Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

For the week of Jan 26-Feb 2, 2024

Author

Gregg S. Margolis, PhD
February 02, 2024

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 New York Times: U.S. Makes Initial Offers In Medicare Drug Price Negotiations The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it was sending initial offers to the makers of the first 10 prescription drugs that have been selected for price negotiations with Medicare under a landmark federal program intended to reduce drug spending. The medicines selected for negotiations are taken by millions of Americans to treat conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The administration identified them in August, beginning a lengthy process intended to result in an agreed-upon price that would take effect in 2026, assuming the negotiation program survives legal challenges. (Weiland, 2/1)

The New York Times: Will Lawmakers Really Act To Protect Children Online? Some Say Yes. The question is whether this time will be different. And already, there are indicators that the topic of online child safety may gain more traction legislatively. At least six legislative proposals waiting in the wings in Congress target the spread of child sexual abuse material online and would require platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok to do more to protect minors. The efforts are backed by emotional accounts of children who were victimized online and died by suicide. (McCabe and Kang, 2/1)

KFF Health News: Where Are The Nation’s Primary Care Providers? It’s Not An Easy Answer Clinicians at Valley-Wide Health Systems never know who will appear at their clinic in San Luis, a town of about 600 people in southern Colorado. “If someone’s in labor, they’ll show up. If someone has a laceration, they’ll show up,” said nurse practitioner Emelin Martinez, the chief medical officer for the health care system serving 13 rural Colorado counties. But she struggled to find a full-time medical provider for that clinic, the only one in Costilla County. Born and raised in the area, Martinez filled some of the gap by driving about 45 minutes from Alamosa, the nearest city, once a week for months. A physician assistant from another town chipped in, too. (Bichell, 1/30)

For a Deeper Dive...

Stat: Can The Government Ask Social Media Sites To Take Down Covid Misinformation? SCOTUS Will Weigh In The Supreme Court will this March will hear arguments centered on the government’s role in communicating — and sometimes censoring — pertinent public health information in the midst of a pandemic. At the core of the lawsuit is whether the federal government’s requests for social media and search giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to moderate Covid-19 misinformation violated users’ First Amendment rights. (Owermohle, 1/29)

Axios: Surprise Billing Process Still Choked By Claims: Survey The ban on surprise medical bills protected patients from more than 10 million claims for out-of-network services in the first nine months of 2023, according to new estimates by health insurer groups. But the process for settling billing disputes is still in disarray. (Bettelheim, 1/30)

ABC News: As 988 Centers Struggle To Hire, Burnout Plagues Some Crisis Staff Data obtained by ABC News found that, in some states such as Oklahoma and Colorado, more than one-third of employees left within months of taking their first call. In addition, turnover rates continue to increase across the United States. In Washington, for example, state data shows attrition rates increased 1.5 times between 2022 and 2023. As calls to 988 balloon with ever-higher demand, and as the line continues to provide much-needed services at a pressing time, officials are expressing concern about what the burnout trends among employees mean for the hotline. (Cahan, 2/1)

AP: Miracle Cures: Online Conspiracy Theories Are Creating A New Age Of Unproven Medical Treatments Tesla Biohealing, which has no connection to the car company, is part of a growth industry marketing unproven cures and treatments to conspiracy theorists and others who have grown distrustful of science and medicine. Experts who study such claims say they’re on the increase, thanks to the internet, social media and skepticism about traditional health care. “There have always been hucksters selling medical cures, but I do feel like it’s accelerating,” said Timothy Caulfield, a health policy and law professor at the University of Alberta who studies medical ethics and fraud. “There are some forces driving that: obviously the internet and social media, and distrust of traditional medicine, traditional science. Conspiracy theories are creating and feeding this distrust.” (Klepper, 1/31)

CIDRAP: Three Fourths Of Adults Have Hidden Infectious Illness To Work, Travel, Or Socialize, Surveys Suggest Up to 75% of adults have concealed an infectious disease from others in order not to miss work, travel, or social events, according to a new study in Psychological Science. The article, by researchers at the University of Michigan, is based on four studies and surveys given to 4,110 survey participants. All surveys were given after March 2020, when the COVID-10 pandemic began, and initial survey participants included 399 university healthcare employees. Only 5% of participants across all studies said they had concealed a COVID-19 infection. (Soucheray, 1/30)

Fox News: Americans Trust Nurses The Most Out Of 23 Major Professions, New Poll Finds In nurses, Americans trust — even more so than doctors. That’s according to Gallup’s 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll, which ranked 23 major professions by the level of trust U.S. adults place in them. Nurses hold the top spot as the most trusted profession, with 78% of Americans who took part stating that they adhere to "very high" or "high" standards for honesty and ethics, according to a press release from Gallup. This is the 22nd consecutive year that nurses have been ranked as the most trustworthy. Overall, nurses’ trust ranking has dipped by 7 percentage points since 2019, but is still higher than dentists (59% trust rating in 2023) and medical doctors (56% trust ranking). (Rudy, 1/31)

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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