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The Commonwealth Fund Connection

A roundup of recent Fund publications, charts, multimedia, and other timely content.




February 19, 2021

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COVID-19


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“Not Just a Black Body”: How COVID-19 Hit Home for One Doctor

Behind the staggering COVID-19 statistics of the past year are stories. On the latest episode of The Dose podcast, Magdala Chery, M.D., a primary care physician and Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Minority Health Policy, recounts how she experienced firsthand the racial inequities of our health care system when she lost both her parents to COVID-19 last spring.

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Biden’s Gambit: Defeating the Pandemic While Expanding Health Coverage

President Biden has two major health care goals: crush the COVID-19 pandemic and cover the 30 million Americans who remain uninsured. He may have only one chance to accomplish them before his political capital is depleted, says Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D. On To the Point, Blumenthal explores how the president’s proposed $1.9 trillion rescue package could accomplish both aims.

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Baltimore Health Systems Bring Vaccines to People

MedStar Health and its partners in Baltimore have set up a
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mobile vaccination clinic that will deliver COVID-19 vaccines to areas where residents face challenges in scheduling appointments. In an article first published at the end of last year, Commonwealth Fund researchers described how MedStar and other health systems serving the safety net are
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reaching beyond their walls during the pandemic to engage high-risk groups.


Other Recent Publications

Have You Seen Our New Website?

With the redesigned and revamped
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www.commonwealthfund.org , finding our health care policy research, data, and analysis has never been easier. Our goals for this redesign were simple: create a clean, modern site with an intuitive navigation system. Along the way, we also improved our site search and added new content about the Fund’s mission and goals.

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It’s Complicated: The Role of Reconciliation in Advancing Health Legislation

With a 50–50 Senate and continuing partisan rancor, the Biden administration is considering budget reconciliation as a tool to advance its health agenda in Congress. Sarah Egge and the Commonwealth Fund’s Elizabeth Fowler and Rachel Nuzum explain the basics of the reconciliation process and how some of its inherent limitations could present obstacles to the administration as it works to end the COVID-19 pandemic and expand health coverage.

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Options for Strengthening State Insurance Marketplaces

The Trump administration took a number of actions that undermined the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act’s state-based health insurance marketplaces. In a new issue brief, Rachel Schwab and colleagues at Georgetown University identify several policy options the Biden administration, along with Congress, could consider as it seeks not only to undo the damage but also to strengthen this critical health coverage safety net.

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Next Steps for Fixing U.S. Health Care

The failings of the U.S. health care system — and the institutions and structures that perpetuate them — are the subject of a new report from the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era. In a commentary appearing in the journal, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration head Margaret Hamburg, M.D., ask how the nation can overcome those failings to achieve a health care system that works well for everyone.

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Relatively Few Medicare Plans Have Expanded Their Supplemental Benefits, But That’s Likely to Change

Since 2019, private Medicare Advantage plans have been allowed to offer an array of “primarily health-related” services, ranging from nutrition and wellness services to in-home support. In a new
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issue brief, Thomas Kornfield and colleagues at Avalere Health discuss their new research on the availability of expanded benefits meant to address social determinants of health. And in a
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companion post , they suggest ways for policymakers to increase the availability of expanded supplemental benefits for Medicare Advantage plan members.

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The U.S. Has an Abysmal Track Record for Maternal Health

“Maternal mortality is a test of a society’s commitment to equality,” say the Commonwealth Fund’s Laurie Zephyrin, M.D., and Roosa Tikkanen in Ms. magazine. Arguing the United States is failing that test, they discuss concrete steps we can take to put the country on the path to an antiracist, equitable health care system “where birthing people of all races and ethnicities have what they need” for healthy pregnancies and births.

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Seven New Ways for States to Invest in Health – Not Just Health Care

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the urgency to invest in health in new ways, including through programs and initiatives that address the variety of factors that determine health. A
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new report jointly released by Manatt, The Health Initiative, the Blue Shield of California Foundation, and the Commonwealth Fund outlines seven strategies for states to improve health — not just health care. Also see the companion report for federal policymakers,
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Investing in Health: A Bold and Pragmatic Federal Action Plan , and related
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blog post .

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Haven Healthcare’s Collapse: Why Employer-Led Health Reform Efforts Often Fail

Launched with great fanfare in 2018, Haven Healthcare — a joint effort by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase to reform the health care market — has become the latest employer-led health initiative to end in failure. Julianne McGarry and colleagues at Catalyst for Payment Reform identify two main factors behind the collapse of dozens of employer-led health purchasing coalitions over the past 30 years. Ultimately, the authors conclude, employers may be most successful by working with state and federal officials to combat anticompetitive forces in the market.

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Affordable, quality health care. For everyone.

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