First Edition: Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024

KFF Health News: A California Official Helped Save A Mental Health Company’s Contract. It Flew Him To London
The director of California’s mental health commission traveled to London this summer courtesy of a state vendor while he was helping to prevent a $360 million budget cut that would have defunded the company’s contract. Emails and calendars reviewed by KFF Health News show Toby Ewing, executive director of the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, made efforts to protect funding for Kooth, a London-based digital mental health company the state hired to develop a virtual tool to help tackle its youth mental health crisis. (Castle Work, 10/24)

KFF Health News: Voters Fret High Medical Bills Are Being Ignored By Presidential Rivals
Tom Zawierucha, 58, a building services worker in New Jersey, wishes candidates would talk more about protecting older Americans from big medical bills. Teresa Morton, 43, a freight dispatcher in Memphis, Tennessee, with two teenagers, wants to hear more about how elected officials would help working Americans saddled with unaffordable deductibles. (Levey, 10/24)

KFF Health News: PBM Math: Big Chains Are Paid $23.55 To Fill A Blood Pressure Rx. Small Drugstores? $1.51
While customers at Adams Family Pharmacy picked up their prescriptions on a hot summer day, some stopped in for coffee, ice cream, homemade cake, or cookies. It wasn’t a bake sale, but the sweets bring extra revenue as pharmacist and co-owner Nikki Bryant works to achieve profitability at her business on the town square. Bryant said she is doing all she can to bolster it against a powerful force that threatens her and other independent pharmacists: the middlemen who manage virtually all prescriptions written in the U.S., called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. (Miller, 10/24)

Modern Healthcare: 2025 Medicare Enrollment Period Busier Than Usual For Brokers
Medicare marketers expect shifts in the Medicare Advantage market to prove lucrative as beneficiaries react to changing benefits and less competition in certain regions, even though insurers such as Centene and Aetna have cut back on commissions. “We haven't seen this much disruption in years, where you have a lot of consumers who need to shop and likely need to make switches,” GoHealth CEO Vijay Kotte said. “We’re feeling pretty good.” The Medicare annual enrollment period began Oct. 15 and ends Dec. 7. (Tepper, 10/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Exclusive: Medicare Paid Insurers Billions For Questionable Home Diagnoses, Watchdog Finds 
Private Medicare insurers got about $4.2 billion in extra federal payments in 2023 for diagnoses from home visits the companies initiated, even though they led to no treatment, a new inspector general’s report says. The extra payments were triggered by diagnoses documented based on the visits, including potentially inaccurate ones, for which patients received no other medical services, the report says. Insurers offering private plans under Medicare, known as Medicare Advantage, are paid more when patients have costly conditions. (Weaver and Mathews, 10/24)

CBS News: Preventing Data Breaches Key To Stopping Medicare Fraud
For the past six months, the CBS News Texas I-Team has spoken with more than a dozen Medicare recipients who reported fraudulent activity on their accounts. According to a federal government report, an estimated $60 billion is lost annually to Medicare fraud. Earlier this year, Medicare suspended the accounts of 11 medical suppliers suspected of fraudulently billing the government for nearly $3 billion worth of urinary catheters. One of these companies listed its headquarters at an office in Grand Prairie, but by the time their account was suspended, those in charge had long disappeared. (New, 10/23)

Modern Healthcare: Change Healthcare Breach Affected 30% Of US Population
It's official: The massive cyberattack against UnitedHealth Group unit Change Healthcare was the biggest healthcare data breach in history. The ransomware incident in February affected 100 million people, or nearly 30% of the U.S. population, according to the Breach Portal maintained by the Office for Civil Rights at the Health and Human Services Department. That's consistent with what CEO Andrew Witty told a House subcommittee in May, when he testified that the breach ensnared about one-third of the country. (Berryman, 10/23)

Politico: Dozens Of Former Officials Chart Course For Next Administration’s Cyber Policies 
Dozens of former federal officials from the last five presidential administrations have a plan for how the next administration should address cybersecurity issues — regardless of who takes office in January. The suggested plan of action, obtained first by POLITICO, is composed of around 40 recommendations put together by officials on both sides of the aisle and is aimed at creating a pathway forward to expand the Biden administration’s cyber policy work. Cyber threats span every sector and are a rare subject where bipartisanship often prevails both on Pennsylvania Avenue and on Capitol Hill. (Miller, 10/22)

Time: What A Trump Win Would Mean For Abortion
Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to say if he would veto a national ban if it crossed his desk as President—a scenario that’s highly unlikely unless Republicans earn significant majorities in both chambers of Congress. The Trump campaign did not answer this question in its statement. (Lee, 10/23)

