Unkind unwinding: Health Policy Valentines 2024

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In a year of existential threats, and an era in which the corporate practice of medicine knows few curbs, there is still a stream of health policy wins worth serenading in the time-honored (since 2012!) tradition of #HealthPolicyValentines. This year’s mash notes below.

In a year of existential threats, and an era in which the corporate practice of medicine knows few curbs, there is still a stream of health policy wins worth serenading in the time-honored (since 2012!) tradition of #HealthPolicyValentines. This year’s mash notes are below.

The Medicaid unwinding
is often blind and cruel.
But spare some V-day love
For ex parte renewal.

* * *

A valentine from Democrats,
enacted, but hardly trending:
An annual Part D cap
on out-of-pocket spending.

* * *

What’s sweeter for seniors
than sugar and spices?
Medicare negotiating
selected drug prices.

* * *

Send flowers, chocolate and smiles
for keeping insurers squirmin’
over AI-driven denials
to Casey Ross and Bob Herman.

* * *

---

O ACA, flawed child,
I’ll no longer carp
so long as your subsidies
remain enhanced by the ARP.

* * *

For low-income tar heels,
nothing can be finer
than Medicaid expansion
in North Carolina.

* * *

Let’s honor legislation
little known, in point of fact,
preventing harm, unnoticed:
The No Surprises Act.

* * *

As oligarch-funded theocrats
harm the women of this nation,
my love goes to the National
Abortion Federation.

* * *

And one for my wife as I join her on the far side of the age-65 threshold:

After 40 years of love
we’ll take no crap
from MA insurers —
thanks to Medigap.

* * *

While dredging up healthcare doggerel like this, I always end up with some bitter snippets, then remind myself they’re not um, valentines. Since they now exist, however, and at the risk of spoiling the mood, I’ll share a little rage rhyming:

The Supreme Court’s out of control,
but had better not go postal
by voiding the FDA rule
for Mifepristone and Misoprostol.

* * *

Nothing’s more dangerous
for those with colon polyps,
financially speaking,
than private equity rollups.

Take a trip down ACA memory lane with a visit to the Health Policy Valentines archives: Surprise! No Surprises (2023), Flowers in the graveyard (2022), Institutional edition (2021), But love grows old and waxes cold (2020), The Water is Wide: Health Policy Valentines (2019),  HPV (2018), Love Knows No Repeal (2017),  Love in the Time of Obamacare (2016), love, 2015, and Romance of the Rose, Health Policy Edition (2014).

Photo by Aykut Aktemur 

Legislative and administrative love (and its opposite): Health Policy Valentines 2023

Note: All xpostfactoid subscriptions are now through Substack alone (still free), though I will continue to cross-post on this site. If you're not subscribed, please visit xpostfactoid on Substack and sign up!  

I can’t believe that this my tenth year offering up #HealthPolicyValentines — a tradition kicked off by Emma Sandoe, the country’s leading Medicaid enthusiast, in 2012, when she was a CMS spokesperson. Emma is now a Medicaid official in North Carolina, no doubt deeply invested in a not-so-funny legislative rom-com as the state House and Senate struggle to align not-quite-compatible bills to enact the ACA Medicaid expansion. The NC House may deliver the ultimate #HealthPolicyValentine this week, passing its expansion bill on V-Day itself.

I have no such substantive gifts to offer, but I can celebrate some goodies served up by legislators (federal and state) and administrators in the last year. Let the doggerel begin.

* * *

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I got no surprise bills
in 2022.

Roses are expensive,
Dandelions are free.
I'll get no surprise bills
in 2023.

In the U.S., alas,
there’s always an asterisk,
so an ambulance remains
a major financial risk.

* * *

Progress is fragile,
progress is slow,
but the uninsured rate’s
at an all-time low.

Alas, costs keep rising
so we needn't ask why
the underinsured rate's 
at an all-time high.

* * *

Congress showered cash
but states must play their part (um…)
to provide young moms and babes
a year’s coverage postpartum.

* * *

Love to CMS
for reducing the immensity
of Medicare Advantage
coding intensity.

* * *

Love (and its opposite) in the states

In New Mexico, for sure,
but I didn't expect this:
Strict silver loading
enacted in Texas.

