Trump heads to a Covid-19 hotspot
One week after being hospitalized for Covid-19, Trump is officially back on the campaign trail. He held a rally last night in Florida and is set to visit Pennsylvania, Iowa, and North Carolina later this week.
In a new story for STAT, I explain why Trump’s trip to Iowa is particularly concerning. The state is in the midst of a Covid-19 surge — so much so that even Trump’s own coronavirus task force has warned state leaders that the state is experiencing an uptick in “preventable deaths.”
Public health departments are also in a long-simmering war with the state’s Republican governor, who has refused to enforce a statewide mask mandate and has enacted quarantine policies that conflict with the CDC’s best practices.
All of those factors together are making public health officials very worried.
“We don’t need a superspreader event in Iowa,” Lina Tucker Reinders, the executive director of the Iowa Public Health Association told me. “Our local public health departments are so tasked already.”
Read more here.
In a new story for STAT, I explain why Trump’s trip to Iowa is particularly concerning. The state is in the midst of a Covid-19 surge — so much so that even Trump’s own coronavirus task force has warned state leaders that the state is experiencing an uptick in “preventable deaths.”
Public health departments are also in a long-simmering war with the state’s Republican governor, who has refused to enforce a statewide mask mandate and has enacted quarantine policies that conflict with the CDC’s best practices.
All of those factors together are making public health officials very worried.
“We don’t need a superspreader event in Iowa,” Lina Tucker Reinders, the executive director of the Iowa Public Health Association told me. “Our local public health departments are so tasked already.”
Read more here.
Unpacking yesterday's Affordable Care Act SCOTUS hearing
On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first day of hearings on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act loomed large. Democrats on the panel, including Vice Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, insisted that Coney Barrett would dismantle the law.
Democrats came armed with poster board-sized photos of constituents with preexisting conditions, and groups like Protect Our Care ran TV ads urging viewers to lobby against her nomination. Democrats argued that Republicans were pushing through Coney Barrett’s nomination so she could be the deciding vote on the Supreme Court’s upcoming Affordable Care Act case, which is set to be argued on Nov. 10.
Democrats’ insistence that Coney Barrett would overturn the Affordable Care Act comes from a 2017 law review article in which she criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for purposefully miconstruding the statute to save the law during an earlier challenge to its constitutionality. She argued that if he had not done so, he “would have had to invalidate the statute.” You can read that law review article here.
Democrats came armed with poster board-sized photos of constituents with preexisting conditions, and groups like Protect Our Care ran TV ads urging viewers to lobby against her nomination. Democrats argued that Republicans were pushing through Coney Barrett’s nomination so she could be the deciding vote on the Supreme Court’s upcoming Affordable Care Act case, which is set to be argued on Nov. 10.
Democrats’ insistence that Coney Barrett would overturn the Affordable Care Act comes from a 2017 law review article in which she criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for purposefully miconstruding the statute to save the law during an earlier challenge to its constitutionality. She argued that if he had not done so, he “would have had to invalidate the statute.” You can read that law review article here.
Tonight: Trump and Biden campaigns duel on drug pricing
Representatives from both the Trump and Biden campaigns will participate in a drug pricing town hall on Tuesday evening, hosted by the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs Now.
It’s still not clear who will be participating. A spokesperson for Patients for Affordable Drugs Now said that “two senior policy surrogates from the campaigns,” will be attending. But they declined to share the speakers’ names.
Biden’s surrogate may have an easier time tomorrow night. The former vice president has a fleshed out drug pricing platform that includes a number of Democratic priorities, like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and setting up an independent entity that would set the price for certain high cost drugs. The Trump campaign, however, has vacillated wildly, at times claiming the president has already lowered drug prices and at other moments, touting a number of yet-to-be-implemented policies.
Biden’s surrogate may have an easier time tomorrow night. The former vice president has a fleshed out drug pricing platform that includes a number of Democratic priorities, like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and setting up an independent entity that would set the price for certain high cost drugs. The Trump campaign, however, has vacillated wildly, at times claiming the president has already lowered drug prices and at other moments, touting a number of yet-to-be-implemented policies.
Patient advocates want to undo many of Trump's health care policies
More than 30 of the nation’s largest patient advocacy groups are out with a new blueprint outlining the health care policy changes they’d like to see enacted in the first 100 days of a new presidency.
“This is unusual for us: it’s the first time our organizations have come together to create a shared policy agenda ahead of a presidential election. Given the stakes, we felt like we had to act,” explained Ryan Holeywell, senior director of advocacy communications for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
One thing is clear from reading the blueprint: Patient advocates don't like a number of the changes the Trump administration has made to health care over the last four years, especially when it comes to Medicaid.
Among the changes they’d like to see:
- Eliminating Medicaid work requirements
- Rescinding the administration’s guidance that would let states fund their Medicaid programs through so-called block grants
- Withdrawing a 2018 proposal that would weaken a number of patient protections for so-called Medicaid managed care plans
- Withdrawing a proposal from the White House to change how it calculates poverty, which the groups argue could make it harder for patients to qualify for federal health programs like Medicare’s low-income subsidy
- Reversing an earlier change that allowed insurers to more easily sell skimpy short-term health plans
- Reversing the administration's position on the lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act
The blueprint can be found here.
STAT stories you may have missed
STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur unpacks how historically black colleges and universities are attempting to help recruit for Covid-19 trials, and the backlash that has ensued.
Moderna isn’t going to enforce it’s Covid-19 vaccine patents, but that’s still not satisfying advocates.
The inside tale of the pugnacious duo behind President Trump’s new favorite drug company, Regeneron.
How CRISPR changed science and led to a Nobel prize.
The FDA is cracking down on a company once touted by President Trump.
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