Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: How To Help Nurses Dealing With PTSD; Options For Fighting Texas Anti-Abortion Law
Modern Healthcare: More Action Needed To Stem The Tide Of Burnout, PTSD
So much has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in hospitals across the U.S. and the rest of the world. This is especially true of the healthcare workplace environment. The ways in which people work, from new personal protection protocols and varied work schedules to how caregivers engage with colleagues and patients, are all inherently different from the pre-pandemic world. (Cassandra Godzik, 9/21)
CNN: Texas Doctor Could Be What Real Allyship On Abortion Rights Looks Like
Women in Texas need allies. And not the silent kind who quietly grumble to like-minded people about how heinous it is that a group made up of mostly well-off White men decided to pass an abortion law that would disproportionately affect the poorest women of color: those who can't afford to travel out of the vast state of Texas for a safe abortion, can't take time off work to do so, can't get child care for their children while they are away, don't have private health insurance or are undocumented. (Keith Magee, 9/21)
The Atlantic: What It’s Like To Be Black And Disabled In America
When angel love miles arrived at Penn State in 1998, she realized she was going to have to fight to finish school. To begin with, Miles was a low-income Black student, and Penn State was mostly white. In addition, she has spina bifida, a condition that affects spinal development in utero. In Miles’s case, this means she uses crutches or a wheelchair. (Shalene Gupta, 9/21)
Stat: Capping Medicare Part B Payments Will Limit Outpatient Access To CAR-T
The revolutionary life-extending approach to treating cancer known as CAR-T is under threat from a quotidian source: policy proposals to limit Medicare reimbursement in the outpatient setting to the average sales price of the treatment plus a small addition for overhead. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies have been changing the cancer treatment landscape. These one-time customized treatments created from an individual’s own T cells represent a significant advancement in treatment. Expanding their use across care settings is essential to improving patient outcomes and quality of life. (Richard Maziarz and Sophie Snyder, 9/22)
The Boston Globe: Reimagining Public Health Infrastructure In The 21st Century
The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in the opportunity for a once in a generation reimagining of America’s public health infrastructure. To meet this opportunity, a new multidisciplinary academic field of public health technology should be established to integrate diverse expertise in public health, technology, engineering, data analytics, and design to help build the products, programs, and systems necessary to modernize the nation’s public health infrastructure and ready it for 21st-century challenges and opportunities. (Susan J. Blumenthal and David Sun Kong, 9/22)
Houston Chronicle: Congress Has A Historic Opportunity To Expand Medicaid In Texas
Despite billions of federal dollars on the table, strong statewide public support and the ravages of COVID-19, Texas legislators have refused to expand Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program that covers Americans with limited incomes. They’re not alone. Texas is one of 12 states that have said no to Medicaid expansion. By opting out, these states have left approximately 2.2 million people — predominantly people of color — without any pathway to basic, life-saving health care coverage. They don’t qualify for traditional Medicaid programs, which cover only a small number of parents and exclude those without dependent kids entirely (Texas’ rules are the most stringent), but also earn too little to receive marketplace insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. (Marisa Bono, 9/21)