* * *

Some states will be cruel,
some states will be kind
when the starting whistle blows
for the Medicaid unwind.

* * *

100% FPL
is the cruelest of gates,
but Obamacare's on fire
in nonexpansion states.

Perhaps those excluded
have grown sick of rejections
and learned to adjust
their income projections.

* * *

In our founding fathers’ house
there’ll be one more mansion
when NC enacts
the Medicaid expansion.

* * *

New Jersey got it done --
that is, built the apparatus
to cover kids regardless
of immigration status.

* * *

New York,
defrosting pork,
and seasoning it well,
will cook the Essential Plan
to 250 FPL

* * *

Glutton for punishment? Browse my Health Policy Valentines archives: Flowers in the graveyard (2022), Institutional edition (2021), But love grows old and waxes cold (2020), The Water is Wide: Health Policy Valentines (2019),  HPV (2018), Love Knows No Repeal (2017),  Love in the Time of Obamacare (2016), love, 2015, and Romance of the Rose, Health Policy Edition (2014).

Health Policy Valentines 2021: Institutional edition

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Americans don't have much faith in government, and it's hard to think of our society as one that's pulling together in the face of the pandemic and its revelation of our systemic inequities. But it's not all dysfunction, oligarchy, rising fascism and disregard for the common good.  And we do have a serious new bid from the Biden administration for good government.

This year's #healthpolicyvalentines are from various organs of government and other institutions to the American people.

From the Biden Coronavirus task force

Producing and dispensing fact
is our core Defense Production Act

From SCOTUS

Inseverable?
Did I hear Roberts scoff?
The vestigial mandate
will be cut off.

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.

*      *      *

Love knows no repeal: HealthPolicyValentines 2017

Update 2/15: below is this year's complete harvest, as it grew from Feb. 10-14. Last year's trove is here. Love, 2015, here. First love, 2014, here.

----

I felt this afternoon I was getting quick-pitched on HealthPolicyValentines. But matron saint of the tradition, Emma Sandoe, tells me it's always kicked off on the Thursday before V-Day. So, like a loved one rushing to the scene of elopement, here am I (and see bottom for past years):

With this ring I thee wed;
with this kiss doth thou grace me.
Now promise you'll never
repeal and replace me.

     *      *      *

I can't call you true
on this true lovers' day.
You swapped my CSR
for this crummy HSA.

     *      *      *

Affordability and access!
We could eat our cake and have it
if we put our healthcare system
in the hands of Andy Slavitt.

Love in the time of Obamacare, 2016

#HealthPolicyValentines came early this year! Since the ACA's open enrollment ended on January 31, it's a bit post-coital this year (unlike 2015, when open enrollment was set to end on Feb. 15). But here we go with the third annual...to be updated at intervals.

Bonus this year: #GetInsuredShakespeareSonnets, toward the bottom.

My dearest ACA,
I feared you'd not endure well
till Roberts torpedoed
King versus Burwell.

     *     *     *

I've heard tell that health wonks
study best in pairs.
Cuddled on couches,
deep in Health Affairs.

     *     *     *

Uninsured and unmarried,
my troubles are myriad.
Let's get hitched and apply for
a Special Enrollment Period.

Love in the time of Obamacare

Ah, mid-February, when love and ACA open enrollment both come to climax. Tis the (second annual) season for #Healthpolicyvalentines:

Affordable insurance?
I don't have any.
You are my only
Essential Health Bennie.

        *     *     *

I've turned 26
But what does my Mama care?
She knows I'll stay covered
Thanks to Obamacare.

      *     *     *

Bronze plans are skimpy,
Golds rake your bucks in.
Silver is sweet
with Cost-Sharing Reduction.

     *     *     *

The Romance of the Rose, health policy edition

#Healthpolicyvalentines are a thing on Twitter. So, to aggregate my morning fun:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I logged on Kynect,
And covered you.

        *     *     *

Violets are blue,
Roses are rouge.
Your income is low,
Your subsidy's huge. 

        *     *     *

Red is the rose,
And violet the heather.
We all have to jump
In the risk pool together. 

        *     *     *

Yellow's the daisy,
And white the azalea
I want the health coverage
They get in Westphalia.

        *     *     *

Azaleas are monochrome,
Daylilies, variegated.
My love for y'all
Is community-rated.

        *     *     *