Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Paying For Performance; Free Clinics; Brain Testing
Vox: The Problem With Congress's New Plan To Pay Medicare's Doctors
John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi are still taking a bow for their recent bipartisan triumph: cutting a $214 billion deal to finally throw out Medicare's broken payment system. But lost in the kumbaya moment is widespread concern that the new way Medicare is going to pay doctors forces the government to do something it's not very good at: measure how good — or bad — doctors are at their jobs. Worse, the new bill doesn't say much about how the government is meant to accomplish this task. (Sarah Kliff, 4/6)
Slate: Staying Alive
Two weeks after I graduated from Harvard Medical School, I began my internship at the Columbia University Medical Center on 168th Street in Manhattan. My first assignment as a new doctor was a monthlong rotation in the hospital’s cardiac care unit, where I spent my first 30-hour shift paired with a brilliant second-year doctor I called Baio, owing to his resemblance to the Charles in Charge star. The two of us were responsible for keeping 18 staggeringly sick patients alive until sunrise. (Matt McCarthy, 4/8)
The California Health Report: LA Clinics No Longer A Last Resort
Before health reform, Los Angeles County clinics served people who had no other options—sick patients with no health insurance. But as 2014 approached, county officials realized that many of their clients would become insured and choose other health care. If they opted out, the entire system – with 19,000 employees and a $4 billion budget would face near collapse. Part one of a three-part series. (Robin Urevich, 4/6)
The Detroit Free Press: Your Genes May Be Key In Cancer Fight
On the day he was diagnosed with cancer, Charles Gray learned it was in his lungs. And his brain. And his bones. But he remembers his doctor was smiling. Gray didn't smoke, the cause of most lung cancers. So Dr. Antoinette Wozniak suspected that his lung cancer — and the other tumors — were linked to a single genetic mutation, or perhaps a combination of mutations, fueling each of the tumors. Target this genetic flaw and the tumors may stop growing, researchers say. (Robin Erb, 4/8)
Vox: What Americans Think Of Abortion
Abortion usually gets framed as a two-sided debate: Americans support abortion rights, or they don't. They think Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in America, was a good ruling, or a terrible one. There are the pro-choice groups and the pro-life groups. But I've spent a lot of time talking to friends and family and the people I meet in my reporting about how they view the issue. Here's what I've learned: they don't live in this world of absolutes. (Sarah Kliff, 4/8)
The Atlantic: Setting Limits For Testing Brains
With progress comes a whole new set of ethical questions. Can drugs used to treat conditions like ADHD, for example, also be used to make healthy people into sharper, more focused versions of themselves—and should they? Can a person with Alzheimer’s truly consent to testing that may help scientists better understand their disease? Can brain scans submitted as courtroom evidence reveal anything about a defendant’s intent? (Cari Romm, 4/7)
