Social factors, like access to healthy food, stable housing, a steady income, and reliable transportation, may have more to do with a sick person getting well than anything that a health plan, doctor, or hospital can do. That’s been well documented by numerous studies and the likes of the World Health…
Eliminating the cost-sharing payments (CSRs) to insurers to hold down out-of-pocket costs for low-income people who purchase individual health plans may wind up actually increasing overall federal spending by driving up premium subsidies to cover higher price plans.
Shards of a bipartisan effort to stabilize the individual health insurance markets emerged. They focused mostly on resurrecting the ACA cost-reduction payments and giving states flexibility to come up with their own ideas, like reinsurance, for shoring up the troubled individual market.
State tort reforms have all but relegated the malpractice crisis to the history books. But there’s good news for those of you into all things retro: The House of Representatives just voted to fix the malpractice crisis by a 222–197 margin.
States are facing unsustainable health care costs, and prescription drugs for Medicaid beneficiaries and state employees are the reason. From 2009 to 2013, the consumer price index (CPI) for prescription drugs increased about 11% vs. 8% for the overall CPI.
This is not meant to be “the 10 most important” people in health care policy. It’s a sample from a larger group, and a different group of 10 might have been selected and would have been just as worthy—kind of like admission to a selective college.
