The upcoming election has huge implications for healthcare, far beyond how COVID is managed, ranging from how care is covered to how it’s delivered. The graphic above shows a continuum of potential policy outcomes of the November 3rd vote.
If President Trump wins a second termand Republicans control at least one house of Congress, there will likely be more attempts to dismantle the ACA, as well as continued privatization of Medicare coverage.
If Democrats win the presidency and sweep Congress, actions to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or even create a national public option, are on the table—although major healthcare reform seems unlikely to occur until the second half of a Biden term.
In the short term, we’d expect to see more policy activity in areas of bipartisan agreement, like improving price transparency, ending surprise billing and lowering the cost of prescription drugs, regardless of who lands in the White House.
While healthcare emerged as the most important issue for voters in the 2018 midterm elections, the COVID pandemic has overshadowed the broader healthcare reform platforms of both Presidential candidates heading into the election. As shown in the gray box, many Americans view the election as a referendum on the Trump administration’s COVID response. Managing the pandemic is one of the most important issues for voters, especially Democrats, who now rank the issue above reducing the cost of healthcare or lowering the cost of drugs.
In many aspects, the COVID policies of Biden and Trump are almost diametrically opposed, especially concerning the role of the federal government in organizing the nation’s pandemic response.
The next administration’s actions to prevent future COVID-19 surges, ensure safe a return to work and school, accelerate therapies, and coordinate vaccine delivery will remain the most important aspect of healthcare policy well into 2021.
This week Nebraska became the latest state to receive waiver authority from the Trump administration to implement work requirements as part of its Medicaid expansion program.
The program, called “Heritage Health Adult”, will be a two-tiered system, with expansion-eligible adults choosing between “Basic” and “Prime” coverage levels. The lower tier will provide coverage for physical and behavioral health services, with a prescription drug benefit, and is open to adults not eligible for traditional Medicaid with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty line.
“Prime” enrollees will get additional dental, vision, and over-the-counter drug benefits, in exchange for agreeing to 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, or active job seeking, which must be reported to the state.
Nebraska voters approved the Medicaid expansion two years ago, although enrollment only began this August, and the work-linked demonstration project is slated to start next year. An estimated 90,000 additional Nebraskans are expected to enroll in Medicaid under the expanded program.
The approval of Nebraska’s Medicaid work requirement comes a week after the Trump administration approved a partial expansion of Medicaid in Georgia, called “Pathways to Coverage”, which is also tied to a requirement to seek or engage in employment or education activities.
The Georgia program also requires premium payments by eligible adults who make between 50 and 100 percent of the federal poverty line. Court challenges will inevitably ensue for both the Nebraska and Georgia programs—only Utah has successfully implemented Medicaid work requirements, with 16 other state programs either pending approval, held up in court, or awaiting implementation. We continue to be deeply skeptical of Medicaid work requirements, and believe they only serve to deter those who would otherwise qualify for coverage from enrolling, and that the expense of their implementation and ongoing operation often outweighs any savings to the state.
The argument that “work encourages health”, often advanced by proponents of work requirements, gets it exactly backwards—rather, health security encourages work, a reality that has become ever more urgent as the COVID pandemic has drawn on.
As the economy continues to falter, Medicaid’s importance as a safety net program grows ever greater, and work requirements create an unhelpful obstacle to basic healthcare access.
President Trump repeated baseless claims at the final presidential debate that the coronavirus “will go away” and that the U.S. is “rounding the turn,” while Joe Biden argued that any president that has allowed 220,000 Americans to die on his watch should not be re-elected.
Why it matters: The U.S. is now averaging about 59,000 new coronavirus infections a day, and added another 73,000 cases on Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The country recorded 1,038 deaths due to the virus Thursday, the highest since late September.
What they’re saying: “More and more people are getting better,” Trump said. We have a problem that’s a worldwide problem. This is a worldwide problem. But I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we’ve been able to do … It will go away and as I say, we’re rounding the turn. We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away.”
Trump later disputed warnings by public health officials in his administration that the virus would see a resurgence in the winter, claiming: “We’re not going to have a dark winter at all. We’re opening up our country.”
Biden responded: “Anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”
“What I would do is make sure we have everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time. I would make sure we move in the direction of rapid testing, investing in rapid testing.”
