We mainly discussed Robertson’s new book with past TWIHL guest Aaron Kesselheim, Blinding as a Solution to Bias: Strengthening Biomedical Science, Forensic Science, and Law. The book is a tour de force collection of approaches to improving our knowledge of optimal medical, legal, and forensic practices.
We also discussed some of Robertson’s recent contributions to insurance law and policy, including Scaling Cost-Sharing to Wages: How Employers Can Reduce Health Spending and Provide Greater Economic Security, as well as A Randomized Experiment of the Split Benefit Health Insurance Reform to Reduce High-Cost, Low-Value Consumption. The latter work, combined with Episode 47’s discussion with Mark Hall about employer-based exchanges, may well signal a gradual transition toward defined contribution (rather than defined benefit) health insurance plans.
I love the Little Sisters of the Poor. As an undergraduate student, I fulfilled my public health program’s service requirements by volunteering at their nursing home in St. Louis. Each week, I would drive from my pristine, Jesuit college campus to the neglected part of the city. The sisters’ home was on an abandoned block without a street sign. The sister’s “neighbors” were a few burnt-out homes and mostly over-grown lots.
Inside, the nuns housed and loved the most vulnerable. I volunteered on the floor with residents suffering from dementia. I remember one nun in particular, Sister Isabella, who had given her entire life to caring for our elderly poor. Every hour or so, Sister Isabella would greet one resident who could no longer speak audibly nor open her eyes. Sister Isabella would hug her, sing to her, and often take her outside to feel the sunshine. This, in addition, to cleaning up after the residents, leading prayer before meals, and ensuring each resident got out of his or her bed each day.
Sister Isabella—and the Little Sisters in general—have remained imprinted in my memory. They have been a tremendous example to follow. When the rest of society, many Catholic churches included, had given up on the “least of our brothers and sisters,” the Little Sisters quietly went about doing the work of God. My admiration for them has made the recent Supreme Court case—and the battle over the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage—all the more difficult. Read More
This is a golden age for access to healthcare in America. In 2015, over 90% of Americans had health coverage, the highest insurance ratein the 50 years the federal government has collected insurance data. This astonishing progress is due in large part to the Affordable Care Act (ACA): President Obama recently announced that 20 million people are covered thanks to the ACA. The victory is bittersweet, however: had the ACA been implemented as designed, an additional three million people would have insurance today. This is the story of the “coverage gap,” a crack in the ACA created by the Supreme Court and left unrepaired in nineteen states. A crack so wide that three million low-income people have fallen through it.
The ACA, as originally passed, aimed to increase access to health coverage in two main ways. First, the Act expanded Medicaid, the public health plan for people with low income. Previously, most states had limited Medicaid eligibility to specific groups like children and pregnant women. The ACA enlarged and standardized the Medicaid program to cover all people who earn up to 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The federal government picks up 90% of the cost of healthcare services for newly eligible beneficiaries, whereas costs in traditional Medicaid are split closer to 50-50.
Second, the ACA established the health insurance “exchanges,” portals in each state where consumers can shop for standardized plans that aren’t tied to a particular employer. Federal tax credits are available to subsidize exchange coverage for those earning 100 to 400% of the FPL. Read More
The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy will foster development of improved models of care for individuals with serious advanced illness nearing end-of-life, through interdisciplinary analysis of important health law and policy issues.
March 28, 2016 – The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) today announced a new collaboration, The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy.
This initiative is prompted by the fact that current health law policy and regulation, developed largely in a fee-for service environment with siloed providers, creates barriers that may impede widespread adoption of improved models of care for those with advanced illness. The Project will seek to address this problem through policy and research projects that will identify and analyze these barriers, and propose policy solutions that promote development and growth of successful programs. This may entail developing proposed regulatory approaches for the advanced care delivery model that could be adopted by policymakers at the state and federal levels, as well as exploration of potential payment methodologies for this model of care. Read More