First Edition: March 12, 2019
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Trump’s Budget Offers $291M To Fight HIV In U.S. But Trims Overseas Efforts
The allocation to combat HIV in the U.S. would be split between multiple programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive $140 million to work with state and local health departments to reduce new infections. Another share — approximately $120 million — would be directed to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides HIV-related medical care, support services and medications to patients. President Donald Trump pledged in his State of the Union speech last month to eradicate the transmission of HIV in the United States in the next decade. Jennifer Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said these funds “are actual real increases to those programs if they should go through.” (Heredia Rodriguez, 3/12)
Kaiser Health News:
‘Medieval’ Diseases Flare As Unsanitary Living Conditions Proliferate
Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean is a top priority. But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often littered with needles and trash, and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.“I worry about all those diseases,” said Millar, 43, who said she has been homeless most of her life. (Gorman, 3/12)
Kaiser Health News:
‘Medicare-For-All’ Gets Buzzy In Unexpected Locales
It was a sleepy Saturday in mid-February. But Virginia Sanders was speaking, and the audience was rapt. “One might not have the power. But a thousand has the power,” she said. “Don’t let anybody fool you that you don’t.” Sanders, 76, has been an organizer and activist all her life. She marched in the civil rights movement. She protested against the Vietnam War. During the 2016 primary, friends recall, this petite black woman marched up to men in Ku Klux Klan robes to distribute flyers about then-candidate Bernie Sanders — no relation. (Luthra, 3/12)
Kaiser Health News:
How Much Difference Will Eli Lilly’s Half-Price Insulin Make?
When Erin Gilmer filled her insulin prescription at a Denver-area Walgreens in January, she paid $8.50. U.S. taxpayers paid another $280.51. “It eats at me to know that taxpayer money is being wasted,” said Gilmer, who has Medicare and was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes while a sophomore at the University of Colorado in 2002.The diagnosis meant that for the rest of her life she’d require daily insulin shots to stay alive. But the price of that insulin is skyrocketing. (Sable-Smith, 3/12)
The New York Times:
Trump Proposes A Record $4.75 Trillion Budget
President Trump sent Congress on Monday a record $4.75 trillion budget request that calls for increased military spending and sharp cuts to domestic programs like education and environmental protection for the 2020 fiscal year. (Tankersley and Tackett, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump’s 2020 Budget: The Top 10 Takeaways
The biggest losers: Under Trump’s budget proposal, 10 major departments and agencies would see their budgets slashed by 10 percent (or more) in the next year alone: Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, State, Transportation, Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. (Long, 3/11)
The Associated Press:
Highlights Of Trump's $4.7 Trillion Budget Request
Under Trump's proposal, the budget deficit is projected to hit $1.1 trillion next year — the highest in a decade. The administration is counting on robust economic growth, including from the 2017 Republican tax cuts, to push down the red ink. (3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump 2020 Budget To Include Big Domestic Cuts, $8.6 Billion For Border Wall
The budget proposal ran into an immediate buzz saw on Capitol Hill, where many Democrats flatly rejected it and even some Republicans sought to distance themselves from key details. (Paletta, Werner and Stein, 3/11)
The Associated Press:
Pelosi Rejects Trump's Proposed Budget Cuts As 'Cruel'
President Donald Trump proposed a record $4.7 trillion budget, pushing the federal deficit past $1 trillion but counting on optimistic growth, accounting shuffles and steep domestic cuts to bring future spending into balance in 15 years. Reviving his border wall fight with Congress, Trump wants more than $8 billion for the barrier with Mexico, and he's also asking for a big boost in military spending. That's alongside steep cuts in health care and economic support programs for the poor that Democrats — and even some Republicans — will oppose. (3/12)
The Washington Post:
Trump 2020 Budget: Which Department Budgets Would Be Cut
While the cuts are unlikely to become reality — Congress has rejected many of Trump’s previous requests — the budget is an important signal of the administration’s priorities and suggests a major funding fight in October. (Rabinowitz and Uhrmacher, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
White House Proposes $4.7 Trillion Budget For Fiscal 2020
