Viewpoints: Try This Prescription For Psychological Fatigue From Border Events; Plan To Cut Mandate Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions Must Be Stopped

WBUR: A Psychiatrist's National Prescription For Fixing What We've Done At The Border
The events at the U.S. southern border over the last few weeks have greatly damaged the emotional health of our entire citizenry. Even though President Trump appears to have reversed the policy, in many ways the damage has already been done. (Steven Schlozman, 6/22)

Columbus Dispatch: Mental-Health Care A Must For Separated Immigrant Children
There is much work that must be done to protect more than 2,300 children and youth who already have been separated from their families at the Mexican border as there is no plan yet for how to reunite them across the 17 states throughout the country where they are in some type of care. ...Any plan for reuniting these children and youth with their families must include mental-health screening, assessment and treatment when indicated for all of these victims who have suffered trauma resulting from loss and uncertainty. Such trauma, if not treated, can result in mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, dissociative disorders, lack of impulse control and post-traumatic stress disorder throughout their lifetimes. (Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, 6/24)

Arizona Republic: Feds Didn’t Lose 1,475 Kids. They Lost…6,000?
Last month the Department of Health and Human Services said it didn’t know the location of 1,475 children who had been taken into custody and then handed over to others. The administration arrived at the number after attempting to contact the sponsors of 7,635 kids. (EJ Montini, 6/23)

Stat: A Past Pre-Existing Condition Shouldn't Mean My Son Is Denied Insurance
About 1 in 3 Americans, more than 130 million of us, have pre-existing conditions. It’s surprisingly easy to become part of that group. A friend of mine couldn’t get insurance because he was too tall; apparently tall people are more likely to have health problems. Others have been turned away because they work in high-risk professions, such as being a firefighter or police officer. Some are unable to get health insurance because of family history, regardless of their own current health. When companies can refuse to insure individuals because they have pre-existing conditions, at any moment you could find yourself without health coverage. Recent moves by the Justice Department, the attorneys general of 11 states, and Congress seem to be paving the way for companies to once again use pre-existing conditions to exclude individuals from getting health insurance. (Doug Hirsch, 6/25)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Lawsuit To Kill Obamacare Will Claim Other Victims
Killing Obamacare would keep a promise Trump made to a constituency he believes will win him a second term. The millions who will lose health coverage if Obamacare dies would be collateral damage to him. Congress opened the door for Trump when it repealed the penalty charged to people who didn’t follow the ACA’s directive to buy health insurance. That was a consequence of the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2012 that the penalty was a tax. Congress has the power to levy or remove taxes, so it voided the Obamacare penalty. Smelling blood in the water, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the attorneys general or governors of 19 other states filed a lawsuit contending that without the tax the ACA was unconstitutional. Now, the Justice Department has filed a brief in support of the lawsuit. While not going so far as to say the ACA is invalid, the brief does contend that the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling invalidates certain portions of the ACA. Here’s the kicker. Those invalid portions would include perhaps Obamacare’s most popular feature: a mandate that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions. Think about that. People with pre-existing conditions not only include those with epilepsy, cancer and diabetes, it could include pregnant women who didn’t already have insurance. (6/24)

Boston Globe: Why Was The Federal Response In Puerto Rico So Flawed?
Nine months after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, leaving a path of death and devastation, 4,800 American households on the island still lack electricity. Up until three months ago, the number stood at 120,000.If a natural disaster struck, say, Wisconsin or New Hampshire, it’s impossible to imagine such numbers lasting past nine days. (6/24)

The New York Times: Suicides Have Increased. Is This An Existential Crisis?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released startling new statistics on the rise of deaths by suicide in the United States, which are up 25 percent since 1999 across most ethnic and age groups. These numbers clearly point to a crisis — but of what kind? Many argue that this is a crisis of mental health care, that people are not getting the services they need. The proposed solution is better therapies, more effective antidepressants and greater access to treatment. This assessment may be correct. However, the suicide rate has increased even as more people are seeking treatment for depression and anxiety, and even as treatment for those conditions has become more widely available. An additional explanation seems to be needed. (Clay Routledge, 6/23)

The Washington Post: Why I Am Being Open About My Suicidal Thoughts
Two years ago, I freed myself from what had long felt like a shameful secret: I wrote about my experience suffering from depression. Publicly sharing details about my nearly lifelong malady proved to be a turning point in how I felt about myself. It started with less shame and stigma and soon resulted in greater authenticity and connection in my relationships, especially among friends and colleagues with depression and other mental health conditions. I felt I didn’t have to lie anymore. (Steven Petrow, 6/23)

