Viewpoints: Trump’s Fearless Pro-Life Promises Leap Ahead Of Past Presidents; Ignore Platitudes About Work Requirements

The Washington Post: Trump Is Proving To Be The Most Fearlessly Pro-Life President In History
President Trump’s critics were apoplectic last week when the president referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Of course, no one should be dehumanized. Yet many of the same people expressing outrage that Trump would dehumanize vicious gang members have no problem dehumanizing innocent, unborn children. Trump has stood up for the humanity of the unborn child like no president in recent memory. And this is why so many Christian conservatives stick with him. (Marc A. Thiessen, 5/23)

The New York Times: The Supreme Court’s Next Abortion Chapter
If it seems as if the noose is tightening around women’s access to abortion, that’s because it is. Iowa just enacted a flagrantly unconstitutional law to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected — at about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they’re pregnant. Mississippi recently banned abortion at 15 weeks, a point well before fetal viability and thus also clearly unconstitutional. A similar bill in Louisiana cleared the legislature and is on the governor’s desk. (Linda Greenhouse, 5/24)

The New York Times: The Not-So-Subtle Racism Of Trump-Era ‘Welfare Reform’
When President Trump signed an executive order this year directing federal agencies to review adding work requirements to federal assistance programs, he said such requirements would “increase self-sufficiency, well-being and economic mobility.” Paul Ryan reportedly cast requirements as an attempt at “getting people the skills and opportunity to get into the work force.” Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said they would improve “health and well-being through incentivizing work and community engagement.” Ignore the platitudes. Work requirements have never been about helping the poor or unemployed. They’ve always been about punishing black people. (Bryce Covert, 5/23)

The Hill: 'Right To Try' Is An Ill-Considered Bill
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is often given credit for straying from the Trump administration script by being public health and evidence-focused. But there’s one respect in which he, at times, takes his cues from the top — making policy by tweeting. Take the controversy over “right to try” bills, which have sought to cut Food and Drug Administration (FDA) out of the process through which severely ill patients obtain access to drugs in development that have not been approved by FDA. That debate reached a climax on Tuesday when the House passed such a bill. (Peter Lurie, 5/23)

WBUR: Do High-Deductible Plans Make Even Cancer Care A Luxury Item?
If high-deductible plans continue to gain traction in the marketplace, we will all pay the price. There is no doubt that these plans can be a source of poor medical decisions when more people are forced to make hard decisions about whether some care is worth it. (Rosemarie Day, 5/23)

The Hill: Trump And Azar Are Rightly Moving Health Care Back To Free-Market Policy
Earlier this month, President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar unveiled the administration’s American Patients First plan to lower costs and increase access to medicines. Importantly, this blueprint rejects the misguided approach of moving toward a socialized system of health care, which would inevitably lead to the rationing of medicines and services. Instead, Trump recognizes the underlying problems that are leading to higher prices and reducing access. (Alex Hendrie, 5/23)

The Hill: The Problem Isn’t Opioids — It's How We're Raising Our Kids
Let’s start with the obvious. Our nation is suffering from the scourge of an opioid epidemic—in the form of addiction to opioid-based painkillers and heroin — that is creating anxiety, fear, and hopelessness among families and communities, while representing the leading cause of natural death in our country. Now, let’s discuss what is less obvious. Although 1 in 4 individuals with chronic pain who are prescribed an opioid by their family health-care provider will develop an addiction, the path of substance use disorders (SUDs) typically begins at an earlier point in their lives —  in adolescence. Ninety percent of adults currently suffering from an SUD started using substances as children and teenagers. (Melissa Tasse, 5/23)

USA Today: Opioid Crisis Response Is Being Led By Republicans
Our nation is in the midst of the deadliest drug crisis in history — a crisis fueled by opioids. More than 630,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses since the turn of the century. That means almost as many people have died from drugs in less than two decades as those who died in the Civil War. More than half of the deaths in 2016 involved opioids.This death toll is staggering, but the consequences of drugs are not limited just to the more than two million Americans who are addicted to them. (Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 5/23)

Stat: Why Was Theranos So Believable? Medicine Needs To Look In The Mirror 
I watched the recent “60 Minutes” report on the rise and fall of Theranos, the test-everything-with-a-fingerstick company that recently flamed out, costing numerous high-profile investors north of $700 million. The report laid out the standard narrative about Theranos, including healthy doses of deception and greed, an absence of various sorts of oversight, and too much Silicon Valley mythology.To get some perspective on what happened, I looked back at what was said about the company just a few years ago. I re-read a December 2014 article in the New Yorker on Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. What struck me as I compared the “60 Minutes” and New Yorker pieces, which were separated by only a little more than three years, is one simple question that seems to have been missed in the ashes: Why was the Theranos pitch so believable in the first place? (Michael J. Joyner, 5/24)

Stat: A Focus On Cost Instead Of Value Threatens Future Of Personalized Medicine
One size fits all never worked as a strategy for the fashion industry. Or the auto, furniture, and most other industries. It shouldn’t be the strategy for medicine either, but unfortunately more often than not it is. And it may stay that way if the focus on cost rather than value precludes the improved health care strategies made possible by personalized medicine. According to the World Health Organization, an effective health system requires “reliable information on which to base decisions and policies.” The evolving field of personalized medicine delivers just that kind of information in the form of data about the unique biological characteristics of each patient. Doctors can often use that information to make medical decisions based on an understanding of how a patient will respond at a molecular level to a specific therapy. This helps ensure that therapies are prescribed only to those who will benefit from them, sparing side effects and expenses to those who will not. (Edward Abrahams, 5/23)

Boston Globe: America’s Plummeting Birthrate Is An Alarm We Shouldn’t Ignore
From the National Center for Health Statistics came some disturbing news last week: The US birthrate, which has been on the skids for a decade, hit another record low. ...When nations retreat from marriage and children, their outlook tends to become bleaker and less prosperous. (Jeff Jacoby, 5/23)

Sacramento Bee: California Youths Need Alternatives To Incarceration
Arresting and incarcerating youth does nothing to get to the root of their behavior and can have consequences that last a lifetime. It is time for a new approach, grounded in community-based support and healing. (Jessica Nowlan, 5/23)