State Highlights: Nurses Strike At 12 Tenet Healthcare Hospitals; Fla. Seeks Increase In Funding For Health And Social Service Programs

The New York Times: Nurses In Four States Strike To Push For Better Patient Care
Thousands of nurses across the country went on strike Friday morning, pushing for better patient care by demanding improved work conditions and higher pay. About 6,500 National Nurses United members at 12 Tenet Healthcare hospitals in California, Arizona and Florida organized a 24-hour strike, which began at 7 a.m., to protest current nurse-to-patient ratios that they contend are burning out employees and making it difficult to provide the best possible care. (Ortiz, 9/20)

Health News Florida: Florida Health Care Agencies Seek Boost In Budget For Drug Importation, Hep A
Despite a possibly tight budget next year, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration submitted a legislative wish list this week that seeks hundreds of millions of additional dollars for health and social-service programs. Top officials from six health care-related agencies appeared Wednesday before the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee and made pitches for spending boosts. DeSantis will roll out his budget recommendations later this year in advance of the Jan. 14 start of the 2020 legislative session.. (Sexton, 9/20)

North Carolina Health News: NC’s Uninsured Rate 9th Highest In The Nation 
For the third year in a row, the number of people without health insurance in North Carolina remained roughly the same, the annual U.S. Census Bureau report released earlier this month shows. More than 1 million North Carolinians — or 10.7 percent — did not have health insurance in all of 2018, and the same number as for the year before. In that period, the number of people without medical coverage nationwide increased by about two million, rising from 7.9 percent in 2017 to 8.5 percent in 2018. (Engel-Smith, 9/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Health Department Pauses Controversial Plan To Shift Long-Term Beds For Mentally Ill
The Department of Public Health said Friday that it will pause its controversial decision to transform a number of long-term care beds for San Francisco’s mentally ill into a temporary respite facility. The announcement came after a month of backlash — from mental health care workers as well as members of the Board of Supervisors — over the department’s decision to stop admitting new clients into the Adult Residential Facility and the Residential Care Facility for the Elderly on San Francisco General Hospital’s campus. (Thadani, 9/20)

Sacramento Bee: Blue Shield Tests Free Lyft Rides To Improve Patient Access
Blue Shield of California launched this week a pilot program that will allow more than 1,300 Sacramento-area residents to get free Lyft rides to their primary care appointments, to X-ray or lab visits, and even to pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy. (Anderson, 9/20)

POLITICO Pro: High-Stakes Dialysis Fight In Newsom's Hands, With Patient Charity Threatening To Leave
A national nonprofit that funds treatment for low-income kidney failure patients is threatening to withdraw from California if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill that would cap dialysis reimbursement rates, part of an escalating battle over how end-stage renal care is financed. American Kidney Fund President and CEO LaVarne Burton told POLITICO that CA AB290 (19R) by Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa) threatens financial assistance for 3,700 dialysis and transplant patients in California. (Hart, 9/20)

WBUR: In Mass. And Beyond, State Lawmakers Push For Medicaid Coverage Of Birth Doulas
Doulas — birth coaches whose services often extend from before birth to well after — are usually not covered by health insurance. The physical, emotional and educational support they provide are not considered medical care, even though a growing body of evidence finds they improve birth outcomes. The costs of using or becoming a doula mean that doula care has come to be seen as a choice made mainly by "white upper middle class women," according to the journal Health Affairs. (Goldberg, 9/20)

The Star Tribune: Allina Health MyChart Users Sent Erroneous E-Mails, Raising Concerns 
Thousands of Minnesotans who see doctors at Allina Health received erroneous messages Thursday and Friday that said the e-mail address used to contact them had been changed, but Allina is assuring patients that nothing was changed and no data were breached. The erroneous e-mails were sent out as a result of a technical glitch involving Allina Health accounts and the MyChart accounts to which they are linked, an Allina spokeswoman confirmed Friday. (Carlson, 9/20)

The Associated Press: South Dakota Marijuana Backers Push 2 Ballot Measures
Supporters of legalizing marijuana in South Dakota have been thwarted at nearly every turn, including an effort to become the 48th state to approve industrial hemp. But backers are doubling down on this year’s election. Volunteers are gathering signatures for two initiated ballot measures. One asks voters to approve medical marijuana and the other seeks to legalize recreational marijuana. Supporters tried the same approach to get on the 2018 ballot and failed to garner enough signatures. (Kolpack, 9/20)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Caregivers, Relatives Hope Mentally Ill Man’s Death After Police Encounter Can Bring Changes To ‘Impossible Situation’ 
In 2006, Julius Graves was pepper-sprayed, shocked with a Taser and beaten by police during a mental health crisis. He ended up in the ICU, then jail, charged with assaulting officers. The incident so shocked and outraged mental health advocates that they demanded changes in the way police interact with the mentally ill. And they thought they had a deal. But in the nearly 13 years that followed, Graves was arrested at least twice more and shocked at least five more times with a Taser. He was jailed four times, and involuntarily hospitalized seven times as his caregivers struggled to keep him on antipsychotic medication. (Patrick, 9/21)

USA Today: Indiana Boy, 17, Died From Smoking Weed. CHS Is To Blame. What Is CHS?
The doctors told Regina Denney and her son Brian Smith Jr. what was causing his severe vomiting and abdominal pain. Neither the teenager nor his mother believed what they said: smoking weed. Smoking marijuana, the two knew, was recommended to cancer patients to spur the appetite. How could it lead to Brian's condition? (Rudavsky, 9/20)

NPR: Pittsburgh Drug Overdose Incident Leaves 3 Dead, 4 Hospitalized
What Pittsburgh police first called a medical situation that left three people dead and four hospitalized is now believed to be an isolated drug overdose incident. "We do not believe this particular incident is going to be widespread," Pittsburgh police commander for narcotics Jason Lando said. "So we are not in a situation where we expect people to be found in an overdosed state all over the city." (Saldivia, 9/22)