The New York Times: Senate Republicans Say They Will Not Vote On Health Bill
Senate Republicans on Tuesday officially abandoned the latest plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, shelving a showdown vote on the measure and effectively admitting defeat in their last-gasp drive to fulfill a core promise of President Trump and Republican lawmakers. The decision came less than 24 hours after a pivotal Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, declared her opposition to the repeal proposal, all but ensuring that Republican leaders would be short of the votes they needed. (Kaplan and Pear, 9/26)

The Associated Press: 'Obamacare' Survives; GOP Concedes On Last-Gasp Repeal Try
The repeal-and-replace bill's authors promised to try again at a later date, while President Donald Trump railed against "certain so-called Republicans" who opposed the GOP effort. But for now, Trump and fellow Republicans who vowed for seven years to abolish President Barack Obama's law will leave it standing and turn their attention to overhauling the nation's tax code instead. (Werner, 9/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Scraps Vote On GOP Measure To Repeal Health Law
“We haven’t given up on changing the American health-care system,” Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re not going to be able to do it this week.” But for the moment, he said, “we plan to move forward on our next priority, which is reforming the American tax code in significant ways for the first time in 30 years.” (Peterson and Armour, 9/26)

The Hill: Senate Won't Vote On ObamaCare Repeal Bill 
"We don't have the votes so it's probably best we don't do the vote," said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) after the GOP conference met at its regular weekly luncheon. "We've lost this battle, but we're going to win the war." (Bolton, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Demise Of Obamacare Repeal Shows How Far GOP Actually Remains From Goal 
Senator Susan Collins said Monday the bill would cause too many Americans to lose insurance, while Rand Paul said it preserved too many of the federal subsidies for health care -- even after the bill’s authors made a spate of last-minute changes to win them over. Their opposition followed John McCain’s declaration last week that it was too hasty and partisan, as the GOP raced to meet a Sept. 30 deadline. Their firm stances against it -- each for a very different reason -- underscore the difficulty Republicans face in trying to make dramatic changes to the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (Litvan and Tracer, 9/26)

Modern Healthcare: Senate Republicans Pull Plug For Now On Repeal Bill
"We have 50 votes for the substance (of the Graham-Cassidy bill) but not for the process," Graham said. "I'm confident that with a new process, hearings and regular order, we'll get 50 votes." Several Senate Republicans—including Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, who joined Collins and McCain in killing the previous GOP repeal bill in July—had not yet announced their position on the bill. (Meyer, 9/26)

The Washington Post: Senate GOP Abandons Latest Effort To Unwind The Affordable Care Act
The Senate leaders said they would turn their attention to their next major legislative undertaking. “Where we go from here is tax reform,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters after holding a closed-door policy lunch with members of his caucus. Republicans already are bracing for the political fallout from the measure proposed by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.)., which McConnell had hoped to bring to a vote this week. They said the pressure to pass a tax overhaul bill was higher than ever and hoped the Republican base would give them a bit more time to take another shot at repealing the ACA. (Eilperin, Sullivan and Goldstein, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Gives Up On Voting On Obamacare Repeal, But Bipartisan Approaches Remain In Doubt
President Trump, who has repeatedly expressed frustration with the GOP failure to repeal and replace the healthcare law, responded tersely when reporters asked him what would happen next. "It will happen,” he said as he landed in New York for a high-dollar Republican fundraising dinner. (Mascaro and Levey, 9/26)

The Hill: Trump Rips 'So-Called Republicans' Over ObamaCare Repeal 
President Trump on Tuesday said he was “disappointed” that some “so-called Republicans” were opposing the Senate's latest effort to repeal ObamaCare. “We were very disappointed by a couple of senators, Republican senators I must say, we were very disappointed that they would take the attitude that they did,” Trump told reporters. “But we are disappointed in certain so-called Republicans.” (Weixel, 9/26)

Roll Call: Pence Didn't Push On Health Care Vote
Vice President Mike Pence opted not to make a last-ditch pitch to Republican senators Tuesday to vote for the GOP’s latest health care bill. Instead, Republican senators leaving their weekly lunch at the Capitol said Pence instead focused on how Congress could provide disaster aid to U.S. territories devastated by a string of recent hurricanes, pivoting from one of the president’s central campaign promises. (Rahman, 9/26)

Roll Call: Senate Republicans Commence Health Care Blame Game
Frustration overtook Senate Republicans on Tuesday as the reality sunk in that they had failed again in fulfilling a seven-year campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law. And senators were looking to cast blame wherever they could find it. (Williams, 9/26)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ron Johnson Won't Give Up In His Quest To Repeal And Replace Obamacare
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Tuesday night that he's not giving up in his effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamcare. Hours after Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate scrapped a vote on a Johnson co-sponsored health care bill, he faced an array of questions from constituents during a statewide telephone town hall. (Glauber, 9/26)

The CT Mirror: GOP Effort To Repeal Obamacare Dies, But Murphy Expects New Challenges
After their weekly luncheon caucus meeting Tuesday, GOP leaders said there would be no vote on a bill sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. On Monday Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, came out against the bill, joining Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., who were also opposed to the measure. (Radelat, 9/26)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Claim That 1996 Welfare Overhaul ‘Worked Like A Charm’
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans decided not to vote on the Cassidy-Graham bill, effectively halting (again) the GOP’s efforts to repeal Obamacare. In the process of debating the merits of the legislation, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) made assertions that we thought warranted a closer look. Graham held up the landmark shift in welfare policy in 1996 as an example of the federal government successfully turning an entitlement program over to states. The changes redirected the money spent on federal aid for low-income families to a block grant for the states, giving them flexibility on how to spend the money, so long as it went toward programs to reduce poverty. Graham said this shift in funding “worked like a charm.” (Lewis, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Congress At Crossroads After Another GOP Health Care Failure
Congress is at a crossroads after Republicans stumbled again in their drive to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law. The choice is between more partisan conflict or a shift toward cooperation. Bipartisan talks on a bill to stabilize the health law's shaky insurance markets are resuming. But time is short and there's no guarantee of success. Open enrollment starts Nov. 1. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/27)

The Hill: GOP Senator Ready To Resume Bipartisan ObamaCare Talks
Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) left the door open Tuesday to restarting bipartisan talks on an ObamaCare stabilization bill. "I’m still concerned about the next two years and Congress has an opportunity to slow down premium increases in 2018, begin to lower them in 2019, and do our best to make sure there are no counties where people have zero options to buy health insurance," Alexander said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon. (Hellmann, 9/26)

