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Restoring Trust in Public Health: Lessons from Local Health Coalitions
Between the pandemic and our nation’s deepening political divisions, many Americans have lost faith in government’s ability to keep them healthy. In a new Transforming Care feature, the Commonwealth Fund’s Sarah Klein and Martha Hostetter explore what it might take to restore trust in public health systems. They describe how three local health coalitions forged stronger ties among government agencies, health care providers, and community organizations to achieve more effective public health campaigns.
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What Happens When Medicaid’s Continuous Enrollment Guarantee Ends?
Throughout most of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act has safeguarded Medicaid coverage for people who would otherwise have lost it because of a change in their eligibility status. But as the public health emergency ends, states will once again need to redetermine eligibility for their residents enrolled in Medicaid. On To the Point, Sara Rosenbaum and Alexander Somodevilla report that states will need to move quickly — accomplishing in months what had previously been done continuously over multiple years.
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How Can We Make Long-Term Care More Affordable?
In 2018, some 5 million Americans used home health services, and nearly 4 million were living in nursing homes or residential care communities. The United States, however, doesn’t have a national system for covering the high costs of long-term care, and the patchwork of programs that exists often leaves families bearing most of the burden. In a new report, Commonwealth Fund researchers explore how long-term care is financed in the U.S. and in 12 other high-income countries. Many of these international models — along with pilot programs in a few U.S. states — offer important insights for U.S. stakeholders.
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Long-Term Care After the Pandemic: A State Policy Guide
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of our nation’s long-term care system, sending nursing homes into crisis and worsening an already substantial workforce shortage. Drawing from a new long-term care policy guide developed for state policy leaders, Sean Slone of the Council of State Governments discusses how some states are reimagining where and how long-term care is provided, strengthening the direct care workforce, supporting family caregivers, and designing strategies to make the best use of federal funding.
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Local Strategies to Reduce Harm from the Opioid Crisis
At least 12 counties in North Carolina have begun dedicating opioid settlement dollars toward harm-reduction services aimed at reducing the risks of illicit drug use, according to a report in NC Health News. In a recent Transforming Care feature, you can learn about a range of
local responses to the opioid crisis, including two efforts involving harm reduction in rural North Carolina. |
Why Do People Leave Their Medicare Advantage Plan?
Disenrollment rates for Medicare Advantage plans increased about 70 percent between 2017 and 2021, according to health policy researcher Janet P. Sutton. Beneficiaries leave their plans for a variety of reasons, she says: some may be dissatisfied with their choice of providers, while others may feel their costs are too high. But while aggregate disenrollment rates are publicly available, data on individual plans are not. Learn why having this information could shed light on plan quality and help Medicare beneficiaries make better enrollment choices.
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AHCJ Awards 2023 Health Reporting Fellowships
The Association of Health Care Journalists has awarded its 2023 Reporting Fellowships on Health Care Performance, a program supported by the Commonwealth Fund to diversify the field of health care journalism. Eight reporters will pursue yearlong projects examining health care systems and health equity: Lauren Clason of CQ and Roll Call, Penny Dickerson of the Jacksonville Business Journal, Keren Landman of Vox, Katia Riddle of National Public Radio, and Ken Alltucker, Nada Hassanein, Adrianna Rodriguez, and Karen Weintraub of USA Today.
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