'A lot of little things': Incremental health policy changes favored over sweeping reform in 2019

‘A lot of little things’: Incremental health policy changes favored over sweeping reform in 2019 legislative session


Lawmakers this session took patients out of the middle of negotiations between providers and insurance companies over out-of-network hospital bills in a landmark bill decades in the making and codified the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions amid ongoing threats at the federal level.

But, by and large, the changes that the Legislature pursued this year to improve health care in the state weren’t big or flashy. Instead, lawmakers passed a number of incremental changes — such as establishing a maternal mortality review panel, allocating additional state dollars for family planning services and commissioning studies on prescription drugs and a state public option — that experts say will slowly begin to move the needle on health care.

“There were some little tweaks that were made that are going to have a big impact,” said Catherine O’Mara, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association. “I think sometimes it doesn’t seem that exciting because there’s not these huge reform bills but, in the aggregate, there were a lot of little things that were done that are actually going to positively impact people.”

Part of that emphasis on smaller health policy items over the sweeping change that had seemed possible when a Medicaid buy-in proposal was the subject of conversations between the 2017 and 2019 legislative sessions was signaled early on by Gov. Steve Sisolak, who during his campaign promised the creation of a Patient Protection Commission charged with a top-to-bottom review of health care in the Silver State.

Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/a-lot-of-little-things-incremental-health-policy-changes-favored-over-sweeping-reform-in-2019-legislative-session