Viewpoints: American Health Care Needs A Reboot; Planned Parenthood Cuts Destroy Public Health
Opinion writers discuss these public health topics.
We must change the underlying valuation to reward cognitive health 鈥渃are鈥 services rather than high-tech 鈥渃ure鈥 services, doctor writes. (Daniel Plotkin, 11/10)
Let鈥檚 start with what this isn鈥檛. Ohio鈥檚 move to cut Planned Parenthood from participation in the Medicaid program isn鈥檛 about abortion 鈥 that鈥檚 already off the table for nearly all public funding. It鈥檚 about whether more than 27,000 low-income Ohioans will still have a place to turn for birth control, cancer screenings or treatment they couldn鈥檛 afford anywhere else. (Leila Atassi, 11/10)
In a landmark deal announced Thursday, President Donald Trump negotiated dramatically lower costs for weight-loss drugs produced by pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which could benefit Medicare and Medicaid patients, as well as Americans paying out of pocket. But here鈥檚 the skinny: What the president negotiated should not be reserved for big companies that play his game. (11/9)
The structure of medical education hasn鈥檛 fundamentally changed for 115 years. In 1910, medical education reformer Abraham Flexner helped turn a chaotic landscape of short-term proprietary schools, famous for producing 鈥渟nake oil salesmen,鈥 into today鈥檚 standardized, eight-year pipeline: four years of college followed by four years of medical school. At that time, this model made sense. Now it doesn鈥檛. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Emily K. Kim and Vitor B. de Souza, 11/10)
For every man older than 110, there are nine women. Before she died in August at age 117, supercentenarian Maria Branyas 鈥 the world鈥檚 oldest verified person 鈥 credited her bonus years not to any high-tech interventions but to eating lots of plain yogurt. (F.D. Flam, 11/8)