Parsing The Policies: Congress’s Failure To Fund CHIP Highlights Ineptitude; Obamacare And Health Care Quality

The Washington Post: Congress’s Failure To Re-Up CHIP Funding Shows Its Striking Ineptitude
Disagreement in Congress is not necessarily a sign of dysfunction. But when both parties broadly agree that something should happen yet serially fail to follow through, the nation’s leaders look particularly inept. The example of the moment is the ongoing saga of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a popular service that covers 9 million young Americans — and that is rapidly running out of cash, alarming families that rely on the federal aid to keep their children healthy. (1/7)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: If GOP Leaders Really Care About Kids, Now's The Time To Prove It
Save for a party that champions a “pro-life” agenda, the GOP routinely turns its back on children once they leave the womb. The question isn’t just about abortion rights; it’s about making sure that all children have access to a quality life, growing up safe, healthy and well-educated.On Sept. 30, the Republican-controlled House and Senate allowed funding to expire for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which provided coverage for 8.9 million kids across the country whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Regardless of how anyone judges adults for their employment and financial-management choices, no child should be made to suffer just to make a political point. (1/8)

Health Affairs: Is Obamacare Harming Quality?
While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) promises “quality health insurance coverage for all Americans,” a potential tradeoff exists between the law’s dual goals of promoting quality and preventing insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to patients with preexisting conditions. This issue, which gets lost amid the partisan wrangling over Obamacare, could determine the fate of the law. (Michael Cannon, 1/4)

The Washington Post: The Trump Administration’s Hidden Attacks On The Affordable Care Act
Most observers of health policy news would be excused for being more than a bit confused about the current state of the Affordable Care Act. The Republican effort to repeal and replace the ACA last year stalled, suggesting that the law was here to stay. Then, seemingly out of the blue, the ACA’s individual mandate penalty was repealed as part of the tax bill, prompting President Trump to declare that “we have essentially repealed Obamacare, and we’ll come up with something that will be much better.” (Larry Levitt, 1/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s ObamaCare Lifeboat
The Trump Administration is on a mission to rescue health-care markets and consumers from ObamaCare’s shrinking choices and higher prices. Witness the Labor Department’s proposal to allow small businesses to band together to provide insurance on equal footing with corporations and unions. (1/7)

The (Eugene, Ore.) Register-Guard: State Financing For Medicaid: Yes
Complexity is the biggest problem with Measure 101, the only proposal on the Jan. 23 ballot. Oregonians — unsure of who’s paying how much for what, aware of the state’s spotty record in managing its Medicaid program and wary of anything labeled as a tax — may be tempted to think they can play it safe by voting no on Measure 101. A no vote, however, is the riskiest option: A defeat would jeopardize enormous sums of federal money and threaten thousands of people with the loss of their health insurance. A yes vote avoids those risks. ... Opponents of both the hospital assessment increase and the insurance premium tax gathered signatures to refer those parts of the Legislature’s Medicaid finance plan to the ballot. A public vote on such a referendum would ordinarily be held in November, but lawmakers moved the election date to January so that they could deal with the consequences of a possible defeat in the session that begins next month. (1/7)

JAMA: The Importance Of Relative Prices In Health Care Spending
At least since the publication of the important article “It’s the Prices, Stupid,” it has been known that the substantial gap in health care spending between the United States and other developed countries is largely because of differences in prices, not use of health care services. Moreover, even at higher price (and spending) levels, most health care outcomes in the United States are not superior to those of peer nations. These facts have motivated calls by some to regulate health care prices in the United States. In doing so, caution is warranted. ... there is reason to be concerned about relative prices of health care goods and services. That is, at any absolute price level, the price of health care service A relative to the price of service B has important implications. (Austin B. Frakt and Michael E. Chernew, 1/4)

Louisville Courier-Journal: Social Services And Elder Care: We Can’t Afford Not To Pay For Them
The Kentucky General Assembly faces tough choices as it builds our commonwealth’s budget. Social services, which are already stretched thin, should not be on the chopping block. We have a moral imperative to care for the frail, sick and less fortunate in our society. However, some might argue that caregiving should be the domain of the private sector, not the public one. In our experience at ElderServe, it takes a village — of both sectors. We are grateful for the incredible support from individual donors and corporate supporters. Grants also help, but with increasing needs, competition is stiff. Recently, a foundation told us that they received $7 million in funding requests, but had only $1.5 million to give. (Julie Guenthner, 1/6)