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What Caught Our Eye: Health Care Repeal News; John McCain’s Diagnosis & Debate Over Cancer “Battle” Words; Drug Pricing; Cancer Screenings

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What Caught Our Eye (WCOE), July 21, 2017
What Caught Our Eye is our week-in-review blog series, where we recap the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention.

In the Spotlight

“These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In.”

By Kate Zernike & Abby Goodnough, New York Times
Five years ago, the Affordable Care Act had yet to begin its expansion of health insurance to millions of Americans, but Jeff Brahin was already stewing about it. “It’s going to cost a fortune,” he said in an interview at the time.

This week, as Republican efforts to repeal the law known as Obamacare appeared all but dead, Mr. Brahin, a 58-year-old lawyer and self-described fiscal hawk, said his feelings had evolved. “As much as I was against it,” he said, “at this point I’m against the repeal.”

“Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the insurance away from these people,” he added. “It’s just not the right thing to do.”
Read More »

Affordable Care Act

“Analysis: GOP Failure to Replace the Health Law Was Years in the Making”

By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News — Seven years of Republican vows to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act came to a crashing halt Tuesday, when it became clear that the Senate could not muster the necessary votes for any of three separate proposals that have been under consideration.
Read More »

“Podcast: What The Health? Senate Health Bill, Mostly Dead?”

From Kaiser Health News — The news about the Senate’s health care bill this week was hard to follow and seemingly changed by the minute. Check out Julie Rovner’s “What the Health?” podcast for a great explainer on where the bill stands. Her special guests this week are Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal, Sarah Kliff of Vox.com, and Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times.
Listen/download the episode »

“How hospitals got richer off Obamacare”

By Dan Diamond, Politico — A decade after the nation’s top hospitals used all their advertising and lobbying clout to keep their tax-exempt status, pointing to their vast givebacks to their communities, they have seen their revenue soar while cutting back on the very givebacks they were touting, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Read More »

Coping With Cancer

“Grappling with Cancers like John McCain’s Glioblastoma that Break all the Rules”

By David F. Arons, Stat News — Arizona Sen. John McCain’s recent diagnosis of the hard-to-treat cancer glioblastoma stands in contrast to recent media reports that paint an optimistic picture of cancer treatment in America. A sampling of headlines includes “Cancer survival rates at all-time high” and “Cancer death rates continue to decrease in the United States.
Read More »

“He’s a Fighter”

By James Hamblin, The Atlantic — Eighty-year-old Senator John McCain has been diagnosed with glioblastoma, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The cancer that is being described in news reports as it is in medical texts, as an “aggressive brain tumor.”

The weight of that diagnosis hasn’t registered in all quarters. For the average man his age, the tumor means the odds of surviving five years are in the single digits. There are outliers, but a bet on many years of life for McCain is vanishing. Still, the message from past and present American leaders has been that McCain is no average man. He is a fighter.
Read More »

“Stop Saying John McCain will Beat Cancer Because He’s a Fighter”

By Philip A. Klein, Washington Examiner — The news that Sen. John McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer has been greeted with a deserved bipartisan outpouring of sympathy. But in their efforts to honor the legacy and fighting spirit of an American hero, many well-wishers are reacting in a way that is counterproductive and unhelpful to those faced with a horrible disease.
Read More »

Cancer Policy

“Congress Squares Off Over Drug Pricing and A Controversial Drug Discount Program”

By Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News — House Democrats are calling foul on Republican assertions that cuts to a little-known discount drug program will eventually reduce skyrocketing drug prices.
Read More »

Cancer News

“Fewer Cancer Cases, More Cancer Deaths in Rural America”

By Ann Pietrangelo, Healthline — …A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details cancer incidence and cancer death disparities in rural areas compared with urban areas.
Read More »

“With Cancer Screening, Better Safe than Sorry?”

By Jane E. Brody, New York Times Well Blog — Doctors and medical organizations often advise that past a certain age, older adults can forgo various screening tests for cancer. But many patients, no matter how old or sick they may be are reluctant to abandon tests they’ve long been told can be lifesaving.
Read More »

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