Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
A Look At The Political Landscape: Who's Really For Trumpcare?
Los Angeles Times: Recipe For Disaster: How Not To Cook Up Healthcare Reform
In case anyone was wondering what would happen if a handful of fairly wealthy, well-insured men gathered in a room and quietly tried to reinvent the $3-trillion U.S. healthcare system without any input from medical experts, patient advocates or others who know what they’re talking about, the U.S. Senate stepped up Thursday with the answer. (David Lazarus, 6/22)
Bloomberg: Why Republicans Will Pass Trumpcare
No one seems to like the Senate health-care bill. Liberal wonks detest it. At least four Republican Senators claim they aren't prepared to support it, while other colleagues grumble about it. The White House, whose chief executive promised he wouldn't cut Medicaid, as this bill does, is balking. But the Senate bill is very similar to the bill passed last month by the House. And the reason for that similarity is pretty basic: Both bills accomplish what Republicans want. (Francis Wilkinson, 6/22)
Los Angeles Times: I Can Help You Understand Trumpcare, But I Can't Defeat It Alone
Next week, Republicans want the United States Senate to vote on a bill that would restructure our nation’s entire healthcare system — a system that makes up one-sixth of the American economy. This bill would affect the lives of nearly every American, from our parents or grandparents in need of caregiving, to our children struggling with asthma or opioid addiction, to our spouses battling cancer. And we only just received the full text on Thursday, a week before the vote on the bill. (Sen. Kamala D. Harris, 6/23)
The Washington Post: Is There Anybody Actually In Favor Of The Senate Health-Care Bill?
President Trump says the Senate health-care bill needs more negotiation. (So what foolish lawmaker would sign onto it now?) Planned Parenthood, hospitals, every Democratic lawmaker and a number of conservatives have panned the bill. Conservatives and libertarians oppose the bill because, to a greater extent than the House bill, it temporarily props up Obamacare. Already four Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Mike Lee (Utah) — have said they cannot support it because it does not fully repeal Obamacare or do enough to lower costs. (Jennifer Rubin, 6/22)
USA Today: Republicans Created A Health Care Monster By Lying To Their Base. They Need To Come Clean.
The hope for the Senate Republican health care plan was that it would be more humane than its House counterpart, which President Trump labeled "mean." It may be, but only in the sense that it’s more humane to shoot someone in the leg than to shoot them in the head. (Montel Williams, 6/23)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Honest Numbers And The Republican Health Care Bill
A normal legislative process allows time for journalists and citizens to digest the consequences of major legislation. But even now that the Senate bill has been released, a larger problem remains. (Philip Rocco, 6/22)
The New England Journal Of Medicine: The First Hundred Days for Health Care
Like my predictions about what a Republican win in the 2016 election would mean for U.S. health policy, my expectations about the ease and speed of passing an Affordable Care Act (ACA) replacement bill during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have not exactly come to fruition. But given the Republican focus over the past 7 years on “repealing and replacing” the ACA and Trump’s promise to make health care reform an early focus of his administration (at one point, he suggested having Congress meet even before his inauguration), Congress’s attention to the issue has not been surprising — even if it’s not directly in line with Trump’s dominant campaign theme of “making America great again.” Indeed, it’s been argued that the economy and jobs would have been a politically easier first target than health care — an argument that was made retrospectively for the Obama administration as well. (Gail R. Wilensky, 6/22)
The Washington Post: Here’s How Ronald Reagan Would Fix The GOP’s Health-Care Mess
The internal GOP debate on how to replace Obamacare is essentially one of priorities. What is more important, saving money or saving lives? Senate and House Republicans may be surprised to learn that for their idol, Ronald Reagan, this was never a question at all. Throughout his life, Reagan always cared more about saving lives than saving money. (Henry Olsen, 6/22)
