Stat: At The Republican Convention, Drug Maker Lobbies For More Coverage Of Obesity Drugs
The main hall at the Republican National Convention has been ringing all week with talk about terrorism, immigration, and national security. But in a side venue on Wednesday, a small crowd gathered to talk about a more intimate topic: Obesity. Pharma giant Novo Nordisk co-sponsored the “Rethink Obesity” panel here, and plans to co-host a similar event during the Democratic convention next week in Philadelphia. The goal: To push lawmakers to enact a bill, pending in Congress, that would lift a longstanding ban on Medicare paying for obesity medication. (Keshavan, 7/21)

WFYI/Kaiser Health News: Mike Pence’s Health Policy Record Is A Mixed Bag
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is in the spotlight this week as the man Donald Trump has picked to be his running mate. Pence’s decisions about health and health care in Indiana have drawn attention from within and outside the state. His record could be important in November, because Trump doesn’t have a legislative record at all. Here’s a quick look at the governor’s history in terms of health policy in Indiana. (Harper, 7/21)

The Hill: Most Insurers Lost Money In First Year Of ObamaCare: Study
Only about one-third of health insurers came out ahead in their first year in the ObamaCare marketplace, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund released Wednesday. While insurers made nearly twice as much money from healthcare premiums in 2014, overall profits “diminished noticeably” because of higher payouts, according to the expansive new analysis on companies participating in the exchanges. (Ferris, 7/20)

CNBC: Only A Third Of These Obamacare Insurers Made Money On Their Plans In 2014
The report by the Commonwealth Fund also reveals that insurers who did the best selling Obamacare plans had average profits of only around 8.5 percent, while those who fared the worst financially had steep losses that averaged nearly 22 percent. The study further found that the medical costs faced by those insurers were only about 2 percent higher than what they had expected when they priced their plans, which went on sale in October 2013. (Mangan, 7/20)

Bloomberg: How Hospitals Relieve The Pain Of New ACA Health-Care Costs
When it comes to lowering health plan costs in the face of changes brought on by the ACA, hospitals have advantages that other employers don't. ... One way for hospitals to lower the costs of the benefits they offer is to make changes that incentivize employees to seek care in their own health systems. This can be done through lower copays or deductibles, [Peter Bresler, practice leader of Willis Towers Watson's health system consulting in Chicago] said. Hospitals also can form a “narrow or high-performance network,” which is a health plan offering a smaller choice of doctors and hospitals in exchange for lower fees, he said. (Knebel, 7/20)

Star Tribune: Report: 107,500 Minnesotans Who Qualify Aren't Tapping Insurance Subsidies
A new report suggests that about 107,500 Minnesotans last year weren’t tapping federal tax credits to discount health insurance premiums, even though they qualified. In some cases, people eligible for subsidies might have simply skipped the tax credits, because the dollar value was small. But there also could be information gaps where people either didn’t realize they were eligible, or didn’t know where to go for subsidies, according to findings presented Wednesday during a MNsure board of directors meeting in St. Paul. (Snowbeck, 7/20)

Idaho Statesman: Idaho Lawmakers Convene For Initial Review Of Health Options For Poor
Lawmakers exploring health care alternatives for poor Idahoans convened Tuesday at a hearing where off-topic detours underscored lingering ideological differences that have blocked consensus on a resolution. ... The issue is how to improve health care for 78,000 Idahoans who, despite their low incomes, earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to qualify for subsidized health coverage available via the exchange that Idaho created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (Dentzer, 7/20)

Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal: Bevin's Medicaid Plan Protested Before Hearing
As someone who works long shifts at a restaurant while putting in at least 20 hours each week trying to launch an outdoor adventure business, Tyler Offerman said he opposes Gov. Matt Bevin's proposed changes to Medicaid. ... A dozen people -- including a Roman Catholic priest, a nun, a physician, a farmer and others telling their stories about health coverage -- gathered in Frankfort on Wednesday to protest Bevin's proposed changes to the federal-state health plan. (Yetter, 7/20)

