Closer Look
'Still a lot of stigma, but it's a lot less': Rep. Adam Smith shares his mental health story
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Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) hit rock bottom in April 2016, crushed by anxiety and chronic pain, he writes in his new memoir, "Lost and Broken." Other lawmakers have opened up about their struggles in recent years, including Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on his clinical depression after a stroke last year and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) on her depression. Some highlights from Smith's conversation with STAT's Sarah Owermohle:
On criticism of Fetterman when he checked into an inpatient program: "There are responsibilities that come with the job, and if you are taking on an obligation, you have to be able to meet that obligation. I believe in the capacity of people to get better."
On stigma: "My colleague said, 'I've been struggling with a lot of those issues before. And I read your book, and I was like, it's okay to talk about this.' There's still a lot of stigma, but it's a lot less."
Read more.
hospitals
Good luck with hospital price comparison shopping
Over the years government health agencies and health advocates alike have labored to pry open the black box of hospital prices. Even if you don't see yourself comparison-shopping for medical imaging or some other procedure, you might hope that if you did, prices would be available — and consistent. After all, Medicare's Hospital Price Transparency Rule requires hospitals to disclose cash prices and commercial payer–specific negotiated rates for 70 clinical services deemed to be shoppable.
New research in JAMA Internal Medicine tested two of those services at 60 U.S. hospitals, equally split among top-ranked, safety-net, and non–top-ranked, non–safety-net. Fewer than half of the hospitals offered prices online, and when prices were available both online and over the phone, most didn't match. For vaginal childbirth, prices were the same online or on the phone for only 3 of 22 hospitals, and for brain MRI, for 9 of 47 hospitals.
health
Job stress takes a toll on the heart
Work stress can break your heart, at least if you're a man working a white-collar job, according to a new study in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes that followed people in Quebec for 18 years. The researchers found an association between coronary heart disease and two working conditions: job strain, when high job demands are met with low control over work, plus an effort-reward imbalance, when effort is high but salary, recognition, or job security are low.
Compared to people who didn't experience work stress, men who reported either form of it had a 49% higher risk of coronary heart disease and double the risk if they had both — about the same risk as obesity. For women, the results were inconclusive. Two possible explanations suggested by the authors as they urge more studies: Men had a higher prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol than women, and women tend to have later onset of coronary heart disease than men.
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