“I would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the wherewithal, the financial resources, to be able to do that.”
The bottom line:Biden and Trump are living in two different pandemic realities, but Biden’s is the only one supported by health experts.
As the presidential election draws near, we reflect on the meaningful differences in health policy priorities and platforms between the two candidates, which we’ve described more fully in our recent blog series.
While similarities exist in some areas — most notably prescription drug pricing and proposals to control health care costs — the most striking differences between the positions taken by President Donald Trump and those of former Vice President Joe Biden are on safeguarding access to affordable health care coverage, advancing health equity for those who have been historically disadvantaged by the current system, and managing the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The importance of maintaining or expanding access to affordable health care in the midst of a pandemic cannot be understated. Going into the crisis, 30 million Americans lacked health coverage, with many more potentially at risk as a result of the current economic downturn. And even for many with coverage, costs are a barrier to receiving care. Moreover, despite efforts by Congress and the Trump administration to ease the financial burden of COVID-19 testing and treatment, many people remain concerned about costs; examples of charges for COVID-related medical expenses are not uncommon.
In this context, President Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the most important signal of his position on health care. The administration’s legal challenge of the law will be considered by the Supreme Court this fall. With no Trump proposal for a replacement to the ACA, if the Court strikes the law in its entirety or in part, many voters cannot be certain that their health coverage will be secure. By undermining the ACA — the vast law that protects Americans with preexisting health conditions and makes health coverage more affordable through a system of premium subsidies and cost-sharing assistance — the president has put coverage for millions at risk.
Trump issued an executive order to preserve preexisting condition protections. If the ACA remains intact, the order is redundant. But if the ACA is repealed by the Court, the order is meaningless because it lacks the legal underpinning and legislative framework to take effect.
In contrast, Vice President Biden has proposed expanding coverage through the ACA by adding a public option, enhancing subsidies to make health care more affordable, filling the gap for low-income families living in states that did not expand Medicaid, and giving people with employer health plans the option to enroll in marketplace coverage and take advantage of premium subsidies. For sure, if Biden is elected, many policy details must be ironed out; passing legislation in a deeply divided Congress is never easy. Despite these challenges, Biden proposes expanding health coverage rather than revoking it.
Just as COVID-19 has exposed gaps in health coverage and affordability, it also has highlighted the poor health outcomes stemming from racial and ethnic inequities in the U.S. health system. Communities of color — Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native people — have higher rates of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths compared to white people. These disparities are a result of myriad factors, many of which are deeply rooted in structural racism. The candidates’ plans to address health disparities and advance health equity set them apart.
The ACA has played a critical role in reducing disparities in access to health care and narrowed the uninsured rate among Black and Hispanic people compared to white people. Medicaid expansion has been key to improving racial equity. Repealing the ACA, as President Trump has sought to do, would reverse these gains. Even beyond repealing the ACA, this administration has pursued policies intended to limit Medicaid eligibility — for example, by permitting states to impose work requirements and other restrictions that would lead to fewer people covered. These measures and others are already having an impact; coverage gains achieved through the ACA have eroded since 2016. Health care for legal immigrants also has declined as a result of policies like the recently finalized “public charge” rule, which seems also to have caused an increase in uninsurance among children. The administration has further revoked ACA antidiscrimination and civil rights protections for LGBTQ people.
In addition to restoring and expanding coverage under the ACA, Vice President Biden has pledged to address health disparities and reinstate antidiscrimination protections. He has a proposal to advance racial equity not just in health care but across the economy. If successful, his plan could address underlying factors contributing to higher rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths among people of color, as well as their higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, and other health conditions tied to social determinants of health.
Finally, the candidates differ deeply in their approaches to the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump has failed to orchestrate a national strategy for combating coronavirus and has routinely undermined accepted public health advice with respect to mask-wearing and social distancing. He has delegated to the states responsibility for controlling the pandemic when it is clear that the virus travels freely across the country, regardless of state borders. Lax states can negate the efforts of those states sacrificing to bring the pandemic under control. Vice President Biden has strongly signaled, though his personal conduct and rhetoric, that he intends more aggressive federal leadership in fighting the virus.
In a recent Commonwealth Fund survey of likely voters, control of the pandemic and covering preexisting conditions were very important factors in choosing a president. In seven battleground states, protections for preexisting conditions outweighed COVID-19 and health costs as the leading health care issue voters are considering. In all 10 battleground states included in the survey, Vice President Biden was viewed as the more likely candidate to address these critical health care issues.
