New survey shows half of Americans concerned about healthcare costs

Plus: CA backs off Walgreens and which age group works remote the most

Apr 07, 2023

Good morning and happy Friday. This is the Friday Pulse Check from Fulcrum Strategies.

In the news:

California backs off Walgreens promise

In an update to a story we brought to you a few weeks ago on the Friday Pulse Check and then on the FLATLINING Podcast, the California state government has confirmed that Medi-Cal patients can continue to fill their prescriptions at Walgreens (WBA 0.00%↑). Medi-Cal is the California Medicaid program. Federal law allows Medicaid patients to fill prescriptions at any approved pharmacy. One Democratic strategist said that Governor Gavin Newsom will still get the political win on abortion rights and this will amount to a “technical difficulty.”Kaiser Health News is even reporting that Walgreens has been invited to re-apply for the prison specialty pharmacy program. Read more from Desert Sun.

More than half of Americans are concerned about the affordability of their healthcare

100 us dollar bill — Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

According to a new Gallup poll, the number of Americans concerned about the cost of their healthcare has climbed 5 points to 54%. Also up 5 points is the number of Americans concerned about Social Security; that tops at 45%. Inflation and the economy are still the top issues Americans are concerned about, but healthcare and drug use saw the greatest uptick in this most recent survey. Read more from the Hill.

New TikTok challenge sparks hospitalizations

Two weeks ago, I wrote in my editorial that TikTok poses a public health risk, not just in the form of what it does to young people’s mental health but in the promotion and creation of truly idiotic trends. A student in Dexter Park, MA bought a brand of gum online called Trouble Bubble which contains oleoresin capsicum - the same ingredient in pepper spray (see where this is going?). The gum has a heat level of 16 million Scoville heat units, while traditional pepper spray is only 1 to 2 million Scoville units. The student then distributed it to other kids and ten of them ended up going to the hospital with gastrointestinal issues and skin irritation. There have been reports of students from other school districts being brought to area hospitals for the same reason. Read more from WWLP.

The FLATLINING Podcast

At the risk of sounding repetitive from the last few emails you’ve gotten from us, Ron and I talked about the recent ProPublica investigation into Cigna’s denial practices. Ron was quoted in the article and participated in a webinar from ProPublica and the Capitol Forum.

You can hear our discussion of how claims denials work, how they should work, and what the solution might be to stop companies like Cigna from taking advantage of the system.

Listen to this episode

Subscribe to the FLATLINING Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Pandora, TuneIn, and Audible.

Ukraine

MedicalXpress is reporting that on an extremely worrying picture of rising infectious disease cases and falling levels of childhood vaccination and case detection in the eastern region of Ukraine. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of probably infectious disease patients left the hospitals without laboratory results between January and October 2022, and three-quarters of cases were not given a final diagnosis. Read more from MedicalXpress.

Final Thought

Who’s working from home? Most of you might think its GenZ but new data from Stanford University, the University of Chicago, MIT, and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México shows otherwise. They have found that employees aged 50-64 are most likely to work from home and that only 10% of employees aged 20-29 are fully remote. The joint study found that most people are fully in office and that the second most popular option is hybrid work. Read more from WFH Research.

Have a good holiday weekend,

Matthew