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...

The Hill: House Leaves Town With No Debt Ceiling Deal House lawmakers are leaving Washington for the long holiday weekend Thursday afternoon — just one week before the Treasury Department says the U.S. is at risk of a debt default — without a deal to raise the debt ceiling. (Folley, 5/25)

Modern Healthcare: How A Debt Default Could Hurt Medicare, Medicaid Payments Hospitals and health systems hope for a resolution to the federal government’s debt ceiling standoff, warning that a failure to reach an agreement could have a catastrophic impact on provider payments. Republicans and Democrats continue to haggle over a deal to raise the $31.4 trillion national debt limit and keep the U.S. from defaulting on its agreements, potentially in early June. (Hudson and Nzanga, 5/24)

The New York Times: Hundreds Of Thousands Have Lost Medicaid Coverage Since Pandemic Protections Expired Hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage in recent weeks as part of a sprawling unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that prohibited states from removing people from the program. Early data shows that many people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggests that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it. Many of those who have been dropped have been children. (Weiland, 5/26)

For a Deeper Dive...

The Health 202: How a U.S. default would impact health care  With the clock ticking, we’re taking a look this morning at what a default would mean for the nation’s health-care system. The gist: The federal government would likely stop sending certain Medicare reimbursements to health providers and funds to state Medicaid programs. But the worst-case scenarios would probably only arise if the default lasts for weeks or months, rather than a few hours or days. (Roubein and Beard, 5/26)

ABC News: 'Work Requirements' Emerge As Flashpoint In Debt Ceiling, Spending Talks As Washington struggles to reach a debt ceiling deal with little more than a week until potential default, a key hangup in the negotiations is turning out to be -- "work requirements." A long-sought effort by Republicans to impose stricter conditions on recipients of Medicaid and other federal assistance programs is now front-and-center in the debt ceiling standoff. (Hutzler, Scott, and Ferris, 5/23)

Stat: US Surgeon General Warns Of Dangers Of Social Media For Youth Amid what he called the worst youth mental health crisis in recent memory, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory Tuesday warning about social media’s impact on developing young brains. “Through the last two and a half years I’ve been in office, I’ve been hearing concerns from kids and parents,” Murthy told STAT. “Parents are asking ‘Is social media safe for my kids?’ Based on our review of the data, there isn’t enough evidence that it is safe for our kids.” (Fitzgerald, 5/23)

Stat: Biden Wants To Tackle High Drug Prices In Medicaid The Biden administration wants to help states control Medicaid prescription drug costs by making prices more transparent and curbing the practice of so-called spread pricing. The goal is to give states more leverage in price negotiations by forcing drugmakers to share and publish details about their pricing data. The government would collect specific drug pricing information from makers of up to 10 particularly high-cost drugs. (Wilkerson, 5/24)

Modern Healthcare: PBM Legislation Passes House Energy And Commerce Committee Pharmacy benefit managers would be required to report more information on their deals with pharmaceutical companies under legislation unanimously approved by a House panel on Wednesday. The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the Promoting Access to Treatments and Increasing Extremely Needed Transparency (PATIENT) Act of 2023, sponsored by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), on a 49-0 vote. The panel's health subcommittee cleared the same measure last week. (Nzanga, 5/24)

Axios: Rising Medical Costs Force Americans To Skip The Doctor The share of Americans who skipped medical treatment last year because of costs rose substantially from the lows of 2020 and 2021, per a Federal Reserve Survey out Monday. The ability to afford health care often translates into better health. The survey also found that in families with income less than $25,000, 75% reported being in good health, compared with 91% for those with income of $100,000 or more. (Peck, 5/23)

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? and Tradeoffs.

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD