Lots of news lately about the CARES Act's $100 billion hospital fund. The admin, under pressure for failing to make ACA enrollment easier, announced they'd use part of the fund to meet the needs of the uninsured.

It's a dumb substitute for comprehensive coverage -- people need health insurance, not some incomplete facility-based backstop! And there are lots of ways to support coverage: a Special Enrollment Period, enhanced ACA financial assistance, support for Medicaid, and more.

But we'll need a backstop of some sort, and there are better and worse ways to design it. What we shouldn't do is designate a pot for "the uninsured" and create a separate application for that money. Nor should we give hospitals cash without relieving people of financial burdens.

Instead, hospitals can be required, in exchange for any fund dollars, to meet conditions like: not billing the uninsured at all, supporting enrollment into real coverage, and refraining from surprise billing and extraordinary collection activities (for insured and uninsured).

More in @Health_Affairs Blog with @standorn, @LorenAdler, @cparcham, and @TaraStraw here: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200409.207680/full/