Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Supreme Court Decision Threatens Accessible Care For Many In Need; Covid Booster Advice
The Hill: Striking Down Affirmative Action Amplifies Injustice
A storm has descended on millions of minority Americans. The Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban has ripped away their hard-won shelter of accessible care, dealing immense harm far beyond college campuses. Small hometowns like mine in rural Arkansas will absorb this blow along with Black and Hispanic communities in the poorest city blocks and parts of town tourists avoid. Many aspiring doctors who understand the pain in these communities and who are called to return home and tend to their own will be denied the opportunity to pursue a medical degree and serve their communities. (Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, 6/29)
The Washington Post: What’s The Best Timing For The Next Covid Booster?
Now that federal health officials have laid out a plan to switch out the bivalent vaccine for a new booster this fall, readers have many questions about timing. (Leana S. Wen, 6/29)
USA Today: As US Doctor Shortage Rises, Congress Must Make Physicians Priority
Patients and family members, communities throughout the country, doctors, nurses and providers are all grappling with the reality of the depletion of the physician workforce in our nation’s health care system. The workforce shortage has been increasing since before the COVID-19 pandemic – accelerating at an even more alarming rate thereafter. (Sens. Bob Menendez, John Boozman, Chuck Schumer and Susan Collins, 6/29)
The New York Times: A Photographer’s Self-Portraits Of Multiple Sclerosis And Medical Care
Before I had a name for what ailed my body, I thought of myself as dehydrated and out of shape. I believed that the physical discomfort I’d experienced for years — numbness, pain, tingling and pins-and-needles sensations throughout my body — must be traceable to a cause of my own making. (Sara J. Winston, 6/29)
The Tennessean: Abortion Rights, Gun Safety Linked In Struggle For Justice
It's been a year since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped away the right to an abortion from millions of people across the country. (Kristal Knight, 6/29)
Stat: DIEP, The 'Gold Standard' Of Breast Reconstruction, Is Under Threat
In 1983, I flew home from college to be with my mother as she woke up from a mastectomy. She opted out of breast reconstruction, choosing to “go flat” instead. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 and had bilateral mastectomies, I had more reconstruction options than my mother did. (Lisa D. T. Rice, 6/30)
The Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee's Transgender Care Ban Rightly Gets Rejected By A Trump-Appointed Judge
The systematic effort to use the power of government to marginalize transgender people and deny young people health care services based on ideology and against scientific consensus in states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana and Florida has been rebuffed by jurists in the last several weeks. (David Plazas, 6/29)
