Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

The Top Three...

With so much going on, it can be hard to know what to read. If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

CNBC: Lindsey Graham’s Abortion Ban Bill Baffles Some Republicans As Democrats Sharpen Attacks In Key Midterm Races Republicans are distancing themselves from Sen. Lindsey Graham’s new proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, as Democrats hold up the bill as proof the GOP seeks to restrict abortion nationwide if it wins control of Congress in the November midterm elections. In Graham’s proposal, Democrats see another chance to leverage an issue that has appeared to boost their chances of holding at least one chamber of Congress. (Breuninger, 9/16)

USA Today: CDC Analysis Shows More Than 80% Of US Maternal Deaths Are Preventable A staggering number of maternal deaths in the United States were found to be preventable, according to a federal analysis of maternal death data released Monday. More than 80%, or roughly 4 in 5 maternal deaths in a two-year period, were due to preventable causes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found. (Hassanein, 9/19)

HealthcareDive: Emotional exhaustion worse for healthcare workers in second year of pandemic, research finds  Healthcare workers experienced varying waves of burnout depending on their roles throughout the pandemic, but more reported feeling emotional exhausted as they worked through the second year of the public health crisis than the first, according to research published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. From September 2019 to September 2021, healthcare workers reporting emotional exhaustion rose from 32% to 35% then again to 40% through January 2022, the study found. (Mensik, 9/21)

For a Deeper Dive...

NBC News: 1 In 5 Households Has Medical Debt. That Includes People With Private Insurance "The kinds of things we saw in our study are virtually nonexistent in most other wealthy nations," said the study’s lead author David Himmelstein, a professor at the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College in New York City. The U.S. needs a "real big change." (Lovelace Jr., 9/16)

HealthcareDive: Strikes among healthcare workers in 2022. As more contracts covering unionized healthcare workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic come up for expiration, nurses, technicians and other staff are pushing for measures to improve working conditions and safety in the years following the historic public health crisis.

The Washington Post: Nursing Home Understaffing In Pandemic Harmed Residents, House Panel Says A special House panel investigating the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic said it has found anecdotal evidence of understaffing at nursing homes that led to patient neglect and harm. At a hearing Wednesday, the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis discussed some of its findings, including how large nursing home chains reacted to complaints from staff and families. (Rowland, 9/21)

Modern Healthcare: Puerto Rico’s Healthcare Supply Chain Reacts To Hurricane Fiona Hurricane Maria hit medical device company Baxter International especially hard. Its Puerto Rican facilities were largely responsible for making small-volume IV bags, while large-volume bags were manufactured on the mainland. Hospitals resorted to using the larger bags to deliver medications to patients, increasing demand for that product. Baxter's fourth-quarter revenues were down $70 million due to manufacturing disruptions following the 2017 storm. (Berryman and Hartnett, 9/21)

AP: New Mexico Braces For Exodus From Medicaid Insurance New Mexico is bracing for a rapid exodus of up to 100,000 people from subsidized Medicaid health care next year as the federal government phases out special pandemic-era spending and eligibility for the program, the state’s top health official told lawmakers Wednesday. (Lee, 9/21)

The Washington Post: Health Apps Share Your Concerns With Advertisers. HIPAA Can’t Stop It Digital health care has its advantages. Privacy isn’t one of them. In a nation with millions of uninsured families and a shortage of health professionals, many of us turn to health-care apps and websites for accessible information or even potential treatment. But when you fire up a symptom-checker or digital therapy app, you might be unknowingly sharing your concerns with more than just the app maker. (Hunter and Merrill, 9/22)

A Couple of Things on Mental Health

The New York Times: Health Panel Recommends Anxiety Screening For All Adults Under 65 A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for anxiety, guidance that highlights the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued the United States since the start of the pandemic. The advisory group, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, said the guidance was intended to help prevent mental health disorders from going undetected and untreated for years or even decades. It made a similar recommendation for children and teenagers earlier this year. (Baumgaertner, 9/20)

The Hill: Lawmakers Point To Financial Returns Of Mental Health Care Investment Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) expressed support on Wednesday for more mental health care investments, pointing to the tens of thousands of lives potentially saved and the billions of dollars invested in a more comprehensive federal program that would benefit the U.S. Both lawmakers spoke at the “Cost of Mental Health Inequities” event moderated by The Hill contributing editor Steve Scully. (9/21)

The Hill: Nearly 1 In 10 Americans Suffer From Depression, Study Says A growing number of Americans are struggling with depression and most are not seeking treatment or are undertreated for the mental health disorder, according to a new study. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found almost 1 in 10 Americans reported suffering from depression in 2020, with rates of the mental health disorder higher among adolescents and young adults. (Guzman, 9/20)

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