Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Lessons On Being A Person Of Color, Health Disparities; Let Women Get Abortion Pill Through Telehealth
Stat: Medicine For The Greater Good: One Hospital's Community Outreach
The violent police attacks on Jacob Blake, George Floyd, and far too many others, along with the high rates of Covid-19 among minority communities, have illuminated an ugly fact: being a person of color in America is bad for your health. Across the board, people of color have worse health outcomes than their white counterparts. (Panagis Galiatsatos and Erica Johnson, 9/24)
The New York Times: It Hurts To Keep Hoping For Justice
Kentucky’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, announced Wednesday that one police officer would be charged, not in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, but with endangering her neighbors with reckless gunfire. “If we simply act on emotion or outrage, there is no justice. Mob justice is not justice,” Mr. Cameron said, in an apparent attempt to explain the lack of more serious charges relating to the 26-year-old’s killing. “Justice sought by violence is not justice. It just becomes revenge.” Mr. Cameron’s use of the term “mob justice” to characterize protests by African-Americans who want officers who kill Black people with seeming impunity held responsible for their actions is curious phrasing, particularly from an attorney general from a Southern state. Mob justice was literally used by Kentucky and other Southern states for decades to rule over Black people. (Melayne Price, 9/24)
Fox News: Black Ky. AG Unjustly Criticized By Black Left For Not Charging Police In Breonna Taylor Death
Breonna Taylor — a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician shot five times by police in Louisville, Ky., when they entered her apartment March 13 during a drug investigation — didn’t deserve to die. But the American people deserve the facts about her tragic death.Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron delivered those facts at a news conference Wednesday, subject to limitations required by law in a case being prosecuted, and drew criticism for not filing charges against police officers for Taylor’s death. Cameron announced that a grand jury determined that two police officers were justified in firing their guns because Taylor’s boyfriend shot at them first after officers used a battering ram to force their way into her apartment. (Rob Smith, 9/24)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: St. Louis Homicides Are Spiking, With GOP Extremists Helping Provide The Ammo
It’s past time to ask hard questions about why St. Louis’ homicide rate is through the roof this year. Yes, the pandemic and economic downturn have exacerbated personal conflicts and drug violence, which may drive the national uptick in killings. But why is it exponentially worse in St. Louis than elsewhere? The clearest difference is that, thanks to Missouri’s ruling Republicans, it’s easier for a criminal to obtain and carry a gun in St. Louis than in most cities. State legislators refuse to allow common-sense measures to address it. Much of this blood is on their hands. (9/23)
The Hill: Amid Coronavirus, The Great American Comeback Is Underway
Some people just placate; others get things done. Prior to the pandemic, real total household and nonprofit net wealth increased by 12.1 percent over the first 11 quarters of the Trump administration, concentrated among the bottom 50 percent of households that experienced a net increase of 47 percent; hourly wage growth for production and non-supervisory workers also hovered over 3 percent for over 17 consecutive quarters; and overall dependence on welfare declined as more people were lifted out of poverty. (Christos A. Makridis, 9/23)
Stat: It's Time To Make The Abortion Pill Available Via Telehealth
Twenty years ago this month, the Food and Drug Administration approved a medication destined to become known as the abortion pill. Mifepristone, then called RU486, was going to change everything about abortion — it would expand access and remove the stigma. (Ushma D. Upadhyay, 9/24)
Boston Globe: Case For Securing Abortion Access In Massachusetts Grows
Last year, the fight to protect abortion rights in this state seemed a bit theoretical. After all, this is Massachusetts, right? What more needs to be said? But with the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the likelihood of her replacement by a far more conservative justice, the threat to abortion rights is serious. And so the response by state lawmakers must also be serious — and swift. (9/24)