“The lack of seriousness that the president brings to budget negotiations only further damages his relationship with Congress,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Monday. “Democrats wholeheartedly reject his proposal.” (Davidson, 3/11)
Los Angeles Times:
For A President Who Doesn’t Sweat Details, A New $4.7-Trillion Budget Gets Short Shrift
While past presidents used the release of their annual spending plans as an opportunity to lay out short- and long-term visions, and to influence subsequent negotiations on Capitol Hill, Trump has taken the lack of regard for budgets to new lows, reflecting his own lack of interest in policy details, his administration’s thin staffing and its overall ambivalence about the nitty-gritty of policy-making. (Bierman, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Proposes Huge Cuts To Medicaid And Medicare
The Trump administration is proposing a sharp slowdown in Medicaid spending as part of a broad reduction in the government’s investment in health care, calling for the public insurance for the poor to morph from an entitlement program to state block grants even after a Republican Congress rejected the idea. The budget released by the White House on Monday also calls for a sizable reduction for Medicare, the federal insurance for older Americans that President Trump has consistently promised to protect. Most of the trims relate to changing payments to doctors and hospitals and renewing efforts to ferret out fraud and wasteful billing — oft-cited targets by presidents of both parties. (Goldstein and Stein, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Medicare-For-All V. Medicare-For-Less: Trump’s Proposed Cuts Put Health Care At Center Of 2020 Race
Trump’s 10-year budget unveiled Monday calls for more than $845 billion in reductions for Medicare, aiming to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal program that gives insurance to older Americans. It’s part of a broader proposed belt-tightening effort after deficits soared during the president’s first two years in office in part due to massive tax cuts for the wealthy. The move immediately tees up a potential messaging battle between Democratic proposals for Medicare-for-all — castigated by Republicans as a socialist boondoggle — and a kind of Medicare-for-less approach. focused on cutting back on spending, from the GOP. (Olorunnipa and Sullivan, 3/11)
Stat:
Trump Budget Pitches Capping Seniors’ Drug Costs, Cutting NIH Funding
The White House on Monday proposed capping out-of-pocket prescription drug expenses for seniors covered by Medicare, re-emphasizing Trump administration support for a concept endorsed both by pharmaceutical companies and congressional Democrats. The proposal came within President Trump’s draft budget proposal — a document that also calls for a roughly $5.5 billion funding cut for the National Institutes of Health, despite the recent announcement of research and public health initiatives to end new HIV transmissions by 2030 and develop new treatments for childhood cancer. (Facher, 3/12)
The Associated Press:
Hospital Groups Protest Cuts In Trump Budget
Hospital groups are objecting strongly to hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts in President Donald Trump’s budget. Two major hospital trade groups did not mince words in blog posts Monday by their leaders. Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, is calling proposed Medicare cuts “arbitrary and blunt,” adding, “the impact on care for seniors would be devastating.” (3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Calls For $291 Million To Fund HIV Initiative
The Trump administration is calling for $291 million for its domestic campaign to stop the transmission of HIV in the United States within a decade, proposing significant new resources for programs that have not received major increases in the past few decades. The administration announced a budget for fiscal 2020 on Monday that follows President Trump’s State of the Union pledge to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. (Sun, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Budget Proposal Adds Funding For Fighting HIV/AIDS In U.S., Cuts Contribution To Global Effort
It also proposed a 29% cut to its fiscal 2020 contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a Geneva-based, international financing organization, and a $1 billion decrease in U.S. funding for the Global Fund over the next three years. The U.S. would match $1 for every $3 pledged by other donors in a coming fundraising round for the next three-year period, the budget said. That is down from a $1 for every $2 match from the U.S. during fundraising for the current three-year period, which ends this year. The new match level “challenges other donors to make significant new commitments to fighting the three diseases,” the budget document said. (McKay, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Seeks Cuts In Science Funding