Time: What A Harris Win Would Mean For Abortion
Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has positioned herself as the reproductive rights candidate, vowing to restore reproductive freedoms and garnering endorsements from organizations like the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), the Committee to Protect Health Care, and Reproductive Freedom for All. She has promised to support a bill restoring Roe’s protections or veto any national abortion ban. (Lee, 10/23)

Stat: The Key Ballot Measures And Races To Watch That Could Reshape Health Care
While Vice President Harris and former President Trump are dominating the headlines in the last two weeks before the election, there is a lengthy list of health care proposals and down-ballot races that could heavily shape health policy. More than a dozen states are voting on health care issues ranging from abortion access to psychedelics use, paying for long-term care, and medically assisted suicide. (Owermohle, 10/24)

NPR: Want To Understand The Dramatic Shift In Latino Views On Abortion? Go To Arizona
It’s 108 degrees outside as Mayra Rodriguez guides her Winnebago into the parking lot of a Hispanic grocery store in North Phoenix, a few weeks before election day. Rodriguez is the state director for Moms for Arizona, an anti-abortion group campaigning against Proposition 139, a ballot measure that would expand access to abortion in the state. Her Winnebago is a roving billboard, emblazoned with warnings about what she believes are the dangers of abortion — English on one side, Spanish on the other. (Caldwell, Chang and Troop, 10/24)

NOTUS (Allbritton Journalism Institute): It’s Possible To Track Someone’s Personal Phone To An Abortion Clinic. And It’s Legal Too. 
A company got access to a mobile phone-tracking tool used by law enforcement and U.S. government agencies across the country. They found significant privacy vulnerabilities. (Tau, 10/23)

The 19th: These OB-GYNs Are Running For Congress To Protect Abortion
Dr. Kirstin Lyerly saw a patient this month who wanted her IUD replaced but was nervous about the potential pain. It was toward the end of the day and there wasn’t enough time for the patient to pick up a prescription to relieve her anxiety and return, so Lyerly suggested they reschedule the procedure for a later date. “She looked me square in the eye and said: I have to do it now, I have to get it now, I have to get it done before the election, because I don’t know what’s going to happen after the election,” Lyerly recalled. (Becker, 10/23)

The Hill: Harris, Trump Clash Over Future Of ObamaCare
Vice President Harris wants to put ObamaCare front and center in the campaign’s final weeks. Abortion has been the primary health issue for much of the campaign, but Harris is reopening Democrats’ successful 2018 playbook by elevating the Affordable Care Act.  ... Early in the campaign, Trump revived his previous calls for repealing the law and replacing it with something better. Senate Republicans were quick to shut down any talk of bringing up repeal again, even if they were to control the government. Lately, Trump has slightly shifted his tone. (Weixel, 10/24)

Stat: Kamala Harris Election Win Could Bring Big Changes To Health Care 
If Vice President Harris wins the presidency, in many ways, she’ll work to achieve health care ideas that Democrats couldn’t quite push across the finish line during President Biden’s tenure. (Zhang, 10/24)

The New York Times: U.S. Study On Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because Of Politics, Doctor Says 
An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. ... The researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health. An older Dutch study had found that puberty blockers improved well-being, results that inspired clinics around the world to regularly prescribe the medications as part of what is now called gender-affirming care. But the American trial did not find a similar trend, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. (Ghorayshi, 10/23)

USA Today: Pneumonia, COVID Vaccine Guidance Changes For Older Adults
On Wednesday, a panel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to lower the recommended age for older adults to get their first pneumococcal vaccine. Panel members also voted to recommend an additional COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older. (Rodriguez, 10/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: As COVID XEC Variant Spreads, Bay Area Officials Urge Vaccines
As winter approaches, health officials in the Bay Area are strongly encouraging residents to get vaccinated soon against both coronavirus and influenza. This is the ideal time for people to roll up their sleeves and get the shots in light of an expected winter respiratory virus surge, particularly due to the emergence of the XEC variant. “October is the perfect time to vaccinate against respiratory viruses like COVID-19, flu and RSV,” Marin County’s health department wrote in an update. (Vaziri, 10/23)

AP: Funeral Home Owners Accused Of Storing 190 Decaying Bodies Expected To Plead Guilty To COVID-19 Fraud 
Colorado funeral home owners accused of misspending nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds and living lavishly, all while allegedly stashing 190 decaying bodies in a building and sending grieving families fake ashes, are expected to plead guilty to federal charges Thursday. Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home about an hour’s drive south of Denver, have been charged with 15 federal offenses related to defrauding the U.S. government and the funeral home’s customers. Additionally, over 200 criminal counts are already pending against them in Colorado state court, including for corpse abuse and forgery. (Bedayn, 10/24)