CNBC: Obamacare's Medicaid Expansion Leading To Health Insurance Boom In Some States
States such as California, New Jersey, Kentucky and Arkansas, which have expanded their Medicaid programs, have seen sharp decreases in their uninsured rates. States that didn't expand Medicaid, such as Texas, Florida and Virginia, did not experience as much of a drop in the number of people without health insurance. ... Advocates of expansion say that a decision to not expand can negatively affect the finances of a state's hospitals, the tax burden born by its residents and the premiums residents pay for private insurance plan coverage. Expansion states have seen a marked reduction in unpaid bills at their hospitals, which in turn reduces the need for hospitals to pass along some of their costs to taxpayers and people with health coverage. (Mangan, 7/20)

The New York Times: Failure Of 2 Health Insurer Mergers Is Unlikely To Stop The Efforts
The Justice Department is expected to block two mergers involving four of the nation’s five largest health insurance companies, on the ground that the deals would harm competition. But don’t expect the action to stop the consolidation in the health care industry anytime soon. No matter the fate of the deals between Anthem and Cigna, and Aetna and Humana, hospitals, doctors’ groups and even insurers are almost certain to continue their scramble to find partners in a rapidly changing environment. Blockbuster deals may slow, but smaller combinations will remain attractive. (Abelson, 7/20)

Bloomberg: Aetna Ready To Fight For $37 Billion Humana Deal In Court
Aetna Inc. is ready to go to court if necessary to proceed with its $37 billion takeover of health insurance rival Humana Inc., the company said Wednesday...The insurer is prepared to argue that there are several ways to ensure there’s enough competition in the market for health plans for the elderly, known as Medicare Advantage, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Tracer, 7/20)

ProPublica: New Report: Problem Care Harms Almost One-Third Of Rehab Hospital Patients
Patients may go to rehabilitation hospitals to recover from a stroke, injury, or recent surgery. But sometimes the care makes things worse. In a government report published Thursday, 29 percent of patients in rehab facilities suffered a medication error, bedsore, infection or some other type of harm as a result of the care they received. Doctors who reviewed cases from a broad sampling of rehab facilities say that almost half of the 158 incidents they spotted among 417 patients were clearly or likely preventable. (Allen, 7/21)

The Boston Globe: Problem In Prosecuting Sex Cases By Doctors
It violates medical ethics, but is it clearly against the law for a doctor to touch a patient sexually under the guise that it’s critical to her care? In some states it is illegal, but not in Massachusetts, according to the Middlesex district attorney’s office. This gap in state law is the reason the office recently decided not to prosecute Dr. Roger Ian Hardy, the popular fertility specialist accused of molesting patients, according to a lawyer for one of his alleged victims. (Kowalczyk, 7/21)

In other news about health care personnel, a study finds doctors have favorite patients, packed schedules keep physicians too busy to talk about end of life options and more training around admitting to medical mistakes may be needed —

The Baltimore Sun: Study Finds Doctors Do Have Favorite Patients
It’s true, doctors do have favorite patients. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That doesn’t mean they play favorites, according to the research, which specifically found that the doctors were aware of their feelings and actively sought to provide good care for everyone. (Cohn, 7/21)

WBUR: Thinking About Dying, Even When The Doctor Has No Time For It
The vast majority of patients haven’t told their doctor what kind of care they want at the end of life, which means some could be put on a breathing machine even if they might not have wanted it. Still other patients could receive care that’s less aggressive than they want. A recent survey suggests why: 66 percent of primary physicians and specialists in California said they didn’t have enough time to talk about end-of-life decision-making in their hospitals and clinics. (Lahey, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: For Surgeons, Talking About Adverse Events Can Be Difficult: Study
Dr. Thomas Gallagher has been through many tough conversations with patients. He remembers once standing in front of a patient and the patient’s family, preparing to tell them about a mistake that had occurred. "This is a topic I think about all the time and it was still very nerve-racking and embarrassing,” said Gallagher, an internist and a professor at the University of Washington's medical school specializing in quality and patient safety issues. The patient had been sent to another clinic an hour away to get an MRI, but because of a miscommunication, the MRI was done in the wrong area of the body and would have to be repeated. ... Medical mistakes often happen. National guidelines call for doctors to provide full disclosure about adverse events, and studies have shown that those discussions benefit patients. (Tan, 7/20)

