First Edition: February 6, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Community Health Centers Caught In ‘Washington’s Political Dysfunction’
As lawmakers face another deadline this week for passing legislation to keep the federal government open, one of the outstanding issues is long-term funding for a key health care safety-net program. The Community Health Center program serves 27 million people at almost 10,000 nonprofit clinics nationwide, almost all of which are in low-income rural and urban areas. (Findlay, 2/5)
Kaiser Health News:
Cut In Federal Subsidies Threatens Basic Health Programs In N.Y., Minn.
Comprehensive coverage for more than 800,000 low-income people in New York and Minnesota who pay a fraction of the typical cost of a marketplace plan may be in jeopardy after the federal government partially cut funding this year. The Basic Health Program, in which these consumers are enrolled, was created under the Affordable Care Act to provide another coverage option for people with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($24,280 in 2018) who would otherwise qualify for subsidized marketplace coverage. Only New York and Minnesota have set up such programs. (Andrews, 2/6)
Kaiser Health News:
Readers And Tweeters Add Two Cents On Amazon Venture To Repackage Health Care
Letters to the Editor is a periodic Kaiser Health News feature. KHN welcomes all comments and will publish a selection. (2/6)
The New York Times:
House Pushes Another Stopgap Bill As Government Shutdown Looms
House Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting on Monday night with a plan to pass a temporary spending measure that would fund the government through March 23. The measure would also include full-year funding for the Defense Department — boosting military spending, as President Trump and Republicans are determined to do — and it would include two years of funding for community health centers. But the House’s approach, to combine short-term funding to keep the government open with long-term funding for the military, was long ago rejected by most Senate Democrats, who want to pair an increase in military spending with a similar increase in domestic spending. (Kaplan, 2/5)
The Hill:
Over 100 House Republicans Call For Health Center Funding
More than 100 House Republicans are calling on Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to quickly reauthorize a pot of money crucial to community health centers, which service millions of the nation’s most vulnerable. In a letter sent Friday, 105 Republicans, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), expressed their concern over the fact that long-term funding for community health centers lapsed Sept. 30 — and urged its reauthorization in the “next moving piece of legislation to be signed into law.” (Roubein, 2/5)
The Hill:
House To Fund Community Health Centers In Short-Term Spending Bill
The community health centers have been left in limbo for months awaiting an extension of their funding. Both parties generally support the centers, but the debate has been caught up in broader budget battles. Community health centers serve about 27 million people across the country, many of whom are poor or lack insurance. (Sullivan, 2/5)
The Associated Press:
House Republicans Working To Plan To Avert Another Shutdown
The negotiations are bipartisan since it takes votes from Democrats to lift the budget caps and advance a follow-up omnibus spending bill, whose overall cost is likely to exceed $1.2 trillion. That means domestic programs get their due, despite the opposition of conservatives. (Taylor, 2/5)
The Washington Post:
House Republicans Eye Defense Spending Boost, Complicating Plan To Avoid Second Shutdown
Government funding is set to run out Thursday at midnight, and though there were few fears of another shutdown as lawmakers scrambled Monday, the House maneuver stands to inject new uncertainty into the process. (Werner and DeBonis, 2/5)
The Hill:
Pro-ObamaCare Group Launches Ad Against Idaho Rollback
The pro-ObamaCare group Save my Care is launching a TV ad against the Republican governor of Idaho after he moved to roll back ObamaCare rules. “Gov. Butch Otter is putting the interests of his insurance industry contributors ahead of the people of Idaho,” the ad states. (Sullivan, 2/5)
The Hill:
Blue Cross Blue Shield Sees 'Urgent' Need For Congress To Stabilize ObamaCare Markets
A leading health insurance group said Monday there is an “urgent” need for Congress to act to stabilize ObamaCare markets after the repeal of the individual mandate in December. “There’s an urgent need to stabilize the market,” Justine Handelman, a senior vice president at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, told reporters at a briefing. (Sullivan, 2/5)
The Hill:
Trump Official: Medicaid Work Requirements A Form Of 'True Compassion'
A top Trump administration official says Medicaid work requirements are a form of “true compassion” that aim to help poor people overcome poverty. “True compassion is lifting Americans most in need out of difficult circumstances,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said in a Washington Post column. (Weixel, 2/5)
The Associated Press:
$300M Health Care System Cost To Protect Religious Rights
President Donald Trump's new effort to protect the rights of health workers who object to participating in abortions and other procedures will cost the health care system more than $300 million to set up, according to a government estimate. More than 40 complaints have been filed since Trump's election, alleging violations of conscience and religious rights. An estimated 18 million people work in the nation's health care system. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/5)
The Washington Post:
Trump Uses Britain's Protests To Jump Back Into Health-Care Fray At Home
Though congressional Republicans agreed last week to back off the contentious politics of the Affordable Care Act this year, President Trump began Monday morning by stirring the health-care policy pot anew. In a tweet shortly after 7 a.m., the president lashed out at Democrats, saying they “are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working.” (Goldstein, 2/5)
Los Angeles Times:
Trump Stirs A Hornet's Nest In Britain By Blasting Its National Health Service
Virtually no one in Britain considers the NHS perfect: The need for urgent reforms, such as reducing waiting times and adding doctors and hospital beds, was the declared point of the weekend demonstrations. But Trump's critique touched a raw nerve in a country that considers universal access to medical services to be something akin to a national treasure, under a system created just after World War II and now relied on by millions of people. (King, 2/5)
