Healthcare’s impact on the economy and daily life were key topics of interest for SmartBrief subscribers in April. Readers clicked on news stories about healthcare as a top domestic concern, the status of the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace, the importance of “Food is Medicine” programs to patients and the economy, and a $135 million HRSA effort to improve nutrition and health in rural areas.
Coverage costs of concern
What happened: According to a report from The Hill, Gallup polling showed that healthcare is the main subject that keeps Americans up at night, surpassing topics like inflation and the economy. It’s the first time in six years that healthcare was respondents’ top concern, with 61% saying they felt significant worry over affordability and access. There were fewer people enrolling in Affordable Care Act coverage in many states, which may not be surprising, considering that many Americans have seen their ACA premiums increase sharply this year.
What’s next: The US House of Representatives passed legislation at the beginning of the year that would extend enhanced premium tax credits, but negotiations hit a wall in the Senate. A recent Fierce Healthcare report outlined the impact of premium hikes on enrollment, noting that about 21% of people who had coverage through the Healthcare.gov site had dropped it because they could not afford the premiums.
Impact of expired tax credits
What happened: While the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits caused some enrollees to drop coverage, the individual market has stayed mostly resilient, a MedCity News analysis found. CMS data showed that 23 million people signed up for coverage this year, and 3.4 million of those were new to the marketplace. A catastrophic individual market collapse that some leaders predicted did not materialize.
States such as North Carolina have seen declines in enrollment, but others, including Texas, Maryland and California, have seen increases. New Mexico was the only state that moved to fully offset the subsidy reductions for residents, and it experienced the greatest increase in marketplace participation.
What’s next: High-deductible plans have seen increased momentum in recent months, and some experts said that is likely to continue. “This year’s open enrollment represented a historic threat to the individual market, but the ACA survived,” wrote Take Command CEO Jack Hooper in the MedCity analysis. “That resilience demonstrates the critical role of the individual market in providing access to health coverage in this country.”
Food as therapy
What happened: Food Is Medicine programs are showing how prescribing healthful foods can benefit not just the patient but the grower and producer as well. A report in Food & Wine detailed how expanding FIM initiatives could result in 316,000 new US jobs, $45 billion in economic activity, and higher revenue for small to mid-sized farms. The programs could reduce healthcare costs by more than $32 billion and prevent millions of hospitalizations yearly, Rockefeller Foundation data showed.
What’s next: A recent Harvard Gazette report showed that food interventions can benefit patients with cancer in particular. Cancer epidemiologist Fang Fang Zhang said these patients have increased nutritional needs and a high risk of malnutrition due to the cancer itself and to treatment-related symptoms, such as fatigue, nausea and vomiting.
Funding rural health advances
What happened: More than $135 million in funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration has been earmarked for the healthcare workforce and dietary services in rural regions, according to a Healthcare Innovation report. A large majority of the funding will support integrating nutrition services into primary care for people with chronic conditions. The Rural Residency Planning and Development Program will receive more than $11 million to support physician training in outlying areas.
What’s next: The American Hospital Association reported that HRSA is also prioritizing mental health and opioid use programs in rural areas. Grants are being made under the RCORP-Planning program, which supports substance use disorder services, and the RCORP-Impact program, which bolsters the rural behavioral health workforce.