First Edition: August 4, 2017

Kaiser Health News: Under Trump, Hospitals Face Same Penalties Embraced By Obama
Amid all the turbulence over the future of the Affordable Care Act, one facet continues unchanged: President Donald Trump’s administration is penalizing more than half the nation’s hospitals for having too many patients return within a month. Medicare is punishing 2,573 hospitals, just two dozen short of what it did last year under former President Barack Obama, according to federal records released Wednesday. Starting in October, the federal government will cut those hospitals’ payments by as much as 3 percent for a year. (Rau, 8/3)

Kaiser Health News: To Grow Market Share, A Drugmaker Pitches Its Product To Judges
Philip Kirby said he first used heroin during a stint in a halfway house a few years ago, when he was 21 years old. He quickly formed a habit.“You can’t really dabble in it,” he said. Late last year, Kirby was driving with drugs and a syringe in his car when he got pulled over. He went to jail for a few months on a separate charge before entering a drug court program in Hamilton County, Ind., north of Indianapolis. But before Kirby started, he says the court pressured him to get a shot of a drug called Vivitrol. (Harper, 8/4)

Kaiser Health News: Florida Law Will Let Patients Get All Their Drug Renewals At The Same Time
For people who take multiple medications to manage chronic conditions, traipsing back and forth from the pharmacy to pick up pills can make it harder to stick to their doctors’ orders. But because insurers often don’t allow consumers to fill partial prescriptions to make  medication renewal dates align, patients sometimes have no choice but to frequently shuttle to the drug store for refills. (Andrews, 8/4)

California Healthline: Taking Stock Of California’s Big Week In Health Care
This has been a momentous week for health care in California.The Covered California exchange announced that its premiums will likely rise by an average of 12.5 percent statewide next year. On top of that, the exchange may add an average 12.4 percent surcharge to silver level plans if President Donald Trump stops funding critical subsidies that help reduce some consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses — or if uncertainty over their fate persists. (8/3)

Politico: Republicans Leave Town With No Clear Path On Obamacare
Republicans are leaving Washington Thursday for a month of recess with no clear direction on what they’ll do next on Obamacare. Senate leaders want to just drop the issue altogether. Conservatives say they’re still fighting for repeal. Moderates want to launch a bipartisan effort to fix the shaky Obamacare system. The reality is that, after seven years of unity on repealing Obamacare, Republicans are rudderless on how to talk about or address the defining domestic policy issue of nearly the past decade for their party, and they have no clear plans despite holding all the levers of power in Washington. Now, they face a month away from the Capitol, answering to their home-state voters about their lack of progress. (Haberkorn and Demko, 8/3)

The Associated Press: Employer-Based Health Coverage Likely To Stay Awhile
If you are like roughly half of Americans who get their health insurance through an employer, relax. The turmoil around "Obamacare" all but guarantees you'll still be able to do that. The reasons? Unemployment is low, skilled workers are hard to find — and people expect employers to provide health care. (Kellman and Rosenberg, 8/4)

The New York Times: With Few Wins In Congress, Republicans Agree On Need To Agree
Most people do not become United States senators to pass a resolution declaring National Lobster Day. But Congress has had to settle largely for small-bore victories since President Trump was sworn into office, ostentatiously failing to pass a bill to repeal his predecessor’s health care law and achieving little substantive policy legislation. (Steinhauer, 8/4)

The Associated Press: Aetna Trumps 2Q Expectations After Scaling Back ACA Coverage
Aetna's second-quarter profit jumped 52 percent to top expectations, and the nation's third-largest health insurer raised its 2017 forecast again, this time well beyond analyst projections. Investors responded by pushing company shares to another all-time high price in Thursday trading. (Murphy, 8/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Aetna Profit Rises On Better Pricing; Company Raises Outlook
Aetna Inc. reported a stronger profit for its second quarter, boosted by limited medical spending and better-than-expected results from Affordable Care Act programs intended to reduce insurers’ risk on health-law insurance plans. The insurer, which joins others in the industry that have previously reported positive results, highlighted the growth and future prospects in its government business, particularly its continuing expansion in Medicare Advantage, the plans sold by private insurers under the federal program, as it continued detailing its strategy after the failure of its effort to buy Humana Inc. That deal was terminated in February after a federal judge ruled it would violate antitrust law. (Wilde Mathews and Vasquez, 8/3)

