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Week in Washington
11/05/2020
Elections
At the time of writing this blog, there remains uncertainty as to a number of outcomes, most notably the Presidential election. This Week in Washington will release a more comprehensive review next week on the electoral outcomes. What is clear is 2020 turnout (on track to be north of 65% of registered voters) will likely be the highest since 1900.
COVID
Unfortunately, COVID cases are growing at near exponential rates as cases hit a record number. Hospitalization numbers have sharply increased across the country. Hospitalizations in the Midwest are particularly bad at the moment.
HHS Regulations
HHS released several proposed regulations this past week
- CMS released Part II of the 2022 Medicare Advantage and Part D Advance Notice. Wakely will be releasing a more detailed analysis. Overall the proposed changes in Advanced Notice in Part I and Part II are expected to increase plan revenue by 2.82%.
- HHS released a proposed regulation that would set expiration dates for its regulations and would require them to reassess regularly and effectively re-release them. This could increase regulatory uncertainty and reduce the amount of regulations HHS has.
Flu Vaccination Rates by State
KFF released flu vaccination rates by state data. There is extensive variation between states, ranging from 44% in Nevada to 61% in Rhode Island. KFF notes that patterns in flu vaccine rates may shed some light on the ultimate pattern of COVID vaccine rates across states.
Previous editions:
10/29/2020: Week in Washington
10/22/2020: Week in Washington
10/15/2020: Week in Washington
10/08/2020: Week in Washington
10//01/2020: Week in Washington
09/24/2020: Week in Washington
09/17/2020: Week in Washington
09/10/2020: Week in Washington