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...

Reuters: 'Understaffed And Overworked': Thousands Of Minnesota Nurses Go On Strike Allina Health, which owns four hospitals with striking nurses, said on its website it was making every effort to minimize disruptions to patient care. It said it had been planning for a strike for months. The nurse strike has drawn support from U.S. lawmakers in Washington, including veteran Senator Bernie Sanders. "Nurses are the backbone of our health care system," Sanders wrote on Twitter, calling for fair scheduling and higher wages. (9/12)

Bloomberg: US Hospital Losses: 53% Expect To Lose Money This Year, AHA Study Finds An eight-hour emergency room wait. The closing of a local clinic in a high-poverty area of rural Arkansas. Dwindling maternity wards. These are some of the outcomes of the financial pain US hospitals are feeling as spiking costs dictate sometimes-dire decisions. And it’s not getting any better, according to a report Thursday. (Coleman-Lochner, 9/15)

AP: Americans Give Health Care System Failing Mark: AP-NORC Poll When Emmanuel Obeng-Dankwa is worried about making rent on his New York City apartment, he sometimes holds off on filling his blood pressure medication. “If there’s no money, I prefer to skip the medication to being homeless,” said Obeng-Dankwa, a 58-year-old security guard. He is among a majority of adults in the U.S. who say that health care is not handled well in the country, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll reveals that public satisfaction with the U.S. health care system is remarkably low, with fewer than half of Americans saying it is generally handled well. (Seitz, 9/12)

For a Deeper Dive...

AP: GOP's Graham Unveils Nationwide Abortion Ban After 15 Weeks Upending the political debate, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide abortion ban Tuesday, sending shockwaves through both parties and igniting fresh debate on a fraught issue weeks before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. Graham’s own Republican Party leaders did not immediately embrace his abortion ban bill, which would prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy with rare exceptions, and has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic-held Congress. Democrats torched it as an alarming signal of where “MAGA” Republicans are headed if they win control of the House and Senate in November. (Mascaro, 9/14)

NBC News: 'Gaming' Of U.S. Patent System Is Keeping Drug Prices Sky High, Report Says The excessive use of the patent system — by drugmakers Bristol-Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Regeneron and Bayer — keeps the prices of the medications at exorbitant levels, often at the expense of American consumers, according to the report from the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, or I-MAK, a nonprofit organization that advocates drug patent reform. (Lovelace Jr., 9/15)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Readmissions Penalties For 2023 Lower Than Expected One-fourth of hospitals will not face readmissions penalties, and those that did not meet the Medicare standard in recent years can expect lower reimbursement cuts, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Devereaux, 9/15)

Stat: Experts Urge Medicare To Overhaul Secretive Panel That Helps Determine Doctors’ Pay A heavyweight group of former Medicare officials and payment experts are calling on the federal government to overhaul how Medicare pays physicians, which they say has morphed into a system that is “mind-numbingly complex and nontransparent.” (Herman, 9/12)

AP: Biden Hopes Ending Cancer Can Be A 'National Purpose' For US President Joe Biden on Monday urged Americans to come together for a new “national purpose” — his administration’s effort to end cancer “as we know it.” At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Biden channeled JFK’s famed moonshot speech 60 years ago, likening the space race to his own effort and hoping it, too, would galvanize Americans. “He established a national purpose that could rally the American people and a common cause,” Biden said of Kennedy’s space effort, adding that “we can usher in the same unwillingness to postpone.” (Miller and Johnson, 9/13)

Medical Economics: House Passes Reform To Medicare Advantage Prior Authorizations The legislation was led in the House by Representatives Suzan DelBene, D-Washington, Mike Kelly R-Pennsylvania, Ami Bera, MD, D-California, and Larry Bucshon, MD R-Indiana. “Seniors and their families should be focused on getting the care they need, not faxing forms multiple times for procedures that are routinely approved. This takes away valuable time from providers who on average spend 13 hours a week on administrative paperwork related to prior authorization,” the representatives said in a joint statement published Sept. 14. “The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act will make it easier for seniors to get the care they need by cutting unnecessary red tape in the health care system. We urge the Senate to quickly take up this legislation and get it to President Biden’s desk.” (Payerchin, 9/14)

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