�鶹Ů��

An important new study shows that the poor in some cities, like New York and San Francisco, live longer than those with similar incomes in places like Detroit and Oklahoma City. The findings could help local and state governments figure out what they can do, or do better, to help people live longer and healthier lives. Researchers long ago found that the rich tend to live longer than the poor. What’s striking about the new research, which was published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is that where people live also makes a big difference. (4/18)

Another General Assembly has adjourned without tackling the addiction that kills the most Kentuckians — tobacco. We are reminded of this by the 2016 County Health Rankings released last month; the places where smoking rates are highest have the worst health outcomes. We’re reminded also by The Washington Post’s exploration of why death rates are rising among rural women. A complex web of stressors, opioid addiction (thanks again, Purdue Pharma) and suicide help account for why death rates among rural white women are outpacing those of men and urban women. One of the killers is smoking; lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer. (4/15)

The World Economic Forum reproduced Holzman's graphic for a discussion of the implications of the trend, which roughly parallels that in the rest of the world. "The potential consequences of an aging population," observes the WEF, "include economic pressure on healthcare and other welfare systems and a much smaller working-age population relative to the elderly." (Michael Hiltzik, 4/16)

Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death in children in the United States. Yet pediatric cancer is often left behind when it comes to funding research and developing new drugs. Not only does this give short shrift to children with cancer, but it also threatens to rob us of advances that could benefit cancer patients of all ages. That’s what I and fellow members of the Coalition for Pediatric Medical Research told the staff of Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading the cancer “moonshot.” We recently met in Biden’s Washington office to make the case that childhood cancer must be represented as the government considers ways to propel cancer research. (David A. Williams, 4/14)

The skeptics were out in force last week when the CMS launched a major expansion of its comprehensive primary care initiative. They are way off base. It is a bold move and long overdue. Rank-and-file primary-care physicians—not only the limited number who participate in accountable care organizations—need significant financial incentives to coordinate care if we're going to dismantle our wasteful and inefficient fee-for-service payment system. Even if the program doesn't save money, it's the right thing to do for patients and the healthcare system. (Merrill Goozner, 4/16)

In the late 1970s, the nation belatedly learned about Love Canal, the toxic waste dump near Niagara Falls that sickened hundreds of people and led to a whole neighborhood being demolished. (4/17)

If you want to know why so many liberal policy wonks are exasperated with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — and why so many Sanders supporters are exasperated with liberal policy wonks — you’ll find the answer in an unexciting but revealing statement Hillary Clinton made during Thursday night’s debate in Brooklyn. The subject was a familiar one: health care. (Jonathan Cohn, 4/17)

After Ronald Reagan became America's most recognizable Alzheimer's patient, well-meaning friends, relatives and even strangers would routinely stop his daughter, Patti Davis, to ask: "How is he doing?" Only occasionally would someone ask, "And how are you doing?" (Rene Lynch, 4/16)

I’m 74 years old, and I have smoked marijuana almost every day since dinosaurs roamed the earth in the early ’70s. When my awareness is heightened, I’m on my game — the best I can be at thinking creatively, making decisions, focusing on my work, seeing the big picture ... and caregiving. For 20 years my wife, Anne, has struggled gallantly against the physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual depredations of Parkinson’s disease. For the first 15, I took care of her myself. Now I have lots of help. Either way, enjoying a hit or two on the pipe every couple of hours has granted me tens of thousands of sweet clemencies that keep me from burning out as a caregiver. (Tom Huth, 4/16)

A core tenet of keeping faith with the men and women who serve in the United States military and their families is to provide them with the best quality health care. It is a central tenet of our promise to those who serve and sacrifice to defend the nation. In recent years, however, the defense health system has not kept pace with cutting-edge developments in civilian health care that help to deliver better health outcomes. (Michele Flournoy and Stephen Ondra, 4/18)

The governor and the overwhelming majority of the legislature — all Democrats and a majority of Republicans — support continuing the private option via "Arkansas Works," signed into law last week. The private option has cut the state's uninsured rate by more than half, brings in billions of federal dollars into the state's economy, saves hospitals hundreds of millions in uncompensated care costs, and saves hundreds of millions more for the state budget. However, a rump group of ten Republican senators are so committed to taking health coverage away from those 267,000 people that they have threatened to shut down the entire Medicaid program unless the majority caves to their demands. The governor's proposed line-item-veto maneuver would allow the Tea Party Ten to make a meaningless show vote. (David Ramsey, 4/16)

The Virginia General Assembly adjourned this month without expanding Medicaid. This is a clear challenge to the city of Alexandria’s fiscal and economic vitality, and, more important, it is a significant threat to the health, well-being and quality of life of many of our most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged citizens. (Dan Hawkins, Richard Merritt and William D. Euille, 4/15)

For decades, Planned Parenthood has won bipartisan support across the Granite State and nationwide for its dedication to providing women with accessible, affordable reproductive health care, which is essential to the economic security and vitality of our families. (Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, 4/16)

Dr. A. Patrick Schneider II, in his attempt to claim “personhood” for a fertilized egg, is the one who actually ignores science in his April 4 commentary, “When life begins: Science ignored.” Here is what, to use his expression, “science really says.” Fertilization is the process in which a spermatozoon and ovum (egg) fuse, with the resultant entity designated a zygote. Conception, which is the onset of pregnancy, begins when the zygote, which has now developed into a blastocyst, implants in the endometrium of the uterus; typically occurring approximately seven days after fertilization. Biomedical science estimates that nature aborts about 55 percent of all fertilized eggs (zygotes) before they can be implanted in the endometrium, likely due to genetic abnormalities. (Dr. David Nash, 4/17)