Titled “The Ethical Mess of Our Health Care System,” the duo, who recently wrote a book on the history of bioethics, detail, as an example, the exorbitant cost for mostly taxpayers of guaranteed treatment for Medicare patients with end-stage renal disease.
A broad ethical question arises: Why is renal dialysis worthy of such generous federal funding compared to lifesaving treatments for other deadly diseases?
The Trump administration, the authors note, is now proposing to rein in costs for the so-called “one-disease carve-out,” in ways that won’t undermine care and will be both cost-saving and lifesaving.
But the administration’s plan, Gutmann and Moreno say, “underscores the absurdity of our current health care debate: It would revamp the program using a provision of the ACA. that authorizes the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test models of care that work in the private sector and that can enhance service to patients while also reducing costs. This is, of course, the same health care law that Mr. Trump has pledged to dismantle, including by ordering the Justice Department not to defend it in a major challenge heading to the Supreme Court.”
The ACA could help patients by, for instance, reducing the high costs of drugs, copays, and deductibles, the authors note. But instead of calling for a rework, Republicans and now even many Democrats—as seen in the recent Democratic debate—are threatening to dismember the law.
“That would be a tragic mistake when there is nothing close to a consensus on how to replace it,” Gutmann and Moreno explain.
It’s a worthy, non-utopian goal to reduce the uneven, complicated nature of health care coverage, the authors insist. “By revising and reinforcing the ACA, we can benefit all Americans without threatening any with the loss of hard-fought, lifesaving health coverage.”
“Surely our fellow Americans with life-threatening diseases of all sorts are also worth saving.”
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
