Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Don't Let Measles Draw Down Our Resources For Responding To Large-Scale Problems; Outlawing Private Insurance Is Too Radical
USA Today: Measles Outbreak Exposes Future National Public Health Vulnerabilities
A devastating infectious disease pandemic could kill more people than nuclear war. Just 100 years ago, the Spanish flu killed 50 to 100 million people. Life-threatening diseases continue to place us at great risk. Ten years ago, it was H1N1 influenza. Today, it is the measles. Last week, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency. Measles outbreaks are occurring in New York City and throughout the nation, with case counts rising at an alarming rate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 555 confirmed cases in 20 states so far this year. It is the second-highest total since measles, which is highly contagious, was declared eliminated in the Americas almost two decades ago. (Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, 4/16)
Bloomberg: Bernie Sanders's Medicare For All Goes Too Far For Most Americans
U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently released his health-care plan, which he calls “Medicare for All.” With a name like that, one would think that the proposal involves extending the Medicare system, which provides health-care insurance to the elderly, to all Americans. But Sanders’s plan is something different. It would outlaw most forms of private health insurance and eliminate all out-of-pocket costs — something that Medicare doesn’t now do. (Noah Smith, 4/15)
Louisville Courier-Journal: Don't Believe All The Lies About Single Payer
Drug companies, for-profit hospitals, insurance companies and others invested in profit-based care are campaigning vigorously against single-payer, spreading misinformation and fearmongering. Industry-aligned anti-single-payer individuals are posing as ordinary citizens spreading misinformation about single-payer.Don’t believe the lies. National health plans work extraordinarily well in every other industrialized nation. Canada, Scotland, Sweden, Taiwan, and Japan (among dozens of others) cover their entire population for a fraction of what the U.S. spends (wastes!) and enjoy longer lifespans and better health outcomes. How will we pay for it? An American single-payer plan will pay for itself by redirecting wasted administration and profiteering funds into patient care. Consider the vast difference in cost: From 2007 to 2014, spending in private plans grew nearly 17 percent per enrollee, while Medicare spending decreased 1.2 percent per beneficiary. (Garrett Adams, 4/15)
The New York Times: Trump’s Attacks On Health Care Will Backfire
In Donald Trump’s two-plus years as president, his approach to policymaking has often been defined by an unsavory stew of indecision, inaction, flip-flops and outright lies.Nowhere has this been truer than with health care, where the administration has reversed direction multiple times. (Steven Rattner, 4/15)
The Hill: Consumer Product Safety Commission Is Politicized And Buyers Face Safety Risks
Last week, reports emerged of how a U.K.-based manufacturer called Britax avoided recalling a line of dangerous jogging strollers by politically gaming the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Even after countless incidents of product malfunctions that led to serious injuries, these strollers remain on the market, placing families and young children at risk. The Britax jogging strollers aren’t the only risky product making recent headlines. Intense media pressure has finally led to a recall of Fisher-Price Rock n’ Play Sleepers, a childcare product that has reportedly been tied to more than 30 infant fatalities. Meanwhile, the Britax strollers are still on the market and it is unclear how many other dangerous products have escaped further scrutiny to remain available to consumers along with them. (David Oddo, 4/15)
Stat: The Trouble With Mice As Behavioral Models For Alzheimer's
There’s been a lot of talk about overinvestment in interventions aimed at amyloid in the weeks since Biogen discontinued a late-stage study of aducanumab, an experimental therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.Although much of the focus has been on the amyloid hypothesis at the heart of that work — and other failed treatments — I believe we are overlooking another key driver for numerous translational failures: the overreliance on behavioral readouts from contrived transgenic rodent models to guide drug development for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurologic diseases. We need to find ways to move beyond this flawed paradigm. (Adam Rosenberg, 4/16)