President Trump’s third budget request, released Monday, again seeks cuts to a number of scientific and medical research enterprises, including a 13 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a 12 percent cut at the National Institutes of Health and the termination of an Energy Department program that funds speculative technologies deemed too risky for private investors. (Achenbach, Guarino, Kaplan and Dennis, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Budget Request Cuts Funds For Health And Human Services
The administration’s budget signals cuts at almost every institute that is part of the NIH. For example, the budget proposes a cut of $897 million for the National Cancer Institute, down from $6.14 billion this year. Another big NIH component, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, would lose about $486 million in funding, to $3 billion from $3.49 billion for fiscal 2019, accounting for rounding. The Food and Drug Administration would fare considerably better under the president’s proposal, with a $643 million increase in funding, to $6.14 billion. (Burton and Armour, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Wants The E-Cigarette Industry To Pay $100 Million A Year In User Fees
The e-cigarette industry would pay $100 million a year in user fees under the Trump administration budget proposal released Monday. The funds would go to beefed-up regulatory oversight by the Food and Drug Administration. E-cigarettes are not subject to such fees now, but several other types of tobacco products are, including cigarettes, cigars and snuff. The agency is expected to collect an estimated $712 million in user fees in the current fiscal year, with cigarettes accounting for more than 86 percent of the amount. (McGinley, 3/11)
The Hill:
Trump Calls For Cutting NIH Budget, Imposing User Fees On E-Cigarette Industry
“The proposal supports FDA’s goal to prevent a new generation of children from becoming addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes,” the budget request says. (Sullivan and Hellmann, 3/11)
Politico:
Trump's Budget Would Steer $20M To Jack Nicklaus-Backed Hospital Project
The White House's proposed budget includes funding for a small children's health program sought by one of President Donald Trump's golfing buddies: Jack Nicklaus. Under the administration's fiscal 2020 funding plan released Monday, HHS would steer $20 million toward a mobile children's hospital project at Miami's Nicklaus Children's Hospital, named for the legendary golfer. (Diamond, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Proposal Would Slash Total Cancer Funding While Boosting Pediatric Cancer Research
The Trump administration’s budget proposes a $50 million increase for pediatric cancer research for the next fiscal year, while cutting overall funding for the National Cancer Institute by almost $900 million. The budget said the childhood cancer request was the first step in investing $500 million over the next 10 years, something President Trump called for last month in his State of the Union address. (McGinley, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Budget Would Boost Spending On Veterans
The Trump administration’s proposed budget for fiscal 2020 would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency that has seen a steady rise in funding over the past nearly two-decades of war. President Trump made a focus on veterans issues part of his central campaign pledge. The budget would provide a 9.6% boost in overall spending, bringing the total budget to $220.2 billion. (Kesling, 3/11)
Politico:
Trump's Budget: Winners And Losers
The White House wants to trim $17 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the upcoming fiscal year and almost $220 billion over a decade. The plan also calls for trading out some SNAP benefits for “Harvest Boxes” that would deliver bundles of nonperishable foods to low-income families. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says that switch could save the government more than $129 billion over 10 years. (Scholtes, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Trump Lauded Farmers, Medicare And AIDS Programs. Then He Unsheathed The Budget Knife.
Some suggested cuts, like the proposal to slash Special Olympics funding, have become a perennial target. When the Education Department put funds for the Special Olympics on the chopping block again on Monday, it determined that the funding could be better found privately or at the state level. The department faces a 10 percent overall budget reduction, and has proposed eliminating dozens of programs it says “achieved their original purpose, duplicate other programs, are narrowly focused or are unable to demonstrate effectiveness,” according to budget documents. (Rogers, 3/12)
The Associated Press:
In Dems' 'Medicare For All' Battle Cry, GOP Sees '20 Weapon
"Medicare for All" has become catnip for Democratic presidential candidates and many lawmakers, yet Republicans prepping for next year's congressional races are also flocking to it — for entirely different reasons. GOP strategists say they'll use proposals to expand government-run health insurance to pummel Democrats for plotting to eliminate job-provided coverage, raise taxes and make doctors' office visits resemble trips to the dreaded Department of Motor Vehicles. (3/11)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Ocasio-Cortez’s Misleading Complaint: Trump Did Not Transfer Funds For The Opioid Emergency
