Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: No Humane Policy Can Expect Normal Return To Health Care; Taking Away Health Care Now Would Be Crueler Than Cruel
Stat: The 'New Normal' In Health Care Needs To Go Beyond Clinical Care
This is an extraordinarily difficult time to be a physician. As the leaders of state medical societies and board members of The Physicians Foundation, we represent primary care physicians and specialists across the country, in blue and red states. We’ve witnessed the Covid-19 crisis cost hundreds of thousands of lives and endanger many of our colleagues. In the midst of this deadly pandemic, the U.S. health delivery system is facing its own economic instability. (Michael Darrouzet, Jennifer Hanscom and Philip Schuh, 7/7)
Bangor Morning News: The Trump Administration’s Cruel And Nonsensical Arguments Against The ACA
We start from the premise that it is never a good time to take health care away from people. Working to do so at a time when millions of Americans are already at risk of losing their health care because of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn that has accompanied it is as cruel as it is nonsensical. But that’s what the Trump administration is arguing for. (7/6)
Axios: Trump's May Lose Swing Voters By Asking The Supreme Court To Strike Down The Affordable Care Act
President Trump’s decision to ask the Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Care Act may alienate the independent voters who can swing the presidential election. That could be especially important in battleground states.The big picture: Many of the ACA’s benefits are hugely popular with independents — even beyond protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which gets the most attention. (Drew Altman, 7/7)
Modern Healthcare: Advance Equity By Investing In America's Healthcare Safety Net
The COVID-19 pandemic has torn open America's already gaping disparities in health outcomes. Non-Hispanic Blacks have been infected at five times the rates of non-Hispanic whites. Urban hospitals that serve majority-minority communities are also seeing the beginnings of a second public health crisis, as fear dissuades people from getting non-COVID related emergency care. As our country considers how we address these and other legacies of structural racism brought to a boiling point by George Floyd's death, our path forward must include a federally backed capital investment plan for our safety-net hospitals and clinics. (Shereef Elnahal, 7/7)
Boston Globe: Boston’s Racial Equity Fund Is Not Systemic Change
The focus on fund-raising and grant-making through the platform of municipal government comes at a steep price: forfeiting democratic accountability and obscuring the city’s role in delivering structural change. The past few months have illuminated the depth of struggle in our prosperous but unequal city — families trapped in a broken public health and public safety system, and communities deprived of the opportunity to cultivate wealth and economic security over generations. (Michelle Wu, 7/6)
Los Angeles Times: You Shouldn't Need A Car To Get Tested For COVID-19
Public health officials concur that testing is one — if not the most — crucial factor in combating the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19. Without it, there’s no clear-cut information on where and how fast the disease is spreading nor how best to safely reopen the economy. And free access to testing is an essential feature of testing programs. In April, Los Angeles became the first U.S. city to roll out free testing to all residents regardless of whether they exhibited symptoms. But like many other aspects of L.A. life, our testing system has been structured around cars. (Evelyn Blumenberg and Madeline Brozen, 7/7)
The Hill: Too Many Cross-Species Diseases Like COVID-19 Are Being Overlooked Worldwide
The outbreak of COVID-19 has proven as disruptive globally as it has deadly, yet despite rising cases and fatalities, it remains the tip of the iceberg of zoonotic diseases. More than 200 different illnesses can pass from animals to people, most of which originate in wildlife, causing an estimated billion cases of sickness in people and millions of deaths every year. Many of these diseases are commonly found in low-income countries, creating invisible epidemics that fail to attract the same level of global attention as COVID-19. (Carel Du Marchie Sarvaas, 7/6)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Meat Plant Workers Are Not Sacrificial Lambs
Back in April, the Rural Community Workers Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of workers at the Smithfield meat processing plant in Milan, Missouri. Employees at the plant cited unsafe working conditions, like rapid line speeds and the company’s failure to provide personal protective equipment or space to maintain social distancing. Workers in the Milan plant are rightfully concerned about the impacts that Smithfield’s lack of workplace safety measures may have had on their health and public safety. Food workers throughout the supply chain — from farms to slaughterhouses to grocery stores — have been deemed essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic, but corporations like Smithfield and Tyson Foods have treated them as entirely expendable. (Sophie Watterson, 7/6)