CQ: Market Stabilization Talks Resume As Insurers Finalize Rates
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., on Tuesday said he would resume negotiations with ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., on a bill that would fund cost-sharing subsidies currently in limbo under the Trump administration. “I’m still concerned about the next two years and Congress has an opportunity to slow down premium increases in 2018, begin to lower them in 2019, and do our best to make sure there are no counties where people have zero options to buy health insurance,” Alexander said in a statement. (Clason, 9/27)

Nashville Tennessean: Obamacare: Sen. Alexander To Resume Bipartisan Health Insurance Talks
Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who chairs a key committee, said he will consult with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and other Republicans and Democrats “to see if senators can find consensus on a limited bipartisan plan that could be enacted into law to help lower premiums and make insurance available to the 18 million Americans in the individual market in 2018 and 2019.” (Collins and Fletcher, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Senator Talks Up Bipartisan Health-Care Effort After GOP Failure 
He’s got some conditions, though. Alexander said Tuesday he only wants to resume work if the more limited plan, which could include funding for health insurers and more flexibility for states, can be enacted into law. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have previously indicated they won’t support such a plan. Alexander was working on a bipartisan package until the now-failed repeal bill offered by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy gained steam. (Edney, 9/26)

The Hill: Key GOP Senator Floats Tying Bipartisan Insurance Stabilization Deal To Reforms 
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is floating potentially tying a bipartisan deal on stabilizing the health insurance market to structural reforms favored by Republicans, after the latest bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare fell apart. "Sen. [Lamar] Alexander [R-Tenn.] and Sen. [Patty] Murray [D-Wash] are working on some ideas on stabilizing the market, but more importantly, to me, Sen. [Bill] Cassidy [R-La.] and Sen. [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] are looking at structural reform," the No. 2 Senate Republican told reporters Tuesday. (Carney, 9/26)

NPR: Kaiser Permanente CEO: A Bipartisan Health Bill Is The Way To Go
Now that the latest GOP health care proposal is being left for dead, you might think that health care reform efforts are over for the near future. But don't dismiss bipartisan efforts already underway that aim to stabilize the insurance market and potentially give states more flexibility in meeting federal standards. (Fulton, 9/27)

Politico: Inside The Life And Death Of Graham-Cassidy
Sen. Lindsey Graham offered a eulogy for the GOP’s Obamacare repeal effort on Tuesday, but seized on one bright spot as a reason not to give up after a parade of health care disappointments. During a closed-door party meeting to discuss their terms of surrender, he told fellow Republicans that Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who opposed repeal over the summer, said she’d be open to his plan under other conditions, according to GOP senators in the room. (Haberkorn, Everett and Kim, 9/27)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Health Repeal’s Long And Winding Road
Republicans wasted little time getting their Affordable Care Act repeal off the ground this year, but the party hasn’t been able to agree on a plan that would appeal to both centrists and conservatives in the House and Senate. On Tuesday, Senate leaders said they would miss a key deadline for voting on an ACA repeal before the end of the fiscal year. Here’s a rundown of some key events in the party’s health push this year. (Kozo, 9/26)

The Hill: Timeline: The GOP's Failed Effort To Repeal ObamaCare 
For months, Republicans agonized over their ObamaCare repeal-and-replace effort. It was declared dead in the spring. Then revived and passed in the House. It appeared dead in the Senate this summer, but came back to life.But this week it met its demise — at least in the immediate future. The vehicle they were using to avoid a Democratic filibuster expires at the end of the month, and Republicans won’t be voting on another ObamaCare repeal bill this week. (Roubein, 9/26)

The Washington Post: Tuesday Started As A Bad Day For Mitch McConnell. It Only Got Worse.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lost just about every way possible on Tuesday. The Kentucky Republican had to abandon, again, an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act amid an uprising from the more moderate wing of the GOP caucus. Then he learned that one of his most influential Republican chairman would not run for reelection next year, setting up a potentially divisive race to succeed the senator. (Kane, 9/26)

Politico: Mitch McConnell's Dreadful Day
For Mitch McConnell, Tuesday was about as bad as it could get. A vulnerable incumbent senator, Luther Strange, lost handily to Roy Moore, who used the Senate leader as his campaign punching bag. McConnell pulled the plug — again — on repealing Obamacare. One of his close allies, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), announced his retirement. And President Donald Trump is back on McConnell’s case, dubbing him “weak” at a private dinner with conservative activists on Monday evening. (Bresnahan, Everett and Dawsey, 9/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Failure Of ACA Repeal Brings ‘Momentary Relief’ For Hospitals And Insurers
The failure of Senate Republicans’ latest attempt to roll back the Affordable Care Act relieves health companies, but hospitals and insurers will quickly pivot back to worries about implementation of the existing law as the crucial open-enrollment season looms. (Wilde Mathews and Evans, 9/26)

The New York Times: How Failure Of The Obamacare Repeal Affects Consumers
Obamacare repeal is dead, again. But the months of Republican attacks on the health law will still have consequences for some consumers. For now, people who get their insurance through Medicaid can rest easy. While some states have applied to make minor changes to their programs, the demise of the Graham-Cassidy legislation on Tuesday means no major cutbacks are on the immediate horizon. But almost every health bill that Republicans proposed this year called for subjecting the program to caps, so that idea seems unlikely to disappear. (Sanger-Katz, 9/26)

The Hill: Top Republican Nixes Idea Of Pairing ObamaCare Repeal With Tax Reform 
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Tuesday said Congress should move onto tax reform and not try to pair it with a new plan to repeal ObamaCare. Cornyn signaled the widespread GOP fear that adding a health-care debate to the tax bill will only bog down a reform package that is President Trump’s new top priority. (Bolton, 9/26)

The Hill: Freedom Caucus Chair Opposes Combining Health Care, Tax Reform 
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said Tuesday that he opposes trying to combine tax reform and ObamaCare repeal in a fast-track bill next year. Some Republicans are pushing to include instructions for ObamaCare repeal along with tax reform in the 2018 budget, allowing the GOP to keep alive their ability to pass repeal with just a simple majority and bypass a Democratic filibuster. (Sullivan, 9/26)

Modern Healthcare: Big Questions And Big Rate Hikes Persist Ahead Of Final Exchange Rate-Filing Deadline
While all eyes were on Republican senators this month as they launched a last-ditch effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act by a simple majority, the deadline for health insurers to lock in their 2018 rates in the individual insurance exchanges slowly approached. That deadline arrives Wednesday, when insurers must sign contracts to sell coverage in the ACA marketplace next year without knowing whether the Trump administration will continue paying subsidies that help lower the cost of coverage for low-income Americans or whether the administration will keep enforcing the individual mandate that requires most people to buy insurance. (Livingston, 9/26)