And a doctor in Orlando is determined to help the last Pulse victim in his hospital to keep fighting —

Orlando Sentinel: Doctor Still Wearing Bloody Shoes; 1 Patient Remains In Hospital
Dr. Joshua Corsa is still wearing his bloodstained shoes. Corsa, the resident who wrote a moving Facebook post with the photo of his shoes that were bloodied as Pulse victims came into ORMC on June 12, vowed to keep wearing them until the last patient is released. Of the 44 patients who were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center after the shooting, nine died shortly after arrival. Most of the others were discharged within weeks of the shooting, but two were still hospitalized. (Miller, 7/20)

The New York Times: Updated Brain Map Identifies Nearly 100 New Regions
The brain looks like a featureless expanse of folds and bulges, but it’s actually carved up into invisible territories. Each is specialized: Some groups of neurons become active when we recognize faces, others when we read, others when we raise our hands. On Wednesday, in what many experts are calling a milestone in neuroscience, researchers published a spectacular new map of the brain, detailing nearly 100 previously unknown regions — an unprecedented glimpse into the machinery of the human mind. (Zimmer, 7/20)

The Washington Post: Researchers Just Doubled What We Know About The Map Of The Human Brain
Scientists like to say the human brain is the most complex object in the universe — three pounds of fluid and tissue, about which we understand only a fraction. That fraction just grew dramatically. In a study published Wednesday online in Nature, a team of researchers more than doubled the number of distinct areas known in the human cortex, from 83 to 180. This new map of the brain combines data from four different imaging technologies to essentially bring high-definition to brain scanning for the first time. (Nutt, 7/20)

Reuters: Your Inhaler's Watching You: Drugmakers Race For Smart Devices
Makers of inhalers to treat asthma and chronic lung disease are racing to develop a new generation of smart devices with sensors to monitor if patients are using their puffers properly. Linked wirelessly to the cloud, the gadgets are part of a medical "Internet of Things" that promises improved adherence, or correct use of the medication, and better health outcomes. They may also hold the key to company profits in an era of increasingly tough competition. (7/20)

KQED: Patients Attempt To ‘Walk Off’ Pain With Wearable Therapy
Typically, when people suffer from back or knee pain, they reach for the anti-inflammatories or the pain meds. But one company has come up with a shoe it thinks can be just as effective. AposTherapy’s space-age-looking footwear is designed to reduce knee, hip and back pain by realigning the way patients walk. (Hoshaw, 7/20)

Modern Healthcare: Costs Of Zika Among The Many Unknowns Of The Virus
History buffs and infectious disease experts have already drawn links between the rubella outbreak in the 1960s and the current spread of Zika. But drugmakers today face greater regulatory hurdles, and the federal government has yet to dedicate funding to address the Zika epidemic. That means a vaccine and successful methods to stop transmission of the virus may be a long time coming — factors that affect how much the U.S. may end up spending on combating and dealing with the effects of the disease. (Muchmore, 7/20)

The Associated Press: Quebec Team To Begin Zika Vaccine Tests On Humans
A Quebec City-based research team has received the green light to begin testing a Zika vaccine on humans in collaboration with U.S.-based partners. The researchers based at Universite Laval are the first in Canada to be authorized by Canada's federal health agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct clinical tests. The university is one of three sites that hope to begin testing a vaccine for the mosquito-borne virus in the next few days. (7/20)

