FHI's Week in Review

Volume V, Issue 48

Nov. 26, 2018

Doctors Need to Learn More About Nutrition

My training allowed me to become a disease-care expert, not a health care specialist, family physician Eric Madrid reports in a Nov. 25, 2018 KevinMD post. The author regrets that he was taught little to nothing about nutrition and true disease prevention. Dr. Madrid goes on to cite a study that demonstrates a lack of nutritional education among the physician community.

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Thomas Edison envisioned that a "doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease." Sadly, the current health system incentivizes prescribing "a pill for every ill" instead. Who hasn't heard the truisms "you are what you eat" or "food is medicine" in their lifetime? Yet doctors and their patients all too often rely on pharmaceutical and surgical interventions to correct the ravages of a bad diet.

Top Democrat plans DOJ probe over refusal to defend the ACA in court

Eli Richman writes in a Fierce Healthcare post dated 11.20.18:

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is demanding to know why the Department of Justice refused to defend the Affordable Care Act against legal challenges-this time taking his request to Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. He signaled that Democrats would be investigating the DOJ's decision under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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According to the author:

Nadler's letter to Whitaker carries extra weight given the results of the 2018 midterm elections. Come January, Nadler will be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a position he promised to use to probe the DOJ's actions further.

Lobbyist Documents Reveal Health Care Industry Battle Plan Against "Medicare for All"

Lee Fang & Nick Surgey report for the Intercept in an 11.20.18 post:

Over the summer, leading pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital lobbyists formed the Partnership for America's Health Care Future, an ad hoc alliance of private health interests, to curb support for expanding Medicare. The campaign, according to one planning document, is designed to "change the conversation around Medicare for All," then "minimize the potential for this option in health care from becoming part of a national political party's platform in 2020."

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"What we're seeing is the wages of success: With single payer on the rise, it was only a matter of time before the insurance companies, big pharma, and other big-money groups came out swinging," said Adam Gaffney, president-elect of Physicians for a National Health Program and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.