Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Pros, Cons Of FDA's Plasma Decision; Trump Plays Defense On Health Care Policies
The Wall Street Journal: The FDA’s Good Plasma Decision
Here we go again. President Trump hypes a Covid-19 therapy that has shown potential based on early studies. The Food and Drug Administration approves the treatment for emergency use and gets lambasted for letting politics influence the science. This is what occurred with the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and now is happening with convalescent plasma, which the FDA on Sunday granted “emergency use authorization” (EUA). Mr. Trump was wrong to tweet over the weekend that “the deep state” at the FDA was thwarting development of therapies and vaccines to sabotage his re-election. (8/24)
Stat: Trump Opened The Floodgates For Convalescent Plasma Too Soon
Convalescent plasma has been used to fight many infectious diseases, from scarlet fever in the 1930s to whooping cough and measles and, in more recent times, swine flu, Ebola, and Middle East respiratory syndrome. The idea seems to make sense: The plasma of people who survive these diseases contains antibodies that may have helped them survive. When their plasma is donated and the antibodies are isolated from it and transfused, it could perhaps help newly infected people survive as well. (Arthur Caplan, 8/24)
The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Second-Term Opening
Republicans are destined to play defense on health care after failing to replace the Affordable Care Act. But Mr. Trump can tout his Administration’s incremental moves to expand choice and lower the cost of health insurance, and he can promise to do more to create a competitive market. He can also talk up the huge expansion of telemedicine in recent months and promise to continue it. (8/23)
Fox News: GOP Health Care Alternatives – Convention A Chance To Present These Smart Options
This week’s Republican National Convention offers the GOP an opportunity to detail its governing agenda to a relatively captive audience of voters before November. That's especially important for health care, which voters rank as their number-two issue for this fall's presidential election. The GOP needs to shift the debate away from the quixotic quest for universal coverage – and instead explain how they'll create a health insurance market characterized by affordability, access, choice and portability. (Sally Pipes, 8/25)
The New York Times: Republican Convention: Best And Worst Moments From Night 1
Michelle Cottle: President Trump’s East Room chat with essential workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Yes, he looked super-awkward, and he wandered off on odd tangents, like how much truckers love him and how mean people have been about hydroxychloroquine. But it was a rare — very rare — attempt to show appreciation of other people. Good for him! Linda Chavez: The McCloskeys — the gun-toting couple who threatened peaceful protesters in their gated community — were introduced by a disingenuous film showing looting, arson and a broken gate. They referred to the protesters as a mob “that descended on our neighborhood.” In their speech, the couple doubled down on the message, saying that Biden will “abolish the suburbs.” It’s a canard borne of desperation as suburban voters flee the G.P. (8/25)
WBUR: Joe Biden Will Address Ted Kennedy’s 'Greatest Regret' On Health Care
History is made by actions taken — and by those left undone. Sen. Edward Kennedy died on this day 11 years ago, having left a legacy as “one of the greatest legislators of all time.” Yet he forfeited by inaction the chance to achieve perhaps his signature legislative passion. The Massachusetts senator often said his greatest regret was failing to work with President Nixon when the latter proposed massively expanding private health insurance, along with federal subsidies for the poor to buy it. Teddy wanted the government to be the nation’s single-payer for health care, and he bowed to labor allies urging him to hold out for a new administration and a better deal. But when the next Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, proposed reforming and extending private insurance, Kennedy blocked that, too (in Carter’s bitter view, to deny the president a triumph as Kennedy geared up to challenge him for the 1980 nomination). (Rich Barlow, 8/25)
The New York Times: QAnon Is Trump’s Last, Best Chance
Then came Covid-19 — which, by the way, has already killed far more Americans than were murdered in the decade that preceded Trump’s inauguration. And the administration’s response, aside from the occasional promotion of quack remedies, has consisted of little but denial and insistence that the whole thing will miraculously go away. Trump, in other words, can’t devise policies that respond to the nation’s actual needs, nor is he willing to listen to those who can. He won’t even try. And at some level both he and those around him seem aware of his basic inadequacy for the job of being president. What he and they can do, however, is conjure up imaginary threats that play into his supporters’ prejudices, coupled with conspiracy theories that resonate with their fear and envy of know-it-all “elites.” QAnon is only the most ludicrous example of this genre, all of which portrays Trump as the hero defending us from invisible evil. (Paul Krugman, 8/24)
Stat: Personalized Risk Data Can Depolarize Clashing Covid-19 Narratives
In these stridently partisan times, the U.S. has coalesced around two polarized default narratives about Covid-19: avoid infection at all cost to drive transmission down to the lowest possible levels via national or state lockdowns versus open the economy and normalize most activities while absorbing the health consequences. In our politically fractured country, neither of these policy narratives will gain enough public support to have a realistic chance of broad implementation. (Phillips, 8/25)
The Wall Street Journal: Georgia’s Pandemic Progress
Remember when the national press corps portrayed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp as a villain for reopening the state’s economy too soon? Well, more than a few states would like to be in the Peach State’s pandemic and fiscal position now. Start with the state’s economy, which had a relatively low jobless rate of 7.6% in July. Construction was never shut down, and schools in much of the state are opening for classroom instruction. The state expected a budget shortfall of $1 billion for the year but the actual deficit was $210 million. Mr. Kemp says sales tax revenue is rebounding and the state hasn’t exhausted its $700 million reserve fund. Mr. Kemp says he’d like Congress to allow him more flexibility to spend the money left from the first state rescue. But he doesn’t need another federal bailout. (8/24)
The New York Times: Are We Looking For The Wrong Coronavirus Vaccines?
Not long after the new coronavirus first surfaced last December, an ambitious prediction was made: A vaccine would be available within 12 to 18 months, and it would stop the pandemic. Despite serious challenges — how to mass manufacture, supply and deliver a vaccine worldwide — the first prong of that wish could well be fulfilled. Eight vaccine candidates are undergoing large-scale efficacy tests, so-called Phase 3 trials, and results are expected by the end of this year or early 2021. But even if one, or more, of those efforts succeeds, a vaccine might not end the pandemic. This is partly because we seem to be focused at the moment on developing the kind of vaccine that may well prevent Covid-19, the disease, but that wouldn’t do enough to stop the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. (Adam Finn and Richard Malley, 8/24)
