Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: American Health Care Needs A Reboot; Planned Parenthood Cuts Destroy Public Health
Stat: It's Time To Fundamentally Rethink How America Pays For Health Care
We must change the underlying valuation to reward cognitive health “care” services rather than high-tech “cure” services, doctor writes. (Daniel Plotkin, 11/10)
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Ohio’s Planned Parenthood Cuts Are A Master Class In Dismantling Public Health
Let’s start with what this isn’t. Ohio’s move to cut Planned Parenthood from participation in the Medicaid program isn’t about abortion — that’s already off the table for nearly all public funding. It’s about whether more than 27,000 low-income Ohioans will still have a place to turn for birth control, cancer screenings or treatment they couldn’t afford anywhere else. (Leila Atassi, 11/10)
The Washington Post: TrumpRx Is The Wrong Way To Lower Drug Prices
In a landmark deal announced Thursday, President Donald Trump negotiated dramatically lower costs for weight-loss drugs produced by pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which could benefit Medicare and Medicaid patients, as well as Americans paying out of pocket. But here’s the skinny: What the president negotiated should not be reserved for big companies that play his game. (11/9)
The New York Times: Make Medical School Three Years
The structure of medical education hasn’t fundamentally changed for 115 years. In 1910, medical education reformer Abraham Flexner helped turn a chaotic landscape of short-term proprietary schools, famous for producing “snake oil salesmen,” into today’s standardized, eight-year pipeline: four years of college followed by four years of medical school. At that time, this model made sense. Now it doesn’t. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Emily K. Kim and Vitor B. de Souza, 11/10)
Bloomberg: How Women Could Be The Key To Unlocking Longer Life
For every man older than 110, there are nine women. Before she died in August at age 117, supercentenarian Maria Branyas — the world’s oldest verified person — credited her bonus years not to any high-tech interventions but to eating lots of plain yogurt. (F.D. Flam, 11/8)
