First Edition, August 16, 2019
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Health Plan’s ‘Cadillac Tax’ May Finally Be Running Out Of Gas
The tax on generous health plans — originally envisioned as a way to help pay for the ACA and change consumers’ behavior — has never been implemented, and Congress is considering repeal. (Rovner, 8/16)
Kaiser Health News:
Among Hurdles For Those With Opioid Addictions: Getting The Drug To Treat It
It can be difficult to get a prescription for buprenorphine, one of the gold standards for treating opioid use disorder. And not all pharmacies stock the drug. (Feldman, 8/16)
NPR:
Trump Shifts From Background Checks To Mental Illness Reform At N.H. Rally
At his first campaign rally after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump appeared to back away from supporting a possible expansion of background checks in favor of a push for more attention to mental illness. "There is a mental illness problem that has to be dealt with. It's not the gun that pulls the trigger — it's the person holding the gun," Trump said to roars and a standing ovation from the Manchester, N.H., crowd. (Taylor, 8/15)
Politico:
‘We Have To Start Building Institutions Again’: Trump Again Links Guns And Mental Health
Trump argued that institutions for people with mental illness — whom “we can’t let … be on the streets” — were necessary to curb gun violence. “We have to start building institutions again because, you know, if you look at the ’60s and ’70s, so many of these institutions were closed, and the people were just allowed to go onto the streets,” Trump said on Thursday. “That was a terrible thing for our country.” (Choi, 8/15)
The Washington Post:
Trump Says The U.S. Should Build More Psychiatric Institutions In Response To Rising Gun Violence
Many psychiatric institutions were closed beginning in the 1950s amid reports of inhumane treatment, patient-abuse scandals, changing attitudes toward mental health care and the development of drugs to treat mental illness. While Trump on Thursday revived the debate over whether to isolate the mentally ill in long-term care facilities, Democrats have argued in recent weeks that, by repeatedly blaming mental illness for gun violence, Trump is stigmatizing those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression or other serious conditions. (Sonmez, 8/15)
The Associated Press & Frontline:
Claims: Migrant Kids Split At Border Harmed In Foster Care
The foster care programs are meant to provide migrant children with care while authorities work to connect them with parents, relatives or other sponsors. But instead the boy told a counselor he was repeatedly sexually molested by other boys in the foster home. A review of 38 legal claims obtained by The Associated Press — some of which have never been made public — shows taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $200 million in damages from parents who said their children were harmed while in government custody. The father and son are among dozens of families — separated at the border as part of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy — who are now preparing to sue the federal government, including several who say their young children were sexually, physically or emotionally abused in federally funded foster care. (Burke, Linderman and Mendoza, 8/16)
NPR:
Appeals Court Rules Detained Migrant Children Should Get Soap, Sleep, Clean Water
A federal appeals court in California ruled that migrant children detained by U.S. immigration authorities must be provided with edible food, clean water, and basic hygiene items such as soap and toothbrushes, in accordance with a decades-old court order. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Trump administration challenge of a lower court decision finding that the government failed to offer detained minors safe and sanitary conditions as required by the 1997 Flores settlement. (Gonzales, 8/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Detained Children Must Have Adequate Food And Hygiene Items, Court Rules
“Assuring that children eat enough edible food, drink clean water, are housed in hygienic facilities with sanitary bathrooms, have soap and toothpaste, and are not sleep-deprived are without doubt essential to the children’s safety,” wrote Judge Marsha S. Berzon, a Clinton appointee. The case stirred nationwide outrage in June when a video of the 9th Circuit hearing on it went viral. (Dolan, 8/15)
The New York Times:
Migrant Children Are Entitled To Toothbrushes And Soap, Federal Court Rules
The exchange in June between the lawyer and a panel of openly aghast federal judges spread rapidly in the national media. The case grew in significance days later, when a group of lawyers told reporters they had observed distressed migrant children held in cramped, dirty conditions and without sufficient food or clean water at a Border Patrol station in Clint, Tex. The lawyers said they saw infants being cared for by other detainees, some as young as 7 years old. (Dickerson, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Panel Rules Soap, Sleep Essential To Migrant Kids' Safety
Leecia Welch, senior director of legal advocacy and child welfare at the National Center for Youth Law, said the panel’s ruling wasn’t surprising. “It should shock the conscience of all Americans to know that our government argued children do not need these bare essentials,” she said. A message seeking comment was sent to the Department of Justice. (Taxin, 8/15)
Reuters:
Trump Rule Targeting Poor Immigrants Could Harm Children, Health: Advocates
A Trump administration plan to cut legal immigration by poor people will likely result in sicker children, more communicable diseases and greater homelessness in the United States, according to immigrant advocates and the federal government’s own analysis. (Trotta, 8/15)
The Hill:
Trump Health Official: Controversial Drug Pricing Move Is 'Top Priority'
