We Weren’t Supposed to Win This Fight

By Juliana Keeping, communications manager
 

With the House poised to pass comprehensive reforms to Medicare drug pricing policy on Friday, AV has broken down a few ways the legislation would help people. Notably, it caps out-of-pocket drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 a year (starting in 2025). 

Why it Matters: Innovative drugs that people can’t afford are a failure.

“The evidence suggests that most of the drugs that might not come to market are drugs where there are already treatments,” says Mark. E. Miller, EVP of Health Care for Arnold Ventures. “Meanwhile, there are millions of people who deserve access to innovative drugs now who don’t have it because prices are far too high.”

Between 2008 and 2021, the average price of newly marketed prescription drugs grew by 20% per year. 

What’s Next: The bill is up for a vote in the House, and if it passes, moves to the president, who is expected to sign it. AV will continue its comprehensive work on drug pricing reform.
 

By Evan Mintz, director of communications

If you want to understand the story of New York's bail reform, you have to know about a lanky teenager from the Bronx named Kalief Browder, who has become a symbol of everything wrong with cash bail.

What's Happening: Arrested at age 16 after being accused of assault and stealing a backpack, Browder spent more than 1,100 days in Rikers Island Jail — including 700 days in solitary confinement and multiple suicide attempts. The charges were eventually dropped. Two years after his release he died by suicide in his childhood home. New York changed its bail laws in an effort to prevent that kind of harmful and unjust pretrial detention from happening again. But fears about crime led the state to roll back some of the reforms. 

Why it Matters: Ignoring the benefits of bail reform, critics claim that the increase of people released pretrial has led to a spike in violent crime in New York. Growing research shows those claims are misleading, if not outright false.

"[I]f you’re looking for evidence that bail reform caused crime to rise, you’d be coming up blank right now," says Ames Grawert, senior legal counsel for the Brennan Center’s Justice Program.

What's Next: The harms and injustices inflicted by the overuse of pretrial detention must be part of any conversation about the criminal justice system and community safety. 

“There are such a huge range of benefits of not keeping people in jail, especially those who are charged with nonviolent, low-level offenses,” said Olive Lu, senior research associate who led a report by the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College on New York's 2020 bail reforms. “They’re able to go back to work, they’re able to continue to provide for their families, and they’re able to continue to be productive members of society.”
 

By Evan Mintz, director of communications
 

At a time when inflation has families struggling to afford basic necessities, local lawmakers can help lighten the load by eliminating costly fines and fees in the criminal justice system, write Arnold Ventures Director of Criminal Justice Cybele Kotonias, University of California, Berkeley, Assistant Professor of Law Becca Goldstein, and Research Director at the People Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School Helen Ho in InsideSources.

What's Happening: As courts and law enforcement attempt to collect fines and fees to fund their operations, financial obligations have ballooned to levels unaffordable for many families — more than a thousand dollars per case even for the lowest-level offenses.

Why it Matters: A rigorous randomized controlled trial out of Oklahoma found that people who had their fines and fees waived were less likely to face debt collectors, tax-refund garnishment, more court debt, and — critically — new warrants for arrest.

What's Next: State lawmakers need to pass reforms that reduce or eliminate fines and fees in the criminal justice system. In the last year alone, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia all reduced or eliminated fees in juvenile courts. And California entirely halted the collection of many fees in the criminal legal system.

"With each new study, we find that it is better for everyone involved when counties and states eliminate fees and create pathways for affordable fines," write Kotonias, Goldstein, and Ho. "This change will have little effect on the government’s bottom line or public safety but will have a profound effect on the families forced to pay these unjust debts."

Read the op-ed >

By Adam Shamsi, communications intern

If I’ve learned anything over the past summer, it’s that this generation will not be silent, and we all stand to benefit because of it. I, like many of my Desi-American peers, have spent my life navigating between ​“log kya kahenge” (a Hindi phrase translating to ​“what will others think,” often used to quash the dreams of overly enthused children) and a passion for changing the long-standing systems that have made life difficult for my family and friends. The resulting effect is a fervor for social justice manifesting in a soft-footed approach. However, my colleagues at Arnold Ventures have pushed me to reconsider my methods. 

As I reflect on my summer at AV, I consider how I was encouraged to take charge. When senior-level colleagues asked, ​“Well, what do you think, Adam?” or when my project manager gave me complete creative control over the work I produced, the message that my opinions were valued shined through. With their encouragement, I got to write articles for internal and external websites, create social media posts, develop the script for a soon-to-be choose-your-own-adventure game, and so much more. 

