Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Health Law Opposition Can Be Costly; Bosses Should Help Workers Get Medicaid
Los Angeles Times: The Toll Of Anti-Obamacare Fanaticism: Two Horrifying Vignettes
Almost since the inception of the Affordable Care Act, the Southeast has been an epicenter of Obamacare Derangement Syndrome--the condition that makes individuals and elected officials so susceptible to the power of that single nine-letter word that they act in flagrant disregard of their own interests or those of their constituents. Recent news reports from South Carolina and Florida illustrate how ODS can cost people their health, their savings and even their lives. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/12)
Dallas Morning News: Affordable Care Act Is A Sturdy 5-Year-Old
After a rough incubation, birth and infancy, the Affordable Care Act is a sturdy 5-year-old, showing increasing signs of achievement and acceptance. But growth could come to a sudden halt if the Supreme Court throws out the subsidies that enable more than 8 million Americans to pay their health insurance. That would energize opponents, who have spent six years fighting Obamacare. But the negative fallout would extend beyond President Barack Obama to millions of beneficiaries. (Carl P. Leubsdorf, 5/12)
Forbes: Why Business Owners Should Help Their Employees Get On Medicaid
Business leaders — and the analysts who study their companies — must seek every opportunity to maximize profits (and investors’ dollars). One such overlooked opportunity is helping employees get on Medicaid. Recent changes to healthcare laws have placed a greater financial burden on businesses. But tucked into the law is a new government program that can save companies thousands of dollars per year. This new program is expanded and improved Medicaid, designed to help low-income employees and their employers. Your company can take advantage of this program by helping low-income employees enroll in Medicaid, thereby keeping your business’s healthcare costs down, meeting legal obligations, and fulfilling your fiduciary duty to your investors. (Benjamin Geyerhahn, 5/12)
Orlando Sentinel: Promise-Breaking Pols At Heart Of Florida's Health-Care Mess
Yet if you had to put a face on why all of this is happening, it might not belong to one of the high-profile names you have read the most about. Rather, it might be the face of Rene Plasencia. Or maybe Mike Miller. Both are freshmen GOP legislators from Central Florida ... virtual nobodies in the political world. Normally, the only people less relevant are Democrats. Yet Plasencia and Miller have come to symbolize the paralyzing dysfunction of our state for one simple reason: They are now working to shut down a health-care plan each man previously vowed to support. Both men ran campaigns asking voters to send them to Tallahassee so they could use Medicaid to provide health-care coverage to needy Floridians. (Scott Maxwell, 5/12)
The Washington Post's Plum LIne: Morning Plum: GOP Resistance To Obamacare Is Killing The Tax Cuts Republicans Want
There’s been yet another twist in the seemingly endless battle over the Medicaid expansion in Florida: Rick Scott has now flatly stated that the GOP split over whether to accept it is probably going to cost the state its tax cuts and cost its students higher per-pupil spending. (Greg Sargent, 5/12)
Tampa Bay Times: The Case Against Medicaid Expansion
Florida can authorize the expenditure of only as much money as it projects it will receive in any given year. What that means is that the Florida Legislature must prioritize. Every dollar spent on health care, for example, may be a dollar not spent on education, building roads, expanding ports and the like. A lesson that every newly elected legislator learns is that the vast majority of the nearly $80 billion state budget is spoken for when commitments are met to health care, K-12 education, prisons, roads and other mandatory funding requirements. So while expanding health care for the poor is laudable, it must be balanced with other important priorities. (George LeMieux, 5/12)
Fairbanks (Alaska) News Miner: State Needs Medicaid Reform, Expansion
Medicaid as it stands is ticking toward a greater financial explosion. Moral and humanitarian arguments for Medicaid expansion are plentiful and they are just. But equally important are wide-spread financial realities assured to explode into financial disaster if not addressed. (Art Petersen, 5/13)
Health Affairs: Sleepless Nights In Spite Of Medicaid And Marketplace Coverage Gains Stemming From The ACA
I work for a public foundation, St. Luke’s Health Initiatives, based in Arizona. Thanks to the leadership of former Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and the business community, Arizona became one of the first states to agree to expand its Medicaid program after the US Supreme Court, back in 2012, made it an option for states. Because of this early policy victory and concerted efforts by a community-based coalition of more than 800 partners, more than 500,000 Arizonans have enrolled in health coverage through expanded Medicaid or the federally facilitated Marketplace to date. While these accomplishments should be celebrated, I am fearful that states such as Arizona may lose their momentum to build upon or even retain their coverage gains. (Kim VanPelt, 5/12)
Health Affairs: Counting The Uninsured: Are We Getting It Right?