A top Trump administration health official on Thursday indicated that the administration is pushing forward with a controversial proposal to lower drug prices, despite opposition from some fellow Republicans. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma told reporters that the proposal to lower certain drug prices in Medicare by tying them to lower prices in other countries, known as the International Price Index, is a “top priority.” (Sullivan, 8/15)
The Hill:
Trump Health Chief: Officials Actively 'Working On' ObamaCare Replacement Plan
A top Trump health administrator on Thursday said that officials are actively “working on” a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, which has remained a priority for President Trump even as many congressional Republicans look to move on. Trump has long promised a superior plan to replace ObamaCare and has drawn pushback from Democrats for never actually revealing a plan of his own. (Sullivan, 8/15)
NPR:
New Look For Cigarettes? FDA Proposes Graphic Warnings On Packages And Ads
For years, American smokers have been spared the unpleasant images of gangrene infected feet, swollen tongues overtaken by cancerous tumors and blackened lungs that are often plastered onto packs of cigarettes sold around the world. But that momentary reprieve before lighting up may only last a few more years. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday rolled out a proposed rule to require tobacco companies to include graphic warnings on cigarette packages and tobacco ads with the aim of promoting "greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of smoking," the agency said in a statement. (Romo, 8/15)
The Wall Street Journal:
FDA Pushes For Graphic Health Warnings On Cigarette Packs
Similar health warnings are required on cigarette boxes in other countries but aren’t mandatory in the U.S., where tobacco companies successfully sued to block them. While adult smoking rates have declined in recent decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 480,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking every year. (Maloney, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
US Makes New Push For Graphic Warning Labels On Cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed 13 new warnings that would appear on all cigarettes, including images of cancerous neck tumors, diseased lungs and feet with amputated toes. Other color illustrations would warn smokers that cigarettes can cause heart disease, impotence and diabetes. The labels would take up half of the front of cigarette packages and include text warnings, such as “Smoking causes head and neck cancer.” The labels would also appear on tobacco advertisements. (Perrone, 8/15)
The Washington Post:
FDA’S Proposed New Cigarette Warnings Are Scary. That’s The Point.
“The new graphic warnings are a dramatic improvement over the current text-only warnings that have become stale and unnoticed,” said a joint statement from leading health organizations, including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. “They are supported by extensive scientific evidence, and they will help the United States catch up to the 120-plus countries that have adopted this best-practice strategy to reduce tobacco use and save lives.” (Bever, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
NC Legislators Supporting Medicaid Expansion Hold Hearing
A health policy expert and residents struggling to find affordable insurance are planned speakers for a hearing before North Carolina General Assembly members pressing for passage of Medicaid expansion this year. ... The legislature is in the middle of a state budget stalemate, and expansion is a key reason for it. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the Republican budget in large part because it lacked coverage through the 2010 federal health care law. Republicans say Cooper’s Medicaid demand is to blame for final budget delays. (8/16)
The Associated Press:
New Jersey's Medically Assisted Suicide Law Put On Hold
A New Jersey judge put a temporary hold on a new law allowing terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs. The order means that New Jersey’s recently enacted measure cannot be enforced by the state attorney general and comes in response to a lawsuit brought by a doctor practicing in the state. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who signed the bill in April, said Thursday that Attorney General Gurbir Grewal would release guidance for residents in light of the order and vowed to oppose the lawsuit in court. (Catalini, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Virginia Regulators Seek Input On Surprise Medical Bills
Virginians can soon tell regulators what the state should do to limit surprise medical bills. The State Corporation Commission announced Wednesday that it will hold a public hearing in Richmond on Sept. 12 on high charges insured patients can face when a member of a medical team that treats them is not in their insurer’s network. (8/15)
The Associated Press:
Missouri Abortion Law Critics Won't Seek Signatures For Vote
Critics of a new Missouri law that bans abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy say they won’t make a push to gather the signatures needed to block it pending a public vote, meaning it’s on course to take effect at the end of the month. Opponents of the law sought a referendum in the hopes that voters would overturn it. But with only two weeks to gather the more than 100,000 voter signatures required to put it on the 2020 ballot, an American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri official says there’s simply not enough time. (Ballentine, 8/15)
The New York Times:
Suicide Prevention Hotline Number Should Be 3 Digits, 988, Agency Says
Just as 911 is universal to Americans during emergencies, a federal agency says the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline should be shortened to three digits: 988. The Federal Communications Commission recommended simplifying the hotline’s current 10-digit number in a sweeping report this week spurred by federal legislation passed last year that called for improvements to the system. (Vigdor, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Gov't Wants A New 911-Like Number Just For Suicide Hotline
