Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives On The House GOP's Health Bill: A Breakout Toward Governing Or A Breakdown In Coverage?
The Wall Street Journal: Health Reform’s House Breakout
Against the odds, House Republicans have regained momentum on health-care reform, and they’re nearing a majority coalition. While there may be more swerves before a vote, they ought to appreciate the importance of demonstrating that a center-right Congress—working with President Trump —can govern. (5/4)
The New York Times: The New Study That Shows Trumpcare’s Damage
When Massachusetts expanded health insurance a decade ago, state officials unknowingly created an experiment. It’s turned out to be an experiment that offers real-world evidence of what would happen if the House Republicans’ health bill were to become law. The findings from Massachusetts come from an academic paper being released Thursday, and the timing is good. Until now, the main analysis of the Republican health bill has come from the Congressional Budget Office, and some Republicans have criticized that analysis as speculative. The Massachusetts data is more concrete. (David Leonhardt, 5/3)
The Washington Post: What Happens If The House GOP Health Bill Actually Passes? Then It Gets Really Ugly.
Republicans are engaged in a frantic effort to assemble enough votes in the House for the latest version of the American Health Care Act, their bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. After so many pratfalls and so much public disgust with what they’re attempting, can they actually pull this off? It’s possible. So it’s worth running through the various scenarios to see how things might proceed from here, if they do. (Paul Waldman, 5/3)
The Washington Post: We’re Finally Having The Health-Care Debate We Need
Thanks to a horribly constructed Republican bill that satisfies no one and a late-night TV host, we are finally having the debate we need on health care. The Republicans who have for seven years promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act — but keep the parts they like such as protection for those with preexisting conditions — are now scrambling to pass a bill that does not really do either. Faced with the prospect of actually passing a bill and its impact on tens of millions of people, the GOP realized it couldn’t really repeal Obamacare. (Jennifer Rubin, 5/3)
Los Angeles Times: The GOP Insists Its Healthcare Bill Will Protect People With Pre-Existing Conditions. It Won't
About half of American adults under age 65 have at least one preexisting medical condition, by the federal government’s count. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, more than half of those adults could have been denied coverage by health insurers in the days before Obamacare if they weren’t included in a large employer’s plan. (5/4)
The Washington Post: How Jimmy Kimmel Transformed The Health-Care Debate
Those of us in the world of column-writing and policy wonkery ought to be humbled: It often takes a celebrity, preferably a comedian, to break through with an argument that transforms public understanding. In particularly successful cases, the celebrity demolishes conventions and blurts out a deep truth that only occasionally makes it into the day-to-day arguments and journalistic accounts. (E.J. Dionne Jr., 5/3)
Chicago Tribune: Joe Walsh's Tweets About Jimmy Kimmel's Baby Shed Light On Health Care Debate
Former Congressman Joe Walsh was acting very presidential Tuesday afternoon. By which I mean he was impulsively tweeting venomous, half-baked thoughts — in this case his reaction to late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's monologue Monday about his newborn son's dramatic battle for life at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. True compassion demands that we minimize the role of luck in access to necessary health care, not layer on hope for charity and pity. Expand Kimmel's idea that "no parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child's life" to include spouses, parents, siblings and selves. That's what Democrats are fighting for. And they owe Joe Walsh thanks for so clearly illustrating what they're fighting against. (Eric Zorn, 5/3)
Los Angeles Times: GOP Hard-Liners Resist Spreading The Costs Of Healthcare To The Healthy
I've been lucky. I was born a healthy baby. Other than childhood rounds of measles and chicken pox and annoying yearly bouts with springtime pollen, I’ve enjoyed a disease-free life. So far, no hereditary predispositions toward any awful affliction have shown up. Other than a weakness for doughnuts and cheeseburgers, I eat pretty well and haven’t gotten fat. I exercise sporadically, but stay in reasonably good shape. Occasionally I drink enough to regret it in the morning, but I’ve never smoked or abused drugs. (David Horsey, 5/3)
Detroit Free Press: Health Care Reform, Or Cruelty?
The debate over reform of the 6-year-old national health reform bill is quickly being defined not as right vs. left, or Republican vs. Democrat, but as decent vs. indecent. That’s a harsh assessment, no doubt, and one that we don’t make lightly. (Stephen Henderson, 5/4)
Stat: Trumpcare Is A Historic Attack On Mental Health Care
With 1 in 5 of our neighbors suffering from mental illness, the time for tinkering around the margins of our broken system is over. American families and communities need deep and dramatic reform. Instead, congressional Republicans are moving forward with efforts to make it harder and more costly for the average American to access mental health care. (Joe Kennedy III, 5/3)
RealClear Health: Critics Question Mental Health Protections In GOP Health Bill
Critics are calling into question the ability of Republicans’ health-care reform bill to effectively provide accessible mental health and addiction services to Americans nationwide. “This is an abomination of a bill,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, whose 2016 Mental Health Reform Act was signed into law one day before the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. “It doesn’t solve a single problem in our health-care system; it makes existing problems worse, and Republicans know it.” (Ford Carson, 5/4)
Sacramento Bee: As California Debates Single-Payer Health Care, Consider How Much Taxes Would Rise
Under a single-payer system, health care would be financed through taxing people to support a government-run program rather than through having them or their employers pay for private health insurance coverage. Doing that would require a massive tax increase on California families along with huge pay cuts for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals. And, it would spell the end of the employer-sponsored insurance that half the state relies on and values. (Jim Wunderman, 5/3)
