First Edition: May 12, 2017
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Rural Shoppers Face Slim Choices, Steep Premiums On Exchanges
People living in sparsely populated areas who shopped for coverage on the state health insurance marketplaces in 2017 frequently had just one or two insurers from which to pick and often faced significantly higher premiums than did people in more urban areas, according to a new study. (Andrews, 5/12)
California Healthline:
California Bill Addresses Safety Concerns At Dialysis Clinics
Saying they are concerned about safety in California’s dialysis clinics, a coalition of nurses, technicians, patients and union representatives is backing legislation that would require more staffing and oversight. The bill, introduced by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), would establish minimum staffing ratios, mandate a longer transition time between appointments and require annual inspections of the state’s 562 licensed dialysis clinics. (Gorman, 5/11)
The Associated Press:
Senate Conservatives: Ease Obama Health Care Law Protections
Conservative senators are pushing to diminish insurance coverage requirements imposed by President Barack Obama's health care law as Senate Republicans try fashioning legislation overhauling the nation's health care system. Their ideas include erasing Obama consumer protections, such as barring higher premiums for people with pre-existing medical conditions, but allowing states to opt into them. (5/11)
The Associated Press:
GOP Lawmaker Cautions Health Care Bill Is Obamacare 'Tweak'
After campaigning on repealing the health care law and voting to gut it, an Iowa Republican is cautioning constituents fearful of losing coverage that the House GOP replacement is just "a tweak of Obamacare" that would have gone further had he had his way. (5/12)
NPR:
House Republicans Defend Health Bill Against Accusations It Hurts Rape Victims
At a town hall meeting in Willingboro, N.J., on Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur was confronted by angry constituents who demanded to know how the Republican health care bill that he helped write would affect rape victims. A young man named Joseph said he understood that the bill would allow insurance companies to deem rape a pre-existing condition and deny coverage to people who have been raped. (Kodjak, 5/11)
Politico:
Tax Credits May Provide Rallying Point For Senate Obamacare Repeal
Senate Republicans are working on a potential breakthrough that could help push through an Obamacare repeal bill – by making insurance subsidies look a lot like Obamacare. There’s growing support for the idea of pegging the tax credits in the House repeal bill to income and making aid more generous for poorer people. But those moves — while they may win consensus among Senate moderates — are unlikely to sit well with House conservatives. (Haberkorn, 5/11)
Politico:
Poll: Just 21 Percent Approve Of House’s Obamacare Repeal Bill
Less than a quarter of American voters surveyed in a new poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University approve of the legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Fifty-six percent of those polled said they disapprove of the legislation, dubbed the American Health Care Act, while just 21 percent said they support it. The support for the legislation represents an improvement over the 17 percent who said they supported the iteration of the bill that failed to pass the House in March. (Nelson, 5/11)
The New York Times:
Midwestern Manners A Memory At One Iowa Republican’s Town Halls
It is still uncertain whether Republicans in Congress will succeed in undoing the Affordable Care Act, but the debate over repealing it may have already done in Midwestern Nice. It was Tuesday evening, and inside a community college gymnasium, the jeers were hailing down on Representative Rod Blum, a Republican from northeastern Iowa, as he defended his vote for a bill that would reshape health care and repeal much of President Barack Obama’s biggest domestic accomplishment. (Healy, 5/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Kaiser Permanente Chief Pledges To Remain In Affordable Care Act Markets
Kaiser Permanente Chief Executive Bernard Tyson said Thursday that the Affordable Care Act insurance markets are “still very unstable,” but repeated earlier statements that the managed-care system will stick with the markets next year. In remarks at a Wall Street Journal Future of Healthcare event in New York, Mr. Tyson rejected the characterization by Aetna Inc. Chief Executive Mark Bertolini earlier this year that the markets were in a death spiral. “I would not use that term,” Mr. Tyson said, “because we have 20-plus million people getting access to care though the front door. That’s progress.” (Evans, 5/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
What May Happen To Your Medical Tax Deduction
