Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: The Tax Bill's Health Effect, Children's Health Insurance & Puerto Rico's Economy
Vox: The Senate’s Tax Bill Is A Sweeping Change To Every Part Of Federal Health Care
The Senate tax bill is really a health care bill with major implications for more than 100 million Americans who rely on the federal government for their health insurance.The bill reaches into every major American health care program: Medicaid, Medicare, and the Obamacare marketplaces. (Sarah Kliff, 11/29)
New York Magazine: Fighting For My Son With Cystic Fibrosis
My son has always had CF and always will. We first learned it was a possibility in April of 2016, when Dudley was a week old. The hospital called to tell us that his newborn screening — a blood test that checks for various disorders not immediately apparent after birth — had come back abnormal. Dudley needed something called a sweat test, the woman on the phone said, to see whether he had cystic fibrosis. I told her this had to be a mistake. (Jen Gann, 11/26)
Vox's The Impact: Does Court-Ordered Treatment For Mental Illness Work?
Today, a lot of mentally ill patients end up in prison, jail, or homeless. One recent study found that more than half of all inmates have some kind of mental illness, and about a quarter of the homeless population suffers from mental illness.A number of communities across the country are trying a different approach: court-ordered outpatient treatment. It’s often called Assisted Outpatient Treatment, or AOT for short. Podcast. (Jillian Weinberger, Amy Drozdowska, Byrd Pinkerton and Sarah Kliff, 11/17)
Bloomberg: GOP Tax Plan Would Batter Puerto Rico’s Economic Backbone
After Puerto Rico’s ailing economy was crippled by Hurricane Maria, the island’s leaders fear that the Republican tax overhaul could deliver another devastating blow. The legislation, passed by the House this month and under debate in the Senate this week, would end provisions that turned Puerto Rico into a medical manufacturing hub. Drug and device makers have poured billions into the U.S. territory, creating thousands of jobs and powering almost a third of its economic output. (Rebecca Spalding, 11/28)
The Atlantic: The Threat To Children's Health Insurance
Right now, a draft of a letter informing thousands of Virginia parents that their kids might lose their health coverage just after the holidays is sitting on Linda Nablo’s desk. “People are going to panic,” Nablo, who is the chief deputy director of the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services, told me. (Annie Lowrey, 11/22)
The Atlantic: No Family Is Safe From This Epidemic
The last photograph of my son Jonathan was taken at the end of a new-student barbecue on the campus green at the University of Denver. It was one of those bittersweet transitional moments. We were feeling the combination of apprehension and optimism that every parent feels when dropping a kid off at college for the first time, amplified by the fact that we were coming off a rocky 16 months with our son. (James Winnefeld, 11/29)
Stat: A Defiant Country Doctor Fights For Her License And A Disappearing Style Of Medicine
She is 84, and has become a symbol — if an eccentric one — for a kind of physician autonomy that is almost extinct in our era of highly regulated medical care. She works alone in a cottage next door to her house, with no receptionist, no practice administrator, no nurses, no N.P.s, no P.A.s, no hospital affiliations. She has a computer in her kitchen, but she doesn’t use it much. She keeps her files in a cabinet in her office, page upon handwritten page of careful, old-world lettering. She does not take insurance, instead charging patients $50 cash for each office visit. (Boodman, 11/21)
