�Թϲ�����

The endless press coverage notwithstanding, the details of President Trump’s new $4.7 trillion budget proposal — the cuts here, the increases there — aren’t all that important in the long run. Congress typically ignores most, if not all, of the headline-grabbing initiatives presidents pack into their annual spending blueprints. And with Democrats now controlling the House, Trump’s plan is even more likely to get the doorstop treatment. Still, the budget is a major statement about presidential priorities, and Trump’s are disheartening. In both the overall thrust and many of the smaller details, the budget betrays the president’s desire to put one interest — national security — ahead of all others, and to shift wealth from the lowest-income Americans back to the more affluent. (3/12)

Fair enough: President Trump’s heartless and whackadoodle budget, released on Monday, will never actually become law. Even when his party had unified control of government, he couldn’t get Capitol Hill to take major portions of his budget terribly seriously. Still, a president’s budget plan is a statement of his priorities. And based on this latest statement, Trump’s priorities continue to be redistributing wealth ever upward, from poor to rich, and selling the public more fantasies and lies. (Catherine Rampell, 3/11)

President Trump’s latest proposal would allow health insurance plans to limit the HIV/AIDs medications they cover through Medicare Part D. Patients relying on Medicare Part D, would be one of six “protected classes” now denied access to their needed medicines. The proposal is shortsighted, as it surely will not save the costs projected in the proposed budget. This is because of the rise in health costs, hospitalization and far more expensive acute treatment and strains on health systems, including in the mental health arena. (Michael W. Hodin, 3/11)

As House Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash..), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, prepare a proposal for “Medicare for All,” there’s another big problem in American health care that needs fixing. Insurers, payers and administrators must re-incentivize physicians to listen patiently and attentively to the stories patients have to tell. To tell one’s story and have the doctor hear, acknowledge and use that story as the basis for diagnosis and treatment of whatever is causing suffering is the point of going to the doctor, after all. But these days, doctors are shackled to electronic medical record (EMR) checklists that demand their attention to the laptop screen and distract from attentive communication with the patient. (Lara Ronan, 3/11)

Leveraging community partnerships and critical data is one of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ key strategies to help tailor prevention and treatment efforts to combat the opioid crisis, particularly in rural communities. With that aim, CMS launched an expanded version of the Opioid Prescribing Mapping Tool, ensuring that CMS and our partners have the most complete and current data needed to effectively address the opioid epidemic across the country. (Jean Moody-Williams, 3/10)