Perhaps since the Civil War, the United States has never faced starker choices in a presidential election. In health and other areas, there are profound differences in the positions of President Trump and former Vice President Biden. Voting this November is literally a matter of life and death for the American people.
Share of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 hospitalizations
States shown from first date of reported data, from March 17 to Oct. 17, 2020
In the last two weeks hospitalizations are:
Coronavirus hospitalizations are increasing in 39 states, and are at or near their all-time peak in 16.
The big picture: No state is anywhere near the worst-case situation of not having enough capacity to handle its COVID-19 outbreak. But rising hospitalization rates are a sign that things are getting worse, at a dangerous time, and a reminder that this virus can do serious harm.
By the numbers: 39 states saw an increase over the past two weeks in the percentage of available hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients.
Wisconsin is faring the worst, with 9.4% of the state’s beds occupied by COVID patients.
Sixteen states are at or near the highest hospitalization rates they’ve seen at any point in the pandemic.
Yes, but: The all-time peak of coronavirus hospitalizations happened in the spring, when 40% of New Jersey’s beds were occupied by COVID patients. Thankfully, even the the worst-performing states today are still a far cry from that.
Between the lines:These numbers, combined with the nationwide surge in new infections, confirm that the pandemic in the U.S. is getting worse — just as cold weather begins to set in in some parts of the country, which experts have long seen as a potentially dangerous inflection point.
They also suggest that most parts of the country won’t need to pause or scale back non-coronavirus treatments, as hospitals did in the spring when no one was quite sure how bad things could get.
In rural areas, however, even a modestly sized outbreak can strain local hospital capacity.
The number of new unemployment claims jumped last week, the latest sign of the toll the coronavirus pandemic continues to take on the economy.
States across the country processed 898,000 new unemployment claims, up more than 50,000 from the previous week, the largest increase in first-time jobless applications since August.
These numbers marked another unfortunate milestone: The number of unemployment claims has been above the pre-pandemic one-week record of 695,000 for 30 weeks now.
Claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, for gig and self-employed workers, went down, to 373,000 from about 460,000.
And the total number of people on all unemployment programs dropped slightly, to 25.3 million for the last week of September, down from 25.5 million the previous week.
The number of new claims has fallen greatly from its peak in the spring, but economists say they are concerned that the number remains so high.
“No question this report casts doubt on the recovery,” said Andrew Chamberlain, the chief economist at Glassdoor. “This is a sign covid is still dealing heavy blows to the labor market. We’re nowhere near having the virus under control.”
The news comes amid a string of poor economic news, with headlines punctuated with reports of large companies announcing layoffs in recent weeks.
These companies include Disney, insurance company Allstate, American and United Airlines, Aetna, and Chevron.
“It’s not coming down quickly,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at the jobs site ZipRecruiter. “It’s unclear how quickly we can recover. We’re likely to see additional layoffs and high numbers of unemployment for the foreseeable future.”
Pollak said there are indications that consumer spending has fallen since the expiration of government aid programs — another warning sign about more economic trouble ahead.
Many economists, including those at the Federal Reserve, have urged Congress and the White House to pass a new package of aid. House Democrats passed a $2.2 trillion plan earlier this month that Republicans have declined to advance, while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been pushing a $1.8 trillion plan.
Still, there are signs that Senate Republicans would not be willing to accept that plan, either. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he would not bring the plan to the floor, saying Senate Republicans believed the deal should top out at $1.5 trillion.
One sign of the severity of the economic crisis is the growing number of people who are transitioning to Pandemic Emergency unemployment compensation — for those who hit the maximum number of time that their state plans allow for. That number grew 818,000, according to the most recent figures, from the end of September.
Questions remain about the integrity of the data, as well.
A number of issues have complicated a straightforward read of the weekly release, such as issues with fraud, which are believed to have driven up these numbers an unknown amount, and backlogs in states like California. The country’s largest state typically accounts for about 20-28 percent of the country’s total weekly claims, but has put its claims processing on hold temporarily.
Instead, the Department of Labor is using a placeholder number for the state — 226,000, the number of new initial claims in the state from mid-September.
