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...

Stat: Breaking Down House Speaker Mike Johnson's Health Care Plan At long last, Republicans have ended a grueling three-week odyssey and chosen a new leader: newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. Johnson led the Republican Study Committee, which is responsible for putting out policy ideas, from 2019 to 2021. During that time, the panel released a health care plan. There’s no reason to believe that Johnson would push to implement this outline anytime soon (he’s got a full plate with simply keeping the government open), but it may be a helpful barometer for where he stands. (Cohrs, 10/26)

Bloomberg: Health-Care Costs, Medical Debt Strain Working-Age Americans Paying for health care is increasingly straining US adults as escalating medical costs converge with rising prices throughout the economy. More than half of working-age Americans said they had difficulty paying for health care in 2023, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey published Thursday. Among people without insurance, more than three-quarters reported trouble affording care. But 43% of people with employer health plans said they had difficulty paying, and the rate was even higher among people on public health plans like Medicare and Medicaid. (LaPara, 10/26)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Unwinding Cut 9M From Program Since April Six months in, the nationwide effort to cull ineligible beneficiaries from the Medicaid rolls has proven to be as messy and consequential as predicted. More than 9 million people have lost Medicaid coverage since states resumed eligibility checks in April after pausing them during the COVID-19 public health emergency. That's more than halfway toward the 15 million the Health and Human Services Department projected. And the vast majority of disenrollments are the result of procedural matters—states being unable to reach Medicaid beneficiaries, people returning incomplete forms and so on—not the result of states affirmatively identifying the people no longer qualify for coverage. (Berryman, 10/23)

For a Deeper Dive...

The Hill: Abortions Increased Nationally In The Year After Dobbs Ruling, But Plummeted In States With Bans: Analysis But the report noted the overall increase masks the state-by-state variability that followed the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Clinician-provided abortions virtually disappeared in states with bans, while abortion care increased in states where the procedure is legal with fewer restrictions. In states with total or six-week abortion bans, abortions decreased by a count of nearly 115,000.States where abortion remained legal beyond six weeks saw a cumulative increase of nearly 117,000 abortions in the 12 months following the Dobbs ruling. (Weixel, 10/24)

The Washington Post: Republicans Delay More Than $1 Billion In PEPFAR Funding Republicans have delayed more than $1 billion in funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, the latest complication facing a lifesaving HIV program that has been ensnared in a broader political fight around abortion. (Diamond, 10/26)

Roll Call: Senate Panel Advances NIH Nominee Bertagnolli After months of back and forth, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Wednesday advanced the nomination of Monica Bertagnolli to lead the National Institutes of Health by a vote of 15-6, with ranking member Bill Cassidy, R-La., voting for President Joe Biden’s nominee and Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., opposing it. (Cohen, 10/25)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Debt Forgiveness: How Federal Funds Are Used To Erase Debt Efforts to erase medical debt are gaining momentum as more healthcare systems and municipalities seek to relieve patients from billions of dollars in bills. Local governments from Los Angeles to Columbus, Ohio, are partnering with providers and others to establish debt relief plans, with some municipalities taking advantage of one-time federal assistance from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. In addition to short-term solutions, they also are looking for ways to prevent future debt and assessing how the programs can maintain momentum once federal dollars run out. (Hudson, 10/26)

KFF Health News: The New Speaker’s (Limited) Record On Health After nearly a month of bickering, House Republicans finally elected a new speaker: Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, a relative unknown to many. And while Johnson has a long history of opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, his positions on other health issues are still a bit of a question mark. Meanwhile, a new study found that in the year following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions actually rose, particularly in states adjacent to those that now have bans or severe restrictions. (10/26)

The Motley Fool: The Little-Known Downsides Of Medicare Advantage Plans Medicare Advantage plans are more popular than ever -- for very good reasons. Fully 51% of the eligible Medicare population is enrolled in one this year, per the folks at health information organization KFF. They also report that "The average Medicare beneficiary in 2023 has access to 43 Medicare Advantage plans, the largest number of options ever." Still, Medicare Advantage plans are not perfect. Here's a look at why you might consider them and why you might not. (Maranjian, 10/27)

Commonwealth Fund: Paying For It: Costs And Debt Making Americans Sicker And Poorer The Commonwealth Fund Health Care Affordability Survey, fielded for the first time in 2023, asked U.S. adults with health insurance, and those without, about their ability to afford their health care — whether costs prevented them from getting care, whether provider bills left them with medical debt, and how these problems affected their lives. (10/26)

Axios: U.S. Health System Staffing Shortage Warning Signs Are Piling Up Staffing shortages, more dangerous workplaces, aging physicians and the increasing politicization of medicine: The warning signs for America's burned-out health care workforce are all there. A strained health care system may be heading in a dangerous direction in the pandemic's aftermath, according to new data points and a blunt warning from the head of the nation's leading medical association. (Owens, 10/26)

Fierce Healthcare: National Medication, Equipment Shortages Harming Patients Ongoing national medication, medical supply and medical equipment shortages are harming patients, a new survey reveals. The survey was issued by the nonprofit patient safety organization ECRI and its affiliate, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), and reached nearly 200 people in July. Respondents included pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, procurement specialists and clinicians across a variety of healthcare settings. (Gliadkovskaya, 10/23)

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