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Varied look at health care

Varied look at health care

By Ahmed Kutty, M.D.
Monadnock (N.H.) Ledger-Transcript, August 26, 2019

In her piece of Aug. 6, Jill Schafer Hammond detailed an excellent analysis on the varied policy positions among the Democratic presidential contenders. Significantly her insights align with key arguments long advanced by advocates and activists for a National Health Plan (NHP). She is hard hitting when pointing out the proclivity of insurance companies to “take away your insurance when you’re sick.”

Reviewing “all those plans” proposed under the rubric of Medicare for All (MFA), from Medicare for Most, Medicare for Anyone…to Medicare4US2, it is worth mentioning that at least ten seemingly similar plans were available for tabulation by Austin Frakt and Aaron Carrol in the New York Times on Feb. 21, 2019. Jill’s support for an incremental approach to health care reform is grounded in unawareness that MFA legislation by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington (H.R. 1384) and the companion Senate bill (S. 1129) by Bernie Sanders DO supply the legislative provisions and energy needed for running the critical final – lap sprint to the finish line of achieving “everybody in-nobody out” coverage for ALL Americans.

President Johnson’s Medicare Act of 1965 establishing healthcare insurance for seniors and Medicaid for the poor, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997 under President Clinton, the Affordable Care Act of 2013 by President Obama, the Veterans Healthcare System by President Hoover in 1930, Tricare (CHAMPUS) for the military and the Federal Employees Benefits Plan (FEHB-DCSHOP) in 1956, and the Indian Health Service in July 1955, and others are ALL component parts of the huge patchwork system we have ended up with today. And all did INCREMENTALLY extend healthcare services to different population groups.

Ms. Hammond’s bullet points in paragraphs three and five DO strongly make the case for a publicly-funded privately-delivered program when she calls for “breaking down the silos” and “unifying government payment for all that healthcare.” What needs greater emphasis is that a unitary national payment mechanism confers via the power of the purse, on the NHP awesome clout to control costs, a critical weapon in the arsenal for waging the inevitable war to reign in rampant and unfettered pricing banditry over goods and services, uniquely manifest among the industrialized nations only in the US. And as Jill alluded to, effective measures like bargaining and negotiating to set reasonable prices/charges will enable the desired redirection of our finite healthcare funds towards preventive care, health maintenance, community medicine, and public health services, and also to redress the prevailing maldistribution of professional manpower, with a glut of specialists and a shortage of primary care doctors, and of provider concentration in urban areas while the rural hospitals and clinics struggle to survive.

Nobody’s coverage will be taken away when MFA is introduced. Instead, everybody will be covered under a simplified, streamlined, comprehensive, national, sustainable, and affordable plan, at an estimated savings of $500 billion a year from the $3.6 trillion we expend as a country currently.

What is TAKEN AWAY are payments of premiums, deductibles, copays, coinsurance, coverage caps, and exclusions. All medically necessary conditions will be covered, and appropriate clinical services will be available with NO payment at the point of service, including long-term care, prescriptions, dental, vision and hearing care, mental health services including substance dependency, community and home-based care, and more in a nonprofit setting. The cost burden of MFA, projected at about $3 trillion per year will be spread over the entire taxpayer base of 320 million Americans in a single risk pool.

Rolling out MFA, a national health plan as social insurance, need not be catastrophically disruptive. Contrary to widespread predictions, Medicare’s startup in July 1966, which I directly experienced as a trainee physician, was very uneventful and to my knowledge in the succeeding half-century plus, NO beneficiary of Medicare has asked for disbanding of the program on grounds of “free choice or government meddling.”

Proponents of the baby steps inherent in the incremental pathway to healthcare reform are well aware that such policy positions are incapable of furnishing urgently needed succor to 80 million uninsured and underinsured in our midst, and for the victims of the opioi​​​​​​​d epidemic in our state and many more, locked out of the for-profit system we live under. They must be held morally accountable for the atrocities being visited upon our fellow Americans such as: 30,000 preventable deaths nationally with about 150 from the Granite State, 2.2 million medical bankruptcies, with an estimated 1,400 in New Hampshire, and their unconscionable acquiescence at siphoning off healthcare premium dollars into astronomical compensation packages for healthcare CEOs and board directors.

When ultimately a NHP is in place, hopefully in the medium term, Americans will look back aghast, wondering why it took us more than a century to join the ranks of other advance-economy nations in providing healthcare as a basic human right! An instance of American exceptionalism?

Dr. Ahmed Kutty is a retired physician and activist with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) Granite State chapter.

https://www.ledgertranscript.com…

Hospital visits increase under readmissions reduction program

Hospital revisits within 30 days after discharge for medical conditions targeted by the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program in the United States: national retrospective analysis

By Rishi K Wadhera, Karen E Joynt Maddox, Dhruv S Kazi, Changyu Shen, Robert W Yeh
BMJ, August 12, 2019

Abstract

Objective: To determine any changes in total hospital revisits within 30 days of discharge after a hospital stay for medical conditions targeted by the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP).

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Hospital stays among Medicare patients for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia between 1 January 2012 and 1 October 2015.

Participants: Medicare fee-for-service patients aged 65 or over.

Main outcomes: Total hospital revisits within 30 days of discharge after hospital stays for medical conditions targeted by the HRRP, and by type of revisit: treat-and-discharge visit to an emergency department, observation stay (not leading to inpatient readmission), and inpatient readmission. Patient subgroups (age, sex, race) were also evaluated for each type of revisit.

Results: Our study cohort included 3 038 740 total index hospital stays from January 2012 to September 2015: 1 357 620 for heart failure, 634 795 for acute myocardial infarction, and 1 046 325 for pneumonia. Counting all revisits after discharge, the total number of hospital revisits per 100 patient discharges for target conditions increased across the study period (monthly increase 0.023 visits per 100 patient discharges (95% confidence interval 0.010 to 0.035)). This change was due to monthly increases in treat-and-discharge visits to an emergency department (0.023 (0.015 to 0.032) and observation stays (0.022 (0.020 to 0.025)), which were only partly offset by declines in readmissions (−0.023 (−0.035 to −0.012)). Increases in observation stay use were more pronounced among non-white patients than white patients. No significant change was seen in mortality within 30 days of discharge for target conditions (−0.0034 (−0.012 to 0.0054)).

Conclusions: In the United States, total hospital revisits within 30 days of discharge for conditions targeted by the HRRP increased across the study period. This increase was due to a rise in post-discharge emergency department visits and observation stays, which exceeded the decline in readmissions. Although reductions in readmissions have been attributed to improvements in discharge planning and care transitions, our findings suggest that these declines could instead be because hospitals and clinicians have intensified efforts to treat patients who return to a hospital within 30 days of discharge in emergency departments and as observation stays.

