Viewpoints: GOP’s Unpopular Efforts To Repeal Health Law Are Backfiring With Voters; Teen Vaping Is A Looming Public Health Catastrophe

USA Today: Republicans Tried To Kill Health Care Protections And Voters Remember
Earlier this month, over a year after Republicans tried multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I asked people in the Twittersphere if their representatives in Congress had voted for repeal and, if so, if they held a town hall to explain their vote and put forward a better vision for health care. Within 24 hours, over 500 people had tweeted back their experiences. The responses reflected not just people who disagreed with their member of Congress, but people who felt ignored by them. The list of those who chose to vote and disappear in 2017 is long, including many who now find themselves in highly contested races — among them Republicans Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters of California, Peter Roskam and Mike Bost of Illinois, Steve Chabot and Steve Stivers of Ohio, and Bruce Poliquin of Maine. (Andy Slavitt, 9/21)

Stat: Pod Mods, Vaping Are Creating A New Generation Of Nicotine-Addicted Youths
The emergence of a new generation of people addicted to nicotine — many of them now in middle school — keeps me up at night. A few years ago, I and many of my colleagues who have cared for people with tobacco-related diseases breathed a sigh of relief as we watched smoking rates decline. That relief has dissipated as electronic cigarettes, or vaping, sweeps through middle and high schools. We won’t know the full extent of vaping’s health consequences until it’s too late, but we can expect to see a tsunami of related diseases in 20 or 30 years. (Richard Stumacher, 9/21)

The Washington Post: Why Should We Believe Kavanaugh? 
Teenagers, particularly drunken teenagers, sometimes commit awful, cruel, even criminal acts — acts that can wound victims for decades. When possible, they should be held appropriately accountable. However, what provides more insight into a person’s moral rectitude is, arguably, not what he did as a minor but how he handles such sins once he has developed into a mature adult. Specifically, whether he takes responsibility and expresses contrition.And if Kavanaugh is continuing — today, as a 53-year-old man — to deny a crime he in fact did commit as a drunken teenager, that casts doubt not only upon his character as a teen but also on his trustworthiness in other high-stakes matters today. (Catherine Rampell, 9/20)

USA Today: Opioid Crisis: Heroin Nearly Killed Me, Like It Did My Two Siblings
For me, it was OxyContin then heroin. It turns out that this is a common trajectory. In the United States, 72,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017, nearly 50,000 of those from opioids. Imagine an entire football stadium full of people obliterated. I first abused opioids about the time I turned 18 years old. I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which, simply put, is the drunkest city in the nation, and I was pretty young when I started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. But when I first snorted Oxy, it was a high of another level. (Nicholas Bush, 9/21)

Nashville Tennessean: Opioid Crisis Does Have Solutions, But They Aren't Simple
It was with great sadness that I read the guest column in The Tennessean by Meredith Lawrence, whose husband ended his life after his doctor dramatically reduced his pain prescription. I myself am a board certified pain specialist in the Middle Tennessee area and have practiced pain management for 22 years. I spend every day 'down in the trenches" taking care of all kinds of pain patients with the majority being injured workers in the worker's compensation system. I fight the battles every day trying to provide safe and cautious management with and without opioids. (Jeffrey Hazlewood, 9/20)

Kansas City Star: All Americans Can Help Fight The Nation’s Opioid Epidemic
America faces an unprecedented opioid crisis, but we may be turning a corner. Due to a rapid surge of illegal synthetic opioids — such as fentanyl and carfentanil — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate deaths in 2017 increased by almost 10 percent, claiming the lives of more than 70,000 Americans. But today, Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Spotlight on Opioids, shines a light on the latest data for prevalence of substance misuse, opioid misuse, opioid use disorder and overdoses.The Spotlight gives us reason for hope. For example, between 2016 and 2017, the nation saw a significant increase in the use of MAT, or Medication Assisted Treatment — the gold standard for treating opioid use disorders. In addition, we saw a national reduction in the rate of heroin initiation. Federal, state and local efforts are having an impact, but we must do more. (Derek Schmidt and Jerome Adams, 9/20)

Los Angeles Times: One Year After Maria Hit Puerto Rico, We're Still Piecing Together What Happened And What To Do About It 
FEMA may well have done its best in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, but it was responding to a disaster that has its roots in the still-amorphous relationship between the island and the rest of the U.S. The storm was a stress test, and Puerto Rico and the rest of the nation failed together. More, and tougher, tests are undoubtedly on their way, as warming oceans make hurricane season more hazardous. (9/21)

Miami Herald: A Year After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico Is Still Reeling 
Consider this stunning finding from analysis by Miami Herald parent McClatchy of public data for FEMA’s housing assistance program: As of June 1, Maria survivors in Puerto Rico received an average of $1,800 for repair assistance. In contrast, survivors of Hurricane Harvey in Texas last year got $9,127. Why the disparity? Yet, Kirstjen M. Nielsen Secretary of Homeland Security writes in an Opinion piece published today on these pages, that FEMA has done the best it can under difficult conditions and that $4.6 billion in assistance has been spent on the island’s’ recovery. (9/20)

USA Today: California Attorney General: We Focus On Taking Guns From Criminals
At the California Department of Justice, our first priority is public safety. When it comes to keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, California has figured out what makes a difference, and we’re doing it. Earlier this month, a Government Accountability Office report suggested that the federal government and states like California that perform background checks on firearm purchases could do more to investigate and prosecute those who failed background checks and might have lied on their forms. In a world of unlimited resources, we certainly would. Instead, we prioritize our finite resources to go after dangerous criminals who already possess weapons illegally. (Calif. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, 9/19)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Nurses To EPA: In Missouri We Don’t Do Stagnation; We Innovate
When Americans face a challenge, we adapt. We innovate. We step up and make the world better. As nurses, we take pride in the creative ways health care continues to improve and treat our patients’ most challenging illnesses.So we wonder, why is the Environmental Protection Agency proposing a rule that will be a gigantic step backward for public health? Rolling back vital clean air and climate protections will reverse progress toward cleaner air. ...As a nurse, I see patients, particularly children, elderly and pregnant women struggle with managing risks of heart problems and breathing trouble on poor air quality days. (Lynelle Phillips, 9/19)