First Edition: August 8, 2017
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
S.C. Taps Private Donors To Expand In-Home Services For At-Risk Moms
Deona Scott was 24 and in her final semester at Charleston Southern University in South Carolina when she found out she was pregnant. She turned to Medicaid for maternity health coverage and learned about a free program for first-time mothers that could connect her with a nurse to answer questions about pregnancy and caring for her baby. The nurse would come to her home throughout her pregnancy and for two years after her child’s birth. (Andrews, 8/8)
Kaiser Health News:
Health Gap Widens Between Appalachia And Rest Of The U.S.
Sandy Willhite doesn’t mind driving 45 minutes to the nearest shopping center. But living in Hillsboro, W.Va., became problematic when she had to travel nearly six hours for proper foot treatment. “There just aren’t any quality surgeons or specialists in our area,” Willhite said, when explaining why she went to a doctor in Laurel, Md. (Connor, 8/7)
The New York Times:
Facing Trump Subsidy Cuts, Health Insurance Officials Seek A Backup Plan
Congress is on vacation, but state insurance commissioners have no time off. They have spent the past three days debating what to do if President Trump stops subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of millions of low-income people. For administration officials and many in Congress, the subsidies are a political and legal issue in a fight over the future of the Affordable Care Act. But for state officials, gathered here at the summer meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the subsidies are a more immediate, practical concern. (Pear, 8/7)
The Associated Press:
Bipartisan Experts Urge Next Steps On Health Care Push
A group of conservative and liberal health policy experts is pressing the Trump administration and Congress to take steps to quickly shore up coverage under the Obama health care law, an idea that's been anathema to President Donald Trump and many congressional Republicans. The plan, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, includes continuing federal payments to insurers Trump has threatened to block. It says Trump and lawmakers should find a way for people to buy coverage in the handful of counties that may have no insurers next year in the federal and state insurance exchanges created by President Barack Obama's statute. (8/8)
Los Angeles Times:
'May You Die In Pain': California GOP Congressman Gets An Earful At Town Hall
“May you die in pain.” That was the nastiest moment of Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa's early morning town hall in the Northern California town of Chico on Monday. The wish was uttered by an older man who criticized LaMalfa for voting for the House GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. He was also holding a pink sign that read “Lackey for the Rich!" (Willon, 8/7)
USA Today:
Churches, Community Groups Step Up To Address Black Health Disparities
In a small room down the hall in the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, about two dozen people listened one recent afternoon as Donald Solomon rattled off ailments ravaging African-American communities. “We’re a sick crowd … Whatever is wrong in the country, we have it worse. We need to get health into the church,” said Solomon, a founder of Congregations for Public Health and co-author of Body and Soul, a healthy living guide for church leaders. (Berry, 8/7)
Reuters:
Anthem To Pare Back Obamacare Offerings In Nevada And Georgia
U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc said on Monday it will no longer offer Obamacare plans in Nevada's state exchange and will stop offering the plans in nearly half of Georgia's counties next year.The moves come after Republican senators last month failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law, creating uncertainty over how the program providing health benefits to 20 million Americans will be funded and managed in 2018. (Erman and Berkrot, 8/7)
Los Angeles Times:
U.S. Appeals Court Says Medi-Cal Cut To Hospitals Was Illegal
A U.S. appeals court decided Monday that the federal government wrongly approved California’s request to temporarily cut Medi-Cal reimbursement by 10% during the recession for hospital outpatient care. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the federal government can approve such cuts only if evidence shows that the recipients of aid will have access to the same services as the general population. ... If the ruling stands, the state and the federal government will have to pay back California hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars, said Robert Leventhal, who represented more than 50 California hospitals in the challenge. (Dolan, 8/7)
The Washington Post:
Deaths From Drug Overdoses Soared In The First Nine Months Of 2016
Deaths from drug overdoses rose sharply in the first nine months of 2016, the government reported Tuesday, releasing data that confirm the widely held belief that the opioid epidemic worsened last year despite stepped-up efforts by public health authorities. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that overdose deaths reached a record 19.9 per 100,000 population in the third quarter, a big increase over the 16.7 recorded for the same three months in 2015. Similarly, the first two quarters of last year showed death rates of 18.9 and 19.3, far greater than the corresponding periods for 2015. Data for the fourth quarter of 2016 are not yet available. (Bernstein, 8/8)