Discussion

In this study of Medicare beneficiaries admitted to hospital for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia in the US between 2012 and 2015, we found an increase in total hospital revisits within 30 days of discharge despite a reduction in 30 day readmissions. This increase was because of a rise in treat-and-discharge visits to an emergency department and observation stays within 30 days of discharge, which on national level, exceeded the decline in readmissions. Our finding of increased healthcare use during this period was more pronounced after we included all encounters within 30 days of discharge from the index hospital stay—rather than simply including the first revisit.

In the US, nationwide reductions in readmission rates for medical conditions targeted by the HRRP have been viewed as markers of improvements in quality of care. Our findings suggest that this success could be illusory because total hospital revisits after discharge are, in fact, rising. If reductions in readmissions were being driven by widespread improvements in discharge planning, care transitions and post-discharge care after a hospital stay (as intended by the HRRP), total hospital revisits within 30 days of discharge would also be expected to decline. Instead, much of the reduction in readmissions seems to reflect intensified efforts to manage patients who return to a hospital after discharge in observation units and emergency departments, potentially because the 30 day readmission measure used to evaluate hospital performance under the HRRP does not include these types of post-discharge encounters. These observations perhaps explain why previous studies have shown that inpatient quality of care delivered to patients admitted to hospital for heart failure or acute myocardial infarction do not differ at hospitals with high versus low readmission rates.

The increase in use of observation stays and emergency department visits (compared with inpatient hospital stays) among patients who return after discharge could be a good thing if it reflects that patients are, on average, returning with lower severity illness that can be safely managed in a non-admission setting. These revisits could also be beneficial to patient care. For instance, observation stays have been associated with higher patient satisfaction than inpatient hospital stays, although they can also result in higher out-of-pocket expenditures and more financial hardship for patients than inpatient hospital stays.

However, the increasing use of emergency department visits for post-discharge care could be problematic. Data have suggested that hospitals that tend to manage patients in emergency departments rather than admitting them for an inpatient stay have higher rates of early death after discharge. We observed no change in post-discharge mortality at 30 days for target conditions during the HRRP (from 2012 to 2015). However, several independent analyses have found that the implementation of the HRRP was associated with an increase in post-discharge mortality at 30 days among patients admitted for heart failure and pneumonia compared with pre-HRRP trends (pre-2010), and that this increase was concentrated entirely among patients not readmitted after discharge. Whether intensified efforts to manage returning patients in emergency departments and observation units explain increases in mortality observed in the years that preceded our study period is an important area for further research, given that this potential mechanism could explain increased mortality under the HRRP.

https://www.bmj.com…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Various policy innovations today are designed to try to reduce health care spending while supposedly improving quality, or at least not impairing it. This is one of those innovations. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program assesses financial penalties if patients are readmitted within thirty days of discharge.

In this study they looked at patents with heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. These are patients who generally are quite ill. With the best of care, their post-discharge status can easily worsen thus warranting readmission to the hospital. Yet this is one more study that showed that, with the disincentive of a financial penalty, instead of being readmitted, the patients were often managed in emergency departments or under observation. In fact, the rise in post-discharge emergency department visits and observation stays exceeded the decline in readmissions. The authors also report, “hospitals that tend to manage patients in emergency departments rather than admitting them for an inpatient stay have higher rates of early death after discharge.” Also we should be very concerned about this statement buried in the abstract: “Increases in observation stay use were more pronounced among non-white patients than white patients.”

Although the prices charged may be different between a patient held in a hospital bed for observation as opposed to one formally admitted, it is likely that the actual costs of care rendered are not that much different, so are we really saving much money by this policy? Also patients are penalized if they are held under observation instead of being admitted since cost sharing is greater for outpatient services than it is for a readmission.

The shame is that the policy community and bureaucrats busy themselves with these experiments in policy innovations that largely provide disappointing results, while they reject any consideration of a policy innovation that would recover hundreds of billions of dollars in administrative waste: the single payer model of an improved Medicare for All. What drives this? Incompetence? Greed? Ego? Insanity? Whatever it is, we need to address it so that we can get on with reform that really does work.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Race as a barrier to universal health care

Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race.

By Jeneen Interlandi
The New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019

Smallpox was not the only health disparity facing the newly emancipated, who at the close of the Civil War faced a considerably higher mortality rate than that of whites. Despite their urgent pleas for assistance, white leaders were deeply ambivalent about intervening. They worried about black epidemics spilling into their own communities and wanted the formerly enslaved to be healthy enough to return to plantation work. But they also feared that free and healthy African-Americans would upend the racial hierarchy, the historian Jim Downs writes in his 2012 book, “Sick From Freedom.”

Federal policy, he notes, reflected white ambivalence at every turn. Congress established the medical division of the Freedmen’s Bureau — the nation’s first federal health care program — to address the health crisis, but officials deployed just 120 or so doctors across the war-torn South, then ignored those doctors’ pleas for personnel and equipment. They erected more than 40 hospitals but prematurely shuttered most of them.

White legislators argued that free assistance of any kind would breed dependence and that when it came to black infirmity, hard labor was a better salve than white medicine. As the death toll rose, they developed a new theory: Blacks were so ill suited to freedom that the entire race was going extinct. “No charitable black scheme can wash out the color of the Negro, change his inferior nature or save him from his inevitable fate,” an Ohio congressman said.

In the decades following Reconstruction, the former slave states came to wield enormous congressional power through a voting bloc that was uniformly segregationist and overwhelmingly Democratic. That bloc preserved the nation’s racial stratification by securing local control of federal programs under a mantra of “states’ rights” and, in some cases, by adding qualifications directly to federal laws with discriminatory intent.

As the Columbia University historian Ira Katznelson and others have documented, it was largely at the behest of Southern Democrats that farm and domestic workers — more than half the nation’s black work force at the time — were excluded from New Deal policies, including the Social Security and Wagner Acts of 1935 (the Wagner Act ensured the right of workers to collective bargaining), and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set a minimum wage and established the eight-hour workday. The same voting bloc ensured states controlled crucial programs like Aid to Dependent Children and the 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill, allowing state leaders to effectively exclude black people.

In 1945, when President Truman called on Congress to expand the nation’s hospital system as part of a larger health care plan, Southern Democrats obtained key concessions that shaped the American medical landscape for decades to come. The Hill-Burton Act provided federal grants for hospital construction to communities in need, giving funding priority to rural areas (many of them in the South). But it also ensured that states controlled the disbursement of funds and could segregate resulting facilities.

