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The pre-existing-conditions offensive against the GOP is based on its votes to repeal ObamaCare. But the truth is that Ms. McSally, Mr. Cramer and every Republican in Congress who voted for repeal also voted to require states to provide protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The GOP approach was to let each state figure out how best to accomplish this under a federal system that worked better than the Affordable Care Act. Republicans trusted leaders in state capitals to do better than Washington for the people of their states. (Karl Rove, 9/19)

In 2010, the backlash to the Affordable Care Act helped give Republicans the largest midterm election gains in 72 years. The catastrophic launch of the ACA’s exchanges in 2014 handed them control of the Senate, and with premiums soaring 105 percent during the reform’s first three years of operation, outrage over health care contributed to the election of President Trump. Yet, while GOP attempts to enact equally-sweeping legislation to “repeal and replace” the ACA have failed, Republicans nonetheless can claim credit for freeing Americans from its most painful, counter-productive and unpopular features. (Chris Pope, 9/19)

As a psychiatrist I know something about how memory works. Neuroscience research tells us that memories formed under the influence of intense emotion — such as the feelings that accompany a sexual assault — are indelible in the way that memories of a routine day are not. That’s why it’s credible that Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers, has a vivid recollection of the alleged long-ago event. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” she told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.” (Richard A. Friedman, 9/19)

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, teamed with Republican senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Rob Portman of Ohio on a measure that would allow Medicaid to pay for NAS care in “pediatric recovery facilities” as well as in hospitals. Meanwhile, the Ohio Department of Medicaid is working on a request for a waiver to allow Medicaid coverage in case the senators’ legislative fix doesn’t go through. (9/20)

You don’t have to be Jewish to inherit one of the BRCA gene mutations. But these mutations, which increase the risk of adult-onset breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers, disproportionately injure Jewish people. One in 400 people in the general population carry a BRCA mutation; one in 40 in the Jewish (mostly Ashkenazi) population. Some of those affected are working to encourage more genetic testing to help prevent these cancers. (Susan Gubar, 9/20)

A few months ago, a disease caused by an engineered biological weapon played the antagonist in a fictional outbreak scenario that ended with more than 100 million dead and the global economy crippled. It was a frightening story with a real message for U.S. leaders responsible for ensuring the country's pandemic preparedness. Nature continues to create serious biological threats, with the possibility of a deadly new pandemic influenza perhaps the most worrying. Far less recognized, but potentially even more alarming: The biotechnology revolution now underway is substantially lowering the bar for the creation of biological weapons that themselves could cause pandemics. (Tom Inglesby and Eric Toner, 9/19)

I am incredibly proud of the work that we have done and the efforts that continue to this day. Disaster response is most effective when it is state managed, locally executed, and federally supported. In our supporting role, DHS and FEMA remain committed to helping people before, during, and after disasters strike. And today we are focused on helping Puerto Rico, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, further strengthen their emergency response capabilities, capacity, and infrastructure resilience to be prepared for future catastrophes. (Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen, 9/20)

President Trump has declared Sept. 16-23 Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week. This is the time to remember the lives lost and those in recovery. Importantly, it is also the time to prevent others from going down this path. (Jim Carroll, 9/20)

Companies can create drug-treatment programs for failed job applicants. In such programs, employers promise to give permanent jobs to those applicants who have tested positive for drug use but who then commit to long-term treatment, to regular testing and to remaining drug-free.One company is trying this approach. Belden Inc., which has a manufacturing plant in Richmond, Ind., was straining to keep its computer-networking factory running at full capacity. But more than one in ten of its job applicants were testing positive for drugs. (Mitchell S. Rosenthal, 9/19)

A patient complains of intermittent wheezing. He cannot characterize the wheezing further with regard to timing, precipitating events, or how it affects his health. A physician makes a diagnosis of asthma without further evaluation, gives the patient several recommendations regarding lifestyle modification and potential precipitants, and prescribes an inhaled long-acting β-agonist and corticosteroid. Few physicians would endorse this approach to the patient’s care. Yet that is how the profession is approaching the issue of physician burnout. The term burnout has taken on meaning far beyond what is understood about it as an actual diagnosis or even a syndrome. The medical profession has taken a self-reported complaint of unhappiness and dissatisfaction and turned it into a call for action on what is claimed to be a national epidemic that purportedly affects half to two-thirds of practicing physicians. (Thomas L. Schwenk and Katherine J. Gold, 9/18)

No one wants to sit in an exam room while the doctor spends precious minutes entering billing information into an electronic health record. But frustrations like this don’t mean we should give up on technology’s potential to improve health outcomes. The data collected by a new generation of digital health products—including smart watches, smartphones and fitness trackers—could help the medical community learn about treatments that might work for a patient like you, and which ones to avoid. The first step is enabling them to stream data wirelessly to your doctor’s EHR. (Sean Khozin and Paul Howard, 9/19)

I believe my daughter would be alive today if she hadn’t gone to an isolated place to shoot up or if her boyfriend hadn’t hesitated before calling for help, fearing an arrest. It’s too late to save her, but it’s not too late to save other kids who will make stupid mistakes (as most of us have done). Let’s win the war on drugs by ending it. (Kaye Cleve, 9/19)