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...

The Wall Street Journal: Health-Insurance Costs Are Taking Biggest Jumps In Years Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, with some projecting the biggest increase in more than a decade will wallop businesses and their workers in 2024. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, which provided their survey results exclusively to The Wall Street Journal. (Wilde Mathews, 9/7)

Roll Call: Medicare Pandemic Advances Deepen Debt For Some Hospitals Congress poured money into the U.S. economy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. But for a few hospitals, one of the lifelines that Medicare threw to the medical industry ultimately became another stone around their necks. Medicare flooded hospitals with cash after the virus prompted the Trump administration to halt elective care — a crucial source of revenue — but not all of that money was a giveaway. In fact, $107.3 billion came through advances on Medicare claims that were doled out between April and October of 2020. (Clason, 9/6)

KFF Health News: Biden Administration Proposes New Standards To Boost Nursing Home Staffing The proposal, by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would require all facilities to increase staff up to certain minimum levels, but it included no money for nursing homes to pay for the new hires. CMS estimated that three-quarters of the nation’s 15,000 homes would need to add staff members. But the increases at many of those facilities would be minor, as the average nursing home already employs nurses and aides at, or very close to, the proposed levels. (Rau, 9/1)

For a Deeper Dive...

The New York Times: A Huge Threat To The U.S. Budget Has Receded. And No One Is Sure Why For decades, runaway Medicare spending was the story of the federal budget. Now, flat Medicare spending might be a bigger one. Something strange has been happening in this giant federal program. Instead of growing and growing, as it always had before, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade. The trend can be a little hard to see because, as baby boomers have aged, the number of people using Medicare has grown. But it has had enormous consequences for federal spending. Budget news often sounds apocalyptic, but the Medicare trend has been unexpectedly good for federal spending, saving taxpayers a huge amount relative to projections. (Sanger-Katz, Parlapiano and Katz, 9/4)

KFF Health News: The Shrinking Number Of Primary Care Physicians Is Reaching A Tipping Point I’ve been receiving an escalating stream of panicked emails from people telling me their longtime physician was retiring, was no longer taking their insurance, or had gone concierge and would no longer see them unless they ponied up a hefty annual fee. They have said they couldn’t find another primary care doctor who could take them on or who offered a new-patient appointment sooner than months away. Their individual stories reflect a larger reality: American physicians have been abandoning traditional primary care practice — internal and family medicine — in large numbers. Those who remain are working fewer hours. And fewer medical students are choosing a field that once attracted some of the best and brightest because of its diagnostic challenges and the emotional gratification of deep relationships with patients. (Rosenthal, 9/8)

Fox News: Burnt Out And Getting Out: American Hospitals Struggle With Increasing Shortage Of Nurses America's nurses are stressed out to the point where they are leaving the industry. By 2027, nearly a fifth of registered nurses will hang up their scrubs for good, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Tracey Moffatt, the Chief Nursing Officer at Ochsner Health in New Orleans, said the nursing shortage has been a problem for years and the pandemic only made it worse. For the ones that are working, Moffatt said some are now looking for nursing jobs outside a hospital setting. (Kedrowicz, 9/8)

AP: Hundreds Of Military Promotions Are On Hold As Republican Senator Demands End To Abortion Policy Top defense officials are accusing Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville of jeopardizing America’s national security with his hold on roughly 300 military promotions, raising the stakes in a clash over abortion policy that shows no signs of easing. Tuberville brushed off the criticism, vowing he will not give in. “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for a long time,” he said, if the Pentagon refuses to end its policy of paying for travel when a service member goes out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. (Freking and Copp, 9/7)

Modern Healthcare: OIG Report: Nursing Homes Unprepared For Disasters The Health and Human Services Department Office of Inspector General surveyed 168 nursing homes last year to determine areas of concern regarding their readiness to respond to public health emergencies and natural disasters. Seventy-seven percent of facilities told the OIG that they face at least one “major” or “moderate” challenge that jeopardizes their ability to care for residents during crises. Staffing stood out as the most commonly cited problem. (Berryman, 9/6)

Axios: 1 In 3 HHS Appointees Leave For Industry Jobs, Study Finds One-third of political appointees to the Department of Health and Human Services go work for the industry they oversaw immediately after departing their government job, according to a comprehensive new study examining health care's revolving door. (Millman, 9/6)

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