Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Trump's Renewed Attack On The Health Law Just Made The Democrats' Day; Where Are The GOP's Better Ideas?
Bloomberg: Trump’s Miss On Obamacare Ruling Gives Democrats Perfect Pivot
Just as things were starting to look better for President Donald Trump, he seems intent on squandering any political advantage. Republicans lost big in the 2018 midterm elections due in large part to failed efforts to dismantle the increasingly popular Affordable Care Act. Instead of learning a lesson, the Trump administration is doubling down. The Justice Department took a more extreme position in an ongoing legal challenge to the law Monday night, saying that the whole thing should be thrown out instead of just in part. If the lawsuit succeeds, millions would lose coverage and many millions more would again face discrimination and higher costs based on pre-existing conditions. (Max Nisen, 3/26)
The Washington Post: The Trump Administration Just Handed Democrats Their Best 2020 Issue
When you’re the opposition party, much of what the administration does will make you angry, even horrified, but you often struggle to make the public share your outrage. Yet every once in a while, the administration will do something so obviously awful that you can only see it as a political gift. (Paul Waldman, 3/26)
The New York Times: Republicans Really Hate Healthcare
Of all the political issues that divide us, health care is the one with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans’ lives. If Democrats hadn’t managed to pass the Affordable Care Act, around 20 million fewer Americans would have health insurance than currently do. If Republican-controlled states hadn’t refused to expand Medicaid and generally done as little as possible to support the act, national progress might have tracked progress in, say, California – so another 7 or 8 million people might have coverage. You obviously know where I stand on this political divide. But I’m starting to believe that I misjudged Republican motives. (Paul Krugman, 3/26)
San Franciso Chronicle: The Trump Administration Is Attacking The Affordable Care Act Yet Again
California, along with more than a dozen other states, has intervened in court to defend the ACA. As important as that fight is, it’ll take place against the backdrop of a much larger war in this country over the extent to which Americans want government support for health care.In 2020, the Democrats are betting that the country wants far more support than we have now. The Trump administration is betting — against all available evidence — that we want none at all. The final decision will be made by the voters, not by the courts. (3/26)
USA Today: Trump Administration's Latest Attack On Health Care Hurts Us All
The Justice Department of Justice announced on Monday its support of a federal district court ruling that would strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, leaving more than 20 million people without health insurance. I’ve practiced medicine before and after the ACA, and I have seen the profound impact it has had on the health and well-being of patients. In the emergency room before the ACA, I treated a young woman who died from cardiac arrest because she couldn’t afford treatment for the heart condition with which she was born. (President of Planned Parenthood Leana Wen, 3/26)
The Washington Post: The Administration’s Renewed Focus On Eliminating Obamacare Is A Baffling Political Move
President Trump clearly recognizes, at least in the abstract, that providing affordable health care is a political winner. During the 2016 campaign, he embraced his party’s push to repeal the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) but couched it in sweeping, almost Bernie Sanders-ian language. On “60 Minutes” in 2015, he declared that he would “take care of everybody . . . much better than they’re taken care of now.” How? He’d make a deal with hospitals, and the government would pay the bill. Up until a few days before his inauguration, his rhetoric was similar: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody.” (Philip Bump, 3/26)
USA Today: Trump Wants To Kill Obamacare, That Gives 2020 Voters A Clear Choice
Only 24 hours after what he sees as a vindication of his presidency by Attorney General William Barr, President Donald Trump took the most radical, aggressive and harmful move of his presidency when he filed papers to ask the courts to support the complete elimination of the Affordable Care Act.And in doing so, Trump just framed the stakes of the 2020 election. In an administration that has attempted to ban Muslims from entering the country and separated small children from their parents, this stands out in some ways as an even more defining step because the impact reaches to nearly every American family. (Andy Slavitt, 3/27)
The Hill: HHS Moves Forward With Game-Changing Health Care Innovations
It would be easy to think the flurry of congressional investigations of the White House, the politics of the 2020 presidential campaign, and the paralyzing partisanship on Capitol Hill would combine to make it impossible for anything to get done in Washington. Think again. Flying somewhat under the radar, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has ramped up efforts to move towards a more innovative way to reimburse health care providers, which has caused a flurry of behind-the-scenes lobbying from all sides of the health care industry. (Jason Altmire, 3/26)