The Associated Press: Florida Mosquitoes Being Tested For Zika To Confirm Case
Florida health officials have trapped mosquitoes in an area of Miami-Dade County and are testing them for Zika to confirm whether a woman with the virus could be the first person infected directly by a mosquito bite in the continental United States. Florida's Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not immediately respond to questions about their investigation, but health officials said the case had no apparent connection to travel outside the country. (7/21)

Health News Florida: Infectious Disease Expert Offers Insight Into Zika Investigation
Florida health department officials have been tight-lipped about the investigation into a possible locally-transmitted case of Zika virus in Miami-Dade County. The Florida Department of Health officials said the case currently under investigation is not travel-related but they haven’t gone into detail about what’s involved in the investigation itself. (Mack, 7/20)

Stat: High Rates Of Injection Drug Use Increases Gay Teens’ HIV Risk
Gay and bisexual male teens in the United States don’t engage in riskier sexual behaviors than straight males, but are more likely to use injection drugs — which could contribute to an already elevated risk for contracting HIV, a new study reports. Men with male sexual partners are 57 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than men with female partners, and this number rises for gay men of color. (Wessel, 7/20)

The Hill: New Federal Data Find Little Difference In HIV Risk For Gay Teens Despite Similar Sexual Behavior
New federal data finds little difference in the sexual behavior of gay and heterosexual teenage boys but a significant difference in the risk of HIV infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented study results Wednesday that indicate gay and bisexual teenage boys are at a “substantially higher risk” of contracting HIV. (Clason, 7/20)

The Washington Post: Prisons Around The World Are Reservoirs Of Infectious Disease
Prisoners around the world and people who were formerly incarcerated have a higher burden of HIV and other infectious diseases than the general population, worsening the spread of diseases inside and outside of prison, according to new research. In a series of six papers in medical journal the Lancet, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed the prevalence of infectious diseases including HIV, hepatitis C, hepatitis B and tuberculosis between 2005 and 2015. (Beachum, 7/20)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW Team Unravels Mystery With DNA Sequencing
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have used DNA sequencing to unravel an 85-year-old mystery, pinpointing the genetic cause for Mauriac syndrome, a rare condition that affects children with poorly controlled Type 1 diabetes. The syndrome, first described 85 years ago by the French doctor Pierre Mauriac, is marked by massive enlargement of the liver, growth failure and delayed puberty. The afflicted children have Type 1 diabetes and are unable to control their blood sugar. (Johnson, 7/20)

The Washington Post: The Real Reason That So Many More Americans Are Using Heroin
President Obama has committed to sign the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which includes among its provisions new policies to reduce inappropriate prescribing of prescription opioids such as Oxycontin and Vicodin. Given the ongoing epidemic of addiction and death caused by opioid painkillers, this seems like sensible public-health policy, but some critics charge that tighter prescribing rules simply cause prescription opioid users to switch to heroin, thereby feeding a second opioid epidemic. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine recently published the first systematic analysis of this terrifying possibility. (Humphreys, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Study: Medicare Beneficiaries May Face ‘Treatment Gap’ For Painkiller Abuse, Misuse
When most people think of the victims of the nation’s opioid abuse epidemic, they seldom picture members of the Medicare set. But a research letter published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry found Medicare beneficiaries had the highest and most rapidly growing rate of “opioid use disorder.” Six of every 1,000 recipients struggle with the condition, compared with one out of every 1,000 patients covered through commercial insurance plans. (Heredia Rodriguez, 7/20)

And media outlets report on the epidemic in the states —

Minnesota Public Radio: Minnesota Moves Towards Banning Dangerous Synthetic Opioids
The Minnesota Board of Pharmacy plans to add synthetic opioids tied to recent overdose deaths across the country to the list of controlled substances in the state. The synthetic opioids called U-47700 and W-18 were developed by pharmaceutical companies as research chemicals. Although they were never distributed for humans, the formulas for the drugs were published in connection with medical studies. (Collins, 7/20)

