Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: June 15, 2015
The New York Times: Justices’ Words Combed For Clues On Major Pending Decisions
Three years ago this week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chided the news media for “publishing a steady stream of rumors and fifth-hand accounts” predicting how the court would rule on a constitutional challenge to President Obama’s health care law. “At the Supreme Court,” Justice Ginsburg said, quoting the journalist Joan Biskupic, “those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know.” But perhaps those who know do hint. Those same remarks, for instance, contained a playful clue. (Liptak, 6/15)
The Washington Post: Looking For Clues To Supreme Court’s Final Rulings In Ginsburg’s Good Mood
The Supreme Court in the next two weeks will announce whether the Affordable Care Act survives a challenge to the subsidies that millions of people use to purchase health insurance, and whether gay couples have a legal right to marry nationwide. In a gentle interview with her former law clerk and now California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, there was no discussion of Obamacare. (Barnes, 6/14)
USA Today: Supreme Court Races The Clock On Gay Marriage, Obamacare And More
The future of same-sex marriage and President Obama's health care law hang in the balance as the Supreme Court's 2014 term draws rapidly to a close this month. But those aren't the only big issues on the justices' plate. Free speech and fair elections. Religious liberty and racial discrimination. Clean air and capital punishment. All await rulings over the next three weeks as the court completes action on 20 cases remaining this term. The next decisions will come Monday morning. (Wolf, 6/14)
The New York Times: A Hard Road To Health Insurance (Video)
The Affordable Care Act was designed to help people like David Elson. He had a box full of unpaid medical bills, a result of uncontrolled diabetes and all the health complications that came with it. He badly needed health insurance, but as a self-employed alarm installer, he could not afford it — especially since insurers could charge chronically ill people much more before the new law took effect. (Cott, Woo and Goodnough, 6/14)
The Wall Street Journal: Lab Nears Settlement Over Pricey Medicare Drug Tests
The nation’s largest drug-testing laboratory, Millennium Health LLC, is negotiating a major settlement over allegations it billed the federal government for unnecessary tests, the latest sign of a crackdown on the fast-growing industry. Settlement talks come as the federal Medicare agency is proposing broad changes to the way it pays for urine drug tests that could save taxpayers money and cut into drug testers’ revenue. Such tests can search for drugs including narcotic pain pills and illegal substances such as angel dust and club drugs like MDMA. (Weaver and Wilde Mathews, 6/14)
The Wall Street Journal: Why People Don’t Buy Long-Term-Care Insurance
When it comes to long-term care, two facts stand out. First, an estimated 70% of people will need such care, which will be costly. And second, most of them refuse to buy insurance to cover it. The question is, why? Part of the explanation, no doubt, is that long-term-care insurance is expensive. Some people also may be assuming, incorrectly, that they will qualify for government assistance to help them pay for nursing-home care. Rules are in place to disqualify many who won’t meet the strict conditions required. (Mitchell and Gottlieb, 6/14)
USA Today: Skyrocketing Drug Prices Leave Cures Out Of Reach For Some Patients
Sophisticated drugs are opening the door, scientists say, to an era of "precision medicine." They're also ushering in an age of astronomical prices. New cancer drugs are routinely priced at more than $100,000 a year -- nearly twice the average household income. Experimental cholesterol drugs – widely predicted to be approved this summer – could cost $10,000 a year for life. That's a huge increase from the price of statins, the dominant cholesterol-lowering drugs, whose generic versions cost just $250 a year. ... Even with insurance, patients may pay thousands of dollars a month out of pocket. (Szabo, 6/14)
The Washington Post: Exceptional Responders’ To Cancer Attract Scrutiny From Researchers
In 2010, [Grace] Silva was diagnosed with anaplastic thyroid cancer, an aggressive and rapidly fatal disease with no effective treatment. Despite surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, the cancer spread to her lungs. As a last resort, she enrolled in a small clinical trial the following year. ... Silva got a drug called everolimus, approved for advanced kidney cancer and some types of breast and pancreatic cancer. The other patients died, but Silva’s tumors virtually vanished, to the astonishment of her doctors. Such inexplicable reversals have always existed in medicine, but until recently, outliers such as Silva remained little more than hopeful anecdotes. That could be changing. (Dennis, 6/13)
The New York Times: Aid To Women, Or Bottom Line? Advocates Split On Libido Pill
