Our Health Policy Matters

It has been a busy health policy year.  Here are my choices for the top health policy stories.  They all may not have made big headlines, but all will reverberate for some time.  The Slowing of Healthcare Inflation This was on my watch list coming into this year , and I’ll lead with it today because it was the best health policy news of the year.  When healthcare inflation came in low this year, it did all sorts of good things.  It helped balance state budgets, extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund, and dropped the price tag of the Affordable Care Act.  Inflation is supposed to jump up this year as millions more become insured, but we can at least hope that a more modest trendline continues. Mental Health Parity And for some more good news… It took five years and incessant lobbying from heroes like Patrick Kennedy, but the final rule implementing the Mental Health Parity Act of 2008 was finally released this year , coinciding roug...

It has been a busy health policy year.  Here are my choices for the top health policy stories.  They all may not have made big headlines, but all will reverberate for some time.  The Slowing of Healthcare Inflation This was on my watch list coming into this year , and I’ll lead with it today because it was the best health policy news of the year.  When healthcare inflation came in low this year, it did all sorts of good things.  It helped balance state budgets, extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund, and dropped the price tag of the Affordable Care Act.  Inflation is supposed to jump up this year as millions more become insured, but we can at least hope that a more modest trendline continues. Mental Health Parity And for some more good news… It took five years and incessant lobbying from heroes like Patrick Kennedy, but the final rule implementing the Mental Health Parity Act of 2008 was finally released this year , coinciding roug...

Health and mental health policy stories dominated 2012.  From how the Affordable Care Act framed the health policy debate at the start of the year to how the Sandy Hook tragedy framed the mental health and public health debate at year’s end, 2012 will go down in history as the most significant year in health policy since the 1960s. Here are summaries of a few of the biggest news stories. The Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable Care Act.   Nothing quite compares to the drama of the day in June when the Supreme Court ruled the Affordable Care Act to be constitutional .  Few people guessed right in advance that the decision would come down to finding the “individual mandate” to be constitutional because it is a tax, but mandatory Medicaid expansion unconstitutional because it tied future federal funding for the existing state Medicaid programs to the Medicaid expansion. People on both sides of the debate came away wanting more, and states reluctant to acce...

Health and mental health policy stories dominated 2012.  From how the Affordable Care Act framed the health policy debate at the start of the year to how the Sandy Hook tragedy framed the mental health and public health debate at year’s end, 2012 will go down in history as the most significant year in health policy since the 1960s. Here are summaries of a few of the biggest news stories. The Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable Care Act.   Nothing quite compares to the drama of the day in June when the Supreme Court ruled the Affordable Care Act to be constitutional .  Few people guessed right in advance that the decision would come down to finding the “individual mandate” to be constitutional because it is a tax, but mandatory Medicaid expansion unconstitutional because it tied future federal funding for the existing state Medicaid programs to the Medicaid expansion. People on both sides of the debate came away wanting more, and states reluctant to acce...