State News

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) received federal approval for a 10-year extension through September 2030 for its Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Section 1115 demonstration waiver, according to The Texas Tribune. The federal funding agreement reimburses hospitals for the uncompensated care they provide to patients without health insurance. It also pays for innovative healthcare projects that serve low-income earners in Texas, often for mental health services.

The Pennsylvania Interagency Health Reform Council (IHRC) released recommendations to reduce costs, decrease disparities and improve healthcare delivery, reports the Pennsylvania Pressroom. The IHRC’s recommendations include creating a health value commission to institute healthcare cost benchmarking, developing regional accountable health councils to address health equity, integrating social services into healthcare delivery, making data dashboards public to drive quality improvement and leveraging state purchasing power. The IHRC will support legislative action related to these recommendations, continue to facilitate inter-agency coordination and track progress on the recommendations. 

Oregon health officials and lawmakers are seeking the legislature's approval on formal report describing a cost-growth-capping program that would hold insurers and large and medium-sized medical practices to annual per-patient cost growth caps, require formal justification if they exceed the cap, and potentially fine them if they exceed the cap, according to The Lund Report. Oregon would be the fifth state to adopt a cost growth target program. The Sustainable Health Care Cost Growth Target Implementation Committee hopes to address the root causes of healthcare cost growth, however, there is worry that some providers and insurers, anxious to come in under the cap, may try to cut the quality or volume of care.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that a collaboration of federal agencies will supply $6.5 million in funding over three years to evaluate the broadband capacity of healthcare providers and patients in the hopes of improving access to telehealth services, according to State of Reform. The initiative will focus on four states – Alaska, Texas, Michigan, and West Virginia – and is targeted specifically to rural areas. Funding for this effort will support the measurement of bandwidth and the quality of connectivity in target communities, and additional funding will be needed to address the needs identified.

Several of Utah’s healthcare leaders have declared racism a public health crisis and developed a plan to eliminate it, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. Several of Utah’s large healthcare providers have committed to providing educational programs, services and personal protective equipment (PPE) to marginalized communities and creating avenues for hiring people of color in healthcare careers. The leaders noted several health inequities that people of color in Utah experience, especially from COVID-19, and their desire to achieve equitable healthcare for all Utahns.

Racial and ethnic disparities are costing Texas $2.7 billion in excess medical care spending annually, $5 billion in lost productivity annually and $22.6 billion in life years lost, according to a new report from Altarum. In Texas, as is the case with the rest of the country, social determinants of health, including access to healthcare, vary considerably by race and ethnicity. Not surprisingly, there are also large disparities in health status, disease prevalence and premature death by race and ethnicity. In weighing the value of investments to improve health, it is important to understand that disparities in health impose a substantial human cost and a significant economic burden to the Texas economy. The authors assert that economic burden numbers will increase by 22 percent as the Texas population grows larger and more diverse.

A U.S. District Court judge in the Eastern District of California upheld the state’s drug price transparency law, challenged by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), reports NASHP. The law requires manufacturers to report and provide information about certain drug price increases and give 60-day advance notice of drug price increases if the list price is more than $40  and if the price increased more than 16 percent over the past two years. The ruling is a legal victory for states working to curb drug prices following the Supreme Court’s December 2020 decision to uphold an Arkansas law regulating pharmacy benefit managers.

Maryland’s global budget payment model reduced expenditures by more than $20 per month per beneficiary compared to a control group, according to a study Health Affairs. Maryland’s global budget payment model, originally piloted with eight rural hospitals, had no significant differences in service use or spending by Medicare beneficiaries. However, when the state expanded the model to all hospitals, Medicare expenditures decreased by more than $25 per month per beneficiary more than the control group during the first three years of the program, saving Medicare approximately $679 million. Maryland’s global budget payment model can serve as a model for other states considering value-based purchasing models.

A caregiver from Del City lost both her employment and medical coverage after a major stroke left her unable to work, leaving her completely without coverage when she later suffered a second stroke, according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Despite qualifying for a hospital program that provides medical assistance to uninsured individuals, the woman was unable to afford her medications. Her son, who suffers from diabetes, scaled back on his own medications to pay for his mothers’ and has suffered health consequences as a result. A patchwork of community-based programs has helped, but the services are time-limited and provide only a temporary solution. More permanent supports are needed to help Oklahoma residents afford needed care.