over lunch 36 years ago, we original coauthors began to
speculate about whether we could create a health law casebook that
improved on the current offerings. We decided to collaborate to create
an improved model, calling it "Health Law" rather than "Law and
Medicine" to emphasize the changing nature of health care delivery by
the 1980s. Read More >>

SYSTEMS OF CARE

What US Medicine Needs To Do To Finally Embrace Capitation

By Vishal S. Arora and Sachin H. Jain (11/3/20)

The immediate benefits of capitation during the pandemic are obvious:
Liquidity-constrained health systems receive cash inflow independent of
procedures and office visits performed. There are also long-term
benefits to capitation, such as rewarding judicious use of health care
resources. However, often unstated are the key challenges and risks that
health care organizations must navigate if they plan to execute
capitation for their health systems in the long run. Read More >>

DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Getting Our Knees Off Black People's Necks: An Anti-Racist Approach to
Medical Care

By Rupinder K. Legha, David R. Williams, Lonnie Snowden, and Jeanne
Miranda (11/4/20)

Racism and anti-Blackness are inherent in our country's structures and
medical systems. The authors propose an anti-racist approach to medical
care that recognizes racism's historical roots, identifies racism
within health care providers and medical systems, and then dismantles
it.
Read More >>

[link removed]

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

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

Privacy Policy

To unsubscribe from this email, click here
.                 
                                               
                        I