Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Parsing Policy: GOP Can Find A Better Solution Than Preexisting Conditions; Time Is Ripe For Deals Between Trump, Democrats
The Hill: Republicans Shouldn't Embrace ACA Rules About Pre-Existing Conditions
Americans might assume that now that Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, that there will be little change to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But the issue remains live due to a pending multi-state lawsuit, Texas v. United States, that could reverse the ACA’s protections for pre-existing conditions.Most Republican candidates failed to adequately address the issue of pre-existing conditions ahead of the midterm elections and for this they paid a political price. Voters said they trusted Democrats more on pre-existing conditions than Republicans (58-34 percent) and health-care voters broke for Democrats 3-to-1. The GOP sorely needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue of pre-existing conditions, not just by rejecting the ACA, but by offering a better solution. (Hadley Heath Manning, 11/27)
The Washington Post: Trump Is Ready To Deal. Are Democrats?
When President Trump first took office, many conservatives’ greatest fear was that he would be too quick to cut deals with the Democrats. He had previously been a Democrat and had staked out heterodox positions on everything from spending to entitlement reform, the national debt, the minimum wage, trade and health care. During the 2016 campaign, Trump even endorsed universal health care, declaring, “This is an un-Republican thing for me to say . . . I am going to take care of everybody . . . [and] the government’s gonna pay for it.” Conservatives were aghast. They need not have worried. Democrats showed little interest in negotiating bipartisan bills with Trump. (Marc A. Thiessen, 11/27)
Omaha-World Herald: 'Medicare-For-All' Is No Health Care Cure-All
This week, congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted out a letter from Spectrum Health to one Hedda Elizabeth Martin. The letter described the clinic's rejection of a heart transplant for Martin based on lack of a "more secure financial plan for immunosuppressive medication coverage." The clinic added, "The Committee is recommending a fundraising effort of $10,000." Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, "Insurance groups are recommending GoFundMe as official policy -- where customers can die if they can't raise the goal in time -- but sure, single payer health care is unreasonable."First off, Ocasio-Cortez is simply incorrect. (Ben Shapiro, 11/27)
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Editorial: A Hidden Cost Of Medicaid Expansion
Medicaid’s underpayment of physicians — one might say, its fleecing of physicians — has been a chronic problem for years, and the need to boost reimbursements comes as no surprise to anyone in the industry, least of all to Governor Northam, who is a physician himself. An obvious question arises: When the governor and his legislative allies were selling Medicaid expansion to the public, why didn’t they include reimbursement reform as part of the package? (11/27)
