Health Affairs This Week

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Headlines: Monkeypox, Medicare Trustees Report & Nursing Home Workforce Shortages Jun 10, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Listen to Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander and Ellen Bayer go over the big health policy headlines from this week, including what we know about Monkeypox, the implications of the latest Medicare Trustees Report, and nursing home workforce shortages.

Related Links:

2022 Medicare Trustees Report (CMS)
Medicare's Supplementary Medical Insurance Fund: A Growing Burden on Taxpayers (Health Affairs Forefront)
The Coming Crisis For The Medicare Trust Fund (Health Affairs Forefront)
Fact Sheet: Protecting Seniors by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation's Nursing Homes (White House)
The Waltz: To Improve Nursing Home Care, Invest In The Workforce (Health Affairs Forefront)

Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available — and we’d like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and Podcasts free for everyone.

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FDA Under the Microscope on User Fees and Baby Formula Shortage Jun 03, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Listen to Health Affairs' Rob Lott and Chris Fleming put the FDA under the microscope on user fees and baby formula shortages.

Related Links:

FDA User Fee Reauthorization Bill Emerges In Both Chambers (Health Affairs Forefront)
Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces New Actions to Address Infant Formula Shortage (White House)
Biden Invokes the Defense Production Act for the Baby Formula Shortage (NPR)

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Health Policy and Gun Violence May 27, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses the subject of gun violence and death.

Health Affairs's Jessica Bylander and Vabren Watts discuss this week's school shooting in Uvalde, Texas and the recent history of gun policy in the United States.

Violence permeates our society. One response to violence is to better understand its origins and how to prevent it.

We invite you to read the Violence and Health issue of Health Affairs from 2019to better understand the impacts that gun violence has on communities. The issue will be open access and free to read until June 1, 2022.

For Mental Health Awareness month, we'd like to share the reminder that if you are experiencing a mental health emergency, you can call the national helpline at 1-800-662-HELP for support.

Related Links:

Violence and Health (Health Affairs)
Adolescent Exposure To Deadly Gun Violence Within 500 Meters Of Home Or School: Ethnoracial And Income Disparities (Health Affairs)
From Sandy Hook to Buffalo and Uvalde: Ten years of failure on gun control (The Washington Post)
Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States (New England Journal of Medicine)

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Tim Jost Previews Supreme Court Impacts On Medicaid Beneficiaries May 20, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Listen to Health Affairs' Chris Fleming and Tim Jost discuss Supreme Court cases that could strip enrollees in Medicaid and other programs of the right to sue to enforce their rights.

Related Links:

Is The Supreme Court Poised To Wipe Out Legal Rights For Medicaid Beneficiaries? (Health Affairs Forefront)

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FDA's Proposed Ban on Menthol Cigarettes, Explained May 13, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

“In addition to this being a public health issue, these questions around health equity appear to have motivated FDA’s decision to move on developing these new product standards.” – Leslie Erdelack

On today's episode of Health Affairs This Week, Health Affairs' Leslie Erdelack and Ellen Bayer unpack the FDA's proposed ban on menthol cigarettes and its public health implications including concerns for health equity.

Related Links:

FDA Proposes Action On Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars (Health Affairs Forefront)
FDA Proposes Rules Prohibiting Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars to Prevent Youth Initiation, Significantly Reduce Tobacco-Related Disease and Death (FDA)
Opinion: How the Tobacco Industry Hooked Black Smokers on Menthols (New York Times)

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Unpacking the Supreme Court Abortion Draft Decision May 06, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Early this week, Politico published a draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would overturn abortion rights in the United States.

On today's episode of Health Affairs This Week, Health Affairs' Senior Editors Jessica Bylander and Chris Fleming unpack the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade and could have sweeping health care implications beyond just abortion care.

