Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: US Health Care Is Great, If You're Rich; Where Are All The Nursing School Teachers?
The Washington Post: American Health Care Is Increasingly Unaffordable For All But The Rich
This is American health care, circa 2023. It’s state of the art and then some — if you’ve got the money. For almost everyone else, any encounter with the medical industrial complex can result in severe financial harm. (Helaine Olen, 2/6)
Bloomberg: To End The US Nurse Shortage, Start With Nursing Schools
The US is in the thick of a nursing shortage. And yet, nursing schools are turning away more qualified applications than ever. The main bottleneck, schools say, is that there aren’t enough instructors or training sites to accommodate the vast number of interested students. Restoring the pandemic-depleted health-care workforce depends on fixing this mismatch. (2/6)
The Washington Post: Should There Be An Annual Coronavirus Booster? It Depends
External advisers to the Food and Drug Administration met last month to discuss two key questions on coronavirus boosters: Should all vaccine shots be switched to the newer bivalent formulation, and should boosters be administered yearly along with doses of the flu vaccine? (Leana S. Wen, 2/7)
Stat: Needed: Another Breakthrough Year For Rare Disease Research
For the last decade or so, the number of accepted rare diseases has stood between 7,000 and 8,000, though the number had been ticking up. RareX’s Power of Being Counted report, published in June 2022, now puts the number of recognized rare diseases at 10,867, an increase of more than one-third. According to the report, the earlier estimates failed to represent the full spectrum of these diseases. (Bruce Bloom, 2/7)
Newsweek: The World Must Stop Female Genital Mutilation
The sheer number of women and girls at risk of FGM simply cannot be ignored. UNICEF estimates that 4 million girls in the 31 countries where FGM is practiced are at risk. It gets worse. (Alyssa Milano, 2/6)
Modern Healthcare: What's Challenging Senior Care In America?
The number of people age 65 and older in the U.S. is projected to rise from more than 56 million now to over 73 million by 2030. Their care needs will grow along with their numbers. (Katie Smith Sloan and Joel Theisen, 2/6)
Stat: Tyranny Of The Inbox: What It's Like To Be A PCP With OCD
Like so many health care workers, I have seriously considered giving up my clinical practice multiple times — even more since the onset of the pandemic. For me, wanting to bail out of my job as a primary care physician has nothing to do with the risk of contracting Covid-19 or any other communicable disease. The real reason is best summarized by the unimaginably annoying Lamb Chop’s Play-Along Song. This is the song that doesn’t end. Yes it goes on and on, my friend. (Russell Johnson, 2/7)
Stat: Mindstrong's Demise And The Future Of Mental Health Care
One of the shinier entrants to have emerged in the world of mental health startups abruptly announced last week it would wind down, right in the middle of an ongoing crisis in mental health care. Mindstrong, which had raised a total of $160 million from a who’s-who of blue-chip investors, and was led for a while by a former National Institute of Mental Health director, simply couldn’t find a way to make money delivering the low-cost, high-quality care it had promised. (Roy Perlis, 2/6)
The Tennessean: Childhood Vaccines Are Our Best Shot To Keeping Kids Healthy
The surge of viruses that caused pediatric hospitals across the nation to reach a breaking point and exceed their capacity has filled the national news this fall and winter. (Meghan Ghanayem, Cole Atkins, Rebecca England and Heeyum Kim, 2/6)
