Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
If Joe Biden Is Elected President, Would He Make Ending Cancer His Signature Issue?
Stat: Joe Biden May Resurface A Long-Held Dream: A White House Laser-Focused On Cancer
[Joe] Biden’s announcement that he will run for president in 2020, however, has resurfaced his dream: a White House that makes cancer a signature issue, backed by a politician whose life was so publicly upended by the disease. With much of the early debate in the Democratic primary centering on health care, Biden’s stint as cancer-advocate-in-chief and orchestrator of the Obama administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” could give him the opportunity to make the disease, its treatments, and his own grief central to the presidential election. (Facher, 5/14)
The Washington Post Fact Checker: Kamala Harris’s Claim That Medicare-For-All ‘Doesn’t Get Rid Of All Insurance’
This is one of those inside-the-Beltway exchanges that probably leaves many Americans scratching their heads. Harris, a 2020 presidential hopeful, is a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s plan to create a “single-payer” government-run health-care system. It’s called Medicare-for-all since it will be more all-encompassing than the current government-run program for the elderly. Harris made these remarks after Tapper asked her if she wanted to clarify comments she had made in a CNN town hall in January. At the time, her remarks “let’s eliminate all of that” were widely interpreted to mean doing away with private insurance. In her recent appearance, she argued that in context she was talking about health-care bureaucracy today. (Rereading the full exchange, she has a point.) She said she did think there was a role for private insurance in the government-run system. (Kessler, 5/14)
Kaiser Health News: Eric Swalwell’s Tweet About Georgia’s New Abortion Restriction Only Slightly Off-Key
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Tuesday the state’s latest abortion restriction. Political reaction to the measure, which prohibits the procedure once a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat — usually at about the six-week mark — was swift. ... Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, was among the critics who weighed in. “The so-called ‘heartbeat’ law outlaws abortion before most women even know that they’re pregnant,” Swalwell posted on Twitter. “This is one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in our country.” (Luthra, 5/14)
