Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: The Future Of Repeal; A New 'War On Drugs'; And IVF Innovations
The Economist: The Republicans’ Chances Of Replacing Obamacare Are Receding
No Republican senator looms larger in the schemes of left-wing protesters than Susan Collins of Maine. One of the last New England moderates, a once-common Republican species, Ms Collins is considered the likeliest holdout against the draft Republican health-care reform that has overshadowed the week-long Independence Day recess. But on the evidence of her appearance at the Fourth of July parade held in Eastport, Maine, America’s easternmost city, liberals can relax. (7/6)
The New York Times: A Small-Town Police Officer's War On Drugs
Eric Adams is a handsome, clean-shaven man, almost 41, with a booming voice and hair clipped short enough for the military, which once was an ambition of his. After high school, he tried to join the Marines but was turned away because of his asthma. He needed three different inhalers then, plus injections. Today he has outgrown the problem. He is 5-foot-10, weighs 215 pounds and can dead lift 350. (Benjamin Rachlin, 7/12)
The Atlantic: INVOcell: Growing Cheaper Embryos For IVF Inside The Vagina
As the number of U.S. babies born as a result of fertility treatment tops 1 million—an all-time high—clinics are under pressure to keep up to date with pricey lab equipment that can create, develop, and test embryos. But some fertility doctors have started to offer a new low-tech device that enables a woman to incubate them in her own body. The catch: She grows them inside her vagina. (Sarah Elizabeth Richards, 7/12)
FiveThirtyEight: The Trump Administration’s Own Data Says Obamacare Isn’t Imploding
President Trump and other Republicans have said repeatedly that one reason they have to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is that the law is failing: Healthy people are abandoning the insurance marketplaces set up by the law, driving up costs and leading yet more people to drop insurance — a so-called “death spiral.” Many health insurance experts, however, have argued that those fears are overblown, and they recently got support from an unlikely source: the Trump administration itself. (Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Michelle Cheng and Maggie Koerth-Baker, 7/7)
The New York Times: The Gentler Symptoms Of Dying
The patient’s hair was styled with curls so stiff, they held her head a few inches up from her hospital pillow. She had painted her lips a shade of bright pink that exuded the confidence of age. Just after her colon burst, she was still awake. She looked around, at me, at the monitors. She asked for pain medication. “Am I dying?” she asked. (Sara Manning Peskin, 7/11)
