Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Why Are The Heroes Of 9/11 Having To Beg Congress For Help?; The Pharma Industry Has Gotten Away With Forgetting The Needs Of The Uninsured
The New York Times: Give Sept. 11 Survivors The Help They Deserve
After terrorists brought down the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Terence Opiola, then an agent with the United States Customs Service, worked amid the debris for months, recovering body parts and other evidence to help identify victims. In 2015, like many who had been at the site, he was told he had leukemia linked to his work there. Two years later, his illness forced him to retire at the age of 49 and he applied for benefits through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, created to help sick Sept. 11 emergency workers, civilian survivors and their families. Recently he learned that he and others might get only a small fraction of what was promised when the federal government set up the fund. (2/28)
Stat: Uninsured Americans Ignored When Congress Grilled Pharma Execs
Seven top pharma executives testified before Congress on Tuesday about the rising cost of medications in what some had predicted to be a watershed moment for the pharmaceutical industry. They were grilled about their pricing process, profit margins, and even their own salaries as lawmakers expressed outrage about high drug prices, including those for the lifesaving, necessary medications that so many Americans are now struggling to afford. But that conversation, and the lawmakers’ outrage, centered around a specific group of Americans: those with health insurance. (Nicole Lamoureux, 2/28)
The Washington Post: Black Women Are Facing A Childbirth Mortality Crisis. These Doulas Are Trying To Help.
Doulas have been part of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum recovery for women of all backgrounds, but specifically women of color, for centuries. It is easy for their grass-roots efforts to get lost in the tragic statistics and stories, but doulas are doing community-based work in cities to give babies and mothers a better chance of survival. “Our team in general is woke,” Patrick said in a Skype interview. She explained that the majority of her team, three founders and 16 doulas, are white and the majority of their clients are white. She said she believes this racial makeup actually helps her see the disparities more clearly. (Sarah Hosseini, 2/28)
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Too Many Older Americans Take Five Or More Medications. It’s Time To Cut Back
It’s also common: Thirty-six percent of adults over the age of 65 take five or more medications daily. But the problem transcends pill counts. Every day, my colleagues and I see new patients taking duplicate classes of medications, medications for conditions that have been resolved, or prescribed regimens that cause complex side effects. (Olaoluwa Fayanju, 2/28)
New England Journal of Medicine: Racist Like Me — A Call To Self-Reflection And Action For White Physicians
I am racist, shaped by the sometimes subtle tendrils of white supremacy deeply embedded in our culture. I mean this not as a sanctimonious admission of guilt, but as a call to self-reflection and action for us white physicians. (Deborah Cohan, 2/27)
Stat: Restore Access To Next-Generation Sequencing For Inherited Cancer
America’s policymakers are rightly concerned about identifying the best ways to provide access to affordable health care. Whether it’s reforming the Affordable Care Act or trying to implement “Medicare for all,” there is no shortage of discussion about this important topic. So it’s surprising that little attention has been given to an unsound Medicare decision that each year will deprive an estimated 20,000 women from access to comprehensive testing for hereditary breast cancer, along with a smaller number of men and women with other hereditary cancers. (Roger D. Klein, 3/1)
New England Journal of Medicine: Closing The Gap — Making Medical School Admissions More Equitable
The growing gap between the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic makeup of medical school classes and that of the general population means medical education is slipping further out of reach for many poor and minority students. (Efrain Talamantes, Mark C. Henderson, Tonya L. Fancher, and Fitzhugh Mullan, 2/27)
Louisville Courier-Journal: Deadly Hepatitis A Outbreak: Kentucky Must Investigate
Forty-three people are dead. More than 4,000 people sickened. And state officials didn’t do enough to stop it. Now, as the commonwealth faces the largest and deadliest hepatitis A outbreak in the nation, we Kentuckians deserve answers.The Cabinet for Health and Family Services must investigate the state’s grossly inadequate response to this crisis. It must determine what happened, why it happened and who is to blame. And it must take immediate action to stop the current crisis and develop protocols to ensure that it never happens again. (2/28)
