What Caught Our Eye: AHCA Analysis; Trump Proposes Huge Cuts to NIH; Young People & Colon Cancer; Rx Sticker Shock

“The Lessions of Obamacare: What Republicans Should Have Learned but Haven’t”

Vox.com

“It was strange circumstances Obama found himself in. He was leaving office an unusually popular president, with approval numbers nearing 60 percent. But his most important domestic achievement was imperiled. Republicans had spent years slamming Obamacare for high premiums, high deductibles, high copays, and daunting complexity. Donald Trump had won the White House in part by promising to repeal the ACA and replace it with ‘something terrific.’ Both houses of Congress would be controlled by Republicans who appeared set to carry out his plan.”

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“How will the House GOP Health Care Bill Affect Individual Market Premiums?”

Brookings Institute

“Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a comprehensive analysis of the American Health Care Act, which is currently being considered by the House of Representatives. While many reactions to the CBO analysis focused on how the AHCA would affect insurance coverage, the bill’s effects on individual market insurance premiums have also received considerable attention.”

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“Keep Your Plan? Not Under Trumpcare, Says Devastating CBO Report”

Forbes

“Are Republicans breaking not only their own campaign promises when it comes to their replacement for Obamacare, but the famous promise broken by former President Barack Obama, too?”

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“Trump Budget Calls for Slashing Biomedical and Science Research Funding”

Stat News

“President Trump’s proposed budget chops $6 billion, about a fifth of the total budget, from the National Institutes of Health, a move that could decimate biomedical research in a number of areas and stagger academic institutions around the country that depend on NIH grant money to keep their scientific research programs afloat.”
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“What Young People Need to Know About Colon Cancer”

New York Times Well Blog

“‘It was staring me in the face the whole time,’ said Ms. Debord, who lives in Minneapolis and has such advanced disease that she can never stop chemotherapy treatment. ‘I’d Google ‘blood in stool,’ and 10 different things would come up,’ including colon cancer, ‘but I thought colon cancer was only in older people.’

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“Sticker Shock Forces Thousands of Cancer Patients to Skip Drugs, Skimp on Treatment”

Kaiser Health News

“One-third of Medicare patients who were expected to use Gleevec — a lifesaving leukemia medication that costs up to $146,000 a year — failed to fill prescriptions within six months of diagnosis, according to a December study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.”

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