Professional societies like the American Medical Association barred black doctors; medical schools excluded black students, and most hospitals and health clinics segregated black patients. Federal health care policy was designed, both implicitly and explicitly, to exclude black Americans. As a result, they faced an array of inequities — including statistically shorter, sicker lives than their white counterparts. What’s more, access to good medical care was predicated on a system of employer-based insurance that was inherently difficult for black Americans to get. “They were denied most of the jobs that offered coverage,” says David Barton Smith, an emeritus historian of health care policy at Temple University. “And even when some of them got health insurance, as the Pullman porters did, they couldn’t make use of white facilities.”

Black doctors and nurses — most of them trained at one of two black medical colleges, Meharry and Howard — established their own professional organizations and began a concerted war against medical apartheid. By the 1950s, they were pushing for a federal health care system for all citizens.

That fight put the National Medical Association (the leading black medical society) into direct conflict with the A.M.A., which was opposed to any nationalized health plan. In the late 1930s and the 1940s, the group helped defeat two such proposals with a vitriolic campaign that informs present-day debates: They called the idea socialist and un-American and warned of government intervention in the doctor-patient relationship. The group used the same arguments in the mid-’60s, when proponents of national health insurance introduced Medicare. This time, the N.M.A. developed a countermessage: Health care was a basic human right.

Medicare and Medicaid were part of a broader plan that finally brought the legal segregation of hospitals to an end: The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation for any entity receiving federal funds, and the new health care programs soon placed every hospital in the country in that category. But they still excluded millions of Americans. Those who did not fit into specific age, employment or income groups had little to no access to health care.

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act brought health insurance to nearly 20 million previously uninsured adults. The biggest beneficiaries of this boon were people of color, many of whom obtained coverage through the law’s Medicaid expansion. That coverage contributed to a measurable decrease in some racial health disparities, but the success was neither as enduring nor as widespread as it might have been. Several states, most of them in the former Confederacy, refused to participate in Medicaid expansion. And several are still trying to make access to the program contingent on onerous new work requirements. The results of both policies have been unequivocal. States that expanded Medicaid saw a drop in disease-related deaths, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But in Arkansas, the first state to implement work requirements, nearly 20,000 people were forced off the insurance plan.

One hundred and fifty years after the freed people of the South first petitioned the government for basic medical care, the United States remains the only high-income country in the world where such care is not guaranteed to every citizen. In the United States, racial health disparities have proved as foundational as democracy itself. “There has never been any period in American history where the health of blacks was equal to that of whites,” Evelynn Hammonds, a historian of science at Harvard University, says. “Disparity is built into the system.” Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act have helped shrink those disparities. But no federal health policy yet has eradicated them.

https://www.nytimes.com…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

When we finally enact Single Payer Medicare for All we will have to be especially attentive to see that the language of the legislation finally eliminates racial health disparities forevermore. Amen.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Debunking the myths about Medicare for All

By Joshua Freeman, M.D.
Arizona Daily Star, Letters, August 21, 2019

I was thrilled to read the letter by Drs. Eve Shapiro and Paul Gordon, “Local Opinion: We’re doctors, and we’re debunking myths about Medicare for All.” I, too, am a physician and support an improved and expanded Medicare for All as called for in the House (Jayapal) and Senate (Sanders) bills. The two most contradictory concerns the letter’s authors address are “how will we pay for it” and “we need to keep private insurance”; indeed a large part of the answer to the first is to eliminate the profit and administrative costs engendered by private insurance companies!

Under Medicare for All, everyone will get all the health care they need, without the restrictions on providers most insurers now impose. And, precisely because everyone will be in the same plan, and the wealthy cannot “buy out”, the more educated, better-off, and empowered will make sure that it is a good plan and it will work for everyone.

https://tucson.com…

New HRA rule: Converting employer-sponsored plans from a defined benefit to a defined contribution?

Health Reimbursement Arrangements and Other Account-Based Group Health Plans

A Rule by the Internal Revenue Service, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, and the Health and Human Services Department
Federal Register, June 20, 2019

Action: Final rule.

Effective date: These final rules are effective on August 19, 2019.

Summary: This document sets forth final rules to expand opportunities for working men and women and their families to access affordable, quality healthcare through changes to rules under various provisions of the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and the Internal Revenue Code (Code) regarding health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and other account-based group health plans. Specifically, the final rules allow integrating HRAs and other account-based group health plans with individual health insurance coverage or Medicare, if certain conditions are satisfied (an individual coverage HRA). The final rules also set forth conditions under which certain HRAs and other account-based group health plans will be recognized as limited excepted benefits. Also, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury Department) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are finalizing rules regarding premium tax credit (PTC) eligibility for individuals offered an individual coverage HRA. In addition, the Department of Labor (DOL) is finalizing a clarification to provide assurance that the individual health insurance coverage for which premiums are reimbursed by an individual coverage HRA or a qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangement (QSEHRA) does not become part of an ERISA plan, provided certain safe harbor conditions are satisfied. Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is finalizing provisions to provide a special enrollment period (SEP) in the individual market for individuals who newly gain access to an individual coverage HRA or who are newly provided a QSEHRA. The goal of the final rules is to expand the flexibility and use of HRAs and other account-based group health plans to provide more Americans with additional options to obtain quality, affordable healthcare. The final rules affect employees and their family members; employers, employee organizations, and other plan sponsors; group health plans; health insurance issuers; and purchasers of individual health insurance coverage.

Background: Executive Order

On October 12, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13813, “Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States,” stating, in part, that the “Administration will prioritize three areas for improvement in the near term: association health plans (AHPs), short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI), and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).” With regard to HRAs, the Executive Order directs the Secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and HHS to “consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, to the extent permitted by law and supported by sound policy, to increase the usability of HRAs, to expand employers’ ability to offer HRAs to their employees, and to allow HRAs to be used in conjunction with nongroup coverage.” The Executive Order further provides that expanding “the flexibility and use of HRAs would provide many Americans, including employees who work at small businesses, with more options for financing their healthcare.”

Isolated quotes under “II. Overview of the Final Rules on Individual Coverage HRAs and Excepted Benefit HRAs—the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services”:

“Some commenters expressed general support for allowing employers to move to a defined contribution approach for health insurance coverage, including because this likely permits greater employee choice.”

“One commenter expressed general concern about the shifting of employees from a defined benefit health plan system to a defined contribution health plan system, because, according to the commenter, it may result in less comprehensive coverage.”

“Other commenters stated that individuals in the individual market could face more expensive plans, lower employer contributions, narrower networks, and higher cost sharing.”

https://www.federalregister.gov…

Could next year be the beginning of the end of traditional employer-sponsored health insurance?

By Michael Kolber
The Hill, August 20, 2019

The same type of transformation that turned traditional pension plans into employee-directed 401(k)s may be coming for employer-sponsored health plans—and sooner than most realize.

