Viewpoints: Anti-Medicaid Crusade Based On Lies; Seniors Suffer While Nursing Home Industry Gains
Opinion writers focus on these and other health issues.
Boston Globe:
Kentucky’s Crusade To Strip Health Coverage From Its Most Vulnerable Citizens
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that state governments are the laboratories of democracy. These days in Kentucky, it looks more like a torture chamber. The state’s Republican governor, Matt Bevin, is seemingly on a political crusade to take health care coverage away from hundreds of thousands of his state’s most vulnerable citizens. Earlier this year, Kentucky became the first state in the country to receive approval from the Trump administration to impose work requirements on its citizens who receive Medicaid benefits. (Michael A. Cohen, 7/26)
Des Moines Register:
Nursing Home Industry Wins Big, But Seniors Lose Under Trump
Iowa was among the states that helped send Donald Trump to the White House. Voters ages 65 and older preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton 53 percent to 45 percent nationally. What do older Iowans have to look forward to now? The list includes nursing homes that are not held accountable when they abuse you, ignore you, drop you, give you the wrong medication or mistreat you in other ways. In the first year of the Trump administration, federal fines imposed on Iowa nursing homes in response to wrongdoing dropped by half, according to a review by Register reporter Clark Kauffman. Homes were fined $2.3 million in 2017, compared to $4.3 million during the last year of the Obama administration. In 2016, Iowa facilities were some of the worst in the nation with regard to serious, repeat-offense violations that caused harm to patients or placed residents in immediate jeopardy. And they didn’t suddenly improve when Trump took office. The number of violations that triggered fines actually increased his first year. Yet the penalties, on average, were half what they were the previous year. (7/26)
Stat:
Hospital Compare Lifts The Veil On Sepsis Care. Check Your Hospital's Score
To help ensure timely, consistent, and high-quality care for sepsis patients, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted in 2015 the Sepsis National Hospital Inpatient Quality Measure (SEP-1) that had been developed by the National Quality Forum. This metric assesses hospitals’ timely treatment of sepsis, which costs more than $27 billion annually. Going a step further, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday began publishing sepsis treatment statistics for all hospitals across the country. This is the first time that this information is being made publicly available. (Steve Claypool, 7/26)
The New York Times:
A Front-Page Insult To People With Disabilities
It is one of the distinct pleasures of urban life to be able to wake up on an otherwise fine summer morning, make yourself a cup of coffee, then choke on it at the sight of the front page of your local tabloid. But the cover of The New York Post on Thursday — the 28th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act — was more shocking than usual. It promoted a damaging misperception about people with disabilities, on a day better suited to celebrating their progress in one of the most neglected areas of American civil rights. (Peter Catapano, 7/26)
The Wall Street Journal:
Washington Is Biased Against Babies
Unlike many other developed nations that seek to stimulate births, the U.S.—whose TFR is 1.87, below the 2.1 “replacement rate”—does not have an explicit population policy. Nor does government seem to weigh the costs and benefits of reduced fertility when debating any policy. For this reason, you might think that U.S. policy is agnostic when it comes to fertility. But at least in practice, U.S. policy tends to be antifertility. The federal government funds family-planning services through Medicaid and Title X. Abortion legalization has been shown to have reduced fertility considerably.While a woman’s ability to control her fertility is fundamental, we note a striking absence of policies that promote fertility. (Leonard M. Lopoo and Kerri Raissian, 7/25)
New England Journal of Medicine:
Tickborne Diseases — Confronting A Growing Threat
Every spring, public health officials prepare for an upsurge in vectorborne diseases. As mosquito-borne illnesses have notoriously surged in the Americas, the U.S. incidence of tickborne infections has risen insidiously, triggering heightened attention from clinicians and researchers.Common Ticks Associated with Lyme Disease in North America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of reported cases of tickborne disease has more than doubled over the past 13 years. Bacteria cause most tickborne diseases in the United States, and Lyme disease accounts for 82% of reported cases, although other bacteria (including Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Rickettsia rickettsii) and parasites (such as Babesia microti) also cause substantial morbidity and mortality. (Catharine I. Paules, Hilary D. Marston, Marshall E. Bloom and Anthony S. Fauci, 7/25)
Stat:
As The Dark Side Of IVF Slowly Comes Into Focus, Even More Transparency Is Needed
After several years of pumping my body full of hormones for monitored cycles and treatments, my husband and I had spent nearly $50,000 without the joy of having a child. Unlike the pictures of smiling parents and their new babies posted on clinic websites and social media feeds, I came away from IVF at 40 with a battered heart and bloated body, a biohazard container full of spent syringes, and a folder containing fuzzy black and white images of embryos that were never to blossom into children. I spent the next decade researching IVF, writing about it, and getting to know women and men around the world who were also traumatized by their experiences with IVF. Not surprisingly, they have not sought the spotlight, as reliving the experience can be excruciating. Some have been barred from speaking publicly because of lawsuit settlements. (Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, 7/27)
The Hill:
High Hopes For President Trump’s Drug Pricing Plan
In May, the President gave his first major speech on lowering drug prices, making good on his campaign promise to go after drug makers to get lower prices for consumers. ... Now he will need to follow through to take on the driver of costs: Prescription drug companies. If drug pricing reform ends up just being angry tweets at companies that raise prices and rules that tie the hands of companies trying to negotiate discounts, President Trump will have missed an opportunity to score a victory on an issue that is critically important to American families. (Michael Steele, 7/26)
Stat:
Flexible Electronics Are The Key To A Human 'Check Engine' Light
You probably know more about the health of your car than you know about your own health. When your car needs an oil change or a part is malfunctioning, embedded computers instantly let you know there is an issue. A similar “check engine” light remains the elusive grail of human health. New developments in patient recovery and health monitoring devices make me believe it will soon be within our grasp. (Jason Marsh, 7/27)
Austin American-Statesman:
Budget Savings Shouldn’t Come At Texas Foster Kids' Expense
Faced with mounting anecdotal evidence that some foster children in Texas aren’t getting the medical services they need under the state’s Medicaid system, officials have started to quantify the scope of the problem. The early numbers are distressing — and they underscore the need for the Legislature to provide more funding and better safeguards for foster children in this critical program. (7/26)
Sacramento Bee:
To Overcome Opioid Crisis, California Needs Legislators Who Will Be Real Leaders
Addressing the growing opioid epidemic in California will require our state elected officials to do more than author bills in Sacramento. While legislation is important, we need leaders to be the voices that draw those suffering with addiction out of darkness and despair and into the light of needed, quality treatment. (Pete Nielsen, 7/26)