Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Cures Bill Should Crack Down On Faulty Research; Euthanasia In Europe
The Wall Street Journal: Getting The Bogus Studies Out Of Science
The 21st Century Cures Act passed the House of Representatives on July 10 with strong bipartisan support and is now pending in the Senate. The House bill would increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $9.3 billion over five years to stimulate research .... The deeper problem with the bill is that it overlooks what may be the largest single impediment to the breakthroughs in the basic science that will lead to future treatments and cures: faulty research that nobody notices until more time and money has been wasted pursuing what in effect are false leads. (Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, 8/19)
The Huffington Post: Obamacare Haters Are Getting Harder To Find
Obamacare isn’t popular. But it may be getting less unpopular. On Thursday morning, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released a new survey showing that 44 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, while 41 percent has an unfavorable view. The numbers are nearly identical to what they were in Kaiser’s most recent survey, back in late June, and statistically unchanged since March. ... You can't say this latest survey or the previous ones constitute a strong endorsement of the law .... Still, the averages also reveal a trend underway, with the public less skeptical of the law than it was in 2014. (Jonathan Cohn, 8/20)
The Washington Post: Europe’s Sinister Expansion Of Euthanasia
Between October 2007 and December 2011, 100 people went to a clinic in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking region with depression, or schizophrenia, or, in several cases, Asperger’s syndrome, seeking euthanasia. The doctors, satisfied that 48 of the patients were in earnest, and that their conditions were “untreatable” and “unbearable,” offered them lethal injection; 35 went through with it. ... If you find this sinister, I agree. (Charles Lane, 8/19)
The Baltimore Sun: Cardin Bill Would Reform Long-Term Health Care Financing For Seniors
Americans are living longer than ever before thanks to medical advancements and healthy lifestyle habits. But questions remain as to where will these older Americans will live and how they will afford their health care as they age. The answers may be found in new bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin and Chuck Grassley. Their bill, which recently unanimously passed the Senate Finance Committee, would establish a new Community-Based Institutional Special Needs Plan demonstration program designed to provide home- and community-based services for low-income Medicare-only beneficiaries who need assistance with basic activities of daily living. (Chris Wing, 8/19)
The Charlotte Observer: Why N.C. Should Preserve Its CON Laws
The move to eliminate North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (CON) laws has gained some traction with the legislature based primarily on a belief that unfettered health care competition will increase the supply of providers, choice and access, thereby lowering health care costs. That might seem reasonable, but only if health care could operate in a free-market system where creating winners and losers among patients was an acceptable outcome. It is important to understand why the state’s CON laws exist in the first place. The principles of certificate of need are to ensure that N.C. residents receive safe and efficient health care services that warrant public trust; that there is equitable access to timely, clinically appropriate, and high-quality health care; and that health care value is maximized for all citizens. (Pete Brunnick, 8/19)
The New England Journal of Medicine: New DTCA Guidance — Enough To Empower Consumers?
As one of only two countries that permit direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of pharmaceuticals, the United States tasks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with regulating that advertising to ensure that it doesn't mislead consumers. When a drug maker publishes or broadcasts a claim that its drug has benefits in a particular disease, the FDA requires it to include information on the product's risks as well. ... But research shows that most patients who attempt to read these disclosures find them difficult to understand, and many don't even try to make sense of them. Now, the FDA is in the process of adjusting its DTCA rules, aiming to provide greater assurance that patients receive due warning of the most significant risks — but its tweaks probably don't go far enough to really empower consumers to make smart decisions about the drugs they put into their bodies. (Christopher T. Robertson, 8/19)
The New England Journal of Medicine: The Vernacular Of Risk — Rethinking Direct-To-Consumer Advertising Of Pharmaceuticals
For all its capacity to encourage overdiagnosis and overmedication, DTCA's virtue is that it treats consumers as people who deserve to know something about the compounds they take into their bodies. After 30 years of DTCA, it's not clear that advertising is the best medium for communicating risk information, but marketers should at least be required to try to communicate risk information as effectively as they do their promotional messages. (Jeremy A. Greene and Elizabeth S. Watkins, 8/19)