Millions of taxpayers who deduct medical expenses each year are right to be concerned. Congress is attempting to make massive changes to both America’s health-care system and tax code. With those changes in mind, worried readers of Tax Report have written to ask what the impact will be on the one issue that is common to both: the medical-expense tax deduction. (Saunders, 5/12)
The Associated Press:
More Price Hikes Likely For Government Insurance Markets
Early moves by insurers suggest that another round of price hikes and limited choices will greet insurance shoppers around the country when they start searching for next year's coverage on the public markets established by the Affordable Care Act. (Murphy, 5/11)
The Associated Press:
Judge Denies Anthem Injunction In Lawsuit Over Cigna Merger
A Delaware judge on Thursday refused Anthem Inc.’s request to extend a temporary ban blocking Cigna Corp. from pulling out of proposed $48 billion merger while Anthem tries to persuade federal officials to drop their objections to the deal. The ruling comes after a federal appeals court last month left in place a decision blocking Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Anthem’s bid to buy rival Cigna, saying a bigger company would not be better for consumers. (Chase, 5/11)
NPR:
Communities Key To Fighting Opioid Crisis, Says HHS Secretary Tom Price
In March, President Trump called opioid abuse in the U.S. "a total epidemic," and issued an executive order creating a commission focused on combating the opioid crisis. On Wednesday, the White House announced it would appoint Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Harvard Medical School researcher Bertha Madras to the commission, which is headed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Now, the secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, is touring communities that have been hit especially hard by painkiller and heroin overdoses. (Martin, Brown, Gordemer and Hersher, 5/12)
Politico:
Addiction Specialists Blast Price Comment On Opioids
Addiction specialists and public health officials on Thursday chided Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price for belittling the use of medications considered the standard of care for the treatment of opioid addiction. The remarks irked specialists already worried by the Trump administration's law-and-order stance on drug control and its tentative plans, leaked to POLITICO last week, to gut the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. And ousted Surgeon General Vivek Murthy — fired by President Donald Trump last month — chimed in about the scientific evidence on Twitter. (Allen, 5/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
New York City To Open Crisis Centers
New York City plans to spend $90 million to open two centers where police can bring people with mental illness or substance-abuse issues instead of arresting them. The short-term stay facilities, known as diversion centers, are intended for people who might otherwise be arrested or issued a summons for low-level charges. City officials estimate the two, approximately 20-bed centers, designed largely for stays of up to five days, would serve 2,400 people annually. (Ramey and Kanno-Youngs, 5/11)
The Washington Post:
Lawmakers Reach Deal On Legislation To Make It Easier To Fire VA Employees
Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill have reached a bipartisan deal on legislation to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to take swift action to fire employees, an overhaul of long-guaranteed civil service protections that President Trump promised he would enact to bring accountability to the troubled agency. The agreement announced Thursday by key senators led by Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) clears a path for passage of a dramatic change that has stalled in Congress for three years following a scandal over waiting times for medical appointments at VA hospitals. (Rein, 5/12)
Reuters:
U.S. Hepatitis C Cases Soar On Spike In Heroin Use
U.S. health officials said new cases of hepatitis C rose nearly 300 percent from 2010 to 2015, despite the availability of cures for the liver disease, fueled by a spike in the use of heroin and other injection drugs, according to a report released on Thursday. (Berkrot, 5/11)
USA Today:
Hepatitis C Infections Tripled In Five Years
The trend isn't only destroying families, it's devastating state health care budgets. Sky high hepatitis C drug costs have led states to restrict coverage of drugs to treat it. Free needle exchanges, which minimize the sharing of needles that transmit the disease, also face challenges with funding and opposition among those who believe it encourages drug use. (O'Donnell and DeMio, 5/11)
Los Angeles Times:
The Human Nose Has Been Underrated For 150 Years, But Science Is Setting The Record Straight
We’ve been led to believe that our sense of smell is sadly deficient compared with our mammalian cousins such as rodents and dogs. What does the world smell like to a bloodhound, we might wonder. What scents — glorious or gross — can a twitchy little mouse nose detect that are passing right by us. You can stop wondering because it turns out that our sense of smell is not so bad after all. (Netburn, 5/11)
