Viewpoints: Small Businesses Make Huge Gains On Health Care; Puerto Rico Deserves A Better Response

The Hill: Small Businesses Just Scored A Win On Health-Care Costs
This is a big week for American small businesses. On Tuesday, the Department of Labor published its anticipated final rule expanding association health plans (AHPs). These plans provide expanded health-care coverage options for small business owners and their employees by making it easier for them to group together in associations, where they can enjoy similar regulations and economies of scale as their big business competitors.The rule shifts some AHP oversight to the federal level, working to level the playing field between small and large businesses. This frees AHP’s from some of the burdensome requirements of ObamaCare, which imposes more regulations on small business plans. (Alfredo Ortiz and Tom Price, 6/22)

Boston Globe: A Program Exists To Save Puerto Rico. Make It Law. 
On Oct. 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall, thrashing the East Coast while leaving the lives of many in shambles. Within five months, the Disaster Housing Assistance Program, or DHAP, was activated in response. The program provided rent subsidies, security-deposit assistance, and also helped pay utilities. Five years later on Sept. 20, 2017, the nation watched as Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on the more than 3 million residents of Puerto Rico. Roughly eight months have passed, yet the people of Puerto Rico have received no equivalent to what their counterparts received after Sandy. Instead of DHAP, they received a deadline —on June 30 the Federal Emergency Management Agency will end the Transitional Sheltering Assistance program that has provided housing for more than 7,000 families throughout the country. (Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, 6/22)

The New York Times: Why Competition Won’t Bring Down Drug Prices
Martin Shkreli is in prison, but Daraprim still costs $750 per pill. Heather Bresch was hauled before Congress, but EpiPens still cost three to six times more than they did in 2007. Every week we hear of a new outrageous drug price hike. In polls, some 80 percent of Americans say that government should do more to curb drug prices. Having proclaimed just before his inauguration that drug makers were “getting away with murder,” President Trump last month issued a 50-point blueprint to bring down prices, mainly by injecting more competition — and a dose of public shaming — into the market. Though the document was light on specifics (containing more than 130 questions), the blueprint included proposals for speeding the development and sale of generics, increasing insurers’ negotiating clout, and making pricing more transparent. The administration apparently hopes that, with a nudge and prod, the market will control pharmaceutical pricing excesses. If history is a guide, it won’t. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 6/21)

Stat: We Need More Answers About Immunotherapy For The Elderly
An old idea — using the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells, first proposed more than a century ago — has become one of the most promising approaches to treating cancer today. Immunotherapy is effective against a variety of cancers, with sometimes spectacular results. But I worry about how effective it is in people over age 65, who make up half of cancer patients. (Ankur Parikh, 6/22)

USA Today: Opioid Epidemic Needs Laws For Quality Treatment Instead Of Punishment
In the decades since the crack epidemic, our country has learned an important lesson: there is no arresting our way out of drug addiction. The failed “War on Drugs” put too many people in jail instead of treatment, a mistake that cost us countless lives and taxpayer dollars. Now, we’re facing a new drug crisis — and this time, we have to do better. ...In Dayton, we know how much is at stake. Dayton was  the first cities in Ohio to declare a state of emergency related to the opiate crisis, opening the door to critical resources for our residents. It allowed us to open CarePoint, a syringe exchange program that prevents the spread of disease, keeps dirty needles off our streets, and links users to the treatment they need. CarePoint served clients over 2,300 times in just the first five months of 2018. (Nan Whaley, 6/22)

San Jose Mercury News: Treatment Programs For Homeless Youth Need Oversight
Kids who sleep in tents, cars or shelters have already survived the worst – sexual abuse, hunger, trauma and insecurity.  Scarce funding and confusing mandates between multiple state and local agencies allow many to fall through the cracks. But without clear standards or oversight for the money headed toward youth substance-use disorders, we risk not only squandering these resources, but failing our kids again. (Seth Ammerman, 6/21)

Sacramento Bee: Trump's Immigration Policy Is Damaging Jailed Children 
Losing a parent is one of the most profound stressors a child can experience; it threatens the child’s safety and causes a heightened state of “fight or flight.” ...Decades of science suggest that these separations are traumatic and likely to cause lifelong mental and physical health problems. (Leah Hiber and Andrea Buhler-Wassman, 6/21)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Needs Answers On Medicaid Savings, Not A Kansas-Style Shell Game
Iowa's new Medicaid director is turning out to be as much of a disappointment in this state as he was in Kansas. Mike Randol again this month failed to adequately explain how his office arrived at a $141 million estimate of annual savings from Iowa's privatization of Medicaid. He was also unable or unwilling to explain to a human services council why that estimate was triple the one his office previously released. Then he scooted out of the conference room, refusing to take questions from reporters. Information about the financial impact of privatization is important because Gov. Terry Branstad promised $232 million in savings when he handed over Medicaid management to three for-profit companies in 2016. While Iowans have heard many anecdotes about the negative consequences on low-income patients and health providers, we know essentially nothing about how taxpayers have fared. (6/21)

NH Times Union: Prison Drug Treatment Saves Lives And Makes Us Safer
AIt's not news that New Hampshire continues to suffer the deadly scourge of the overdose epidemic. Nationwide, we are third for overdose deaths in the nation, only behind West Virginia and Ohio. Expanding drug treatment has been key in trying to slow the rate of fatalities, but more must be done. We need to start thinking about expanding treatment in places that are often overlooked— specifically in our prisons and jails. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is widely recognized as the gold standard when it comes to treating opioid addiction. Methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone (all types of MAT) are effective ways of reducing heroin use. Methadone and buprenorphine have been shown to cut the overdose death rate in half. Nonetheless, surprisingly only 9 percent of drug treatment programs in the country offer these treatments, a sad statistic at a time where overdose deaths are the leading cause of accidental death in the nation. Treatment centers should be offering all three treatments and seeing which one works best with patients. Instead, they offer none. (Michelle Merritt, 6/22)