Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: October 30, 2018
Kaiser Health News: GOP’s Latest Campaign Punch On Health Care Relies On Classic Hook: Medicare
Democrats throughout the election season have been hammering Republicans over votes and lawsuits that would eliminate insurance protections for preexisting conditions for consumers. But now Republicans are working to change the health care conversation with a tried-and-true technique used by both parties over the years: telling seniors their Medicare coverage may be in danger. It’s not yet clear, however, whether these dependable voters are responding to the warning. (Rovner, 10/30)
Kaiser Health News: With One Hand, Administration Boosts ACA Marketplaces, Weakens Them With Another
In the span of less than 12 hours, the Trump administration took two seemingly contradictory actions that could have profound effects on the insurance marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act. ... Both efforts play into the parallel narratives dominating the bitter political debate over the ACA. (Appleby, 10/30)
Georgia Health News and Kaiser Health News: Republicans’ Drive To Tighten Immigration Overlooks Need For Doctors
The American Medical Association said that, as of last year, 18 percent of practicing physicians and medical residents in the U.S. in patient care were born in other countries. Georgia’s percentage of foreign-born doctors is similar, at 17 percent. Yet President Donald Trump’s focus on securing U.S. borders and restricting immigration — and the bitter arguments between the national political parties on the issue during midterm campaigns — have sown concerns about opportunities for foreign-born doctors. (Blau, Miller and Ridderbusch, 10/30)
The Washington Post: Fact Checker: Democrats Hype Estimates Of People With Preexisting Conditions
If Democrats have their way, the midterm elections will turn on the issue of preexisting conditions. As we have documented, some House Republicans have even sought to diminish the impact of their votes in favor of the House GOP plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act by falsely citing our fact checks. But Democrats, in pressing their advantage on the issue, have gone too far in claiming how many people potentially would have been affected if the GOP bill had been enacted into law. Some of their tweets and statements are even undercut by a report issued Oct. 24 by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (Kessler, 10/30)
Bloomberg: Health-Care Companies Pour $46.7 Million Into Midterm Vote
The health-care industry has given $46.7 million to candidates in the midterm elections this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, pouring money into a tightly fought battle between Democrats and Republicans over control of Congress. Of the money given by health-care political action committees -- the official political arms of companies and industry or professional associations -- 57 percent went to Republicans. (Dodge, 10/29)
Stat: Pharma Braces For A Pelosi Speakership And Democrats' Drug Pricing Agenda
{House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi spoke in detailed terms of a federal statute that allows the U.S. government to effectively strip drug companies of exclusive licenses to some blockbuster medicines. ... The boardroom ambush from Washington’s most powerful Democrat could prove the first of many such moments for drug manufacturers, which have come under fire from the White House and lawmakers from both parties in the past two years. Interviews with drug industry lobbyists and Democratic aides across the Capitol suggest the same: that the wing of Pelosi’s party outlining an ambitious agenda to combat high drug costs could turn 2019 into PhRMA’s doomsday scenario. (Facher, 10/30)
The Hill: ObamaCare Enrollment Unlikely To Increase In 2019
Enrollment in ObamaCare plans is unlikely to increase next year as the Trump administration provides an escape hatch for people who say they have been priced out of coverage. The repeal of the penalty for not having insurance and the administration’s expansion of cheaper, slimmed-down plans that don’t meet ObamaCare’s requirements could cause more people to leave the exchanges when the sign-up period starts Thursday, according to health experts. The administration will also fund fewer local groups this year that help people enroll. (Hellmann, 10/30)
The Washington Post: Pittsburgh Trauma Center Stayed Calm As Victims Kept Arriving
The first to arrive was a SWAT officer with a hand wound. Then an older man, badly wounded, gray from loss of blood. Then another SWAT officer, arms and legs riddled with bullets. An elderly woman with a gunshot to her upper arm. There was no shouting, no panic. Emergency doctors, nurses, surgeons and technicians poured into UPMC Presbyterian’s trauma center as word of a mass-casualty event spread. ... As the number of multi-casualty shootings in the United States has grown, Level 1 trauma centers like this one have stepped up preparations and training for events like Saturday’s rampage at Tree of Life synagogue here. (Bernstein, 10/29)
The Washington Post: ‘I’m Dr. Cohen’: The Powerful Humanity Of The Jewish Hospital Staff That Treated Robert Bowers
The man accused in the brutal killings of 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh was taken to the hospital after he was apprehended to be treated for the injuries he suffered in a gunfight with the police. In the emergency room when he arrived, he was shouting, “I want to kill all the Jews,” according to hospital’s president. If he only knew then about the identity of the team tasked with keeping him alive: at least three of the doctors and nurses who cared for him at the Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish, according to president Dr. Jeffrey K. Cohen. (Rosenberg, 10/30)
The Associated Press: Guns Send Over 8,000 US Kids To ER Each Year, Analysis Says
Gun injuries, including many from assaults, sent 75,000 U.S. children and teens to emergency rooms over nine years at a cost of almost $3 billion, a first-of-its-kind study found. Researchers called it the first nationally representative study on ER visits for gun injuries among U.S. kids. They found that more than one-third of the wounded children were hospitalized and 6 percent died. Injuries declined during most of the 2006-14 study, but there was an upswing in the final year. The researchers found that 11 of every 100,000 children and teens treated in U.S. emergency rooms have gun-related injuries. That amounts to about 8,300 kids each year. (Tanner, 10/29)
The Washington Post: Heart Failure Stem Cell Trial To Be Paused After Calls For Retractions
The decision to temporarily pause the trial came “out of an abundance of caution,” said David Goff, director of the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, who said the trial’s scientific rationale is largely based on animal studies not conducted by Anversa. Goff said the board charged with overseeing the safety and integrity of the trial was convened last week and NIH leadership made the decision to pause the trial, which has enrolled 125 of 144 patients, to allow a thorough review. (Johnson, 10/29)
The New York Times: He Promised To Restore Damaged Hearts. Harvard Says His Lab Fabricated Research.
