Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: GOP Hides Health Care Agenda In Political-ese And Coded Language; 'Medicare For All' Means Fewer Choices, Bigger Deficit
A majority of working Americans have zero retirement savings. The three richest Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the country 鈥 some 160 million Americans. So Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), having pushed through a trillion-dollar tax cut that lards its benefits on the richest Americans, announces he wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and make another run at repealing the Affordable Care Act. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, 10/23)
Fortunately at least someone in Washington is trying to inform the public about this latest consumer fraud in progress. Acting on its charge under the 1946 Employment Act to 鈥渇ormulate and recommend national economic policy to promote employment, production, and purchasing power under free competitive enterprise,鈥 the White House Council of Economic Advisers is explaining the gargantuan costs of government-run health care in particular and socialism in general. (James Freeman, 10/23)
With a tight Nov. 6 election approaching, local Republican incumbents in Congress are trying to rewrite history regarding their unbridled effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Back in 2016 and early 2017, they could hardly contain their zeal to rip Obamacare to shreds. Today, as Obamacare鈥檚 popularity is surging, it鈥檚 a different story. (10/24)
There are many reasons to vote to expand Medicaid this fall.聽 It seems that the most important is to send a message to the majority of the current state Republican legislators, who are failing to solve a problem that聽is breaking the financial backs of Idaho families. It鈥檚 past time for action.聽As someone who is both a retired rural hospital administrator for Jerome and Blaine counties and a Stage 4 cancer survivor (with a 3-5 percent survival rate), I鈥檓 blessed to be here to vote 鈥測es鈥澛爁or Proposition 2. Our legislature has demonstrated an inability to find other solutions and enact them.聽(Al Stevenson, 10/24)
Congressional candidates have deluged voters in recent weeks with debates about the Trump administration鈥檚 efforts to peel away protections for Americans with pre existing health conditions. Yet there is another, equally insidious effort from the administration that could undermine access to health care, and Americans have no idea it is happening: a proposal to drastically reduce information on and access to contraception. (Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 10/23)