What I find even more valuable than the projects I’ve gotten to work on are the relationships I’ve built. The people I’ve met here have storied careers in various fields but are united in their sincerity and generosity — each one ready to carve time out of their busy schedules to have a conversation. 

Among the most inspiring and impressive of my colleagues are, without a doubt, the other interns. They are uniquely charming and uplifting. Without fail, each time I talk to them, I have a revitalized optimism for the future, and anyone who has the fortune of meeting them knows exactly what I am talking about. I’m beyond grateful to have worked with this group. Here, read about them and what they were up to this summer.

By Torie Ludwin, communications manager
 

$197 billion

Cost to the government of federal student loans issued between 1997 and 2021.

Preston Cooper writes in Forbes about a bombshell report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found instead of generating billions of dollars, student loans made between 1997 and 2021 cost the federal government $197 billion.

The report finds that the Education Department incorrectly estimated the cost of these federal direct loans over more than two decades. However, these estimates include the cost of the COVID-19 pause. Not accounting for the pause, the estimated cost would be $87 billion. The report makes clear the need for gainful employment rules, institutional accountability, income-driven repayment, and other safety nets and protections for students and taxpayers.

Related: Why Student Debt Is Out of Control

Criminal Justice 

• President Biden's Accelerating Justice System Reform will increase public safety without locking up more people or exacerbating racial disparities in the criminal justice system, Lauren-Brooke (L.B.) Eisen and Hernandez D. Stroud of the Brennan Center for Justice write in The Hill.
   
• The American Bar Association offers 10 principles for ending mass incarceration and lengthy prison sentences.
   
• First-person: John Thompson spent 14 years in solitary confinement. He writes in The Philadelphia Inquirer about why the practice must end.
   
• Speeding up forensic testing, dismissing certain low-level cases, and defending misdemeanor bail reform are among the seven ways that Harris County can close its massive court backlog, writes Marc Levin, chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice, in the Houston Chronicle.
  
  Related: "Thanks to bail reform, the jail is no longer full of misdemeanor defendants," writes the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
   
• New York needs to combine strong enforcement action with a critical prevention strategy to stop gun violence — and that means investing in community-based crime prevention, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance Executive Director Michael Jacobson write in the New York Daily News.
   
• “Everybody is armed”: While many other cities have slowed or reversed their spike in homicides, violence in Philadelphia is as bad as it has ever been. The New York Times looks into what's going wrong — and right — in the City of Brotherly Love. (free link)
   
• Alexis Piquero, chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Miami, was named to lead the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Health Care

• The health care industry is swarming Washington, D.C., as the federal government irons out final rules that will determine how disputes over surprise medical bills get settled, STAT reports. 
   
• “To hear the voices of older Americans who confront high drug costs month in and month out is to hear fear and worry, anger and stress." Read about why it's imperative drug prices come down, via The New York Times. (free link)

Higher Education

• The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday the availability of $5 million for the College Completion Fund for Postsecondary Student Success. The fund will support the implementation of evidence-based student success programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) such as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), including community colleges.
  
  Related: Arnold Ventures will be releasing a Request for Proposals on Sept. 7 focused on rigorous evaluation of student success efforts. We invite the institutions that are applying for the College Completion Fund dollars — as well as any other institution — to also consider applying for these evaluation dollars.
   
• Inside Higher Ed reports on the Responsible Education Assistance through Loan (REAL) Reforms Act, proposed by Republican legislators as a fiscally responsible package of student loan policies to be an alternative to mass student loan forgiveness.
   
• Student Defense released a new report that finds that the U.S. Department of Education has made no progress toward collecting more than $1 billion in unpaid debt owed by predominantly for-profit colleges and universities. Instead the amount of unpaid liabilities has grown by more than $174 million, meaning colleges and universities now owe taxpayers at least more than $1.375 billion in arrears.
   
• Danielle Douglas-Gabriel writes in The Washington Post about the swath of proposals to reform the student loan system and their reception among policymakers. (free link)
   
• New Jersey Gov. Murphy signed a statewide student protection bill (A-1695) to ensure tuition at career-oriented higher education programs can be affordably repaid with the occupation's expected wages. Says Sameer Gadkaree, president of The Institute for College Access and Success, “This law will protect New Jersey students from taking on excessive student loan debt and will benefit state and national taxpayers who help fund critical student aid.”
   
