Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Cassidy-Graham; A Man-Made Epidemic & A Single-Payer Failure
FiveThirtyEight: Republicans Really Could Repeal Obamacare This Time
So why are we going through this exercise again? For two reasons. First, Cassidy and Graham have been persistent. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had essentially said the party was done with attempting to repeal Obamacare after the most recent failed effort in July, is reportedly at least open to spending this week seeing if the bill can pass. Second, this may be Republicans’ last opportunity to repeal Obamacare — at least for a while. (Perry Bacon Jr., 9/18)
Vox: GOP Senators Are Rushing To Pass Graham-Cassidy. We Asked 9 To Explain What It Does.
The stakes of the Republican rush to repeal and replace Obamacare could hardly be higher. The GOP has less than two weeks to pass a repeal-and-replace plan before their budget reconciliation instructions expire, and the insurance of tens of millions of Americans hangs in the balance. Vox conducted the interviews with nine Republican senators throughout the Capitol and Russell Senate Office Building on Tuesday. (Jeff Stein, 9/20)
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jimmy Kimmel On Bill Cassidy’s Health “Care” Bill
Jimmy shares his thoughts on Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham’s new health “care” bill including why it doesn’t pass Cassidy’s “Jimmy Kimmel Test.” Video. (9/19)
Kimmel followed up with these comments during his Wednesday show.
CQ Magazine: A Simple Fix For Obamacare: Make Boomers Pay More
The dramatic collapse of the Republicans’ Senate health care bill in July put an end, for now, to talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act. And it’s raised the possibility that lawmakers might take to heart the admonition of their colleague, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, to seek targeted fixes to the problems in the health care marketplace that both Republicans and Democrats acknowledge. One of the biggest problems is that many people making too much money to qualify for government subsidies still cannot afford to buy insurance. Those middle class and upper middle class Americans who don’t get insurance from their employers are the 2010 law’s biggest losers. (Shawn Zeller, 9/18)
New York Magazine: A New Last Chance
Monica Halem calls it the “fertility train.” Every woman who embarks on a cycle of in vitro fertilization is familiar with the ride: the multiple cycles of hormonal stimulation, the pain of the injections, the discomfort and the bloating; then the delicate harvest of eggs to be fertilized outside the body, and the anxious wait for genetic testing on the embryos to make sure they have the right number of chromosomes before they are transferred back; and then, if all of the embryo tests come back abnormal, or the embryos don’t implant, or the pregnancy ends prematurely in miscarriage, the process starts all over again. (Stephen Hall, 9/17)
The Huffington Post: San Diego's Hepatitis Outbreak Is A Man-Made Disaster
The outbreak has killed 16 people and infected 421 since November, ravaging San Diego’s large homeless and illicit drug-using population. It could eventually cost the county health department up to a million dollars, a local health official estimated. But San Diego could have avoided its hepatitis A crisis — or at least ensured it didn’t get this bad — if its homeless residents had better access to housing and the city provided the services they need to stay healthy, activists and public health experts say. (Dana Liebelson and Lauren Weber, 9/19)
Vox: Single-Payer Health Care Failed Miserably In Colorado Last Year. Here’s Why.
On the day the state of Colorado voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by about 5 points, voters there also rejected a ballot measure to enact a state-based single-payer system by an astounding margin of 79 percent to 21 percent. Amendment 69, the Colorado Creation of ColoradoCare System Initiative, would have created a system in which all Coloradans would gain insurance through a tax-funded government insurance program. Private health insurers would have been rendered obsolete. (Dylan Matthews, 9/14)
