Viewpoints: Federal Employees Frustrated With Big Boosts In Long-Term Care Premiums; Consolidation Trend May Be Obamacare Flaw
A selection of opinions on health care from around the country.
The Washington Post:
Feds Feel The Burn Over Huge Long-Term-Care Price Hike
Federal employees and retirees are feeling the burn. They’re hot over the huge jump in their long-term care premiums that will take effect Nov. 1. The increases will average 83 percent — that’s $111 per month — and rise as much as 126 percent. John Hancock Life and Health Insurance Co. provides the coverage. Their anger mirrors that felt about a 2009 price hike and has drawn the attention of Congress. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) has called for a House hearing on the increase. (Joe Davidson, 7/29)
The Wall Street Journal:
How I Was Wrong About ObamaCare
I was wrong. Wrong about an important part of ObamaCare. When I joined the Obama White House to advise the president on health-care policy as the only physician on the National Economic Council, I was deeply committed to developing the best health-care reform we could to expand coverage, improve quality and bring down costs. We worked for months to pass this landmark legislation, and I still count celebrating the passage of the Affordable Care Act with the president one balmy spring night in 2010 as one of my greatest Washington memories. (Bob Kocher, 7/31)
The Washington Post:
A Health-Care Model For The Nation
The year 1980 was a landmark for Maryland in many ways. The Orioles won 100 games for the second consecutive year under the leadership of manager Earl Weaver. And Maryland’s health-care policy leaders, seeking to improve hospital funding, finalized a landmark deal with Medicare that became today’s hospital waiver. Like the 1980 Orioles’ home run leader Eddie Murray, these policy leaders swung for the fences by guaranteeing the federal government that Maryland’s rate of growth for Medicare-paid care in hospitals would rise more slowly than the national average . For most of the 36 years since, Maryland kept that bargain. (Joseph DeMattos Jr., 7/29)
StarTribune:
Changing Health Care Landscape Favors UnitedHealth Group
The Medicare Advantage market is more than the focus of this suit; it’s also a market niche that seems to nicely illustrate just what an industry leader UnitedHealth is. What’s at stake here is the government’s contention that Humana is already big enough without being combined with Aetna’s far smaller business. (Lee Schafer, 7/31)
Modern Healthcare:
Why Democrats Didn't Talk More About Healthcare At Their Convention
Healthcare policy got remarkably little discussion during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, despite repeated nods to the issue from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders. Here's why. No one wanted to talk about the costs, regulations, and other tough tradeoffs that would be involved in further expanding insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, improving affordability for consumers, curbing medical spending growth, and reducing prescription drug costs. (Harris Meyer, 7/29)
The Texas Tribune:
With Experimental Drugs, "Right To Try" Can Go Wrong
Access to experimental drugs by terminally ill patients is a highly contested topic. Since 2014, several state legislatures, including in Texas, have passed "right to try" laws, which grant patient access to experimental drugs. However, the laws remove patient protection mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Without the FDA, patients may not accurately consider or have access to the data on the risk of taking the drug, may be charged an unnecessary amount for the drug or intervention and have no one to safeguard informed decisions. (Michelle Rubin & Kirstin R.W. Matthews, 7/29)
Lincoln Journal Star:
Health Care Evolves With New Clinics
The two new walk-in health clinics planned for Lincoln by partners CHI Health and Hy-Vee are a welcome addition to the array of local health options as health care continues to evolve. Walk-in clinics are becoming more popular across the country. Hy-Vee, which considers itself an industry leader in the trend, already has opened 43 retail health clinics in its eight-state region. (8/1)
Los Angeles Times:
It's Unacceptable To Delay The Exide Cleanup When Public Health Is At Stake
Earlier this month, state officials revealed that they had found nearly 250 spots on 203 properties near the former Exide battery recycling plant where levels of brain-damaging lead were more than 10 times higher than California’s health standard and at concentrations that were high enough to be considered “hazardous waste” under the law. Another 2,200 spots had concentrations that would make it unsafe for children to play in the yard. That’s scary news. Yet the residents living in these dangerous conditions amid high levels of a potent neurotoxin will have to wait a year or more to have their property cleaned up. That’s one more year that parents will have to keep their kids away from the soil because even small amounts of lead can cause permanent brain damage in young children, leading to lifelong learning disabilities and behavioral problems. (7/30)
The Washington Post:
I’ve Taught My Kids To Obey The Police. But My Son With Autism Isn’t Wired For That.
It can be frustrating being responsible for someone whom most of the world doesn’t understand, but it has its rewards, beyond his infectious smile. Communicating is like passing secret, coded messages with your best friend in childhood. I know that he’s referring to himself when he says “you.” I know that when he has an outburst, his screams aren’t from pain but from being misunderstood. The Joseph I know isn’t the one the world sees, and I’m okay with that. We call him Jojo at home, because we understand him as a different person than everyone else does. Every now and then, though, I get a painful reminder that the secret language we speak could lead to dangerous situations, especially when it comes to the police. The video of behavioral technician Charles Kinsey, who was shot by North Miami police while trying to help his patient, Arnaldo Eliud Rios Soto, a 26-year-old on the autism spectrum, was the most recent. (Matt Ramos, 7/29)
The New York Times:
Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?
In 1967, Margaret Crane was a 26-year-old product designer at Organon Pharmaceuticals, sketching face-cream bottles and ointment jars. One day, as she walked through a lab at the company’s headquarters in New Jersey, she spotted rows of test tubes on shiny racks that twinkled under the industrial lights. “What are these?” she asked one of the scientists. Pregnancy tests, he said. A doctor would collect urine from his patient and send it to the company’s lab for analysis. The results would be sent back to the doctor, who would then inform the patient. But Ms. Crane immediately saw another possibility: Why not cut out the doctor entirely? (Kennedy, 7/29)