C-SPAN tweeted out a five-minute clip of Ocasio-Cortez questioning James W. Carroll, the White House’s director of drug policy, with this quote highlighted: “@AOC compares #OpioidCrisis to #SouthernBorder: ‘So, we’ve got two emergencies, one is treated with an actual action and the other is just to raise awareness.’" Ocasio-Cortez then retweeted it with the comment above, earning nearly 50,000 retweets and likes. (Kessler, 3/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Hospitals, Insurers Set To Resist Price Transparency Proposal
Hospitals and insurers are gearing up to battle a Trump administration plan that could require the public disclosure of negotiated prices for medical services, part of an effort to lower U.S. health-care costs. Patient advocates have largely cheered the idea, saying consumers should be able to price shop before they pick a doctor or undergo treatment. But industry groups are attacking the administration’s legal authority to mandate price disclosure, which could upend hospitals’ negotiations with insurers, and are criticizing any requirement as too complex to implement. (Armour and Wilde Mathews, 3/11)
NPR:
Trump Makes Bid For 'More Transparency' In Hospital Charges To Insurers
The Trump Administration is weighing whether to require hospitals to publicly reveal the prices they charge insurance companies for medical procedures and services — prices that are currently negotiated in private and kept confidential. The Department of Health and Human services says its aim is to boost competition and cut costs by letting consumers see how prices vary from place to place. But health economists say such "transparency" might not actually bring down costs for patients. (Kodjak, 3/11)
Modern Healthcare:
Hospitals Don't Want To Help Fund DSH Cut Delays
Hospitals face a potentially Catch-22 fight over a key lobbying priority — $4 billion in Medicaid disproportionate-share hospital cuts slated to start Oct. 1. Lawmakers appear poised to follow through with another delay. But the Senate Finance Committee is also eying simultaneous cuts to other hospital funding streams because, for the first time since DSH cut delays started, Congress now has to find a way to pay for them. This is due to a change to the way Congressional Budget Office scores the delays. (Luthi, 3/11)
The New York Times:
N.Y. Lawmakers Want To Allow Teenagers To Get Vaccines, Even If Parents Say No
After a measles outbreak in Brooklyn and Rockland County and amid growing concerns about the anti-vaccine movement, a pair of state legislators are proposing allowing minors to receive vaccinations without permission from their parents. The bill would allow any child 14 years or older to be vaccinated and given booster shots for a range of diseases including mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, influenza, hepatitis B and measles, which seemed to be the primary reason for alarm after the recent outbreaks. (McKinley, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Your Environment Is Cleaner. Your Immune System Has Never Been So Unprepared.
Should you pick your nose? Don’t laugh. Scientifically, it’s an interesting question. Should your children pick their noses? Should your children eat dirt? Maybe: Your body needs to know what immune challenges lurk in the immediate environment. Should you use antibacterial soap or hand sanitizers? No. Are we taking too many antibiotics? Yes. (Richtel, 3/12)
The Washington Post:
This HIV Pill Saves Lives. So Why Is It So Hard To Get In The Deep South?
Even in a tiny town in the Mississippi Delta, Robert Rowland, an openly gay, single, middle-aged man, has no problem finding sex partners. What he can’t find is PrEP, the once-a-day pill that protects users against HIV infection, or a doctor who knows much about it, or a drugstore that stocks it. So every few months, he said, he drives three hours to Open Arms, the health center here that distributes an estimated 80 percent of these pills in the state. He refills his prescription, updates a nurse on his recent sexual history and gets a quick physical exam. (Bernstein, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Incendiary N.R.A. Videos Find New Critics: N.R.A. Leaders
The flash point was Thomas the Tank Engine. Last September, the National Rifle Association’s famously combative spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, provoked widespread outrage when she took to the gun group’s streaming service to mock ethnic diversity on the popular children’s program “Thomas & Friends,” portraying the show’s talking trains in Ku Klux Klan hoods. Now, growing unease over the site’s inflammatory rhetoric, and whether it has strayed too far from the N.R.A.’s core gun-rights mission, has put its future in doubt. (Hakim, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Can Breast Cancer Be Treated Without Surgery?
