Viewpoints: Extending Sanders’ Health Mission; The Future Of Single-Payer?

The Huffington Post: Where Bernie Sanders’ Health Care Crusade Might Go From Here
Bernie Sanders can make a real difference in the causes he’s championed, even if he doesn’t become president. That’s particularly true for one of his signature issues: health care. No matter what happens with the Democratic presidential nomination, the Vermont senator can keep pushing to to fill in the holes of Obamacare, while creating the building blocks for the single-payer system he has advocated for his entire political career. (Jonathan Cohn, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Is Single-Payer Healthcare Dead In The U.S., Or Only Sleeping?
The dream of bringing single-payer healthcare to the United States is a hardy one. It's still with us despite years of disrespect by the general public, intense opposition from powerful stakeholders in the healthcare economic status quo, and the enactment of the very non-single payer system known as Obamacare. Should we give up on the dream, already? (Michael Hiltzik, 4/23)

Boston Globe: Let The Patient Pay The Piper, And The Price Of Health Care Will Fall
When Americans rely on a third party — private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid — to pay most of their medical bills, they forfeit their power as consumers. Our ill-conceived system of subsidized health plans provided by employers and taxpayer-funded “free” treatment through the government ends up stripping patients of their economic clout. Doctors and hospitals have little incentive to compete by lowering prices, because patients rarely bother to ask about prices. ... It’s only when medical services aren’t reimbursed by a third party — think of Lasik eye surgery or veterinary care or the growing number of direct-pay “concierge” practices that don’t accept health insurance — that the consumer is king. When providers are paid directly by customers, transactions are transparent, prices fall, choices proliferate, and consumer convenience becomes a priority. (Jeff Jacoby, 4/24)

The New York Times: A New Policy Disagreement Between Clinton and Sanders: Soda Taxes
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have a new issue to disagree about: the wisdom of a soda tax. A tax on sugary soft drinks, like the one proposed in Philadelphia and endorsed by Mrs. Clinton this week, divides the left. It can be seen as achieving an admirable public health goal of less sugar consumption or as a very regressive tax that falls more on the poor than the rich, since the poor tend to drink more soda. While not the biggest issue the two candidates have tussled over, it is one that may reverberate across the country in coming years as more cities and states use the tax to raise revenue or improve citizens’ health. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 4/22)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Does UnitedHealth’s Exit Spell Doom For Obamacare?
UnitedHealth is leaving most of the Obamacare exchanges where it has been selling policies. Does this mean insurance companies are losing confidence in the program? Is Obamacare about to enter a death spiral? Almost certainly not. (Robert Field, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: In Search Of Fair Drug Prices
When CVS Health in February began taking over pharmacy operations at more than 1,600 Target stores, CVS Pharmacy President Helena Foulkes called the changeover "an important milestone." "Our heart is in every prescription we fill, and providing accessible, supportive and personalized healthcare is part of our DNA," she said. Accessible, supportive, personalized — those are all good things. But noticeably missing from Foulkes' list of consumer-friendly DNA components was this: affordable pricing. (David Lazarus, 4/22)

The New York Times: What Drug Ads Don’t Say
What I propose is a universal scorecard for all new drugs, to be overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, with information on how their cost and effectiveness measure up against similar medications. This could be a simple graphic that would fill the screen at the end of every video ad and be highly visible in every print ad. It should become a routine part of discussions with doctors whenever medications are prescribed, and should be provided by pharmacies alongside basic drug safety information. (Richard A. Friedman, 4/23)

The Concord Monitor: My Turn: Medicaid Waiver Is Good Deal For New Hampshire
In January, the state’s application for a Section 1115(a) Medicaid waiver was approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This waiver would provide the state with access to up to $150 million over five years to improve behavioral health services. These funds are intended to increase capacity for delivering substance use disorder services and mental health services, to promote integration of behavioral health and primary care services, and to provide better care transitions for people leaving county jails and nursing homes. (State Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, 4/23)

The New York Times: Aid In Dying In Canada
Since 2014, aid-in-dying bills have been introduced in at least 26 states and Washington, D.C. While it’s important to provide a humane option to the dying, it’s also essential that lawmakers focus on the need to provide broader access to palliative and hospice care so that terminal patients do not choose death because pain relief is unaffordable. They must ensure that doctors be trained in prescribing life-ending medication and must encourage professional groups to offer education and support for those who want to provide such aid. And they should make funding available to study the effect of these laws. (4/23)

The Washington Post: A Healthy Agreement
No argument against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement packs more emotional punch than the claim that the deal would be bad for people’s health — and even result in avoidable deaths — both in the United States and in the 11 other signatory nations. The argument ... is that the TPP would unduly extend U.S. patent and intellectual property protections for the pharmaceutical industry, thus driving up prices for lifesaving medicines. ... The United States and the world need medical innovation, but it costs money — billions of dollars sometimes — to develop a drug. One way to spur investment is to offer innovators a temporary government-guaranteed monopoly on commercial exploitation. (4/24)

The Boston Globe: Nursing Home Workers Are Worth More
[Alyson Williams'] $11-an-hour salary is the average starting wage for a certified nursing assistant, according to the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry. Some entry-level employees make even less. A long-needed one-time raise in pay may be in the offing, however, in the form of the state House of Representatives’ version of the budget unveiled last week that includes “not less than $35.5 million” in additional funding to be used to boost earnings and benefits for about 46,000 nursing home workers. (4/22)

The San Antonio Express-News: Texas Mental Health Challenges Remain Stark
African-Americans are more likely than whites to receive the least optimistic diagnoses. Schizophrenia is consistently overdiagnosed, while more manageable conditions such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder are often underrecognized or misdiagnosed — resulting in higher incidents of seclusion, use of restraints and involuntary commitment, and lower levels of support for patients and their families. This is a big reason why African-Americans and Hispanics are far more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than whites, and why jails have become such tragically overused centers of mental health care. It contributes to the deaths of African-Americans, some of whom appear to have mental disorders, at the hands of law enforcement officers. And it helps explain why, at times, these generations of mental health advances feel so illusory. (William Lawson, 4/24)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: A Doctor's Call For Action On Childhood Poverty
The main aim of pediatrics is prevention. Prevention of diseases, of injury, of emotional problems, of developmental and intellectual delays. Our armamentarium include vaccines; screening instruments; and guidance on development, safety, and nutrition. It's time to add one more item to our tool kit: screening our young patients for health and emotional problems related to poverty. (Daniel Taylor, 4/24)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: When It Comes To The Health Of The Poor, Place Matters
In the United States, poverty hurts. We have long known there is a correlation between wealth and health. Richer people live longer lives. This is especially true in Philadelphia, where life expectancy at birth can vary by as much as 20 years between rich and poor neighborhoods. (Drew Harris, 4/22)