First Edition: January 23, 2015
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Judge Orders California To Make Timely Decisions On Medicaid Coverage
Medi-Cal applicants who have been waiting for more than 45 days can receive temporary health benefits while officials determine eligibility for the public insurance program, a state Superior Court judge ruled this week. The decision came in a lawsuit filed in September alleging that a large backlog of applications to California’s Medicaid program left hundreds of thousands of people unable to access health care. (Gorman, 1/23)
USA Today:
Efforts Intensify To Sign Up Hispanics For Health Care
With the enrollment deadline looming, the Obama administration and advocacy groups are ramping up efforts to sign up millions of Hispanics for health coverage through online exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act. Activists in states with high Latino populations are using various strategies to recruit a traditionally hard-to-reach group that already faces barriers to health care. The activists have been especially aggressive in Texas and Florida, which declined to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care law. (King, 1/22)
The Washington Post's Plumline:
For Chief Justice John Roberts, Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit Poses Major Dilemma
The government has now filed its brief responding to the challengers in the King v. Burwell lawsuit, which claims the Affordable Care Act doesn’t make subsidies available to people in states on the federal exchange. If the Supreme Court upholds the challenge, it could yank subsidies from millions and unleash untold disruptions that could cripple the law in many parts of the country. (Sargent, 1/22)
The Washington Post's Wonkblog:
Republicans Are Finally Learning They Can’t Undo Obamacare
If you care about the politics of Obamacare and the future of health care reform, Arkansas's new Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson just gave one of the most important health-care speeches in recent memory. For the past two years, Arkansas has played a significant role in getting a number of conservative states to accept Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. The state's previous Democratic governor, Mike Beebe, in early 2013 struck a deal with Republican state lawmakers and the Obama administration to use federal Medicaid expansion dollars to purchase private coverage for low-income adults. (Millman, 1/22)
The New York Times:
Arkansas: Governor Seeks To Continue An Alternative To Medicaid
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, asked lawmakers Thursday to keep the state’s alternative to Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act in place for two more years. In the meantime, he said, a task force will come up with recommendations for changing or replacing it. The program, known as the private option, has used federal funds to buy private insurance for more than 200,000 poor people through the HealthCare.gov marketplace instead of adding them to traditional Medicaid. (Goodnough, 1/22)
Politico:
Arkansas Governor Eyes Changes To Medicaid Expansion
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday he wants to end his state’s Obamacare Medicaid experiment, which has been a national model for conservative states. The Arkansas program uses federal funds to buy people private health plans on the Obamacare exchange. Dubbed “the private option,” it was an innovation designed to draw support of red-state lawmakers otherwise opposed to President Barack Obama’s health care law. (Wheaton, 1/22)
The Wall Street Journal:
House Passes Bill Prohibiting Federal Funds Being Used for Abortions
Some female Republican and centrist lawmakers helped scuttle a vote on a controversial measure to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, prompting the House on Thursday to pass a separate, largely symbolic bill that would further restrict federal funding to pay for abortions. The last-minute scramble laid bare a rift within the Republican Party and highlighted its delicate relationship with an issue that ties the GOP to social conservatives. Republicans want to show their commitment to curbing abortions without turning off women voters who hold mixed views on the procedure. (Peterson and Radnofsky, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
House Republicans Pass Watered-Down Antiabortion Bill
About two dozen Republicans, led mostly by a small group of female lawmakers, forced the House leadership to pull an antiabortion bill from consideration and replace it with a less restrictive measure Thursday. The episode exposed a growing concern within the GOP that emphasizing culture-war issues in the new Congress could distract from the party’s broader agenda and upend hopes of retaking the White House. (O'Keefe, 1/22)
Los Angeles Times:
House Abortion Bill Switch Reveals Emerging Clout Of Moderate Republicans
After spending the last few years butting heads with his most conservative members, House Speaker John A. Boehner has a new headache: a revolt by moderates. Tired of staying quiet while tea-party-minded conservatives pull the Republican majority further to the right, more temperate voices are starting to rise in the new GOP-led Congress. (Mascaro, 1/22)
Politico:
Abortion Bill's Collapse Shows Moderates' Clout
John Boehner has a new balancing act: Handling the moderate backbencher resurgence. In years past, it was just the far right that dragged Boehner by the hair. But the political pendulum has swung closer to the center, and now, everyday members of the House Republican Conference are regaining their voice and willing to criticize their leadership for catering almost exclusively to conservatives. (Sherman and Bresnahan, 1/22)
USA Today:
Obama Praises Roe V. Wade., Criticizes House GOP
President Obama marked the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade with a statement praising the pivotal abortion rights ruling. The 1973 decision "protects a woman's freedom to make her own choices about her body and her health, and reaffirms a fundamental American value: that government should not intrude in our most private and personal family matters," Obama said. (Jackson, 1/22)
NPR:
States Continue Push To Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks
House Republicans decided Wednesday night to shelve a bill that would have banned abortion at 20 weeks post-conception. But 10 states already ban abortions at 20 weeks and two others are defending such laws in court. Activists are pushing for bans in at least three more states; a panel in the South Carolina Legislature passed one Thursday. (Ludden, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
Abortion Opponents Rally On Mall, Optimistic That Nation’s Views Are Aligning With Theirs
With legislative drama about abortion literally unfolding behind them at the U.S. Capitol, tens of thousands of abortion opponents held an upbeat rally Thursday to emphasize participants’ belief that U.S. culture is turning in their favor. As has become standard in recent years, the March for Life participants were overwhelmingly young and religious, with busloads of students who had come from across the country giving the Mall the feeling of a pop concert. (Boorstein, 1/22)
The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot:
Senator Wants Big Drug Makers That Break The Law To Fund NIH
