Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

Reuters: CDC Awards Over $3 Bln To Strengthen U.S. Public Health Infrastructure The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday it is awarding more than $3 billion to help strengthen public health workforce and infrastructure across the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic put severe stress on them. The public health agency's funding includes $3 billion from the American Rescue Plan announced by President Joe Biden's administration last year, and would cover all state, local and territorial health departments across the country. (11/29)

Modern Healthcare: Hospitals Expected To End 2022 With Negative Margins Higher expenses due to staff shortages and fewer patients are straining finances in the hospital sector, which is on track to end the year with negative margins, according to data Kaufman Hall published Wednesday. (Devereaux, 11/30)

AP: Study: U.S. Gun Death Rates Hit Highest Levels In Decades The U.S. gun death rate last year hit its highest mark in nearly three decades, and the rate among women has been growing faster than that of men, according to study published Tuesday. The increase among women — most dramatically, in Black women — is playing a tragic and under-recognized role in a tally that skews overwhelmingly male, the researchers said. (Stobbe, 11/29)

For a Deeper Dive...

Healthcare Dive: Travel nurse pay remains high as hospitals fill gaps from staff departures Even as COVID-19 cases fell this year, demand and rates for traveling nurse staff have remained high, according to data from nursing staffing companies. That’s strapping hospitals and health systems that expected to be using less temporary labor by now, and comes as systems boost permanent staff wages to quell ongoing shortages and heightened turnover driven by burnout. In October the national average weekly rate for travel nurses was $3,080 — about $700 less than it was a year ago, according to data from nurse staffing platform Vivian Health. In January 2020, just before the pandemic began in the U.S., average weekly travel nurse pay was $1,894, according to Vivian. (Mensik,11/30)

Politico: Twitter Stops Enforcing Covid-19 Misinformation Policy Twitter will no longer stop users from spreading false information about the Covid-19 virus or vaccines, according to an update on its content moderation policies. It’s another major shift under new owner Elon Musk, who has pressed for “free speech” above all else on the platform. Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation page was updated with a note saying that as of Nov. 23, the platform would no longer enforce its policies against spreading misleading information on the virus and vaccines — which had led to more than 11,000 account suspensions since 2020. (Kern, 11/29)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Hospitals Face Threat Of Closure After COVID Relief Money Dries Up Texas hasn’t had a hospital close since 2020, a much-needed relief following the previous decade of closures that were predominantly seen in rural communities. That could change soon: A new report from Kaufman Hall, a health care consulting agency, that was made public Wednesday shows that nearly 1 out of every 10 Texas hospitals are now at risk of closure, twice as many as before the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020. (Lozano, 11/30)

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JAMA: Telemedicine Rollbacks—Why Providing Care Across State Lines Is No Longer as Simple as It Was Early in the Pandemic. R Rubin

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 Margolis, PhD