Viewpoints: There’s No Silver Bullet On Drug Prices, But Senate’s Bipartisan Efforts Are A Start; Big Tobacco Has Found Willing Accomplice In FDA Chief

Fox News: We Can Find Areas Of Consensus When It Comes To Health Care. Here's Proof
There has been a lot of talk over the past several months about scrapping America’s current health care system and moving to a government-run health insurance system like the so-called “Medicare-for-all” plan. That would not solve anything. In fact, it would do the exact opposite. By putting health care decisions in the hands of federal bureaucrats in Washington, Americans would lose their ability to choose the health care options best for them. They would also see reduced quality of care and higher costs. It’s not often reported, but the truth is that the majority of Americans are largely satisfied with their health care plans. There are, however, significant problems that need to be addressed. (Sen. Chuck Grassley, 7/26)

CNN: The Vaping Epidemic Is A Major Public Health Threat To Our Kids
It's a new version of an old battle. As a novice congressman, I ran up against the most powerful lobby in Washington. It was explained to my class of freshman Democrats that we should not attack tobacco. It was a big local issue in Kentucky, the Carolinas and beyond. Southern Democrats were linked by tobacco even if production was negligible in their individual districts. In the minds of many, looking the other way on this issue produced Democratic votes for scores of other fights. (Sen. Dick Durbin, 7/25)

Stat: Moral Injury And Burnout In Medicine: A Year Of Lessons Learned
When we began exploring the concept of moral injury to explain the deep distress that U.S. health care professionals feel today, it was something of a thought experiment aimed at erasing the preconceived notions of what was driving the disillusionment of so many of our colleagues in a field they had worked so hard to join. As physicians, we suspected that the “burnout” of individual clinicians, though real and epidemic, was actually a symptom of some deeper structural dysfunction in the health care system. The concept of “moral injury” seemed to encapsulate the organizing principle behind myriad drivers of distress: the growing number of reasons we couldn’t keep the oath we had made to always put our patients first. (Wendy Dean and Simon G. Talbot, 7/26)

The Hill: Unpayable Medical Debt Is A Pre-Existing Condition
Congress is preoccupied with battling over health care costs and solutions. But there is an urgent matter that needs to be addressed before it crafts any legislation: $1 Trillion in past un-payable medical debt owed by Americans. Republicans and Democrats must work together to make it disappear. None of the solutions being proposed in Congress are structured to rescue millions of Americans from an overhang in medical debt that grows at the rate of billions of dollars a year. It is pre-existing, it is huge—and it demands immediate attention. (Jerry Ashton, 7/25)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Advances Save Lives, But The Word Has To Get Out
Every day, researchers are finding new or improved ways to address pressing health needs and help us live healthier lives. For example, a recent Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute-funded study on enhanced primary care and electronic health coaching for childhood obesity showed a year-to-year reduction in participants' BMI. In the same study, parents also reported better access to resources to help their children maintain a healthy weight. Designed from the beginning with input from parents, children, pediatric clinicians and community health providers, this obesity intervention translated healthcare reminders into digestible pieces of information, provided location-specific resources, and offered advice and support outside of the primary care practice. (Ann Greiner, Dr. Darilyn Moyer, and Beverley Johnson, 7/25)

Los Angeles Times: Deleting The Graphic ‘13 Reasons Why' Suicide Scene Won't Fix Anything
Two years after the series “13 Reasons Why” debuted, Netflix has finally edited out a graphic and highly controversial suicide scene. The network deserves some credit for deleting the on-camera suicide of a teenage girl, Hannah Baker, who remains a central character of the show even in death. But her suicide never should have been shown in the first place. U.S. and international guidelines for safe and responsible portrayals of suicide in the media recommend that graphic depictions of suicide be avoided. (Mark Sinyor, 7/25)

The Washington Post: Chlorpyrifos Is Closely Related To Nerve Agents Used In World War II. Trump’s EPA Doesn’t Care.
Here’s a question: Do you think that a chemical cousin of nerve agents used in World War II that alters the brain function of children should be used as a pesticide? I’d hazard a guess that most people think this is a bad idea. The Trump administration, on the other hand, thinks this is just fine. What I’m talking about here is the decision from President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency — going against decades of science and its own scientist’s advice —to reject an Obama-era petition to ban the pesticide called chlorpyrifos. (Joseph G. Allen, 7/25)

