Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Medicaid's Shortcomings; Mixed Messages Regarding Pain And Opioids
The Wall Street Journal: How Medicaid Fails The Poor
Americans should be more worried than ever about Medicaid, which provides health insurance for America’s most vulnerable. The cost of the $500 billion program is expected to rise to $890 billion by 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Yet more spending doesn’t necessarily mean better care for beneficiaries, 57% of whom are low-income minorities. The expansion of Medicaid is one of the most misguided parts of ObamaCare—shamefully expanding second-class health care for the poor. (Scott W. Atlas, 8/10)
JAMA Forum: The Pain And Opioid Epidemics: Policy And Vital Signs
Near the end of my tenure as editor-in-chief of AJN, the American Journal of Nursing in 2009, I asked one of the coordinators of our pain column to write an article on opioid dependence and addiction. The diversion and misuse of drugs such as oxycodone, with a resultant spike in overdose deaths, had been widely reported in the news media. Her surprising response continues to resonate for me as we face the urgent public health problem of opioid abuse. (Diana Mason, 8/9)
JAMA: Medical Board Expectations For Physicians Recommending Marijuana
The “prescribing” of marijuana, however, remains illegal under federal law, where it is classified as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, meaning that the federal government considers marijuana a substance with a high potential for dependency or addiction, with no accepted medical use in treatment. Therefore, under federal law, marijuana cannot be knowingly or intentionally distributed, dispensed, or possessed, and an individual who aids and abets another in violating federal law or engages in a conspiracy to purchase, cultivate, or possess marijuana may be punished to the same extent as the individual who commits the crime. (Jumayun J. Chaudhry, Arthur S. Hengerer, and Gregory B. Snyder, 8/9)
Stat: 'Sunshine' Laws Were Meant To Protect Docs From Undue Influence
More than 100 state and national medical societies are trying to water down the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, a law that protects doctors and their patients from undue influence by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. They’re welcome to do that. But they can’t rewrite history in the process. ... As the person who wrote the first draft of the Sunshine Act, and then worked for years to get it passed, I’d like to notify American doctors: “Your professional societies are misleading you.” In fact, our concern about corporate bias and poor quality in medical education and scientific publishing was one thing that led us to promote the bill in the first place. (Paul D. Thacker, 8/10)
The Fiscal Times: Here’s Proof That A Single Payer Health System Could Break The Bank
Both critics and advocates of Obamacare have assumed that a fallback position exists for a collapse in the government-run markets. A failure of the Affordable Care Act would prompt demands to transition from controlled markets to outright socialized medicine. However, Colorado’s experiment has become yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of single-payer systems. (Edward Morrissey, 8/11)
The New York Times: We’re So Confused: The Problems With Food And Exercise Studies
Nearly everything you have been told about the food you eat and the exercise you do and their effects on your health should be met with a raised eyebrow. Dozens of studies are publicized every week. But those studies hardly slake people’s thirst for answers to questions about how to eat or how much to exercise. Does exercise help you maintain your memory? What kind? Walking? Intense exercise? Does eating carbohydrates make you fat? Can you prevent breast cancer by exercising when you are young? Do vegetables protect you from heart disease? (Gina Kolata, 8/11)
The Columbus Dispatch: Ignoring Zika Threat Will Backfire
This was not unexpected. After months of warnings from public health officials and scientists, the first locally transmitted cases of the Zika virus were reported in South Florida. Any illusion that this mysterious menace would not take hold in local mosquito populations and threaten multitudes more Floridians is gone. Any notion that the threat was overblown is dispelled. President Barack Obama, more than 40 Senate Democrats and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio want Congress to return to Washington to deal with the issue, which is exactly what should happen. (8/11)
The Hill: New FDA Vaping Regulations Will Harm Public Health
Going back to the nation's founding, cigarette smoking has wreaked havoc on U.S. public health and contributed to an astronomical death toll. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the United States each year. Despite decades of anti-tobacco education and abstinence-promotion messaging, the problem persists, with an estimated 40 million adults currently who smoke cigarettes and thousands more teens who try their first cigarette each day. (Caroline Kitchens, 8/10)
Kansas City Star: Kansas Must Correct National Fall In Rankings On Health Of Seniors
When the election dust is finally settled in November and the new Kansas legislators are sworn in, they will find they have a lot of work to do to help the state’s most vulnerable residents. Those Kansans have lost a lot of ground since Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-dominated Legislature pushed through tax cuts in 2012 for the wealthiest residents and limited liability companies in hopes of generating a cornucopia of jobs. The experiment has failed miserably, and the burden of balancing Kansas’ cash-starved budget has fallen heavily on kids with cuts to education and programs affecting low-income families and senior citizens. (8/10)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Advanced Practice Nurses Can Improve Veteran Care
As more and more physicians move to specialty practices, quality primary and outpatient care are falling by the wayside, and veterans are among those paying the price. That’s why the proposal by the Veterans Health Administration to expand the role and authority of nurses is laudable. The proposal would amend the Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical regulations policy to allow their patients to receive care from qualified advanced practice registered nurses, or APRNs. The proposal would effectively increase access to quality health care for our veterans. (Sharon Horner, 8/10)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The VA Is A System Worth Saving
I am tired of hearing the tragic personal stories, frustrated by reading the news coverage and perplexed by the official responses to the litany of post-9/11 Wisconsin veterans who either die in Veterans Affairs care or are struggling to secure help. There is a pattern and it must stop. Whether it takes place at Tomah VA Medical Center, the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee or at the Iowa City VA Medical Center where a young Wisconsin veteran was seeking treatment, veterans who survived battle overseas are becoming casualties in our own country even as they seek treatment inside the walls of VA hospitals. (Daniel Seehafer, 8/10)
Stat: 5 Lessons From A Journey Through Depression And Anxiety
In the last four decades, I’ve been to more psychologists and psychiatrists than I can count, from New York to California, from the East Side to the West Side. ... For whatever reason, I’m now in a place where I feel I can offer advice to others searching for their equilibrium. (Jane Gross, 8/10)
Sacramento Bee: The Bill Pharma Wants To Bottle Up
Few pocketbook issues are as widespread or as hard to fathom as the soaring cost of prescription drugs. Enter Senate Bill 1010, up Thursday in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. A sunshine bill, it doesn’t set prices or raise taxes; it just demands a few fundamental, and extremely relevant, facts. SB 1010 would require drugmakers to give some justification and notice before they raise the price of big-ticket drugs in the market. (8/10)
San Francisco Chronicle: Community Health Centers Have Bipartisan Support - SFGate
In an election season the news headlines may lead us to believe that politicians can’t agree on anything. Not so fast. There is an issue on which both Republicans and Democrats can and do agree — the importance of community health centers in the U.S. health care system. Community health centers have been around for over five decades, effectively rooting out sickness and poverty in some of the most challenged communities. (Craig Glover, 8/10)