Los Angeles Times: Woman Accused Of Trafficking Fentanyl To Sacramento County Following Wave Of Overdose Deaths
Federal authorities have arrested a woman who they say was trafficking the powerful opiate fentanyl into Sacramento County, where earlier this year officials linked 14 overdose deaths to the drug. Mildred Dossman, 50, of Sacramento was arrested Tuesday after a grand jury returned a three-count indictment charging her with possession with intent to distribute hydrocodone and fentanyl, distribution of both drugs and using a cellphone to facilitate a drug trafficking offense, federal prosecutors said in a statement. (Serna, 7/20)

The New York Times: Study That Reported Sharp Rise In Prostate Cancer Is Questioned
Bad news for men popped up in news media all over the country this week, based on a study from Northwestern University reporting that cases of advanced, aggressive prostate cancer had risen sharply from 2004 to 2013. Newsweek, NBC, CBS, Fox News and United Press International were among the organizations that covered the study. The reports suggested that recent medical advice against routine screening might be to blame for the apparent increase in advanced cases, by leading to delays in diagnosis until the cancer reached a late stage. Another factor cited was the possibility that prostate cancer had somehow become more aggressive. (Grady, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Tracking Cancer In Real Time
California is overhauling the way it collects information for its massive cancer database in the hope of improving how patients are treated for the disease. Pathologists at a dozen hospitals in the state are part of a pilot project — the first of its kind in the United States — in which they are reporting cancer diagnoses in close to real-time to the California Cancer Registry. And they are using standardized electronic forms to make their reporting more consistent and accurate. That represents a significant change for the registry, which traditionally relies on data up to two years old. (Gorman, 7/21)

Roll Call: Dental Therapists Take on Dentists' Duties in Some States
Three states are empowering dental therapists to perform some tasks that previously were done by dentists. Dentists say the shift could weaken the quality of patient care because therapists are not sufficiently trained, an assertion therapists dispute. Vermont became the latest state earlier this summer to recognize dental therapists, which are licensed dental hygienists who have gone on to complete a dental therapy graduate program. The Green Mountain State joins Maine and Minnesota in allowing dental therapists to practice under the supervision of a dentist. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium also recognizes dental therapists to help on tribal land but state lawmakers have not formally passed legislation that would allow them to practice statewide. (Evans, 7/18)

The CT Mirror: Education, Social Service Agencies Digest Their Big Budget Cuts
While the budget adopted by legislators often doesn't explain how various cuts will be achieved, the Department of Social Services has now formulated a detailed plan for saving the tens of millions of dollars legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy cut from its budget. ...The plan for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services also includes millions in cuts, which will be finalized over the next several weeks. The largest cut to the agency's budget was also in personnel. The plan does not outline whether 87 positions that already have been eliminated through layoffs will be enough to achieve the $22 million in savings the state budget calls for. (Rabe Thomas, 7/21)

The Dallas Morning News: Should Texas Doctors Do More To Recommend HPV Vaccine?
Parents in Dallas may be getting mixed messages about whether or not their children need to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted infection linked to several types of cancers. While the Gardasil vaccine is now recommended for both boys and girls starting at age 11, nearly half of Texas teens fail to get it. Part of issue might be the way clinicians approach the topic, says a study analyzing recorded discussions between parents and providers at six pediatric safety-net clinics in Dallas. (Rice, 7/20)

The Boston Globe: After Avoiding Strike, Brigham And Women’s Nurses Approve 3-Year Contract
Unionized nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital voted Wednesday to approve a new three-year contract, formally ending a bitter labor dispute with one of the state’s largest hospitals. Officials at the Massachusetts Nurses Association declined to say how many nurses turned out for the vote, or how many voted in favor of the contract. The union represents 3,300 Brigham nurses. Union and hospital leaders reached agreement on a contract in the early hours of June 26, capping 10 months of tense negotiations — just one day before a planned strike. (McCluskey, 7/20)