• Higher Ed Dive offers analysis on New America’s sixth annual survey on higher education, noting changing beliefs about online education as well as institutional accountability.
   
• Student Defense released a report on ways to increase oversight in higher education to better hold schools accountable for civil rights violations.
   
• Sarah Sattelmeyer at New America writes about the longstanding and pernicious effects on students when they default on their school loans, and makes recommendations for reform.

Contraceptive Choice and Access

• A lawsuit in Texas is trying to prevent the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from requiring insurers to cover birth control and other preventive care such as cancer screenings and childhood vaccinations, as reported in The Hill.
   
• The pharmacist who refused to provide emergency contraception pills based on his religious beliefs won his case in Minnesota, reports Fox News.
   
• Right next to the Twix: Colleges around the country, reports WBUR, are adding Plan B emergency contraception pills to their vending machines.
   
• A recent study published by BMC Women’s Health found that cost affects contraceptive choice: “With costs removed, participants who reported difficulty paying for healthcare were more likely to select hormonal IUDs and implants and less likely to select the injectable or contraceptive pills.”
   
• USA Today follows up with details on the policies at CVS and Walgreens that permit pharmacists to refuse to sell condoms and fill birth control prescriptions based on religious beliefs.
   
• In Forbes, the French drug maker HRA Pharma is seeking FDA approval for its over-the-counter birth control pill.
   
• In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill that further protects access to reproductive healthcare services in the state, reports NBC Boston.
   
• Slate explains how the contraceptives Ella, Plan B, and IUDs prevent fertilization. 

Organ Donation Reform
 

• Leonard Achan advocates for reform in the organ transplantation system in U.S.News. “Black persons are significantly less likely than whites to receive lifesaving kidney transplants, even though they are more than 2.5 times more likely than whites to develop end-stage kidney failure.”
  
  Related: LaQuayia Goldring knows firsthand the need for organ donation reform. Her experience with organ failure and poor medical treatment motivated her to pursue medical school. ​“When physicians see an African-American present in pain, they don’t necessarily see that as real.”
   
• A government review, which noted rampant mismanagement and outdated technology resulting in lives lost, recommended that the largely unaudited United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which operates the U.S. transplant system, be broken up, as reported in the The Washington Post. (free link)

Climate and Clean Energy

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 proposes to spend approximately $369 billion on energy initiatives, including expansion of 45Q Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Tax Credit and fuel for advanced nuclear, writes Politico.

The Visiting Room Project, an extraordinary collection of first-person testimonials from more than 100 people who have been serving life sentences at Louisiana's notorious Angola State Prison. Those interviewed, most of them convicted of second-degree murder, speak candidly about the choices that brought them to Angola, the families they left behind, and the violence they have experienced in prison — as well as their hopes for the future. In this piece, The Guardian dives deeper into the project, the system of incarceration in Louisiana, and the story of one of the men imprisoned, Charles Amos, whose interview offered a chance for redemption and forgiveness from his victim's father.



Also: Reform Alliance co-chairs Meek Mill and Michael Rubin talk to CBS Mornings about new reforms to Florida’s probation system and Reform Alliance’s goal of getting 1 million people out of the probation and parole system.

The Center for Health Care Strategies is seeking states to participate in the "Medicare Academy: Capacity-Building for Advancing Medicare-Medicaid Integration" — a 10-month training program designed to help Medicaid staff build the Medicare knowledge needed to successfully advance integration efforts. Up to eight state teams will be selected for the academy, which is made possible by Arnold Ventures, The Commonwealth Fund, and The SCAN Foundation. Medicaid agencies in all states, commonwealths, and territories are eligible to apply. The academy will be provided at no cost to participating teams. Applications are due Sept. 9, 2022. Learn more and apply

• From Vogue: "Serena Williams Says Farewell to Tennis On Her Own Terms — And In Her Own Words"
   
• As a teenager, I worked in a music store at the mall (remember those?) where my boss played on repeat the "Grease" soundtrack and anything by Journey. I can never listen to Journey again, but I will always love Olivia Newton-John.
   
• Kids (and adults), take note: A Little Leaguer's pitch hit the batter in the head, inspiring this heartwarming display of sportsmanship.
   
• I am ready to get rid of my lawn.