The consequences of this transformation would be widespread, with impacts throughout the health care system, from hospitals and doctors to drug and device makers to insurance companies, brokers and vendors. It could even impact the political debate about single-payer health care.

A new rule from the IRS and other federal agencies could set this afoot. Beginning in January 2020, any employer can give employees pretax compensation to buy individual market health insurance instead of providing a traditional employer-sponsored group health plan.

Thinkers from across the political spectrum have long decried the uniquely American phenomenon of tying health benefits to employment. In addition to creating an artificial linkage between employment and health coverage, generous employer-sponsored health benefits may play a role in driving health care inflation. But two factors have generally preserved the status quo, with about half of Americans in employment-based coverage.

First, until the Affordable Care Act was implemented, the individual market for health insurance was not functional in many places, leaving employers with few options if they wanted to ratchet back their health benefits. Individuals could have been denied coverage or charged higher rates based on health status, or had pre-existing condition exclusions imposed.

Second, both before and after the ACA, employers had a significant incentive to provide generous health benefits because employer spending on a health plan is not treated as taxable income for the employee, effectively increasing the value of this form of compensation to the employee. The ACA added to this incentive by affirmatively requiring large employers to share in the responsibility for providing health coverage to employees. On top of this, Obama-era rulings interpreting the ACA effectively precluded all employers (large and small) from contributing to the cost of individual coverage obtained by employees.

The ACA fixed the first problem—guaranteeing access to individual market coverage at a uniform price regardless of health status and without pre-existing condition exclusions—but in doing so exacerbated the second. The new federal rule now solves the second problem: Employers will be permitted to fund “health reimbursement arrangements” (HRAs) for employees to buy individual market health insurance. The employee does not pay income tax on amounts the employer contributes to the HRA.

The major remaining constraint on the 401(k)-ization of employer health benefits will be the pressures of the labor market. Will employees accept jobs that don’t guarantee them particular health benefits but instead offer defined contributions to an HRA that may or may not be sufficient to buy equivalent coverage on the individual market? Many employers would love not to have to bear the administrative burdens of running a traditional health plan, and all are looking for ways to keep health costs down. How many will be willing to test the labor market in this way?

The federal government estimates that within five years, about 11 million people will receive individual market coverage funded through an HRA, but those people will be spread across 800,000 employers, meaning only about a dozen employees will get health care this way from each participating employer. The IRS admits this estimate is highly uncertain, but there is little reason to think so few employers will make this shift, or that it will remain limited to very small employers. As with other disruptive innovations, it is entirely plausible that what begins in the low end of employers will take over the entire sector. Further, even among the 11 million the IRS predicts, the IRS estimates that most will be replacing conventional group health plans with HRAs—these are not employees, for the most part, whose employers are using an HRA to offer coverage for this first time.

The consequences could be dramatic. Today, reimbursement by employment-based health plans is the fuel that drives many sectors of the health economy, in many cases keeping afloat hospitals, physicians, dialysis providers, drug and device makers, and other providers that may receive lower reimbursement for patients on Medicare or Medicaid (and nothing for those who remain uninsured). And, at least today, the individual market coverage that an HRA would buy is quite different from employment-based coverage: Typically there are fewer providers in network, who may receive lower reimbursement rates. There may be no out-of-network benefits except in emergencies, and deductibles and other enrollee cost-sharing are often much higher.

If millions more people join the individual market through HRAs, these plan design features could change to look more like conventional employment-based coverage—or HRAs may further incentivize lower-premium plans, reinforcing the need for less comprehensive plans. Either way, each sector of the health care system will need to think about the implications: Hospitals and doctors will need to continue their focus on collecting payments from individual patients with high-deductible plans, and all providers will need to understand a world of potentially lower reimbursement and higher enrollee cost-sharing. Brokers and tech vendors will need to help employees navigate increasingly complex coverage decisions. Insurers may need to adjust to the higher administrative costs implicit in individual market coverage.

The shift could also impact political realities: A significant hurdle to state and federal “single payer” health care reform is the general satisfaction today of the millions of people in employment-based coverage, representing about 60 percent of nonelderly adults. If these people are shifted to higher-deductible plans with narrower provider networks, and are forced to comparison-shop for a plan each year, the fortunes of single payer could improve, as the alternative begins to seem less attractive.

n short, the health care system must wrestle with whether HRAs will make traditional group health plans as rare as traditional “defined-benefit” pensions, and, if so, how quickly.

Michael Kolber is a partner at Manatt Health.

https://thehill.com…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

President Trump’s Executive Order of October 12, 2017 (quoted above) generated alarm because he ordered the prioritization of association health plans (AHPs), which historically have had a terrible track record, and the prioritization of short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI), which are grossly inadequate plans. Although considerable concern was expressed then about these recommendations, it is likely that any impact will be negligible since there is essentially no market interest in these plans. What should concern everyone instead is his third order: the prioritization of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).

HRAs sound benign, sort of like health savings accounts (HSAs) or flexible spending accounts (FSAs). The primary difference is that HRAs are designed to be full health benefit plans by pairing them with health insurance plans. Why is that important?

Most of you are aware what happened when 401k retirement plans were established. Employers began discontinuing their traditional pension plans which provided a defined benefit – essentially guaranteed income in retirement, but they are mostly history now (only 16% of Fortune 500 companies offer them, down from 59% in 1998). In contrast, the 401k plans are funded by a defined contribution with no guarantee of the amount the plan will pay nor how long the payments will last. This shift from defined benefit to defined contribution has been disastrous for many who find that Social Security payments along with the 401k distributions fall far short of the financial needs in their retirement years.

It looks now like the new rule based on Trump’s order to prioritize HRAs is a setup to convert today’s defined benefit employer-sponsored health plans into defined contribution HRA health plans, beginning with smaller businesses, especially new businesses that are just initiating their plans. But large businesses have been looking for relief so certainly a defined contribution approach will be appealing to them. According to today’s Quote of the Day sources, that conversion means lower premiums that buy less generous plans, higher deductibles and other cost sharing, lower provider payments and narrower networks which may threaten the adequacy of the health care delivery system. Those currently favoring employer-sponsored plans over Single Payer Medicare for All should immediately reconsider what they are wishing for.

Michael Kolber suggests that the inevitable increased dissatisfaction may drive greater support for a single payer system, but based on previous decades of the perpetual inertia preventing us from enacting effective, efficient, and equitable reform, it may be a decade or more before the light bulb goes on. Many more people will suffer, go bankrupt, or even die prematurely.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Since 1978, CEO compensation up 940%; workers 12%

CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978. Typical worker compensation has risen only 12% during that time.

By Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe
Economic Policy Institute, August 14, 2019

What this report finds: The increased focus on growing inequality has led to an increased focus on CEO pay. Corporate boards running America’s largest public firms are giving top executives outsize compensation packages. Average pay of CEOs at the top 350 firms in 2018 was $17.2 million—or $14.0 million using a more conservative measure. (Stock options make up a big part of CEO pay packages, and the conservative measure values the options when granted, versus when cashed in, or “realized.”) CEO compensation is very high relative to typical worker compensation (by a ratio of 278-to-1 or 221-to-1). In contrast, the CEO-to-typical-worker compensation ratio (options realized) was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 58-to-1 in 1989. CEOs are even making a lot more—about five times as much—as other earners in the top 0.1%. From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5% (940.3% under the options-realized measure), far outstripping S&P stock market growth (706.7%) and the wage growth of very high earners (339.2%). In contrast, wages for the typical worker grew by just 11.9%.

Why it matters: Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could safely do away with. CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay, not because they are increasing productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills. This escalation of CEO compensation, and of executive compensation more generally, has fueled the growth of top 1.0% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving less of the fruits of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%. The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or taxed more).

From the Conclusion

Some observers argue that exorbitant CEO compensation is merely a symbolic issue, with no consequences for the vast majority of workers. However, the escalation of CEO compensation, and of executive compensation more generally, has fueled the growth of top 1.0% and top 0.1% incomes, generating widespread inequality.

High CEO pay reflects economic rents—concessions CEOs can draw from the economy not by virtue of their contribution to economic output but by virtue of their position. Clifford (2017) describes the Lake Wobegon world of setting CEO compensation that fuels its growth: Every firm wants to believe its CEO is above average and therefore needs to be correspondingly remunerated. But, in fact, CEO compensation could be reduced across the board and the economy would not suffer any loss of output.

Another implication of rising pay for CEOs and other executives is that it reflects income that otherwise would have accrued to others: What these executives earned was not available for broader-based wage growth for other workers. (Bivens and Mishel 2013 explore this issue in depth.) It is useful, in this context, to note that wage growth for the bottom 90% would have been nearly twice as fast over the 1979–2017 period had wage inequality not grown. Most of the rise of inequality took the form of redistributing wages from the bottom 90% (whose share of wages fell from 69.8% to 60.9%) to the top 1.0% (whose wage share nearly doubled, rising from 7.3% to 13.4%).

https://www.epi.org…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

There has been much written about the growth in income and wealth inequality and the injustices that result therefrom. As one important contributor, this study shows that CEO compensation is obscene, but does that really matter, and, if so, what should we do about it?

Some say that we should not begrudge those with very high incomes and wealth, but the problem is that, as this and many other studies have shown us, their high compensation “reflects income that otherwise would have accrued to others.”

The greatest concern that most people have regarding health care is its affordability. At 18% of our GDP, the majority cannot afford to pay their proportionate share into a pool of funds that would comprise our national health expenditures.

It becomes immediately obvious that an important step towards making health care affordable for all of us would be to recover some of the excess income from the very wealthy that should be accruing to others and place that in a universal risk pool for health care. Taxes function not only as a source of public revenues, but they also serve to make income and wealth more equitable (not necessarily equal, but fair).

There are certainly other policies that can be established to inject more fairness into our economy, but establishing an equitable Single Payer Medicare for All that’s affordable for each of us would be a giant first step toward rectifying the injustices of income and wealth inequality, while providing us all with the great benefit of access to health care nirvana.

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Decrease in private nongroup coverage leaves more uninsured

Health Insurance Coverage Declined for Nonelderly Americans Between 2016 and 2017, Primarily in States That Did Not Expand Medicaid

By Laura Skopec, John Holahan, and Caroline Elmendorf
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Urban Institute, August 15, 2019

The Issue

Between 2013 and 2016, the uninsurance rate for nonelderly Americans from birth to age 64 fell every year, and 18.5 million more Americans had health insurance coverage in 2016 than in 2013. However, these coverage gains stalled in 2017. Using the American Community Survey, this research finds that uninsurance increased between 2016 and 2017, despite a strong economy and accompanying increases in incomes and employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) coverage.

Key Findings

  • The uninsured rate climbed from 10.0 percent in 2016 to 10.2 percent in 2017, the first increase since 2013, after significant declines driven by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This decline resulted in 700,000 more uninsured people in 2017 than in 2016.
  • The uninsured rate held stable in Medicaid expansion states at 7.6 percent, but increased from 13.7 percent to 14.3 percent in states that did not expand Medicaid.
  • Non-Medicaid expansion states lost marketplace coverage at twice the rate of expansion states.

Conclusion

Factoring in population growth in 2017, gains in ESI mitigated, but did not overcome reductions in Medicaid and CHIP and ACA marketplace coverage. Researchers observed broadly distributed losses across all age groups and income levels. Non-Hispanic white and black nonelderly people, those with at least some college education, and those living in the South and Midwest, experienced disproportionate coverage losses. The authors conclude that these increases in uninsurance will likely occur disproportionally in nonexpasion states, given their greater reliance on private coverage.

From the Brief

Overall, coverage losses were concentrated in the 19 states that did not expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act by July 1, 2017. Between 2016 and 2017, uninsurance held stable in Medicaid expansion states but increased by 0.5 percentage points in nonexpansion states. Though both expansion and nonexpansion states saw increases in employer-sponsored insurance and decreases in Medicaid/CHIP and private nongroup coverage over this period, the percentage-point decline in private nongroup coverage in nonexpansion states was nearly double that in expansion states (-0.6 percentage points versus -0.3 percentage points), precipitating larger coverage losses.

The increasing uninsurance rate in nonexpansion states between 2016 and 2017 may reflect their greater exposure to changes in the availability and affordability of marketplace and private nongroup coverage. In nonexpansion states, nonelderly people with incomes between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for marketplace subsidies to purchase private nongroup coverage, rather than Medicaid/CHIP coverage, so coverage gains in these states between 2013 and 2016 relied more on the availability and affordability of private nongroup coverage than coverage gains in Medicaid expansion states. Further changes to private nongroup coverage and marketplace policies in 2018 and 2019, including shorter open enrollment periods, availability of short-term, limited-duration policies, loss of federal funds to support cost-sharing subsidies, and repeal of the individual mandate to purchase coverage, may also disproportionately reduce coverage in nonexpansion states in the coming years.

https://www.rwjf.org…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), 18.5 million more Americans had health insurance coverage in 2016 than in 2013. However, the numbers of uninsured declined by 700,000 between 2016 and 2017. The decline was predominantly in the private nongroup and ACA marketplace plans and occurred primarily in states that did not expand their Medicaid eligibility.

