First Edition: May 31, 2017
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Drug Rebates Reward Industry Players — And Often Hurt Patients
Medicare and its beneficiaries aren’t the winners in the behind-the-scenes rebate game played by drugmakers, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, according to a paper published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine. The paper, which dives into the complex and opaque world of Medicare drug price negotiations, finds that rebates may actually drive up the amount Medicare and its beneficiaries pay for drugs — especially for increasingly common high-priced drugs — and it offers some systemic solutions. (Tribble, 5/30)
Kaiser Health News:
GOP Health Bill Pleases Most Republicans, But Not Many Other Americans
[T]he KFF poll found that even Republicans show scant support for a change to some of the health law’s most popular provisions. Fewer than a fifth of Republicans favored changing the provision that limits how much more insurers can charge older people for insurance compared with younger people. And 22 percent of Republicans favored letting insurers charge sick people higher premiums if they have a break in their coverage. (Rovner, 5/31)
Kaiser Health News:
Two Medicare Advantage Insurers Settle Whistleblower Lawsuit For $32 Million
Two Florida Medicare Advantage insurers have agreed to pay nearly $32 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged they exaggerated how sick patients were and took other steps to overbill the government health plan for the elderly. The suit, settled on Tuesday, was filed in 2009 by Dr. Darren Sewell, a physician and former medical director at the two health plans, Freedom Health and Optimum HealthCare, both based in Tampa. Sewell worked at the plans from 2007 to 2012. He died in 2014, but his family took over the case. (Schulte, 5/30)
California Healthline:
California’s New Single-Payer Proposal Embraces Some Costly Old Ways
Three of the dirtiest words in health care are “fee for service.” For years, U.S. officials have sought to move Medicare away from paying doctors and hospitals for each task they perform, a costly approach that rewards the quantity of care over quality. State Medicaid programs and private insurers are pursuing similar changes. Yet the $400 billion single-payer proposal that’s advancing in the California legislature would restore fee-for-service to its once-dominant perch in California. (Terhune, 5/31)
Kaiser Health News:
Handshake-Free Zone: Keep Those Hands — And Germs — To Yourself In The Hospital
Anna Gorman reports: "Dr. Mark Sklansky, a self-described germaphobe, can’t stop thinking about how quickly those little microbes can spread. “If I am at a computer terminal or using a phone or opening a door, I know my hands are now contaminated, and I need to be careful and I need to wash my hands,” said Sklansky, professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA." (Gorman, 5/30)
The Associated Press:
Iowa's GOP Senators Cast Doubt On Health Care Law Repeal
Lowering expectations, Iowa's two Republican senators say the long-promised repeal of "Obamacare" is unlikely, and any final agreement with the Republican-controlled House is uncertain. The comments Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst come as the Republican-controlled Senate moves forward on its work to dismantle the 2010 health care bill while facing conflicting demands within their own party and lockstep Democratic opposition. Both senators are active players in the health care debate. (5/31)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Wants Senate Rules Changed To Speed Up Health-Care, Tax Legislation
President Donald Trump called for a change to Senate rules to allow all bills to pass with a simple majority, elbowing aside Senate Republicans’ current legislative strategy on taxes and health care that already rests on obtaining such a majority. “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. (Radnofsky, Rubin and Hughes, 5/30)
The Associated Press:
Poll: Trump Promises Unfulfilled By House GOP Health Bill
President Donald Trump has called the House-passed health care bill a "great plan," but a new poll finds that three out of four Americans do not believe it fulfills most of his promises. The poll out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation also found a growing share of the public concerned that the GOP's American Health Care Act will have negative consequences for them personally by increasing their costs, making it harder to get and keep health insurance, or reducing quality. (5/31)
The Washington Post:
Poll: Most Americans Want Senate To Change Or Ditch House Health-Care Bill
A 55 percent majority of Americans view the Republican-backed American Health Care Act negatively, the same proportion who want the Senate to make major changes to the legislation or reject it, the survey finds. Only 8 percent want the legislation, which would repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, approved as it now stands. Almost half of the public, 49 percent, holds favorable views of the ACA, while 42 percent have negative views, which are among the law's most positive ratings tracked in polls by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation in the years since the law's passage. (McGinley and Clement, 5/31)