The New York Times: Senate Passes F.D.A. Funding And ‘Right To Try’ Drug Bills
The Senate on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to finance the Food and Drug Administration, clearing the measure for President Trump and tapping drug manufacturers once again to help pay for the federal review of prescription drugs and medical devices. The 94-to-1 vote came just hours after the Senate passed a separate bill expanding access to experimental treatments for people with terminal illnesses. This bill, the Right to Try Act, will now go to the House, where more than three dozen lawmakers have endorsed similar legislation. (Pear and Kaplan, 8/3)

The Associated Press: Senate Passes Legislation To Ensure No Halt In FDA Reviews
Drug and medical device makers would pay higher user fees under legislation the Senate approved and sent to the president on Thursday. ... The legislation rejects the Trump administration's recommendation to fund FDA reviews entirely through user fees. Doing so would have upended several months' worth of negotiations over the fees, which will generate between $8 billion and $9 billion over five years. The administration had argued that "in an era of renewed fiscal restraint, industries that benefit directly from FDA's work should pay for it." (Freking, 8/3)

The Washington Post: Senate Passes ‘Right To Try’ Bill To Help Terminally Ill Patients Get Experimental Drugs 
The “right-to-try” legislation has been championed by the libertarian Goldwater Institute, which has worked to pass similar legislation in 37 states. The federal version, now headed to the House, would bar the government from blocking patients from getting access to medications that have undergone only preliminary testing in humans. Patients first would have to try all other available treatments and be ineligible for clinical trials. The bill would provide drug companies some legal protection if a treatment results in harm. (McGinley, 8/3)

Politico: Libertarians Score Big Victory In 'Right-To-Try' Drug Bill
The bill, S. 204 (115), passed swiftly and easily in a Senate bitterly divided over health care. The powerful pharmaceutical lobby, which had quietly opposed an earlier version, kept an unusually low profile. The industry has been focused on fighting off any efforts to go after drug pricing, which President Donald Trump has said he would tackle. (Karlin-Smith, 8/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Approves Bill To Allow Terminally Ill Patients Access To Unapproved Drugs
The bill’s language is actually somewhat broader than simply applying to the terminally ill. It says that a patient “with a life-threatening disease or condition…who has exhausted approved treatment options” generally can get experimental drugs if a doctor certifies it is necessary. (Burton, 8/3)

The Associated Press: FDA OKs New Drug To Treat All Forms Of Hepatitis C
U.S. regulators have approved the first drug to treat all forms of hepatitis C in as little as eight weeks. The pill combination from AbbVie Inc. was approved Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration for adults without significant cirrhosis, a type of liver disease, and many patients who were not cured by prior treatment. (8/3)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Emails Offer Rare Look Into Internal Battle Over A Drug’s Approval
The Food and Drug Administration provided a rare glimpse of an internal battle that erupted last year over efforts to modernize the agency’s efforts to approve and regulate new drugs. In emails released by the FDA this week, an FDA official harshly rebuked the top agency official who drove the controversial decision to approve a drug to treat a form of muscular dystrophy. (Pulliam, 8/3)

USA Today: Martin Shkreli Is At It Again On Social Media As Verdict Wait Continues
What do you do if you're one of the most criticized defendants in the nation and the jurors in your criminal fraud trial finish their fourth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict? If you're "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, you turn to social media, of course. (McCoy, 8/3)

The New York Times: Opioid Users Are Filling Jails. Why Don’t Jails Treat Them?
When Dave Mason left jail in October 2015 after his 14th criminal conviction, the odds were good that he would end up dead. A man with a longtime heroin addiction, Mr. Mason was entering one of the deadliest windows for jailed users returning to the streets: the first two weeks after release, when they often make the mistake of returning to a dose their body can no longer handle. (Williams, 8/4)

The Associated Press: Homeless And On Heroin, But Turned Away From Treatment
Nearly two decades of using heroin and a year of living on the streets of Philadelphia had led Steven Kemp to a simple conclusion: It was time to get sober. But when he staggered into a detox facility on a recent Friday night, his head brimming with the thought that suicide would end the pain, he was told he couldn't be admitted because he didn't have a photo ID. (Izaguirre, 8/4)

USA Today: Opioid Crisis: Proportion Of Drivers Killed While Under Influence Spikes
In one of the latest examples of the growing opioid epidemic, researchers found a seven-fold increase in the proportion of drivers killed while under the influence of prescription opioids since 1995. Researchers at Columbia University examined drug testing results for 36,729 drivers in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and West Virginia who died within an hour of being in a car crash. (Toy, 8/3)

