Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
How Well Did Your State Handle Covid? Rankings List Best To Worst
Stateline: Hawaii And Maine Have Scored Highest On Health Care During Pandemic
The health systems in Hawaii and Maine have performed best of all the states during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new rankings that weighed such factors as vaccination rates, capacity in hospital and intensive care units, and death rates. Alabama ranked at the bottom in the scorecard, followed by Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia. The rankings, released Thursday, were compiled by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that promotes health equity and higher health care quality, efficiency and access. Every year, Commonwealth uses dozens of measures to produce a ranking of state health care systems. This year, it added categories specific to how state health care systems performed during COVID-19 from February 2020 to the end of March 2022. Vermont, Washington and Oregon rounded out the top five. (Ollove, 6/16)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia’s Pandemic Response Ranked Among The Nation’s Worst
Georgia’s response to the pandemic ranked among the nation’s worst, according to an analysis released Thursday by the New-York-based Commonwealth Fund. The state ranked 44th among all states and the District of Columbia for its overall health performance according to the report, which looked at dozens of measures of health and health care access. Within that, the state ranked 47th for its response to the pandemic, which measured rates of death and COVID-19 hospitalization as well as staffing shortages and overflow in hospital intensive care units. The message, said the authors: The pandemic has been bad, but being ill prepared made it worse for citizens. (Hart, 6/16)
Read the full report —
Commonwealth Fund: 2022 Scorecard On State Health System Performance COVID-19
We found that states that have historically performed well on our State Scorecard also performed well as the pandemic unfolded, both on our usual set of health system measures and the new COVID-19-specific measures. (6/16)
In related news —
Bloomberg: Paid Leave, Affordable Child Care On Working Women’s Wish List
Universal paid leave and affordable child care and housing would ease the pandemic’s economic strain and bring more women back into the workforce, a panel of working-class women told lawmakers at a hearing. There are no suitable workplace protections in place for women dealing with deaths in the family, the rising costs of gas and groceries, and the growing wave of mental health issues among school-aged children, the women told the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. (Brown, 6/15)
