Viewpoints: Long Covid Has Become A Health Emergency; Why Has US Life Expectancy Dropped?
Editorial writers tackle these public health topics.
Scientific American:
We Need An Operation Warp Speed For Long COVID
In August 2022, the Brookings Institution estimated that Long COVID is keeping the equivalent of two million to four million full-time workers out of the American labor force, resulting in about $170 billion of lost earnings per year. (Esther K. Choo and Scott Kominers, 4/5)
Los Angeles Times:
Why Our Life Expectancies Are Shrinking
Years of widening economic inequality, compounded by the pandemic and political storm and stress, have given Americans the impression that the country is on the wrong track. Now there’s empirical data to show just how far the country has run off the rails: Life expectancies have been falling. (Michael Hiltzik, 4/5)
The New York Times:
A Doctor’s Life After Roe: ‘There Are Weeks When I Commit Multiple Felonies’
When Roe fell last year, Tennessee became the state with the strictest abortion ban in the country — no abortions, no exceptions. Any doctor who performed one was knowingly committing a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. That is a risk Dr. Elise Boos, an obstetrician specializing in high-risk pregnancies, has been willing to take for patients who need lifesaving care. (Lulu Garcia-Navarro, 4/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
As A Doctor, I Thought I Knew About Death. Here’s What I Was Missing
Dear Patient: I know now what I didn’t know then. My 16-month-old son died unexpectedly last summer, and I experienced life on the other side of the exam table, in horrid slow-motion technicolor. I sat on the other end of a 911 call. I rode in the ambulance as a caregiver, not a first responder. I waited outside the emergency room as I heard the doctor call out for vital signs and medications, and most tellingly to my ears, a social worker. I experienced the silence after the gloves came off and the team walked wearily out of the room. This time, I was the one to wail. (Bonnie Chen, 4/4)
Tampa Bay Times:
Here’s How Florida’s Pharmacy Benefit Manager System Hurts Patients
Health care is complicated. But for many patients, it’s made even more complicated and challenging by middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers — or PBMs — who often manipulate the system to the detriment of patients. Fortunately, state lawmakers have an opportunity to take a giant leap toward curbing these abuses and putting Florida patients first.(Michael Diaz, 4/5)
Miami Herald:
Florida Republicans' Union-Busting Bill Is A Sexist Assault On Front-Line Workers
As a civil-rights attorney, I cannot help but note that by singling out the teachers’ and the nurses’ unions, HB 1445 targets those dominated by women, codifying structural sexism. By creating an exception for the unions dominated by men, the GOP creates a skewed system that weakens the organizing power of the unions whose membership is predominantly women. (Dotie Joseph, 4/5)
