Viewpoints: Can Congress Make A Deal, Prop Up Obamacare?; Trump’s Speech On Opioid Plans Hit New Lows

The Washington Post: Obamacare’s Fate Hinges On A Bipartisan Vote That May Never Come
Congress mus vote by the end of the week to fund the government, passing a massive “omnibus” spending bill that may (believe it or not) represent the last time this year lawmakers make significant policy changes. In other words, once the omnibus bill clears Congress, there is little chance lawmakers will approve fixes to Obamacare before the 2019 enrollment season begins. (3/20)

Bloomberg: Trump Talks Tough On Opioids
When it comes to the opioid crisis, President Donald Trump likes to sound tough, including multiple uses of the word itself. "If we don't get tough on the drug dealers, we're wasting our time," he said Monday. "And that toughness includes the death penalty. "Trump's speech in New Hampshire, part of the administration's rollout of its strategy for fighting the crisis, elevated talk over action. By emphasizing capital punishment, Trump has squandered another opportunity to lead a concerted, effective fight against opioid addiction and overdose. (3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Abortion Over ObamaCare
One reality of 2018 is that both parties are in a contest for who can isolate more voters with radical positions that don’t represent most Americans. The Democrats may be winning this one. Congress this week is debating a deal that would prop up ObamaCare for three years with tens of billions of dollars. Yet Democrats have revolted because the deal includes the 1970s Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from subsidizing abortion. (3/20)

The New York Times: Trump’s Bluster On The Opioid Epidemic
President Trump has declared that his administration is getting serious about the opioid epidemic several times since taking office. But he has repeatedly failed to offer a substantive plan — and he has floated at least a few truly absurd ideas. He did it again this week. Mr. Trump gave a rambling speech on opioids on Monday in which he offered few details about how he would increase access to substance abuse treatment and prevention to help the millions of Americans suffering from this disease. Some 64,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses in 2016, including 481 in New Hampshire, one of the hardest hit states in the country, where Mr. Trump gave his speech. (3/20)

The Washington Post: Killing Drug Dealers Won’t Stop The Opioid Epidemic
Whenever some crime becomes prominent in the public eye, some politician inevitably promises to fix it by getting really tough on criminals. No more of this namby-pamby mollycoddling! This time, we’re going to make it so miserable to be a criminal that no one will dare. (Megan McArdle, 3/20)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Wants A New War On Drugs
President Trump's opioid response plan might have multiple prongs, but when he unveiled it Monday, he clearly was most interested in the prong that gets "very tough" on drug dealers. We know this because he said so approximately 5,000 times during a speech announcing the new plan in New Hampshire, a state chosen as the backdrop because it is one of those hardest hit by opioid addiction and overdose deaths. (3/20)

Axios: Why Health Care Probably Didn't Decide The Pennsylvania Election
The buzz is that health care played a leading role in Conor Lamb’s upset win in last week's special House election in Pennsylvania. But in reality, we can’t say that health care was a decisive factor in Lamb’s win, at least not based on the one poll that is being used as a basis for that claim. (Drew Altman, 3/21)

Bloomberg: Gun Confiscation: NRA Feels It Must Voice Support For 'Red Flag' Laws
Students and activists are preparing what will almost certainly be the nation’s largest mass demonstration against gun violence -- and the shoddy laws that fuel it -- on March 24. The March for Our Lives is the bitter fruit of one school massacre too many, the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Waves of outrage follow every gun massacre. But this wave has been effectively channeled, with teen survivors proving canny leaders in shaping what could become a generational cause.The NRA is acutely aware of the precariousness of the moment. (Francis Wilkinson, 3/20)

The New York Times: Fighting Death By Gunshot
Kenji Inaba is a trauma surgeon at Los Angeles County General Hospital and director of the surgical intensive care unit. He’s also a sworn reserve police officer, part of a two-man patrol in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Between policing and doing emergency surgery, he gets a lot of exposure to gunshot wounds, both entry and exit — how people get shot, and how they get better. (Tina Rosenberg, 3/20)

Charlotte Observer: Adults Trying To Ignore Students' Message After School Shootings
Boomers knock the kids to cover for themselves because the kids, in their call for action and the attention it’s getting, are knocking them. It’s Baby Boomers and other like-sounding adults, typically of a particular political persuasion, who can vote, can choose school officials, and can change laws — but have failed miserably on the school shootings front. They knock not merely the points the students are making but the kids themselves, in sweeping, demeaning ways. If they can invalidate the students, the adults don’t even have to consider what the kids are saying. (Keith Larson, 3/20)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Grown-Ups Have Failed Our Kids On Gun Legislation
How did my legislative colleagues react to the school shooting? Rep. Chuck Basye, Second Amendment Preservation Committee chair, invited the Missouri House on a tour next week of CMMG Inc., a leading manufacturer of AR-15 rifles, conversion kits and accessories, in Boonville, Mo. The gun of choice in mass shootings? An AR-15. As Emma Gonzalez, a Stoneman Douglas High School senior and survivor, said in her national rally speech that went viral, I say BS. (Stacey Newman, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Stephen Hawking Is Dead, Not ‘Free’
Does my wheelchair feel like a prison? Do I ever wish I weren’t disabled? Would I choose to become able-bodied if I could? Those are a few of the things people have asked upon meeting me. My answer is always the same: a strong and unequivocal “no.” I’ve never fully understood the mentality behind the questions, much less the shocked reactions to my replies. And then I saw the response to Stephen Hawking’s death last week, when people sighed with relief that one of the most brilliant minds of our generation was finally “free of any physical constraints,” as the actress Gal Gadot tweeted. One meme depicted an empty wheelchair in the foreground, with a silhouette of Hawking standing amid the stars. (Melissa Blake, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Your Doctor’s Computer Is So Clunky
The Trump administration this month announced its own effort to update the Electronic Health Record systems, which disrupt the doctor-patient relationship. The government could do even more good by deregulating EHRs, establishing a free market for user-friendly products. Perhaps Amazon, through its partnership with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway , could eventually do for medicine what it’s done for retail. (Marion Mass and Kenneth A. Fisher, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Stanford Diet Study Casts Doubt On Calorie Counting
The problem is that we’re not in charge of running our bodies. Even with modern food labeling and calorie-counting apps, forces beyond our conscious control keep fiddling with how many calories we burn each day, and how hungry we feel. The longstanding illusion of control has implications for America’s health care policy, since obesity is tied to the major killers -- heart disease; diabetes; and, to a lesser extent, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Many Americans wrongly think that the two-thirds of their fellow citizens who are overweight or obese are to blame for eating too many calories. (Faye Flam, 3/20)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Child Death Another Reminder Of Need For Medical Error Reporting
On a summer morning in 2016, Scott and Sandy Van Veldhuizen of Oskaloosa woke up early to drive their son Reuben to West Lakes Surgery Center in Clive. The 12-year-old was to undergo a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, relatively routine procedures performed on thousands of children each year. “Go get ‘em, bud,” were the last words Scott said to his son before he was wheeled away. (3/20)