NPR: Longtime Heroin Addict Fights For Recovery
Two summers ago, we met a woman who went by the name Teacup. "I'm an active heroin user," she told us. "Thirty-three years as a matter of fact." We were in West Baltimore, reporting on a citywide effort to stop a growing opioid crisis. On a street corner known for its open-air drug market, health workers trained anyone passing by on how to use naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose. They were trying to get naloxone kits into as many hands as possible. (Cornish and Hsu, 8/3)

The New York Times: Short Answers To Hard Questions About The Opioid Crisis
This week, President Trump’s commission on combating the opioid crisis, led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, recommended that the president declare a national emergency. The problem has become significantly worse recently, so you might feel that you could use a little catching up. Here are 11 things you need to know. (Katz, 8/3)

The Washington Post: Whoops: Trump Made A Few Mistakes By Calling New Hampshire A ‘Drug-Infested Den’
It sounds obvious, but apparently not obvious enough to President Trump: Don't insult an entire state. Especially one that's critical to you and your party's future election hopes. But just six days after getting inaugurated, Trump went there. “I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den,” Trump told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in a phone call between the two world leaders. The call was private, but The Post's Greg Miller obtained the transcript — plus an equally eyebrow-raising one of a call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (Phillips, 8/3)

The Associated Press: New Hampshire Is No 'Drug-Infested Den,' State Leaders Say
New Hampshire's four-member, all-Democratic Congressional delegation expressed outrage at Trump's comments, as did Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. The governor said the state is making progress in addressing its heroin and opioid crisis on multiple fronts, including greater resources for law enforcement and drug abuse prevention, treatment and recovery. "The President is wrong. It's disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer," he said in a statement. (8/3)

Politico: New Hampshire Leaders Rebuke Trump For Calling State 'Drug-Infested Den'
The New Hampshire Republican Party didn't defend the president's description outright, but it replied on Twitter that the party has been working to combat the drug crisis. "Are @NHDems denying NH is in the middle of an opioid epidemic?" the tweet read. "NH Republicans have been working everyday to fight the crisis." (Lahut, 8/3)

The New York Times: Trump Called New Hampshire A ‘Drug-Infested Den,’ Drawing The Ire Of Its Politicians
There were an estimated 470 drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire in 2016, compared with 439 in 2015. In 2012, there were 163, according to statistics compiled by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. On Thursday, Mr. Sununu described the opioid epidemic in an email as “one of the worst health crises this state has ever experienced.” He said the government had doubled the resources devoted to prevention, treatment and recovery efforts. (Stack, 8/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Heroin Trade Rooted In Mexico’s ‘Corridor Of Death’
A lethal combination of corruption and criminal gangs fighting for control of a booming heroin trade has turned one two-lane road in Mexico’s Guerrero state into what many call “the corridor of death. ”The road links Chilpancingo, the Pacific Coast state’s capital, to heroin-producing mountains nearby, where rival gangs are vying for a bigger share of the lucrative heroin market in the U.S. Nearly 1,200 people were killed in the state this year through June after 2,200 died last year. Officials say nearly all were linked to organized crime. (Althaus, 8/4)

USA Today: Trump Touts Veterans Affairs 'Tele-Health' Program With New Appointment Scheduling Application
President Trump touted a new program to increase veterans' electronic access to medical care as part of a broader tele-health push at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The initiative connects veterans with health providers via mobile phones or computers, and is intended to improve medical care especially for those needing mental health and suicide prevention services, Trump said. (Przybyla, 8/3)

The New York Times: Police Say They Welcome Transgender Recruits Even If Trump Doesn’t
In the week since President Trump declared that transgender Americans would no longer be allowed in the military, some municipal officials have responded with an invitation: join our police force instead. Several cities — including Houston; Austin, Tex.; Aurora, Colo.; and Cincinnati — have encouraged transgender people to apply to their police departments. In Austin, San Diego, Seattle and other places, transgender officers already serve openly. (Astor, 8/3)

NPR: University Of Vermont To Phase Out Lectures In Med School
For students starting medical school, the first year can involve a lot of time in a lecture hall. There are hundreds of terms to master and pages upon pages of notes to take. But when the new class of medical students begins at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine next week, a lot of that learning won't take place with a professor at a lectern. (Cornish and Gringlas, 8/3)

The Washington Post: Women Seeking Pain Relief From Md. Doctor Were Sexually Assaulted, Lawsuit Alleges
A class-action lawsuit was filed Thursday in Maryland on behalf of women who attorneys say were sexually assaulted by a former Kaiser Permanente doctor. The lawsuit alleges that Kaiser ignored the complaints of patients who accused Bryan S. Williams of inappropriately touching them during exams, thus allowing him to continue practicing and assaulting women. (Bui, 8/3)