Morning Consult: Premiums Likely To Rise Amid Fallout From Graham-Cassidy Health Bill
While that last-ditch Obamacare repeal push floundered Tuesday, there is little residual momentum among Republicans who supported the stabilization bill to resume negotiations with Democrats. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who spearheaded the bipartisan effort with ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.), blamed both sides for killing momentum on a bipartisan fix: Republicans for resuming their Obamacare repeal push and some Democrats for rallying behind a single-payer health care proposal. (Reid, 9/26)

Orlando Sentinel: Florida Obamacare Rates May Go Up By 45% For Consumers Without Subsidies
In the same day Republicans gave up on their latest attempt to repeal Obamacare, Florida insurance regulators projected that premiums for those on the plan could go up by nearly 45 percent next year. But consumers who receive subsidies will be mostly shielded from the rate hikes. (Miller, 9/26)

Miami Herald: Florida’s Obamacare Rates Spike Nearly 45 Percent For 2018
Florida regulators said most of the average rate hike — 31 percentage points — came from standard plans sold on the ACA exchange at healthcare.gov. Insurers raised rates for those plans due to the political uncertainty that has plagued the healthcare debate, specifically whether the Trump administration will stop paying subsidies that lower out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans. (Chang, 9/26)

The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Independence Blue Cross Commits To Affordable Care Act Exchange For 2018
Despite continuing uncertainty over the fate of the Affordable Care Act, Independence Blue Cross chief executive Daniel J. Hilferty said Tuesday that the Philadelphia region’s largest health insurer will offer Affordable Care Act plans in Southeastern Pennsylvania and in New Jersey for next year. “We just feel that we can’t not be there for 200,000-plus people in the five-county area and 100,000 people in New Jersey,” said Hilferty, who made the decision Monday, before Senate Republicans dropped their latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. (Brubaker, 9/27)

Georgia Health News: ‘Hipster’ Health Insurance, Linked To A Surprising Name, May Come To Atlanta
Also, while many health insurers stopped selling individual policies on several state exchanges because of the uncertain path of the Affordable Care Act, Oscar has taken a bet on the future of the embattled health care law, informally known as Obamacare. In 2018, the start-up plans to expand its existing footprint in New York, California and Texas; re-enter New Jersey, which Oscar left this year; partner with the renowned Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; and join forces with Humana health insurance to sell plans in Nashville. ... While [Oscar's founder Mario Schlosser] declined to comment in detail about future expansion plans, he confirmed that Atlanta is on Oscar’s radar. (Ridderbusch, 9/26)

CQ: Cuts To Hospital Funding Loom As Congress Focuses On Repeal
Billions of dollars in federal funding cuts to hospitals across the country could go into effect within days if Congress – which has been focused on repealing the 2010 health care law – doesn’t act quickly. The cuts to so-called disproportionate share hospital, or DSH, payments are slated to take effect Oct. 1, putting into motion a series of yearly cuts that would slash the roughly $12 billion program by two-thirds by 2025. (Williams, 9/27)

CQ: Clock Ticks on Safety Net Health Programs
The prospects of passage for the bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Program and a host of other health programs that expire Sept. 30 are uncertain, leaving medical providers and state officials concerned about the consequences. Senators said late Tuesday that the legislation should not be hard to do. But they did not know when Congress would act. (Raman, 9/27)

Kaiser Health News: Congress’ Cold Shoulder Sends Shivers Through Community Health Centers
One community health center in New York has frozen hiring. Another in Missouri can’t get a bank loan to expand. The nation’s 1,400 community health centers are carefully watching expenses in case the financial rescue they hope Congress delivers this week doesn’t arrive. With four days left in the government’s fiscal year, Congress has not voted on reauthorizing billions of dollars now going to community health centers and other health programs for the 2018 budget year that starts Sunday. (Bluth, 9/27)

CQ: Senate Passes Chronic Care Bill
The Senate on Tuesday passed by voice vote a bill that would make changes to Medicare payment policies aiming to improve care for people with chronic health conditions. The wide-ranging bill would expand access to telehealth services under Medicare with an emphasis on stroke diagnosis and would try to improve the coordination of services. The bipartisan bill (S 870) by the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee and many committee members was approved unanimously by the panel in May. (Siddons 9/26)

The Hill: House To Vote On 20-Week Abortion Ban 
The House plans to vote next week on a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced Tuesday that the House would vote on the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," on Oct. 3. The bill last passed the House in 2015 but was blocked by Senate Democrats. (Hellmann, 9/26)

Politico: Price’s Private-Jet Travels Included Visits With Colleagues, Lunch With Son
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price took a government-funded private jet in August to get to St. Simons Island, an exclusive Georgia resort where he and his wife own land, a day and a half before he addressed a group of local doctors at a medical conference that he and his wife have long attended. The St. Simons Island trip was one of two taxpayer-funded flights on private jets in which Price traveled to places where he owns property, and paired official visits with meetings with longtime colleagues and family members. (Diamond and Pradhan, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Mnuchin, Price And Others On Trump's Team Are Getting Taxpayer-Funded Travel Perks – But Where's The Outrage?
The Treasury secretary requested a military plane for his European honeymoon. The head of Health and Human Services ran up a six-figure tab flying around the country on private jets. The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency dinged taxpayers for repeated excursions back home to Oklahoma. In normal times, Washington’s scandal machinery would be kicking into high gear. Mounting outrage — some real, some calculated — would lead to months of hearings and calls for criminal investigations. (Finnegan and Barabak, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Sebelius Calls Price's Private Chartered Plane Travel ‘Stunning’ 
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called her successor Tom Price’s repeated use of chartered aircraft “stunning” and said the only time she ever flew a private jet while in office was to visit a trio of remote Alaskan villages. During her tenure, Sebelius told a roundtable of Bloomberg reporters and editors, health department officials were required to fly economy class for all travel less than 12 consecutive hours. Her lone charter flight, she said, was in a propeller plane her staff hired to visit three villages inaccessible by road or commercial aircraft. (Sink, 9/26)

