Viewpoints: Examining Medicare And Medicaid At 50; The Push To Defund Planned Parenthood And The Abortion Debate
A selection of opinions on health care from around the country.
Los Angeles Times:
Medicare And Medicaid At 50: Successful, Expensive
In the 50 years since they were signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid have grown into health insurance behemoths, covering one-third of all Americans and accounting for $4 of every $10 spent on healthcare here. Widely supported by beneficiaries, the programs have been dramatically successful on many fronts: Medicare has extended health insurance to nearly all the elderly, and Medicaid provides vital prenatal and maternity care for almost half of U.S. births. Both programs have helped narrow the healthcare gap between rich and poor, and between whites and minorities. But the programs' size is also their biggest challenge. (7/30)
The New York Times' Room For Debate:
The Next 50 Years For Medicare And Medicaid
The 50th anniversary this week of the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid comes in the middle of a presidential campaign in which candidates have raised questions about the fiscal viability of the programs. Will Medicare and Medicaid be sustainable for another 50 years? (7/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
Democrats Roll Out ‘Mediscare’ Again
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Medicare. Democrats celebrated by dusting off their traditional “Mediscare” tactic for the presidential-campaign season. The first GOP debate hasn’t even taken place, but one of the Republican candidates is already under attack on Medicare. In New Hampshire on July 22, Jeb Bush said he wanted to “phase out” traditional Medicare to build a more efficient, market-based system, focused on patients. It didn’t take long for Democrats to pounce. MSNBC and the liberal blogs sensationalized the comment. The Democratic National Committee’s press secretary, Holly Shulman, claimed that under a Bush presidency working Americans “won’t have the same health benefits that seniors rely on.” (Tevi Troy, 7/30)
NJ Spotlight:
Half A Century After Its Inception, What Can Medicaid Teach Us?
What Medicaid is beginning to discover, much of the world has already learned: Health is complex and encompasses more than just medicine Today, we honor an innovator. She has transformed the American healthcare delivery system in many states, especially for our most vulnerable citizens. She has mitigated healthcare disparities and promoted gender equality. In part, because of her, we are coming to embrace a new idea that all Americans are entitled to basic health insurance. She has saved and improved millions of lives. She, of course, is Medicaid. And today she turns 50. (Cantor, Brenner and Rozario, 7/30)
The Washington Post's Plum Line:
Morning Plum: GOP Push To Defund Planned Parenthood Heats Up
Amid the furor over the undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue prices, the battle is intensifying in the Senate over the Republican push to defund the organization. Democrats charge that the GOP campaign would defund women’s health services more broadly. Republicans claim the money would be re-distributed to other groups that provide such services. (Greg Sargent, 7/30)
The Detroit Free Press:
What The Push To Defund Planned Parenthood Is Really About
For 80 years Planned Parenthood has offered basic reproductive health care, information about family planning and contraception to women who had no other options. But because a small percentage of Planned Parenthood’s business involves terminating pregnancies — without using federal dollars, a fact that’s often misreported — it’s become a lightning rod for some social conservatives, who simply cannot stand that anyone, anywhere, provides abortion services. So it’s the frequent target of campaigns in and out of the U.S. Congress to strip its funding; the organization receives about $500 million a year in state and federal dollars. Its foes are seemingly insensible, were they successful, to the health-care disaster they’d inflict on American women. (7/30)
USA Today:
Brutal Abortion Reality Key To Debate: Column
A third undercover video of activity within Planned Parenthood related to financial transactions between the non-profit group and potential buyers of baby body parts became public this week. In it, a former "procurement" worker discusses how she was shown the body parts Planned Parenthood was making available. And the viewer also sees these body parts. (Frank Pavone, 7/30)
Los Angeles Times:
Outraged Over Cecil The Lion? It May Help You Understand The Rage Over Planned Parenthood
This week brought with it a strange convergence. The story of surreptitious Planned Parenthood videos that appeared to show a doctor haggling with potential buyers over prices for fetal body parts and the story of an American dentist killing Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe collided in an Internet frenzy of charges and countercharges over moral priorities. Animal rights activists and anti-abortion advocates started criticizing each other for their misplaced outrage on social media. Then the debate moved onto a wider media stage. (Charles Camosy, 7/30)
Los Angeles Times:
Anthem's Good Intentions Get Lost In Aggressive Telemarketing
Joseph Goldstein received a call the other day at his West Los Angeles home from someone claiming to represent his insurer, Anthem Blue Cross. The caller said he knew that one of Goldstein's family members had been seriously injured in a fall and wanted to make sure that Goldstein knew about Anthem's wellness and home-care programs. (David Lazarus, 7/31)
The New York Times' The Conscience Of A Liberal:
Dentists And Skin In The Game
Wonkblog has a post inspired by the dentist who paid a lot of money to shoot Cecil the lion, asking why he — and dentists in general — make so much money. Interesting stuff; I’ve never really thought about the economics of dental care. But once you do focus on that issue, it turns out to have an important implication — namely, that the ruling theory behind conservative notions of health reform is completely wrong. (Paul Krugman, 7/30)
Los Angeles Times:
How The American Psychological Assn. Lost Its Way
The American Psychological Assn. is in crisis. Last December, a Senate Intelligence Committee report laid bare the extensive involvement of individual psychologists in the CIA's black-site torture program. Then, in early July, a devastating independent report by a former federal prosecutor determined that more than a decade ago APA leaders — including the director of ethics — began working secretly with military representatives. Together they crafted deceptively permissive ethics policies for psychologists that effectively enabled abusive interrogation of war-on-terror prisoners to continue. (Roy Eidelson and Jean Maria Arrigo, 7/30)
news@JAMA:
Public Health Vs Personal Liberty: Reflections On The California Vaccination Law
On June 30, when California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law new legislation that requires most children in the state to be vaccinated, public health was pitted once again against personal liberty. “The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” Gov Brown said in a prepared statement. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.” The new law does away with vaccination exemptions based upon religious or personal beliefs. Exemptions from immunization on medical grounds will remain in effect, but with few exceptions, children enrolled in classroom-based education will be subject to mandatory immunization schedules. (Eli Adashi, 7/30)
The Denver Post:
Colorado Ground Zero For Vet's Health
The political battle swirling around the Veterans Affairs medical center in Aurora is about much more than cost overruns and poor management, as troubling as they are. It's made Colorado ground zero in a national fight over the future of the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system. When it comes to meeting the health care needs of veterans, as Colorado goes so goes the nation. The VA and Congress remain at odds. Congress has authorized enough money to keep construction going only through September. To keep going beyond that and complete the medical center will cost $625 million more, according to the VA. In the meantime, many of the 400,000 veterans in Colorado, including 90,000 disabled veterans, wait for the health care they've been promised. (Garry J. Augustine, 7/30)
The Washington Post:
Don’t Plunder Aid For Disabled People To Help Seniors
Social Security’s disability program, which sends a small bit of cash to 9 million former workers who now face serious disabilities, will be insolvent next year. This has as much to do with Social Security’s accounting structure as anything else, but if Congress doesn’t do something about it, beneficiaries would face a devastating 19 percent benefit cut. (Gene Sperling, 7/31)
The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Next For ADA: Expand Community-Based Care
On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) into law, declaring that the statute "takes a sledgehammer to . . . a shameful wall of exclusion . . . which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse but not grasp." Since then, we have seen significant change for people with disabilities. Most city streets have curb cuts, stores have accessible bathrooms, and even some playgrounds are disability-friendly. Progress has also been solidified into law. The 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. held that public agencies are required to provide services "in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities" under Title II of the ADA. (Stephen F. Gold
and Evie Cai, 7/30)