Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

Health policy impacts everyone, but it can be hard to know what is important. (Due to the holiday, there will be no newsletter next week. Happy 4th of July!) If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

Roll Call: Idaho Abortion Decision Leaves Both Sides In Long-Term Limbo The Supreme Court’s decision that Idaho’s near-total ban on abortions does not preempt federal rules requiring certain treatment in emergency rooms is the second major ruling to bolster the Biden administration on abortion rights since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The ruling, at least for now, also preserves a key tool the Biden administration has increasingly relied upon since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022 — a 1986 law known by the acronym EMTALA that requires hospitals to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment” to all patients as a condition of receiving Medicare funding. (Raman, 6/27)

KFF Health News: US Surgeon General Declares Gun Violence ‘A Public Health Crisis’ Murthy, a physician, told KFF Health News he hoped to convey the broader toll of gun violence on the nation and the need for an urgent public health response. He cited soaring gun deaths among children and teens and noted that “the mental health toll of firearm violence is far more profound and pervasive than many of us recognize.” “Every day that passes we lose more kids to gun violence,” Murthy said, “the more children who are witnessing episodes of gun violence, the more children who are shot and survive that are dealing with a lifetime of physical and mental health impacts.” (Pradhan and Clasen-Kelly, 6/25)

Axios: Court Upholds ACA's Free Preventive Services Mandate Health insurers nationwide must continue to provide coverage of certain preventive services like cancer screenings and behavioral counseling at no cost, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision in the closely watched case largely preserves the Affordable Care Act's free preventive services requirement. (Goldman, 6/21)

For a Deeper Dive...

Reuters: US Charges 193 People In $2.75 Billion Health Care Fraud Bust The U.S. Justice Department has criminally charged 193 people, including 76 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, with participating in health care fraud schemes worth $2.75 billion, the agency said on Thursday. The two-week operation ensnared defendants accused of illegally distributing millions of pills of the stimulant Adderall. (6/27)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Mergers Could Raise Prices, Lower Tax Revenue: Study Hospital mergers can mean rising prices for individual patients, but there also may be implications for the larger economy, including higher unemployment costs and reduced tax revenue, according to a study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study on the effects of hospital mergers, compiled by researchers from four universities including Yale and Harvard as well as the Treasury Department, concluded that resulting price increases hurt employers and workers outside the healthcare industry. (Hudson, 6/25)

KFF Health News: Supreme Court Upends Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the Sackler family cannot be shielded from future claims through Purdue’s bankruptcy. Since the case was first heard, victims of the opioid crisis and recovery advocates have been split on the desired outcome. Some wanted the bankruptcy deal to go through so that settlement money could start flowing and fund urgently needed addiction services. Others said it would be unacceptable to allow the Sacklers to evade responsibility for their actions. (Pattani, 6/27)

Modern Healthcare: EHR Information Blocking Rule Finalized By HHS Healthcare providers that prevent authorized users from accessing electronic health records data face new consequences under a final rule the Health and Human Services Department published Monday. The regulation to discourage so-called information blocking emerged from the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 and applies to providers including hospitals, physicians and accountable care organizations. (Early, 6/24)

Axios: U.S. Health Care Is Deeply Unequal — And Might Get Worse We've spent the last nine weeks going through health care's defining topics, but if there's a thread tying them all together it's this: Health care in America is deeply unequal, and it might get worse. All of the innovation in the world won't make any difference to patients if it's unaffordable or inaccessible, and right now everything in the pipeline is headed for a two-tiered system. (Owens, 6/21)

The Wall Street Journal: When Hospital Prices Go Up, Local Economies Take A Hit Rising healthcare prices have long eroded American wages. They are doing that by eating into jobs. Companies shed workers in the year after local hospitals raise their prices, new research found. Higher hospital prices pushed up premiums for employees’ health insurance, which businesses help pay for. The new study, scheduled to be published Monday as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, is a comprehensive look at one way companies manage those higher premiums: cutting payrolls. (Evans, Mollica and Ulick, 6/23)

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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