Politico Pro: Poll: Voters Say Price's Charter Flights Are Inappropriate
Nearly two-thirds of registered voters disapprove of HHS Secretary Tom Price’s decision to charter private jets to conduct official business, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows. Sixty-four percent of voters said it was inappropriate for Price to take private aircraft, which costs tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial flights. Sixteen percent said the trips were appropriate. (Pradhan, 9/27)

The Star Tribune: Successful Little Falls Effort To Curb Opioids Gets Big Notice In D.C.
Before the rising toll of opioid overdoses was labeled an epidemic, and before the death of pop star Prince showed that anyone could be a victim of painkiller misuse, there was a group of doctors in Little Falls, Minn., looking at their drug prescriptions and wondering what the heck they were doing. Stunned by the number of opioid prescriptions and drug-related arrests, doctors with CHI St. Gabriel’s Health in 2014 were among the first in the nation to launch a campaign to reduce opioid dependence. (Olson, 9/26)

The Associated Press: Safe Drug-Use Space In Baltimore Could Save Money, Lives
A safe space in Baltimore for drug use for those addicted to opioids would generate an estimated $6 million in net healthcare cost savings and bring 121 people into treatment annually, according to a panel of law enforcement officials and a Johns Hopkins professor on Tuesday. The panel appeared before a joint legislative committee on behavioral health and opioid use disorders in Annapolis and presented research that indicated Maryland would benefit from opening a safe-consumption space in Baltimore. (Slater, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Scientists May Have Found A Way To Diagnose CTE In Football Players While They're Still Alive
It is a humbling but very motivating fact that a person currently has to die before doctors can make a diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease that afflicts many professional football players and other athletes who have sustained repeated blows to the head. After all, if it were possible to diagnose CTE in the living, those athletes and the physicians who care for them could probably do something useful with that knowledge. (Healy, 9/26)

Boston Globe: BU Might Be Closer Toward Diagnosing CTE During Life
Boston University researchers have moved closer to identifying a way to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in the living — a step forward in learning about the incurable brain disease, which has afflicted countless athletes and members of the military. (Hohler, 9/26)

NPR: Concussion Rate Among Teens May Be As High As 20 Percent
Concussions have gotten a lot of attention in recent years, especially as professional football players' brains have shown signs of degenerative brain disease linked with repeated blows to the head. Now, a new analysis confirms what many doctors fear — that concussions start showing up at a high rate in teens who are active in contact sports. (Jochem, 9/26)

Kaiser Health News: As Loyal Blood Donors Age, Industry Is Out For Young Blood
When Corinne Standefer retires as a volunteer from the Lane Bloodworks in Eugene, Ore., this month, she will have donated 37 years of her life — and almost 19 gallons of blood. The 89-year-old gave her first pint decades ago to help a friend who had cancer. “When they called me and said ‘Could you donate again?’ I just started coming in,” she recalled. (Aleccia, 9/27)

The Baltimore Sun: Lower Cost Hearing Aids Sold Over-The-Counter Will Reach More People, Prevent Other Medical Problems 
Federal legislation passed earlier this year aims to make hearing aids more affordable for people like Witt, who are elderly and have fixed incomes, by allowing some styles of the devices to be sold over-the-counter at drug stores and other retailers. The new law allows hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss to be sold at retailers and not through an audiologist — much like low-prescription “reader” eyeglasses are sold. (McDaniels, 9/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Huge Genetic Study To Search For Custom Treatments
In a quest to end cookie-cutter health care, researchers are getting ready to recruit more than 1 million people for an unprecedented study to learn how our genes, environments and lifestyles interact — and to finally develop custom ways to prevent and treat disease. (Neergaard, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Apple, Fitbit To Join FDA Program To Speed Health Tech 
A federal agency that regulates apples wants to make regulations on Apple Inc. a little easier. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees new drugs, medical devices and much of the U.S. food supply, said Tuesday that it had selected nine major tech companies for a pilot program that may let them avoid some regulations that have tied up developers working on health software and products. (Edney, 9/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Who Is Living Without Health Insurance In New Orleans? 
Roughly 90 percent of people in New Orleans have health insurance, with the city's youngest and oldest residents boasting the highest coverage rates. Who in New Orleans is most likely to live day-to-day without health coverage? Adult men in their late 30s and early 40s. That is according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which released localized information on health coverage in September. The info is part of a wave of statistics from the agency looking at income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the United States in 2016. (Larino, 9/26)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohioans Spend Less Out-Of-Pocket On Health Care Than Average
Families in Cleveland, Akron and Ohio in general aren't spending as much of their take-home pay on out-of-pocket health care costs as people elsewhere, a new study shows. This suggests the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care has helped, although other reasons factor in, too. (Koff, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Power Outages, Hospitals Pushed To Their Limits In Puerto Rico
In the emergency room lobby at the Puerto Rico Medical Center, the island’s largest public hospital, more than a dozen patients — one with a broken leg, others with arms in slings or other wounds — were lined up on stretchers and in wheelchairs in the stifling heat. A generator hummed in the background, but that was powering the air conditioning for patients already being treated. (Hennessy-Fiske, 9/26)

Columbus Dispatch: Central Ohio Hospitals Say They're Ready To Respond To Any Likely Disaster
As central Ohio hospital executives watch the devastation in this hurricane season, they’re confident that they’re prepared to respond to whatever disasters might hit our region. No, they’re not preparing for hurricanes, but they do have plans for blizzards, tornadoes, virus outbreaks, airplane crashes, mass killings and other calamities. (Viviano, 9/26)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Advocates Seek Tighter Rules In Ohio Nursing Homes After Florida Deaths: A Critical Choice
Advocates for nursing home residents say Ohio should increase its requirements for generators at care centers after 11 people died in a Florida nursing home that lost power following Hurricane Irma. (Caniglia and Corrigan, 9/27)

KCUR: Missouri Democrats Unveil Their Vision For Health Care, Acknowledge Long Odds 
The Missouri Democratic Party announced an ambitious set of health care proposals Tuesday, including expansion of Medicaid and policy changes focused on veterans, women’s health and opioid abuse. Republicans control the House, Senate and Governor’s office in Missouri, making it unlikely the proposals will be adopted. But Stephen Webber, the party chair, said Democrats still want to present a “positive proactive vision.” (Ellison, 9/26)

