Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Hospital-At-Home Care At Risk If Congress Doesn't Act; Health Tech Needs More Than Just Metrics
The Boston Globe: Congress Should Reauthorize Hospital-At-Home
Over the past five years, hospitals struggling with overcrowding have experimented with an innovative idea: providing hospital-level care at home. Results, so far, are promising. With the authority for those services soon set to expire, Congress should act to let them continue. (8/5)
The Boston Globe: How Health Trackers Could Promote Human Flourishing
WHOOP, a company based in Kenmore Square, estimates your “physiological age.” Oura assesses your “cardiovascular age.” Tonal pitches “strength training for longevity,” while Peloton now emphasizes “healthy aging.” Each platform offers a dashboard of metrics and a path to optimize them. The message: If you can improve your numbers, you can live longer and better. (David Shaywitz, 8/5)
Stat: Cuts To Cancer Research Can’t Diminish Hope
Long before I was a doctor, I was a caregiver. When we were in our 20s, my husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. We did everything we could. We fought it with the best treatments we could afford, leaning on hope, science, and one another. But he still died. And in the end, cancer didn’t just take him. It unraveled our financial stability, too. Medical costs, lost income, caregiving demands — it left me emotionally and economically shattered. (Fumiko Chino, 8/6)
Stat: Medicare Should Cover FDA-Approved Devices, Medicines
In a recent interview, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary declared that Medicare should automatically cover FDA-designated breakthrough devices — a rare and refreshing commonsense reform in a health care system riddled with red tape and inefficiency. Aligning reimbursement with FDA approvals will allow for better patient care by unlocking faster access to lifesaving treatments, unleash private-sector innovation, and help lower long-term costs. (Steve Forbes, 8/6)
The CT Mirror: A Presidential Attack On The Unhoused
President Trump’s Executive Order issued July 24 is a shameful, reactionary assault on the most vulnerable members of our communities. By prioritizing the involuntary institutionalization of unhoused individuals, empowering municipalities to criminalize homelessness, and defunding Housing First and harm reduction strategies, this administration has willfully abandoned the decades of proven, evidence-based public health practices that have helped countless individuals find safety, dignity, and stability. (Steve Werlin, 8/5)
