Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: CEOs Of Health Care Companies Make A Ridiculous Amount Of Money; Even If GOP Prevails In Court Against Health Law, Victory Would Be Pyrrhic
GQ: Health-Care CEOs Made An Infuriating Amount Of Money Last Year
Last year, 62 CEOs of health-care companies made a combined total of $1.1 billion in compensation. That's according to a new report out from Axios, which coincidentally notes that CEO compensation eclipses what the Centers for Disease Control spent on chronic disease prevention by $157 million. That comparison might make the executive compensation seem galling, but a look at the bigger picture...doesn't make it better. (Luke Darby, 4/9)
The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Managed To Make ObamaCare Popular
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released in December 2016, just before President Obama left office, showed that the Affordable Care Act had a favorability rating of 43%, while 46% viewed it unfavorably. Last month, the same poll showed the nine-year-old health-insurance law well above water, with 50% viewing it positively to 39% negatively. Those numbers help explain why most Republicans in Congress aren’t eager to campaign on repealing ObamaCare in 2020. (Jason L. Riley, 4/9)
Stat: The Real Border Crisis Is Occurring In Medical And Emergency Clinics
A pack of border patrol agents dressed in dark green uniforms invade the trauma bay, bringing with them chaos and our newest patient. The surgeon calls for order and shouts at the agents to leave the room. It takes a while but they do, only to hover just outside the door to make sure the patient isn’t moved or discharged without their knowledge. I look at the patient lying on the gurney, his legs so badly wounded the bones are exposed. After years of living in Tucson, it doesn’t take long for me to identify the cause of such a gruesome injury: falling from the border wall. (Claire Lamneck, 4/10)
Stat: Medicare For All Should Guarantee Coverage For Oral Health
With multiple “Medicare for All” proposals now circulating in Congress, opportunities arise to fix past mistakes that have segregated care for our mouths and teeth from the rest of our bodies. Polling shows that today’s universal coverage efforts are driven largely by public outcry that people can’t afford the health care they need to be happy, healthy, and successful. As this robust discussion continues, it’s time to include comprehensive dental care as a standard part of health coverage. No plan can fully address consumers’ concerns without it. (Meg Booth, 4/10)
The Hill: There Are So Many Flaws With Medicare For All
As a physician living and working in a community with too many under and uninsured patients, I sympathize with the impulse underlying the Democratic Party’s utopian "Medicare for all" Act. Like many doctors, I also dream of a sweeping legislative fix to provide high-quality, carte blanche medicine for all Americans, especially those facing serious medical challenges. But this bill seeks utopia by giving government centralized power and control over every aspect of medicine via a single-payer model, and comes with an astronomical price tag. The cost in dollars is in the trillions, but there is also another, hidden cost: the elimination of the conscience rights of nurses and doctors. (Grazie Pozo Christie, 4/9)
The Hill: VA's Commitment To Timely Processing Of Claims And Appeals Is Merely Lip Service
There is a saying amongst veterans waiting for their disability claims and appeals to be processed that VA’s motto is “delay, deny, wait ‘til I die.” Recently, this sentiment was on full display during an oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) in Monk v. Wilkie. The Monk case centers around two important issues for veterans: the CAVC’s ability to decide class action lawsuits, and whether the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)’s delay in adjudicating claims constituted a violation of the right to due process under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Rory E. Riley-Topping, 4/9)
Bloomberg: Lancet Study On Diet Says Lack Of Healthy Foods Is Killing People
After years of issuing dire warnings that certain foods are killing us, nutrition researchers managed to capture lots of attention last week by proclaiming that lack of certain foods was also killing us. The paper making this claim, published in the medical journal the Lancet, examined eating habits around the world, and noted a mismatch between what people actually eat and what various studies suggest we should eat. Framing things in terms of deaths, or killing, is what garnered all the attention, but this is an advance in the marketing of science more than of science itself. It’s long been known that regions where people consume lots of fruits and vegetables have good health and relatively long life expectancies. But that doesn’t get as much mileage on Twitter as a statement about lack of vegetables actually killing people. (Faye Flam, 4/9)
Roll Call: She Miscarried 8 Times. Today She’s Telling Lindsey Graham Why Abortion Should Remain Legal
Jen Jordan went to the well of the Georgia Senate two weeks ago to tell Republican lawmakers that she wasn’t looking for a fight on abortion rights, but that she and other women in the state were willing to have it as the legislature prepared to pass one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. The “heartbeat bill,” which the governor is expected to sign, bans abortions after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat, typically around the sixth week of pregnancy. In her dissent, the Democrat from Atlanta detailed for her fellow senators all kinds of impolite facts that most men in the chamber had probably never discussed publicly — a woman’s uterus, transvaginal ultrasounds, fertilized eggs, and why some women might not even know they are pregnant at six weeks, just one or two weeks past their menstrual period. (Patricia Murphy, 4/9)
The Washington Post: Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Has Embarrassed The City. She Should Resign.
So far — and it’s fair to wonder what other squalid revelations may be forthcoming — the accounting of Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh’s take from the pay-to-play scam she ran under the guise of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books amounts to roughly $800,000 since 2011. As allegations of corruption go, that puts her in the heavyweight class. Ms. Pugh, now on a leave of absence owing to what she says are health concerns, has been the subject of investigative stories in the Baltimore Sun, whose enterprising reporters have uncovered one sleazy deal after another. (4/9)