The Mercury News: California Republican Agrees To Plead Guilty In Federal COVID Investigation
Orange County First District Supervisor Andrew Do agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in federal court relating to a scheme involving Viet America Society and the embezzlement of millions in COVID-relief funds intended to help the county’s most vulnerable residents during the pandemic. As part of his agreement, he resigned Tuesday from the Board of Supervisors. (Torres, Saavedra and Slaten, 10/23)

CIDRAP: Avian Flu Infects 2 More Dairy Workers In California's Central Valley 
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today reported two more H5 avian influenza infections, both confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), raising the state's total to 15. ... The newly confirmed California cases raise the US number of human H5 infections this year to 27, which doesn't yet include four presumptive positive cases reported in poultry workers in Washington state. (Schnirring, 10/23)

Reuters: Exclusive: State And Industry Input Led US Farm Agency To Relax Bird Flu Testing Order For Cows 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture weakened an emergency order last spring designed to prevent the spread of bird flu among the nation's dairy cattle after pushback from state and industry officials, according to state and federal records seen by Reuters. (Douglas and Polansek, 10/23)

Bloomberg: McDonald’s Supplier Taylor Farms Recalls Onions To Fight E. Coli Outbreak
McDonald’s Corp. supplier Taylor Farms is recalling some yellow onion batches produced in a Colorado facility in response to a deadly E. coli outbreak at the burger chain. Taylor Farms, which supplied onions to the McDonald’s restaurants impacted by a multistate health investigation, said it hasn’t found traces of E. coli yet, but decided to pull the products “out of an abundance of caution.” Another of Taylor Farms’ big customers, US Foods Holding Corp., also told at least one restaurant it supplies to destroy the onions. (Shanker and Sirtori, 10/24)

The Washington Post: Waffle Recall Over Listeria Concerns Expanded To Many Other Griddle Items
TreeHouse Foods has expanded an earlier recall of frozen waffles to include all its griddle products, including Belgian waffles and pancakes, over possible listeria contamination. Though no illnesses have been reported, TreeHouse Foods has previously said that the breakfast products were widely distributed throughout the United States and Canada, primarily as private-label offerings by Walmart, Target, Tops, Harris Teeter, Publix and other large merchants. (Gregg, 10/22)

Axios: Ghost Networks Deny Americans Mental Health Care: Lawsuit
The push for more transparency in the health system is increasingly taking aim at "ghost networks" — the inaccurate health provider directories that critics say are keeping Americans from getting mental health care. A lawsuit filed against Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield this week comes as Congress and the White House are stepping up efforts to require insurers to accurately account for which providers are in network. (Reed, 10/24)

Axios: Transparency Rules May Even Out Hospital Prices
Federal price transparency rules are showing signs of stoking more hospital competition and making prices more reflective of the cost of care, a new review found. There's still limited understanding of how the rules are affecting market dynamics, and experts acknowledge they haven't yet translated to lower across-the-board patient costs. (Goldman, 10/24)

Los Angeles Times: Walmart Could Pay $7.5 Million For Alleged Landfill Violations
Walmart will be liable for millions of dollars in civil penalties and costs for allegedly dumping hazardous waste and sensitive customer records in California landfills, according to a stipulated judgment filed this week in Alameda County Superior Court. The judgment would settle a lawsuit brought against Walmart by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and the district attorneys of 12 counties in December 2021. Under its terms, the nation’s largest retailer will be required to pay penalties for allegedly dumping in state landfills nearly 80 tons of hazardous waste and confidential customer information from its stores throughout the state. (Mendez, 10/23)

Bloomberg: How Sanofi's Sale Of Consumer Pharma Arm Opella Turned Into A Brawl
After a year-long takeover battle for the owner of France’s best-selling painkiller, Sanofi’s decision to sell its over-the-counter business to a US buyout firm descended into mudslinging, public rebukes and political discord. The French drugmaker’s sale of a controlling stake in its Opella unit to US financial juggernaut Clayton Dubilier & Rice for €16 billion ($17.3 billion) was sealed over the weekend. The decision brought an end to an unusually fierce campaign — fought in private and public — by Paris-based rival PAI Partners, which refused to accept it had lost and tried to upend the transaction, triggering a rigorous response from the other side. (Kirchfeld, Barbaglia, Nair, Nussbaum, and Gopinath, 10/24)