NPR:
Humans Are Pretty Great Smellers, Neuroscientist Argues
Smell, the thinking goes, is not our strongest sense. Our lowly noses are eclipsed by our ability to see the world around us, hear the sound of music and feel the touch of a caress. Even animals, we're taught, have a far more acute sense of smell than we do. But one scientist argues the idea of an inferior sense of smell stems from a 19th-century myth. (Harris, 5/11)
The Washington Post:
Your Sense Of Smell Is More Powerful Than You Think
In a review published Thursday in the journal Science, John McGann, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, argued that this is a flawed perception dating back to the 19th century. He blamed pioneering French anatomist Paul Broca, who wrote that, given the comparatively small olfactory organs in the primate brain, “it is no longer the sense of smell that guides the animal.” As for smelling in apes, humans included, “All that exceeded the needs of this humble function became useless.” (Guarino, 5/11)
The Washington Post:
Brazil Declares End To Zika Emergency After Fall In Cases
Brazil declared an end to its public health emergency over the Zika virus on Thursday, 18 months after a surge in cases drew headlines around the world. The mosquito-borne virus wasn’t considered a major health threat until the 2015 outbreak revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects. One of those defects, microcephaly, causes babies to be born with skulls much smaller than expected. (Dilorenzo, 5/11)
The Washington Post:
With Bird Flu Surging, U.S. Needs To Do More To Prevent Possible Pandemic, GAO Says
If the United States were suddenly facing a potential avian influenza pandemic, just one U.S. manufacturer could be counted on to make human pandemic flu vaccine here. And although the chickens that lay the eggs used in the process are themselves susceptible to the virus, until an emergency arises only voluntary and often inadequate measures by poultry producers are in place to protect flocks, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. (Sun, 5/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Gov. Jerry Brown Urges Republican 'Penance' For Healthcare Vote, Warns Of The Impact On California's Budget
Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday presented a slightly sunnier view of California’s economy than he offered just four months ago, but nonetheless delivered one of his vintage sermons on the evils of overspending when outlining a new state spending plan. And this time, the man who once trained to be a Jesuit priest singled out the state’s Republican members of the House for their unanimous vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act — a move that alone would result in California losing $18.6 billion in federal funds a decade from now. (Myers, 5/11)
Reuters:
Illinois Lawmakers Delay Bill To Expand Abortion As Veto Looms
Democratic lawmakers in Illinois on Thursday said they have placed on hold a bill that expands state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income residents and state employees but faces a likely veto from the state's Republican governor. The bill, which received final passage in a 33-22 state Senate vote on Wednesday, also aims to keep abortions legal in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court follows President Donald Trump's call to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortions legal 44 years ago. (Mclaughlin, 5/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Cedars-Sinai And Torrance Memorial Hospitals Plan To Join Forces
Cedars-Sinai and Torrance Memorial hospitals plan to team up to share resources, collaborate on patient care and provide wider access to clinical trials. Under the proposed partnership, announced this week, the two Los Angeles-area healthcare institutions would keep their separate boards of directors and operate independently under their respective chief executives, each keeping their own employees and making their own staffing decisions. They would, however, affiliate under a new parent organization with a new board of directors. (Easter, 5/11)
USA Today:
Good Samaritan Who Lost Legs Faces $150K Lien On Insurance Payouts
Three days after a Good Samaritan's legs were severed in an automobile accident, the hospital that treated her filed a lien for more than $60,000 against her. A week later, Lee Memorial Hospital here upped the ante, revising its claim to more than $150,000 for five days of care. (Montoya, 5/11)
The Associated Press:
Missouri Inmate Who Died Asked To See Counselor
A 28-year-old inmate who died after a jail altercation had asked police to see a counselor and authorities received mental health evaluations that prompted them to keep him in custody, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley told reporters Thursday. (5/11)