Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: March 28, 2017
Kaiser Health News: New Vaccine Recommendation Cuts Number Of HPV Shots Children Need
You’d think that a vaccine that protects people against more than a half-dozen types of cancer would have people lining up to get it. But the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which can prevent roughly 90 percent of all cervical cancers as well as other cancers and sexually transmitted infections caused by the virus, has faced an uphill climb since its introduction more than a decade ago. Now, with a new dosing schedule that requires fewer shots and a more effective vaccine, clinicians and public health advocates hope they may move the needle on preventing these virus-related cancers. (Andrews, 3/28)
California Healthline: Repeal And Replace Hits A Roadblock. What’s Next For California?
California embraced the Affordable Care Act and in many ways became a national model for how it could work — driving uninsured rates down from about 17 percent to 7 percent since the law rolled out. The state added 3.7 million people to the rolls under its Medicaid expansion, and 1.5 million joined its state-run marketplace, Covered California. Compared to other states, the exchange’s premium increases have remained low, though they have risen substantially this year. (3/28)
The Wall Street Journal: After GOP Bill’s Failure, Health-Law Lawsuit Takes Center Stage
President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers, seeking to regroup following the collapse of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, have an option for gutting the health law relatively quickly: They could halt billions in payments insurers get under the law. House Republicans were already challenging those payments in court as invalid. Their lawsuit to stop the payments, which they call illegal, was suspended as Republicans pushed to replace the ACA, but it could now resume—or the Trump administration could decline to contest it and simply drop the payments. Mr. Trump could unilaterally end the payments regardless of the lawsuit. (Armour, 3/27)
The Washington Post: Paul Ryan: House Republicans Will Continue Their Push For Health-Care Reform This Year
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told Republican donors Monday that he intends to continue pushing for an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system by working “on two tracks” as he also pursues other elements of President Trump’s agenda. "We are going to keep getting at this thing,” Ryan said three days after intraparty opposition forced him to pull the American Health Care Act after it became clear it did not have enough Republican votes to pass. (DeBonis, 3/27)
The Associated Press: White House Looks To Bounce Back After Health Care Loss
Regrouping after a rocky few weeks, the White House declared Monday that President Donald Trump doesn't consider the health care battle to be over, suggesting he may turn to Democrats to help him overhaul the system after his own party rejected his proposal. (Thomas, 3/27)
The New York Times: 2018 Dilemma For Republicans: Which Way Now On Obamacare?
As they come to terms with their humiliating failure to undo the Affordable Care Act, Republicans eyeing next year’s congressional campaign are grappling with a new dilemma: Do they risk depressing their conservative base by abandoning the repeal effort or anger a broader set of voters by reviving a deeply unpopular bill even closer to the midterm elections? (Martin, 3/28)
The New York Times: The Republicans In Power: From ‘We Got This’ To ‘What Now?’
The new Republican government is in deep trouble.President Trump and his majorities in the House and Senate had hoped to head out for their spring break celebrating the chest-thumping accomplishments of finally gutting President Barack Obama’s health care law and installing a conservative Supreme Court justice. They were determined to show the American public: We got this. (Hulse, 3/27)
Reuters: Hospitals Shares Surge As Market Absorbs Republican Health Bill Failure
Shares of U.S. hospital operators surged on Monday after Republicans' pulled their healthcare bill, preserving for now the benefits that hospitals gained under Obamacare. (Krauskopf, 3/27)
The Wall Street Journal: Hospital Stocks Rise Amid Broader Slump
Monday’s climb in hospital stocks continues a rally that began last week, as the Trump administration and House Republicans failed to win support for a bill to dismantle the ACA. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday canceled a vote on the legislation, conceding it lacked enough Republican backing. Hospitals benefited from more paying patients under the Affordable Care Act, most notably in states that expanded Medicaid. (Evans, 3/27)
Politico: Spicer Compares GOP Health Care Bill To A 'Bad Deal'
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday likened President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the House Republican proposal to repeal Obamacare — which Trump had supported — to walking away from a “bad deal.” (Conway, 3/27)
NPR Fact Check: Trump Says Obamacare Is 'Exploding.' That's Not Quite True
President Trump is doing his best to put a good face on defeat in his party's attempt to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. His strategy is simple: declare that the law is failing. And he is selling that message in his own distinctly Trumpian way: concocting it out of simple, bold words and then hammering that message home, over and over: Obamacare, in his words, will "explode." (Kurtzleben and Kodjak, 3/27)
Politico: Gallup: Trump Hits New Low After Health Care Flop
President Donald Trump’s approval rating slipped to a new low Monday in the Gallup daily tracking poll, the first measure of Trump’s job performance following his administration’s failure to move a new health care law through Congress. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president in interviews conducted last Friday through Sunday, a time period entirely after Republicans abandoned their bill to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (Shepard, 3/27)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Donald Trump's Allies Target Speaker Paul Ryan For Failure Of Health Care Bill