The CT Mirror: Malloy: CT Has A Little Extra Time To Resolve Hospital Tax Plan
While time is dwindling for the state and its hospital industry to strike a deal on a new taxing arrangement that could help solve Connecticut’s budget crisis, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday the state might be able to stretch Friday’s deadline for about two more weeks. (Phaneuf, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: STD Rates Hit Another Record High, With California Near The Top
The number of Americans diagnosed with chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis reached a record high in 2016 for the second year in a row, with more than 2 million cases reported and particularly high rates in California, according to federal data released Tuesday. Cases of these three sexually transmitted diseases have been increasing nationally since 2014, reversing a downward trend that began in 2006. Health officials say the rates reflect decreasing condom usage, a lack of awareness about STDs among doctors and patients, and a falling number of STD clinics. (Karlamangla, 9/26)

Reuters: Visiting Nurse Service Of NY Must Face Whistleblower Claims: Judge
A federal judge on Tuesday said Visiting Nurse Service of New York, which calls itself the largest U.S. nonprofit home health care agency, must face much of a whistleblower lawsuit accusing it of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid and failing to provide patients with care prescribed by doctors. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan said the plaintiff Edward Lacey plausibly alleged that the nonprofit filed false payment claims based on several alleged fraudulent schemes, violating the federal and state False Claims Acts. (Stempel, 9/26)

The Associated Press: Medical Examiner’s Accreditation At Risk In Budget Impasse
Connecticut’s budget impasse is putting the state medical examiner’s office at risk of completely losing its accreditation, a prospect that could cast some doubt on the agency’s credibility and raise questions in court about its findings in murder cases. The office has until Wednesday to show the National Association of Medical Examiners that it has addressed a short-staffing problem that has resulted in the agency’s seven forensic pathologists performing more than 325 autopsies a year — the limit set by the association’s accreditation standards. (Collins, 9/26)

Kansas City Star: McCaskill Investigating Emergency Room Bills From EmCare
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill is investigating potential overcharging of patients by a company that staffs emergency rooms across the country, including several in the Kansas City area. McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, sent a letter last week to Christopher Holden, the CEO of Envision Healthcare. (Marso, 9/26)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Race And Infant Mortality: Why Are Black Babies In Northeast Ohio Dying More?
In 2015, Cuyahoga County's infant mortality rate was almost double the national rate. ... The infant mortality rate among black mothers in some Cleveland neighborhoods is the same as in developing countries where women lack access to regular prenatal care. (Zeltner, 9/26)

Chicago Tribune: Chicago's Outcome Health To Add 2,000 Jobs
Healthcare technology company Outcome Health plans to add another 2,000 jobs to Chicago by 2022, the company announced Tuesday. The announcement follows news earlier this year that the company plans to move in April into a nearly 400,000-square-foot space at 515 N. State St., from its current 66,000-square-foot location at AMA Plaza, 330 N. Wabash Ave. It also follows news that the company recently raised more than $500 million. (Schencker, 9/26)

California Healthline: California Scrambles To Contain ‘Unprecedented’ Hepatitis A Outbreaks
Health officials in California are struggling to contain fierce outbreaks of hepatitis A among homeless people and drug abusers in three counties, including San Diego, where at least 17 people have died. Hundreds more have become ill and been hospitalized, mostly in the San Diego area, often not far from tourist destinations. The disease also has cropped up farther north in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz counties. Poor access to restrooms and sinks in homeless encampments is largely to blame. (O'Neill, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Hepatitis A Outbreak Sparks Call For L.A. To Give Homeless People More Street Toilets
A Los Angeles councilman called on the city Tuesday to fund emergency portable toilets to stem the public health threat posed by the hepatitis A outbreak among homeless people. Westside Councilman Mike Bonin said that because of a public bathroom shortage, homeless people in neighborhoods are forced to defecate in the streets. Public health officials, who last week declared L.A.’s hepatitis A outbreak, say the disease is most commonly transmitted from feces through contaminated food or sexual activity. (Holland, 9/26)

The Associated Press: Patient At Center Of Utah Nurse’s High-Profile Arrest Dies
A hospital patient who a Utah nurse said she was protecting when she refused to allow police to draw his blood has died. William Gray, a commercial truck driver and reserve police officer, died late Monday of the injuries he suffered when a fiery July 26 crash left him with burns over nearly half his body, University of Utah Health spokeswoman Suzanne Winchester said. (Whitehurst and McCombs, 9/26)

The Baltimore Sun: Cecil Health Center Takes Over Dental Program For UM To Keep Services For The Needy 
A Cecil County health center is taking over a dental clinic from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in an effort to keep the services available to residents of rural communities. The West Cecil Health Center, Inc. will own and operate the clinic under the arrangement. The health center received a $325,000 grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission to help run the clinic located in Perryville. (McDaniels, 9/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Recreational Marijuana Sales Won’t Start In January In SF After All
People eager to start buying recreational marijuana from shops in San Francisco when sales become legal throughout the state in January are going to have to wait a little longer. The city won’t issue permits to sell recreational marijuana until it passes new laws to regulate the industry and creates an equity program to help low-income entrepreneurs, people of color, and former drug offenders break into the market. (Swan, 9/26)

Stat: Insurers Worry More About Orphan Drug Prices, But Few Plan Big Changes
Sky-high prices for orphan drugs may be causing insurers considerable concern, yet a slight majority continue to believe they can manage the costs, according to a new survey. To wit, just 2 percent of beneficiaries covered by the surveyed plans have an orphan disease, which is defined as an ailment that afflicts 200,000 or fewer people. But rising prices for orphan drugs now account for roughly 9 percent of their total drug expenses. As a result, 77 percent of the payers say they are “extremely concerned” and 30 percent are “moderately concerned.” (Silverman, 9/26)

Stat: Governors Plan A Big Strategy Session Over Drug Pricing
With prescription drug prices continuing to strain state budgets, the National Governors Association is planning a meeting later this year to explore strategies for lowering costs, notably for hepatitis C drugs. And payers and drug makers will be invited, according to one state official familiar with the plan. Details have not been disclosed, but the effort reflects ongoing concern that some medicines remain out of reach for people who rely on cash-strapped state Medicaid programs, according to Dr. Rebekah Gee, the Louisiana Department of Health secretary, who has been involved in the planning. (Silverman, 9/25)

Kaiser Health News: Right After Trump Blamed High Drug Prices On Campaign Cash, Drugmakers Gave More
“The cost of medicine in this country is outrageous,” President Donald Trump said at a rally in Louisville, Ky., two months after his inauguration. He went on about how identical pills have vastly lower price tags in Europe. “You know why?” the president asked, before spreading his hands wide. “Campaign contributions, who knows. But somebody is getting very rich.” It was March 20, 2017. (Lupkin and Lucas, 9/27)

