First Edition: April 22, 2024

KFF Health News: Rural Jails Turn To Community Health Workers To Help The Newly Released Succeed
Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside this small, rural town where he grew up. He blames his addiction. He started using in middle school, and by the time he was an adult he was addicted to meth and heroin. At various points, he’s done time alongside his mom, his dad, his sister, and his younger brother. “That’s all I’ve known my whole life,” said Clark, 31, in December. (Mongeau Hughes, 4/22)

KFF Health News: Medical Providers Still Grappling With UnitedHealth Cyberattack: ‘More Devastating Than Covid’
Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout, even though UnitedHealth told shareholders on Tuesday that business is largely back to normal. “We are still desperately struggling,” said Emily Benson, a therapist in Edina, Minnesota, who runs her own practice, Beginnings & Beyond. “This was way more devastating than covid ever was.” (Liss, 4/19)

KFF Health News: Journalists Take Stock Of Opioid Settlement Payouts And Concierge Care Trend
KFF Health News staff made the rounds on state and local media in recent weeks to discuss stories they and their colleagues reported. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (4/20)

Reuters: UnitedHealth CEO To Testify Before US House Panel On Cyberattack At Tech Unit 
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty will testify before a U.S. House subcommittee on May 1 about a recent cyberattack at the company's technology unit and its impact on patients and providers, the Energy and Commerce Committee said on Friday. The hack at Change Healthcare, a provider of healthcare billing and data systems, on Feb. 21 disrupted payments to doctors and healthcare facilities nationwide for a month. (4/19)

The Hill: Supreme Court To Consider Whether Cities Can Ticket Homeless People
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Monday over a challenge to a law letting cities fine homeless people, potentially radically changing the lives of the hundreds of thousands without homes. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cities cannot ticket homeless people for camping in public when there were no alternative shelters available, though the municipalities backing the suit want that opinion overturned. (Robertson, 4/21)

CNN: Reagan-Era Emergency Health Care Law Is The Next Abortion Flashpoint At The Supreme Court 
The Justice Department maintains that federal law requires hospitals to offer abortions if necessary to stabilize the health of emergency room patients, even in states like Idaho that ban that procedure. At the time the lawsuit was filed, Attorney General Merrick Garland characterized the case as part of the department’s promise to “work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom” in the wake of Roe’s reversal. The lawsuit has proceeded somewhat under the radar and has been overshadowed by the other blockbuster abortion case at the Supreme Court this year, concerning the federal regulations for abortion pills. Yet, the Idaho case could yield the most significant ruling from the court on abortion since the 2022 Roe reversal and one that could further elevate an issue Democrats want front and center in the 2024 election this November. (Sneed, 4/20)

Slate: The Absurd Case About Whether Doctors Can Let You Bleed Out In The ER Is Reaching SCOTUS
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a dispute over whether states can decline to abide by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. EMTALA is a federal law requiring stabilizing care for all ER patients, including abortion care, even if it conflicts with a state’s own stricter abortion rules. Moyle v. United States consolidates two cases—Idaho v. United States and Moyle v. United States. (Lithwick, 4/22)

The Hill: Newsom Set To Propose Legislation To Help Arizonans Get Abortions In California 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Sunday that state lawmakers will introduce a bill this week to assist women traveling from Arizona seeking abortion care in response to the rollout of one of the strictest abortion restrictions in the country. An Arizona Supreme Court decision earlier this month implemented an 1864 abortion law preventing access to the procedure in nearly all circumstances starting May 1. Despite calls from national Republicans to replace the law with a less strict measure, state lawmakers have shot down attempts to overturn it. (Robertson, 4/21)

Axios: Drive Time For Abortions Are Longest In Low-Income, Diverse Areas Across U.S.
People driving the longest distances to get an abortion are more likely to come from congressional districts with lower incomes and more diverse populations, according to data analysis by the left-leaning Center for American Progress provided exclusively to Axios. (Rubin, 4/21)

Axios: Abortion Bans Across The U.S. Are Straining North Carolina Clinics 
As abortion access dwindles across the U.S., North Carolina clinics are running short on space, staff and time to care for the influx of patients. North Carolina has been a refuge for people seeking abortion care in the South. Resources may be too strained — and new restrictions too tight — to consider that the case anymore. (Sands, 4/22)

Politico: Teens Drinking Legally? Republicans Use Scare Tactics On NY’s Abortion Measure. 
New York Democrats hoping to drive turnout to critical House races in November are focused on a state-level Equal Rights Amendment that will, in part, ask voters to protect abortion rights. Republicans are responding with a provocative opposition campaign that warns “equal rights” could upend society through a litany of unintended consequences — an echo of the 1970s battle that tanked the federal ERA. Opponents claim the amendment could open the door to minors buying alcohol. They say it would allow children to receive gender-affirming care without parental approval. They even say it could protect sexual predators. (Mahoney, 4/21)

