Health Affairs This Week

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission launched a formal inquiry into pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).Listen to Health Affairs' Leslie Erdelack and Vabren Watts discuss the FTC's probe into PBMs and how vertical integration and consolidation may affect patients and health care consumers.Related Links:FTC Launches Investigation Into Major Pharmacy Benefit Managers' Business Practices (FierceHealthcare)A Six-Step Solution To The PBM Problem (Health Affairs Forefront)On Drug Prices, Pharmacy Benefit Managers Are Not The Problem (Health Affairs Forefront)PBM Oversight, Insulin Cost-Sharing Provisions Among Build Back Better Act (Health Affairs Forefront) Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available — and we’d like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone.Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

Listen to Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander and Ellen Bayer go over the big health policy headlines from this week, including what we know about Monkeypox, the implications of the latest Medicare Trustees Report, and nursing home workforce shortages.Related Links:2022 Medicare Trustees Report (CMS)Medicare's Supplementary Medical Insurance Fund: A Growing Burden on Taxpayers (Health Affairs Forefront)The Coming Crisis For The Medicare Trust Fund (Health Affairs Forefront)Fact Sheet: Protecting Seniors by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation's Nursing Homes (White House)The Waltz: To Improve Nursing Home Care, Invest In The Workforce (Health Affairs Forefront)Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available — and we’d like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and Podcasts free for everyone.Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

Listen to Health Affairs' Rob Lott and Chris Fleming put the FDA under the microscope on user fees and baby formula shortages.Related Links:FDA User Fee Reauthorization Bill Emerges In Both Chambers (Health Affairs Forefront)Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces New Actions to Address Infant Formula Shortage (White House)Biden Invokes the Defense Production Act for the Baby Formula Shortage (NPR)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses the subject of gun violence and death.Health Affairs's Jessica Bylander and Vabren Watts discuss this week's school shooting in Uvalde, Texas and the recent history of gun policy in the United States.Violence permeates our society. One response to violence is to better understand its origins and how to prevent it.We invite you to read the Violence and Health issue of Health Affairs from 2019 to better understand the impacts that gun violence has on communities. The issue will be open access and free to read until June 1, 2022.For Mental Health Awareness month, we'd like to share the reminder that if you are experiencing a mental health emergency, you can call the national helpline at 1-800-662-HELP for support.Related Links:Violence and Health (Health Affairs)Adolescent Exposure To Deadly Gun Violence Within 500 Meters Of Home Or School: Ethnoracial And Income Disparities (Health Affairs)From Sandy Hook to Buffalo and Uvalde: Ten years of failure on gun control (The Washington Post)Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States (New England Journal of Medicine)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

Listen to Health Affairs' Chris Fleming and Tim Jost discuss Supreme Court cases that could strip enrollees in Medicaid and other programs of the right to sue to enforce their rights.Related Links:Is The Supreme Court Poised To Wipe Out Legal Rights For Medicaid Beneficiaries? (Health Affairs Forefront)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

The podcast discusses the FDA's proposed ban on menthol cigarettes and its implications for public health and health equity. It explores the disproportionate use of menthol cigarettes among certain population groups, including African Americans. The chapter also mentions reactions to the ban, potential lawsuits by the tobacco industry, and support for quitting smoking.

Early this week, Politico published a draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would overturn abortion rights in the United States.On today's episode of Health Affairs This Week, Health Affairs' Senior Editors Jessica Bylander and Chris Fleming unpack the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade and could have sweeping health care implications beyond just abortion care.Related Links:Supreme Court Has Voted To Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows (Politico)Penalizing Abortion Providers Will Have Ripple Effects Across Pregnancy Care (Health Affairs Forefront)26 States Are Certain or Likely to Ban Abortion Without Roe: Here's Which Ones and Why (Guttmacher Institute)Can Congress Resurrect Roe If It's Overturned? Well, It Could Try (The Washington Post)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

Listen to Health Affairs' Leslie Erdelack and Rob Lott go over the big health policy headlines from this week, including details on childhood vaccinations, Title 42 and the intersection of public health and border policies, and federal drug control strategies.Related Links:Borders, Immigrants & Health Theme Issue (Health Affairs)Health Care Gaps For Migrants & Asylum Seekers On The Mexico Border During COVID-19 (A Health Podyssey)Vaccination Coverage with Selected Vaccines and Exemption Rates Among Children in Kindergarten - United States, 2020-21 School Year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)Fact Sheet: 2022 National Drug Control Strategy That Outlines Comprehensive Path Forward To Address Addiction and the Overdose Epidemic (White House)Key Facts About Title 42, The Pandemic Policy That Has Reshaped Immigration Enforcement At US-Mexico Border (Pew Research Center)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast

Health Affairs This Week is on a break this week. Today, we are publishing an episode from A Health Podyssey, where Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil brings you in-depth conversations with leading researchers and influencers shaping the big ideas in health policy and the health care industry. Health Affairs This Week will return next week.Subscribe to A Health Podyssey: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts The United States is facing a drug affordability crisis. Even as we celebrate scientific discovery, the health benefits of drugs are limited due to barriers of affordability, often even for people with health insurance. The RAND Corporation reports that on average drug prices in the United States are more than two and a half times those in 32 other nations studied. The disparities are even wider when we focus just on brand name drugs.Drug pricing is the subject of seemingly perennial debates. One side focuses on access barriers due to high prices while the other side argues that lower prices threaten future innovation. Stacie Dusetzina from Vanderbilt University Medical Center joins A Health Podyssey to talk about the complex world of drug pricing.She and colleagues published a paper in the April 2022 issue of Health Affairs examining the degree to which people with Medicare prescription drug benefits use the drugs that are prescribed to them.In the paper, the authors found non-initiation rates among some beneficiaries of greater than 50 percent for certain treatments.If you enjoy this interview, order the April 2022 Health Affairs issue to get research on access to care, hospitals and more.

Listen to Health Affairs' Senior Editor Kathleen Haddad and Health Equity Director Vabren Watts discuss advancing health equity in health policy and publishing.“Once you start advancing one aspect of equity, you start advancing other aspects of equity,” says Watts.  The two highlight Health Affairs' work on health equity since launching a formal plan in January 2021 and research highlights from our digital publication Health Affairs Forefront as well as our February 2022 theme issue on Racism And Health. Related Links:COVID-19 Data On Trans And Gender-Expansive People, Stat! (Health Affairs Forefront)Structural Racism And Black Women's Employment In The US Health Care Sector (Health Affairs)Walmart Opening 5 Health 'Superstores' In Delayed Florida Launch (Healthcare Dive)Health Equity (Health Affairs)Racism and Health Theme Issue (Health Affairs)Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castro | Stitcher | Deezer | Overcast