State News

Kansas policies leave patients vulnerable to high medical bills, according to KCUR. Based on the Medical Debt Policy Scorecard, Kansas has limited policies reducing how often people incur medical debts and zero policies increasing patients’ ability to resolve debt out of court. The researchers suggest that Kansas can improve protections by requiring hospitals to tell patients about charity care and preventing hospitals from sending bills to collection agencies while patients are still negotiating amounts or making incremental payments, among many other strategies.

The Kentucky governor announced the state’s efforts to establish counties as “Recovery Ready Communities,” to provide high-quality recovery programs across Kentucky, reports Spectrum News 1. Cities and counties can apply for certification upon offering transportation, support groups and employment services at no cost for people seeking treatment for drug or alcohol addiction. Kentucky’s Office of Drug Control Policy and other community partners, including Volunteers of America, is launching the certification program.

A report from the Office of Health Strategy and the Office of the State Comptroller focuses on the Connecticut Healthcare Affordability Index (CHAI), which measures the impact of policy models on Connecticut families’ ability to make ends meet. The findings measured the impacts of the cost of basic needs, income inadequacy rates and affordable healthcare rates by using the following policy models: American Rescue Plan (ARPA) Premium Tax Credit, Covered Connecticut and the Cost Growth Benchmark. The model estimates that if the temporary ARPA provision was available in 2019, nearly 31,000 additional households would have had affordable healthcare. It also estimates that expanding eligibility of the Covered Connecticut Program helped more than 17,000 additional households attain affordable coverage. Finally, by tying the rate of hospital spending growth to the cost growth benchmark, the model estimates that 14,000 additional households would attain affordable healthcare.

Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that extends continuous coverage for individuals without a source of income and lowers the eligibility age for undocumented immigrants from 55 to 42, reports mystateline.com. The new laws authorize the state to seek federal approval to allow individuals without a source of income at the time of their medical benefits redetermination to be considered for renewal. The package also expands coverage for midwifery services by adding certified professional midwives to the program.

A recent survey found that roughly one in four California respondents enrolled in individual market plans experienced difficulty affording premiums, out-of-pocket costs and delaying or avoiding care due to cost, according to California Health Care Foundation. Notably, enrollees with poor health status and chronic conditions more frequently reported difficulty affording plans and delaying/going without care. The survey also found that 28 percent of respondents cut necessities or borrowed money due to healthcare costs.

Arkansas's attorney general on Wednesday accused drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers of colluding to drive up the price of insulin drugs, the latest in a series of lawsuits to take aim at skyrocketing costs for the life-sustaining medicine, reports Reuters. The lawsuit targets three drugmakers who produce the vast majority of the insulin drugs sold in the U.S. and three of the leading pharmacy benefit managers. Arkansas’ Attorney General stated that 50,000 Arkansans with diabetes were uninsured and that many had been forced to ration insulin because of the high cost.

Indiana hosted a National Hospital Price Transparency Conference discussing the state’s high hospital costs, where researchers discussed the impacts of consolidation and monopolies’ ability to increase prices, according to Wane 15. During the conference, the Employers’ Forum of Indiana unveiled a new dashboard to score healthcare systems on price and quality, which showed that Indiana has the seventh highest costs in the nation, relative to Medicare, without necessarily providing higher quality care. These tools are intended to help healthcare purchasers, such as private insurers, more aggressively negotiate rates with hospitals.

Georgia has passed legislation requiring insurance plans that cover diagnostic examinations for breast cancer to treat cost-sharing requirements the same as annual mammograms, according to AllOnGeorgia. The law is intended to increase access to life-savings health exams and increase the likelihood of early detection of breast cancer. In the same session, Georgia also passed HB 1041, which raises the cap on income tax credits for contributions to rural hospitals to $75 million per year in order to improve the financial solvency of the rural hospitals.

In Connecticut, two health systems are on the brink of owning more than half of the 27 hospitals in the state, reports the CT Mirror. In 2000, the state had 23 independent hospitals, but now it just has 6. Residents of Windham say that when their hospital was acquired by Hartford HealthCare, they were told they would get new services and highly trained specialists. But soon after, the critical care unit was converted to progressive care, which can’t handle the same complexity of care. Now, the health system is moving forward with plans to close the hospital’s labor and delivery unit, which is directly contradictory to promises made to the community. Cuts such as these have devastating impact on the state’s rural labor and delivery landscape.