But some economists like Chamberlain are critical of this method.
“The idea of cutting and pasting the data from a state is so absurd,” he said. “They could at least use a model. But instead they’re carrying over the number. It’s quite a crisis.”
Quirks in the new filing process require people to apply for traditional unemployment and get rejected before applying for PUA — a source of potential duplicate claims.
Economists have been warning for months that the unemployment rate, which has improved steadily since its nadir in April, is at risk of getting worse without further government intervention.
States that saw significant jumps in unemployment claims last week include Indiana, Alaska, Arizona, Illinois, New Mexico and Washington.
Still, some economists have found reasons to hope. Pollak said job postings on ZipRecruiter have topped 10 million for the first time since the start of the pandemic, equaling a number last seen in January.
The jobs are different now, she said — fewer tech and business jobs and more warehousing jobs, temporary opportunities and contracting work.
In less than two months, the Supreme Court is set to hear the case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act — without Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the bench, fanning anxieties the landmark law is in greater jeopardy due to her passing.
“People should worry,” Nicholas Bagley, a health law expert and professor at the University of Michigan, said.
The death of the liberal justice on Friday at the age of 87 means that of the nine justices, there are now only three appointed by Democratic presidents instead of four.
Assuming the liberal wing was set to uphold the ACA, with Bader Ginsburg they would have only needed to pick up one more conservative justice to vote in favor of preserving the law. Chief Justice John Roberts has been a swing vote in several cases involving the law. Roberts’ 2012 vote saved the law from a fatal blow in a 5-4 decision when he deemed the individual mandate could be considered a tax.
Without Bader Ginsburg, they’ll now need to sway two — raising concerns about whether that’s possible.
“This opens it wide up and I really do think the law could be at risk,” Katie Keith, another legal expert who has followed the case closely, agreed.
The landmark but politically polarizing legislation ushered in health coverage gains and basic protections for millions under President Barack Obama (who appointed two of the three remaining liberal justices). The law’slatest time at the Supreme Court comes after a group of red states argued the law was moot after Republicans zeroed out a key part of it — a tax penalty for those that did not get insured as was required in the law.
However, a split decision may be welcome by ACA proponents.
If the the liberal wing is only able to sway one conservative justice, resulting in a 4-4 split case, it will buy more time for the law and its defenders, a set of blue states lead by California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
In that instance, the case would be punted all the way back down to Judge Reed O’Connor. The Fifth Circuit, which oversaw the appeal following a decision by O’Connor, ruled the individual mandate was unconstitutional but did not weigh in on whether the rest of the ACA could stand without the mandate. It sent that question back to O’Connor, and that’s where the case would land again, before O’Connor, in the event the Supreme Court punts.
That outcome buys more time, plus another opportunity to appeal and for the case to again work its way back before the Supreme Court.
But one legal expert said based on cases from this past term there is reason to be hopeful that two conservative justices could be swayed to leave the remainder of the ACA intact even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional.
Legal experts point to cases from the most recent term in which Brett Kavanaugh and Roberts — both appointed by Republicans — weighed in on severability in a way viewed as favorable for the outcome of the ACA case.
“I’m pretty hopeful,” Tim Jost, emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, said.
Severability is an important question in the challenge to the ACA. The crux of the lawsuit centers on the argument that the individual mandate is so essential and intertwined into the fabric of the ACA that if the mandate is deemed unconstitutional than the entirety of the ACA must fall.
In their legal challenge, the red states and two individual plaintiffs argued that the individual mandate cannot be severed from the rest of the law, so the entire law should be overturned. That’s why ACA case watchers have tried to read the tea leaves by reviewing how justices have weighed in on severability in earlier cases.
Kavanaugh seemed emphatic about his belief that unconstitutional pieces of a larger law should not spell the demise for the entire law.
In a case decided this summer, political organizations were seeking to make robocalls to cell phones. However, a law, barred robocalls to Americans’ cellphones but was later amended by Congress to include an exception for the collection of debt. The plaintiffs argued this was a violation of the First Amendment, favoring debt-collection speech over political speech. The plaintiffs wanted the entirety of the robocall law overturned, not just the exception allowing robocalls for debt collection.
Kavanaugh wrote the 6-3 opinion, finding the exception for debt-collection unconstitutional, but ruling that the remainder of the law can stand.