Seeking to replenish funding for new scientific research, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.) plans to introduce a bill next week that would require drug makers that break the law to send some of their profits to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Drug makers that reach settlements with the federal government for paying kickbacks to doctors, defrauding Medicare or Medicaid or illegally marketing medicines would have to pay 1% of their annual profits for each blockbuster medicine that can be traced to public sector research. Such a penalty would run for five years, which Warren notes is the same amount of time covered under most settlements. (Silverman, 1/22)
Politico:
Warren Takes On Drug Companies At Health Care Conference
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took the populist ire she usually reserves for Wall Street banks and directed it Thursday at drug companies that are making billion-dollar profits. Addressing a leading health reform advocacy group, the Massachusetts Democrat lambasted pharmaceutical firms that are “making money by skirting the law” even while relying on taxpayer-supported research to develop blockbuster medications. (Pradhan, 1/22)
The Associated Press:
Budget Chairman Promises GOP Plan To Balance In Decade
The new Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said Thursday that he'll try to pass a fiscal blueprint this spring that will promise a balanced budget by the end of 10 years. "We'll try and balance the budget in a 10-year period," Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said on a conference call with reporters. "And we hope to do it without gimmicks and bad accounting." But Enzi wouldn't say what he hopes to do with special budget legislation that can overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. Many conservatives hope to use unique filibuster-proof legislation permitted under the budget process to repeal the new health care law. (1/22)
The Associated Press:
Wisconsin Governor Touts Drug Testing For Aid Recipients
Medicaid recipients in Wisconsin would be required to undergo drug testing and could be limited in how long they can receive benefits under measures proposed Thursday by Gov. Scott Walker, who is positioning himself as a reformer as he eyes a 2016 presidential run. (1/22)
NPR:
Obama's Big Bid To Change Sick-Leave Laws May Hinge On Small Business
In his State of the Union speech earlier this week, President Obama pitched a plan to boost what he called "middle-class economics." He asked Congress to help him make community college free, cut taxes for the middle class — and also do this: "Send me a bill that gives every worker in America the opportunity to earn seven days of paid sick leave," Obama said. "It's the right thing to do." Many in the business lobby aren't likely to agree with that. Lisa Horn, a lobbyist with the Society for Human Resource Management, says that businesses would prefer flexibility for workers to choose how to spend their leave — whether that means sick time or vacation. Horn asserts that the effect of a federal paid sick leave rule would be that businesses will cut back on other benefits. (Noguchi, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
The Disneyland Measles Outbreak And The Disgraced Doctor Who Whipped Up Vaccination Fear
Just before 7 p.m. last Thursday, as the Disneyland measles outbreak was emerging, the Los Angeles Times published an outraged editorial. It didn’t blame Disneyland, where the outbreak originated before going on to infect 70 people across six states. Nor did it blame any public agency. Instead, it took aim at a buoyant movement that won’t “get over its ignorant and self-absorbed rejection of science.” The faction was the anti-vaccine movement — its holy text a retracted medical study, its high priest a disgraced British doctor named Andrew Wakefield. “The prospect of a new measles epidemic is disturbing,” the editorial said. “So is the knowledge that many ill-informed people accept a thoroughly discredited and retracted study in the journal Lancet that purported to associate vaccination with autism. (McCoy, 1/23)
The Washington Post's Wonkblog:
Vaccine Deniers Stick Together. And Now They’re Ruining Things For Everyone
The rash of measles cases that started in Disneyland last month has now become one of the worst outbreaks of the diseases in California in the past 15 years. What started with a handful of cases has now grown to 62 confirmed cases across the state — and other cases have been reported in Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington state and Mexico. (Millman, 1/22)
Los Angeles Times:
Fewer California Parents Refuse To Vaccinate Children
The number of California parents who cite personal beliefs in refusing to vaccinate their kindergartners dropped in 2014 for the first time in a dozen years, according to a Times data analysis. The shift came amid rising alarm over the number of children being exempted from immunization, which prompted new campaigns to reverse the trend. A state law that went into effect last year made it more difficult for parents to excuse kindergartners from vaccines. Instead of signing a form, parents now must get a signature from a healthcare provider saying that they have been counseled on the risks of rejecting vaccinations. Alternatively, they can declare they are followers of a religion that prohibits them from seeking medical advice from healthcare practitioners. (Xia, Lin and Poindexter, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
On Painkillers And Thinking About Getting Pregnant? Better Talk To Your Doctor.
More than one-fourth of women who might become pregnant are getting prescriptions for opioid painkillers, such as Vicodin and Oxycontin, that can cause birth defects and other serious problems early in pregnancy, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These common opioid medications are typically prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain, and they can also be found in some prescription cough medicines. But taking them early in pregnancy is dangerous. (Sun, 1/22)
The New York Times:
High Rates Of Opioid Prescriptions Among Women Raise Birth Defect Fears
The federal health authorities reported Thursday that nearly one-third of women of reproductive age had had an opioid painkiller prescription filled every year from 2008 to 2012. Experts said the practice carried considerable risks for birth defects. (Tavernise, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
Hogan’s Plan To Cut Salaries, Education Spending Will Test Call For Bipartisanship
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Thursday proposed cutting Medicaid reimbursements, salaries for state employees and extra funding for the state’s most expensive school systems, setting up an immediate test of the call for bipartisanship he issued a day earlier at his inauguration. (Wagner and Wiggins, 1/22)
The Associated Press:
Hogan Says Budget Has Limits, But Provides Record K-12 Funds
Del. Maggie McIntosh, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said she has a lot of questions about how the overall budget plan would affect state employees, health care and K-12 education in all counties. Hogan’s plan would reduce rates paid to Medicaid healthcare providers to fiscal year 2014 levels, which would save about $160 million. The plan also calls for state employee compensation adjustments to save $156 million. (1/22)