First Edition: Jan. 19, 2024
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF Health News:
In This Oklahoma Town, Most Everyone Knows Someone Who’s Been Sued By The Hospital
It took little more than an hour for Deborah Hackler to dispense with the tall stack of debt collection lawsuits that McAlester Regional Medical Center recently brought to small-claims court in this Oklahoma farm community. Hackler, a lawyer who sues patients on behalf of the hospital, buzzed through 51 cases, all but a handful uncontested, as is often the case. She bantered with the judge as she secured nearly $40,000 in judgments, plus 10% in fees for herself, according to court records. (Black and Levey, 1/19)
KFF Health News:
Michigan Disbands Racial Equity Group As Tension Mounts Over Opioid Settlement Money
An advisory group formed to help Michigan tackle high rates of opioid overdoses in communities of color has been disbanded by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration, leading to hard feelings among some members who say their work is being buried. The Whitmer administration is “trying to … silence in a systematic way the voices of the Racial Equity Workgroup,” said Native American activist Banashee “Joe” Cadreau, a member of the work group. “For two years, we put our blood, sweat, tears, thoughts, time, to …. [come] up with these recommendations.” (Erb and French, 1/19)
KFF Health News:
Insurance Doesn’t Always Cover Hearing Aids For Kids
Joyce Shen was devastated when doctors said her firstborn, Emory, hadn’t passed her newborn hearing screening. Emory was diagnosed with profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears as an infant, meaning sounds are extremely muffled. But Shen and her husband, who live in Ontario, California, faced a horrible situation. Without intervention, they were told, their baby daughter’s hearing impairment would prevent her from acquiring age-appropriate language skills and likely leave her with developmental problems affecting her education. Pediatric hearing aids can look like modified earbuds and sometimes come in pink, blue, and other bright colors. The ones Emory needed can cost more than $6,000 a pair, and she would require a new pair about every three years as her ears grow. But the family’s work-based insurance does not cover those costs. (DeGuzman, 1/19)
KFF Health News:
KFF Health News' 'What The Health?': The Supreme Court Vs. The Bureaucracy
The Supreme Court this week took up a case brought by two herring fishing companies that could shake up the way the entire executive branch administers laws passed by Congress. At stake is something called “Chevron deference,” from the 1984 case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The ruling in that case directs federal judges to accept any “reasonable” interpretation by a federal agency of a law that’s otherwise ambiguous. Overturning Chevron would give the federal judiciary much more power and executive branch agencies much less. (1/18)
Modern Healthcare:
Congress Passes Stopgap Funding Bill That Delays DSH Cuts
Congress delayed looming cuts to hospitals, extended community health center funding and addressed a slew of other healthcare priorities in a temporary spending bill that passed Thursday. The measure prevents a partial government shutdown that would have started Friday. Once President Joe Biden signs the legislation, Congress will face a pair of deadlines to fund the government and reauthorize various programs with action on some issues needed by March 1 and others by March 8. (McAuliff, 1/18)
Bloomberg:
US Health Department Cyber Attack Led To Millions In Grant Money Being Stolen
Hackers stole millions of dollars in grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services last year in a series of attacks, according to two people familiar with the matter. Between late March and mid-November, the hackers gained access to an HHS system that processes civilian grant payments and withdrew about $7.5 million intended to be awarded to five accounts, said the people, who asked not to be named as the details aren’t public. (Griffin, 1/18)
Axios:
Lloyd Austin Called To Testify In Congress On Hospitalization
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was requested to testify before Congress about not immediately disclosing his recent hospitalization to the White House. House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ohio) said in a letter to Austin Thursday that his "unwillingness to provide candid and complete answers" on his health meant his testimony was required at a Feb. 14 hearing "regarding decisions made to withhold information" from President Biden, Congress and the American people. (Falconer, 1/18)
Stat:
Head Of FDA's Diagnostics Center, Who Led Through Covid, Retires
Timothy Stenzel, the federal regulator who led the Food and Drug Administration’s diagnostics division during the chaotic time of Covid-19 pandemic, has left the agency. The FDA confirmed Thursday that Stenzel, who led the FDA’s office of in vitro diagnostics, retired at the end of 2023. (Lawrence, 1/18)