Stat: Did Someone Say Pledge? AbbVie May Reverse Its Promise On Price Hikes
What a difference a few months make. Just eight months after joining a small but growing list of drug makers that vowed to limit price hikes, AbbVie (ABBV) appears to be backing away from its pledge. In a meeting with Leerink analysts last week, company executives indicated they believe there is less political risk now if they walk back their commitment to keep all price increases below 10 percent and raise prices only once this year. (Silverman, 9/25)

FiercePharma: What Pledge? AbbVie Executives May Back Off Their Vow To Limit Price Hikes: Report
Looking to combat the public drug-pricing backlash, AbbVie in January followed their peers in promising to hold the line at less than 10%. Now, though, they're thinking about reneging on that pledge, according to a report from analysts. For its part, AbbVie refuted the report on Tuesday. The pricing development came from analysts at Leerink, who walked away from a management meeting last week impressed enough to roll out a 14-page report detailing their upbeat outlook for AbbVie. Confident they can hold off Humira biosimilars until 2022, the company trotted out a $20 billion target for its best-selling drug, a figure higher than the full-company sales of some rival Big Pharmas. (Sagonowsky, 9/25)

Axios: AbbVie Believes Political Risks Of Drug Pricing Are "Waning"
President Trump and left-leaning lawmakers have excoriated pharmaceutical companies for the rising prices of prescription drugs. But top executives of drug giant AbbVie, including CEO Richard Gonzalez, think the outrage is fading and won't lead to any large-scale changes, according to a meeting AbbVie held with pharmaceutical analysts from investment bank Leerink Partners. (Herman, 9/22)

Kaiser Health News: Everyone Says We Must Control Exorbitant Drug Prices. So, Why Don’t We?
Of all the promises President Donald Trump made for the early part of his term, controlling stinging drug prices might have seemed the easiest to achieve. An angry public overwhelmingly wants change in an easily vilified industry. Big pharma’s recent publicity nightmare included thousand-percent price increases and a smirking CEO who said, “I liken myself to the robber barons.” Even powerful members of Congress from both parties have said that drug prices are too high. (Hancock, 9/25)

Politico Pro: Politico-Harvard Poll: Congress Should Focus On Reducing Drug Prices
Lowering prescription drug prices should be Congress’ No. 1 priority for the rest of this year, according to the latest POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll. Forty percent of respondents cited the issue as a top priority, ahead of nine others on the survey. (Demko, 9/21)

Stat: Pharma Giant Pfizer Launches A Tiny Startup To Kick-Start Drug Research
There’s a popular theory about the limitations of global pharma companies: For all their skyscrapers and strategy reviews and private jets, they’re simply too knotted up in bureaucracy to realize how many great drugs are gathering dust in their vaults. Now, the biggest of Big Pharma is out do do something about that. Pfizer, home to nearly 100,000 employees, on Monday announced the launch of a six-person startup to develop new drugs. (Garde, 9/25)

Bloomberg: CVC To Explore Options For $4 Billion Drugmaker Alvogen 
Alvogen’s private equity owners including CVC Capital Partners are exploring options for the generic pharmaceutical company, which could be valued at about $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The controlling shareholders of the drugmaker have held on-and-off talks with Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co. focusing on a sale of Alvogen’s U.S. business, the people said. Alvogen would keep its operations in Asia as well as central and eastern Europe, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. (Browning, Baigorri, Syed and Chew, 9/26)

California Healthline: High On Drugs? Anthem Cites Soaring Drug Costs To Justify 35% Rate Hike In California
Health insurance giant Anthem predicts Californians will pop a lot more pills next year. To make the case for a hefty premium hike in the state’s individual insurance market, Anthem Blue Cross has forecast a 30 percent jump in prescription drug costs for 2018. Such a sharp increase is nearly double the estimates of two other big insurers, and it runs counter to industry trends nationally. (Terhune, 9/20)

Stat: The Next Big Alzheimer's Data? Not 'Til 2019. Here's What To Look For Then
With news of Axovant’s big failure in Alzheimer’s, the drug industry is looking ahead to its next major crack at the disease — and it’s a long wait.In 2019, three large, late-stage Alzheimer’s trials are expected to read out, providing what could be the final word on a trio of drugs that scientists and analysts say represent the next best hope of breaking the industry’s generation of failure in the field. (Garde, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Cheap Drugs Pay For Aurobindo As U.S. FDA Approvals Surge
While India’s largest pharmaceutical companies have seen drug approvals in the U.S. slow overall, their research and development spending has been on a run. Not so for Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. Quarter after quarter, Hyderabad-based Aurobindo has not only had more products approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration than its largest Indian peers, but the number has often totaled more than that of its biggest three local rivals combined, according to FDA data analyzed by Bloomberg. (Altstedter and Modi, 9/25)

Stat: Another Alzheimer's Failure: Axovant's Drug Flops In Late-Stage Trial
Yet another once-promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has come up short in the final stage of development, this time adding Wall Street drama to the familiar disappointment that has plagued the drug industry for decades. A pill called intepirdine, developed by the biotech startup Axovant Sciences, failed to blunt the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in a large trial. The drug was never seen as a cure, but the company had hoped it would delay the worst symptoms of the disease, giving patients a few more months of health before needing around-the-clock care. (Garde, 9/26)

Stat: The Next Big Alzheimer's Data? Not 'Til 2019. Here's What To Look For Then
With news of Axovant’s big failure in Alzheimer’s, the drug industry is looking ahead to its next major crack at the disease — and it’s a long wait. In 2019, three large, late-stage Alzheimer’s trials are expected to read out, providing what could be the final word on a trio of drugs that scientists and analysts say represent the next best hope of breaking the industry’s generation of failure in the field. (Garde, 9/26)

Forbes: Biotech's Boy Wonder Calls Alzheimer's Drug His 'Single Greatest Failure'
This morning, Vivek Ramaswamy, who began building an empire of six matryoshka-doll biotechnology companies at the age of 29 after a life as a valedictorian, a nationally ranked junior tennis player, a Harvard graduate, and a hedge fund partner, had to face something on a scale he never had before: Failure. (Vardi, 9/26)