Although the greatest success of ACA was in the expansion of Medicaid, the Medicaid program already existed and could have been expanded without enactment of ACA. The other ACA program – establishment of the private insurance exchanges or marketplaces – has fallen short of goals of universality and affordability, and enrollment began reversing in 2016. ACA also increased regulatory oversight, but at a cost of increased financial barriers to care through higher deductibles, and diminished access to care because of wider use of restricted provider networks. There is also some question about the expansion of Medicaid since many were forced into Medicaid managed care programs that seem to be falling short on performance.

The current debate over reform is whether 1) to continue to try to tweak ACA, perhaps adding more administrative complexity through a public option, in spite of the post-ACA highly flawed, dysfunctional health financing infrastructure, or 2) to replace the system with an as yet undefined Republican plan which would likely transfer more of the responsibility of obtaining care to individual patients making care even less affordable and less accessible, or 3) to enact and implement a single payer model of an improved version of Medicare that would cover everyone. There is really only one reasonable choice here: Single Payer Medicare for All – that is if we want to have a high quality health care system that takes care of everyone of us and is affordable for each of us.

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A cure for our dysfunctional health-care system

By David McLanahan, M.D.
The Seattle Times, August 19, 2019

Re: “Murder-suicide is suspected in pair’s deaths” [Aug. 11, B7]:

The news of the elderly couple’s death is another in the litany of tragedies inflicted upon American families by our dysfunctional health-care system.

As the article points out, current Medicare and Medicaid cover only 65% of medical expenses. As well as bearing the discomfort of illness, elderly people face deductibles, co-pays, high-cost medications, other out-of-pocket expenses and oppressive insurance paperwork. They often face the prospect of going bankrupt, losing their life savings, if any, and the prospect of asking family members and friends to help out. We all can understand this couple’s resolution.

The tragic decision facing this family would likely have been averted if they were covered by Improved Medicare for All, such as embodied in Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s H.R. 1384. This legislation would enable all of us to receive the health care we need from birth without any financial worries.

It’s time for all of our representatives — national, state, and local — to follow the lead of their constituents to join us in supporting justice in health care.

https://www.seattletimes.com…

Sweet Dreams: The Future of Medicine

By Brent W. Beasley, M.D., M.B.A.
Physician Leadership Journal, August 19, 2019

Enter the brave new world of science fiction, and discover the benefits of universal coverage, deep-learning artificial intelligence, and solutions to pharmaceutical affordability — all of which is within our grasp.

I’VE TOLD MY FRIENDS THAT I know  we won’t time travel in the future because the first thing I would do is return to the past to tell myself that it’s going to happen. That was a great after-dinner conversation until …

During a recent lunch hour, I was sitting on a park bench at our medical school campus, frustrated by the third prior-authorization denial of the morning, when the smell of sulfur tickled my nose, a quick breeze blew through my hair, a sound like a clap of thunder startled me, and, as if an elevator opened in front of me, a person looking a lot like my father stepped through a crack in space and said, “There will be time travel in our future!”

I was most surprised. I stood up next to myself and stared. I actually touched my — or, rather, I should say, his so you can keep us apart — forehead and noted the deep wrinkles of laugh lines and sorrows. It was me, or more precisely will be me. We sat down, chuckled together and talked.

He wouldn’t answer about my future, my children’s lives, my friends — something about avoiding paradoxes and becoming my own grandfather. So, we were stumped. What could my older me say about the future?

“Well, I suppose I could tell you about the future of medicine!” he exclaimed.

“Aren’t you concerned I could mess it up?” I asked.

“As if you have any power to change the current or future state of medicine?” he harrumphed. “Of course, I’m not concerned.”

“You have a point,” I shrugged. “So, what does the future hold for health care?”

He thought with eyes squinted. Finally, he announced, “I can tell you that universal coverage passed in the U.S. Congress.”

“You’re joking? The liberals finally pushed it through?” I asked, jaw hanging.

“Of course not! The business community rose up en masse when they realized that, instead of corporations paying a trillion dollars in health care costs per year, all U.S. citizens could be covered, as other first-world countries have done, at a huge savings to them. Individual taxes went up, but we pay nothing for health insurance and have no out of pocket costs. Three trillion dollars in health care savings the first decade! Not only that, the administrative costs burdening doctors’ offices dropped like a rock overnight.”

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “I never thought that would happen. Did Bernie live to see the day?”

“They rolled him out to wave at the crowd,” he affirmed. “In the first year, many of the racial disparities in care disappeared as all people had equal coverage,” he affirmed. “There was evidence that would result back before 2020, when the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion states provided improved care to people of color and those in poverty.”1,2

“Did the government take over the hospitals?” I asked.

“Nope,” he shook his head, “they left them alone. Universal coverage was only about ensuring all citizens had insurance.”

“But what about free enterprise? Competition in the market place?” I retorted.

He snorted. “Once all the public held the same ‘currency,’ ” he said, making air quotes, “health systems became truly competitive, regardless of their location and payer mix.”

“Didn’t health care costs keep rising?” I asked naively.

He laughed. “No, it was exactly as Anderson kept telling us back in the day: ‘It’s the prices, stupid!’ Having one large payer doing the negotiating ensured high-value care was provided at affordable prices.”3

“So, what else you got in that brave new world?” I prodded, elbows on my knees, and eager. He placed his hands behind his head, and leaned back.

“Let’s see,” he pondered. “Artificial intelligence … that’s been a game changer,” he said, pointing his finger at my chest and nodding.

“You mean robot doctors?” I asked, eyes wide.

He looked at me with disdain. “I mean the ‘deep learning’ kind of AI that helps with diagnosis and treatment.4 My smartwatch app listens to patient encounters, tracks symptoms and signs, and spits out a prioritized differential diagnosis with an evidence-based workup and treatment plan individualized for the patient. The diagnostic accuracy is much higher than any physician could develop alone. At first it was off-putting, and my patients looked askew when they heard the app talking to me in the exam room. A decade later, patients expect it.”

“I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable with that kind of intrusion,” I added, eyebrows crossed.

“You won’t. I wasn’t,” he demurred. He raised an eyebrow, “More problematic is AI radiology and pathology. Even in your days, computer-based radiology and pathology were more sensitive than the human ability to find problems.5 That trend continued, and the specificity only improved with time. There are very few radiologists and pathologists in practice anymore. They exist in our future mainly to characterize anomalies and oddities.”

I stroked my chin. Should I alert our medical students so they make informed decisions about career choice? Or would that be meddling with the future?

“And then, you’ll be glad to know we don’t enter data into EHRs anymore,” he smirked.

“Great Osler’s ghost!” I exclaimed.

“Instead, we have a video camera in the room, recording the visit. It parses into an electronic document the history, the exam, the diagnoses, and the treatment plans discussed. It creates a relatively short note, since,” he smiled, “with universal coverage, nobody is concerned about documenting for payment reasons.”