In his opinion, Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s preference has been to “salvage rather than destroy” the rest of the law in the event a part is deemed unconstitutional.
“The Court’s precedents reflect a decisive preference for surgical severance rather than wholesale destruction, even in the absence of a severability clause,” Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion in the case, Barr v. Association of Political Consultants.
And Roberts showed similar favor for surgically precise decisions when it comes to severability. “We think it clear that Congress would prefer that we use a scalpel rather than a bulldozer,” he wrote in a separate 5-4 decision from this latest term regarding a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
We’re hearing from health systems across the country that physician office, surgery and diagnostic volumes have mostly returned to pre-pandemic levels. Consumers appear to feel comfortable coming back to scheduled appointments as long as social distancing and capacity can be managed. But they’re more reticent to return to “unscheduled” care settings that may involve a long wait, like urgent care clinics and emergency departments, where visits have stabilized at 75 to 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
The latter in particular has proved concerning to hospitals leaders, who have begun to ask, what if ED volumes never fully come back? (Around 15 percent of ED visits convert to inpatient stays, on average, making the ED an important source of downstream revenue for hospitals.) We spoke recently with a health system COO who realistically thinks that 10 percent of the volume could be gone for good, and recognizes that “from a public health perspective, that’s probably a good thing”, given that lower-acuity, non-emergent patients account for a portion of the “lost” volume.
But concerns about patients delaying much-needed care persist—amplifying the need for alternate channels, both virtual and in-person, for patients to access care and quickly connect to more intensive services if needed. Hospital leaders would be wise to prepare for a “90 percent future”, and adjust revenue models and cost structures to be less dependent on admissions and procedures that come through the emergency department.
New claims for state unemployment insurance fell last week, but layoffs continue to come at an extraordinarily high level by historical standards.
Initial claims for state benefits totaled 790,000 before adjusting for seasonal factors, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The weekly tally, down from 866,000 the previous week, is roughly four times what it was before the coronavirus pandemic shut down many businesses in March.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the total was 860,000, down from 893,000 the previous week.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “We’ve got a long way to go, and there’s still a risk of a double-dip recession.”
The situation has been compounded by the failure of Congress to agree on new federal aid to the jobless.
“The labor market continues to heal from the viral recession, but unemployment remains extremely elevated and will remain a problem for at least a couple of years,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. “Initial claims have been roughly flat since early August, suggesting that the pace of improvement in layoffs is slowing.”
New claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, an emergency federal program for freelance workers, independent contractors and others not eligible for regular unemployment benefits, totaled 659,000, the Labor Department reported.
A review of Trump’s health care record so far. Avoiding the problematic issue of Trump’s alleged plan, analysts at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation released a report this week that examines President Trump’s record on health care over the last three and half years. Some highlights from the overview and the full analysis:
On the Affordable Care Act: “From the start of his presidential term, President Trump took aim at the Affordable Care Act, consistent with his campaign pledge leading up to the 2016 election. He supported many efforts in Congress to repeal the law and replace it with an alternative that would have weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions, eliminated the Medicaid expansion, and reduced premium assistance for people seeking marketplace coverage. While the ACA remains in force, President Trump’s Administration is supporting the case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ACA in its entirety that is scheduled for oral arguments one week after the election.”
On Medicare and Medicaid: “The Administration has proposed spending reductions for both Medicaid and Medicare, along with proposals that would promote flexibility for states but limit eligibility for coverage under Medicaid (e.g., work requirements).”
On drug prices: “The President has made prescription drug prices a top health policy priority and has issued several executive orders and other proposals that aim to lower drug prices; most of these proposals, however, have not been implemented, other than one change that would lower the cost of insulin for some Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, and another that allows pharmacists to tell consumers if they could save money on their prescriptions. The Trump Administration has also moved forward with an initiative to improve price transparency in an effort to lower costs, though it is held up in the courts.”
On the response to the coronavirus: “The Trump administration has not established a coordinated, national plan to scale-up and implement public health measures to control the spread of coronavirus, instead choosing to have states assume primary responsibility for the COVID-19 response, with the federal government acting as back-up and ‘supplier of last resort.’ The President has downplayed the threat of COVID-19, given conflicting messages and misinformation, and often been at odds with public health officials and scientific evidence.”
HENRY KOTULA 