Roll Call:
Long COVID Advocates Ask Congress To Improve Federal Response
“We are living through the largest mass disabling event in modern history,” Angela Meriquez Vázquez, a long COVID patient from Los Angeles, testified to the committee. ... Witnesses outlined ways in which Congress and the administration could improve the national response. Tiffany Walker, an internist and long COVID researcher with Emory University, testified that clinical trials run by the National Institutes of Health’s $1.15 billion RECOVER initiative were valuable, but were too slow and siloed to address long COVID in real time. (Clason, 1/18)
The Atlantic:
Long COVID Is Now The Biggest Pandemic Risk For Most People
Although tens of thousands of Americans are still being hospitalized with COVID each week, emergency rooms and intensive-care units are no longer routinely being forced into crisis mode. Long COVID, too, appears to be a less common outcome of new infections than it once was. But where the drop in severe-COVID incidence is clear and prominent, the drop in long-COVID cases is neither as certain nor as significant. (Wu, 1/18)
PBS NewsHour:
As COVID Cases Rise, Doctors Worry About The Consequences Of Misinformation
This week, speaking before a crowd of Republicans in New Hampshire, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis laid out another falsehood about COVID vaccines. “Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it,” said DeSantis, one of several political leaders who have consistently and without evidence challenged the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Public health experts and doctors are worried that this kind of misinformation is still shaping how people perceive the virus and tools designed to protect individuals and communities against COVID’s worst outcomes. (Santhanam, 1/18)
AP:
Wastewater Tests Can Find Mpox, Study Finds. Expect More Bugs To Be Tracked That Way
Wastewater testing does a good job at detecting mpox infections, U.S. health officials said in a report Thursday that bolsters a push to use sewage to track more diseases. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that over the course of a week, there was a 32% likelihood the tests would detect the presence of at least one person infected with mpox in a population ranging from thousands to millions. (Stobbe, 1/18)
The New York Times:
Justice Department Finds ‘Unimaginable Failure’ in Uvalde Police Response
A near-total breakdown in policing protocols hindered the response to the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 people dead — and the refusal to rapidly confront the killer needlessly cost lives, the Justice Department concluded on Thursday after a nearly two-year investigation. The department blamed “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” for the delayed and passive law enforcement response that allowed an 18-year-old gunman with a semiautomatic rifle to remain inside a pair of connected fourth grade classrooms at Robb Elementary School for 77 minutes before he was confronted and killed. (Sandoval, Thrush and Goodman, 1/18)
The Wall Street Journal:
What to Know About ‘Significant Failure’ Described in Uvalde Massacre Report
The report points to a number of missteps after the shooting that made matters worse. Hundreds of parked and locked law enforcement vehicles blocked ambulances from responding and, once law enforcement went into the classroom, children with gunshot wounds were tossed into school buses to be driven for help. “The parents had just witnessed their child coming out of the building covered in blood,” the report said. “The parent was running to get their child and instead, due to this interaction, the bus with their injured child left the grounds.” (Findell and Gurman, 1/18)
The 19th:
Gun Safety Group GIFFORDS Names Emma Brown As New Director
In news shared exclusively with The 19th, GIFFORDS, the gun safety advocacy organization founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has named veteran campaign manager Emma Brown as its new executive director. The group recently marked its 10-year anniversary, and as the 2024 races shape up it is looking to connect with purple- and red-state voters around gun safety and gun violence prevention. (Gerson, 1/18)
Modern Healthcare:
CMS Unveils Integrated Mental Health Pilot Program
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is testing a new community-based behavioral health services model that aims to improve access and quality, the Health and Human Services Department announced Thursday. Under the Innovation in Behavioral Health Model, physical and mental healthcare providers will form interprofessional care teams with community organizations, which will coordinate care for Medicare and Medicaid enrollees with mental illnesses and substance-use disorders. (Bennett, 1/18)
NPR:
TBIs Can Affect The Brain Long After Abuse Ends
At least one in four women — and a much smaller proportion of men — experiences intimate partner violence in their lifetime. The resultant injuries, like brain trauma, can affect people for the rest of their lives. Domestic violence often looks like repeated blows to the head or frequent strangulation, which hurt the brain triggering brain cells to die or by depriving it of oxygen. And when those incidents happen again and again, they can trigger a slew of other mental problems: PTSD, memory loss, difficulty thinking, and even dementia. (Hamilton, Ramirez, Barber, and Cirino, 1/19)
CBS News:
Biden-Harris Campaign To Unveil New Effort To Push Abortion Rights Advocacy Ahead Of Roe Anniversary
President Biden's reelection campaign is preparing to highlight abortion rights in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, CBS News has learned, seeking to tie the upcoming election to a "woman's right to make her own health care decisions — including the very possible reality of a MAGA Republican-led national abortion ban." The extensive plans include ad buys, campaign rallies and events across the U.S. organized in lockstep with the Democratic National Committee, which will launch opinion pieces in local newspapers focusing on statewide abortion bans. (Cordes, Mizelle, and Gómez, 1/18)
The New York Times:
What To Know About The Federal Law At The Heart Of The Latest Supreme Court Abortion Case
One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA. The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide abortions in urgent circumstances, including when a woman’s health is threatened by continuing her pregnancy. But, as with many abortion-related arguments, this one could have broader implications. Some legal experts say it could potentially determine how restrictive state abortion laws are allowed to be and whether states can prevent emergency rooms from providing other types of medical care, such as gender-affirming treatments. (Belluck, 1/18)
The Hill:
Biggs Bill Tells Providers To Display Ultrasound Images To Those Seeking An Abortion
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation Thursday to “ensure” pregnant people receive an ultrasound and are offered a chance to see its images before consenting to an abortion. The legislation says abortion providers “shall” perform an ultrasound, “provide a complete medical description of the ultrasound images” — including size of the embryo and whether there is cardiac activity — and show the images to the mother. (Suter, 1/18)
The Texas Tribune:
In Amarillo, A Petition Forces The Abortion Travel Ban Issue
Ever since the so-called abortion travel ban crossed the desks of Amarillo’s city leaders in October, a majority of members did something very few municipal Texas lawmakers before them have — questioned it. Ordinances banning motorists from using city roads to transport women en route to an abortion have already passed in Odessa and Little-River Academy, as well as Lubbock, Cochran, Goliad, Mitchell and Dawson counties. (Carver, 1/18)
AP:
March For Life: Anti-Abortion Activists Brace For Challenges Ahead
A year ago, anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. gathered for their annual March for Life with reason to celebrate: It was their first march since the Supreme Court, seven months earlier, had overturned the nationwide right to abortion. At this year’s march, on Friday, the mood will be very different — reflecting formidable challenges that lie ahead in this election year. (Crary, 1/18)
Military.com:
Navy Redesigns Its Pregnancy Policy To Give Sailors More Choice, Career Stability
The Navy revamped its pregnancy policy this week into an opportunity for sailors to negotiate a new assignment that's far more like a regular rotation instead of a cursory transfer to a nearby, available shore-duty opening. The new policy, unveiled in an administrative message Tuesday, says that sailors who become pregnant while on sea duty will now be able to choose two-year orders to a shore command that lines up with their needs and careers. (Toropin, 1/18)
The Wall Street Journal:
Drugmakers Raise Prices Of Ozempic, Mounjaro And Hundreds Of Other Drugs
Companies including Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic, and Eli Lilly, which sells Mounjaro, raised list prices on 775 brand-name drugs during the first half of January, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit drug-pricing analytics group. The drugmakers raised prices of their medicines by a median 4.5%, though the prices of some drugs rose by around 10% or higher, according to the research group. The median increase is higher than the rate of inflation, which ticked up to 3.4% in December. (Calfas, 1/18)
Stat:
Klobuchar Urges Drugmakers To Remove Patents FTC Calls Improper
Amid a push to crack down on patent abuse by the pharmaceutical industry, a key U.S. lawmaker is urging six large drug companies to remove dozens of patents that were identified by regulators as improperly or inaccurately listed with a federal registry. (Silverman, 1/18)