My excitement was growing.

“Tell me about the pharmaceutical industry. Have you tamed the beasts yet?” I asked expectantly.

He nodded, and stuck his bottom lip out. “It’s better. Universal coverage gave Americans one strong bargaining partner for Big Pharma. The Food and Drug Administration, which sits under the executive branch of government, finally limited the patentability of inconsequential changes in “me too” medicines, stopped extending patents, and put more resources into reviewing generic drugs—all to increase their availability. They also got tough on new devices.”

We both leaned back against the park bench and looked up into the wild blue yonder.

“Wow,” I said after a minute, shaking my head slowly, not taking my eyes off the white billowing clouds set in the sky, “it sounds like a great place to practice medicine.”

“It truly is,” he nodded, then looked over at me. “But, now you have to get back to the clinic and see your patient.” He grabbed my arm and shook me. I pushed his hand away. He seemed very insistent and shook me more. I looked over at him.

“Dr. Beasley,” he said with a woman’s voice, “please wake up and come back inside. Ms. Jones is waiting to be seen.”

Suddenly, I awoke and looked up at my nurse, who scowled.

“Wait! Where did I go?” I asked with a start, looking behind and underneath the park bench for my older me, as my nurse put her hands on her hips and tapped her toe, impatiently.

Brent W. Beasley, M.D., M.B.A., is a frequent commentary contributor to the Physician Leadership Journal. He is medical director for internal medicine and a professor in the School of Community Medicine at the University of Oklahoma at Tulsa.

https://www.physicianleaders.org…

REFERENCES

1. Daw JR, Sommers BD. Association of the Affordable Care Act Dependent Coverage Provision With Prenatal Care Use and Birth Outcomes. JAMA. 2018;319(6):579-587.

2. Swaminathan S, Sommers BD, Thorsness R, Mehrotra R, Lee Y, Trivedi AN. Association of Medicaid Expansion With 1-Year Mortality Among Patients With End-Stage Renal Disease. JAMA. 2018 Dec 4;320(21):2242-2250.

3. Anderson GF, Reinhardt UE, Hussey PS, Petrosyan V. It’s the prices, stupid: why the United States is so different from other countries. Health Aff (Millwood). 2003 May-Jun;22(3):89-105.

4. Hinton G. Deep Learning—A Technology With the Potential to Transform Health Care. JAMA.2018;320(11):1101–1102.

5. Jha S, Topol EJ. Adapting to Artificial Intelligence: Radiologists and Pathologists as Information Specialists. JAMA.2016;316(22):2353–2354.

We’re doctors, and we’re debunking myths about Medicare for All

By Eve Shapiro, M.D. and Paul Gordon, M.D., M.P.H.
Arizona Daily Star, August 17, 2019

As physicians who have been working on improving our health care system by implementing an improved “Medicare for All,” we are dismayed by the current debate on health care reform, both on the part of the journalists and politicians.

We hope to clear up some of the myths that have been commonly portrayed in the media.

Myth No. 1: Medicare for All will cause Americans to lose their private health insurance coverage.

Fact: yes, but it will be replaced by a comprehensive government-financed (not government-controlled) insurance plan that will cover all Americans and include all physicians.

Your current physician from your private health insurance plan, will be part of the Medicare for All plan. There will be no out-of-pocket costs, no copays, no deductibles, no surprise billing or risk of medical bankruptcy.

After all, what do private insurance companies contribute to health care other than adding to complexity, paying CEOs exorbitant salaries (in the 100s of millions of dollars) and reaping enormous profits? Right now, over 20% of all the money spent on health care goes to these companies, which provide no benefit.

That money could be used to insure the 20 million Americans without health coverage now.

Myth No.2: Taxes will go up.

Yes, Medicare for All will be paid for by a progressive tax and possibly other taxes on the wealthy and financial transactions. For the vast majority of Americans, their costs on health care will drop significantly.

Currently, health insurance costs the average family of four over $12,000 a year from premiums, copays and deductibles.

This will be replaced by an equitable tax based on income and most people will wind up paying far less in new taxes than they are currently paying for all of their healthcare costs.

Myth No. 3: We can’t afford it.

Currently, the U.S. pays more than twice as much as most other developed countries and our health outcomes are worse than theirs. These other countries all have a version of single-payer, and if they have any private insurance, they are closely regulated and must be nonprofit.

In other words, we can’t afford NOT to introduce Medicare for All because our current costs are going to keep rising.

Myth No. 4: It’s too disruptive.

Changes in employment or marital status, reaching age 26, or increased income above eligibility thresholds for Medicaid or exchange subsidies currently disrupt coverage for needed care. Improved Medicare for All is cradle to grave coverage that each of us can afford.

Having no cost at the time of service is important to avoid disruptions. Medicare for All is actually less disruptive.

Myth No. 5: We need to take smaller, safer steps.

Incremental steps, such as a Medicaid or Medicare public option, have been proposed by several of the Democratic candidates.

Yet it is putting a Band-Aid on a dirty, infected wound and won’t solve our health-care problems. For-profit insurance companies collude with the drug and large hospital corporations, creating the current extreme costs for health care and gaps in care that are so prevalent in our country.

If we continue private insurance with the public option, two problems emerge. We won’t get the savings we can get from eliminating private insurance and the private insurance companies will cherry pick the healthier people and the public option will not survive.

The improved Medicare for All legislation includes vision, dental, hearing, mental health and long-term care.

It will eliminate the financial burden of premium, deductibles and copays so nobody would ever have to choose between paying their bills and going to the doctor; medical bankruptcy will be a thing of the past.

Dr. Eve Shapiro is a pediatrician and Dr. Paul Gordon is a family practice physician in Tucson.

https://tucson.com…

Trump Is Scaring Immigrants Away from Healthcare Services to Help the Rich

The new public charge rule was created to isolate working class people from the healthcare benefits they need to survive.

By Adam Gaffney, M.D., M.P.H.
Vice, August 16, 2019

Ana felt that she had to make a choice: obtain desperately-needed health services—like therapy—for her nine-year old daughter with autism, or risk that her family would have to leave the country or be separated, NPR reported last January. As an immigrant living in Texas, Ana feared that seeking more services for her daughter could jeopardize the process of obtaining legal permanent residency status (a “green card”), even though her daughter was a citizen enrolled in Medicaid.

Such fears—well-founded or not—may be growing. On Monday, the Trump administration fanned them when it released a new regulation branding legal immigrants “public charges,” and hence persona non grata, as punishment for using programs like Medicaid or food assistance. The rule also makes wealth a key criterion by which immigrants will be sorted when it comes to determining who can stay, and who must go.