The Hill: Arizona House Speaker Finds Himself In Eye Of Abortion Rights Tornado 
Arizona state House Speaker Ben Toma (R) is facing a reckoning as he tries to navigate the fallout from Arizona’s Supreme Court decision enforcing an 1864 abortion ban.  Since the decision last week, Toma has twice helped block House Democrats’ efforts to repeal the ban on procedural grounds.  (Weixel and Vakil, 4/21)

Politico: Biden To Deliver Abortion-Focused Speech In Florida 
President Joe Biden will deliver an abortion-focused speech in Florida [this] week, capitalizing on a looming abortion ban there to make a broader case for reproductive rights. At a campaign event in Tampa on Tuesday, Biden is expected to tie the 2024 election to access to reproductive rights across the country, a campaign aide confirmed to POLITICO. NBC News first reported Biden’s planned speech. (Schneider, 4/19)

Stat: After Dobbs Decision, Hospitals Reluctant To Discuss Maternal Care 
The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has transformed not just abortion access but maternal health care across the United States, causing physicians in states with restrictive laws to shift treatment of conditions including ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage. The full scale of the impact, though, has been obscured in a polarized political climate where physicians are often afraid to speak out, or are blocked by their hospitals from talking about their experiences post-Dobbs. (Goldhill, 4/22)

Stat: H5N1 Bird Flu Genetic Sequences Released By USDA 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has been under pressure from scientists both at home and abroad to share more data on the H5N1 bird flu outbreaks in dairy cows, uploaded a large number of genetic sequences of the pathogen late Sunday. (Branswell, 4/21)

The New York Times: Scientists Fault Federal Response To Bird Flu Outbreaks On Dairy Farms 
In the month since federal authorities announced an outbreak of bird flu on dairy farms, they have repeatedly reassured the public that the spate of infections does not impact the nation’s food or milk supply, and poses little risk to the public. Yet the outbreak among cows may be more serious than originally believed. In an obscure online update this week, the Department of Agriculture said there is now evidence that the virus is spreading among cows, and from cows to poultry. (Mandavilli and Anthes, 4/19)

CIDRAP: GAO Report: HHS Mpox Failures Show Persistent Emergency Response Gaps
Even with the lessons learned from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) failed to respond effectively or coordinate a national response to the 2022 mpox outbreak, with state leaders citing a lack of communication and uneven access to tests and vaccines, according to a new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).Moreover, HHS still lacks a "coordinated, department-wide after-action program to identify and resolve recurring emergency response challenges," the report read. (Soucheray, 4/19)

AP: COVID-19: How The Search For The Pandemic's Origins Turned Poisonous
The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months. The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country. (Kang and Cheng, 4/22)

AP: Takeaways From AP Report On How The Search For The Coronavirus Origins Turned Toxic 
The Chinese government froze meaningful efforts to trace the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, despite publicly declaring it supported an open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation has found. The AP drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents, leaked recordings, and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known — in the first weeks of the outbreak — and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing. (Kang and Cheng, 4/22)

The Washington Post: The Pandemic Cost 7 Million Lives, But Talks To Prevent A Repeat Stall
In late 2021, as the world reeled from the arrival of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus, representatives of almost 200 countries met — some online, some in-person in Geneva — hoping to forestall a future worldwide outbreak by developing the first-ever global pandemic accord. The deadline for a deal? May 2024. The costs of not reaching one? Incalculable, experts say. (Sellers, 4/21)

CIDRAP: US Respiratory Virus Activity Continues To Tail Off
Respiratory virus activity from flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continues to decline across most of the country, with only two jurisdictions—North Dakota and Wyoming—reporting high activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in updates today. (Schnirring, 4/19)

CIDRAP: Report: Less Than Half Of Nursing Home Residents Up To Date On COVID Vaccines
Despite the risk of severe infection from COVID-19, the study authors found that only 40.5% of nursing home residents were up to date with COVID vaccination by the end of the study period (October 2023 through February 2024). Residents in the South had the lowest rate (32.4%), compared to residents in the Northeast, who had the highest (47.3%). (Soucheray, 4/19)

The Boston Globe: Massachusetts Will Pay For Thousands To Leave Nursing Homes
Nursing home residents should find it dramatically easier to return to their communities after Massachusetts committed to spending $1 billion over the next eight years for new housing and community support for people seeking to leave long-term care facilities. The commitment was part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed in US District Court by the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and seven nursing home residents who wanted to return to their communities but could not find housing to accommodate them. (Laughlin, 4/21)

