Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: A $10,000 Injection; Babe Ruth's Cancer Treatment; And The Science of 'Man Colds'
Vox: Why A Simple, Lifesaving Rabies Shot Can Cost $10,000 In America
The price of rabies treatment in American reveals unique failures of our country’s health care system. It shows that in the United States, pharmaceutical companies can set sky-high prices for lifesaving medication. Specifically, the drug that prevents rabies from spreading to the brain can cost more than $10,000 in the United States. In some cases I reviewed, hospitals charged more than six times what the identical drug would cost in the UK. (Sarah Kliff, 2/7)
Popular Science: No One Told Babe Ruth He Had Cancer, But His Death Changed The Way We Fight It
George Herman Ruth was sick. It had all started with a deep, searing pain behind his left eye. Now, he could hardly swallow. And the pain seemed to be seeping down his body, like an invisible weight tugging at his hips and legs. Soon, he’d have to use his bat as a cane. (Eleanor Cummins, 2/6)
Splinter: How To Not Die In America
On the second Tuesday in June, I start to feel fluish. If this is 2016 and I’m still a freelance writer, I’m losing money immediately on the assignments I can’t complete because my vision is blurry and my thoughts are erratic. If this is 2013, I am soon taken off the roster at the cafe where I work. (Molly Osberg, 1/31)
Vox: In Defense Of Social Security Disability Insurance
It’s a common line from conservative politicians: that the Social Security Disability Insurance program is just welfare for people too lazy to work. Many of those politicians haven’t spent much time at all actually talking to the people they’re denouncing — people like Randy Pitts. Before his body started to fail him, Pitts, a 43-year-old in Lake County, Tennessee, was a public servant. (Dylan Matthews, 2/6)
The New York Times: Have You Heard? This Guy Has A Cold
I, personally, do not complain much when I get sick. It’s true that I provide for the people around me running updates about the type and quality of my illness, the intensity and character of its effects, the particular sounds of the cough, the volumes and colors of phlegm discharge and my own feelings about all of the above. But these communiqués, whether sent as text messages or shouted at my girlfriend from across the apartment, are useful news bulletins, provided in the spirit of CDC alerts. They’re not complaints. Me? I don’t complain. I update. (Max Read, 2/5)
The Guardian: India’s Sanitary Towel Hero Pad Man Bound For Bollywood Glory
Menstruation isn’t the most obvious topic for a blockbuster, but the story of how a lower-caste man from a village in India dropped out of school at 14 and became the unlikely champion of menstrual health in the subcontinent has become the subject of a Bollywood film released this week. (Alia Waheed, 2/3)
Politico: Why Desperate Families Are Getting Religion On Health Coverage
When Erica Jackson and her husband decided she would quit her job as a nurse and stay at home with their three kids, they knew they couldn’t afford insurance on the individual market. The family of five, who live in Wichita Falls, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, could already barely afford Jackson’s employer coverage, which cost $900 per month for a plan with a $12,000 deductible. (Paul Demko and Renuka Rayasam, 2/4)
