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The Connection: Immigrant Women in the U.S. and Access to Care; What’s on Tap for Health Reform in the 2020 Election; and More

The Commonwealth Fund Connection What's New

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Immigrant Women in the U.S. Face Challenges Accessing Care

A new Commonwealth Fund report by researchers with the Guttmacher Institute finds that immigrant women — including those lawfully present and those undocumented — are less likely to have health insurance coverage and less likely to receive sexual and reproductive health services than U.S.-born women are.

Authors Kinsey Hasstedt, Sheila Desai, and Zohra Ansari-Thomas say that by expanding eligibility for coverage and shoring up the nation's health care safety net — which seven of 10 immigrant women rely on for their usual source of care — policymakers can help ensure all women, regardless of immigration status, have access to the range of health services they need.

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How Will ‘Public Charge’ Rule Affect Immigrants’ Care and the Safety Net?

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a rule that could make it more difficult for legal immigrants to get health care. Under the change, immigrants enrolled in Medicaid would be considered “public charges” — potentially creating difficulties for individuals who apply to extend their stay, change their visa status, or secure a green card. Manatt Health’s Allison Orris, April Grady, and Cindy Mann report on To the Point that by disrupting coverage for millions of people, the public-charge rule would also reduce Medicaid support for health care providers and drive up uncompensated care costs.

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Some health systems are making efforts to identify implicit bias and structural racism in their organizations, and developing customized approaches to engaging and supporting patients to ameliorate their effects. We profiled a few here.

Commonwealthfnd https://buff.ly/2RU5jBq Health Reform 2020

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What’s on Tap for Health Reform in the 2020 Election?

In the new issue of Health Affairs, national experts weigh in on the likely contours of Republican and Democratic health care proposals ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Will it be all about single payer and repeal-and-replace? Or is there room for something in between?

  • Getting Ready for Health Reform 2020: Republicans' Options for Improving Upon the State Innovation Approach, Lanhee J. Chen, Hoover Institution
  • How Democratic Candidates for the Presidency in 2020 Could Choose Among Public Health Insurance Plans, Sherry A. Glied, New York University, and Jeanne M. Lambrew, Century Foundation

Also see a new Commonwealth Fund report by Meena Seshamani of Georgetown University and Aditi P. Sen of Johns Hopkins University on ways to incorporate health care payment and delivery system reforms into both Democratic and Republican proposals.

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Medicare and Medicaid

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SUPPORT Act to Fight Opioid Crisis Underfunds Medicaid

The recently enacted opioid legislation is an important step in ending the nationwide epidemic. But as Manatt Health’s Cindy Mann and Jocelyn Guyer report, the law contains no major new Medicaid funding to expand addiction treatment.

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Health Insurance Coverage and Access

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How States Are Protecting Consumers in Response to New Association Health Plan Standards

In new post on To the Point, Kevin Lucia and colleagues at Georgetown University's Center for Health Insurance Reforms explain that a new federal rule forges a pathway to creating association health plans and skirting many Affordable Care Act protections. The authors review the steps states are taking to protect consumers, health providers, and markets.

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What Makes Health Insurance Competition Thrive?

What explains the wide differences in the number of insurance carriers participating in health insurance marketplaces across states, and why do some marketplaces perform better than others? Jon Gabel, Heidi Whitmore, and colleagues examine the key factors in a new Commonwealth Fund report.

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Prescription Drug Prices

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Lessons from Past Efforts to Lower Part B Drug Prices

On To the Point, Kristi Martin and Jeremy Sharp of Waxman Strategies tell the story of the Competitive Acquisition Program, which Congress established in 2003 — and shelved in 2008 — to test an alternative to physician negotiation of Part B drug prices. What lessons can be learned from that program? And does the administration's new proposal address the issues that arose in the first attempt?

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Q&A: What’s Driving Drug Prices?

To get a clearer picture of what’s driving prescription drug spending both in the United States and abroad, researcher Steven Morgan of the University of British Columbia analyzed market research and sales data from 11 countries (“An Analysis of Expenditures on Primary Care Prescription Drugs in the United States Versus Ten Comparable Countries,” Health Policy, Sept. 2018).

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Delivery System Reform

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What Obstacles Do Primary Care Physicians Face When Caring for Low-Income Patients?

In the first post in our series "Listening to Primary Care Physicians for Low-Income Patients," the Commonwealth Fund's Corinne Lewis and Melinda Abrams draw on focus-group findings to describe the barriers primary care physicians encounter in serving their low-income patients: insufficient time, administrative hassles, and low reimbursement rates, among others.

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The Dose, Episode 6: Learning from Other Health Systems

In the latest episode of The Dose podcast, Shanoor Seervai talks to Eric Schneider, M.D., the Commonwealth Fund’s senior vice president for policy and research, about the challenges facing U.S. health care, from excessive red tape to sky-high costs. Drawing on examples from around the world, Schneider explains how other countries keep people healthy at much lower cost.

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Tools for Meeting Patients’ Needs Beyond Medical Care

In a new To the Point post, the Commonwealth Fund's Corinne Lewis and Martha Hostetter describe a suite of tools designed to help health care professionals develop sustainable approaches for meeting patients' nonmedical needs, including a guide for making the business case, an ROI calculator, and a social needs roadmap.

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Being Seriously Ill in the U.S.: Financial and Health Care Impacts

What is it like to be sick in America today? People with serious illnesses shared their experiences in a recent survey by the New York Times, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Harvard T.S. Chan School of Public Health. In a live webinar on Wednesday, December 5, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., E.T., a panel of experts will unpack the findings from the "Health Care in America" survey and explore practical ways in which health systems can better help Americans dealing with a medical crisis.

Participating experts include: Toyin Ajayi, M.D., Chief Health Officer and Co-Founder, Cityblock; Robert Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School; Eric Schneider, M.D., Senior Vice President for Policy and Research, The Commonwealth Fund; and Robert Master, M.D., Founder and Former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Care Alliance. Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times will moderate.

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Centennial Celebration

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Celebrating Minority Health Fellows

Since 1996, the Commonwealth Fund has offered a yearlong fellowship to physicians committed to transforming health care delivery systems for vulnerable populations, including people of color and economically disadvantaged groups. As part of our centennial celebration, we interviewed two alumni about how the fellowship shaped their careers: 2000–01 fellow Seiji Hayashi, M.D., M.P.H., director of medicine at the Human Diagnosis Project, and 2010–11 fellow Kamillah Wood, M.D., M.P.H., senior vice president of health and housing at Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future.

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Announcements

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Two Senior Positions Open at the Commonwealth Fund

The Commonwealth Fund is seeking strong candidates for two open positions: Assistant Vice President, Administration, and Vice President, Outreach and Strategy. The Assistant Vice President, Administration, will provide overall direction for human resources and building management. Based in New York City, the individual will have oversight for recruitment, benefits, and training as well as responsibility for maintaining Harkness House, a turn-of-the century townhouse, as a landmark building and functional work environment. The Vice President, Outreach and Strategy, is a member of the Communications Department leadership team. Also based in New York City, this individual will have responsibility for planning and executing the Commonwealth Fund's dissemination activities. These include: traditional media relations, strategic communications planning, social media integration, strategic positioning, staff media training, and more. 

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The Connection: Immigrant Women in the U.S. and Access to Care; What’s on Tap for Health Reform in the 2020 Election; and More