Detroit Free Press: Some Farid Fata Cancer Patients To Share In $8M Malpractice Settlement
About 40 of the hundreds of former patients who were purposely misdiagnosed with cancer or poisoned with unnecessary treatment by Oakland County oncologist Farid Fata will share in an $8-million settlement entered today in lawsuits filed against Fata and three hospitals... The malpractice victims represent just a fraction of Fata's victims, who number at least 550, but many didn't file malpractice claims; some were unable to sue because of the statute of limitations. (Dixon, 7/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Rash Of Break-Ins Hits City Health Clinic
A city health clinic was broken into a third time in two weeks last night, leaving city officials frustrated and employees of the facility unnerved. No patient files or drugs were stolen during the incidents at Eastern Health Clinic, where foot patrols by private security and Baltimore police officers have been increased, said Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen. (McDaniels, 7/20)

The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Schools Adding More Nationwide Children’s Mini-Clinics
Columbus City Schools and Nationwide Children’s Hospital are expanding student health-care mini-clinics to eight more buildings in Linden and the West Side. The district opened the first seven clinics in the past school year after it announced in November that the hospital would provide nurse practitioners and medical equipment for the program. The clinics rolled out between November and late January, and since then 251 students have visited on average twice each. (Bush, 7/21)

Orlando Sentinel: UCF, Adventist University Receive Federal Grants For Nursing Programs
University of Central Florida and Adventist University of Health Sciences are among the recipients of a new batch of federal grants aimed at expanding health-care workforce. UCF received nearly $350,000 for training advanced nurse practitioners and more than $33,000 for a program to offer eligible nursing students partial loan forgiveness when they graduate and serve as full-time nursing faculty. (Miller, 7/20)

Health News Florida: Family Tragedy Behind Amoeba Awareness Campaign
It's summertime, and to Sandra Gompf, that means 'amoeba season'. Seven years ago, her 10-year old son Philip went swimming in a lake in Auburndale. About a week later, he died from a brain-eating amoeba that lives in freshwater and enters the body when water is forced up the nose. Both of Philip's parents are doctors. And since their son's death, they've been educating the public -- including posting a series of billboards along Interstate 4 through August. (Walters, 7/20)

Sacramento Bee: Three Sutter Facilities Make Best Places To Work List
Three Sutter Health hospitals have made a list of best places to work. Sutter Amador Hospital, Sutter Davis Hospital and Sutter Center for Psychiatry were named by Modern Healthcare magazine as three of the 100 best places to work in healthcare in 2016. It is the 8th year in a row that Sutter Davis Hospital has made the list, the fifth year for Sutter Center for Psychiatry and the first time for Sutter Amador Hospital. (Lindelof, 7/20)

Minnesota Public Radio: How Mental Health Works In Schools
For thousands of Minnesota students, surviving the school day isn't as simple as it seems. MPR News host Tom Weber guides a conversation that looks at how undiagnosed mental health issues can play out in the classroom. Weber is joined by Mark Sander, Director of School Mental Health, Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Schools talks about how hundreds of children will go through their elementary school years with undiagnosed mental health issues. (Weber, 7/20)

The Des Moines Register: Madrid Nursing Home Sanctioned For Fifth Time Since 2014
A Madrid nursing home that repeatedly has been cited by state inspectors is temporarily barred from accepting new residents who use Medicaid or Medicare to pay for their care...Inspectors’ allegations included that in April a resident tumbled to the floor and broke a hip because a nursing home supervisor failed to properly secure a sling to a mechanical lifting device. (Leys, 6/20)

Augusta Chronicle: Veggie Truck Food Program Feeds, Teaches Kids
That was the point of the Summer Feeding program at the Veggie Truck Farmers Market put on by Wholesome Wave, Augusta Locally Grown and Icebox Ministries, to feed the kids and give them the chance to learn about and try something new, Knox said. “It opens them up to different things,” she said. The groups partnered this summer to help the Richmond County Board of Education distribute meals at the market as part of its summer feeding program, which tries to reach kids who would normally be getting meals through the National School Lunch Program. (Corwin, 7/19)