Stat:
Merck, J&J CEOs Could Be Subpoenaed By Bernie Sanders
Senate health committee chair Bernie Sanders has taken a step toward subpoenaing the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and Merck related to an investigation into high drug prices in the United States, he announced Thursday. The step is highly unusual, as the health committee hasn’t issued a subpoena in more than 40 years. (Cohrs, 1/18)
Reuters:
Chicago's NorthShore Hospital To Pay $55 Mln In Class-Action Settlement
NorthShore University HealthSystem in Illinois has agreed to pay $55 million to resolve a consumer class-action lawsuit in U.S. federal court that would mark the end of more than a decade of litigation over a merger with a rival suburban Chicago hospital. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in a filing on Wednesday disclosed the terms of the settlement with NorthShore, which followed what they described as years of “extensive” evidence collection and “aggressive” legal wrangling over its 2000 merger with rival Highland Park Hospital. (Scarcella, 1/18)
Houston Chronicle:
UMMC Hospital Leader Sentenced To 21 Months In Prison
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison last week sentenced a Houston businessman who ran the embattled United Memorial Medical Center hospital to 21 months in federal prison and ordered him to pay $11 million in restitution in connection with a federal conspiracy charge, according to documents made public Wednesday. The charge stemmed from an $8 million loan Syed Rizwan Mohiuddin obtained in 2010 with fraudulent records, documents show. (Gill, 1/18)
Stateline:
‘Shell Game’: When Private Equity Comes To Town, Hospitals Can See Cutbacks, Closures
Peggy Malone walks the quiet halls of Crozer-Chester Medical Center, the Pennsylvania hospital where she’s worked as a registered nurse for the past 35 years, with the feeling she’s drifting through a ghost town. ... Her community — her hospital — is a cautionary tale for what can happen when private equity comes to town. “We want to give good patient care,” she told Stateline. “We want to not be using broken equipment and piecing supplies together. But we don’t have the power to stop what’s happening.” (Claire Vollers, 1/18)
WGCU:
Lee Health Says Its Emergency Departments Are At Capacity And Recommends Alternatives
Lee Health on Wednesday said it is reaching capacity in its emergency rooms and hospitals as seasonal residents and visitors flood into Southwest Florida and the area population increases. Lee Memorial Hospital reported having more than 1,000 visitors to its emergency rooms on Tuesday. (1/18)
Stat:
Humana Cuts Profit Projections As Medicare Advantage Costs Soar
Humana’s Medicare Advantage enrollees got care in the hospital and physician clinics way more often than the company predicted at the end of 2023, forcing the health insurance giant on Thursday to drastically slash its profit projections for both 2023 and 2024. (Herman, 1/18)
Modern Healthcare:
Humana Stock Dips Following Cuts To 2023 Earnings Guidance
Humana has lowered its 2023 profit outlook due to higher-than-expected medical costs in last year's fourth quarter. In a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it expects to report annual earnings of $20 per share. Its previous guidance called for full-year earnings per share of "at least" $26.31 per share. Shares of Humana slumped in early trading but rallied slightly, closing down 8%. (DeSilva, 1/18)
Modern Healthcare:
BrightSpring IPO Values Company At Nearly $3B
KKR-backed BrightSpring Health Services plans to raise approximately $960 million in an initial public offering that would value the company at about $3 billion. The home health provider announced plans to go public earlier this month. On Wednesday, it updated its regulatory filing, saying it planned to sell 53.3 million shares of stock priced between $15 and $18 per share. Shares would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BTSG. The company said it will use most of the proceeds to pay down debt. (Eastabrook, 1/18)
Modern Healthcare:
Hospital Financial Pressures Push More M&A
Nearly a third of announced hospital and health system mergers and acquisitions last year involved a financially distressed partner, a new report shows. Waning COVID-19 relief funds and high labor costs pinched hospital margins in 2023, causing many health systems to seek financial stability with M&A partners. About 28% of announced merger and acquisition proposals included a hospital or health system in financial distress, up from 15% in 2022, according to a report published Thursday by Kaufman Hall. (Kacik, 1/18)
Stat:
Hospitals Offer Their Custom-Built Tech For Sale In Search Of New Revenue Streams
