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The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs

March 28, 2021

Presented By WEX

The US presidency and both houses of Congress have taken on a new, blue
look since the 2018 midterms. Democrats first took the House of
Representatives, then in 2020 won the presidency and control of the
Senate. What does this mean for health care and benefits? Learn more>>

Dear John,

Read on for highlights from Health Affairs this week.

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Public Health Spending, Graduate Medical Education & More

In an article released ahead of print this week, Natalia Alfonso and
coauthors assessed total spending and spending for specific public
health categories at the state level from 2008 to 2018
,
capturing state spending trends both during and after the Great
Recession. They observed flat or downward trends for total state public
health spending and for spending in each of the categories of public
health activities, except for an increase in spending for injury
prevention. Maternal, child, and family health saw the largest drop in
spending of all the categories.

In her Narrative Matters essay, Sharon Griswold argues that the
bankruptcy and subsequent closure of Hahnemann University Hospital
demonstrates the need for health care and graduate medical education
policy reform
.

This week marked the eleven-year anniversary of the passage of the
Affordable Care Act (ACA). One criticism the law has received is that
the health coverage offered through the ACA Marketplaces has high levels
of deductibles and copayments, leaving care unaffordable to many.
Charles Liu and coauthors analyzed expenditure survey data and found
sizable reductions in the cost burden of health care for low-income
Marketplace enrollees
.
Low-income adult enrollees experienced a 17.2 percent decline in
out-of-pocket spending and an almost one-third drop in the likelihood of
having catastrophic health expenditures across the study period of 2008
to 2017.

Sunita M. Desai and coauthors discuss the impact of an online
informational advertising campaign

for NH HealthCost, the publicly available price transparency website
developed by the state of New Hampshire.

Kevin Callison and colleagues compare changes in uncompensated care
costs as a share of total operating expenses

for hospitals in Louisiana with those in hospitals in nonexpansion
states before and after Louisiana's Medicaid expansion. Expansion in
Louisiana was associated with a 33 percent reduction in the share of
total operating expenses attributable to uncompensated care costs for
general medical and surgical hospitals, with the greatest reductions in
rural and public hospitals.

Featured Journal Articles

US Public Health Neglected: Flat Or Declining Spending Left States Ill
Equipped To Respond To COVID-19

Y. Natalia Alfonso, Jonathon P. Leider, Beth Resnick, J. Mac McCullough,
and David Bishai

Graduate Medical Education Should Not Be A Commodity

Sharon Griswold

The Affordable Care Act's Insurance Marketplace Subsidies Were
Associated With Reduced Financial Burden For US Adults

Charles Liu, Hiroshi Gotanda, Dhruv Khullar, Thomas Rice, and Yusuke
Tsugawa

Online Advertising Increased New Hampshire Residents' Use Of Provider
Price Tool But Not Use Of Lower-Price Providers

Sunita M. Desai, Sonali Shambhu, and Ateev Mehrotra

Medicaid Expansion Reduced Uncompensated Care Costs At Louisiana
Hospitals; May Be A Model For Other States

Kevin Callison, Brigham Walker, Charles Stoecker, Jeral Self, and Mark
L. Diana

Presented By WEX

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This Benefits Buzz podcast episode and blog post covers post-election
health care topics, such as Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, the
future of HSAs, and potential rollbacks of the Trump agenda. Learn
more>>>

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Do Teams Work Better Than Solo Providers? Spoiler Alert: Yes

Listen to Alan Weil interview Maximilian Pany and Lucy Chen, both MD-PhD
candidates in health policy at Harvard Medical School, on their
research, which found that provider teams outperformed solo providers in
managing chronic diseases.

Listen Here

On The Blog This Week

Bending The Arc Of COVID-19 Test Development To Increase Access And
Ensure Reliability-Now And In The Future

Jeffrey Shuren and Timothy Stenzel

Public Benefit Corporations: A Third Option For Health Care Delivery?

Soleil Shah, Jimmy J. Qian, Amol S. Navathe, and Nirav R. Shah

Medicaid And The American Rescue Plan: How It All Fits Together

Sara Rosenbaum, Morgan Handley, Maria Casoni, Rebecca Morris, and Erin
Handley

Meet The Revised 10 Essential Public Health Services: Developed By The
Field, Centering Equity

Katie Sellers, Jessica Solomon Fisher, Paul Kuehnert, and Brian C.
Castrucci

Two Maine Health Foundation Leaders Discuss Their Organizations' Racial
Equity Journeys

M. Gabriela Alcalde and Barbara Leonard

COVID-19 Has Made It Harder To Slow The Rise In Sexually Transmitted
Infections. Expedited Partner Treatment Can Help

Cornelius D. Jamison and Tammy Chang

The Unfinished Business Of Air Ambulance Bills

Erin C. Fuse Brown, Loren Adler, Karan R. Chhabra, Barak D. Richman and
Erin Trish

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Podcast: Elevating Women's Voices In Health Policy During Women's
History Month

Listen to Vabren Watts and Jessica Bylander discuss Women's History
Month, all the great work women have contributed to the Health Affairs
community, and the latest on COVID-19 vaccines and their impact on
pregnant women.

****

Listen Here

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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 .  

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.

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