With suicides on the rise , the U.S. government wants to make the national crisis hotline easier to reach. Once implemented, people will just need to dial 988 to seek help. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline uses a 10-digit number, 800-273-TALK (8255). Callers are routed to one of 163 crisis centers, where counselors answered 2.2 million calls last year. (Arbel, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Police Departments Confront 'Epidemic' In Officer Suicides
A rash of suicides by police officers has shaken the New York Police Department, leading the commissioner to declare a mental health emergency and highlighting the problem of untreated depression among law enforcement officers nationwide. ... The suicides have been a recurring nightmare for the nation’s largest police force and have driven a discussion about the psychological toll of police work, a profession in which discussing mental health was long seen as taboo. (Sisak and Mustian, 8/15)
The Wall Street Journal:
Mayor Draws On Father’s Suicide In Dealing With Spike Among NYPD Officers
Mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to stem the spike in suicides among New York Police Department officers this year by speaking openly about his father’s suicide in urging them to seek help. The mayor talked about his family’s experience in a letter he sent to NYPD officers on Wednesday night, shortly before a longtime officer became the ninth member of the department to die by suicide this year. The 56-year-old officer, who had been with the department for 25 years and served in its Strategic Response Group, fatally shot himself at a home in Laurelton, Queens, according to a police official. His suicide came a day after another officer fatally shot himself in Yonkers. (Honan and Blint-Welsh, 8/15)
Politico:
Discrimination Complaints Hit Group Fighting Trump's Health Policies
A legal aid organization leading the fight against several Trump administration policies, including health care for LGBTQ and low-income people, is facing its own internal allegations of discrimination. The National Health Law Program, or NHeLP, was founded in 1969 to advocate for health care rights of underserved people. It has grown more prominent in the Trump era, taking on causes like fighting Medicaid work requirements. But some of its employees have described an environment allowing mistreatment of minority and LGBTQ employees, including instances of bullying black women; employees telling “off-color jokes” about women and Jewish people; and a “sense of not belonging among LGBTQ staff,” according to a 2018 assessment on its workplace culture obtained by POLITICO. (Pradhan, 8/16)
NPR:
Creative Recruiting Helps Rural Hospitals Overcome Doctor Shortages
Recruitment is a life or death issue, not just for patients in those areas, but for the hospitals themselves, says Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. Over the last decade, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed, he says, and over the next decade, another 700 more are at risk. "Keeping access to health care in rural America is simply a challenge no matter how you look at it, but this shortage of rural health care professionals just is an unfortunate driving issue towards more closures," Morgan says. (Noguchi, 8/15)
Stateline:
Rural America Has A Maternal Mortality Problem. Midwives Might Help Solve It.
Hospitals and obstetrics units are shutting down across rural America, creating a shortage of care that may be contributing to the country’s rising maternal mortality rate. The United States’ maternal mortality rate ranks 138th in the world — between Lebanon and Qatar — and the rate in rural areas tends to be much higher than it is in cities and suburbs. Between 2011 and 2015, it was 23.3 deaths per 100,000 births in Tennessee and 19.4 in Kentucky, rates that are comparable to developing countries. (Simpson, 8/16)
The Washington Post:
Why Black Women Issued A Public Demand For ’Reproductive Justice’ 25 Years Ago
Monica Simpson was a high school freshman in North Carolina when the ad [on reproductive freedom for African American women] was published. Today she is executive director of SisterSong, which was formed a few years after and took on the mantle of reproductive justice. Simpson joined the Atlanta-based organization in 2010 as a development coordinator. The organization, whose full name is SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, mostly does advocacy work, training community organizers, doing direct action and hosting regional and national conferences and discussions to give people the tools to advocate for themselves and their communities. Simpson talked to About US about the renewed attention to the reproductive justice movement. (Williams, 8/15)
The New York Times:
When Cities Try To Limit Guns, State Laws Bar The Way
Growing, too, are clashes between local officials and state lawmakers. Most states prohibit local governments from adopting nearly any gun regulation that would go beyond state law. “They have pre-empted us totally in enforcing any type of regulation, including really simple legislation that would require someone to report a stolen or lost gun,” [Philadelphia Mayor Jim] Kenney, a Democrat, said of the Pennsylvania State Legislature, which is dominated by Republicans. (Davey and Hassan, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Lawsuit Challenges California's Assault Weapons Ban
A gun-rights group sued Thursday to block California from enforcing its assault weapons ban, contending it violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The lawsuit was the latest among gun advocacy and lobbying groups to challenge California’s firearms laws, which are among the strictest in the country, and comes after a recent series of deadly mass shootings nationwide involving military-style rifles. (8/15)
Los Angeles Times:
LAPD Chief Among Nation's Top Cops Who Ask Congress To Ban Assault Weapons
After back-to-back mass shootings killed at least 31 people and injured dozens more in Texas and Ohio, police chiefs in the nation’s largest cities, including Los Angeles, called on the nation’s top lawmakers to enact another ban on assault weapons and other measures to prevent mass killings. (Puente, 8/15)
