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The Abstract
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> Edited by Torie Ludwin, Arnold Ventures (AV)
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Earlier this month, the CEO of Steward Health Care was called to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after buying up hospitals and doctors’ groups. The head of the now-bankrupt company refused and resigned shortly after.
This is just the latest in the long, crushing history of health care consolidation.
In their op-ed in 🔒STAT News, AV Founders and Co-Chairs Laura and John Arnold called on policymakers to scrutinize how concentrated health care markets have resulted in bad outcomes ranging from higher prices for patients to extreme cost-cutting measures that undermine quality of care.
So, what can Congress do?
One solution that already has bipartisan support is site-neutral payment reform, which ensures patients pay the same price regardless of whether care is provided in a hospital-owned or independently owned physician’s office. The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act passed the House of Representatives, but the Senate still needs to act.
Congress can go even further by enacting comprehensive site-neutral payment reforms that could save Medicare more than $150 billion over the next decade.
Read more about their op-ed>
Learn about site-neutral payment reform> |
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Paying for Natural Disasters
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(Mobile homes in Florida destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Ian in 2022. Photo: Getty)
While we don't yet know the full impact of Hurricane Milton, we do know the number and intensity of natural disasters have increased. Beyond the devastation to life, home, and livelihood across the country due to natural disasters, the U.S. government is facing a growing financial burden in its work responding to them.
AV Public Finance Program Integrity Fellow Doug Criscitello writes in his Forbes column that a lack of proactive fiscal planning is hindering the nation’s ability to effectively respond to these escalating costs. Without it, both short-term recovery efforts and long-term resilience could falter, putting more strain on federal resources and leaving communities vulnerable.
Read Doug's column>
Related: FEMA Spent Nearly Half Its Disaster Budget in Just Eight Days>
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Q&A on Research Into
“Race-Blind” Charging
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(Alex Chohlas-Wood, assistant professor at New York University Steinhardt and faculty co-director of the Computational Policy Lab)
With support from Arnold Ventures, Alex Chohlas-Wood and a team of researchers are conducting a pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) with up to a dozen prosecutors’ offices in Missouri, Washington, and California. The evaluation will study the effect of using an algorithm to automatically redact race-related information from crime reports, which has the goal of reducing the likelihood that race will influence prosecutorial charging decisions. Such policies have promise, but removing information may have unintended consequences. Because of this, measuring the intervention’s real-world impact will be crucial.
Read our Q&A with Alex Chohlas-Wood>
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Criminal Justice
- The Fort Madison Daily Democrat reports on how the understaffing crisis in Iowa prisons is imperiling the safety of corrections officers, incarcerated people, and the public. It also reveals how understaffing, poor conditions, low pay, and chronic violence are deterring potential new hires, exacerbating the problem.
- Andy Potter and Matthew Charles from the Safer Prisons, Safer Communities Campaign testified to the Tennessee Senate Corrections Subcommittee about the crisis in the state’s prisons. The hearing, which focused on the possibility of independent prison oversight, was covered by the Tennessee Lookout.
Health Care
- A new Congressional Budget Office report discusses the factors underlying prescription drug prices and examines policy approaches to reduce those prices. The agency also assesses how each approach, if implemented in 2025, would affect average drug prices for U.S. purchasers in 2031.
- The Department of Health and Human Services announced that 54 prescription drugs covered under Medicare Part B are expected to have their coinsurance rates lowered between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, thanks to the inflation rebate program established in the IRA – and following price hikes from drug makers that were implemented faster than the rate of inflation. Seniors taking these drugs during the last quarter of the year may save anywhere between $1 and $3,854 a day.
- Axios highlights how because of hospital mergers and acquisitions, nearly half of U.S. metropolitan areas rely on only one or two health systems that control all inpatient care, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Higher Education
- The American Enterprise Institute’s Preston Cooper writes at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) that the next administration should hold low-quality colleges accountable by requiring colleges that receive federal funding to publish student outcomes data and meet certain performance benchmarks. He goes further to suggest that the next Congress limit the amount students can borrow and hold colleges financially responsible for unpaid student loans.
- A case study on New Jersey’s quality assurance regulations for career education programs from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) offers insight into the regulations, potential opportunities for improvement, and guidance for other states to implement protections for students seeking a college credential.
- Third Way’s report on online degree programs finds that students enrolled exclusively in such programs are over 8 percentage points less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree than their peers and for minoritized student groups, the disparity is even greater.
Democracy
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MSNBC's Morning Joe invited Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America, to talk about the primary problem. Due to gerrymandering, most legislative seats are safe for one party or another, meaning that low-turnout partisan primaries determine most election outcomes.
“So, when voters are frustrated and look at Congress and say, ‘Why aren’t they representing a majority of us?’ When 60, 70, 80 percent can agree on solutions to the debt, on immigration, on climate, this is the problem — this is the primary problem in our politics, and the good news is that it's fixable,” Troiano said. This election cycle, voters in 6 states have the opportunity to open their primaries.
Watch Nick Troiano here and check out a trailer of the documentary he mentioned, Majority Rules.
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On Monday, October 21, at 6 p.m. EDT on Zoom, Andrew Yang and Open Primaries, Unite America, the Forward Party, Independent Voting, the Independent Voting Network, and Veterans for All Voters are co-hosting a virtual national rally to build momentum for several open primary measures on the ballot this year. Learn more and register. |
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