Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Health Law Repeal, A Zika Guide And Identifying Disease Outbreaks
Vox: “The First Thing I Thought About Was Health Care”: Trump’s Victory Through The Eyes Of Obamacare Enrollees
Obamacare repeal isn’t theoretical. The potential loss of a reliable safety net is already reshaping Crystal Hall’s life.Hall lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and newborn daughter. The family has gotten their health insurance for the past year through Healthcare.gov. (Sarah Kliff, 11/11)
FiveThirtyEight: How New York Hunts For Early Signs Of Disease Outbreaks
On July 29, 2015, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene sent out an alert — 31 people in the South Bronx had contracted Legionnaires’ disease, a lung infection from waterborne bacteria that kills about 1 out of every 10 people who get it. By the time officials found the source (a cooling tower) and contained the spread, 128 people had contracted Legionnaires’ and 12 people had died. It was the largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the city’s history — an outbreak that was first detected by a computer program. (Ian Evans, 11/16)
The Atlantic: Will Trump's Repeal Of Obamacare Make Insurance Cheap?
Throughout his campaign, President-Elect Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, which he called “a disaster.”That was music to his supporters’ ears. Repealing Obamacare is Republican voters’ biggest priority for the Trump administration, according to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll. People who are unhappy with the Affordable Care Act overwhelmingly voted for Trump, and now 74 percent of Republicans want it gone. (Olga Khazan, 11/14)
The Atlantic: Everything We Know (And Don't Know) About Zika
There is still much that we don’t understand about Zika, but we do know it’s a catastrophic threat to global public health—even despite the fact that the majority of those who are infected never experience telltale symptoms such as fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, and muscle aches. This makes it particularly hard to test for—Zika only shows up in a person’s bloodstream about one week after infection, so there’s a fairly small window of time in which a Zika diagnosis can be confirmed through a blood or urine sample. (Adrienne Lafrance, 11/10)
FiveThirtyEight: What Will Trump Do To Obamacare?
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was clear that his priority for health care would be to repeal Obamacare. But after meeting with President Obama this week, he took a softer tone in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying that he’s looking into preserving some aspects of the law. (Anna Maria Barry-Jester, 11/11)
