Viewpoints: Debate On Medical Device Tax; GOP’s Turn On Health Law; Surgeon General’s Role

USA Today: Keep Medical Device Tax: Our View
Not many issues get strong bipartisan support in Congress these days. One big exception, though, is the tax on medical devices, a 2.3% levy on everything from tongue depressors to artificial hip joints. Republican or Democrat, most of Congress hates it, and the tax is a top candidate for repeal in the new session that begins Tuesday. That would be a serious mistake. (1/4)

USA Today: Tax Destroys Jobs And Innovation: Opposing View
I was humbled to receive in November the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House for the development of life-changing medical devices. Traveling to our nation's capital, I couldn't help but think: There is no way I could have had the same impact if the tax on medical devices was in place when I got started over 50 years ago. Simply put, the medical device tax is destroying job creation and innovation, and as a result, patient care is suffering. (Tom Fogarty, 1/4)

The New York Times' Upshot: Do No Harm? It May Be Hard To Avoid With Health Law’s Medicare Cuts
The Affordable Care Act made changes to government payments for Medicare services that are expected to save tens to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This sounds like a good thing — and it very well may be — but only if those spending cuts don’t cause harm. Research suggests they just might. As any business would, hospitals often respond to reduced revenue by cutting costs. They especially tend to cut back on staff, according to a number of researchers. (Austin Frakt, 1/5)

The Washington Post: How The GOP Presidential Candidates Will Talk About Obamacare
Every result of the law may not be perfect, but it has been an overwhelming success. Just about every prediction Republicans made has turned out false. The economy hasn’t tanked, 10 million people were newly insured even before this year’s open enrollment, premium increases are slowing, overall health costs are slowing, and conservatives looking for specific evidence of the law’s failure don’t quite know what to say. (Paul Waldman, 12/26)

Bloomberg: Watching The Republican Congress's First 100 Days
Demands for the repeal of Obamacare or the withdrawal of the immigration order are empty gestures to satisfy the Republican Party's base. Eventually, pressure to offer credible alternatives will build. ... On health care, Republicans could enact some conservative-leaning modifications to the law that the White House might accept. Yet that would be unacceptable to some congressional Republicans who continue to dream of killing Obamacare. (Albert R. Hunt, 1/4)

Bloomberg: Let States Dare To Make Health-Care Mistakes
The death of Vermont’s effort to install single-payer health care is revealing -- and not only for what it says about the feasibility of such government-run systems in the U.S. It also shows conservatives a way forward if the Supreme Court voids broad swaths of the Affordable Care Act in 2015. ... The temptation for conservatives will be to argue that the federal government should restrict the kinds of changes states can pursue, to prevent others from taking the Vermont route. In the past, some conservatives have in effect made this point: States should be given the freedom and flexibility to pursue solutions that serve their citizens best, this argument goes, so long as federal funds aren't used to support policies that stray from free-market principles. Such restrictions would be wrong-headed. (Lanhee Chen, 12/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Fannie Med Implodes
Liberals claim ObamaCare is “working,” whatever that means, but the reality is that the law is seeding the insurance markets with land mines that will explode over time. The sudden detonation of a taxpayer-backed insurer in Iowa and Nebraska is an early warning. ... Call it the Solyndra of ObamaCare. (12/28)

Bloomberg: Medicaid Is Too Cheap
On New Year's Day, an Obamacare provision that temporarily boosted Medicaid payments to primary-care doctors expired. The pay doctors receive for seeing those patients will drop by an estimated 43 percent on average. The change could cause more doctors to stop seeing people on Medicaid, which covers the poorest Americans. Conservatives will undoubtedly present the change as further proof that Medicaid, which is expanding thanks to the health-care law, is inherently flawed. There's another interpretation: If the goal is to cover lots of people at minimum cost, Medicaid is extremely effective. If anything, it's too cheap. (Christopher Flavelle, 1/4)

AL.com: Bentley Should Keep An Open Mind On Medicaid Funds
Barely had [Alabama] Governor Robert Bentley uttered the words "block fund" as a way of getting more money for Medicaid when his Tea Party advisors urged him to recant. We urge him to stick with his thinking. Bentley suggested that while he still resists urgings to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, a block grant of federal funds could help with the state's budget mess. The difference, in brief, is that the Obamacare funding comes with future obligations, and block fund money doesn't. (1/4)

Los Angeles Times: Obamacare Could Help Millions Of American Smokers To Kick The Habit
Did you know that the Affordable Care Act may be the single most important anti-smoking initiative in the country? Of course not. That's because Obamacare's supposed friends, the Democrats, have been too craven to talk about its benefits, while its enemies, the Republicans, want only to depict it as a "disaster" without addressing its many provisions. (Michael Hiltzik, 1/2)

Annals of Internal Medicine: The Past And Future Office Of The Surgeon General
Some argue that changes in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Public Health Service have diminished the power of the U.S. Surgeon General over the years. In this commentary, former Surgeon General David Satcher contends that the Office of the Surgeon General has actually gained credibility and influence with the American people as the reporting structure has evolved. (Dr. David Satcher, 12/30)

The New York Times: Doctor, Shut Up And Listen
A doctor’s ability to explain, listen and empathize has a profound impact on a patient’s care. Yet, as one survey found, two out of every three patients are discharged from the hospital without even knowing their diagnosis. Another study discovered that in over 60 percent of cases, patients misunderstood directions after a visit to their doctor’s office. And on average, physicians wait just 18 seconds before interrupting patients’ narratives of their symptoms. Evidently, we have a long way to go. (Nirmal Joshi, 1/4)

Los Angeles Times: Ignore Predictions Of Lethal Pandemics And Pay Attention To What Really Matters
Prophets of doom have been telling us for decades that a deadly new pandemic — of bird flu, of SARS or MERS coronavirus, and now of Ebola — is on its way. Why are we still listening? If you look back at the furor raised at many distinguished publications — Nature, Science, Scientific American, National Geographic — back in, say, 2005, about a potential bird flu (H5N1) pandemic, you wonder what planet they were on. Nature ran a special section titled — “Avian flu: Are we ready?” — that began, ominously, with the words “Trouble is brewing in the East” and went on to present a mock aftermath report detailing catastrophic civil breakdown. (Wendy Orent, 1/3)

The New York Times' Upshot: How Losing A Job Can Be Bad For Your Health
Being out of work can be advantageous for people’s physical health. Unemployed people have more time to exercise and cook at home, and less money to buy cigarettes or junk food. ... Yet there are signs that the most recent recession might have been different. ... Because the recovery has not brought significant numbers of new jobs, people may have settled into less healthy behaviors because they assume they will not work again soon. (Cain Miller, 12/23)

Bloomberg: Next Year's Ebola Crisis
One of the many ways the world failed to distinguish itself in 2014 was with its response to the Ebola crisis. It cannot afford to be so late, slow and fatally inadequate next year -- with Ebola, which continues to kill people in West Africa, or with the next global pandemic. (12/31)