The Associated Press:
Report Reveals Underground US Haven For Heroin, Drug Users
A safe haven where drug users inject themselves with heroin and other drugs has been quietly operating in the United States for the past three years, a report reveals. None were known to exist in the U.S. until the disclosure in a medical journal, although several states and cities are pushing to establish these so-called supervised injection sites where users can shoot up under the care of trained staff who can treat an overdose if necessary. (Stobbe, 8/8)
The Associated Press:
Infant Mortality Disparity Grows In Appalachia, Study Finds
Placing much of the blame on smoking, a study chronicling the ongoing health crisis in Appalachia has concluded that the 13-state region suffers from a growing disparity in infant mortality and life expectancy, two key indicators of "a nation's health and well-being." The study , published in the August issue of Health Affairs, compared infant mortality and life expectancy rates in Appalachia with the rest of the United States between 1990 and 2013. It found while the rates were similar in the 1990s, by 2013 infant mortality across Appalachia was 16 percent higher than the rest of the country while life expectancy for adults was 2.4 years shorter. (8/7)
The Washington Post:
The Once-Whispered Topic Of Women’s Menstruation Now Has Political Cachet
A topic that for so long was rarely discussed above a whisper has recently been taken up by growing numbers of lawmakers. Spurred by grass-roots activism aimed at lifting the stigma surrounding menstruation, the lawmakers are proposing measures to provide broad access to menstrual products for women. Their efforts include exempting tampons and pads from state and local taxes, compelling prisons to stop charging inmates for the supplies and making them available for free at public schools and workplaces. (Chandler, 8/7)
The New York Times:
Researchers Track An Unlikely Culprit In Weight Gain
For middle-aged women struggling with their weight, a recent spate of scientific findings sounds too good to be true. And they may be, researchers caution. Studies in mice indicate that a single hormone whose levels rise at menopause could be responsible for a characteristic redistribution of weight in middle age to the abdomen, turning many women from “pears” to “apples.” At the same time, the hormone may spur the loss of bone. (Kolata, 8/7)
The Washington Post:
Some Schools Don't Let Kids Bring In Sunscreen Without A Doctor's Note
State Rep. Craig Hall of Utah has four redheaded children, lives in the state with the highest rate of melanoma in the country and buys sunscreen “in the Costco size.” He is an unabashed proponent of sun protection. But when Hall, a Republican, introduced legislation this year to allow kids to bring sunscreen to school — which starts Aug. 21 in his district — he said his fellow lawmakers were less enthusiastic. “My colleagues’ first reaction to this bill was mostly ‘Seriously? We need a bill for this?’" (Moore, 8/7)
The New York Times:
Rapid Malaria Tests Work, But With Unexpected Drawbacks
Rapid diagnostic tests have greatly improved malaria treatment in the last decade, but they also had some unexpected bad consequences, a large new study has found. As hoped, the tests — which use only a drop of blood and provide results in about 15 minutes — substantially decreased how many patients with fever were incorrectly given or sold malaria drugs when they did not have malaria. (McNeil, 8/7)
NPR:
Smartphones Are Making Today's Teens Unhappy, Psychologist Says
For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012: "iGen." She says members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less, they learn to drive later and they're holding off on having sex. But psychologically, she argues, they are far more vulnerable. (Cornish, 8/7)
The Washington Post:
Her Daughters Floppy Limps And Poor Muscle Tone Were A Medical Mystery Until A Lucky Enounter And A Complex Diagnosis
Elena Silva gripped her cellphone, struggling to convey a sense of urgency to her husband, Brian Woodward, whose response was drowned out by the background din of a suburban Maryland swimming pool on a steamy July afternoon. “You have to bring the kids here — right now,” Silva remembers insisting. She believed that the couple’s long-running quest for a diagnosis of their daughter Gabriela, known as Gg (pronounced “Gigi”), then 7, hinged on the little girl’s presence. (Goodman, 8/7)
NPR:
Chip Reprograms Cells To Speed Healing In Mice
Scientists have created an electronic wafer that reprogrammed damaged skin cells on a mouse's leg to grow new blood vessels and help a wound heal. One day, creator Chandan Sen hopes, it could be used to be used to treat wounds on humans. But that day is a long way off — as are many other regeneration technologies in the works. Like Sen, some scientists have begun trying to directly reprogram one cell type into another for healing, while others are attempting to build organs or tissues from stem cells and organ-shaped scaffolding. (Chen, 8/8)