Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Fresh Approach Is Needed For Battle Against Veterans' Suicides; Taxing E-Cigs Can Help Stop Teens From Vaping
USA Today: Veterans Day: The U.S. Military Is Losing To The War Called Suicide
As Americans honor veterans this holiday, it’s vital to remember the silent war being waged in homes and barracks and countless other places where soldiers, past and present, are dying by the thousands every year. They’re killing themselves in a war of self-destruction that the United States is losing. The tide of this struggle turned years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks, when America’s all-volunteer military — a force of fixed and limited size, unable to expand through conscription — was pressed into fighting two extended wars at once, in Afghanistan and Iraq. (11/10)
The Washington Post: How Veterans Affairs Denies Care To Many Of The People It’s Supposed To Serve
In April, John Rios stood in the Veterans Affairs hospital in Newington, Conn., seeking treatment. For more than 20 years, he had struggled with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. For the past eight of them, he had fought to have the Defense Department recognize his military service as honorable. Having finally prevailed, he went to VA seeking health care, his official paperwork in hand. The hospital turned him away, refusing to recognize him as a veteran. (Liam Brennan, 11/8)
Stat: Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Silent Killer Of Veterans
Veterans who survive the horrors of war or the other dangers of military service often die years later from a silent but deadly scourge: diabetic foot ulcers, open sores or lesions that typically start on the bottom of the foot.About 40% of people afflicted with this problem die within five years. The annual cost to America’s health care system for treating complications of these foot ulcers is greater than treating the five most common types of cancer, and are responsible for the vast majority of non-combat amputations seen among veterans. Yet too little is being done to prevent them. (David G. Armstrong, 11/11)
Bloomberg: Taxing E-Cigarettes Like Juul Is A Good Way To Stop Teen Vaping
Vaping among high school students has risen 135% in just two years, and the government deserves more than a little blame. The Food and Drug Administration has dragged its feet on regulation, and lawmakers have resisted reforms to make e-cigarettes less appealing to children. Government inaction has jeopardized one of America’s greatest public-health achievements of recent years: the drastic decline in teen smoking. The House of Representatives can help to put this right. It’s about to consider a new tax on e-cigarettes — a policy that’s long overdue. (11/7)
The Washington Post: New Doctors Try To Muzzle Their Emotions. But That Makes Them Less Kind To Patients.
Every July, a fresh group of newly minted doctors puts on their white coats. No more playacting “doctor” as they did moving through medical school — from here on, they’ll be trusted with keeping people alive. A close doctor friend told me the best piece of advice she could give me for my internship was to “externalize.” I’m training to be a psychiatrist, but my program has me rotate through several other fields, such as emergency room medicine, and for these tough, bloody months, my friend told me I had to leave my emotions at home. It was a survival tactic, she said: To do your best, you need to slip on a suit of armor. (Isobel Rosenthal, 11/10)
Los Angeles Times: Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson's Death Comes At A Time Of Transition For The Huge System
Bernard J. Tyson, chairman and CEO of the giant nonprofit Kaiser Permanente health system, died suddenly Sunday morning, Kaiser announced. “Bernard was an exceptional colleague, a passionate leader, and an honorable man. We will greatly miss him,” said Edward Pei, chairman of the executive committee of the Kaiser board. The board named Executive Vice President Gregory A. Adams as interim chairman and chief executive. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/10)
Los Angeles Times: Treat L.A. Homelessness With The Same Urgency As 2028 Olympics
In the summer of 2028, hundreds of thousands of athletes, support staff and tourists will flood into Los Angeles for the 34th Olympiad, all needing a roof over their heads immediately. Within hours, they will all find one. Meanwhile, nearly 60,000 men, women and children continue to languish on L.A. sidewalks, underpasses, in cars and crowded shelters, their numbers growing every year — and our leaders say it will take years to find them shelter. (Rob Eshman, 11/10)
Los Angeles Times: More State Mental Hospitals Would Help Mentally Ill Homeless
The very term “homelessness,” as used to describe the problem that has changed the face of downtown Los Angeles and other West Coast cities, implies that there’s a single solution: housing. That thinking leads quickly to discussions about the high cost of real estate and the need for new approaches to the housing crisis, such as Facebook’s pledge to spend $1 billion to create affordable housing in Silicon Valley. Too often, however, this discussion ignores the needs of a large percentage of people living on the streets who are not capable of living independently because they suffer from serious mental health problems. Howard Husock, 11/11)
Los Angeles Times: Why Are Veterans Still Homeless In L.A.?
There are 3,878 veterans who lack a “fixed, regular or adequate place to sleep” on any given night in Los Angeles County, according to the annual count of the homeless conducted in January. Like the rest of L.A. County’s homeless population, most of them live on streets and sidewalks while a smaller number find beds in shelters. About a dozen live in an encampment outside the gates of the VA’s campus in West L.A. (11/11)
