First Edition: December 7, 2017
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Churning, Confusion And Disruption — The Dark Side Of Marketplace Coverage
Cyndee Weston can barely remember the last time she didn’t have to switch health plans during an Affordable Care Act sign-up season. By her count, she has been on five plans in five years. Every fall, after she has spent months figuring out her insurance plan’s deductibles, doctor networks, list of covered drugs and other fine print, she receives notice that the policy will be canceled as of Dec. 31. Because her job doesn’t come with insurance, “it’s agonizing going through all the plans and trying to compare,” said Weston, 55, who has diabetes and a history of melanoma. “Every year it’s the same scenario: ‘We’re not going to renew your policy.’” (Hancock, 12/7)
Kaiser Health News:
Brokers Tout Mix-And-Match Coverage To Avoid High-Cost ACA Plans
Health insurance a la carte? As the Affordable Care Act open-enrollment season moves into its final weeks, some consumers looking for lower-cost alternatives are considering a patchwork approach to health insurance. The products may secure some basic protection but leave patients on the hook for high medical bills. (Appleby, 12/7)
Kaiser Health News:
Health Risks To Farmworkers Increase As Workforce Ages
That bag of frozen cauliflower sitting inside your freezer likely sprang to life in a vast field north of Salinas, Calif. A crew of men and women here use a machine to drop seedlings into the black soil. Another group follows behind, stooped over, tapping each new plant. It is backbreaking, repetitive work. Ten-hour days start in the cold, dark mornings and end in the searing afternoon heat. (Varney, 12/7)
Kaiser Health News:
Pace Of U.S. Health Spending Slows In 2016
The analysis from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) showed a shift from the dramatic escalation in health spending that accompanied the coverage gains in 2014 and 2015 as millions of Americans found insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The rate at which spending grew last year was lower across many measures — including figures for Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, prescription drugs and hospitals — than in the previous two years. (Galewitz, 12/6)
The New York Times:
Tax Bill Is Likely To Undo Health Insurance Mandate, Republicans Say
House and Senate negotiators thrashing out differences over a major tax bill are likely to eliminate the insurance coverage mandate at the heart of the Affordable Care Act, lawmakers say. But a deal struck by Senate Republican leaders and Senator Susan Collins of Maine to mitigate the effect of the repeal has been all but rejected by House Republicans, potentially jeopardizing Ms. Collins’s final yes vote. (Pear and Kaplan, 12/6)
The Hill:
Study: ObamaCare Bills Backed By Collins Would Lower Premiums
Two bipartisan ObamaCare fixes being pushed by GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) would reduce premiums by 18 percent in 2019, according to a new study. The study from Avalere, a consulting firm, finds that the two bills would more than cancel out the projected premium increase from repealing ObamaCare’s mandate that most individuals purchase health insurance. (Sullivan, 12/6)
Reuters:
Sign-Ups Pick Up In Week Five Of 2018 Obamacare Open Enrollment: U.S.
The number of people signing up for 2018 Obamacare plans picked up significantly during the fifth week of open enrollment, a U.S. government agency reported on Wednesday, but the number of participants appears to be falling short of last year's numbers with just over a week of enrollment left. For the week ended Dec. 2, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 823,180 people signed up for 2018 Obamacare individual insurance in the 39 states that use the federal government website Healthcare.gov. (Abutaleb, 12/6)
The Associated Press:
Health Law Sign-Ups Seen As Falling Short Though More Enroll
Americans are signing up in growing numbers for the Affordable Care Act's subsidized health insurance, the government said Wednesday. But with enrollment season cut in half and just over a week to go, experts say the final tally will likely fall short. About 3.6 million people signed up through Dec. 2 in states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That's about 20 percent higher than the comparable period last year. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/6)
The Washington Post:
Enrollment In ACA Marketplaces Brisk Yet Lags Last Year’s Total As Deadline Nears
The 3.6 million figure is half of the total at the comparable point in the sign-up period for 2017 coverage, according to an analysis by the Washington-based consulting firm Avalere Health. To reach the 9.2 million enrollees that states relying on the federal marketplace had by the final deadline, a huge surge of people would need to take action by the time the season concludes on Dec. 15 or be automatically re-enrolled just afterward. (Goldstein, 12/6)
Politico:
Politico Survey: Insurers On Pace To Record Obamacare Profits For First Time
