Archive for February, 2018

It’s The Zip Code, Stupid!

Monday, February 26th, 2018

“Sixty-percent of life expectancy, which has gone down two years in a row, is determined by where you live, 30% by your genetic code and 10% by the clinical care you get. Zip code matters more than genetic code.”

That was the sobering message delivered by AETNA CEO Mark Bertolini during an interview on CBS this morning. And he’s right. A May 2017 study from JAMA Internal Medicine concluded that geography is the biggest X-Factor in today’s American Hellzapoppin version of health care. The study analyzed every US county using data from deidentified death records from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and population counts from the US Census Bureau, NCHS, and the Human Mortality Databas and found striking differences in life expectancy. The gap between counties from lowest to highest life expectancy at birth was 20.1 years.

And, surpirse, surprise, it turns out if you live in a wealthy county with excellent access to high level health care, like Summit County, Colorado (life expectancy: 86.83), you’re likely to live about 15 years longer than if you live, say, in Humphries County, Mississippi, where life expectancy at birth is 71.9 years.  So, yes, Zip Code matters. According to the study:

In this population-based analysis, inequalities in life expectancy among counties are large and growing, and much of the variation in life expectancy can be explained by differences in socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors.

On the whole, though, US life expectancy at birth increased by 5.3 years for both men and women — from 73.8 years to 79.1 years — between 1980 and 2014. But the county-by-county magnitude of the increase was determined by where one lives. That is, wealthy counties showed significantly greater increases in life expectancy than poor counties.

What is even more alarming is that some counties have experienced declines in life expectancy since 1980.

The JAMA study is another view from a different angle of inequality in America. According to Bertolini, CVS’s pending acquisition of AETNA, the third largest health insurer in the nation, will be a positive step in leveling the health care field when fully rolled out. He believes CVS’s 10,000 stores will evolve into much more than the Minute Clinics a lot of them are now. Time will tell, but CVS may be on to something here. In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Ezekiel Emanuel pointed out that since 1981:

The population has increased by 40 percent, but hospitalizations have decreased by more than 10 percent. There is now a lower rate of hospitalizations than in 1946. As a result, the number of hospitals has declined to 5,534 this year from 6,933 in 1981.

People are apparently trying their mightiest to get health care anywhere except a hospital. According to Ezekiel, hospitals now seem less therapeutic; more life-threatening. Also, and this is where CVS is heading, complex care can now be provided somewhere else.

Another red flag from Mark Bertolini’s CBS interview was his reference to life expectancy dropping two years in a row. He’s right about that, too. In 2015 and 2016, life expectancy declined by a statistically significant 0.2 and 0.1 years, respectively.¹ Until now, life expectancy in America hadn’t declined since 1993.

All this is happening while our modern-day Tower of Babel – the US government – remains unwilling, unable, or both, to do anything constructive to improve the situation. Our more than 30-year health care train wreck needs serious attention, not partisan bloviation. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, ” That is a situation up with which we must no longer put.”

The men and women of Humphries County deserve nothing less.

 

¹ 2015’s drop was originally put at 0.1 year by the CDC, but was revised to 0.2 years after Medicare data were re-evaluated.

Going for the gold: An Olympic edition of Health Wonk Review

Friday, February 16th, 2018

Steve Anderson has posted the Health Wonk Review for February 15, 2018: Going for the Gold Edition at HealthInsurance.org blog. It’s an entertaining and wide-ranging smorgasbord of health policy topics of the day.

Here are a few of the topics d’jour:

  • Amazon/Bershire Hathaway/PMorgan’s foray into healthcare
  • Unexpected ER bills
  • CMS attack on freedom of the press
  • Predictions about Alex Azar, newly appointed HHS Secretary
  • The ACA
  • Peruvian healthcare
  • A different kind of hospital coverage
  • A recap of Health Action 2018, Families USA’s annual meet for healthcare activists.

If you aren’t familiar with healthinsurance.org, you should be. Check out the impressive roster of contributing authors and the excellent state health guides.

And just a heads up: In 2018, Health Wonks are on a once-per month schedule so catch this issue – you won’t have a chance for more wonkery until March.

Who’d A Thunk It? Something Good Out Of DC!

Monday, February 12th, 2018

Watching our legislators doing their thing in the nation’s capital, one can be forgiven for thinking Vlad the Impaler could learn a thing or two from these folks. But last Friday, in a rare Washington Kumbaya moment, peace broke out and the Bipartisan Budget Act zipped into law with the speed of an Olympic skater, Rand Paul notwithstanding.

The newly minted budget act has pork for everyone, but the pork I like is one little section that won’t get much press coverage, because it benefits poor people who are aging and sick: America’s Dual Eligibles. Duals are those among us who, by virtue of their age, health status and poverty are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The new budget act permanently re-authorizes Special Needs Plans aimed at caring for Duals.

Under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) [Pub. L. 108-173), Congress created a new type of Medicare Advantage coordinated care plan focused on individuals with special needs. “Special needs individuals” were identified by Congress as: 1) institutionalized beneficiaries; 2) dually eligible; and/or 3) beneficiaries with severe or disabling chronic conditions. The MMA allowed for the creation of “Special Needs Plans” for these populations. For example, to accommodate the new legislation, my state, Massachusetts, created the Senior Care Option health plan, which “covers all of the services normally paid for through Medicare and MassHealth (Medicaid).”

Medicare, because of the aging of the Baby Boomers, and Medicaid, because of increasing poverty and state expansion through the Affordable Care Act, have grown significantly since 2010, making Special Needs Plans more and more important. Trouble was, Congress had to re-authorize the plans every few years. That concern is now in the past. The Bipartisan Budget Act, with its permanent re-authorization of Special Needs plans makes sure the safety net created by the plans is solid, secure and long-lasting.

The new budget act also re-authorizes the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) for another ten years, something that has long had bipartisan support.

Finally, this Congress has done something that will benefit our most vulnerable citizens. Let’s hope it’s not a one-off.