Viewpoints: GOP Health Plan – A ‘Win In Name Only’; Children At Risk In Obamacare Repeal
A selection of opinions on health care from around the country.
Bloomberg:
Republicans Go For A Win In Name Only
The health-care bill that squeaked through the House and is now beginning to possibly move through the Senate had a lot of problems, but at least it had a plausible plan to get through Congress and become a law. The financial-regulation bill the House will consider today (to "repeal" the Dodd-Frank Act) has no plan, and no apparent possibility of going anywhere beyond the House. It will presumably pass on a straight party-line vote, with every Democrat voting against it. (Jonathan Bernstein, 6/8)
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Children Are The Forgotten Fallout Of Obamacare Repeal
Our nation's 70 million children have been lost in discussions about the passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), and it has placed our children at significant risk for losing their access to care. The No. 1 insurer for pediatric health care in this country is the Medicaid program, which was initially established with a focus on children in 1965. (William H. Considine, 6/9)
Bloomberg:
Trump's Obamacare Crisis
Like too much else in Washington, the slow-motion collapse of Obamacare was an eminently avoidable crisis. The question, now that it is happening, is whether President Donald Trump and Congress want to work together to contain it. With Anthem Inc.'s alarming decision to quit Ohio's health-insurance marketplace, 18 more counties can now be added to the territory where people who qualify for federal subsidies will have no insurance plans to buy next year. Trump has actively sought to destabilize the law -- by repeatedly threatening to withhold federal payments owed to health insurers, making it easier for people to dodge the tax penalty for not having insurance and, with Congress, threatening to replace the law with a system that would separate millions of Americans from health insurance. (6/8)
The New York Times:
Dear Paul Ryan: Listen To Planned Parenthood Patients
I visited the three Planned Parenthood clinics in your congressional district in Wisconsin and spoke to women and men arriving full of anxieties. They feared unwanted pregnancy, gonorrhea, breast cancer, and they can’t understand why you’re trying to close clinics that keep them healthy. They’re having trouble reaching you, so I thought I’d help. Speaker Ryan, please listen to your own constituents. (Nicholas Kristof, 6/8)
The Columbus Dispatch:
Contraception Revision Could Backfire
The Trump administration is poised to undo what it believed it accomplished on behalf of conservative Christians when President Donald Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That appointment kept the court from taking a leftward turn and puts the political holy grail for conservative Christians — overturning or Roe v. Wade — within reach if another seat is vacated before the 2020 presidential election. But the administration’s assault on objective reality and its embrace of alternative facts is about to threaten decades worth of progress on the abortion front. (6/9)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Greitens Recalls Legislators To Burnish His Anti-Abortion Credentials
Gov. Eric Greitens is recalling lawmakers for another special session, this time in a direct challenge to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling warning states against overt efforts to restrict abortion rights. Greitens also wants to roll back a St. Louis anti-discrimination law protecting women from being fired or denied housing because they have had an abortion, are pregnant or use contraception. (6/8)
Los Angeles Times:
'Alexa, What's My Blood Sugar Level And How Much Insulin Should I Take?'
It’s become a punchline in the tech industry that every start-up is out to change the world. When it comes to medical technology, however, some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley are poised to do just that. Apple, Google and Amazon have announced or are reported to be developing cutting-edge technologies for managing diabetes, one of the fastest-growing chronic illnesses, affecting more than 420 million people worldwide. (David Lazarus, 6/9)
The New England Journal Of Medicine:
Cyberattack On Britain’s National Health Service — A Wake-Up Call For Modern Medicine
As you would expect in a pandemic, the headlines were alarmist: we were reportedly locked in a race against time to protect millions of patients from a new virus of unprecedented virulence that had crippled the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) and was spreading rapidly across the country. Except in this case, the virus was not organic but digital. On May 12, 2017, computer hackers attempted to hold the NHS hostage by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft operating systems. When NHS staff opened an apparently innocuous e-mail attachment, a ransomware worm known as “WannaCry” infiltrated their computers, encrypting data and locking out users. Throughout the United Kingdom, NHS doctors and nurses found themselves helplessly staring at screens that ordered them to pay a Bitcoin ransom to unlock their computers. (Rachel Clarke and Taryn Youngstein, 6/7)
The New England Journal Of Medicine:
Effective Legislative Advocacy — Lessons From Successful Medical Trainee Campaigns
“What is the best way for me to get involved politically?” Since last November’s election, I have fielded this question frequently from fellow residents as well as medical students. Many of them have never been politically active, having assumed that the arc of progress would continue uninterrupted, and so, understandably, have focused instead on a demanding training process that largely treats advocacy as extracurricular rather than as a core competency. Now, recognizing the myriad ways in which politics and policy influence the health care we deliver, many trainees feel a new sense of urgency to get involved. (Elizabeth P. Griffiths, 6/7)