Stat: Aegerion Pays $40 Million Fine For Illegally Marketing Cholesterol Drug
Following a long-running probe, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay $40 million to settle civil and criminal charges of illegally marketing a pricey cholesterol medicine, failing to adhere to a regulatory safety program, and misleading investors. Specifically, the company was accused of “unlawfully” marketing Juxtapid, which costs up to $300,000 a year and was approved to treat a rare and inherited form of high cholesterol. The U.S. Department of Justice charged that sales reps were instructed to promote the medicine for treating very high cholesterol more generally, to widen the pool of potential patients and boost sales, but without adequate directions, according to court documents. (Silverman, 9/24)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: A Dose Of Transparency On Drug Prices
With the defection of Arizona’s John McCain and others, Senate Republicans decided on Tuesday not to hold a vote on the latest Obamacare repeal bill. That would be the good news. But anyone looking for something more than the status quo on health care, especially the spiraling cost of pharmaceuticals, might keep an eye on Sacramento rather than Washington. (9/27)

Forbes: A Money-Back Guarantee For Prescription Drugs
President Trump will soon issue an executive order to lower drug prices. The order likely will encourage federal health agencies to make greater use of "outcomes-based" contracts. That's great news for patients. These contracts link a drug's price to its effectiveness. If a drug cures or treats patients as advertised, insurers pay the full price. If the drug is less successful than hoped, insurers pay a reduced price or nothing at all. (Sandip Shah and Joe Black, 9/25)

Bloomberg: Pfizer Channels Its Inner Biotech
Why let biotech have all the fun? In keeping with a trend of smaller firms raising buckets of cash using Big Pharma's cast-off drugs, Pfizer Inc. is adapting the strategy for itself by spinning off four pipeline drugs into a new company called SpringWorks Therapeutics. (Max Nisen, 9/25)

Bloomberg: Allergan Needs To Learn To Let Go
"Never give up" is inspirational advice, but not always suited to the pharmaceutical world. Allergan PLC announced mixed results Friday from a mid-stage test of cenicriviroc -- a drug for the liver disease NASH -- but it still plans to continue a larger final-stage test. (Max Nisen, 9/22)

The Parkersburg News And Sentinel: Drug Prices: Ohio Ballot Measure Does Not Add Up
According to its proponents, it would save taxpayers a lot of money by requiring state agencies and those receiving funds from the state spend no more for prescription drugs than what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs pays. That would affect millions of Ohioans, ranging from those on Medicaid to, possibly, state government retirees.In reality it would save very little money. Federal law requires the VA to be given a 24 percent discount on prescription drugs. The state Medicaid program, which pays for about three-fourths of the drugs paid for with state funds, already receives a 23.1 percent discount. Buckeye State officials already use bulk buying power to bargain for discounts for many other government programs. (9/26)

Forbes: Revival Of Gilead Whistleblower's Lawsuit Should Stoke Fear In Big Pharma
The pharmaceutical industry often operates like the rules don’t apply to it. Over the years, prescription drug manufacturers have been slapped with billions in fines after they are caught overstepping regulatory limits meant to protect patients and taxpayers. The most significant cases were initiated by whistleblowers, and thanks to them, greater transparency has been forced on the industry. (Erika Kelton, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Axovant Lives Down To Expectations
Investing in early-stage biotech is always a gamble: big potential rewards, along with a risk of losing your shirt. But some biotech gambles are much riskier than others. Take Axovant Sciences Inc. Encouraged by the company and cheerleading analysts, investors ignored evidence suggesting Axovant's lead medicine intepirdine was likely a dud. They paid the price Tuesday morning after the medicine thoroughly failed a trial in Alzheimer's, sending shares down 70 percent. (Max Nisen, 9/26)

East Bay Times: Don't Buy The Hype, Keep Prescription Drugs Safe
It’s easy to take safe, reliable medicines for granted. Picking up drugs from the pharmacy, I hardly give a second thought about their safety and efficacy. But the lull of normalcy masks very real threats to a relatively well-functioning system, including counterfeiting, fraud and powerful narcotics in the wrong hands. (Eric O'Neill, 9/24)

Los Angeles Times: Why The GOP's Obamacare Repeal Plan Was Doomed From The Start
It’s always tempting to declare the outcome of any contest preordained, even when it was closer than it looks. One side’s victory in the World Series or a presidential election often is treated as inevitable in retrospect, though a single timely hit or strikeout or the shift of a few thousand votes in a couple of states might have been the determining factor. With repeal, however, failure was baked into the outcome from the start. (Michael Hiltzik, 9/26)

The Washington Post: 10 Lessons From The GOP’s Failed Effort To Kill Obamacare
While repeal will never be truly dead until Democrats take back either a house of Congress or the presidency, this latest GOP failure gives us a chance to take stock of what we’ve learned. (Paul Waldman, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Graham-Cassidy Is Dead. Now Stop Treating Obamacare Like The Enemy And Help Get Americans Health Coverage
We may never know how many Republicans in the U.S. Senate would have voted against the latest ill-conceived and disruptive proposal to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. But we know the three whose public opposition kept the measure from reaching the Senate floor this week — Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Although they disagree sharply over what to do about the ACA, they all deserve the country’s thanks for stopping lawmakers from heedlessly leaving millions of lower- and middle-income Americans unable to afford coverage and sending the market for non-group policies into a death spiral. (9/26)

The Wall Street Journal: The ObamaCare Saviors
Senate Republicans on Tuesday abandoned their latest effort to replace ObamaCare, or, more precisely, a handful of Senators defeated the Graham-Cassidy proposal despite their campaign rhetoric. Mark them down as ObamaCare’s saviors. (9/26)

The Washington Post: ‘Reasonable’ Republicans Are Betraying Us, Too
President Trump clearly has no clue what’s happening on health care, taxes or really any other major policy front. He has also made abundantly clear that he has no interest in getting up to speed. Unfortunately, Trump’s unseriousness has become so grotesque, so all-consuming, that it has distracted us from dozens of other dilettantes and demagogues in Washington — far too many of them other members of Trump’s own political party. (Catherine Rampell, 9/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Let Obamacare Repeal Rest In Peace
Nine months into the GOP’s total control of the federal government, the obsessive campaign to dismantle the ACA has succeeded mainly in expanding the ranks of its unlikely defenders in the face of grim alternatives. It’s a measure of the depth and illogic of this obsession that Republicans have yet to give it up completely. (9/26)

The Charlotte Observer: North Carolina Dodges A Health Care Calamity
The Graham-Cassidy health care bill appears to be mercifully dead, as Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that Republicans would not vote on the bill. It’s possible that the measure, which already is in its fourth iteration, could be changed once again to entice wayward Republicans. But Graham-Cassidy is caught in the same taffy pull as previous attempts at Obamacare repeal. Make the bill more conservative, and moderate Republicans will flee, and vice versa. Call it death by intra-party politics. A pre-existing condition. (9/26)