For Dr. Piero Anversa, the fall from scientific grace has been long, and the landing hard. Researchers worldwide once hailed his research as revolutionary, promising the seemingly impossible: a way to grow new heart cells to replace those lost in heart attacks and heart failure, leading killers in the United States. But Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, his former employers, this month accused Dr. Anversa and his laboratory of extensive scientific malpractice. (Kolata, 10/29)
The Associated Press: Bid To Ban State Funds For Abortions Tests Open Oregon Laws
Teenage girls in Oregon don’t need their parents’ consent to end an unwanted pregnancy, women in the country illegally have coverage for the procedure and private insurers will soon be required to cover the full cost of an abortion under a new law. Oregon has the least restrictive laws on abortion access in the U.S., making it a political standard-bearer for the abortion rights movement. But a dozen years after voters last rejected a measure to reduce women’s ability to get an abortion, a question on the Nov. 6 ballot is asking a new generation to amend the Oregon Constitution to ban the use of state funding for abortion. (Flaccus, 10/29)
The Associated Press: Training Teams Sent To Centers Amid Deadly Viral Outbreaks
New Jersey health officials said Monday they are sending infection-control teams to four long-term pediatric centers and a hospital to assist with training amid viral and bacterial outbreaks that have left 10 people dead. The teams will assess infection prevention practices and deploy beginning in November, according to Health Commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal. The response comes amid a fatal adenovirus outbreak at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation that left 9 people dead, most under age 18. (Catalini, 10/29)
NPR and WHYY: When To Give Narcan Can Be Daunting For Overdose Bystanders
The antidote quickly blocks the effects of opioids — both the euphoria and dangerous side effects, such as slowed breathing that cuts off oxygen to the brain.In the process, it can send someone into instant withdrawal. Many people who use drugs say withdrawal is like having the worst flu of your life, complete with cold sweats, shakes and vomiting. (Feldman, 10/29)
The Wall Street Journal: Why NYU Is Making Its Medical School Tuition-Free
Although NYU’s tuition initiative isn’t the first of its kind, it is the first of such scale. The medical school has raised more than $450 million of the $600 million it will need to fund the initiative into perpetuity, including $100 million from Mr. Langone and his wife, Elaine. ... In a conversation with The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Grossman discussed why covering medical-school tuition addresses a “moral imperative” and responded to critics. Here are edited excerpts of the conversation. (Toy, 10/29)
USA Today Network: Same-Sex Couple Carries Same Baby In IVF Fertility Treatment First
Two Texas mothers each carried their "miracle baby" because of a medical advance that allowed them to do what they thought was otherwise impossible. Ashleigh Coulter, 28, and Bliss Coutler, 36, met six years ago and later were married. The couple who desired a baby knew that welcoming their own biological child would require a sperm donor, and some creativity. ... Fertility specialists Dr. Kathy Doody and her husband, Dr. Kevin Doody, of the CARE Fertility in Bedford, Texas, were the first to try reciprocal effortless in vitro fertilization using radical technology, which gave the Coutlers a shot at motherhood. (Azad, 10/29)
The Washington Post: How Dogs Could Help Eradicate Malaria
Steven Lindsay, a public health entomologist at Durham University in England, has been researching malaria control for decades. His preferred approach, he says, is to “sit on the boundaries,” drumming up ideas that others might not. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that his latest project was inspired by the baggage-claim area at Dulles International Airport. If the beagles there could use their noses to detect explosives or contraband in suitcases, he wondered, could they also be trained to sniff out an intractable disease that kills more than 400,000 people each year? (Brulliard, 10/29)
The Associated Press: Jets' Leggett Helping Raise Awareness For Abdominal Injuries
Jordan Leggett remembers the sudden buzz on the sideline and in the stands as cellphones lit up with texts delivering the scary news. A young player from a rival high school football squad in Florida had been seriously injured during a game and he might not make it. "Everybody on the team where I was from was like, 'Oh, man, he must've just got like a big hit,'" the New York Jets tight end recalled. "We heard later that he passed away, so it was kind of a big deal." (Waszak, 10/29)
The New York Times: Why Is CBD Everywhere?
It’s hard to say the precise moment when CBD, the voguish cannabis derivative, went from being a fidget spinner alternative for stoners to a mainstream panacea. ... So the question now becomes: Is this the dawning of a new miracle elixir, or does all the hype mean we have already reached Peak CBD? Either way, it would be hard to script a more of-the-moment salve for a nation on edge. (Williams, 10/27)
