Stephen Zuckerman’s Tweets

Hospices have become big business for private equity firms, raising concerns about end-of-life care

Mark Miller

@MarkMiller_DC

Jul 27

Hospices have become big business for private equity firms, raising concerns about end-of-life care

fortune.com

The number of hospice agencies owned by private equity firms rose from 106 in 2011 to 409 in 2019, raising concerns about quality.

1

8

13

Some people skip preventive services if they require cost sharing. Since the ACA eliminated preventive services cost sharing in 2010, research shows increases in blood pressure, cholesterol, and colorectal cancer screenings as well as flu and HPV vaccines.

Quote Tweet

Urban Institute

· Jul 26

Analysis: Overturning the ACA's preventive services requirement could reduce access to life-saving care for the 167.5 million Americans covered under ACA-compliant private health plans urbn.is/3zxYw84

table showing key preventative services covered without cost sharing under the ACA by population: children, adult women, adult men

read image description

ALT

1

3

Rep. Bobby Scott

@BobbyScott

Jul 20

Even still, families are still struggling to put food on the table.

Many Families Are Struggling to Put Food on the Table. We Have to Do More.

"Risking the well-being of any child is risking the prospects for our collective future."

2

3

9

New

study shows Hispanic/Latinx and Black workers are less likely to have access to paid leave than white workers (58 percent, 67 percent, and 72 percent, respectively).

Quote Tweet

Urban Institute

· Jul 14

Among the findings: Access to paid leave for the birth or adoption of a new child is limited & poorly targeted, with women ages 18-34 reporting the lowest rates of access (45%). (via @ChantelBoyens, @JSmalligan, M. Karpman) urbn.is/3uQBPcK

1

2

Jul 7

If ARPA subsidies expire,

estimates 3.1M Americans would lose their health insurance coverage. urban.org/research/publi

Quote Tweet

The Wall Street Journal

@WSJ

· Jul 7

Heard on the Street: Premiums for Obamacare health insurance plans mostly declined this year, but are set to rise sharply as subsidies expire in December on.wsj.com/3yjNYI8

11

7

Topics to follow

Sign up to get Tweets about the Topics you follow in your Home timeline.

Carousel

Saw

last night. Great show but 5 of 11 cast members were out. The understudies were fine but this doesn’t seem right. BTW, friends saw the show tonight and again 5 of 11 were out. No announcements about #Covid. What’s up?

1

Jun 16

Great reporting on a critical story by

@KHNews

'

@NoamLevey

. New research from my

colleagues

and

underpins the findings on county-level variation in the burden of medial debt. urban.org/sites/default/

Quote Tweet

Kaiser Health News

@KHNews

· Jun 16

Over 100 million people in America ― including 41% of adults ― are plagued by a health care system that is systematically pushing patients into debt on a mass scale. KHN-@NPR are sharing their stories in a new investigative series #DiagnosisDebt. khn.org/news/article/d

5

6

’s Brian Smedley revisits the IOM Unequal Treatment report and shows that “medical apartheid” persists because little progress has been made in the past 20 years.

2

4

Jun 6

Beneficiaries are adding this benefit to #Medicare without Congress intervening by moving into Medicare Advantage plans. No Med Adv enrollee could be exposed to more than $7550 out of pocket in 2022. So plans could even set a lower limit.

Quote Tweet

julie rovner

@jrovner

· Jun 6

Old enough to have covered when Congress passed this -- then repealed it... twitter.com/khemp64/status…

3

Adding an Out-of-Pocket Spending Limit to Traditional Medicare

New work from

: Adding an OOP max to TM would be a pretty BD for high cost enrollees. Approx 4.5m enrollees currently have >$5k in annual expenses.

@RWJF

rwjf.org

16

26

research shows the enhanced ARP Child Tax Credits lowered food insecurity without reducing employment. urban.org/sites/default/

2

Jun 6

#ARM22 What happens if the #ARP enhanced tax credits expire?

estimates suggest 3.1M more uninsured Americans.

@andykgreen

and colleagues. urban.org/sites/default/

4

7

May 28

Policymakers often stay away from making big changes in Medicare because it is so popular.

@GretchJacob

and

@DavidBlumenthal

show that beneficiaries are reforming the program by the choices they’re making. Policymakers, heed the wake-up call!!

