Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Tax Law Seriously Undermines Medicare; Trump Has Right Instincts On Drug Prices, But His Mixed Signals Are Troubling
Modern Healthcare: The Tax Law's Impact On Medicare
Political campaigns are not known for nuanced discussions or long-term thinking. This year will be worse than most. That's why, during this year's campaign, someone, somewhere needs to start talking about the long-term implications of the tax law, which will reduce the federal tax take by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Forget populist railing against lining the pockets of the wealthy and corporations. The real issue is much simpler and far more frightening. How can the federal government meet its Medicare obligations to retirees—half of whom have no personal savings or pensions—when it continually reduces taxes? (Merrill Goozner, 5/5)
Real Clear Health: On Unicorns And Prescription Prices
Earlier this year in his State of the Union speech, President Trump reaffirmed that one of his highest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. “In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States,” Trump said. “That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.” Even though both political parties agree that Americans are paying too much for their medications, very little has been done over the past 15 years to solve the problem. (Jerry Rogers, 5/10)
Axios: The Shrinking Health Spending Gap
One of the laws of health care baked into the heads of every policy analyst is that health care spending almost always rises much faster than GDP. Except it hasn’t really been doing that since 2010, and the gap between health spending and GDP growth is projected to continue to be small through 2026. What we don't know: The cause. We don’t know why the gap has closed (experts disagree and emphasize different factors), and we don’t know if the narrowing is permanent or if the gap will widen again. The big picture: Health spending is still growing somewhat faster than GDP, meaning it will continue to gobble up more and more of our GDP. (Drew Altman, 5/11)
The New York Times: Let Them Eat Trump Steaks
In general, Donald Trump is notoriously uninterested in policy details. ... But there are some policy issues he really does care about. By all accounts, he really hates the idea of people receiving “welfare,” by which he means any government program that helps people with low income, and he wants to eliminate such programs wherever possible. Most recently, he has reportedly threatened to veto the upcoming farm bill unless it imposes stringent new work requirements on recipients of SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, still commonly referred to as food stamps. Let me be upfront here: There’s something fundamentally obscene about this spectacle. (Paul Krugman, 5/10)
Louisville Courier Journal: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Supports Kentucky
One in seven Kentuckians has food on their table in part thanks to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program lifts 164,000 Kentuckians, including 73,000 children, out of poverty. It sends nearly $1 billion a year to grocery stores and our state economy, and injects even more into our local communities during hard times when they most need it. For decades, SNAP has been a program with broad-based, bipartisan support, because all of us value making sure everyone has enough to eat. But this vital assistance is in jeopardy if Congress agrees to the $17 billion in cuts to SNAP in the proposed Farm Bill. (Dustin Pugel, 5/10)
San Antonio Press-Express: Stigma Still The Biggest Issue With HIV
Stigma prevents people from getting tested for HIV. Stigma prevents people from coming to the clinic and engaging in care. (Parker Hudson, 5/10)
USA Today: We Don't Need New Federal Gluttony Police
In their 1983 punk rock ode to gluttony “I Like Food,” Descendents’ lead singer Milo Aukerman yelps that he’s “gonna turn dining back into eating!” Thirty-five years later, the federal government has stepped in to do just that. This week, a new federal rule went into effect mandating virtually all businesses that serve food prominently display the calorie count for the items they sell. Advocates of the new rule, passed in 2010 as a part of the Obamacare health care bill, say calorie labeling will allow consumers to make healthier choices. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb believes the mandatory calorie counts will have “a profound and generational impact on human health,” helping to reduce the instances of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. (Christian Schnieder, 5/10)
The New York Times: Britain’s Appalling Transgender ‘Debate’
I deeply resent the idea that my identity gets to be “debated” in the first place. I’m not alone in this; a number of activists in Britain protested the show for this very reason. (Others boycotted it because of Ms. Jenner herself.) As Dr. Adrian Harrop — a trans advocate who declined an invitation to be part of the show — told the website Pink News: “This debate is not about incorporating trans people into mainstream society and improving their lives and making sure they can access and engage with society on a meaningful level. This is a very basic debate around whether existing as a trans person is a valid, legitimate way to live one’s life.” (Jennifer Finney Boylan, 5/9)
Boston Globe: Raise The Tobacco Sales Age To 21 — Statewide
Nearly every piece of legislation has a tipping point — that moment in time when its passage simply makes sense. That moment has come for a statewide bill to raise the legal age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21. After all, Boston raised the legal age for buying tobacco in 2016. About 170 communities, representing 70 percent of the state’s population, according to the advocacy group Tobacco 21, have acted on their own to ban sales of the product to those under the age of 21. Additionally, some 160 communities have banned the sale of tobacco in pharmacies. (5/11)
Los Angeles Times: Cancer Warnings For Coffee May Be Overkill, But Proposition 65 Is Not
It's official: Coffee sold in California must carry cancer warnings, a Los Angeles judge ruled this week. The warnings are required by California law, Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said, because of the presence of acrylamide, a chemical that is formed when coffee beans are roasted and that remains in the final beverage. The decision finalized a tentative ruling Berle had made in March. Since the initial ruling, an outpouring of commentary has suggested that, as one opinion writer put it, California has gone off the "deep end." There is no evidence that coffee causes cancer, many pointed out, and warnings about trivial risks could cause more serious notifications to lose resonance. (Jennifer Liss Ohayon and Claudia Polsky, 5/10)