When Sabrina Jones was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, she expected to have surgery to remove the tumor—and her entire breast. “My first instinct was ‘Get it out, get the cancer out,’” Ms. Jones said. But the 52-year-old manager at an educational-tech company responded so well to chemotherapy, her surgeon at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston informed her that the cancerous tumor was completely gone. He asked her to participate in an experiment in which she skipped surgery altogether. (Lagnado, 3/11)
Reuters:
World Must Prepare For Inevitable Next Flu Pandemic, WHO Says
The world will inevitably face another pandemic of flu and needs to prepare for the potential devastation that could cause, and not underestimate the risks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Outlining a global plan to fight the viral disease and get ahead of a potential global outbreak, the WHO said the next influenza pandemic "is a matter of when, not if." (3/11)
NPR:
Whites Contribute More To Air Pollution — Minorities Bear The Burden
Pollution, much like wealth, is not distributed equally in the United States. Scientists and policymakers have long known that black and Hispanic Americans tend to live in neighborhoods with more pollution of all kinds, than white Americans. And because pollution exposure can cause a range of health problems, this inequity could be a driver of unequal health outcomes across the U.S. (Lambert, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
New Concern On College Campuses: ‘Drunkorexia,’ A Combination Drinking And Eating Disorder
My college experience included this life-skills lesson: Drink alcohol on a full stomach, so you don’t get inebriated too quickly. Of course, most college students shouldn’t be drinking at all, but we know from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that close to 60 percent of college students ages 18 to 22 do consume alcohol, which makes harm-reducing approaches important. Unfortunately, campus authorities and researchers are reporting a practice that turns the full-stomach drinking strategy on its head: Rather than filling up before a night of partying, significant numbers of students refuse to eat all day before consuming alcohol. (Rosenbloom, 3/11)
NPR:
Transgender Coverage Exclusions From Health Insurance Come Under Fire
When Sgt. Anna Lange moved with her young family from Columbus, Ga., to the state's more rural Houston County, her main priority was being able to stay near her son. After five years of marriage — and many more years of internal turmoil — Lange had realized that despite being assigned male at birth, she'd felt female her entire life. She had decided to undergo gender transition and knew it would eventually end her marriage. She also knew her soon-to-be ex-wife would want to move back home to Houston County, an hour and a half's drive from Columbus. (Landman, 3/12)
The Associated Press:
North Carolina Sued Again Over Transgender Rights
North Carolina is being sued again over its treatment of transgender people, as state employees argue that their health plan violated federal law by dropping coverage of medically necessary procedures. The new lawsuit comes amid unresolved litigation over North Carolina's so-called bathroom bill and the law that replaced it. (3/11)
The New York Times:
Black Lawmakers To Block Legalized Marijuana In N.Y. If Their Communities Don’t Benefit
Black lawmakers are blocking a push to legalize recreational marijuana in New York, warning that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal could perpetuate the racial inequality fostered under current drug laws. The lawmakers say that unless people of color are guaranteed a share of the potentially $3 billion industry, there may be no legalization this year. (Wang and Mays, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Top Officials Resign From Troubled Texas Charity For Migrants
For months, Juan Sanchez was at the center of the national uproar over family separations at the Mexican border because the nonprofit he founded, Southwest Key Programs, was housing migrant children taken from their parents. On Monday, facing intense scrutiny from his own organization and federal investigations over alleged financial improprieties, he stepped down after 32 years at the helm.
The charity’s chief financial officer, Melody Chung, left last month after a New York Times article outlined allegations of mismanagement and possible malfeasance at the charity. (Kulish, Barker and Ruiz, 3/11)
The Associated Press:
Police Say Shooting At Care Facility Unrelated To Rape Case
The shooting of an armed man outside an Arizona long-term care facility does not appear to be connected to the rape of an incapacitated woman who later gave birth there, authorities said Monday. Phoenix police said the 58-year-old suspect, who was shot by an off-duty officer working security at Hacienda HealthCare, was targeting a woman in the facility's parking lot. Investigators say neither the shooter nor the woman was a resident there. (3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
New York City School Menus Go Meatless On Mondays
It’s bye-bye, chicken parmigiana. Hello, veggie tacos, hummus and grilled cheese. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that all New York City public schools will officially have “Meatless Monday,” starting next fall. City schools had already cut meat from their menus on Mondays last fall, except for whatever meat appeared in salad bars, a city Department of Education spokesman said. But the mayor trumpeted the step as a formal new policy that will improve the health of children and the planet. (Brody and West, 3/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Accidental Alcohol Poisoning Caused Death Of UC Irvine Student After Party, Coroner Says
The death of a UC Irvine freshman after an off-campus party in January was caused by accidental alcohol poisoning, the Orange County coroner’s office said Monday. Noah Domingo, 18, of La Crescenta died around 3:30 a.m. Jan. 12, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The results of a toxicology report revealed that his blood-alcohol level was about 0.33%. No other substances were detected in Domingo’s system at the time of his death, the Sheriff’s Department said. (Sclafani, 3/11)