Health News Florida: Court Sides With Hospital, Psychiatrist In Man's Death
An appeals court Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against a Broward County hospital and a psychiatrist in the death of a former patient who overdosed a day after being discharged from the hospital. The ruling stems from a negligence lawsuit filed by the estate of Michael Taime against Broward Health Imperial Point Medical Center and psychiatrist Robert Antoine. (7/20)

The New England Journal Of Medicine: Obamacare’s Skyrocketing Premiums? Why The Sky Isn’t Falling
In recent years, spring has brought with it a new U.S. health care tradition: headlines about proposed premium increases under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and predictions of the law’s demise. This year’s reports declared that Obamacare would be producing major increases in premiums for 2017, citing numbers as high as 37% premium growth for some plans on the ACA’s health insurance exchanges — changes that one Associated Press article referred to as “stiff medicine for consumers and voters.” These predictions are typically accompanied by doubts about the law’s performance and economic stability, as well as further stoking of the ongoing political controversy surrounding the ACA. But these concerns are overblown, for several important reasons. (Benjamin D. Sommers, 7/21)

Miami Herald: Zika Threat Gets Worse, Congress Skips Town
The disclosure that Florida health officials are investigating what could be the first Zika infection from a mosquito bite in the continental United States underscores the dereliction of the do-nothing Congress that left town without lifting a finger to protect the public. The worrisome new case occurred in Miami-Dade County. No surprise there — this is Ground Zero for the virus. As of Wednesday, Miami-Dade had 89 reported cases, all travel-related. That gives us the unwanted distinction of being No. 1 in the continental United States. The total for Florida, the leading state, is 327. (7/20)

Slate: The RNC Ignores Actual Science, But Embraces Pseudoscience
As 9 p.m. approached on the Wednesday of the 2012 Republican National Convention, delegates in Tampa, Florida, heard from South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. On Wednesday, as that same hour approaches in Cleveland, Republican delegates will hear a speech from someone named Michelle Van Etten, the senior vice chairman marketing director for a company called Youngevity. Whatever your political leanings may be, Thune and Portman were at least sitting elected officials with a public track record. Youngevity sells vitamins, purported weight-loss pills, and, also, dog shampoo. While Thune and Portman themselves have a shaky relationship with science, by the standards of the company Van Etten works for, those guys were basically Watson and Crick. (Jeremy Samuel Faust, 7/20)

Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star: Inaction On Zika Virus Fails Public
Congress fails the public so often these days that it almost seems like a waste of time to point out yet another case where it’s failed to do its job. But passively accepting congressional inability get anything done as the new norm would be akin to giving up on America. So it behooves taxpayers to voice frustration that Congress bolted out of Washington D.C. earlier this month before approving funding to fight the Zika virus. (7/21)

Bloomberg: Wait, Did Valeant Do Something Right?
Here's a sentence to excavate from the vaults and give a good dusting: Valeant might have done something right. A panel of FDA experts on Tuesday voted unanimously that Valeant's plaque psoriasis drug, brodalumab, deserved approval. The troubled pharmaceutical firm's shares rose more than 4 percent Wednesday morning as Valeant investor Bill Ackman talked it up on a call with investors. (Nisen, 7/20)

Nature: Stop The Privatization Of Health Data
Over the past year, technology titans including Google, Apple, Microsoft and IBM have been hiring leaders in biomedical research to bolster their efforts to change medicine. ... In many ways, the migration of clinical scientists into technology corporations that are focused on gathering, analysing and storing information is long overdue. Because of the costs and difficulties of obtaining data about health and disease, scientists conducting clinical or population studies have rarely been able to track sufficient numbers of patients closely enough to make anything other than coarse predictions. ... Yet there is a major downside to monoliths such as Google or smaller companies such as consumer-genetics firm 23andMe owning health data. (John T. Wilbanks and Eric J. Topol, 7/20)

