Potential Health Policy Administrative Actions in the Second Trump Administration A great review from the KFF.
About health insurance/insurers
Insurer stock prices fall after Trump pledges to 'knock out middlemen' The reference is to PBMs. “Following his comments, shares of CVS Health fell by more than 4% Monday afternoon, UnitedHealth Group shares slipped more than 3.5% and Cigna declined by 2.6%. The companies operate the nation's three largest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Optum RX and Express Scripts — which collectively control around 80% of all U.S. prescription claims.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
The Leapfrog Group Announces 2024 Top Hospitals and Top ASCs Notable absenses are Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins (in the teacxhing hospital category). Does this rating have face validity?
Ascension, Prime hospital deal gets green light from state “Illinois state health officials approved Prime Healthcare’s deal to buy 11 hospitals and care sites from Catholic health system Ascension Illinois, marking one of the largest local hospital deals of the year.
The $375 million deal, first announced in July, got the unanimous approval of the Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board at a meeting in Bolingbrook today. Board members probed about Prime’s relationship with its nurses, its decision to retain the facilities’ Catholic values, investment initiatives and litigation scandals, but ultimately signed off on the transaction.”
About the public’s health
Chronic Pain and High-impact Chronic Pain in U.S. Adults, 2023 “Data from the National Health Interview Survey
In 2023, 24.3% of adults had chronic pain, and 8.5% of adults had chronic pain that frequently limited life or work activities (referred to as high-impact chronic pain) in the past 3 months.
Chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain both increased with age.
American Indian and Alaska Native non-Hispanic adults were significantly more likely to have chronic pain (30.7%) compared with Asian non-Hispanic (11.8%) and Hispanic (17.1%) adults.
The percentage of adults with chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain increased with decreasing urbanization level.”