Viewpoints: Fixing The Health Law; Obamacare’s Unexpected Critic

Bloomberg: OK, We Agree: Obamacare Needs Some Fixes. Now What? 
For weeks, rumors have been flying that WikiLeaks would deliver an “October surprise” for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, a bombshell revelation that she would struggle to recover from in the short weeks remaining until the election. (So far, it's a dud -- surprise!) But Clinton should be worried about a “November surprise” -- the wave of policy cancellations and rate hikes that will attend the debut of Obamacare’s fourth open-enrollment period, on Nov. 1. Just a week before Election Day. (Megan McArdle, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: Did Bill Clinton Really Call Obamacare A Crazy System? Not Exactly
Again proving himself both a campaign asset and liability, Bill Clinton muddled his wife's healthcare message and emboldened Affordable Care Act critics Monday when he described one of the law's affordability problems as “the craziest thing in the world.” (Harris Meyer, 10/4)

RealClear Health: Not "A Better Way": Trump's Plan Would Leave Millions Without Health Insurance
Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has made it clear he opposes the Affordable Care Act – a.k.a. Obamacare. He also has stated repeatedly that he wants to “take care of everybody,” and has offered up a few ideas of what that might mean. But those ideas would fall far short of taking care of everybody; indeed, they would substantially increase the number of Americans without health insurance. (James C. Capretta, 10/4)

The Washington Post: What Donald Trump Got Right About PTSD — And What He Left Out
Donald Trump continues to be hammered for suggesting that soldiers and veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are somehow weaker than those who do not. Experts say that view further stigmatizes the illness and that it’s wrong — although they agree with Trump’s comment about the skyrocketing number of vets who die by suicide every day: “That should never be.” What was left out of the presidential candidate’s comments to a group of veterans on Monday, and what has been left out of many of the discussions since then, is how little we understand PTSD. (Amy Ellis Nutt, 10/4)

The Des Moines Register: Veterans In Crisis Should Not Be Turned Away
In July, Sgt. Brandon Ketchum, a young veteran and father, did what many of us have trouble doing when in need — he asked for help. As a result of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sgt. Ketchum suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. These wounds may be invisible to others, but any veteran who suffers from a mental health crisis has sacrificed too much to ever feel alone when trying to heal. Sgt. Ketchum was in crisis. (Rep. Dave Loesack, D-Iowa, 10/4)

The Orange County Register: Make VA Hotline Work Right, With Or Without New Law
The Department of Veterans Affairs has called it a public health crisis — an estimated 20 veterans commit suicide every day. So it is no trivial matter that a suicide hotline run by the VA is failing to answer the phone. The former director of the Veterans Crisis Line told the Associated Press that an average of 35 to 40 percent of the calls to the hotline in May went unanswered by the crisis-trained health science specialists at the VCL’s location in Canandaigua, N.Y. The calls rolled over to backup centers run by a contractor and staffed by workers, sometimes volunteers, who lack specialized training. (10/5)

Bloomberg: Stop Hitting Yourself, Mylan 
A congressional roasting of Mylan and its CEO Heather Bresch over EpiPen price hikes was just the beginning. Since then, we have learned Mylan potentially misled lawmakers in that Sept. 21 hearing about EpiPen's profitability by using unrealistic tax assumptions. The Senate is joining the House in investigating Mylan, focusing on potential Medicaid fraud. And Monday, the company revealed the half-priced "authorized generic" EpiPen it has promised may not arrive until the end of the year. Mylan said in August it expected to launch the cheaper EpiPen within "weeks." (Max Nisen, 10/4)

The Hill: Medication-Assisted Treatment Critical To Fight Addiction 
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), passed by Congress and signed by the president in July, authorized $181 million in additional funding for programs related to prevention and treatment, including medication-assisted treatment. This was a good start, but Congress should and must act through the appropriations process, including state block grants, to ensure the programs authorized in the bill have the resources necessary to be fully be implemented.  However, the fight around funding should be put in context — taxpayer-funded grants are a temporary bridge over a fundamental barrier to addiction recovery: the lack of meaningful access to recovery medication. (Newt Gingrich, Patrick J. Kennedy and Van Jones, 10/4)

The New York Times: A Disabled Life Is A Life Worth Living
The perseverance to live fully with a profound disability comes, I think, in part from honestly facing your own powerlessness and frailty, and recognizing how much worse things have been and could still be. This can instill a delight in the now. In living with a disability, you’ve already dealt with much of what other people fear most, and if you come out on the other side you are, by definition, a survivor. The resolve required, and begrudging acceptance of what you can’t change, may bring a kind of wisdom. (Ben Mattlin, 10/5)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Linking Housing, Health Care For Aging Seniors
Over the next 15 years, our nation's senior population will nearly double, approaching 73 million by 2030 and accounting for more than one in five Americans. Philadelphia and Pennsylvania stand at the forefront of this dramatic demographic transformation. Philadelphia already has the highest proportion of senior citizens among the nation's 10 largest cities, a position it is unlikely to cede anytime soon. At the same time, the number of older adults in Pennsylvania now exceeds 2.1 million, the fifth-highest of any state in the country. (Allyson Y. Schwartz and Anand Parekh, 10/5)

San Antonio Press Express: County Funds Boost Mental Health Care 
Since the start of the new millennium, the Center for Health Care Services has played a big role in the county’s jail diversion program, providing much-needed treatment as an option for those who become tangled in the criminal justice system and are struggling with mental illness. It has reduced incarceration costs for the county and benefited people who otherwise might not have received the treatment they needed. The program has become a national model and is frequently visited by representatives from communities across the country who want to emulate it. (10/4)