Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

Axios: Harris' Chance To Forge A New Health Agenda For Democrats Kamala Harris is expected to pick up President Biden's policy torch as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but the reality is that she's stepping into a role leading the party at a time when it's biggest long-term health care goals have to some extent been realized. (Owens, Knight and Sullivan, 7/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug Middlemen Push Patients To Pricier Medicines, House Probe Finds The drug middlemen that promise to control costs have instead steered patients toward higher-priced medicines and affiliated pharmacies—steps that increase spending and reduce patient choice, a House investigation found. The pharmacy-benefit managers, or PBMs, have devised formularies of preferred medicines that encouraged use of higher-priced drugs over lower-priced alternatives, the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Accountability found. (Whyte, 7/23)

Axios: Health System's Tech Vulnerabilities Exposed Again The CrowdStrike internet meltdown that wrecked havoc with some health systems' procedures and billing on Friday could be a harbinger of future threats and disruptions to medical facilities, experts said. (Goldman, 7/22)

For a Deeper Dive...

Modern Healthcare: Pharmacy Group, Providers Sue UnitedHealth Over Change Outage Pharmacists and providers are still allegedly waiting on delayed payments from the Change Healthcare outage, according to a proposed class-action lawsuit filed Friday. The National Community Pharmacists Association, which represents more than 19,000 independent pharmacies, joined 39 providers in alleging Change Healthcare parent company UnitedHealth Group's actions in response to a February cyberattack allegedly affected their ability to make payroll, pay rent and purchase medical supplies. (Berryman, 7/22)

The Washington Post: Kamala Harris Vows To Revive Biden’s Defeated ‘Care Economy’ Plans Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris vowed twice this week to revive Democratic plans to expand the welfare state, previewing a campaign message against Donald Trump and potentially signaling one of her top priorities should she be elected. In remarks to campaign staff in Delaware on Monday and a campaign speech in Wisconsin on Tuesday, the vice president focused on key parts of President Biden’s domestic agenda that failed to pass because of resistance from Republicans and centrist Democrats. In both speeches, Harris highlighted the need for legislation to expand paid family leave, housing assistance, child care and eldercare — parts of the “care economy” that advisers say have been one of her top priorities in the administration. (Stein, 7/24)

Stat: Kamala Harris Healthcare Positions Are More Liberal Than Biden's President Biden is ending his bid for a second term in office and backing Vice President Kamala Harris to take the nomination, he announced Sunday. While Harris shares similar views as Biden on many issues, she is to the left of the president on health care. (Zhang and Owermohle, 7/21)

The Washington Post: Trump's Age And Health Now A Focus After Biden's Exit From The Race Donald Trump, a 78-year-old with a history of heart disease and obesity, according to experts, has not shared any updated bloodwork results or other specific information during this campaign to help experts assess his ongoing medical risks. Instead, he has released a vague, three-paragraph letter from his primary care physician, Bruce A. Aronwald, who wrote in November that the former president was in excellent physical and mental health, and who later said in a statement released by campaign officials to The Washington Post that “there is no need for President Trump to release another medical report in addition to the one he recently made public.” (Kranish, 7/22)

The Hill: Joe Biden Faces Heavy Lift With Pledge To End Medical Debt President Biden’s promise to eliminate medical debt at a rally earlier this month was welcomed by advocates and will likely appeal to plenty of indebted voters — but it won’t be easy given Americans currently owe about a quarter trillion dollars in medical arrears. Earlier this month in Detroit, Biden issued the campaign promise during a speech in which he laid out his plans for his first 100 days in office if he’s reelected to a second term. (Choi, 7/20)

Modern Healthcare: What’s Driving The Healthcare Labor Shortage In 2024 Healthcare’s staffing crisis shows no sign of slowing in the second half of 2024, with many clinical roles continuing to go unfilled. Healthcare employment has been on the rise in all sectors this year, pushed higher by a surge in ambulatory healthcare services and mounting pressure on facilities to meet staffing minimums. Employers are doing what they can to recruit workers by increasing wages while also turning to technology to improve workforce efficiency. (Devereaux, 7/24)

Stat: Inside UnitedHealth's Doctor Empire It’s no secret that UnitedHealth is a colossus: It’s the country’s largest health insurer and the fourth-largest company of any type by revenue, just behind Apple. And thanks to a series of stealthy deals, almost 1 in 10 U.S. doctors — some 90,000 clinicians — now either work for UnitedHealth or are under its influence, more than any major clinic chain or hospital system. (Herman, Bannow, Ross and Lawrence, 7/25)

CIDRAP: Physician PTSD Levels Rose During COVID Physicians are known to have higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than the general population due to handling patient deaths, medical emergencies, and high workloads, and researchers who examined patterns during the COVID pandemic found that PTSD levels spiked and varied by different groups. (Schnirring, 7/24)

Modern Healthcare: PBM Congressional Hearing Gets Heated As Lawmakers Grill Execs Lawmakers and executives from three major pharmacy benefit managers presented diametrically opposing views at a heated Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, as major bills aimed at reining in the organizations remain stalled in Congress. Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability blamed the highly concentrated PBM industry for raising drug prices and running independent pharmacies out of business, while leaders from CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx all countered that the sector in fact lowers prices and supports local pharmacies. (McAuliff, 7/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: 15 Health Systems Dropping Medicare Advantage Plans Medicare Advantage provides health coverage to more than half of the nation's seniors, but some hospitals and health systems are opting to end their contracts with MA plans over administrative challenges. Among the most commonly cited reasons are excessive prior authorization denial rates and slow payments from insurers. (Emerson, 7/22)

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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