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If it wasn’t already clear that the U.S. does a poor job of investing in things that keep people healthy, the coronavirus crisis and its disproportionate effects on people of color has made this abundantly clear — even though we spend more per capita on health care than any other nation. If we could tie more of that investment to low-cost preventive services that deliver positive health outcomes, we could keep more people healthy in “normal” times as well as during a pandemic. (Eric Letsinger and Alison Rein, 7/15)

The End of Life Option Act was terribly controversial as it worked its way through the California Legislature. But since it became law in 2016, it has not led to the horror scenarios opponents had conjured, and newly released statistics suggest that it has enabled more than 1,200 terminally ill people to end their lives on their own terms with dignity and a minimum of pain and suffering.In fact, the law — under which terminally ill people with six months or less to live may request drugs from a doctor to end their lives — has been so successful that it’s time to do the unthinkable by loosening and expanding it. That includes streamlining some unnecessary regulatory roadblocks and passing similar laws in the 41 states that currently don’t have them. And I’d go even beyond that. I believe that we should make more people eligible to participate in what’s come to be known as “aid in dying,” if they choose to. Alzheimer’s patients and others facing dementia seem like an obvious place to start, although policymakers also could consider people with certain degenerative diseases or those living in chronic pain, even if they aren’t within six months of death. (Nicholas Goldberg, 7/15)

Vigilance is a necessity in the investigation of every hanging. Recently, protesters called for an investigation of the death of Titi Gurley, also known as Tete, a 31-year-old Black transgender woman who was found hanging in Portland, Ore., on May 27, 2019. Her death was ruled a suicide. There is evidence that suggests otherwise. We need answers, particularly when the American Medical Association declared violence against transgender people — which disproportionately affects Black trans women — as an epidemic. (Jeneé Osterheldt, 7/13))

As the Covid-19 pandemic reshapes how medicine is practiced in the U.S., one iconic tool could be relegated to the dustbin of medical history: the stethoscope... We are entering the era of point-of-care ultrasound, which relies on higher-frequency sound waves than its stethoscope predecessor. It is a hand-held device equipped with the ability to both emit sound waves and interpret them as they reflect off structures of interest, similar to how a bat uses sonar to navigate its surroundings. (Larry Istrail, 7/15)

As Americans tried to sleep Monday night — through a global pandemic, an imploding economy, and the challenge presented by structural racism and police violence in the Black community — their federal government was hard at work. The Department of Justice kept federal judges in courts, slashing through the remaining obstacles to resuming federal executions after a nearly 20-year hiatus. (David Cole, 7/15)

Health care policy can be simplified to answering the basic question of who gets covered and at what cost. Universal coverage was once championed only by the most progressive. Then came COVID-19. (Dr. Li Tso, 7/14)

So long as California law tethers nurse practitioners to physicians, fewer can serve rural populations.A proven solution and a step toward addressing these problems is expanding nurse practitioners’ scope of practice to the level of their training, as Assembly Bill 890, now pending in the state Senate, would do. (Kathryn Hallstein, 7/10)