Stat: FDA Shouldn't Allow Politics To Hurt Women Suffering Miscarriage
When my obstetrician couldn’t detect a fetal heartbeat during my 9th week of pregnancy, he cleared his schedule. His assistant worked through lunch. They booked an operating room, lined up an anesthesiologist, coordinated insurance approvals, and scheduled a dilation and evacuation procedure for the following morning. It was over by noon. I was able to start healing, emotionally and physically. I was lucky to get such fast and efficient care. It doesn’t work that way for countless women across the country. Every year in the U.S., more than 500,000 women miscarry pregnancies before 12 weeks of gestation. Many must travel long distances to reach medical facilities that can perform effective and painless procedures to remove the expired fetus and extra uterine tissue. And many women have difficulty paying for these procedures, which are even more expensive for those with underlying health problems. (Dorothy Novick, 6/22)

Columbus Dispatch: Stopping Health-Care Fraud Must Be Public Policy Key 
The vast landscape of scamming in government programs is always discouraging — the drive of cheaters to skim dollars off of any large pot of public money appears relentless. But honest people like Cathy Bell remind us that some care about what’s right, even when it doesn’t benefit them. (6/23)

Detroit News: How To Stop The Opioid Crisis
Just over a month ago, I wrote in these pages about how the synthetic drugs fueling the opioid epidemic have flooded through Michigan. This is happening in too many states across the country with tragic results, and the headlines have continued. In Detroit, a grandmother was charged this month for leaving fentanyl accessible to her eight-year-old grandson, who fatally overdosed last summer. In Calhoun County, the public health department just reported that fentanyl-related deaths have more than quadrupled since 2015. And criminals continue to smuggle drugs into and throughout the state, threatening families in the Midwest and across the country. Amid this grim news we have signs of progress. Last week, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives came to an agreement on the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, legislation by Michigan’s own Congressman Mike Bishop designed to close a major security loophole in the global postal system that has fueled the opioid epidemic. And the House just passed the bill, bringing us one step closer to cutting off the flow of dangerous drugs. (Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, 6/24)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Legislators Are Pushing Pennsylvania Backward On Opioids
Two bills under consideration by Pennsylvania legislators threaten to take the commonwealth backward on opioids. The first is an effort to limit already-scarce evidence-based treatment. The second limits physician discretion when prescribing opioids. (Abraham Gutman, 6/22)

Los Angeles Times: Well-Meaning Proposals To Change California's Mental Health Law Fall Short
At the core of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles and around California is the simple fact that thousands of people spend their nights beneath overpasses, beside freeways and on the street because they cannot afford other places to live. There is a significant subset that is homeless because mental illness leaves them incapable of doing much of the day-to-day business of living beyond finding a place to sleep, something to wear and a little to eat; but for most of those street-dwellers as well, the problem is essentially the same: There is no other place for them to go. The community-based residential and outpatient treatment facilities that were supposed to go hand in hand with the closure of state psychiatric hospitals beginning in the 1960s never got the promised funding or political support. (6/23)

Sacramento Bee: California's SB 1152 Helps Homeless Patients Discharged From Hospitals
Often, discharged patients are dropped off at homeless facilities by ambulance or Uber or Lyft, many still in hospital gowns. ...Being discharged to the streets without a plan not only hinders recovery, but often makes the health issues worse, resulting in readmission to the hospital, or worse. (Sharad Jain, 6/22)

San Jose Mercury News: Ban Young Children From Playing Tackle Football
Despite the flood of medical evidence documenting the dangers of neurologic damage from repetitive, sub-concussive blows to the head, recent attempts at the legislative level to protect children have failed. ssemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, introduced Assembly Bill 2108 (the Safe Youth Football Act) in February. It garnered attention throughout the state and the nation. The bill sought to limit tackle football to children 12 and older. (Michael Shea, 6/22)

Arizona Republic: ACLU Wants To Attack Prisons, Not Improve Inmate Health Care
Rather than focusing on the facts, ACLU has made the courtroom a venue for anecdotal allegations of medical failings — some of which are demonstrably false and several of which are one-sided accounts. Much of this is presented to the public by a single activist radio reporter at KJZZ who allows himself to be used as a mouthpiece of the ACLU rather than a journalist covering the totality of the difficult issues in providing health care in a prison setting with limited taxpayer-funded resources. (Steve Rector, 6/21)