Viewpoints: Paul Ryan’s Strengths And Weakness; Trump’s Mixed Signals On Health

USA Today: Paul Ryan Represents GOP's Best Bet: Our View
Contrary to howls from the far right, [Rep. Paul] Ryan is no moderate. He was the architect of a Republican plan to replace Medicare with a system of voucher-like payments to seniors. But he has the common sense to pick his shots and is realistic in his tactics. He also has the good sense to ask for some rule changes that would make it harder for the speaker’s position to be constantly challenged. For a party being defined by its most impolitic presidential candidates and members of Congress, and a nation weary of partisan gridlock, Ryan would be an adult presence in a job second in line to the presidency behind the vice president. (10/21)

USA Today: Look At Paul Ryan’s Voting Record: Opposing View
The problem with Paul Ryan as speaker of the House is that his actual voting record on the big issues is not as conservative as it is frequently portrayed. (Erick Erickson, 10/21)

The Wall Street Journal: The Donald’s Missing Details
[Donald Trump] is similarly vague on health care. In a Sept. 27 interview on “60 Minutes,” he said health care should be a universal, government-provided right. “Everybody’s got to be covered,” he said. “I don’t care if it costs me votes or not.” When the interviewer asked how, and who would pay for it, Mr. Trump answered, “I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people,” and pledged that “the government’s gonna pay for it.” During the Aug. 6 GOP debate Mr. Trump praised socialized medical systems elsewhere. “As far as single payer, it works in Canada,” he said. “It works incredibly well in Scotland.” So how would TrumpCare operate? (Karl Rove, 10/21)

The Wall Street Journal: The Answer To High Drug Prices Is More Drugs, Faster
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has charged pharmaceutical companies with “excessive profiteering”; Bernie Sanders routinely decries firms’ “outrageous profits.” And during the Democratic presidential debate this month Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders were proud to declare their enmity of this lifesaving industry. Their solution to the problem of high drug prices is to give government more power to “negotiate” prices in programs like Medicare. But government price negotiation tends to be more like price setting. (Tom Coburn and Paul Howard, 10/21)

Bloomberg View: Hillary Clinton Doesn't Like Insurance Mergers. So What?
Don't worry so much, Wall Street: Hillary Clinton's criticism of health insurance mergers really amounts to little more than a helpful suggestion. The Democratic presidential candidate on Wednesday called for close scrutiny of two mega-mergers set to take the U.S. managed care industry from five major providers to three -- Anthem's $50 billion bid for Cigna and Aetna's $37 billion takeover of Humana. The stock market quaked as if on cue: After Clinton's comments, the spreads for both deals at one point widened by roughly $9 apiece to more than $40. "Spread" is arbitrage code for the difference between a target's current share price and the value of the takeover bid. A wider spread signals doubt that the transaction will close. (Brooke Sutherland, 10/21)

The Washington Post: The Problem With Means-Testing Entitlements
[Sen. Bernie] Sanders’s belief in certain basic and universal rights — to adequate health care and to education, for instance — is rooted in his social democratic worldview. But it’s also rooted in mainstream American liberalism, in Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights, and in the two great universal programs that even Republicans can’t flat-out oppose: Social Security and Medicare. The centrist case against creating any more universal programs is most commonly rooted in the premise that we can’t afford them — though such arguments generally take for granted that sufficiently raising taxes on the wealthy isn’t really an option. ... Fundamentally, that’s an argument rooted in politics, not math. These arguments would be more serious if their proponents at least tried to explain why taxing the super-rich at significantly higher rates is a bad idea. (Harold Meyerson, 10/21)

The New York Times' Room For Debate: The Promise Of Genetic Testing In Medicine
Genetic tests are increasingly used for health care diagnosis and tailored treatments, especially in predicting the risk for certain diseases like breast cancer. But some say DNA analysis is too hastily applied to other health issues — like anxiety and depression — based on limited studies, some of which are conducted without regulation. Is the enthusiasm over genome-sequencing in medicine overblown? (10/22)

The Dallas Morning News: Congress Can Rewrite Mental Illness Stories By Doing This
Like this newspaper, [Matt Roberts, president of Mental Health America of Greater Dallas] and his peers know that the foundation of mental health care must be to bring help to — not brand with stigmas — people who suffer from it. Despite recent headlines of mentally ill individuals committing heinous crimes against others, the fact remains that those who live with conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are far [more] likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. (10/21)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Medicaid Expansion Has Been Good For Ohioans And Their Wallets
New research indicates that the Affordable Care Act and other health policy developments in Ohio have cut in half the proportion of Ohioans without health care insurance. The Plain Dealer, citing Ohio Department of Medicaid survey findings, recently reported that the percentage of uncovered Ohioans is about 8.7 percent. The proportion was about 17.3 percent in 2012. Demonstrably, one key reason for that positive development is the expansion of Ohio's Medicaid program by Republican Gov. John Kasich. ... Kasich, despite criticism from partisan foes of the Affordable Care Act inside his own party, did the right thing for lower-income Ohioans, as well as for Ohio health care providers, who are now better able to serve those Ohioans. (10/21)