The New York Times Fact Check:
Trump’s Criticism Of U.K.’s National Health Service
In a tweet on Monday, President Trump claimed that thousands of people in Britain were marching because their country’s National Health Service was “going broke and not working,” and that Democrats pushing for universal health care in the United States were pursuing a similar failed model. Here is a closer look at his assertions. (Yeginsu, 2/5)
Politico:
Kellyanne Conway’s 'Opioid Cabinet' Sidelines Drug Czar’s Experts
President Donald Trump’s war on opioids is beginning to look more like a war on his drug policy office. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has taken control of the opioids agenda, quietly freezing out drug policy professionals and relying instead on political staff to address a lethal crisis claiming about 175 lives a day. The main response so far has been to call for a border wall and to promise a "just say no” campaign. (Ehley and Karlin-Smith, 2/6)
Politico:
Public Health Workers Find Surprise Cuts In Paychecks
About 3,000 Public Health Service physicians and other workers saw their paychecks unexpectedly slashed last month because of government delays setting up a payment system Congress ordered a decade ago. “A number of unanticipated events impacted our ability to fully execute these provisions,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers in a Jan. 31 letter obtained by POLITICO. (Haberkorn, 2/5)
Politico:
California Union Leverages Ballot Initiatives For Health Care On Its Own Terms
One of California's most powerful heath care unions wants the public to press hospitals and insurers over high costs, filing 10 state and local propositions for November’s elections — a tactic critics deride as an inappropriate attempt to gain negotiating leverage via the ballot box. Following victories to raise the minimum wage in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington, the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West got state approval to collect signatures for two California propositions: one to prevent health insurers with high reserves from raising premiums, and another that would tax millionaires to help fund safety-net hospitals and clinics. (Colliver, 2/5)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Chase For A Permanent Flu Vaccine
As doctors struggle with the worst flu season in nearly a decade, some are racing to answer a question: Can they find a more permanent solution than variably successful annual vaccines? Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have developed a new approach for a vaccine that tested successfully in animals. GlaxoSmithKline is in the early stages of testing another promising approach in people. (Reddy, 2/5)
The New York Times:
Second Child In New York City Dies Of Flu-Related Illness
A second child has died in New York City of flu-related illness, as the city and nation cope with the worst flu season in nearly a decade, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said on Monday. The child, an 8-year-old girl who lived in Elmhurst, Queens, was found unconscious at home on Monday morning and taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead, the police said. (Garcia, 2/5)
The New York Times:
Floods Are Getting Worse, And 2,500 Chemical Sites Lie In The Water’s Path
Anchored in flood-prone areas in every American state are more than 2,500 sites that handle toxic chemicals, a New York Times analysis of federal floodplain and industrial data shows. About 1,400 are located in areas at highest risk of flooding. As flood danger grows — the consequence of a warming climate — the risk is that there will be more toxic spills like the one that struck Baytown, Tex., where Hurricane Harvey swamped a chemicals plant, releasing lye. (Tabuchi, Popovich, Migliozzi and Lehren, 2/6)
NPR:
Nursing Homes Still Overprescribing Antipsychotics, Despite Warnings
A study published Monday by Human Rights Watch finds that about 179,000 nursing home residents are being given antipsychotic drugs, even though they don't have schizophrenia or other serious mental illnesses that those drugs are designed to treat. Most of these residents have Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia and antipsychotics aren't approved for that. What's more, antipsychotic drugs come with a "black box warning" from the FDA, stating that they increase the risk of death in older people with dementia. (Jaffe, 2/5)
NPR:
Lethal Pneumonia Outbreak Caused By Low Chlorine In Flint Water
An outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that killed 12 people and sickened at least 87 in Flint, Mich., in 2014 and 2015 was caused by low chlorine levels in the municipal water system, scientists have confirmed. It's the most detailed evidence yet linking the bacterial disease to the city's broader water crisis. In April 2014, Flint's water source switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Almost immediately, residents noticed tap water was discolored and acrid-smelling. By 2015, scientists uncovered that the water was contaminated with lead and other heavy metals. (Hersher, 2/5)
The Associated Press:
Death Takes A Toll: Bill Helps First Responders With PTSD
Former Orlando police officer Gerry Realin isn't the same since he spent five hours in the Pulse nightclub among the bodies of those killed in what was then the nation's deadliest mass shooting. He's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and sometimes still thinks he smells the dead bodies that lay in the hot club as police processed the crime scene. The once fun, mischievous practical joker now is a recluse. He rarely goes out, and when he does, it's to paddleboard alone to enjoy nature or to spend time at a park with his wife and children. He avoids crowds. (2/5)
The Associated Press:
Patients To Address Court In Doctor's Opioid Kickback Scheme
Victims of a scheme in which a doctor prescribed them a highly addictive opioid spray in exchange for kickbacks are expected to tell a federal judge how their lives were affected, including stories of overdoses, monthslong withdrawals, weight loss and broken bones from falling while on the powerful drug. Jerrold Rosenberg told one patient, "Stop crying, you're acting like a child," when she complained of severe side effects, which included losing 40 pounds and repeated vomiting for years, according to an excerpt of grand jury testimony filed by prosecutors in the case. (Smith, 2/5)