Health Affairs This Week

Last week, it was reported that President Joe Biden is considering Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration . The appointment, which has yet to been made official, comes as a mid-November deadline to appoint an FDA Commissioner looms. Currently, the acting commissioner for the agency is Janet Woodcock. On Health Affairs This Week , Senior Editors Jessica Bylander and Chris Fleming di...

The downstream effects of exclusionary, low-density residential zoning on health and health equity should make scholars and policy makers focus on reforming zoning to make housing more plentiful and affordable in healthy neighborhoods. Michael Lens, associate professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy and associate faculty director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the Universi...

In October, Health Affairs published an issue dedicated to perinatal mental health . There has long been an awareness of the harm associated with perinatal depression and mood disorders. Perinatal depression and mood disorders occur in the context of social, economic, and other health conditions that affect the well-being of birthing people, families, and communities. Prevention, screening, and tr...

This week was a busy week on Capitol Hill but on today's episode of Health Affairs This Week , Senior Editors Leslie Erdelack and Jessica Bylander look into recent pharmaceutical and drug pricing news. In one story, Walgreens is investing more into hospital specialty pharmacies to broaden their reach. “Today, around 25 percent of hospitals in the US have an in-house specialty pharmacy—that’s up fr...

Child birth in the US is expensive. One of the largest payers for childbirth in the US is Medicaid, covering 43% of US births in 2018. New mothers with pregnancy-related insurance coverage via Medicaid can lose their insurance coverage 60 days after the birth of their child. But policy makers are looking to change that and expand postpartum Medicaid coverage. Join Health Affairs Senior Editor Jess...

Earlier this week, the White House released its " path out of the pandemic ," which notes the FDA is currently evaluating a COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of 12. A major pillar in the plan is to reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans by using regulatory powers to increase Americans covered by vaccination requirements. For example, the plan requires that all employers with more th...

In January 2021, Health Affairs posted an announcement regarding its new Health Equity Project . Since then, Health Affairs has been ramping up its efforts to advance equity in scholarly publishing and health services research. Last month, the organization announced the members of the Health Affairs' Health Equity Advisory Board . This week, the Health Affairs Blog published a cluster of blogs rel...

This week in Health Affairs Today , Georgetown University faculty member and Health Affairs Contributing Editor Katie Keith shared her "back-to-school" reading list with subscribers. In part to talk about her reading picks for the future health policy leaders of tomorrow, Katie joins Health Affairs Senior Editor Chris Fleming on Health Affairs This Week. In addition to teasing out a virtual Health...

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Pfizer full approval for its COVID-19 vaccine . Schools around the country also started to reopen for the 2021-2022 school year. With schools reopening and the Delta variant of COVID-19 flaring up across the US, many are bringing up the pros and cons of mask mandates in schools in addition to COVID-19 vaccine access to young children. In to...

This week, the Biden administration updated its Thrifty Food Plan, which is used to calculate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The analysis led to an increase in the average SNAP benefit which is set to increase in October. The cost adjustment, according to the Biden administration, is the first update since the plan was first introduced in 1975. Food insecurity is a big...

This week, the US Senate approved the sweeping Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan . The bill includes a $39 billion investment in public transit to report aging infrastructure across the US. Public transportation in the US is an important aspect of American Life, including health care. Health Affairs recently published a Health Policy Brief on the connection between public transportation and health ....

Last week, President Joe Biden and his administration released more detail on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act . While a lot of focus has been given to provisions, such as the $66 billion investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak 50 years ago, there are many areas which will affect the health care sector. Health Affairs' Senior Editors Ellen Bayer and Chris Fle...

This week has seen considerable movement in the effort to curb the COVID-19 pandemic from the federal level. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its mask guidance, recommending that fully vaccinated individuals wear mask indoors in areas with high COVID-19 transmission rates to reduce the spread of COVID-19. At the time of this recording on Thursday July 29, 20...

In July, Health Affairs published an issue dedicated to borders, immigrants, and health .   A public health crisis is unfolding along and inside the US-Mexico border. Immigrants arriving at the US border are likely to have experienced political, economic, or interpersonal violence prior to their arrival, leading to unmet mental health and physical health needs. Immigrants detained at the border ma...

Last week, the Biden Administration unveiled a sweeping executive order , focused on promoting competition in the US economy. With Lina Khan as the new chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission, the administration is looking to increase its antitrust focus and potentially break up monopolies. The new executive order contains 72 provisions, giving direction to multiple agencies on sectors such as...

Last week, the Biden administration issued an interim final rule to implement critical components of the No Surprises Act (NSA). Building on the Affordable Care Act, the NSA includes new patient protections against surprise medical bills. About one in five insured adults had an unexpected medical bill from an out-of-network provide r, according to a 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey. A study re...

President Joe Biden has been making negotiations to get his massive infrastructure plan over the finish line. Some funding related to health care that was originally in the plan ended up on the cutting room floor. In particular, $400 billion in federal Medicaid funding for home and community-based long term care services were removed from the plan. The earmarked funds for Medicaid still could be p...

Tech giants like Apple and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have been trying to push into health care for some time now. But pursuing health care as a business is hard. Recent news of Google reorganizing its health team and Apple struggling to create primary care services illuminate how difficult it can be for companies - even those with deep pockets and resources - to break into the health...

June is shaping to be a busy month in the health policy space. Two major events happened this week alone. First, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) survived its latest legal challenge in the Supreme Court. After facing many court challenges, the 2010 policy is still the law of the land. Also, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) sent a report to Congress on Tuesday making many recommendati...

This week, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm (aducanumab) to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease using an accelerated approval pathway. The drug was approved on June 7, 2021, and the decision was quick to spark controversy. At least two members of a panel of outside advisors to the FDA from Mayo Clinic and Washington University resigned in protest over the drug's approval. C...

President Joe Biden included the public health insurance option, commonly referred to as the "public option," as a major pillar of his health care platform during the 2020 presidential campaign. To date, the public option hasn't been included in the discourse for the Biden administration. Instead the administration has focused on supporting the Affordable Care Act, among other agenda items. Now st...

Last week, Representative Katie Porter took AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez to task on drug pricing during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. Porter highlighted the CEO's high salary while pointing to increases in drug prices in the pharmaceutical industry. The narrative casts pharmaceutical companies as villains but it's more complicated than that. It's true that pharmaceutical companies...

Last week, the CDC updated its guidance on mask-wearing in public for individuals that are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The agency stated, " if you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic. " That means fully vaccinated individuals can wear masks indoors or outdoors if they choose to. Unsurprisingly, this guidance was met with controversy. Some criti...

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the telehealth landscape. Many physicians and patients had their first experience with a telehealth visit as lockdown measures limited in-person physician offices. Many questions remain whether the telehealth explosion is a flash-in-the-pan success or if it will have long-lasting changes in patient visit behaviors. Health Affairs ' Chris Fleming and Rob Lott join Hea...

Last month, the Biden administration unveiled the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which includes $45 billion to enrich federal nutrition programs for families and children . The plan builds on the expansion of the Pandemic-EBT program from March 2021 . Research has shown that summer EBT programs decrease food insecurity among children  but some children have yet to benefit from the COVID-19...