Capitol Hill visit

It was an exciting time to be in DC yesterday. Our health policy class was able to attend the House press conference on the West Steps of the Capitol releasing their health reform bill that is expected to go to the floor next week. We heard from a panel of very tired health policy staffers from across the spectrum including Sarah Dash from Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s office, who I spoke with at length later about the bill. In the afternoon I visited all the offices of CT’s delegation. CTHPP Board member Congressman Joe Courtney and his health staffer, Maija Welton, were very gracious. Joe had just left the House Caucus and full of details about the bill. Senate staff in Sen. Dodd’s HELP committee were less sanguine about the chances of getting 60 votes for many of the House bill’s best provisions but very helpful in explaining where they are. Asked what we can do to help them, Joe asked that advocates work to clear up the myths being sold to seniors that health reform will harm Medicare. In fact, the House bill reduces and eventually eliminates the donut hole in prescription coverage, adds coverage for more preventive services, includes demonstrations for important initiatives that could vastly improve access to care, care coordination, and would help stabilize the program’s financial stability (which without reform is tenuous). My visit was energizing and exciting – I haven’t said that about a visit to DC in a very long time. It is very possible that something historic is about to happen.
Ellen Andrews

Last day of policy training classes

Yesterday was our last day of classroom federal health policy training. Our “classroom” has been the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Barbara Jordan conference center in downtown DC – a fantastic facility. We had an intriguing breakfast discussion with a registered lobbyist who has worked for Academy Health, the health research think tank that is running the training, and GAO. We had backgrounders on Medicare and state health policy and a session on how to communicate with policy leaders. Not surprisingly, advocacy at the federal level is a lot like the states – same motivations, same dynamics – but slower and more deliberative. This training is primarily for health services researchers; my classmates are very frustrated that research isn’t the only factor that drives health policymaking. It’s far worse at the state level. Today we go to the Hill for our last day of training.
Ellen Andrews

More health policy training in DC

Yesterday we heard about polling, federal budgeting, the role of the judiciary in health policy and a capstone panel with an overview of policymaking from beginning to end using regulation and rule making for electronic health information breach notification in the federal stimulus bill as a case study. The panel on the role of the judiciary was fascinating. We heard the differences (courts don’t care about data or statistics, it is all driven by individual cases or anecdotes) and similarities (politics decides alot) with policymaking in other branches. The bioethics underlying the law came up repeatedly – medical marijuana and assisted suicide cases. But the one that fascinated me most was a hospital in rural Maine that sued recently claiming that the requirement that hospitals treat everyone who enters their doors (at least to stabilize them) regardless of ability to pay was an unreimbursed “taking.” Something like when government takes your home to build a highway, they have to pay you a fair price. The hospital claimed that the government was requiring them to provide uncompensated care and not reimbursing them. This hospital provided only a very small amount of uncompensated care – 0.5% of revenue -- the national average is ten times that. The Courts found against them, but the reasoning was that the hospital’s trustees didn’t have to run a hospital. They could have chosen to convert it to another purpose (a hotel maybe?) and then nothing would be “taken”. I can’t wait to see what we’ll learn today.
Ellen Andrews

DC health policy training

This week I am learning about how health policy gets made at the federal level, thanks to funding from the Council of State Governments/Eastern Region. Yesterday we heard the basics – White House offices and staff dynamics, how Congress works, then how it really works, agencies and their roles in developing policy, and how it all interacts. My head still hurts from the complexity, but the parallels to state policymaking help. Everything is framed in the context of the current health reform debate. It is an extremely exciting time to be here.
Ellen Andrews

CT Voices re-opens search for budget analyst position

CT Voices for Children is seeking a budget analyst to research family economic security issues and state fiscal analysis. CT Voices is a New Haven-based nonprofit advocacy organization working on behalf of children and families.

Another PCCM/HUSKY Primary Care outreach tool

A brochure for consumers about the PCCM/HUSKY Primary Care option is available on the CT Health Policy Project website.

From the Consumer Helpline

On Wednesday, the New Haven Adult Education Center held their Community Resource Day. This was my first consumer outreach event, and it was a great introduction. The fair was extremely well-attended, and the organization of the event and how smoothly it ran really impressed me. Different groups and classes from the Center came in at staggered intervals, so it was always busy but never too crowded. Because of the variety of programs the Center offers, there were people of all ages, and we handed out a ton of tip sheets, in both English and Spanish, and applications for HUSKY and Charter Oak. Many people also asked us specific questions about their own health care experiences, options, and situations, and one person has already called us to find out more about the information we gave him at the fair. Lots of the people we spoke to were interested in finding alternative insurance programs because they had recently lost their jobs and, therefore, their health insurance. We also heard from a young woman who has Charter Oak and who cannot find a doctor who will see her, which, as this blog has written about, is a common complaint about the program. In general, the younger students at the Adult Education Center had less interest in our table, which I initially assumed was because of the stereotype of the young invincible who believes s/he can’t get sick. Once I talked to a few of them, though, it turned out that most of them had HUSKY or other insurance from their parents already, so they didn’t need to worry about health care yet.

I also very much enjoyed seeing the other organizations at the fair and learning more about the resources available to the New Haven community. Yale can be very isolated from the rest of the community, so I had only a vague idea about the number of community organizations in the area. Everyone was very friendly, and a couple of youth and community groups took tip sheets and signed up for our newsletter. Overall, it was a very successful and enjoyable event, and I am looking forward to doing more of them.

Sabina Klein, CTHPP Fellow