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: White House To Name First 10 Drugs For Medicare Negotiations Early The Biden administration is expected to disclose early next week the first 10 prescription drugs selected for Medicare price negotiations, ahead of a White House event Tuesday to celebrate the milestone, four people involved in the plans told POLITICO. The announcement will mark a major step in a bid to lower drug prices through the first-ever direct negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical manufacturers over a set of medicines. (Lim and Cancryn, 8/23)

KFF Health News: Dangers And Deaths Around Black Pregnancies Seen As A ‘Completely Preventable’ Health Crisis Tonjanic Hill was overjoyed in 2017 when she learned she was 14 weeks pregnant. Despite a history of uterine fibroids, she never lost faith that she would someday have a child. But, just five weeks after confirming her pregnancy, and the day after a gender-reveal party where she announced she was having a girl, she seemed unable to stop urinating. She didn’t realize her amniotic fluid was leaking. Then came the excruciating pain. “I ended up going to the emergency room,” said Hill, now 35. “That’s where I had the most traumatic, horrible experience ever.” (West, 8/24)

Axios: Medicare Gets Serious On Hospice Fraud After a year of scrutinizing fraud in the hospice industry, Medicare dropped the hammer this week: The agency warned nearly 400 hospices are at risk of being bounced from the program if they can't prove they're a legitimate enterprise. (Goldman, 8/24)

For a Deeper Dive...

Axios: As Health Care Costs Soar, Employers Struggle With How To Cover New Pricey Treatments Facing a tight labor market and rising health care costs, employers are wrestling with how to afford a new wave of pricey, highly effective treatments without forcing workers to bear too much of the cost. From emerging gene and cell-based therapies in cancer and other conditions to a buzzy class of weight-loss drugs, the landscape for game-changing treatments has never been quite so promising — or expensive for employers. (Reed, 8/23)

The Hill: HHS Awards $1.4B In Grants To Develop Future COVID-19 Tools The awards are part of Project NextGen, an initiative led by ASPR that fosters public-private partnerships to develop the next generation of COVID-19 countermeasures. These are the first grants to be issued from NextGen, which has an initial investment of $5 billion. Officials said Tuesday they currently don’t anticipate the need for additional funds. (Choi, 8/22)

Axios: First Lawsuit Over Improper Medicaid Terminations Filed In Florida Florida's Medicaid redetermination process is headed to court. A lawsuit filed against Florida health officials Tuesday marks the first legal challenge to how states are dropping some enrollees from program rolls after the end of a pandemic-era policy that protected coverage. (Goldman, 8/22)

Axios: Medical Debt Is Squeezing The Middle Class, Report Says Middle-class Americans are the most likely to be saddled with medical debt, with nearly 1 in 4 — or roughly 17 million people — having unpaid medical bills, according to a report shared first with Axios from center-left think tank Third Way. Middle-income Americans, who earn $50,000-$100,000 a year, are more likely than those with lower incomes to seek care but don't qualify for Medicaid or charity care to help pay for it. (Reed, 8/21)

Washington State Standard: How Washington State Is Treating Housing As Health Care Washington state is trying something new when it comes to housing: treating it as health care. Apple Health and Homes is a multi-agency state program launched last year that focuses on providing housing to people with health and behavioral health challenges. What’s unique is that the program taps Medicaid dollars to pay for housing subsidies, tenant services and more. (Demkovich, 8/21)

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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.