SUBCOMMITTEE Human Health

The human health impacts of COVID-19 provided an acute crisis unrealized in modern times. As the federal, state and local governments worked to address the immediate health crisis, the pandemic also revealed how the country’s existing health care systems may be better positioned to meet increased and new health care demands and improve overall access to care.

In particular, the Human Health Subcommittee included in its policy conversations ways that states may better address health care inequities, improve mental health care and invest in the proliferation of telehealth.

The Human Health Subcommittee released 10 policy recommendations in two areas of focus: health care access and equity and telehealth.

Health Care Access and Equity

States are only as healthy as the people that live there, and the challenge of maintaining equitable access to quality care for every resident existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, the current health care crisis has placed a spotlight on the most vulnerable groups in society — those who are also most at risk for COVID-19 — and the barriers they face in state health care systems. In an effort to address these barriers, state policymakers can look for ways to center the needs of underserved groups in the process of health policy development and implementation. Within this conversation states may consider how expanded health care coverage and targeted policies centered on health equity might be a part of a state’s overall health strategy.

1. States can invest in broadband infrastructure and statewide health care data sharing systems to enable transparency, provide equitable distribution of health care services and improve: (1) access to critical care, (2) robust clinical data for policy makers and providers and (3) quality of the continuum of care.

2. States can investigate the positive human health impact and cost-savings potential of problem-solving courts for individuals with substance use disorders or behavioral health needs.

3. States can consider ways health systems can leverage advancing technology by updating service delivery and payment models.

4. Before proposing health care-related legislation, state policymakers can consider social and economic factors that impact healthcare access and health outcomes.

5. States can prioritize maternal mortality reduction efforts.

6. The Council of State Governments, with the CSG Justice Center and The National Center for State Courts, can create a national framework for the private sector, state legislatures, state agencies, and the courts to better deliver behavioral health and substance use disorder services for justice-involved individuals.

7. State policymakers can work with their health, human services and justice systems to expand telehealth services to individuals, including justice involved individuals in need of behavioral and substance use disorder health care.