Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: It's Not Just One Person Behind A Mass Shooting. We're All In On This; Banning Abortions For Low-Income Women Is Just Wrong
The New York Times: Our Collective Responsibility For Mass Shootings
We have reached a point in America at which mass shootings happen so often that the country sometimes only has a few days — sometimes only a few hours — to catch its breath in between. When the shooter is white and male, as mass shooters so often are, the narrative of the “lone wolf” quickly becomes dominant. Anti-gun control ideologues, from the National Rifle Association to Republican lawmakers, assure us that the shooter was a monstrous singularity, just one bad guy who happened to have a gun. But it takes a village to unleash a mass shooting. It is never solely the result of one person’s evil intentions. Many mass shootings could never have taken place without the fuel of racist and misogynist propaganda, or the help of unscrupulous purveyors of the weapons of war, or the failure of public venues to implement effective security measures. (Mary Anne Franks, 10/9)
The Hill: Bans On Public Coverage For Abortion Are Unjustified By Science And Outright Harmful
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to take up its first abortion case since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and consider a Louisiana law designed to shut down abortion clinics in the state, it’s important to remember that low-income people in Louisiana and across the country already struggle to afford legal abortion care. (Katie Woodruff, 10/9)
The New York Times: A Supreme Court Abortion Case That Tests The Court Itself
Under the rules that normally govern the American judicial system, the Louisiana abortion law at the center of a case the Supreme Court added to its docket last week is flagrantly unconstitutional. My goal in this column is to make visible not only the stakes in the case but also Louisiana’s strategy for saving its law, the first of a wave of anti-abortion measures to reach a Supreme Court transformed by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and the addition of two justices appointed by President Donald Trump. (Linda Greenhouse, 10/10)
The Hill: 2019 Flu Season Will Be Deadlier — Here's Why
A patient came to me with muscle aches, fever, severe fatigue and nasal congestion. I recognized the classic symptoms right away and tested her for flu, though it was still early September and I wasn’t expecting to see flu yet. I sent an electronic prescription for an anti-viral drug to her pharmacy and told her to start taking it. The flu test came back positive and she was bed-ridden for a week, and then slowly recovered. This year promises to be a particularly bad flu season. We look to Australia to predict what will happen here, since their winter — flu season — is our summer. Australia was hit particularly hard this year; with more than 300,000 confirmed cases and a severe form of Influenza A H3N2 predominating.(Marc Siegel, 10/9)
The Washington Post: Elizabeth Warren Tweeted About Pregnancy Discrimination. Now Women Are Tweeting Their Own Stories.
Here’s your reminder: No matter how you feel about Elizabeth Warren as a candidate, pregnancy discrimination is a thing. “When I was 22 and finishing my first year of teaching, I had an experience millions of women will recognize,” the senator said Tuesday on Twitter. “By June I was visibly pregnant — and the principal told me the job I’d already been promised for the next year would go to someone else. ”It’s an oft-repeated story by the Democratic candidate, but critics raised questions about her account. And then came the voices questioning the idea of pregnancy discrimination at all. (Amy Joyce, 10/9)
Los Angeles Times: Elizabeth Warren's Pregnancy Discrimination Story Isn't Exactly Hard To Believe
Did Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts lie when she said she was fired from her first teaching job at Riverdale Elementary School in New Jersey for being pregnant?If so, was it during an interview 12 years ago when she was a Harvard law professor and skipped over the details of her departure, making it seem as if it were her own choice? Or is she fibbing now when on the campaign trail she tells the story of how her principal said he hired someone else for Warren’s job after she became “visibly pregnant”? I don’t know, but it’s not a stretch to believe her story of pregnancy discrimination. (Mariel Garza, 10/9)
Arizona Daily Star: Socially-Conscious Health Care Innovations Benefit Rural Arizona Communities
Consider the social barriers to care that impact many patients in Southern Arizona, including geographic location and socioeconomic status. People living in rural areas often face unique challenges when it comes to accessing basic health-care services, as do low-income families who may lack transportation, seniors and others. These barriers to care increase the likelihood that illnesses go untreated and minor conditions worsen into chronic diseases — leading to poor health outcomes for the patient and increased costs for society. (Will Humble, 10/10)
Sacramento Bee: Gavin Newsom Should Sign Bill To Lower CA Youth Suicide Rate
There is a mental health crisis in our schools, and California’s leaders are doing something about it. Last month, the state Legislature unanimously passed Senate Bill 428, which expands access to trainings that will help teachers and school staff recognize and act on the mental health needs of their students. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs, 1 in 3 high schoolers reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row. Each child’s suffering manifests in unique ways. In my daughter Alliy’s case, she revealed her depression in a school journal. Sadly, her silent struggle culminated in her suicide at the age of 15. (Jennifer Bayless, 10/9)
Los Angeles Times: Don’t Just Blame PG&E For The Northern California Blackouts. It’s Everyone’s Fault
Millions of Californians lost power Wednesday in the first large-scale exercise of one of the state’s new wildfire-fighting tools: allowing utilities to shut down power lines proactively so they can’t spark fires.Most of the people affected by the blackouts are in Northern California, where strong Diablo winds have been forecast, raising the threat of wildfires from downed or malfunctioning Pacific Gas & Electric lines. (10/10)
San Francisco Chronicle: Messy Response To PG&E Outages Show There Has To Be A Better Way For California
No one wants a repeat of the deadly wildfires that devastated California during the past several years.But the scrambling, shambolic response to the mass PG&E outages that began in the Bay Area on Wednesday morning suggests that there has to be a better way to protect the public. (10/9)
