Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: DACA And The Doctor Shortage; Cancer's Invasion Equation & Obamacare Sabotage
Forbes: How Trump's Move To End DACA May Worsen The Doctor Shortage
A decision by President Donald Trump to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program could exacerbate the U.S. doctor shortage and hurt patient care for thousands of Americans.There are hundreds of nurses, health-care workers, medical students and doctors-in-training with DACA status. That was put in jeopardy Tuesday when Trump ordered an end to the Obama-era program, which shields an estimated 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from being deported. (Bruce Japsen, 9/5)
The Atlantic: DACA Med Students Face Uncertain Futures
Without DACA, there is no clear path for these students to complete their training, repay their loans, or practice medicine. For medical students committed to a decades-long career path with mortgage-sized student loans, the uncertainty makes it almost impossible for even type-A overachievers to plan for the future. (Jeremy Raff, 9/1)
The New Yorker: Cancer’s Invasion Equation
One evening this past June, as I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago, I thought about mussels, knotweed, and cancer. Tens of thousands of people had descended on the city to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world’s preëminent conference on cancer. Much of the meeting, I knew, would focus on the intrinsic properties of cancer cells, and on ways of targeting them. Yet those properties might be only part of the picture. We want to know which mollusk we’re dealing with; but we also need to know which lake. (Siddhartha Mukherjee, 9/4)
Vox: This Is What Obamacare Sabotage Looks Like
The Affordable Care Act’s success hinges on a large number of healthy people enrolling in marketplace coverage. These policy changes only make senses as ones that would undermine that goal. Experts expect that less outreach and less advertising will lead to fewer people enrolling in coverage, and those most likely to be left behind are the young, healthy enrollees who hold down premiums for everyone else. (Sarah Kliff, 9/5)
The Economist: Blame Congress For High Health-Care Costs
In America, nearly one in every five dollars spent is on health care, a larger share than in any other country. Many of the culprits are well-known. Americans have more procedures, pay more for them, and face exorbitant administrative costs. One driver of rising costs has often been overlooked, however: politicians. (9/2)
Bloomberg: Med School Grads Go To Work For Hedge Funds
Matthew Alkaitis, a third-year student at Harvard Medical School, is calm, friendly, and a good listener—the kind of qualities you’d want in a doctor. But though he spends 14 hours a day studying for his board exams, the 29-year-old isn’t sure how long he’ll be wearing a white coat. In September, Alkaitis, who also has a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, will be starting a two-year fellowship at McKinsey & Co., where he’ll be advising clients in the health-care field. (Anna Mostue, 9/5)
The New York Times: Looking Into The Future For A Child With Autism
How do you write about the happy life you hope for your child to have when you have a hard time picturing it yourself? For 18 years, I’ve dreaded the yearly ritual of writing a “vision statement” for an Individualized Education Plan, or I.E.P., for our son, Ethan. He has autism and, as any parent of a child with significant special needs knows, the yearly team meeting to develop the I.E.P. can be emotional and fraught. For us it has felt, at times, like an annual adjustment of expectations downward. (Cammie McGovern, 8/31)
BBC News: Zika Virus Used To Treat Aggressive Brain Cancer
Until now, Zika has been seen only as a global health threat - not a remedy.But latest research shows the virus can selectively infect and kill hard-to-treat cancerous cells in adult brains. (Michelle Roberts, 9/5)
