Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Do Vaccine Incentives Work?; Pandemic Challenges Faced By Rookie Doctors
Los Angeles Times: Beer, Guns And Money: COVID Shot Incentives Are Gimmicky, But That's OK
Jonathan Carlyle of Toledo, Ohio, had every intention of getting a COVID-19 shot — someday. The Amazon delivery driver was so busy that he kept putting it off. Then he learned that his state was launching a weekly lottery that would award $1 million to some lucky person just for getting vaccinated. “As soon as I heard that, I was like, ‘Yes, I need to go do this now,’” he said Thursday during a press conference with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Carlyle received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID shot two days after learning about the incentive, and it was a good thing he didn’t wait. On Wednesday Carlyle found out he was the second winner of Ohio’s “Vax-a-Million” lottery. (6/4)
The New York Times: What The Covid Rookies Saw
Iris had been a doctor for all of six days. Her long white coat still felt almost like a costume. Her patient had a severe case of Covid-19. She wanted to put him on the phone with his family, but first she had to ask him the essential question: Did he know how he wanted to die? In the hospital lexicon, this became: Did he want to get chest compressions if his heart stopped? Or a tube down his throat if he was struggling for breath? (Emma Goldberg, 6/4)
Newsweek: The American Rescue Plan Should Help Foster Youth Hurt By The Pandemic
Most people spent the past year at home, working from the couch and doing meetings in pajamas. Kelvin Craig didn't have a home to go to. Couch surfing with random friends and begging for odd jobs like yard work to make money were the only options for Craig, a 23-year-old former foster kid with no family, education or job to turn to when the pandemic hit, who dropped out of technical school because he couldn't afford tuition or to pay student loans. Craig is not much different than the tens of thousands of young adults who have recently aged out of the foster care system across this country and been forced into homelessness because they do not have relationships with biological parents or other family. Every year, 20,000 young people age out of the foster care system, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, and many join the more than 700,000 unaccompanied minors experiencing homelessness across the country. (Richard L. Jackson, 6/3)
The New York Times: Will Congress Abandon America’s Seniors?
As negotiations grind on between the White House and Senate Republicans, the prospects for a big, bold infrastructure deal look bleak. President Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan — the first of a two-part package — is being picked apart by Republican lawmakers. They object to its price tag. They object to funding it by rolling back some of the 2017 tax cuts. And they vehemently object to the White House’s redefinition of infrastructure to encompass things like roads, ports, broadband, community colleges, electric-vehicle charging stations and elder care. Republicans have countered with a radically reduced plan stripped of provisions they do not consider infrastructure. Their biggest target for elimination: Mr. Biden’s call to invest $400 billion in community-based and in-home care for older and disabled people. Characterized as “infrastructure of care” by the White House, the provision accounts for nearly 20 percent of the total cost of the president’s plan. Republican lawmakers are having none of it. (Michelle Cottle, 6/4)
