December 31, 2019
2019 in Review: A big year for reforming healthcare in the states
With healthcare reform at the federal level slow and often gridlocked, more and more people look to the states for answers to healthcare challenges. In 2019, state think tanks advanced several healthcare reforms that improved access to care while lowering costs.
From expanding telemedicine to stopping efforts to expand Medicaid, state think tanks worked to reform burdensome healthcare policies and improve the lives of millions of Americans.
As 2019 comes to a close, we’re celebrating a few of the Network’s significant healthcare victories and their commitment to be voices for innovative, free-market healthcare reforms in the states. Congratulations to these organizations for their success!
Thanks to Right to Try, Americans suffering from brain cancer have new hope—an anti-cancer vaccine known as Gliovac (ERC1671) will be made available to patients suffering from the disease. The Goldwater Institute developed the Right to Try policy, where terminally ill patients are able to access experimental drugs that haven’t yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, won Intelligence Squared’s debate arguing against replacing private insurance with “Medicare for All.” In her closing argument, Pipes said: “As we have heard tonight, healthcare is tricky. It’s one of the few public policy issues that affects every one of us and often does so when we are at our most vulnerable. Perhaps tonight’s debate convinced that America’s healthcare system is in need of change. I agree with you. Private insurance is not perfect, but I hope that you will vote against the proposition because I believe that Medicare for all would leave us all much worse off.” Watch the debate here.
Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom transparency and accountability language for Minnesota’s Prescription Monitoring Program was amended onto the HHS omnibus bill.
The Mississippi Justice Institute, the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, successfully challenged regulations that limited who can provide emergency telemedicine in Mississippi. In May 2019, the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure adopted a new proposed rule that will expand telemedicine services in the state by allowing additional providers to offer telemedicine in the emergency room, expanding access to rural hospitals and bringing more choice and competition to healthcare.
The Empire Center was mentioned in a front-page New York Times article about the shortfall in New York’s Medicaid budget, which has grown since the powerful Greater New York Hospital Association contributed to the Governor’s 2018 election campaign. The New York Times turned to the Empire Center for a nonpartisan perspective on the corruption behind the shortfall: “It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” said Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the nonpartisan Empire Center who first noticed the budgetary trick. “The governor was able to unilaterally direct a billion dollars to a major interest group while secretly accepting its campaign cash and papering over a massive deficit in the Medicaid program.”
The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs successfully stopped efforts to expand Medicaid in the state. OCPA raised awareness of the costs of expansion and pointed out that expansion would divert resources from the truly needy.
Libertas Institute’s video on a medical cannabis success story received over 600,000 views. The video tells the story of Marie Nielsen, mother to three-year-old Gracelyn, who suffers from debilitating seizures. Having access to medical cannabis gave Marie a way to ease Gracelyn’s pain, and Libertas’ video shows why medical cannabis legalization is so important.
The Virginia Institute for Public Policy’s Healthcare Freedom Initiative was an integral part of the Virginia Legislature passing several polices related to telehealth, direct primary care, and charity care in the state.
The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to allow seniors to opt out of Medicare and still receive their Social Security benefits. The Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom led a three-year campaign that included White House meetings, federal legislation, and a nationwide 44-group coalition to accomplish this before 2020.
This has been a banner year for insurance reform in states that need it most, and R Street Institute has been at the forefront of these efforts. After years of the Institute alerting states to the harmful impact of ill-conceived laws, Michigan and Florida finally enacted positive change that will help create a healthier insurance market and lower insurance rates.