Stateline.org: ‘Are Nursing Homes Our Only Option?’ These Centers Offer Older Adults An Alternative 
George Raines, a white-haired man in a red track suit and matching University of Alabama ball cap, cracked jokes as physical therapist Brad Ellis led him through a series of exercises designed to strengthen his legs. Raines, who is 79, pretended to be in pain, but his grin belied his tone of mock suffering. The men were in the therapy room at Ascension Living Alexian PACE in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where older clients spend the day getting medical care and other services. (Vollers, 4/19)

Reuters: Tenet Healthcare, Union Coalition Reach Tentative Deal 
A union coalition for Tenet Healthcare's workers reached a tentative labor deal with the hospital system that included across-the-board raises of 14% over three years for full and part-time workers, the union said on Friday. The union said there will be a ratification bonus of $750 for full-time, $500 for part-time, and $250 for per diem employees according to the agreement. (4/19)

The Boston Globe: Steward Health Care Lenders Identified As Payment Deadline Approaches
The names of six lenders who provided $750 million to keep Steward Health Care afloat were identified Friday as a payment deadline approaches for the debt-burdened hospital system. US senators from Massachusetts pressed the lending consortium — made up of financiers who typically charge distressed borrowers steep interest rates and management fees — to modify the loan terms to allow Steward’s eight Massachusetts hospitals to keep operating. (Weisman, 4/19)

Modern Healthcare: Novant, CHS Respond To FTC Efforts To Stop Deal
Novant Health and Community Health Systems hit back at the Federal Trade Commission's allegations that Novant's $320 million proposed acquisition of two CHS North Carolina hospitals would stifle competition. The health systems allege in an April 15 filing the FTC's definition of the "Eastern Lake Norman Area" in the Charlotte region is a "distorted and artificially narrow view" of the market and allegedly incorrectly portrays the two hospitals ... as viable competition to Novant's nearby facilities. (Hudson, 4/19)

Modern Healthcare: Community Health Systems To Sell Tennessee Hospital
Community Health Systems has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Tennova Healthcare hospital to Hamilton Health Care System, CHS said Thursday. The $160 million cash transaction with Dalton, Georgia-based Hamilton, which requires regulatory approval, is expected to close in the third quarter, CHS said in a news release. (DeSilva, 4/19)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Catholic Medical Center To Lay Off 54 Workers, Citing ‘Financial Stress’ 
Catholic Medical Center in Manchester will lay off 54 employees as a response to financial difficulties, hospital leaders said. President and CEO Alex Walker announced the layoffs to staff in a memo Thursday. The hospital will also cut some workers’ hours and eliminate a number of open positions, reducing overall staffing levels by the equivalent of 142 full-time positions. (Cuno-Booth, 4/19)

Charlotte Ledger: The Rise Of Mega-Hospitals 
When it comes to growth, it seems like hospitals can’t get enough of it. Across the country, a tidal wave of hospital mergers and acquisitions in recent years has created multi-billion-dollar hospital giants that serve large swaths of the population. (Crouch, 4/22)

Houston Chronicle: Memorial Hermann Transplant Patients Left In Limbo
For years, doctors at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center told Maria Rosario Gomez that vomiting blood would be a telltale sign that her liver failure had progressed to the point where she would need a transplant. When it happened Monday, though, the Houston resident was unable to get the lifesaving transplant she needs. And it remains unclear when she will. (MacDonald, 4/19)

Axios: Hospital Emissions Reporting Proposal Is A "Game Changer"
Hospitals for the first time could be asked to report their greenhouse gas emissions to the federal health department. A new Medicare proposal to collect that data is a "game changer" for hospital efforts to fight climate change, the head of Health and Human Services' climate office told Axios. (Goldman, 4/22)

Reuters: CVS Loses Latest Bid To Escape HIV Patients' Discrimination Lawsuit 
CVS Health has lost a bid to escape a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the company of discriminating against people with HIV by requiring them to receive their medications by mail. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ruled on Friday that CVS was on notice that the mail-order program, administered by its Caremark pharmacy benefit manager division, could discriminate against people who need drugs for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, noting that plaintiffs had repeatedly asked to opt out of the program. (Pierson, 4/19)

Stat: Different Drugs, Interchangeable Names, And A Mystery Illness 
Makena, once the only available treatment to prevent preterm birth, has had its share of controversy. A yearslong debate over the drug’s effectiveness led the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw its approval of the product and demand it be pulled from the market after a confirmatory trial couldn’t replicate the results of a key study. But while the story of Makena’s rise and fall may be well known, one aspect of the drug’s legacy has gone untold. (Merelli, 4/22)