The New England Journal Of Medicine: Donabedian’s Lasting Framework For Health Care Quality
Though historians are often hesitant to declare any event a “first,” one might safely claim that the contemporary health care quality movement had its “founding moment” in October 1965. Less than 3 months after the Medicare and Medicaid programs were enacted, the newly created Health Services Research Section of the U.S. Public Health Service convened a meeting in Chicago of leaders from many health-related fields. These leaders considered the influence of social and economic research on public health, the organization of community health agencies, and the quality of health services. (John Z. Ayanian and Howard Markel, 7/21)

Stat: It’s Time To Recognize And Prevent The Tragedy Of Physician Suicide
Here’s a woeful secret that most medical students don’t learn until it’s too late: Physicians are more likely to become depressed, burn out, and die from suicide than their peers in the general population. Sometimes depression and suicide are the result of slow-building and long-standing issues. Other times they seem to come out of the blue. One of my roles at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is physician health liaison. One Friday afternoon, I got an urgent page from an anesthesiologist. When I called him back, he told me about a surgery that had gone terribly awry the week before — and how he was now thinking about suicide. (Joan M. Anzia, 7/21)

Stat: I Just Got My Third Cancer Diagnosis — But That’s Not Why I’m Angry
I’ve lived a good life, and I can handle whatever Cancer 3.0 deals me. (Cancer 1.0 was my 1999 diagnosis with colon cancer; 2.0 was last year’s fight against lymphoma.) But I’m angry about children facing a mystifying disease that this old man can’t understand, children who won’t get all the opportunities I’ve already had. (Steve Buttry, 7/20)

JAMA Forum: The Influence Of “Big Food” Promotes Healthy Profits But Not Healthy Consumers
Like many industries, “Big Food”—the business sector that comprises agribusiness, food manufacturers, and marketers for the food industry—aims to expand its profit margins. But it does so at the cost of expanding US waistlines and contributing to high rates of obesity and associated health problems. The industry produces and aggressively markets foods, many marketed as “healthy” or “natural,” that are laden with added sugars, salt, and unhealthful fats, with calories far beyond what are necessary for healthful living. (Lawrence Gostin, 7/20)

Idaho Statesman: This Time, Idaho’s Medicaid Gap Panel Must Turn Talk To Policy
The bad news came last April when the Idaho Legislature walked away from its 2016 session without hammering out a solution to assist the estimated 78,000 Idahoans who face today and tomorrow without health insurance. The good news is that members of the Legislature — in the form of the bipartisan Healthcare Alternatives For Citizens Below 100 Percent of Poverty Level committee, made up of Idaho House and Senate representatives — is back talking about care for our neighbors who don’t make enough money to enroll in the Your Health Idaho exchange, and who make too much to benefit from coverage under Medicaid. (7/20)

Sacramento Bee: We’ve Missed Chances To Boost Mental Health
Take the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646) that was passed by the U.S. House on July 6. Assuming it becomes law, it will fund programs for people in psychiatric hospitals and those in crisis. But it is far more limited in its support for everyday Americans who need help but aren’t in crisis. (Carmela Castellano-Garcia, 7/20)

San Antonio Express-News: Border Health Focus Aids Research
Although the Hispanic population is steadily growing, it remains underrepresented in clinical trials for new drugs in Texas and across the country. The dearth of Hispanic participation in medical research could soon become a thing of the past under a new South Texas initiative aimed at broadening access to experimental drug-testing programs. Texas A&M University and Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi have partnered to create the Global Institute for Hispanic Health to expand medical research in South Texas. (7/20)

The Denver Post: Meet The Colorado Doctor Helping Hispanic Families With Type 1 Diabetes
As director of the Barbara Davis Center’s Hispanic/Latino Diabetes Care Team, [Dr. Andrea] Gerard-Gonzalez continues to develop and expand culturally appropriate ways to not only improve the delivery of diabetes care for the 800 youngsters with whom her team works, but to educate family members about the disease, eliminate stigmas and build a sense of community. (Joanne Davidson, 7/21)