State Highlights: Va. Gov. Proposes Budget Increase For Mental Health; La., Miss. And S.C. Lead The Nation In Flu Cases

The Associated Press: Virginia Governor Proposes Boost In Mental Health Spending
Virginia’s governor is proposing a multi-million-dollar effort to move dozens of people out of state mental hospitals. The Daily Press reported Wednesday that Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s final budget proposes boosting funding for discharge planning by $6.9 million for 80 to 90 people who are on state hospitals’ extraordinary barriers lists. Another $4.8 million would go to community mental health services intended to help people leave the hospitals. (12/15)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Louisiana Experiencing Some Of The Worst Flu Outbreaks In The U.S. 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina had the highest levels of flu activity in the nation for the week ending Dec. 2. ...Puerto Rico and three states experienced moderate ILI [influenza-like illness] activity (Georgia, Hawaii, and Texas), the CDC reports. The District of Columbia and six states experienced low ILI activity (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Virginia), the CDC reports. The rest experienced minimal ILI activity. (Morris, 12/15)

Georgia Health News: House Panel Urges Big Changes To Stop Decline Of Rural Health Care
The recommendations from the House Rural Development Council include expanding insurance coverage through a Medicaid “waiver’’ project and making a fundamental change in the state’s licensing laws known as Certificate of Need (CON). The report’s proposals, approved Wednesday, also include streamlined billing for health care services; requiring nursing homes to have telemedicine capability; and allowing expanded responsibility for health care providers who are not physicians. (Miller, 12/15)

The New York Times: In Bronx, Obstetricians May Find Work Inspiring, And Careers Hindered
Dr. Mark Rosing, the chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, is clear with every job candidate he interviews: Once they join his department, they may have trouble leaving. That’s partly because, he tells them, it is an inspiring place to work. The staff is passionate, the benefit to patients in the city’s poorest borough visible. But it’s also because they may not be able to get hired anywhere else. (Wang, 12/15)

Nashville Tennessean: Questions Swirl Over Nashville General's Fate
A month into the seven-month proposal to shutter inpatient services at Nashville General Hospital, questions are piling up about how Mayor Megan Barry's final plan will remake Nashville’s health care landscape. Closing the inpatient portion of the facility that serves many of Nashville's low-income and uninsured residents would send people to other hospitals, which in aggregate can absorb the patients. But just how the city will work with hospitals to take on new patients remains unclear. (Fletcher, 12/15)

Georgia Health News: Are State’s HIV Laws Unfair? Activists Say It’s Time For Change
A movement to change HIV laws has been under way for some time. Martinez is one of the steering members of the Georgia Coalition to End HIV Criminalization, an advocacy group. The coalition would like to see several changes to Georgia’s current code. One of those changes would be a requirement that a person be prosecuted only if there’s proof of intent to transmit HIV. (Knight, 12/16)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Veterans In Milwaukee Participate In Groundbreaking Genetic Study
Scientists are hoping to use the genetic information from Brewer and 1 million other American military veterans to study diabetes, cancer and other illnesses and understand how genes affect health. ... Aside from gender, though, the program is one of the most diverse genetic collections in the world — 17% African-American, 7% Hispanic and 2% American Indian. (Jones, 12/15)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Wait For A Social Security Disability Decision Drags On Months - And Years - For Many Ohioans
For tens of thousands of Ohioans applying for Social Security disability benefits, an underfunded and inadequately staffed federal system means months, and even years, of waiting to get in front of a judge and receive a decision on a claim. More than 1 million people across the country are waiting on average more than 600 days--about 19 months-- for these hearings. (Zeltner, 12/17)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Summa Health Enters Agreement With Dayton Home Health Care Company
Summa Health has entered into a joint venture with Alternate Solutions Health Care Network of Dayton to increase efficiency and streamline patient care outside of the hospital. The move allows Akron-based Summa Health to reorganize its Summa Health at Home and Summa Hospice departments. (Washington, 12/15)

Nashville Tennessean: Future Uncertain For Nashville General CEO Amid Mayor's Plans To End Inpatient Care
Three years ago, Joseph Webb was hired to stabilize Nashville General, the city’s safety net hospital for uninsured and indigent patients that has long struggled to pay its bills. He began with ambitious transformation plans: upgrade the emergency room; remodel the maternity ward; hire new administrators; and create a healthcare model intended to cut costs by focusing on managing diabetes, hypertension and other chronic illnesses affecting the north Nashville community’s residents who use the hospital the most. Today, Webb’s future designs for the 125-year-old hospital are in question after Mayor Megan Barry announced plans to end all inpatient admissions, making the facility an outpatient-only clinic. Webb wasn’t consulted about Barry's proposal, he said. (Wadhwani, 12/17)

Los Angeles Times: California Officials Say Housing Next To Freeways Is A Health Risk — But They Fund It Anyway
It’s the type of project Los Angeles desperately needs in a housing crisis: low-cost apartments for seniors, all of them veterans, many of them homeless. There’s just one downside. Wedged next to an offramp, the four-story building will stand 200 feet from the 5 Freeway. State officials have for years warned against building homes within 500 feet of freeways, where people suffer higher rates of asthma, heart disease, cancer and other health problems linked to car and truck pollution. Yet they’re helping build the 96-unit complex, providing $11.1 million in climate change funds from California’s cap-and-trade program. (Barboza and Zahniser, 12/17)

Los Angeles Times: Santa Ana Winds Help Clear The Smoke From The Thomas Fire, But Health Risks Remain
Raging Santa Ana winds helped clear smoke from the massive Thomas fire out of Ventura County on Sunday, but health officials cautioned residents that "non-smoky" conditions don't mean the air is safe to breathe. The winds "will cause dust particulate to stir up, resulting in air quality that is at times unhealthy," according to an advisory from the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District. (Poston, 12/17)

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Ranks 30th In Protecting Kids From Tobacco Use In National Study
Ohio ranks 30th among the states when it comes to money budgeted for programs aimed at preventing tobacco use and helping users quit, according to a new report from several advocacy groups. It shows that for fiscal year 2018, the state has budgeted $12.5 million for tobacco prevention and cessation programs. (Viviano, 12/17)

Kansas City Star: Healthy Transitions To Give Former Inmates Returning To KC 90-Day Prescription Supplies
People coming back to Kansas City after being discharged from prison will get a 90-day supply of prescription medications instead of a 30-day supply under a grant-funded program announced Friday. The program is called “Healthy Transitions” and it started in St. Louis last year. (Marso, 12/15)

Columbus Dispatch: Area's Air Quality Continues To Improve
Today, after two decades of air-quality improvements and education, central Ohio’s air is in good shape, an 11-page report released last week shows. ...MORPC produced the report, which covered air quality from November 2016 through October 2017 and focused only on particle pollution — pollutants from diesel trucks, wood-burning fireplaces, buses and power plants — and ground-level ozone pollution, the main ingredient in smog. (Perry, 12/17)