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The partisan debates raging across the U.S. are often framed as a battle for the nation’s soul. The battle for our nation’s organs, however, is a distinctly more bipartisan affair. Both President Trump — via executive order — and elected officials from both parties are pushing for reforms to improve the U.S. organ donation system in order to save lives and taxpayer dollars. (Laura Arnold and John Arnold, 7/24)

As medical students who will all take an oath to uphold the highest standard of patient care, we are profoundly disturbed by the detrimental treatment of detained migrants. As future public servants, we dedicate our careers to the health of all human beings, regardless of race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, ability, religion or country of origin. Current practices by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) blatantly disregard and endanger detainees' health and well-being, and directly oppose our values and beliefs. (Thomas Pak and Neha Siddiqui, 7/23)

When it comes to health insurance, President Trump is certainly trying to do his best by way of small businesses. Ask any small business owner and they'll tell you that providing affordable and competitive health insurance is an enormous challenge in these days of continued cost escalation and competition from larger companies. Health care – now expected by most employees and demanded by the dwindling number of qualified job applications in this low-unemployment economy – ranks among a small business owner's top expenses. (Gene Marks, 7/23)

Greater transparency has always been a source of anxiety for many healthcare industry stakeholders. When I was the founding CEO of the Leapfrog Group, verbal rotten tomatoes were often launched my way when speaking to hospital leaders about the insights into hospital quality and safety sought by employers. The argument: There is no easy, accurate and fair way to measure quality, much less report it publicly. Over the last decade, the voice of employers seeking transparency into healthcare prices and quality has been amplified, and healthcare providers and payers have warned about unintended consequences. (Suzanne Delbanco, 7/20)

The Trump administration has learned that some food stamp recipients may have a few hundred dollars in the bank, and the administration is on it. So it is responding to this emergency by taking steps that could take food stamps away from 3.1 million Americans who rely on them to eat. This is a story about government and budgets and bureaucracy, but it’s also a story about philosophy. One way to think about it is to ask this question: Which makes you angrier, a child going hungry, or someone getting a government benefit who might be able to do without it? (Paul Waldman, 7/23)

"Tropical parasites in our food? No way!” most Americans think. It’s time to think again. In May Hawaii’s Department of Health announced three more cases of rat lungworm in recent visitors. Already endemic in Hawaii, Asia, Australia, Brazil and the Caribbean, the exotic foodborne menace is also emerging in Florida and other southeastern states. (Claire Panosian Dunavan and Stephen Ostroff, 7/23)  

Health care is a deeply partisan issue, as the presidential campaign makes clear every day. Yet beneath the bitter debates and far from the daily headlines, Republicans and Democrats have quietly come to agree on one reform with far-reaching consequences: transforming our century-old system for paying doctors for the care they provide from one based on fee-for-service visits, tests, and hospital admissions to one based on quality of care, health outcomes, and patient satisfaction, otherwise known as value-based care. (Andrew Dreyfus, 7/24)

The fascinating thing about economic research is that it moves in ways that often can’t be anticipated. Sometimes, your assumptions are upended. I was recently part of a research team that showed that people living in states with relatively high taxes tended over time to move to states with lower taxes. Case in point: The states with the highest rates of taxation — New Jersey, California and New York — also had the highest levels and rates of net outward migration. (James Doti, 7/23)

United States of Care is a nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the goal of every American having access to quality and affordable healthcare. "The health of our nation is more important than any political party or partisan victory. United States of Care will chart a path toward a long-term healthcare solution, starting by checking allegiances at the door and putting the patient—our citizens—first." Dr. Bill Frist, former U.S. Senate majority leader and current USofC board member, said these words at our founding just one year ago. We continue to live by them. (Kristin Wikelius, 7/23)

A draft of the Lower Health Care Costs Act circulated by the U.S. Senate’s powerful Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee includes a provision that would drastically change how the U.S. develops standards for the strength, quality, and purity of medicines, particularly cutting-edge biologics and biosimilars. Unlike traditional small-molecule chemical drugs, like aspirin, manufactured using biochemical processes, biologics are large, complex molecules produced in living organisms. (Liam Sigaud, 7/23)

It's unclear whether or not the 11-year-old was the intended target. It’s unimaginable that an 11-year-old would ever be an intended target, but we have not ruled that out at this point.” That was D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham on Monday discussing the fatal shooting four days earlier of Karon Brown in Southeast Washington. Indeed, there is much that is unimaginable about the death of this child. How a simple walk in his neighborhood to a McDonald’s on a hot summer night turned fatal. How his mother is now making plans to bury her son instead of getting him ready for sixth grade. How her other children are trying to cope with what happened. “I still can’t believe it,” said Kathren Brown, Karon’s mother. “I am waiting for someone to say all this did not just happen.” (7/22)

While obsessing over President Donald Trump’s racist rants and his supporters’ hateful chants, Americans could easily have missed the awful news from thousands of miles away in Kyoto, Japan. Last Thursday, as Trump was facing a firestorm over his raucous campaign rally, a 41-year-old man aired his grievance against Kyoto Animation by means of a literal firestorm. Shouting, “You die!”, the enraged assailant doused the three-story anime studio with gasoline and then set it ablaze. By the time the smoke had cleared, 34 employees — mostly young women — were dead and nearly three dozen were injured. (James Alan Fox, 7/23)

Contrary to popular belief, the story of HIV in Atlanta has never been about white gay men with resources. The story is black gay men with few resources. If you’re wondering why that’s important, here’s your answer: The vast majority of people newly diagnosed and living with HIV are African American and living in metro Atlanta.That might not surprise a lot of people, but maybe this will. An end to the epidemic might be near. (Gracie Bonds Staples, 7/19)