Quote Tweet

Gretchen Jacobson

@GretchJacob

· May 23

Medicare Advantage is expected to be the dominant source of Medicare coverage in a few years. This shift will likely create large challenges for the entire health care system, not just Medicare. @DavidBlumental and I lay these out in new @JAMA_current jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/

Show this thread

May 27

Research Shows Access to Legal Abortion Improves Women’s Lives urban.org/urban-wire/res Great take from

@_EMJohnston

Research Shows Access to Legal Abortion Improves Women’s Lives

Though abortion has been debated in US politics for decades, the evidence is clear: access to legal abortion improves women’s lives.

1

4

.

researchers found that hospitalized Black patients were far more likely than their white counterparts to suffer preventable errors and injuries at the same hospital...

@Agangopadhyaya

urban.org/research/publi

@Forbes

forbes.com

Hospital Errors Worsened During The Pandemic, Say Federal Officials. Now They Want To Suppress The...

Hospitals may not be happy about publicly reporting the problems their patients suffered during the pandemic, but Medicare beneficiaries and the public at large deserve to know the truth.

5

9

Millions of vulnerable Americans likely to fall off Medicaid once the federal public health...

May 9

Will this new evidence showing lead the benefits of the ARP extended Child Tax Credits lead to an extension of the policy?

Quote Tweet

Elaine Maag

@ElaineMaag

· May 9

I worked with Michael Karpman, @zuckermans, and @dwissoker to look at people in the @urbaninstitute Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey in Dec 2020 and Dec 2021. 1/3 urban.org/research/publi

Show this thread

1

Important fact from

Quote Tweet

· May 4

I feel like I haven't seen the kind of emphasis one might expect on just how common abortion is "Supreme Court poised to roll back right that one in four women exercises by age 45"

Show this thread

1

Research ⁦

⁩ is providing critical estimates of how many Medicaid enrollees could lose coverage when the public health emergency ends. urban.org/research/publi

washingtonpost.com

States will have to sort out who no longer belongs on rolls that have swollen to record levels during the pandemic.

2

1

Medicaid Financing and the U.S. Territories: Implications of The Build Back Better Act

Robin Rudowitz

@RRudowitz

Feb 18

The Continuing Resolution includes an extension of the enhanced #Medicaid match rates for territories except for Puerto Rico. Longer-term changes to Medicaid financing for all territories were included in the #BuildBackBetter

kff.org

The U.S territories have faced an array of longstanding fiscal and health challenges that were exacerbated by recent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy watch examines how Medi…

4

7

Health Affairs

@Health_Affairs

Feb 12

In her new Forefront article, Patti Sweet (

@sweetaventuras

), Director of Digital Strategy

@Health_Affairs

discusses how search engine algorithms reinforce racism. But what happens when those algorithms mean we can’t even talk about racism? #RacismAndHealth bit.ly/3HFW0OR

18

Jan 21

“… it is time to move discussions from whether to regulate hospital prices to determining how best to do so.” This is the conclusion of

How Price Regulation Is Needed To Advance Market Competition

’s Berenson and his

@UCHastingsLaw

colleague Murray

healthaffairs.org

In US health policy, conventional wisdom holds that market competition and price regulation are mutually exclusive strategies to stem high and rising provider prices. This incorrect assumption...

1

3

Jan 14

Check out this new study by my

colleagues exploring the challenges low-income parents face getting and paying for the health care their families need. From

@kenneygm

@julialong_

and Jennifer Haley.

Quote Tweet

Genevieve M. Kenney

@kenneygm

· Jan 14

A quick

about my latest brief with @julialong_ and Jennifer M. Haley: We find that parents with low incomes faced greater health challenges, and problems accessing and affording needed healthcare, in Spring 2021. urbn.is/3qbs9HP 1/6

Show this thread

3

Dec 27, 2021

And the study that answers #21 can be found here:

2021 Poverty Projections: Assessing the Impact of Benefits and Stimulus Measures

1

Glad to see

making news worth remembering in 2021. Great piece of research comes in at #21 in the

@nytimes

quiz.

nytimes.com

The Great News Quiz of 2021

It was quite a year. How well do you remember it?

1

2

8

.

had this ready to go in 2014. May his memory be a blessing.

Quote Tweet

National Geographic

@NatGeo

· Dec 27, 2021

A pioneering biologist and conservationist, Wilson pushed for a world in which humans share the planet with other species, instead of driving them into extinction on.natgeo.com/3qqmCw0

1

Hospital Prices Are Unpredictable. One Type of Health Coverage Often Gets the Worst Rates.

