Viewpoints: Trump’s Attempts To Slice At ACA Show How Little He Understands Health System’s Complexities
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Los Angeles Times:
Trump Doesn't Know It, But His Attempt To Blow Up Obamacare Could Help California — And Other States
Trump’s lack of understanding of America’s healthcare system appears to be almost infinite, so it’s hardly surprising that he doesn’t grasp the complexities of the cost-sharing reduction payments. But the misunderstandings extend to congressional Republicans, and even Democrats.The truth is that Trump’s action could lead to more Americans receiving subsidized health coverage. It could also produce a windfall for states including California. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/16)
Los Angeles Times:
Two Senators Announce A Bipartisan Deal On Obamacare, But Don't Celebrate Yet
n a window into how the U.S. Senate should actually work, two senators — a Republican and a Democrat — announced a bipartisan deal Tuesday to save some provisions of the Affordable Care Act from the Trumpian butcher block. Don’t celebrate quite yet. The window into bipartisan comity is only narrowly cracked open, as yet. The details of the deal are still murky, but plainly it won’t undo some of the damage done to the ACA by the Trump administration over the last nine months. And conservative Republicans are already grousing that it’s too accommodating to a program that has brought health coverage to 20 million Americans. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/17)
Los Angeles Times:
The Bipartisan Plan To Shore Up Obamacare Is Anything But A 'Bailout'
A pair of U.S. senators is scrambling to shore up the Obamacare insurance markets, an effort made especially urgent by a series of moves by the Trump administration. On Tuesday they revealed the outlines of a compromise, including an agreement to restore about $7 billion in annual payments to health insurers that the administration recently halted. (10/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Who's To Blame If The ACA Blows Up? Trump, Of Course
President Trump still doesn’t get it: He owns Obamacare now. He’s been hard at work undermining the government-regulated health insurance program —eliminating subsidies to insurance companies, slashing programs to enroll new customers, authorizing bare-bones plans to lure healthy patients out of the insurance pool. But if the system collapses, he insists it won’t be his responsibility. “I think the Democrats will be blamed for the mess,” he said on Monday. (Doyle McManus, 10/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Trump Has Declared Open War On The ACA. We'll All Get Hurt
The Trump administration has declared open war on the Affordable Care Act. With its abrupt decision to terminate critical subsidies, it has thrown the exchanges into chaos on the eve of open enrollment; it has imperiled the full faith and credit of the United States; and it will cause a massive increase in federal spending. This is no way to run a healthcare system, and no way to run a government. (Nicholas Bagley, 10/13)
Los Angeles Times:
Patients Face Tough Choices When A Healthcare Provider Calls It Quits
Johnson & Johnson announced that it’s closing its Animas subsidiary and getting out of the insulin-pump business, leaving the field primarily to a single large competitor, Medtronic, which will control roughly 85% of the market....The challenges faced by tens of thousands of J&J customers mirror problems all too common in the healthcare industry — the turmoil that can arise when a medical-device or drugmaker halts sales, or when an insurer decides to no longer cover a specific pill, gadget or treatment. (David Lazarus, 10/17)
Orange County Register:
Lobbyists Draw Blood With Obamacare’s‘Essential Health Benefits’
Are you a pharmaceutical company marketing an expensive new drug to help people quit smoking, a birth control method that costs more than its targeted customers can afford to pay, or an anti-anxiety drug that 300 million Americans need right now? Would you like the government to mandate that insurance policies cover it? The government’s answer is yes! (Susan Shelley, 10/14)
Los Angeles Times:
The U.S. Government Can't Hold Undocumented Pregnant Teens Hostage When They Want An Abortion
It is unconscionable that the federal government would so flagrantly undermine the rights of a person in its custody. The girl, known in court papers simply as Jane Doe, may not be here legally, but, while she is here, she has a constitutional right — like every other pregnant girl or woman in the United States — to a legal abortion. Even U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who ruled Wednesday that Doe could get the abortion, shook her head in disbelief when a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer at the hearing would not concede that Doe has constitutional rights. (10/20)
Sacramento Bee:
Gov. Brown Betrayed Women With Last-Minute Veto
At around midnight Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown pandered to religious extremists and jeopardized the job security of women across California. In his final act of this legislative session, Brown vetoed a bill that would have ensured that a woman can’t be fired because she decided to get pregnant, use contraception or have an abortion. Assembly Bill 569, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act, would have banned workplace discrimination due to a woman’s personal reproductive health choices. (Amy Everitt, 10/17)
Orange County Register:
California’s Gun Safety Sham
California lawmakers love gun control. Gov. Jerry Brown signed no less than six different bills designed to restrict gun and ammunition sales in the Golden State last year alone, and a number of the leading candidates to replace him as governor are running on a platform of even more regulation.There’s not an aspect of legal gun ownership that isn’t in their crosshairs, so to speak. (John Phillips, 10/18)
Los Angeles Times:
A Judge Calls Foul On Allergan's Attempt To Hide Its Drug Patents Behind An Indian Tribe's Sovereignty
In the annals of cynical corporate subterfuges, it would be hard to top the effort by the drugmaker Allergan to fend off a patent challenge by selling its drug rights to a rural New York Indian tribe. ... [Judge William] Bryson didn’t invalidate the tribal deal because that wasn’t at issue in the case before him, but he expressed “serious reservations” about whether the deal should be treated as valid. That could function as a guidepost for the U.S. Patent Office, which will have to rule on the transaction’s validity. Legal authorities say Bryson’s opinion should be taken as a red light by other companies thinking about using the same maneuver. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/19)
The Mercury News:
Wine Country Fires Cause Stress; Kindness Helps
Stress is in the air. Between the Napa/Sonoma area fires affecting the whole Bay Area, the devastating recent shooting in Las Vegas, the multiple hurricanes in the southeast, our crazy and bizarre national politics, and, oh yeah, the increasing threat of nuclear war with North Korea, people are really stressed out. (Thomas G. Plante, 10/17)
The Mercury News:
How To End Bullying From A Muslim Who Was Targeted
I was in seventh grade when a fellow classmate remarked, “I wonder how skinny Ishaq would be without the bomb strapped to his chest.” Looking back, I understand how this incident, which attacked both my Muslim identity and weight, along with other remarks making ill-informed connections between my faith and terrorism, contributed to alienation I felt as an adolescent. (Ishaq Pathan, 10/16)
Sacramento Bee:
California Is Too Friendly To Food Lawsuits
California has long been known as the nation’s breadbasket, but now it’s also becoming notorious as its food lawsuit capital. Lawyers file class-action lawsuits claiming that Starbucks puts too much ice in its iced coffee and too much milk foam in its lattes. They sue over salt and vinegar potato chips allegedly not having enough vinegar, and they sue Krispy Kreme because its donuts supposedly don’t contain real raspberries. (John Doherty and Lisa Rickard, 10/16)
Sacramento Bee:
The Food Lawsuits Myth
I was troubled by an op-ed penned by a pair of entrenched participants in the campaign to undercut constitutional legal rights and fatten corporate profits (“Lawyers running amok in California are suing over food,” Viewpoints, Oct. 17). As often happens in the war against U.S. consumers, propaganda was peddled. But the facts are quite different. Let’s start with what the authors claim is a “ridiculous” class-action lawsuit against Nutella, a chocolate-hazelnut spread manufactured by what the authors describe as a “family-run business.” (Tim Blood, 10/19)