Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Why Not Let Americans Make Their Own Choices On Health Care?; Pelosi Has Political Reality In Mind
The Wall Street Journal: Would Patients Be Able To Escape BernieCare?
On Wednesday Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vt.) rolled out this year’s version of his draft legislation to abolish traditional Medicare. He calls it “Medicare for All” because polls tell him that voters don’t want to abolish traditional Medicare. Voters also don’t want him to destroy the U.S. system of private medical insurance, but his plan would do that, too. A key question raised by the new bill is whether patients, doctors and nurses would be able to escape the new government-run system when it fails to provide needed care—as such systems always do. (James Freeman, 4/11)
The Washington Post: Democrats Should Listen To Pelosi On Health Care
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rolled out his health-care plan — a soup-to-nuts single-payer plan that would effectively end private insurance. He operates in a weird space in which his socialism is taken as a given and he is never really grilled by the press on how he’d accomplish it (he is also against ending the filibuster) and how he’d pay for it. No slouch when it comes to progressive policy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made clear the dangers of embracing Medicare-for-all, publicly questioning how we would pay for it. She told The Post in a recent interview, “When most people say they’re for Medicare-for-all, I think they mean health care for all. Let’s see what that means. A lot of people love having their employer-based insurance and the Affordable Care Act gave them better benefits.” (Jennifer Rubin, 4/11)
Los Angeles Times: The False Promise The PROTECT Act Makes On Preexisting Conditions
The PROTECT Act, the health insurance reform bill unveiled this week by 18 Senate Republicans, is aptly named, albeit not for the reason its sponsors suggest. The bill pretends to be about safeguarding Americans with preexisting health conditions. But it’s really about protecting Senate Republicans from the stink caused by the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. (4/12)
Boston Globe: Trump’s Impossible Health Care Dream
President Trump wants the GOP to become the party of health care — read: to try again to replace the Affordable Care Act with a Republican scheme — but his usually compliant enablers in Congress have no interest in that. At least not now.Why? Well, for starters, some learned from the shellacking they took in the 2018 midterms. But other congressional Republicans probably also comprehend a reality the president chooses to ignore. That is, despite Trump’s repeated promises to provide health care that covered everyone and was “far less expensive and far better” than Obamacare, the chances of that are next to nil. (Scott Lehigh, 4/11)
USA Today: Don't Wait For Medicare For All, Start Fixing Health Care Together Now
What do Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and a 70% marginal tax rate all have in common? They’re dramatic shifts in public policy and none of them are remotely possible, at least right now. That doesn’t mean they’re bad ideas. Quite the contrary: there are strong arguments to make for each of these proposals. Health coverage for all, reducing pollution and increasing taxes on the very wealthy represent basic ideas (ignore the current labels) that are attractive to many Americans. The problem is that it may be decade or more before any of them have a chance of being politically viable. (Arthur “Tim” Garson Jr., 4/12)
The New York Times: Purity Vs. Pragmatism, Environment Vs. Health
Right now there are two big progressive ideas out there: the Green New Deal on climate change and “Medicare for all” on health reform. Both would move U.S. policy significantly to the left. Each is sponsored by a self-proclaimed socialist: the Green New Deal by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Medicare for all by Bernie Sanders. (Of course, neither of them is a socialist in the traditional sense.) Both ideas horrify not just conservatives but also many self-proclaimed centrists. Yet while they may seem similar if you think of everything as left versus right, they’re very different on another dimension, which you might call purity versus pragmatism. And that difference is why I believe progressives should enthusiastically embrace the G.N.D. while being much more cautious about M4A. (Paul Krugman, 4/11)
Richmond Times-Dispatch: A Window For Obamacare
Medicare for All excites the Democratic base, but if Democrats want more than a campaign talking point, they’ll need to work deliberately and collaboratively and study the intended — and unintended — consequences of universal health coverage. Now is the time to shore up Obamacare. (Marsha Mercer, 4/11)