NPR: Cheap Longevity Drug? Researchers Aim To Test If Metformin Can Slow Down Aging
A drug taken by millions of people to control diabetes may do more than lower blood sugar. Research suggests metformin has anti-inflammatory effects that could help protect against common age-related diseases including heart disease, cancer, and cognitive decline. Scientists who study the biology of aging have designed a clinical study, known as The TAME Trial, to test whether metformin can help prevent these diseases and promote a longer healthspan in healthy, older adults. (Aubrey, 4/22)

Bloomberg: Adderall Abuse Risks Becoming Another Opioid Crisis, DEA Says
The fast rise of prescriptions for Adderall and other stimulants, along with rampant online treatment and advertising, suggest the start of another drug crisis like the opioid epidemic, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official said Thursday. The warning is the most urgent public message yet on these types of drugs by the agency. (Swetlitz, 4/19)

AP: What The Cost Of Insulin May Mean For Biden's Campaign
Rarely a day goes without President Joe Biden mentioning insulin prices. He promotes a $35 price cap for the medication for Americans on Medicare — in White House speeches, campaign stops and even at non-health care events around the country. His reelection team has flooded swing-state airwaves with ads mentioning it, in English and Spanish. All that would seemingly add up to a sweeping political and economic impact. The reality is more complicated. (Weissert, 4/21)

The New York Times: Some Older Women Need Extra Breast Scans. Why Won’t Medicare Pay? 
Mammograms can miss tumors in women with dense breast tissue. So for these patients, doctors often include a second scan — ultrasound, for example, or an M.R.I. — which is more likely to turn up cancers at early stages. But some older patients are running into an unexpected twist. Though many women see the extra scan as a routine form of prevention, Medicare won’t pay for it, and some patients are left to pick up a hefty tab. (Rabin, 4/19)

Stateline.org: States Want To Make It Harder For Health Insurers To Deny Care, But Firms Might Evade Enforcement 
For decades, Amina Tollin struggled with mysterious, debilitating pain that radiated throughout her body. A few years ago, when a doctor finally diagnosed her with polyneuropathy, a chronic nerve condition, she had begun to use a wheelchair. The doctor prescribed a blood infusion therapy that allowed Tollin, 40, to live her life normally. That is, until about three months ago, when it came time for reapproval and Medicaid stopped paying for the therapy. (Chatlani, 4/19)

CBS News: U.S. Measles Cases Reach 125 This Year, Topping 2022's Large Outbreaks
At least 125 measles cases have been reported across 17 states so far this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, up from 121 cases last week. More cases have now been reported this year than in all of 2022, the most recent annual peak of measles infections. Cases of measles had surged that year from outbreaks linked to unvaccinated Afghan refugees. (Tin, 4/19)

Reuters: US Designates PFAS Chemicals As Superfund Hazardous Substances
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday designated a pair of widely used industrial chemicals as hazardous substances under the country's Superfund program, accelerating a crackdown on toxic compounds known as "forever chemicals." The rule will require companies to report leaks of two of the most commonly used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and help pay to clean up existing contamination. (Mindock, 4/19)

The Washington Post: Your Spouse’s Stroke Could Raise Your Risk Of Depression, Study Indicates 
The spouses of people who have heart attacks, strokes and heart failure may be at elevated risk of depression, an analysis published this month suggests. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, looked at 277,142 married couples enrolled in the Japan Health Insurance Association program, which covers about 40 percent of Japan’s working-age adults. Researchers matched married adults whose spouses experienced stroke, heart failure or myocardial infarction (heart attack) between 2016 and 2022 to a control group of similar married couples whose spouses did not experience such events. (Blakemore, 4/20)

NPR: Scientists With African, Asian Names Less Likely To Be Mentioned In News Stories
When one Chinese national recently petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident, he thought his chances were pretty good. As an accomplished biologist, he figured that news articles in top media outlets, including The New York Times, covering his research would demonstrate his "extraordinary ability" in the sciences, as called for by the EB-1A visa. But when the immigration officers rejected his petition, they noted that his name did not appear anywhere in the news articles. (Peng, 4/19)

Bloomberg: Cholera Vaccine: An Easier-To-Make Version Approved By WHO Amid Shortage
An oral vaccine for cholera that is more simple to make than existing versions has been approved by the World Health Organization in a move that is expected to rapidly increase production capacity amid global shortages. The inactivated oral inoculation, Euvichol-S, has similar efficacy to the two WHO-approved vaccines, the WHO said in a statement Friday. It’s made by Seoul-based EuBiologics Co., the same company that makes the older versions. (Kew, 4/19)