Boston Globe: Mass. Would Not Be Immune From Damage Caused By Repealing The Affordable Care Act
If the Trump administration and the Justice Department succeed in invalidating the Affordable Care Act in a New Orleans courtroom, the damage will be staggering. Millions of Americans — including the elderly, the poor, and those with cancer, diabetes, and other preexisting conditions — face the loss of their health care coverage.Massachusetts is certainly not immune from these adverse impacts. Hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents will lose health care coverage or some sort of protection provided directly by the ACA. The case is likely going to end up before the Supreme Court again. (Tom Croswell, 7/24)

The Washington Post: I Hope “Orange Is The New Black” Will Prove How Dysfunctional Our Criminal Justice System Is
In 2005, I walked out of a federal prison after serving my 13-month sentence for a first-time drug offense I had committed 11 years earlier. Although ecstatic to be released, I carried with me deep concern for the women who were still behind the gate: Women who had been torn from their children. Women who struggled with mental illness. Women sentenced for shockingly long prison terms for offenses very like my own. Women who helped me survive my time as they navigated their own exiles. All of these women were struggling to survive in a system built by and for men, in prisons operated in a way that was at best neglectful and at worst viciously punitive. What I had witnessed during my time inside was not justice. (Piper Kerman, 7/25)

The Washington Post: Here’s What’s Wrong With Trump’s Food Stamp Rule Change
The state welfare worker visited my grandmother’s home just once. My grandmother, or Big Mama as we called her, was a proud woman who worked at a backbreaking job as a nursing assistant in a hospital earning a low wage. She found herself being interviewed because she had volunteered to take in my four siblings and me. Had my grandmother not stepped in, we would have been placed in foster care. Our parents had abandoned us and were not providing any financial support. (Michelle Singletary, 7/25)

USA Today: Carrie Fisher Was A Real Inspiration To People With Bipolar Disorder
Early in 2004, entrepreneur Joanne Doan had just gotten funding for a serious niche magazine. Called bpHope, it would be tailored to the more than 6 million Americans with bipolar disorder, which, until 1980, was called manic depression. In a fit of hubris, Doan contacted Carrie Fisher — famous of course as an actor, writer and charismatic personality. Since Fisher had gone public with her diagnosis of bipolar I (the more serious form) four years earlier, Doan asked her the long-shot question: Would she pose for the cover and give a lengthy interview to a magazine that didn’t exist yet? “`Yes!’’ Carrie said, and “without hesitation,’’ Doan told me. She was happily stunned: “Carrie Fisher on the cover got us advertising we never would have gotten otherwise. I don’t know what we would have done without her.’’ (Sheila Weller, 7/26)

Austin American-Statesman: Don't Bypass The Bidding Rules For Anti-Abortion Program
We see no reason, with tens of millions of dollars at stake, for the Texas Pregnancy Care Network to get a break from the rules that apply to everyone else. As the Texas Tribune reported this week, 80 Republican lawmakers recently sent a letter urging the Health and Human Services Commission to bypass its usual competitive bidding process and pump more funding directly into the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, a nonprofit that subcontracts with pro-life pregnancy counseling centers across the state. (7/24)

Bloomberg: A Democrat’s Brave But Dumb Idea To Save Social Security
Give John Larson some credit. The Democratic representative from Connecticut has gone further than anyone in decades to make Social Security solvent. The program’s actuaries estimate that legislation he’s introduced, the Social Security 2100 Act, would extend solvency into the next century. The bill already has 210 Democratic co-sponsors in the House, more than any other recent proposal. Larson wants the House to pass the bill before Congress leaves town for its summer break. He hasn’t shrunk from tough choices. Congress hasn’t enacted any increases in income taxes or payroll taxes for middle-class Americans since 1990. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 7/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Should Instagram Get Rid Of ‘Likes’?
An Instagram spokesperson said that, in its tests, the goal of removing likes is to help “followers focus on the photos and videos [they] share, not how many likes they get.” The company believes that by allowing only users to see their own likes, the pressure to perform will ultimately abate. Then users can more freely “tell their story” rather than trying to compete among others with lifestyle highlight reels shot from flattering angles and anxiously watching their likes publicly tick up (or not). Instagram’s supposedly compassionate plan will “allow users to be blind to these superficial metrics,” said Ms. Beecroft. A more callous view, from Ronn Torossian, a crisis communications expert, suggests that the strategy is meant to weaken the influencer market that has gotten a “free ride” by profitably exploiting Instagram as a marketing tool. (Rae Witte, 7/25)

Stat: The Real Public Health Emergency Of International Concern: The DRC
The decision to declare the yearlong Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) will almost certainly help focus the world’s attention on this deepening crisis. But while it is already bringing much-needed donor funds and international assistance, the danger is that this decision could have unintended repercussions that further hinder the emergency response on the ground. (Seth Berkley, 7/25)