A May 5 government report claims that over 16 million Americans have obtained coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act. This estimate, as well as others that are being or will soon be circulated, are based on rapid turnaround surveys conducted by telephone or over the web. Some of these efforts have gone through rigorous peer review and are being published in leading journals, including Health Affairs. While these efforts will encourage useful debate, it is important to recognize that in the past such surveys have been shown to underestimate the number of people who lack coverage. (Marc Berk, 5/12)
Sacramento Bee: Senators Should Approve Vaccine Bill
A bill to significantly strengthen vaccine requirements for California schoolchildren is heading for the full Senate, and could come up for a vote as soon as Thursday. Responsible lawmakers should vote yes. Senate Bill 277 would eliminate the state’s lax “personal belief” exemption to required school vaccinations. Driven by fear, ideology and misinformation, red-shirted parents have marched, rallied and disrupted hearings in their effort to derail it. (5/12)
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News: California Should Pass Bill Improving Vaccination Rates
The vaccine compromise proposed by Sens. Richard Pan and Ben Allen is hardly ideal. It ignores good science and allows more than 13,000 children to skirt vaccination requirements. But ultimately it will improve California's vaccination rates to a level that will make it far more difficult for diseases to take hold and spread. The Legislature should pass SB 277, and Gov. Jerry Brown should sign it into law. (5/12)
USA Today: America's Love Affair With Legal Amphetamine
I've decided to create a new psychiatric disorder. Why not? Drug companies do it all the time. Shire, which makes Adderall, won approval recently from the Food and Drug Administration to market its amphetamine drug, Vyvanse, for the treatment of BED. You haven't heard of it? Neither had many people, until Shire funded studies to get the binge eating disorder into the DSM-5 — America's official psychiatric bible of common life dilemmas translated into mental disorders. My disorder is called achievement anxiety disorder (AAD), and it explains the increasing reports of prescription amphetamine misuse most often in the form of Adderall abuse. (Lawrence Diller, 5/12)
Los Angeles Times: State Falls Behind On Efforts To Keep Guns Out Of The Wrong Hands
People who have been convicted of felonies or any of a range of misdemeanors may not own guns in California under state and federal law. Nor may guns be sold to people whose mental illness makes them a danger to themselves or others, who are under domestic violence restraining orders or who are fugitives. Mandatory background checks are supposed to separate the ineligible from the eligible and prevent gun purchases. But what about people who lawfully own firearms, and then lose that right? (5/12)
JAMA Internal Medicine: An Update On Maryland’s All-Payer Approach To Reforming The Delivery Of Health Care
Every Maryland hospital now has a form of a global budget for hospital services covering at least all state residents, who represent approximately 9 out of 10 patients. ... unless there are drastic year-to-year changes, the total revenues during a year are the amount budgeted and approved, no matter how many admissions, magnetic resonance images, or outpatient visits. This set hospital budget may be achieved by changes to pricing during the year, in order to take away revenue from additional volume. Hospitals have strong incentives to reduce preventable hospital admissions. To date, hospitals have made many changes. Examples include establishing a multidisciplinary clinic to wrap additional support around primary care for patients with asthma, diabetes mellitus, and heart failure. (Joshua M. Sharfstein, Donna Kinzer and John M. Colmers, 5/11)
