Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Long-Awaited Changes In Medicare Will Aid Patients Needing To Spend More Time With Doctors; Black Infants From Low-Income Families Deserve Better Health Care
Stat: Medicare's New Primary Care Payment Rule Is Good News For Patients
An announcement earlier this month offers good news for patients and their primary care physicians. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a rule to greatly improve payments for office visits — sometimes called evaluation and management services — and reduce the time physicians must spend on unnecessary documentation that takes away precious time from caring for their patients. (Robert McLean and Gary Leroy, 11/22)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Black Infant Mortality, Uninsured Kids Suggests 'Pro-Life' Agenda Needs Work.
For a nation with arguably the most advanced health care system in the world, the United States still suffers an appallingly high rate of black infant mortality. Black infants in St. Louis County are more than twice as likely to die as white infants, according the county’s Department of Public Health. This gap is hardly limited to the county. Nationally, the disparity between black and white infant mortality is wider today than it was in 1850, The New York Times reported. Whatever advances the United States has seen in medical care for pregnant women and infants, the black population is seeing a smaller proportion of the benefits. At a time when the national conversation is focused on abortion and protecting the rights of the unborn, the evidence suggests that far too little emphasis is being placed on protecting black children once they’re born. (11/21)
The Washington Post: The One Health-Care Word I Wish Democrats Would Say During Debates
Democrats spent a lot of time during Wednesday’s debate discussing how to pay for health care when patients get sick. And when they finally branched out from the Medicare-for-all conversation to discuss their plans for tackling specific health policy issues, such as prescription drug affordability, marijuana legalization and abortion, there was one word I wish they had said: prevention. (Leana S. Wen, 11/21)
The Wall Street Journal: Warren’s Medicare Blunder
Sen. Elizabeth Warren admitted last Friday that she had made a colossal, potentially fatal, campaign error—and immediately proceeded to make it worse. If the Warren presidential bid flops, this will be the moment to mark. That admission didn’t come in so many words. It came instead in the form of a major update to Ms. Warren’s Medicare for All plan. The Massachusetts senator now proposes a two-year “transition” period, in which Americans would be able to opt in to Medicare. Put another way, Ms. Warren now calls for the same sort of public option as her “moderate” competitors. She says that she will wait until the third year of her presidency to abolish private insurance. (Kimberley A. Strassel, 11/21)
The Hill: Media Needs To Stop Wild Speculations About Trump's Health
My grandmother was from the “old country” and she wisely told me never to wish bad health on your enemies, because you never know when that negative energy could come back around to you.I couldn’t help but think about this old wisdom last weekend when the news media began to speculate wildly about President Trump’s health, just because he paid a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and underwent a work-up, which was reported to be part of his yearly physical. (Marc Siegel, 11/21)
Stat: The Day I 'Declared Myself' — And Was In Surgery Just Hours Later
I was about to begin rounds in the intensive care unit when I bumped into the liver specialist on call. My team had asked her about a patient with advanced liver disease who was not responding to treatment and was quickly deteriorating.“ If she’s infected, she will declare herself,” the hepatologist said, evoking a centuries-old diagnostic concept in medicine. It presumes that a sick-enough patient will eventually develop symptoms so distinct and profound that she or he will “declare” the mysterious illness at play, making it possible to readily identify the culprit disease. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that phrase would apply to me in just a few hours. (Jessica Lichter, 11/22)
Boston Globe: In A Small Vermont City: Heroin, Bullets, And Empathy
The bullets arrived before the dawn, announcing themselves with a loud crack that said this wasn’t some crank in a pickup popping off a couple of drunken, random rounds with a .22. That sound and the holes in the thick glass door at the Rutland Police Department told the officers inside that whoever fired those shots was wielding a high-powered rifle. Investigators quickly reviewed video from a security camera, zeroed in on a license plate, and thought they knew who they were looking for when, an hour and a half later, they spotted the white Ford Focus parked near the Walmart in a nearly deserted nearby shopping plaza. (Kevin Cullen, 11/21)
Dallas Morning News: A Man Was Found In His Apartment Three Years After His Death – And What It Can Teach Us About Loneliness
We’ve seen thousands of sad stories in our time, but the case of a man found in his DeSoto apartment three years after his death ranks right up there as one of the saddest.Ronald Wayne White, believed to be a Navy vet working as a defense contractor, was last in contact with his mother in New York three years ago. He apparently moved several times and traveled extensively so several police departments told his family they couldn’t treat him as a missing person, his family said.His body was recently discovered on the floor of his apartment when workers went investigating why some tenants weren’t using water for a while. Stunningly, the medical examiner ruled he had been dead three years. (11/21)