The New York Times:
New York Subpoenas Banks And Financial Advisers For Sackler Records
The New York state attorney general has begun issuing subpoenas to 33 financial institutions and investment advisers with ties to the Sackler family, part of an aggressive effort to track billions of dollars that prosecutors claim the family siphoned out of Purdue Pharma to hide profits gained from the company’s opioid painkillers. (Rabin, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
OxyContin Maker Purdue Agrees To Provide Research Data
The maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin has agreed to provide access to proprietary research and other data to researchers at Oklahoma State University to help them find causes and treatments for drug addiction. Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma announced the agreement Thursday in a joint statement with the university. (8/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Purdue Pharma Sought To Divert Online Readers From Critical L.A. Times Series On Opioid Crisis, Records Show
Internal documents from 2016 show company officials discussed diverting online traffic away from a series of stories published by the Los Angeles Times that detailed the company’s marketing of OxyContin and its links to the deadly opioid crisis. ... The documents describing Purdue’s strategy were filed earlier in the day in U.S. District Court in Cleveland by attorneys for Cuyahoga and Stark counties in Ohio. They are among more than 1,500 governments and other entities that have sued key players in the opioid epidemic to recover their costs for services and other damages stemming from the addiction crisis. (Christensen, 8/15)
The Washington Post:
Volunteers Picking Up Trash In West Baltimore Save Two Men Found Overdosing
At 8 a.m. Thursday, a team of volunteer garbage men wearing fluorescent orange shirts that read “Operation Baltimore Cleanup” walked down Monroe Street in West Baltimore, picking up trash. They were about three blocks from where Freddie Gray was arrested in 2015 when they noticed two young men struggling to walk down the street. The garbage men, who had just arrived from New York and Florida, had pledged to clean up Baltimore after the city’s garbage issues came under national scrutiny following controversial tweets by President Trump last month. (Rentz and Reed, 8/15)
The New York Times:
The Weekly: A Secret Opioid Memo That Could Have Slowed An Epidemic
A confidential government document containing evidence so critical it had the potential to change the course of an American tragedy was kept in the dark for more than a decade. The document, known as a “prosecution memo,” details how government lawyers believed that Purdue Pharma, the maker of the powerful opioid, OxyContin, knew early on that the drug was fueling a rise in abuse and addiction. They also gathered evidence indicating that the company’s executives had misled the public and Congress.“ The Weekly” shines a light on that 2006 Justice Department memo and its consequences for today’s wave of lawsuits against opioid makers and members of the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma. (8/16)
The Associated Press:
Million-Dollar Opioid Drug Ring Started Small, No. 2 Says
A man who prosecutors call the second-in-command of a multimillion-dollar online opioid drug ring said Thursday the operation started small, when he needed cash for student loans so he let his roommate sell his prescription Adderall. Drew Crandall, 33, said the dark-web operation run by his roommate Aaron Shamo, 29, grew to include date-rape drugs, ecstasy, Xanax and more. (Whitehurst, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
Alabama Psychologist Admits $1.5 Million Medicaid Fraud
A Birmingham psychologist has admitted to trying to defraud Medicaid by billing for counseling services that were never provided, state and federal prosecutors announced Thursday. Sharon Waltz has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud Medicaid of at least $1.5 million, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town announced. Waltz also agreed to pay restitution to Medicaid in the amount of $1.5 million, they said. (8/15)
The Associated Press:
Former Nebraska Medicaid Worker Gets Prison Time For Fraud
A former Nebraska Medicaid audit administrator who bilked the program and his father out of nearly $300,000 has been sentenced to 16 months in prison. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Craig A. Barnett was also ordered Thursday to pay restitution of nearly $277,000 and serve three years of supervised release. Barnett, of Lincoln, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and two counts of mail fraud in the scheme, which took place when he was an administrator within the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. (8/15)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Exposed City Workers To Trash And Bodily Fluids, State Says
The state agency that enforces workplace safety rules says employees of the city of Los Angeles were exposed to unsanitary conditions on the walkways outside City Hall East, according to two citations issued last week. Inspectors with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, found that workers at City Hall East were exposed to “trash and bodily fluids” on the exterior passageways. City Hall East is home to several city agencies, including City Atty. Mike Feuer’s office. Homeless people frequently sleep overnight on the sidewalks outside. (Zahniser, 8/15)
The Associated Press:
California Bill Updates Transgender Students' School Records
California school districts would be required to update their records to reflect the names and genders of graduates who have changed them since getting their diplomas under a bill approved by state lawmakers on Thursday. The measure they sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom is intended to particularly help transgender graduates or those who identify themselves as having no gender, said Democratic Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco. (8/15)