Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

Health policy is taking a back seat to the drama on Capitol Hill and the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

KFF Health News: Health Funding In Question In A Speaker-Less Congress A bitterly divided Congress managed to keep the federal government running for several more weeks, while House Republicans struggle — again — to choose a leader. Meanwhile, many people removed from state Medicaid rolls are not finding their way to Affordable Care Act insurance, and a major investigation by The Washington Post attributes the decline in U.S. life expectancy to more than covid-19 and opioids. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Victoria Knight of Axios, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews physician-author-playwright Samuel Shem about “Our Hospital,” his new novel about the health workforce in the age of covid. (10/12)

The Hill: Medicare Part B Premiums To Rise By 6 Percent In 2024
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the monthly Medicare Part A and B premiums for 2024 on Thursday, with the costs set to go up by 6 percent next year. The premiums would increase by $9.80 from $164.90 to $174.70 in 2024 and the annual deductible for Medicare Part B beneficiaries will go up from $226 to $240 as well. This price increase comes after Medicare Part B premiums went down for the first time in more than 10 years in 2023. (Choi, 10/12)

Healthcare Dive: Kaiser and unions reach ‘tentative agreement’ after historic strike Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative deal with the coalition of unions representing 75,000 employees on Friday morning, following the largest-documented healthcare strike in US history earlier this month. “The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente,” the union coalition announced on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We are thankful for the instrumental support of Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su.” Kaiser confirmed the tentative agreement in a separate X post. (Vogel, 10/13)

For a Deeper Dive...

Los Angeles Times: New California Law Takes A Step Toward Single-Payer Healthcare Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Saturday that sets the stage for California to work toward universal healthcare, such as a single-payer system that progressive activists have sought for years. The law could help California obtain a waiver that would allocate federal Medicaid and Medicare funds to be used for what could eventually become a single-payer system that would cover every California resident and be financed entirely by state and federal funds. (Sosa, 10/8)

Axios: Surprise Billing Arbitration Is Still A Mess Nearly two years after a surprise medical bill ban took effect, the process for settling billing disputes between insurers and providers is still mired in litigation and many cases remain unresolved. Uncertainty around how providers get paid for disputed out-of-network services isn't likely to ease as multiple challenges to the Biden administration arbitration rules continue to work through the courts. (Goldman, 10/12)

USA Today: Walgreens Pharmacists Stage Walkout Just Weeks After Similar Action By CVS Staffers Just two weeks after dozens of CVS pharmacists protested unsafe working conditions by walking off the job in Kansas City, Walgreens pharmacists followed suit with their own walkout Monday that left stores shuttered or short-staffed across the nation’s second-largest retail pharmacy chain. The organizer estimated that several hundred pharmacists and pharmacy technicians participated in the protest, which will last through Wednesday. (Le Coz, 10/9)

The New York Times: ‘Excited Delirium’: California Bans Term As A Cause Of Death Michele Heisler, the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in New York, called the signing of the bill a victory for “justice, police accountability, human rights and health.” “This baseless concept can no longer be used in California to absolve law enforcement for deaths in custody, misinform responses to people facing medical and behavioral crises, or block access to legal remedies,” Dr. Heisler said in a statement. (Ives, 10/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Healthcare Strikes Threaten To Prolong Wage Pressure On Hospitals Because of a confluence of factors such as political support from the White House and a tight labor market, Americans across a variety of industries are walking off the job at a rate not seen in years. In the healthcare sector, those broader factors have converged with industry-specific grievances, such as nursing shortages, that were exacerbated by the pandemic. (Wainer, 10/10)

Axios: Sanders, Hospital Lobby Clash Over Nonprofits' Service Sen. Bernie Sanders and one of the biggest hospital lobbies on Tuesday offered clashing views on how much nonprofit health systems benefit the communities they serve. Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate HELP Committee, issued a report that found six of the biggest nonprofit hospital systems dedicated less than 1% of their total revenue to charity care in 2021 — a key criteria for maintaining their tax-exempt status that Sanders wants tightened. (Goldman, 10/11)

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