The Washington Post: Time For Republicans To Accept Reality
With one more repeal-and-replace effort in flames, Republicans face a choice. They can continue to live in a fantasy world in which it is possible simultaneously to uproot Obamacare, slash federal spending on health care and widen health-care coverage. Or they can finally accept reality and strike a deal with Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act. (9/26)

USA Today: Obamacare Repeal Croaks. Now What?
The law that Republicans are so intent on repealing is a sensible, if imperfect, measure to expand health coverage. It is based largely on a Republican plan offered in the 1990s as an alternative to what former president Bill Clinton advocated. The ACA should not be repealed and replaced. It should be retained and repaired. Fortunately, lawmakers of good faith want to do just that. After the first Senate repeal effort collapsed, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., began hearings on ways to shore up the ACA’s private insurance exchanges. (Those hearings were put on hold by the GOP leadership once a new effort at repeal materialized and restarted Tuesday.) It does not take a rocket scientist — or a brain surgeon — to see what needs to be done to entice individuals to buy coverage and to persuade insurance companies to offer it. (9/26)

The Washington Post: Three GOP Trumpcare Errors Will Doom Tax Reform
As the final nails in the coffin of Trumpcare get hammered into place, the Republicans desperately want to pivot to tax reform. Unfortunately, without understanding the multiple missteps that led to the demise of Obamacare’s “repeal and replace,” they will reach a similarly disappointing result. Let’s start with what the public wants. Frankly, tax cuts are not at the top of the list. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts took many people off the federal income-tax rolls, while the very rich have expert tax advice and are enjoying the benefits of an economy that works for them. (In 2004 Bush could boast, “Nearly 5 million taxpayers will be off the rolls as a result of the tax relief this year.”) Their combined tax bill (including sales, property, state and local taxes) may be worrisome, but federal taxes are not oppressively high. (Jennifer Rubin, 9/26)

Arizona Republic: Bernie Sanders Is Right: Why Not Medicare For All?
Polls since 1945 have shown that most Americans favor national health insurance. A poll in 2007 showed that most U.S. physicians also favor national health insurance. If we are looking for a way to provide comprehensive health care to all our citizens at less cost, it is in plain sight: Medicare for all. (James Dalen, 9/26)

The Charlotte Observer: Why I’m The Last Happy Doctor
So, how did I end up as the “Last Happy Doctor”? It was a series of responses I made as the insurance industry began to reshape health care as a for-profit efficiency driven business. The first choice was to resist reducing the time spent with my patients. When I refused to schedule less than one half hour per patient, it became obvious that I would need to start and manage my own practice. Because of my choice to focus primarily on caring for older patients, my revenue stream was approximately 96 percent Medicare funded. Unaware, I had wandered into a “Medicare for All” financed healthcare practice. (Marsha Fretwell, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Americans Have Been Fighting Over Government's Role In Medical Care For Decades. That Fight Will Continue
In 1978, I was on overnight duty in the pediatric emergency room at Los Angeles County Hospital. It had been a busy night and I was looking forward to the end of shift. At about 4 a.m., a man with a frantic expression came rushing into the ER carrying what looked like a small log wrapped in a blanket. His 4-year-old son had suffered an asthma attack and the man had bypassed several private-hospital ERs on the way to the public hospital. He’d previously been refused emergency care at the private hospitals due to lack of insurance. On this occasion, the father did not want to waste time and took the much longer drive to Big County. I took the bundle from his arms and rushed into the treatment room. (Steve Tarzynski, 9/27)

The Washington Post: Protecting The Rights Of People With Disabilities Is Not Optional
The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 is perhaps the most wide-ranging civil rights act in the world. After decades of political struggle by disability rights activists and their allies, the ADA gave new rights to one-fifth of the population. It was a proud bipartisan accomplishment, passed by huge majorities in a Democratic-led Congress and signed by a Republican president. (Lennard Davis and David Perry, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: If The Hepatitis A Outbreak Doesn't Convince You To Wash Your Hands After Using The Toilet, Nothing Will
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health last week declared an outbreak of hepatitis A, citing 12 cases as of Monday. Only four are cases in which people acquired the disease locally, but that’s enough for officials to sound the alarm. And few populations are more vulnerable to acquiring it — and suffering more severe cases of it — than the homeless community. More than three-quarters of the cases identified here have been among homeless people. (9/27)

Chicago Tribune: Rauner Should Veto The Abortion Bill
On the campaign trail, Gov. Bruce Rauner assured voters he had “no social agenda.” So why is he now considering expanding taxpayer-funded abortion access in Illinois? It was never any secret that Gov. Rauner and his wife, Diana, are longtime supporters of the abortions-rights lobby. (Brittany Clingen Carl, 9/26)

The Des Moines Register: Anti-Choice Lawmakers' Crusade Defunds UnityPoint And Limits Women's Health Options
Some Iowa lawmakers have a creepy obsession with women's reproductive choices. Elected officials craft misguided laws to target abortion that result in limiting access to health care. And they never seem to learn anything from their mistakes. In the latest example, UnityPoint Health, one of Iowa’s biggest health systems, says the state is barring its hospitals and clinics from participating in a new family planning program because a few occasionally perform abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormalities. The state says the ban applies to all clinics and practices affiliated with UnityPoint, even those not owned by the health system. (9/26)

Chicago Tribune: How Campaign Donations Could Sway The Soda Tax Repeal Vote
We reached Carol Bollacker on Tuesday afternoon at her place of business: Boz Hot Dogs on Ridge Road in Lansing, about 2 miles from the Indiana border. She and her husband also own a Boz Hot Dogs in Dyer, Ind. Which location pays less in taxes? No need to strike up the “Jeopardy” trivia music. You know the answer. (9/26)

Los Angeles Times: Why Replacing L.A. County's Health Director Won't Be Easy
When Los Angeles County supervisors describe the kind of person they want for a top department post, they often say something along the lines of, "We want a Mitch Katz type. "That certainly speaks volumes about Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, who on Friday told the supervisors he'd be leaving the county at the end of the year. His departure culminates a stunningly successful run as leader, first of the massive Department of Health Services and then of the new and even more massive county Health Agency, which takes in the formerly stand-alone departments of mental health and public health. Katz turned about a third of the county's operation and budget into a nimble human services organization that not only runs hospitals and coordinates clinical care, but also provides housing for the homeless and diverts the addicted and mentally ill from jails to clinics. (9/26)