The Associated Press:
Dozens Arrested After Health-Care Protest In North Carolina
The head of the North Carolina NAACP was among more than 30 people arrested Tuesday during a demonstration against Republican lawmakers' refusal to expand Medicaid coverage — the latest in a long string of protests the NAACP and members of the "Moral Monday" movement have waged since the GOP returned to power in 2013. With zip-ties on their wrists, the Rev. William Barber and 31 other protesters were led away by police as supporters continued protest chants in support of health care for all. (5/30)
USA Today:
Constituents Of Mike Gallagher Hold Green Bay Town Hall Without Him
A group of northeastern Wisconsin residents wanted so badly to raise concerns with Rep. Mike Gallagher, they held a town meeting even though they knew the congressman wouldn't be there. ... Health-care coverage, and the American Health Care Act, a Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, was the most common topic. Gallagher, R-Green Bay, supported the bill during a House vote earlier this month. (5/30)
USA Today:
Medicaid Chief Seema Verma Blames Obamacare's Collapse On Its Founders
When the Obamacare insurance exchanges collapse and leave some Americans stranded without health coverage, top Trump administration official Seema Verma says, blame the folks who created them in the first place. "Right now, if we look at it, this is all because of the Affordable Care Act," says Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "I mean, the individual market was working much better than it is now, so this is all the impact of the Affordable Care Act." (Page, 5/30)
Politico:
Ryan Appoints Controversial Cancer Doctor To HHS Committee
House Speaker Paul Ryan has named Patrick Soon-Shiong, a controversial billionaire scientist, to a committee that will advise the Trump administration on policy around health information technology, a Ryan spokeswoman said this evening. Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles surgeon who leads a network of for-profit and not-for-profit ventures conducting cancer research, has been the subject of news stories, including by POLITICO and STAT, that have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. (Tahir, 5/30)
NPR:
State Wants Drugmaker To Set An Affordable Price For Zika Vaccine
The U.S. Army is planning to grant an exclusive license to the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, Inc. to manufacture and sell a Zika vaccine the Army developed last year. And that has Rebekah Gee, Louisiana's secretary of health, worried about paying for it. "God forbid we have a Zika outbreak. We're in the middle of a fiscal crisis, we're already cutting services to people and we're already potentially cutting our funding to fight the Zika virus," Gee says. (Kodjak, 5/30)
The Associated Press:
Kansas Lawmakers OK New Abortion Rule With Font Requirement
Kansas legislators approved a new requirement for abortion providers Tuesday that calls for them to disclose doctors’ histories to their patients — and specifies that it be done on white paper in black, 12-point Times New Roman type. Both supporters and critics of the bill believe it is the first of its kind in the U.S. The measure tightens the state’s longstanding “Right to Know” law already requiring that 24 hours ahead of terminating a pregnancy, abortion providers give women the name of the doctor and information about the risks of the procedure and fetal development. Kansas has fewer than 10 physicians performing abortions for three providers. (Hanna, 5/30)
Los Angeles Times:
Being Transgender In America May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Study Shows
Being transgender in America may be hazardous to your health. A new report in JAMA Internal Medicine characterizes a variety of health disparities between people who are transgender (that is, their gender identity is not the same as their gender at birth) and people who are cisgender (their gender identity matches their gender at birth). Spoiler alert: There are many. (Kaplan, 5/30)
NPR:
State Rules For Treating Sepsis May Be Risking Lives
Doctors can save thousands of lives a year if they act promptly to identify sepsis, an often lethal reaction to infection. Sometimes called blood poisoning, sepsis is the leading cause of death in hospitals. A 4-year-old regulation in New York state compels doctors and hospitals to follow a certain protocol, involving a big dose of antibiotics and intravenous fluids. It's far from perfect — about a quarter of patients still die from sepsis. But early intervention is helping. (Harris, 5/30)
Reuters:
Maryland Joins California In Battling Antibiotic Overuse On Farms
Maryland has become the second U.S. state to pass a law banning the routine use of antibiotics in healthy livestock and poultry, a move aimed at battling the rise of dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria known as "superbugs." Maryland's Keep Antibiotics Effective Act, which aims to end a practice that public health experts say can fuel the spread of superbugs, takes effect on Oct. 1 after Governor Larry Hogan declined to sign or veto it last week. Farmers in Maryland have until Jan. 1, 2018, to comply with the law. (Baertlein, 5/30)