Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Becoming Less Angry; 7 Health Care Questions; And The 'Inside-Out' 'Medicare For All' Strategy
The New York Times: How To Become Less Angry
“Does anger tend to make things in your life better or worse?” Raymond Chip Tafrate, a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of anger, asks. It is not inherently bad, but that’s no excuse to let it boil unchecked. The expression (and suppression) of anger is linked with increased health risks that include stroke, heart disease, pain and immune system problems. To learn new behavior patterns, first understand the existing ones. “Break your anger down into its component parts,” Tafrate says. Examine specific incidents and ask yourself, What was the trigger? What went through your head and body? What did you want to do in that moment? And what did you actually do? (Malia Wollan, 1/23)
Vox: Sarah Kliff Answers 7 Key Questions About Why American Health Care Is So Screwed Up
Vox senior policy correspondent Sarah Kliff has spent the past year investigating emergency room billing. She’s read more than 1,100 bills that readers have sent in. She did a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on January 22, discussing everything from surprise ER billing to how to negotiate an ER bill to health care reform. Here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting questions and answers, lightly edited for clarity. (Lauren Katz, 1/24)
The Nation: How Pramila Jayapal’s Inside-Outside Strategy Is Changing The Future Of Progressive Politics
Pramila Jayapal was speed-walking through the Longworth House office building early on January 3, aiming to visit as many of the Democratic women newly elected to the House of Representatives as possible before the end of the day. It wasn’t going to be easy, since there were 35 of them—and even more progressive activists lining the hallways hoping for a chance to talk with her. (Joan Walsh, 1/24)
Foreign Policy: Inside The Mind Of Planned Parenthood’s New Leader
Planned Parenthood is the leading provider of reproductive health services in the United States and a rallying cry for conservative critics, who want to strip the organization of federal funds. Enter Leana Wen, 35, Planned Parenthood’s incoming president and a practicing emergency room physician. (Sarah Wildman, 1/22)
FiveThirtyEight: How The Stigma Against Obesity Harms People’s Health
If you’re one of the nearly 40 percent of Americans who are obese, you don’t need anyone to explain the associated stigma; you’ve probably experienced it in some form or another — jokes about your weight, teasing, bullying, employment discrimination (which is legal in 49 states), prejudice and unfair treatment. This kind of stigmatization doesn’t just create hurt feelings, it can harm your health. The research suggests that reducing stigma against obesity could give overweight people a health boost — even if they never shed a single pound. (Katherine Hobson, 1/23)
The Columbus Dispatch: CVS Paid Itself Far More Than Some Major Competitors, Report Says
CVS used its role as a pharmacy middleman for the Ohio Medicaid program to pay some of its biggest retail competitors far less than it pays its own stores, according to a section in a state report that CVS is fighting in court to keep secret. (Marty Schladen and Cathy Candisky, 1/20)
The New York Times: Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — Or Falling Into Old Traps?
A faint aura of destiny seems to hover over Teouma Bay. It’s not so much the landscape, with its ravishing if boilerplate tropical splendor — banana and mango trees, coconut and pandanus palms, bougainvillea, the apprehensive trill of the gray-eared honeyeater — as it is the shape of the harbor itself, which betrays, in the midst of such organic profusion, an aspect of the unnatural. The bay, on the island of Efate in the South Pacific nation Vanuatu, is long, symmetrical and briskly rectangular. In the expected place of wavelets is a blue so calm and unbroken that the sea doesn’t so much crash on the land as neatly abut it. From above, it looks as though a safe harbor had been engraved in the shoreline by some celestial engineer. (Lewis-Kraus, 1/17)