Related Links:

Supreme Court Has Voted To Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows (Politico)
Penalizing Abortion Providers Will Have Ripple Effects Across Pregnancy Care (Health Affairs Forefront)
26 States Are Certain or Likely to Ban Abortion Without Roe: Here's Which Ones and Why (Guttmacher Institute)
Can Congress Resurrect Roe If It's Overturned? Well, It Could Try (The Washington Post)

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Headlines: Childhood Vaccinations, Title 42, and National Drug Control Strategy Apr 29, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Listen to Health Affairs' Leslie Erdelack and Rob Lott go over the big health policy headlines from this week, including details on childhood vaccinations, Title 42 and the intersection of public health and border policies, and federal drug control strategies.

Related Links:

Borders, Immigrants & Health Theme Issue (Health Affairs)
Health Care Gaps For Migrants & Asylum Seekers On The Mexico Border During COVID-19 (A Health Podyssey)
Vaccination Coverage with Selected Vaccines and Exemption Rates Among Children in Kindergarten - United States, 2020-21 School Year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Fact Sheet: 2022 National Drug Control Strategy That Outlines Comprehensive Path Forward To Address Addiction and the Overdose Epidemic (White House)
Key Facts About Title 42, The Pandemic Policy That Has Reshaped Immigration Enforcement At US-Mexico Border (Pew Research Center)

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A Health Podyssey: Stacie Dusetzina Shares Why Medicare Beneficiaries May Not Fill Specialty Drug Prescriptions Apr 22, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Health Affairs This Week is on a break this week. Today, we are publishing an episode from A Health Podyssey, where Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil brings you in-depth conversations with leading researchers and influencers shaping the big ideas in health policy and the health care industry. Health Affairs This Week will return next week.

Subscribe to A Health Podyssey: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

The United States is facing a drug affordability crisis.

Even as we celebrate scientific discovery, the health benefits of drugs are limited due to barriers of affordability, often even for people with health insurance. The RAND Corporation reports that on average drug prices in the United States are more than two and a half times those in 32 other nations studied. The disparities are even wider when we focus just on brand name drugs.

Drug pricing is the subject of seemingly perennial debates. One side focuses on access barriers due to high prices while the other side argues that lower prices threaten future innovation.

Stacie Dusetzina from Vanderbilt University Medical Center joins A Health Podyssey to talk about the complex world of drug pricing.

She and colleagues published a paper in the April 2022 issue of Health Affairs examining the degree to which people with Medicare prescription drug benefits use the drugs that are prescribed to them.

In the paper, the authors found non-initiation rates among some beneficiaries of greater than 50 percent for certain treatments.

If you enjoy this interview, order the April 2022 Health Affairs issue to get research on access to care, hospitals and more.

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Advancing Health Equity in Health Policy & Publishing Apr 15, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Listen to Health Affairs' Senior Editor Kathleen Haddad and Health Equity Director Vabren Watts discuss advancing health equity in health policy and publishing.

“Once you start advancing one aspect of equity, you start advancing other aspects of equity,” says Watts.

The two highlight Health Affairs' work on health equity since launching a formal plan in January 2021 and research highlights from our digital publication Health Affairs Forefront as well as our February 2022 theme issue on Racism And Health.

Related Links:

COVID-19 Data On Trans And Gender-Expansive People, Stat! (Health Affairs Forefront)
Structural Racism And Black Women's Employment In The US Health Care Sector (Health Affairs)
Walmart Opening 5 Health 'Superstores' In Delayed Florida Launch (Healthcare Dive)
Health Equity (Health Affairs)
Racism and Health Theme Issue (Health Affairs)

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Biden Wants to Fix The ACA's Family Glitch. What Is That? w/ Katie Keith Apr 08, 2022

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This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

President Joe Biden's administration this week published a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend the "family glitch" in the Affordable Care Act. In essence, the rule would revise the eligibility for premium tax credits for families.
It's a wonky but important policy measure. In today's episode of Health Affairs This Week, Health Affairs' Leslie Erdelack and Georgetown University's Katie Keith break down the proposed rule, what the "family glitch" is, how the Biden administration seeks to amend it, and what impact that may have on families including access to affordable care.

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