In response, some immigrants will predictably avoid or disenroll from social programs—including healthcare—to which they are entitled. But even immigrants who are not targeted by the rule will invariably be confused and fearful of it, said Leah Zallman, a colleague at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance who studies immigrant health. Like Ana, some will be afraid that even enrolling family members in government programs could jeopardize their immigration status—potentially leading to the separation of their family. And so, Zallman told me, parents “are dis-enrolling kids even when the kids have legal access to these benefits and are not subject to the rule.”

This “chilling effect,” as researchers call it, is a feature of such programs, not a bug. It would be a mistake to see the public charge rule as the consequence of ignorance among administration policymakers, or a failure to read the relevant public health literature. Their obvious purpose—in design if not in word—is redistribution: taking healthcare from low-income families in order to pad the bank accounts of the rich. This was the story of the 2017 Obamacare repeal bills, just as it is the story of Medicaid work requirements, and the public charge rule today.

A few months after the public charge rule was proposed last October, for instance, a study from the Urban Institute found that about a fifth of adults in low-income immigrant families were already avoiding government programs out of fear of sinking their prospects of obtaining legal permanent residency.

One recent study in JAMA Pediatrics, led by Zallman, found that more than eight million children are at risk of losing access to health coverage or food assistance because of the rule. Those at risk include children with serious medical conditions—including hundreds of thousands with asthma and epilepsy. Without treatment, children with asthma can struggle to breathe, miss school, wind up in the ER or hospital—even asphyxiate. Failure to treat epilepsy, in turn, can lead to recurrent, dangerous, life-disrupting seizures. But that is simply a price the administration is willing to pay.

In 1882, in an earlier age of flourishing nativism, Congress passed the first “public charge” exclusion into federal law. However, the “public charge” rule has had a narrow scope in recent years, applying only to those who received cash assistance or public nursing-home care. The Trump administration’s new regulation upends that, casting legal immigrants who use a broad range of services—ranging from food stamps to housing assistance to Medicaid—as undesirables. Such “public charges” can then be denied a change in immigration status, such as issuance of a “green card.”

The new public charge rule hence weaves the administration’s xenophobic agenda into its broader regressive economic agenda. The administration’s head immigration official Ken Cuccinelli defended this draconian approach in an interview on NPR Tuesday by revising the famous quote inscribed on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. “Give me your tired and your poor,” he said, “who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

Not surprisingly, the rule mirrors the administration’s other health policies, such as the Medicaid work requirements championed by CMS administrator Seema Verma. Just like the public rule, Medicaid work requirements are ostensibly designed to reward a good work ethic. But in reality, both mainly serve to confuse working-class people—and squeeze them out of health coverage.

More than 18,000 individuals lost Medicaid coverage after work requirements went into effect in Arkansas last year, even though few were actually targeted by the policy as written. A failure to understand the arcane requirements and exclusions “may explain why thousands of persons lost coverage even though more than 95% of the target population appeared to meet the requirements or qualify for an exemption,” as a recent study in the New England Journal concluded.

The stakes are high, because programs like Medicaid can be a lifeline for working-class families, immigrant and non-immigrant alike. Activist Kristian Hernandez, whose parents both emigrated from Mexico and who today helps guide immigrants applying for asylum through the legal process in Texas, told me how important food and healthcare benefits were for her working-class family growing up: “[W]e wouldn’t have been able to survive otherwise,” she said. Hernandez fears that the rule could keep immigrant families in a similar position from such benefits today.

The public charge rule is cut from the same cloth as the administration’s larger redistributive agenda. Together, these policies are engineered to take healthcare (and other benefits) from the working class—disproportionately immigrants and people of color—so as to benefit the privileged few. It’s class warfare, and the kids with asthma and epilepsy are the collateral damage.

Adam Gaffney is a physician and public health researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance. He serves as president of the advocacy organization, Physicians for a National Health Program.

https://www.vice.com…

AMA bails out of partnership opposed to Medicare for All

AMA drops out of industry coalition opposed to Medicare expansion

By Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn
POLITICO, August 15, 2019

The American Medical Association has quit a coalition that’s led the health industry’s fight against Medicare expansion, the first crack in its opposition to Democratic candidates’ proposals.

The AMA’s logo is no longer visible on the website of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, and multiple individuals with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO that the physicians’ organization decided to drop out after the coalition broadened its opposition last month from “Medicare for All” to more incremental proposals like former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan for a government-run public option. The AMA in June agreed at an annual meeting to study the feasibility of a public option after years of opposition to single-payer health care.

The AMA confirmed its departure. “Missing in the recent debate is an ongoing discussion of practical solutions that will result in more affordable insurance options,” CEO James Madara said in a statement to POLITICO, adding that the association recently laid out proposals to help achieve universal coverage. “The AMA decided to leave the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future so that we can devote more time to advocating for these policies that will address current coverage gaps and dysfunction in our health care system.”

The partnership — comprised of nearly 60 groups, including the American Hospital Association and AHIP — has spent millions of dollars advertising against Democrats’ Medicare expansion ideas and is currently running a messaging campaign against Biden’s public option proposal.

The AMA was among the partnership’s founding members in spring 2018. Several other member organizations affirmed that they will remain part of the industry coalition, blaming the AMA’s departure on internal dissension between younger doctors who support Democrats’ proposals and older physicians who remain wary of expanding government-run coverage.

https://www.politico.com…

Comment:

By PNHP President Adam Gaffney, M.D., M.P.H.

Yesterday, the American Medical Association announced that it is leaving the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a coalition of private insurance, pharmaceutical, and for-profit hospital companies whose sole purpose is to fight single-payer Medicare for All.

This is a big victory for single-payer supporters. In June, a coalition of doctors, nurses, students, seniors, and disability rights advocates descended on the AMA annual meeting in Chicago. We held a lively march and rally in the streets outside the meeting, while a group of activists launched a surprise “die-in” in the middle of the conference proceedings. Our demands to the AMA were clear: Leave the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future and drop your opposition to single payer.

While the AMA voted to maintain its anti-single payer policy, the razor-thin margin — 53% to 47% — stunned observers. And today we celebrate our second victory: The AMA’s resignation from this shameful campaign against health care justice.

I’m grateful to everyone who participated in this campaign, especially the SNaHP students (Students for a National Health Program) who originally conceived of the action. It was truly a team effort, from those of you who marched with me in Chicago, organized your fellow activists to attend, wrote letters and op-eds, talked to news reporters, and shared the #AMAGetOutTheWay campaign on social media.

As our movement grows, the industry is going to fight even harder against improved Medicare for All. We must be prepared, and we must continue to push the AMA to build on this first step by not only dropping its opposition to single payer, but by fully supporting improved Medicare for All.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.