Insurers have finally figured out how to make money in the Obamacare markets: Charge more. After taking a beating for three years, health plans jacked up their rates for 2017, with the average premium on the most popular products rising more than 20 percent. That created sticker shock for many Obamacare customers while putting many insurers on pace to record profits this year for the first time, according to a POLITICO analysis of 31 regional Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, many of which dominate Obamacare markets in their states. (Demko, 12/7)
Reuters:
Obamacare Insurance Options Dwindle For Neediest U.S. Patients
Josh Brookhart has four health insurers to choose from in Seattle's King County for 2018, more than many Americans like him who buy coverage on the Obamacare individual market. Yet none of the plans cover all the complex medical care needed for his seven-year-old son, Gabriel. (12/7)
The Washington Post:
Ryan Says Republicans To Target Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid Spending In 2018
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that congressional Republicans will aim next year to reduce spending on both federal health care and anti-poverty programs, citing the need to reduce America's deficit. “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said during an appearance on Ross Kaminsky's talk radio show. "... Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.” (Stein, 12/6)
The Hill:
Ryan Pledges 'Entitlement Reform' In 2018
Health-care entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid “are the big drivers of debt,” Ryan said, “so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking." Ryan said he’s been speaking privately with President Trump, who is beginning to warm to the idea of slowing the spending growth in entitlements. (Weixel, 12/6)
The Washington Post:
Out-Of-Pocket Health Spending In 2016 Increased At The Fastest Rate In A Decade
U.S. health care spending increased to $3.3 trillion in 2016, with out-of-pocket health care costs borne directly by consumers rising 3.9 percent — the fastest rate of growth since 2007. The findings, published Wednesday by Health Affairs, are considered the authoritative breakdown of American health care spending and are prepared each year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Johnson, 12/6)
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Health Spending Rose At A Slower Pace In 2016
Spending on all health care increased 4.3% in 2016, according to a report Wednesday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That compares with 5.1% in 2014 and 5.8% in 2015. That is still above the historic lows of 2008 through 2013, when health spending grew at an average 3.8% a year. Much of the slowdown in those years has been linked to less use of medical services during the recession and tepid economic recovery. (Armour, 12/6)
Politico:
VA Cuts Program For Homeless Vets After Touting Trump's Commitment
Four days after Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin held a big Washington event to tout the Trump administration’s promise to house all homeless vets, the agency did an about-face, telling advocates it was pulling resources from a major housing program. The VA said it was essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. Instead, the money would go to local VA hospitals that can use it as they like, as long as they show evidence of dealing with homelessness. (Allen and Woellert, 12/6)
The New York Times:
UnitedHealth Buys Large Doctors Group As Lines Blur In Health Care
In another example of the blurring boundaries in the health care industry, UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest insurers, said on Wednesday that it is buying a large physician group to add to its existing roster of 30,000 doctors. UnitedHealth’s Optum unit will acquire the physician group from DaVita, a large for-profit chain of dialysis centers, for about $4.9 billion in cash, subject to regulatory approval. DaVita operates nearly 300 clinics across a half-dozen states, including California and Florida. (Abelson, 12/6)
The Associated Press:
UnitedHealth Is Buying Hundreds Of Clinics In $5-Billion Deal As Insurers Push Into Patient Care
UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's biggest health insurer, is spending nearly $5 billion to buy hundreds of clinics, just three days after rival Aetna Inc. announced a tie-up with CVS Health Corp. Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth said Wednesday that its Optum segment will buy the DaVita Medical Group from DaVita Inc. in a cash deal expected to close next year. (12/6)
The Hill:
Democrats Sound Alarm Over CVS-Aetna Deal
Congressional Democrats are expressing alarm over the proposed merger between CVS Health and a health insurer, fearing it will lead to higher costs and less choice for consumers.CVS Health, a drug store chain, announced over the weekend that it has agreed to b uy Aetna for about $69 billion in what could be, if approved, the largest health insurance deal in U.S. history. (Hellmann, 12/7)
The New York Times:
Professor: Bad Math Led To $100 Million Medicare Fraud Tally
Attorneys for a prominent Florida eye doctor used a statistician to challenge the government's assertion that he stole $100 million from the federal Medicaid program. The amount Dr. Salomon Melgen stole will help determine the length of his sentence. The government said its estimate is based on a random sample of 310 patients. (12/6)
The Associated Press:
