Monday, February 12, 2018

Health Policy Valentines 2018

Wait, no, this can't be my fifth year of #HealthPolicyValentines.* But yes: here is Love Knows No Repeal (2017),  Love in the Time of Obamacare (2016), love, 2015, and first love, 2014.

And who'd have thought we'd have at least two Trump-era V-days with the ACA unrepealed? But here we are...

Spite is served hot,
Revenge is served cold.
Trump cut off CSR,
We got cheap bronze and gold.

     *      *      *

Replace came up empty,
Repeal served up zeroes.
We love you, Little Lobbyists,
True national heroes.

     *      *      *

Heller was craven,
Capito, afraid.
Collins, McCain, Murkowski
saved our Medicaid.

*      *      *


CMS,
a malevolent mess,
is totally out of hand-o.
We look forward in tears
oe'r an ocean of  years
till it's run by Emma Sandoe.

     *      *      *

When HHS obfuscates,
gaslights or encumbers
the flow of information,
Gaba has the numbers.

     *      *      *

When health plans make our heads spin
and regulations bore us
we don't knock ourselves out...
we call Louise Norris.

     *      *      *

When CSR was threatened,
progressives cried, "Oh no!"
But one guy saw the upside:
Dave Anderson, my jo.
(apologies to Robert Burns)

     *      *      *

When healthcare Twitter
writhes with Trump-induced colic,
we're sometimes soothed and settled
with a tweet from Harold Pollack.

     *      *      *

When Medicaid's enemies
with "data" come fakin'
their claims are exploded
by Sandoe & Goodman-Bacon

     *      *      *

Stop ACA repeal?
The prospect seemed risible
till millions grabbed a handbook
and became Indivisible.

     *      *      *

Medicare's nice
but it sure isn't free.
Beloved, hook me up
with some form of MSP.

     *      *      *

Hollies are leafy,
maples are bare.
Let's keep evergreen
the promise of Medicare.

     *      *      *

"This CMS email
is riddled with derp, Ma."
   "Just cut to the chase
and sign up on HealthSherpa."

     *      *      *

The ACA marketplace
is battered and scraggly.
To fend off further harm
retain Nicholas Bagley.

     *      *      *

The sweetest healthcare measures
defy rhyme and scansion.
Take, for example,
Medicaid expansion.

     *      *      *

When the U.S. healthcare system
sustains ten more years of trauma
and seems mangled beyond repair
we'll give it to Onceupona.

     *      *      *

In the land of the free
twas a moment quite fine
when ADAPT's Medicaid defenders
put their bodies on the line.

     *      *      *

"This health policy pablum
has a tang ersatz."
 -- "Send it for inspection
      to Margo Sanger-Katz."

     *      *      *

For a bottomless chronicle
of unmitigated gall
and untrammeled greed
thanks, Elisabeth Rosenthal.

     *      *      *

and a few not-valentines...

Medicaid's under assault,
 the Marketplace, in distress.
A once-proud agency
is now a SeemaMess.

    *      *      *

Bedtime healthcare worries!
I found myself dreamin'
we all paid a single payer:
Bezos-Buffet-Dimon.

    *      *      *

If you think Medicaid
is improved by work requirement,
we'll work very hard
to require your retirement.

    *      *      *

...and let me try a run of original-form professions of love one-on-one:

Our relationship's cured me
of glum navel-gazin'.
It's a mental health
main-ten-ance organization.

    *      *      *

When you are in need
I'll always be there.
Count on me, Babe
for accountable care.

    *      *      *

One plus one equals three.
That's my deduction.
Our partnership yields
true Cost Sharing Reduction.

    *      *      *

In my heart's deepest chamber
your magic penny sits
yielding all kinds of
Essential Health Benefits.

    *      *      *

White is the clematis,
Purple the wisteria.
You pervade my life like
beneficial bacteria.

--
* A tradition kicked off by Emma Sandoe, then at CMS, in  2012.

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