Modern Healthcare: Sanford Health, Marshfield Clinic Sign Definitive Agreement
Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic Health System have signed a definitive merger agreement. The proposed transaction to form a combined 56-hospital system with more than $10 billion in revenue is expected to close by the end of the year, pending customary regulatory approvals, according to a Wednesday announcement from the nonprofit health systems. (Kacik, 10/23)

The Hill: FDA Recalls Thousands Of Antidepressant Duloxetine Bottles
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Class II recall of more than 7,100 bottles of the antidepressant duloxetine due to the possible presence of a carcinogen.  Duloxetine belongs to a group of drugs called selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors that are used to treat depression and anxiety, according to the Mayo Clinic.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 10/23)

USA Today: Insulin Shortages For Diabetes Patients, Weight Loss Drugs Surge
Janel Wright had just days left in her insulin supply in early January when a pharmacist told her there was none of the drug left to fill her prescription. Her neighborhood Fred Meyer pharmacy in Anchorage, Alaska hadn't called in weeks to offer an automatic refill, and Wright's supply of NovoLog insulin had dwindled to nearly nothing. The 62-year-old administrative law judge has Type 1 diabetes and needs the medication to live. (Alltucker, 10/24)

Stat: 'Milestone' Results: Vision Restored In Macular Degeneration Patients
Science Corporation published preliminary data Tuesday from a late stage, multi-center clinical trial of a retina implant that showed promising results. Using this prosthetic, scientists partially restored vision to people whose central visual field has holes or blurry spots. Trial participants could read text and recognize playing cards when using the implant, even though they were legally blind. (Broderick, 10/23)

CBS News: Chicago Area Man With Movement Disorder Among First To Be Treated With New Procedure
Researchers are making strides in therapy for Parkinson's and essential tremor, an even more common movement disorder that affects as many as 10 million people in the U.S. CBS News Chicago spoke to a patient at Northwestern Medicine who became the first in the Chicago area to try one of their new procedures. "Miracle" is a word Chuck Wicks has used a lot recently, less than two months after a procedure that stopped the tremors in his right hand. (Machi, 10/23)

The Boston Globe: Eyebot Provides Eye Exams In Automated Kiosk At The Mall
When you need new eyeglasses, getting an appointment for a vision test is usually the hard part. But a Boston company called Eyebot is launching a do-it-yourself electronic kiosk that’s designed to make eye tests almost as simple as buying soda from a vending machine. “You should just get glasses like you buy shoes,” said Matthias Hofmann, Eyebot’s cofounder and chief executive. (Bray, 10/23)

The Texas Tribune: Costly Psychologist License Exam Tossed After Texas Protest
A costly proposed national certification exam for psychologists has been scrapped for now after Texas’s licensing authority led the fight against it by considering crafting a cheaper alternative to alleviate the mental health provider shortage. (Simpson, 10/23)

WUSF: How VA Health Centers Are Recovering In The Tampa Region After Hurricanes
VA health systems in the Tampa Bay region are working to get veterans' care back on track after hurricanes Milton and Helene caused disruptions. The storms led to thousands of outpatient appointment cancellations and forced one hospital to temporarily evacuate. But patients with critical needs continued to receive care throughout the disasters, and national VA officials are recognizing personnel for their hard work. (Colombini, 10/23)

NBC News: A Year After Maine Mass Shooting, Gunman's Family Wants Action On Brain Injury Research In Military
For the family of the Army reservist who carried out a mass shooting across Maine's second-largest city one year ago, dissecting what provoked the deadly rampage has been daunting. ... But the unspeakable violence inflicted on this community has spurred a very public purpose for the family: bringing awareness to traumatic brain injuries among military members and a call to action for continued research. "We want to make sure this doesn't ever, ever happen again to another family," said Nicole Herling, the sister of gunman Robert Card. (Breslauer and Ortiz, 10/23)

Stat: Raising Alcohol Taxes: Industry Lobbyists Winning Statehouse Battles
For years, it has been a reliable way to cut back on the consumption of cigarettes and sugary drinks: raise taxes on them. So it might seem an obvious tactic to apply to alcohol, which contributes to untold injuries, diseases and deaths in the United States each year. (Cueto, 10/24)

CNN: EPA Finalizes Stricter Rules Targeting ‘Scourge’ Of Lead Paint Dust In Homes, Child-Care Facilities
Any level of lead paint dust in is considered hazardous, according to new requirements for identifying and cleaning up the harmful dust in certain homes and child-care facilities across the country, finalized Thursday by the US Environmental Protection Agency. (Dillinger, 10/24)