Closer Look
Just before Medicaid ends for millions, the fewest Americans ever lack health insurance
You could call it a bittersweet victory. As of March, the latest period for which health insurance data were analyzed, only about 7.7% of Americans had no coverage, a new low. Since then millions have lost Medicaid coverage, which was extended during the Covid pandemic after Congress gave states extra federal Medicaid funds. There were strings attached: States had to loosen eligibility requirements and keep more people enrolled.
Medicaid enrollment soared by 33% between February 2020 and April 2023, when the program covered more than 94 million people. Then states began removing people from Medicaid programs if they no longer qualified or had other sources of coverage. But health policy researchers at KFF estimate three-quarters of the 3.8 million low-income adults and children who lost their pandemic-era Medicaid coverage did so due to "procedural reasons." STAT's Bob Herman has more, including what insurers say.
business
How Humana and CVS hope to turn members into patients
Primary care for older adults is looking hot. Yesterday Humana and CVS Health promoted their intention to build up their primary care clinics for seniors and send Medicare members there. UnitedHealth Group has already gone down this road, as the largest Medicare Advantage insurer and one of the biggest employers of physicians. Now Humana is partnering with a private equity firm to add more CenterWell Senior Primary Care sites, while CVS bought the Medicare provider Oak Street Health in May.
Here's how STAT's Tara Bannow explains it: When insurers are also medical providers for their members, they profit enormously by lowering members' health care costs. That's especially true in Medicare Advantage, in which insurers are paid a set amount to cover members' medical costs. "It's in all of their best interests to have their own members in CenterWell and Oak Street," said Jon Kaplan, a senior partner with Boston Consulting Group. Read more.
health inequity
Lost without translation: Clinical trial consent documents pose a barrier for non-English speakers
When clinical trials recruit participants, they must gain their written consent before enrolling them. In cancer research, for the 70% of randomized trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, research budgets cover the cost of translating consent documents into the potential participants' language. For the remaining studies, that's not a certainty. Researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center thought this gap might be low-hanging fruit for improving who is represented in research studies.
When they compared who among more than 9,200 participants signed consent forms, they found that half as many patients with limited English proficiency signed consent forms for studies not sponsored by industry compared to those that were. That matches the half as many documents translated by non-industry sponsors as by industry sponsors. "An important barrier for patients with limited English proficiency to participate in cancer studies may be the cost that consent document translation presents to investigators," the authors write in Nature.
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