�鶹Ů��

The $160 billion deal to combine Pfizer and Allergan, the maker of Botox, does not appear to be illegal. But it should be. This merger is a tax-dodging maneuver that enriches shareholders and executives while shortchanging the public and robbing the Treasury of money that would pay for a host of government programs — including education, scientific research and other services that also benefit corporations. (11/24)

Pfizer’s $160 billion opus of financial engineering theoretically could pay off. On paper, merging with Allergan will result in hefty tax and cost savings worth barely more than the $30 billion premium that Pfizer is paying. In reality, though, giant drug deals often end up disappointing backers. As the biggest tax inversion deal ever, this one will annoy the United States political class, which is taking a bigger role in health care. And slamming together two drug giants often creates discord in the laboratory. (Robert Cyran, 11/23)

Pfizer is the largest drug maker in the United States, but after striking a deal on Monday to buy Allergan, the company is on the verge of becoming Irish. For shareholders, this may be their lucky charm. After the merger, Pfizer will be able to shift its legal headquarters from New York to Dublin and pay lower taxes, which should bolster its bottom line. But in the process, scientists are likely to lose their jobs, innovation may suffer, and consumers could pay more for Pfizer medicines. (Ed Silverman, 11/23)

Facebook has already revolutionized how we communicate, network and keep tabs on our exes. Might it — or at least its chief executive — soon “disrupt” parenting, too? On Friday company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he planned to go on paternity leave. And not just for a few perfunctory days, mind you, but two whole months. (The company offers its U.S. employees up to four months of paid parental leave.) It’s hard to overstate what a big deal this is. (Catherine Rampell, 11/23)

[F]ormer Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has engaged in rather shameless pandering to senior citizens. In an editorial penned last August ... he expressed great moral outrage at “Republicans have the nerve to grow government off the backs of seniors, and in the same breath force seniors to surrender the Social Security and Medicare benefits they have earned.” ... He claims to be “shocked by politicians who refuse to acknowledge the obvious: a promise is a promise. It’s your money!” There’s only two problems with this argument. First, virtually all proposals for entitlement reform–Republican or otherwise–”grandfather” today’s senior citizens. ... The second problem is the false claim that “it’s your money.” (Chris Conover, 11/23)

There are millions of people out there, like me, who are frustrated with the maddening obstacles to obtaining prescribed medications with your insurance. My doctor calls the system byzantine, a rip-off in which the government, including Medicare, is not permitted to negotiate costs with drug companies, instead allowing them to charge whatever they think the market will bear. ... Unfortunately, it is likely to take an act of Congress to change the current system, so we’re all stuck with it for some time to come, perhaps indefinitely. Within the system, however, it pays to know how to get what you need at the lowest cost and with the fewest hassles. (Jane E. Brody, 11/23)

Discussion of health care in this country has been dominated by Obamacare since debate about the law began in earnest before its passage in 2010. Now other issues such as rising drug prices and deductibles are edging onto the agenda. This was apparent last week when United Health Care said it would consider pulling out of the insurance marketplaces and a Department of Health and Human Services forum on drug prices also made headlines. A third issue may be joining the others as a top-tier health topic at the state and federal levels: the problem of painkiller and heroin abuse and addiction. Governors and candidates are paying more and more attention to this growing health problem. (Drew Altman, 11/24)

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota has been a very vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act. He sat down with Laura Landro, an assistant managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, to discuss why he thinks the law is flawed and what Republicans are offering as an alternative. (Landro, 11/23)

Leslie Dach, a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive, has been a senior counselor to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell for more than a year. With the Affordable Care Act’s third open-enrollment season under way, Mr. Dach sat down with Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Laura Landro to discuss how health-care policy is evolving. (Laura Landro, 11/23)

It matters a lot that the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce now favors expansion of KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, even though the endorsement has some conditions. Kansas so far has failed to join the 30 states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The step, which would be at least 90 percent financed by federal dollars, would cover about 150,000 low-income Kansans while helping offset painful federal reimbursement cuts to Kansas hospitals for uncompensated care. Chamber lobbyist Jason Watkins told the Kansas Health Institute News Service that the chamber board voted Thursday to add Medicaid expansion to its list of 2016 legislative priorities – a move reflecting the 70 percent support for expansion in a chamber member survey, as well as the influential advocacy of Via Christi Health and Wesley Medical Center. (Rhonda Holman, 11/23)

The age of terror is an age of shocks. Individuals, families and whole societies get torn apart by unexpected stabbings, shootings and bombings. It’s horrible, of course, but over the past few years the findings of academic research into the effects of these traumas have shifted in a more positive direction. Human beings are more resilient than we’d earlier thought. Many people bounce back from hard knocks and experience surges of post-traumatic growth. In the first place, post-traumatic stress disorder rates are lower than many of us imagine. ... The best general rule for all of society seems to be that at least 75 percent of the people who experience a life-threatening or violent event emerge without a stress disorder. (David Brooks, 11/24)

The practice of forced feeding has been highlighted by its use on hunger strikers in Guantánamo Bay and, more recently, in Israel, where a vigorous debate about the ethics of such a practice is taking place. But you don’t have to be in prison to have a feeding tube jammed up your nose. Millions of elderly Americans are fed through tubes despite a lack of substantial evidence pointing to any clinical benefit. ... Study after study, however, has shown that tube feeding doesn’t provide any benefit compared with feeding these patients by hand, which is more labor-intensive but much better for the patients. It doesn’t improve survival, reduce infections, reduce the incidence of aspiration pneumonia or improve patients’ nutritional status over those who are hand fed or even over patients not fed at all. (Haider Javed Warraich, 11/24)