Hospitals aren’t usually in the business of selling technology tools. But that’s changing thanks to a collision of financial pressures and an explosion of new technology that could both improve patients’ health and ease the burden of administrative tasks on limited staff. (Ravindranath, 1/19)
Politico:
The World Health Organization's AI Warning
Governments should assess and approve advanced AI models intended for use in health care and medicine if their resources allow, the World Health Organization said in a set of artificial intelligence ethics and governance recommendations released Thursday. (Paun, Payne, Schumaker and Reader, 1/18)
The Washington Post:
Claire Fagin, Renowned Nurse And Researcher Who Led UPenn, Dies At 97
Claire M. Fagin, who helped reshape the nursing profession as a clinician, researcher, educator and advocate, and who stepped away from teaching to become one of the first women to lead an Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania, died Jan. 16 at her home in Manhattan. She was 97. ... Few nurses have had as far-reaching an impact as Dr. Fagin. A member of the first generation of nurse scientists, she undertook research to improve patient care; pioneered landmark baccalaureate and doctoral programs to educate the next generation of clinicians; transformed a small nursing school at the University of Pennsylvania into one of the field’s preeminent research and training institutions; and served as president of the National League for Nursing and as an adviser to the World Health Organization. (Smith, 1/18)
AP:
An Experiment Shows How Pigs Might One Day Help People With Liver Failure
Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure. The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment Thursday, a different spin on animal-to-human organ transplants. In this case, the pig liver was used outside the donated body, not inside — a way to create a “bridge” to support failing livers by doing the organ’s blood-cleansing work externally, much like dialysis for failing kidneys. (1/18)
Reuters:
US Government Set To Release Camp Lejeune Cancer Study
A key study on cancer rates caused by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune conducted by U.S. government researchers is expected to be released later this month, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In court documents, filed late Wednesday, the attorneys for people claiming they were harmed by the water told the judges overseeing cases involving the contamination that they are dropping their fight to get access to the study after the director of the U.S. (Jones, 1/18) Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) said the agency was working toward releasing it by the end of January.
Los Angeles Times:
More Concerning Than Nanoplastics In Water Bottles Are The Chemicals On Them
Of particular concern are a class of additives known as endocrine disruptors — chemicals that mimic and confuse hormone signaling in humans. ... A team of physicians, epidemiologists and endocrinologists have estimated the costs of plastic exposure on the U.S. healthcare system and come to a sobering conclusion. In 2018, several common endocrine disruptors cost the nation almost $250 billion — just $40 billion shy of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2024 budget for the entire state of California. (Rust, 1/18)
Houston Chronicle:
Healthcare For The Homeless Houston Launches Street Medicine Program
On a cold Wednesday morning, a doctor, a medical assistant and a community health worker drove a minivan along Brays Bayou on the lookout for a man named Steve. ... They parked nearby and unloaded backpacks filled with medical supplies — a blood pressure cuff, an oximeter, syringes, vials, gloves. Each wore a blue vest with the words “HHH Street Medicine.” The HHH stood for Healthcare for the Homeless Houston, which recently launched the region’s first program that takes medical care directly to people living on the streets instead of asking them to come to a clinic. (Schuetz, 1/18)
AP:
CDC Expands Warning About Charcuterie Meat Trays As Salmonella Cases Double
Federal health officials are expanding a warning about salmonella poisoning tied to charcuterie meat snack trays sold at Sam’s Club and Costco stores. At least 47 people in 22 states have been sickened and 10 people have been hospitalized after eating Busseto brand and Fratelli Beretta brand meats, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. (1/18)
CIDRAP:
Brazilian Study Indicates Zika Reinfection Possible
Three of 135 patients in a Brazilian cohort were reinfected with the Zika virus (ZIKV), according to a study published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. ... ZIKV is transmitted in tropical and subtropical regions through the bite of Aedes mosquitoes. While 80% of Zika cases cause few or no symptoms, infected pregnant women can give birth to babies with severe birth defects, including microcephaly, an abnormally small head. After a large Zika outbreak occurred in Brazil in 2015, viral circulation declined, and cases are uncommon today. (Van Beusekom, 1/18)