The [feminists] together with a public relations company, Blue Engine Message & Media, are central players in the unusual story of how a female libido pill that had been twice rejected by the F.D.A. achieved a surprise success on June 4, when a panel of experts recommended the agency approve it. The F.D.A. has not yet made a final decision. ... Less noticed were women’s groups that refused to join the campaign, contending that waving the flag of gender bias would undermine what should be an impartial process based on science. ... The campaign divided the normally cohesive women’s health community, which has long fought together for access to birth control and for abortion rights. (Tavernise and Pollack, 6/13)
Los Angeles Times: Obama Suffers Big Loss As Trade Bill Is Defeated At Hands Of Democrats
When fast-track authority faced obstacles in the Senate last month, GOP leaders won over some Democrats by coupling it with extended funding for retraining American workers hurt by foreign competition, a program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance. But in the House, Democrats balked at the plan to pay for worker training with what they viewed as cuts to Medicare. After negotiations this week between Pelosi and Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), House GOP leaders split the measure into two bills, one for fast-track and another for the retraining funds. They also agreed to find an alternative funding source for the retraining program. (Mascaro and Lee, 6/12)
The Washington Post: Democracy Not ‘Just For Billionaires,’ Hillary Clinton Tells Crowd In N.Y.
Promising a more hopeful, inclusive America ready to take on the big challenges facing the country, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that she wants to be the champion the nation needs as well as its first female president. ... In a series of attacks that drew applause from the crowd, Clinton hit Republicans for wanting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, deport immigrants and take away “reproductive-health decisions.” Clinton said Republicans “turn their backs on gay people who love each other.” (Gearan and Rucker, 6/13)
Los Angeles Times: Who Was Hillary Clinton Aiming At? Women And Ascendant Voters
In one passage she sequentially took on Republican presidential contenders on the issues of climate change, inequality, healthcare, abortion and contraceptive rights, immigration and gay rights. Those are threshold issues for many of the voters whose support Clinton is seeking .... "They want to take away health insurance from more than 16 million Americans without offering any credible alternative. They shame and blame women, rather than respect our right to make our own reproductive health decisions." (Decker, 6/13)
The Wall Street Journal: Jeb Bush Faulted Over Use Of Florida Tax Money
The latest example of the rising opposition comes from the Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group, which is criticizing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for overseeing state spending increases that included $310 million to lure a biomedical research institute to Florida. The Club’s appraisal of Mr. Bush’s economic record, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal ahead of its release, says the effort to spur the biotech industry didn’t generate as many jobs as promised. (Reinhard, 6/12)
Los Angeles Times: State Lawmakers Set To Approve Budget With Increased Spending
The Legislature is expected to approve a budget Monday that bets on California's economy to continue growing and sets the stage for higher state spending in coming years. The plan, which is not supported by Gov. Jerry Brown, includes $749 million more in discretionary spending than the governor has proposed. ... The lawmakers' budget plan, for example, would allocate $40 million, starting Jan. 1, to make public healthcare available to children who are in the country illegally. ... There's also $45 million to expand dental benefits for adults enrolled in public healthcare starting Jan. 1. Annual costs would be double that amount. ... A proposal to partly roll back a recession-era cut in state payments to doctors who serve poor patients is slated to cost about $37 million in the next budget. (Megerian, 6/14)
NPR: As More Rural Hospitals Close, Advocates Walk To Washington
Millions of Americans rely on rural hospitals for emergency medical care. But in the last five years, these facilities have been shutting down more frequently than in previous years. A group of activists from across the country are walking nearly 300 miles from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. to draw lawmakers' attention. (Huntsberry, 6/14)
Los Angeles Times: Surge Of New Abortion Restrictions Limits Access 'Brick By Brick'
With state legislatures across the country passing dozens of abortion restrictions for the fifth year, access is becoming more limited than at any time since the Supreme Court's landmark decision legalizing the procedure in 1973. The current legislative session is shaping up to be among the most active, and abortion rights advocates point to what they call an alarming result of the steady flow of new laws: In some states, so many limitations have piled up that the procedure, while technically legal, is nearly impossible to obtain. (La Ganga, 6/13)