Conservative media outlets friendly to President Donald Trump are blaming last week's collapse of the GOP health care overhaul bill on House Speaker Paul Ryan, but a spokesman for the Janesville Republican said Monday that the relationship between the speaker and president "is stronger than ever right now." (Spicuzza, 3/27)
The Associated Press: GOP Failure In Congress Boosts Medicaid Effort In Kansas
Legislators and advocates in Kansas pushing to expand the state's health coverage for the poor to thousands of adults are buoyed by the failure of Republicans in Washington to repeal former President Barack Obama's signature health care law. ... The effort in Kansas could prove largely symbolic because Republican legislators remain deeply divided and Brownback is a longstanding critic of health care policies championed by Obama, a Democrat. Yet supporters have scored a significant gain by getting a bill so close to passage. (Hanna, 3/27)
The Washington Post: McAuliffe: If Obamacare Is Here To Stay, Then It’s Time To Expand Medicaid
The failure of Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare has emboldened Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to renew his stalled crusade to expand Medicaid in Virginia. On Monday, he proposed an amendment to state budget language to give him power to set an expansion in motion, and called on the Republican-controlled General Assembly to immediately begin making plans. But Republican legislators were unmoved by the plea, saying they would reject the amendment and that they stood firm against expanding Medicaid. (Schneider, 3/27)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: With Congress Gridlocked, Scott Walker Wants Trump To OK Drug Tests For State Health Coverage
With the GOP's repeal of Obamacare stymied in Congress, Gov. Scott Walker is still rejecting the federal law and instead asking the Trump administration to let Wisconsin drug test applicants for state coverage. Even though federal money remains available for providing health care to more Wisconsin residents, the GOP governor says he's not reconsidering his decision to skip that and forgo hundreds of millions of dollars from federal taxpayers. (Stein, 3/27)
The New York Times: In Health Bill’s Defeat, Medicaid Comes Of Age
When it was created more than a half century ago, Medicaid almost escaped notice. Front-page stories hailed the bigger, more controversial part of the law that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that July day in 1965 — health insurance for elderly people, or Medicare, which the American Medical Association had bitterly denounced as socialized medicine. The New York Times did not even mention Medicaid, conceived as a small program to cover poor people’s medical bills. (Zernike, Goodnough and Belluck, 3/27)
The Associated Press: Some State Lawmakers Seek To Protect Birth-Control Access
Even with the Republican failure to repeal Barack Obama's health care law, Democratic lawmakers in some states are pressing ahead with efforts to protect birth control access, Planned Parenthood funding and abortion coverage in case they are jeopardized in the future. (Crary and Noon, 3/28)
The Associated Press: GOP Divided Over New Course After House Health Care Debacle
Still reeling from last week’s House health care debacle, Republicans are pivoting to tax cuts and other issues but remain riven into factions and all over the map about how and when to return to their marquee pledge to eviscerate former President Barack Obama’s 2010 overhaul. House Republicans are gathering Tuesday to discuss their agenda, their first meeting since House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., suddenly abandoned plans last Friday for a vote on the GOP legislation. The retreat on the party’s top legislative priority so far this year was a jarring defeat for President Donald Trump and Republican leaders and raised questions about whether the GOP could muster the unity it will need on other issues. (Fram, 3/28)
The Associated Press: Bitter GOP Finger-Pointing Clouds Path For Trump Agenda
President Donald Trump is hoping to drive his priorities forward following the crumbling of the Republican health care bill but GOP finger-pointing is rampant, underscoring how tough it will be to produce the unity the party will need. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, criticized the contrarian House Freedom Caucus on Monday, a day after resigning from the hard-right group because it helped sink the Republican health care effort. “You can have your principles and then when it comes to voting, you have to compromise to get something passed,” Poe said of the caucus, which has roughly three dozen members. (Yen, 3/27)
The New York Times: Addiction Specialists Ponder A Potential Aid: Pot
Nine days after Nikolas Michaud’s latest heroin relapse, the skinny 27-year-old sat on a roof deck at a new drug rehabilitation clinic here. He picked up a bong, filled it with a pinch of marijuana, lit the leaves and inhaled. All this took place in plain view of the clinic’s director. ... The new clinic is experimenting with a concept made possible by the growing legalization of marijuana: that pot, rather than being a gateway into drugs, could be a gateway out. (Richtel, 3/27)
The Washington Post: How A Protein Called ‘NFL’ Could Help The NFL With Brain Injuries
Brain injuries are a danger in many sports, but for none more than football and its most profitable enterprise, the National Football League. The NFL is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a concussion-lawsuit settlement and has poured tens of millions into research on measuring and preventing head trauma. (Bieler, 3/27)