Poor Health And High Expectations For Medicaid
People on Medicaid are more prone to smoke, struggle with depression and obesity, or rate their own health as fair or poor. But that's not the whole story. A new study suggests that low-income Medicaid recipients are also invested in their health, with 4 out of 5 saying they have a personal doctor, 3 out of 5 saying they eat healthy, and nearly half saying they exercise frequently. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/7)
The New York Times:
Birth Control Pills Still Linked To Breast Cancer, Study Finds
Women who rely on birth control pills or contraceptive devices that release hormones face a small but significant increase in the risk for breast cancer, according to a large study published on Wednesday. The study, which followed 1.8 million Danish women for more than a decade, upends widely held assumptions about modern contraceptives for younger generations of women. Many women have believed that newer hormonal contraceptives are much safer than those taken by their mothers or grandmothers, which had higher doses of estrogen. (Rabin, 12/6)
NPR:
Even Low-Dose Contraceptives Slightly Increase Breast Cancer Risk
In the research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, a team of scientists studied 1.8 million women between the ages of 15 and 49. They were looking to see what happened over a stretch of nearly 11 years among women who used hormonal birth control — usually a combination of estrogen and progestin — versus women who relied on non-hormonal contraceptive methods, such as a condom, diaphragm or copper IUD. Unlike most previous research, this study didn't just track the effect of birth control pills. Because their set of data was very large, scientists this time were also able to get a good sense of the impact of various other hormonal methods — including the birth control patch, the ring, and implants as well as hormone-releasing IUDs. (Neighmond, 12/6)
The Washington Post:
Gene Therapy Makes A Big Advance Treating Hemophilia B Blood Disorder
Jay Konduros used to rush home several times a year after accidentally cutting or bumping himself. There he would inject himself with refrigerated blood-clotting factor to prevent internal bleeding and extensive bruising and swelling. “I was walking on eggshells all the time,” said the former aerospace engineer who has a blood disorder called hemophilia B. Then, last year, Konduros enrolled in a clinical trial, receiving an experimental gene therapy at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Almost immediately, he began producing the missing clotting factor. Several weeks later, after he dropped a heavy box on his shin, he watched a bruise develop and shrink within hours. “Are you kidding me?” he thought. “Life's easy if this is what happens.” (McGinley, 12/6)
The New York Times:
Fewer Pain Pills May Be Best Bet After Surgery
Surgical patients can get as good or better pain relief with a fraction of the amount of opioids typically prescribed, a group of doctors reports. In 170 gallbladder operations from January 2015 to June 2016, they found that patients left the hospital with an average of 250 milligrams of opioids in 40 pills. Within a year, patients had taken an average of 30 milligrams of opioids, sometimes along with Tylenol or ibuprofen. Their median score on a 10-point pain scale was 5. (Bakalar, 12/7)
The New York Times:
How Exercise Can Make For Healthier Fat
Exercise could help to make your fat tissue healthier, which, hear me out, is a good thing. According to a timely new study, a single session of exercise may change the molecular workings of fat tissue in ways that, over time, should improve metabolic health. (Reynolds, 12/6)
NPR:
Looking Below The Locks: Teaching Hairdressers To Spot Melanoma
Of all types of skin cancer, melanoma causes the majority of deaths. When on the scalp it can be especially difficult to catch in a self-examination — when was the last time you examined the top of your head? One person who might be able to help: your hairdresser. While cutting your hair, they've got a great view for a scalp inspection. And they can learn how to spot scary changes, researchers say. (Jochem, 12/6)
The Associated Press:
Home Health Agency Agrees To Pay Massachusetts $14 Million
A national home health care agency with six locations in Massachusetts has agreed to pay $14 million to settle allegations that it improperly billed the state's Medicaid program. Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement Tuesday that Centrus Premier Home Care Inc., which does business in the state as Maxim Healthcare Services Inc., billed MassHealth for services that were not eligible for reimbursement under state regulations. (12/6)
The Washington Post:
Maryland Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Are Already Running Out Of Pot
Marylanders interested in buying medical marijuana days after the launch of a state-sanctioned program may already be out of luck. Five of seven licensed dispensaries that have opened since Friday said they have completely or almost run out of flower — the raw part of the marijuana plant that is smoked or vaporized — and have limited supplies of other cannabis products. The other two stores are limiting sales to a small group of preregistered patients. (Nirappil, Gregg and Siegel, 12/6)