Viewpoints: Curbing Prescription Drugs Costs; Protecting Adult Film Performers; Shielding Medi-Cal Funding

Sacramento Bee: Proposition 61 Will Help Reduce Outrageous Prescription Drug Prices
As public outrage has erupted over a 500 percent price increase for life-saving EpiPens and a $1,000-per-pill cost for the most effective hepatitis C treatment, the pharmaceutical industry appears to be beyond shame. Even the price of generic drugs is skyrocketing; nearly 400 had increases of more than 1,000 percent the past seven years. Transparency is not enough. It’s long past time to cut drug prices to rein in an arrogant drug cartel that will always put its profits above public health and safety. (Kathy Dennis, 10/11)

Sacramento Bee: Prop. 61 Will Backfire, Especially Against Veterans
Proposition 61 would prohibit the state from entering into contracts for prescription drugs unless the prices are the same or lower than the special discounts provided to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA found that Proposition 61 could increase costs to the VA by $3.8 billion a year. If that happens, there will be pressure to either cut services or pass the higher costs on to veterans. (Don Harper, 10/11)

Sacramento Bee: Prop. 60 Is Needed To Protect The Health Of Porn Actors
Proposition 60 is a workplace safety measure to protect young performers in the porn industry who are now routinely and illegally exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. The callous mistreatment of these often socially marginalized young men and women employees by their bosses has gone on for too long. Proposition 60 will give state health officials more tools to enforce an existing law requiring condoms be worn in adult films to protect performers. The law is based on regulations formulated in 1992 by federal health professionals. (Gary Richwald, 10/12)

San Diego Union-Times: Yes On Proposition 52: California Should Prop Up Medi-Cal 
In 2009, with state revenue plunging as the recession took hold, the California Legislature executed something akin to an accounting trick to get more money out of the federal government for the Medi-Cal program, the primary provider of health care to poor residents. For every dollar the state spends on the program, it gets about a dollar from Uncle Sam. So state lawmakers imposed a tax on private hospitals to fund Medi-Cal for which it received matching federal funds. The twist: This new hospital tax revenue was used to increase state hospital reimbursement rates for Medi-Cal. This tax is temporary and has to be periodically renewed. (10/12)

Sacramento Bee: Prop. 52 Will Protect Health Care Access For Millions
There’s a good reason that Proposition 52 – the Medi-Cal Funding and Accountability Act – enjoys such diverse support from labor, business and health care groups and from both sides of the political aisle. It promises to continue access to vital health care for more than 13.5 million Californians, or one in every three of the state’s residents. (Duane Dauner, 10/13)

Sacramento Bee: Prop. 56 Will Save Lives And Discourage Young People From Smoking
The leading cause of preventable death nationwide and in California, tobacco exacts a grave toll on communities, families, health care systems and businesses. Tobacco kills more Californians than car accidents, guns, alcohol, illegal drugs and AIDS combined, and harms the health of nonsmokers through secondhand smoke. This is a public health crisis. (Michael Ong, 10/10)

Sacramento Bee: Drug Prices, Black Lives, Presidential Candidates, Recreational Pot
Big Pharma has proven itself to be interested more in profit than the public good. If drug companies are not willing to reduce their costs significantly, it may be time to nationalize the industry. Life-saving drugs should not be the purview of an industry that cares not whether patients live or die but is more interested in the almighty dollar. (Jack Ohman, 10/9)

Los Angeles Times: Trump’s Proposals On Tax Loopholes And Healthcare Aren’t What They Seem
On healthcare, Trump pledged to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act and replace it with “something absolutely much less expensive.” His prime tool for lowering costs, he said, would be to let insurers offer policies across state lines. That’s a change that Republicans have been touting for years, premised on the idea that an insurer in a state with light regulation could undercut the premiums of those in states with tougher rules. But Trump either overlooked or ignored that insurers can’t offer policies in a new state unless they strike deals with the doctors, hospitals and other providers in every community they plan to sell coverage. (10/11)

Los Angeles Times: Why Do People Still Hate Obamacare? Probably Because They Still Don't Know Much About It.
Much about our current political climate may be volatile, but one feature seems to be as stable as the Rockies: Americans’ dislike of the Affordable Care Act. The Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking this sentiment almost since the law’s passage in early 2010 (its latest reading shows unfavorable opinion of Obamacare outpolling favorable 47% to 44%) thinks it may have a clue as to why that is. Its poll also shows that the vast majority of Americans still have no idea about what the law has accomplished. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/12)

Fresno Bee: Can Someone Steal Your Medical Identity?
Medical identity theft is on the rise. According to the Ponemom Institute, a private cybersecurity research firm, an estimated 481,657 new cases of medical identity theft were reported between 2013 and 2014, an increase of almost 22 percent. Who knows how many cases went unreported! (Blair Looney, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: DNA Database Highlights Need For New Medical Privacy Protections
Relatively little attention was paid last year when President Obama called for creation of a database containing the DNA of a million volunteers as part of moves toward “precision medicine,” or tailoring healthcare to people’s individual needs. But to many in the healthcare field, Obama’s embrace of a national repository of genetic information was seen as a turning point in advancing use of “big data” to reduce medical costs and improve people’s well-being by anticipating disorders before they become serious problems. (David Lazarus, 10/14)

Los Angeles Times: 'Big Data' Could Mean Big Problems For People's Healthcare Privacy 
Defense giant Northrop Grumman has signed a nearly $92-million contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to build the second phase of a computer system that’s currently focused on reducing fraud but down the road will play a greater role in anticipating beneficiaries’ medical disorders. It’s the most prominent example of how public and private insurers are spending millions of dollars on “big data”  — using advanced technology to predict people’s future healthcare needs based on their interactions with doctors, hospitals and pharmacies, as well as information gleaned from other sources, such as social media... The trade-off: Say goodbye to individual privacy. (David Lazarus, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: What We Don’t Know About Superbugs Could Kill Us
The United Nations General Assembly sounded the alarm last month on superbugs, antibiotic-resistant organisms that are cropping up with disturbing frequency around the world and rendering formerly tamed foes into new threats. Among them: a new strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis and an E.coli that’s impervious to the strongest medicine we’ve got. The bacteria that cause gonorrhea may soon be untreatable by all current antibiotics too. (10/12)

Los Angeles Times: More On Mylan's EpiPen Profiteering: It Allegedly Ripped Off Medicaid Too 
Very quietly, on the Friday before a long federal holiday weekend, Mylan last week paid $465 million to stifle government allegations that it had systematically overcharged Medicaid for its notorious EpiPen medical device. This sum is, amazingly, well more than twice the $185 million paid by Wells Fargo over charges that its bankers systematically ripped off and stole the identities of their clients, but it hasn’t received an iota of the attention of the Wells scandal. Let’s redress the balance just a bit. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Brain For Life
Nutrition is only one factor in keeping the brain healthy. Regular physical activity is crucial. Exercising the mind is a no-brainer when it comes to a healthy and alert brain. The fourth, perhaps less obvious, factor is regular social interaction. (Beth Wood, 10/11)