U.S. Vaccine Rollout May Have Prevented as Many as 279,000 COVID-19 Deaths, 1.25 Million Hospitalizations
As the more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 surges in parts of the United States, a new study from Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund finds that the U.S. vaccination campaign has significantly curbed the virus’s death toll and hospitalizations. The researchers warn, however, that the Delta variant’s spread among unvaccinated populations could produce a surge in new cases and reverse the downward trend of infections and deaths.
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As the Delta Variant Spreads, We Need to Know How to Reach the Vaccine-Hesitant
To stop the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, the U.S. will need to vaccinate millions more Americans. But how? In an op-ed published in The Hill, the Commonwealth Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., and the African American Research Collaborative’s Henry Fernandez discuss what it will take to reach the most vaccine-hesitant,
drawing on findings from a recent national poll. |
How Can We Integrate COVID-19 Vaccination into Primary Care?
As the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign enters a new, more challenging phase, primary care providers will be key to reaching many of the millions of Americans who have not yet gotten their shots. In a new feature, the Commonwealth Fund’s Sarah Klein and Martha Hostetter report on lessons from primary care providers who are trying to integrate COVID-19 vaccination with their day-to-day work. Many have devised creative ways to assess and meet vaccine demand, deploy pop-up vaccine clinics in their communities, and respond to patients’ concerns.
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Data Science and the Pandemic’s Impact Across Indian Country
Last month, the New York Times reported on IndigiData, a virtual workshop
that introduced tribal undergraduate and graduate students to data science and informatics skills. The workshop is part of a broader effort to safeguard the rights of Indigenous peoples to govern the collection, ownership, and use of their data according to the laws of their sovereign nations. In September 2020, Transforming Care interviewed Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, cofounder of the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, about how lack of access to data impeded efforts to assess the impact of the pandemic on tribal communities. |
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Jost: Biden Administration Proposed Rule Would Reverse Trump Rules on ACA Marketplaces
On June 28, the Biden administration proposed a rule that would make a hard U-turn from several of the Trump administration’s most controversial measures affecting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces and health insurance markets more broadly. Legal expert Timothy S. Jost breaks down the proposed changes, including ones related to state innovation waivers and expanded access to marketplace coverage.
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Closing the Coverage Gap in States That Haven’t Expanded Medicaid
Twelve states have still neither expanded their Medicaid program under the ACA nor passed a ballot initiative to do so. In a new Commonwealth Fund report, John Holahan and colleagues at the Urban Institute explore three alternatives to expansion, with options to make marketplace subsidies available to people living below the federal poverty level. According to the report, the options modeled would cover an additional 3 million to 5 million Americans.
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Restoring Women’s Access to Medicaid Family Planning Services
In recent years, actions by the federal government and some states have undercut access to family planning services, particularly for low-income women who are Medicaid beneficiaries. Manatt Health’s Julian Polaris and Cindy Mann examine the implications of these restrictions and offer insights about what can be done to strengthen women’s access to sexual and reproductive health care. The authors note that the Biden administration has tools at its disposal to remove some of these constraints.
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How to Reform U.S. Health Care? Learn from Other Countries.
For his new book, UCLA’s Thomas Rice researched 10 countries in depth, looking at the different ways they have tackled the challenges of providing high-quality, affordable health care. On To the Point, the Commonwealth Fund’s Reginald D. Williams II interviews Rice about those varied approaches, and what the U.S. can learn from them to reform health care here. “The U.S. will ultimately pick the approaches that work with our population preferences and political realities,” says Rice.
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