Dec 23, 2021

A clear case that hospitals price discriminate across payers. Hospitals and other providers don't operate in competitive markets. Isn't it time to regulate their prices? Too complicated? Try starting with Medicare prices and see what happens. wsj.com/articles/hospi

@WSJ

wsj.com

Hospitals’ highest rates often go to rental networks of healthcare providers that are sometimes used in limited-benefits plans, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The combination can leave...

1

Urban Institute

Dec 1, 2021

New report: In the years before the pandemic, nearly 13 million adults delayed or didn't get needed prescription drugs because of costs urbn.is/3DgTX0y

bar graph showing average annual share of adults reporting unmet needs for prescription drugs due to costs, by age and health insurance coverage, 2018-19

read image description

ALT

6

8

Nov 19, 2021

Important new research from my

Improving public transit makes it easier for people to stay healthy

colleague

@Laura2smith

and her co-authors from Harvard Medical School and the Univ of Minnesota. vox.com/policy-and-pol via

@voxdotcom

vox.com

A new study found improving public transportation makes it easier for people to make it to their doctor appointments.

4

Oct 26, 2021

Work Requirements Sound Good, but the Evidence Just Doesn't Support Them: urbn.is/3mfD80I via

Work Requirements Sound Good, but the Evidence Just Doesn't Support Them

Research shows work requirements don’t promote increased work and earnings; in fact, they impose other harms.

1

Now out in

and led by Daeho Kim, we find MA beneficiaries are much less likely to be admitted to a top ranked cancer hospital for complex procedures! Largest difference was for Whipple where MA beneficiaries were up to 17pp less likely! 1/4 ajmc.com/view/compariso

2

11

23

New

study shows private insurers generally pay physicians substantially higher rates than Medicare does for the same service. But the markups vary significantly depending on the physician’s specialty.

Commercial Health Insurance Markups over Medicare Prices for Physician Services Vary Widely by...

Private insurers generally pay physicians substantially higher rates than Medicare does for the same service. Policy proposals to reduce commercial prices and curb health care spending by benchmark...

4

9

Oct 13, 2021

Happy to see a lighter take of some

research

@SkopecLaura

and I did together a few years ago.

Quote Tweet

Laura Skopec

@SkopecLaura

· Oct 13, 2021

Sunshine Home Health Two Florida dirtbags think they have devised the perfect low-risk con – billing Medicare for fake home health visits – until an ill-advised one-night stand forces them to go legit. #screenpit #Co #Pi #Cov #CFin #SeRe #WrWo #SRV

3

Oct 13, 2021

Happy to see the work of

Dentists’ Group Fights Plan to Cover Dental Benefits Under Medicare

's rising health policy star

@Laura2Smith

getting the attention it deserves. This will be the first of many.

Quote Tweet

Laura Barrie Smith

@Laura2smith

· Oct 12, 2021

New research

I'm excited to share my paper on the effects of nurse practitioner scope of practice laws in primary care, newly published in Health Economics. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1002/hec.44

1/13

Show this thread

1

8

Recent

research shows that over 50% of Medicare beneficiaries had no spending on dental care in 2020. Although some beneficiaries have coverage, on average, beneficiaries bear 73% of the costs out of pocket. urban.org/sites/default/

1

The idea of means testing the benefits available to Medicare beneficiaries has NEVER been part of the program. Premiums vary with income - not benefits. The Amer Dental Assoc should be aware of that. wsj.com/articles/denti via

@WSJ

wsj.com

The American Dental Association is mobilizing its 162,000 members to fight a proposal to include dental coverage for all Medicare recipients, opposition that could prove pivotal as Democrats look to...

2

1

7

The full

report on Medicaid postpartum coverage and the pandemic by Johnston, Haley and Thomas is available here: urban.org/research/publi

Quote Tweet

Health Affairs

@Health_Affairs

· Sep 23, 2021

In their new blog, Jennifer M. Haley + @_EMJohnston from the @urbaninstitute discuss how Medicaid's postpartum coverage changed during the pandemic under the continuous enrollment requirement + find ways #Medicaid can keep helping postpartum people after. bit.ly/3kw3Ykx

3

Matt Chingos

@chingos

Sep 22, 2021

Can confirm we are still doing objective & rigorous research at