Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: GOP Sen. Josh Hawley Condemns Medicaid Cuts As Harmful To The American People
The New York Times: Josh Hawley: Don’t Cut Medicaid
One of my constituents, a married mother of five, contacted me to explain why Medicaid is vital to her 8-year-old daughter, who depends on a feeding tube to survive. Formula, pump rentals, feeding extensions and other treatments cost $1,500 a month; prescriptions nearly double that cost. These expenses aren’t covered by private insurance. The mother wrote to me, “Without Medicaid, we would lose everything — our home, our vehicles, and eventually, our daughter.” Congress should be doing everything possible to aid these working families, to make their health care better and more affordable. We should cap prescription drug costs, as I have recently proposed. We should give every family in America with children a hefty tax cut. What we should not do is eliminate their health care. (Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., 5/12)
The Atlantic: DOGE Is Bringing Back A Deadly Disease
Silicosis is typically caused by years of breathing in silica dust at work, and can worsen even after work exposures stop. In recent years, after decades of inaction, the federal government finally took several important steps to reduce the incidence of this ancient and debilitating disease. Under the Trump administration, all that progress is going away, in but one example of the widespread destruction now taking place across the federal government. (David Michaels and Gregory Wagner, 5/10)
Stat: The Pain Of Even ‘Mild’ Cases Of Measles, Pertussis, And More
When I was recently at the vet’s office, I started eavesdropping a little on the conversation between two older women. When they started talking about the measles outbreak in Texas, I couldn’t help it. I joined in. (Torie Bosch, 5/10)
Stat: Harvard Prof: Why I'm Suing RFK Jr. Over Defunded LGBTQ+ Studies
I’m taking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to court. I don’t want to do it. But I have to do it — not for myself, but to protect science. (Brittany Charlton, 5/12)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Flawed Law A Threat To Health Of Millions Of Patients
Millions of Americans who receive intravenous treatment for multiple sclerosis, blood diseases and rheumatologic conditions could soon lose access to those medicines — unless Congress intervenes. (Dan McCarty, 5/8)
The Washington Post: An HHS Report On Transgender Medical Care Shows We Need Better Research
The HHS document concurs with other systematic reviews, including Britain’s Cass Review report, that the existing research is inadequate to validate medical interventions for gender dysphoric youth. In studying the use of hormones, puberty blockers and surgery, researchers should have started with small, randomized, controlled trials and, if those were successful, gradually expanded the patient population through more such trials to establish effectiveness and refine best practices. (5/11)
The New York Times: There Are Ways To Die With Dignity, But Not Like This
Early in my medical career, I was shocked to learn that intensive care units are full of patients who never expect to leave the hospital alive. Facing advanced disease and collapsing organ systems, they rely on the miracles of modern technology to pump their hearts, help them breathe, close their wounds and filter their blood for as long as possible. (L.S. Dugdale, 5/11)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: My Double Mastectomy Won't Change Who I Am
As if on cue this Mother’s Day, thoughts of what makes me a woman and a mother have been swirling in my mind. I came to the following conclusion in the hours after the surgery that would take away my breasts: Body parts and hormones do not define you who you are, your chromosomes and your actions do. (Lynn Schmidt, 5/11)
