Viewpoints: Is It An Obamacare Replace, Repair Or Cleanup?; Rolling Back A ‘Sensible’ Gun Limit

The Wall Street Journal: The ObamaCare Cleanup Begins
All of a sudden the press is filled with stories about Republicans supposedly retreating from their promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Liberals are claiming vindication and conservatives are getting nervous, but the stampede to declare failure is premature. The orderly transition to a more stable and affordable health-care system is merely beginning. (2/6)

Los Angeles Times: In A Hopeful Sign, Republicans Are Finally Getting Around To 'Repairing' Obamacare -- Six Years Late
Over the last few days, the Republicans’ campaign against the Affordable Care Act has undergone a subtle shift in branding. They’re no longer talking about a strategy of “repeal and replace’: The new buzzword is “repair.” Close followers of GOP efforts to gut the law, which has brought health insurance to some 20 million Americans and protected millions of others from being denied coverage because of medical conditions, are skeptical that this signals a real change in the Republican caucus’s approach. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/6)

Stat: I've Put My Family On A Health Insurance Experiment. It's Been A Challenge
About one-third of American workers covered by health insurance are now in high-deductible health plans, in which the policy holder pays a substantial portion of the cost of health care services out of pocket before insurance coverage kicks in. Many economists and health policy experts believe that these plans are a promising way to reduce health care spending. So when a high-deductible plan became available through my employer, Harvard University, a couple years ago, I decided to enroll my family in it. If this is going to be a big national experiment, I thought that I, as a physician and a health policy scholar, ought to know what it’s like to live with this kind of health insurance. (Ashish Jha, 2/6)

Modern Healthcare: The False Promise Of State-Based Health Insurance Markets Reform
News leaks from last month's Republican congressional retreat revealed there's a growing concern that precipitous change to the individual health insurance markets created by Obamacare will trigger their collapse. (Merrill Goozner, 2/4)

The New York Times: Tom Price, Dr. Personal Enrichment
Each year, a publication called Medscape creates a portrait of the medical profession. It surveys thousands of doctors about their job satisfaction, salaries and the like and breaks down the results by specialty, allowing for comparisons between, say, dermatologists and oncologists. As I read the most recent survey, I was struck by the answers from orthopedic surgeons. They are the highest-paid doctors, with an average salary of $443,000 in 2015 — which, coincidentally, was almost the exact cutoff for the famed top 1 percent of the income distribution. (David Leonhardt, 2/7)

The New York Times: Congress Moves To Roll Back A Sensible Obama Gun Policy
Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association often attribute gun massacres to the country’s inadequate mental health system, rather than the easy availability of firearms. Now, those same people want to make it easier for those with schizophrenia, psychotic disorders and other mental health problems to buy guns. (2/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Don’t Repeal Obama’s Modest Gun Limit
The House last week voted to overrule an Obama administration regulation prohibiting gun ownership by a small group of people with severe psychiatric disorders. The Senate shouldn’t follow suit. The Obama rule is sensible, and to expend energy repealing it implies there should be no reasonable limits on firearms ownership. (Dinah Miller, 2/6)

Bloomberg: Obamacare, Abortion And The Ease Of Extremism
As Republicans struggle to find a way to repeal and replace Obamacare, and liberals and conservatives gear up for a battle over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, it strikes me that the same lesson can be drawn from both phenomena: how much easier it is to hold radical opinions when you have no hope of passing legislation. (Megan McArdle, 2/6)

The Des Moines Register: Anti-Choice Lawmakers' Fiscal Foolishness
Instead of tackling legitimate problems, some Republican state lawmakers are fixated on meddling in the reproductive lives of their constituents. It seems they will do anything to send a message they oppose abortion. That includes targeting health providers who offer the legal procedure. (2/6)

Louisville Courier-Journal: Abortion Bill Gags Clergy
In the current national political climate—which has understandably been preoccupied with questions around immigrants and refugees, around the electoral shenanigans committed by Russia, around charges of voter fraud and lying about crowd size—Kentuckians should not overlook a potentially sweeping bill submitted by the Republican controlled house. House Bill 149, which is being touted as yet another attempt to defund Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK), will have much more broad-reaching effects than just taking aim at a favorite GOP target. (Derek L. Penwell, 2/6)

The Columbus Dispatch: Transition Center Could Save Lives
Not only do people wait in line to see doctors and counselors, there is a shortage of psychiatric beds for those needing in-patient care. And then, even those who receive care often are released with nowhere to go and no support system to help them remain stable. Even when families are willing to take in a troubled relative, they often lack the knowledge and the resources to help them sufficiently. Often, it is the patient's family that is desperately appealing for help and finding little. (2/7)

San Jose Mercury News: Be Wary Of The Latest ‘Detox’ Plan
What do toxins have to do with detox? Nothing. In medicine, detoxification means managing withdrawal from alcohol or opioids, treating a medication overdose, or the medical management of poisoning. Exposure to actual toxins, like the ones described above, is treated with antidotes, antibiotics and often specialized supportive and intensive medical care. Because doctors have terrible handwriting along the way, detoxification was shortened to detox. (Jen Gunter, 2/6)

RealClear Health: Trump’s Radical Attack On Global Health
“I think the president, it’s no secret, has made it very clear that he’s a pro-life president,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his first briefing as he defended President Donald Trump’s decision to wildly expand what is known as the Global Gag Rule. But if Trump’s move was pro-life, it was pro-life only by name. The new and expanded Global Gag Rule is a radical policy, far beyond what any other Republican president has ever done before. And it will lead to an enormous loss of life. (John Norris and Jamila K. Taylor, 2/7)