Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

Health policy impacts everyone, but it can be hard to know what is important. If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

Politico: Senate Clears $1.7T Government Funding Bill The Senate passed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill on Thursday in a 68-29 vote, sending the package to the House for approval on Friday. Before the bill cleared the upper chamber, senators voted to add more than a half-dozen amendments to the bill, including major policy provisions that would expand federal protections for pregnant workers and nursing mothers, in addition to helping 9/11 families. The entire chamber also gave a bipartisan standing ovation to the top two retiring appropriators, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), for successfully negotiating one last spending deal to cap off their lengthy careers. (Emma and Carney, 12/22)

Forbes: Senate Passes Two Bills For Pregnant And Breastfeeding Moms At Work The PUMP Act for nursing mothers requires organizations to provide time and space for breastfeeding parents. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 already requires that employers provide reasonable time to express breast milk and provide a place for pumping, other than the bathroom, that is shielded from view and private. But the previous pumping law excluded most salaried employees, and the PUMP Act will extend these rights to all breastfeeding employees for the first year of the baby’s life. In addition, the new bill states, “Further, time spent to express breast milk must be considered hours worked if the employee is also working.” (Elsesser, 12/22)

The Washington Post: U.S. Life Expectancy Fell In 2021 As Covid, Drug Deaths Surged Notably, every age group in the U.S. — from young children to seniors 85 and older — saw a rise in its death rate. Men, women and most racial groups lost ground. In some previous years, even when overall life expectancy declined, some groups advanced. “This one, it’s sort of across-the-board bad news,” said Eileen Crimmins, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California who studies life expectancy around the world. “We’ve gone since 1996 without improving. That’s incredible, given how much we’ve learned about medicine, how much we’ve spent.” (Bernstein, 12/22)

For a Deeper Dive...

AP: Millions To Lose Medicaid Coverage Under Congress' Plan Millions of people who enrolled in Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic could start to lose their coverage on April 1 if Congress passes the $1.7 trillion spending package leaders unveiled Tuesday. The legislation will sunset a requirement of the COVID-19 public health emergency that prohibited states from booting people off Medicaid. The Biden administration has been under mounting pressure to declare the public health emergency over, with 25 Republican governors asking the president to end it in a letter on Monday, which cited growing concerns about bloated Medicaid enrollment. (Seitz, 12/20)

For the Visual Among Us...

A few years ago I started a weekly e-mail for friends and colleagues who want to keep up on major federal health policy developments but did not have time to plod through all the minutiae--they were busy doing important things like running organizations and taking care of patients! Much to my surprise, it became pretty popular. I have now converted to a weekly newsletter format so you can manage your own subscription preferences and forward to others that might be interested.

These summaries represent my judgement on health policy issues that may not on the front pages, but are relevant to clinicians, administrators, and educators. I monitor many news sources and clipping services to identify content for this newsletter and I try hard to be as factual, balanced, and non-partisan as possible. While the articles are written by others (with credit attributed), the choice of what to include is entirely mine. If you are interested in receiving a daily summary of health policy news, you might consider signing up for the KHN Morning Briefing. If you enjoy podcasts, I suggest What the Health?

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD