First Edition: November 15, 2017

Kaiser Health News: The Power Of #MeToo: Why Hashtag Sparks ‘Groundswell’ Of Sharing — And Healing
As a Ph.D. candidate in the social sciences more than 20 years ago, Duana Welch, 49, had done enough research to know the consequences she’d face by reporting sexual harassment in the workplace. “When women came forward with allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, the woman was the person blamed and the woman was not believed,” she said. “I was very angry that I would pay the price for coming forward. I knew what would happen.” (Jayson, 11/15)

Kaiser Health News: Trump Administration Plan to Add Medicaid Work Requirement Stirs Fears
The Trump administration’s recent endorsement of work requirements in Medicaid and increased state flexibility is part of broader strategy to shrink the fast-growing program for the poor and advance conservative ideas that Republicans failed to get through Congress. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, laid out her vision for the state-federal program in two appearances last week, saying her new course give states wide latitude over eligibility and benefits. (Galewitz, 11/15)

Kaiser Health News: Can Apps Slay The Medical Bill Dragon?
Rachael Norman needed to submit a pile of out-of-network medical bills to her insurance company for reimbursement. Short on time, she started searching for a company that could do that tedious work for her. She failed to find one, so she started one herself. (Wiener, 11/15)

The New York Times: Senate Plans To End Obamacare Mandate In Revised Tax Proposal
Senate Republicans have decided to include the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people have health insurance into the sprawling tax rewrite, merging the fight over health care with the high-stakes effort to cut taxes. They also have made a calculated gamble to help speed their bill to passage on a party-line vote: Republicans revealed late Tuesday they would set all of their tax cuts for individuals to expire at the end of 2025, to comply with a procedural requirement. Their deep cut in the corporate tax rate would remain permanent. (Kaplan and Tankersley, 11/14)

The Associated Press: Obama Health Mandate Now Target Of GOP In Big Tax Bill
The surprise renewal of the failed effort to eliminate the health care law's mandate came a day after President Donald Trump renewed pressure on Republican lawmakers to include the repeal in their sweeping legislation to revamp the tax system. It carries high political stakes for Trump, who lacks a major legislative achievement after nearly 10 months in office. The move by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee upended the debate over the tax measure just as it was inching closer to passage following months of fine-tuning and compromise. (11/15)

The Washington Post: Senate GOP Changes Tax Bill To Add Obamacare Mandate Repeal, Make Individual Income Cuts Expire
Repealing the mandate, which compels most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine, would free up more than $300 billion in government funding over the next decade that Republicans could use to finance their proposed tax cuts, but it would result in 13 million fewer people having health insurance, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. (DeBonis and Paletta, 11/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate GOP Adds Health-Care Twist To Tax Overhaul Plan
Republicans plan to use the money freed up by repealing the mandate to direct tax cuts to middle-income households. They want to increase their proposed $1,650 child tax credit to $2,000 per child and lower the tax rates in three brackets, dropping the proposed 22.5%, 25% and 32.5% rates to 22%, 24% and 32%, respectively, according to the proposal, released Tuesday night by the Senate Finance Committee. (Armour and Rubin, 11/15)

Los Angeles Times: By Inserting Obamacare Repeal Into Tax Plan, Senate GOP May Complicate Passage
It remains to be seen whether Senate leaders can muster the 50 votes needed from their own party to pass the new version, though they expressed confidence. "We're optimistic that inserting the individual mandate repeal would be helpful," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. (Mascaro and Puzzanghera, 11/14)

Politico: Hatch Adds Repeal Of Obamacare Mandate To Tax Bill
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was confident that it could pass the Senate. “It’s been whipped,” said Thune, a member of the GOP leadership, adding that it’s an idea “we’ve been looking at for some time as a potential solution for some of the challenges that we’re facing in trying to make the bill do the things we’re trying to accomplish.” (Haberkorn, Kim and Becker, 11/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Republican Plan to Repeal Mandate Risks Higher Premiums
Democrats and industry groups castigated Senate Republicans on Tuesday for including the repeal in their tax package. An array of industry groups—including the American Medical Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, a major insurers’ organization—wrote congressional leaders urging them to keep the mandate. “The tax bill is going to hit the American people with a health-care double whammy,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), warning that millions would lose their health insurance or pay higher premiums. (Armour, 11/14)

The New York Times: Republicans May Target Entitlement Programs To Reduce Deficit
Republican lawmakers have largely dismissed concerns about how their $1.5 trillion tax cut will add to the federal deficit. Now, some Democrats are warning the tax rewrite will ultimately be financed by gutting entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. The possibility of cuts to safety net programs appeared more likely on Tuesday, as the Congressional Budget Office warned that the tax bill could set off an arcane budget rule that would make deep cuts to Medicare over the next decade. (Rappeport, 11/15)

Politico: Trump's HHS Secretary Nominee Boosted Drug Prices While At Eli Lilly
President Donald Trump tweeted Monday that his nominee for HHS secretary, Alex Azar will “be a star for … lower drug prices!” But the record of the former top executive for Eli Lilly, which tripled the price of a top-selling insulin drug while he led its U.S. operation, suggests a different story. Lilly is one of three drug companies targeted by a class-action lawsuit that accuses the company, then under Azar’s watch, of exploiting the drug pricing system to ensure higher profit for insulin and has been fined in Mexico for colluding on the pricing of the drug. (Karlin-Smith, 11/14)

Stat: On Drug Importation, Trump And His Pick To Lead HHS Are On Opposing Sides
In his quest to bring down drug prices, President Trump has advocated for policy proposals that the pharmaceutical industry opposes, including importing drugs from Canada. But his new health secretary pick — who, if confirmed, would immediately have the authority to kick-start some importation — has firmly rejected the idea. (Mershon, 11/14)

The New York Times: Study Finds Competing Opioid Treatments Have Similar Outcomes
A long-awaited study has found that two of the main medications for treating opioid addiction are similarly effective, a finding likely to intensify the hard-fought competition between drugmakers seeking to dominate the rapidly expanding opioid treatment market. The study, funded by the federal government, compared Vivitrol, which comes in a monthly shot and blocks the effects of opioids, and Suboxone, which is taken daily in strips that dissolve on the tongue and contains a relatively mild opioid that helps minimize withdrawal symptoms and cravings. (Goodnough and Zernike, 11/14)

The Washington Post: Medications To Kick Opioid Addiction Are Equally Effective, Study Finds
The first major head-to-head comparison of medically assisted treatment approaches confirms that users now have two research-based options, according to the team of scientists led by Joshua D. Lee and John Rotrosen of New York University Medical School. But each method also showed a distinct disadvantage. (Bernstein, 11/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Opioid Addiction Study Finds The Drug Vivitrol, Once Begun, Is As Effective As Suboxone
“What is new, and what the study was really about from our perspective, was: What happens if you are able to get people onto one or the other medication?” said his colleague, John Rotrosen, another leader of the study and a physician and psychiatry professor at New York University School of Medicine. “What we were really hoping, and what we found was...the two medications would be sufficiently equal, so providers and patients and families really recognized they have a choice,” he said. (Whalen, 11/14)

Stat: Long-Awaited Study Finds Monthly Vivitrol As Effective As Daily Pill For Opioid Addiction
Previously, there’s been a “widespread belief” that patients “don’t do as well on naltrexone as they do on buprenorphine,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIDA. “We’re hopeful this changes the prejudice.” (Blau, 11/14)

The Washington Post: 44 State Attorneys General Want Repeal Of Law That Curbed DEA Powers
Forty-four state attorneys general asked Congress on Tuesday to repeal a law that effectively strips the Drug Enforcement Administration of potent weapons against large drug companies that have allowed hundreds of millions of pain pills to spill onto the black market. The state law enforcement officials, many from places hit hard by the opioid epidemic, signed a letter from the National Association of Attorneys General to Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. Congress approved the law by unanimous consent, without a vote in either chamber, in 2016. (Bernstein and Higham, 11/14)

The Washington Post: FDA Warns Of ‘Deadly Risks’ Of The Herb Kratom, Citing 36 Deaths
The Food and Drug Administration issued a strong warning Tuesday to consumers to stay away from the herbal supplement kratom, saying regulators are aware of 36 deaths linked to products containing the substance. Consumers are increasingly using the supplement, which comes from a plant in Southeast Asia, for pain, anxiety and depression, as well as symptoms of opioid withdrawal. The herb also is used recreationally because it produces symptoms such as euphoria. Proponents say it is a safe way to deal with chronic pain and other ailments, and some researchers are exploring its therapeutic potential, including helping people overcome addictions. (McGinley, 11/14)

NPR: FDA Warns About Dangers Of 'Natural' Opioid Kratom
The Food and Drug Administration says there's insufficient evidence the supplement works to treat addiction or other problems and cited growing evidence it can be dangerous. Kratom may cause seizures, liver damage and withdrawal symptoms. "It's very troubling to the FDA that patients believe they can use kratom to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement, adding that not only is there no reliable evidence that kratom is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder, there are FDA-approved medications that work. (Stein, 11/14)

The New York Times: Peter Sands Named Head Of Global Disease-Fighting Agency
A former British banker was named executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday, taking over an international disease-fighting partnership that has struggled since its inception 15 years ago to raise enough money to fulfill its mission. (McNeil, 11/14)

Stat: Electronics ‘Like A Second Skin’ Make Wearables More Practical And MRIs Safer For Kids
She’s a physicist who trained in the storied lab where Watson and Crick worked out the structure of DNA. In her years in industry, she made sharper displays for e-readers, more efficient solar panels, and sensor tape that soldiers could wear on the battlefield to measure the strength of explosions. Her manufacturing tool of choice: a simple printer. (McFarling, 11/15)

The Washington Post: Damaged Bodies, Healing Hearts
Highway 52 curls around town and unspools around the rippling farmland. It is easy to miss the house tucked on a gravelly side road called Forgotten Lane, where Ty Bustamante often wakes before dawn. If it’s a bad day, he needs more time than usual to get dressed. Bending to tie his shoes, his body resists the last few inches until he wills his fingers to the laces. Ty turned 17 in October. A lineman for the Eldon High School Mustangs, he is in pain from old football injuries — a stress fracture to a lower vertebra, a bulging disk, a hard hit to his left hip. Ty recently started having seizures, as well as extreme anxiety, and the combination has kept him from playing this season. Still, he wears his No. 65 jersey at practice, trailing teammates around the field, handing them water bottles when they need a drink. (Nutt, 11/14)

The Associated Press: Scientists Try To Edit Faulty DNA Inside A Patient’s Body To Cure A Genetic Disease
Scientists for the first time have tried editing a gene inside the body in a bold attempt to permanently change a person’s DNA to try to cure a disease. The experiment was done Monday in California on 44-year-old Brian Madeux. Through an IV, he received billions of copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to cut his DNA in a precise spot. (11/15)

NPR: Increased Hours Online Correlate With An Uptick In Teen Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
A study published Tuesday in the journal Clinical Psychological Science finds that increased time spent with popular electronic devices — whether a computer, cell phone or tablet — might have contributed to an uptick in symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts over the last several years among teens, especially among girls. (Neighmond, 11/14)

The New York Times: Americans Are Putting Down The Soda Pop
Sugar-sweetened drinks are not as popular as they once were. According to a new study based on a continuing national health survey, 60.7 percent of children and 50 percent of adults drank a sugary beverage on any given day in 2014, down from 79.7 percent of children and 61.5 percent of adults in 2003. (Bakalar, 11/14)

NPR: Hurricane Damage To Manufacturers In Puerto Rico Affects Mainland Hospitals, Too
At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, doctors and nurses are moving as many patients as they can from intravenous medications to the same drugs in pill form. If the patients are getting common antibiotics like ampicillin, and they can swallow, they're likely to be switched to pills, says Bonnie Levin, assistant vice president of pharmacy services for MedStar Health, which includes 10 hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area. (Kodjak, 11/15)

Los Angeles Times: In California, An Unexplained Increase In Valley Fever This Year
This year is shaping up to be the worst on record in California for people infected with valley fever, a lung infection caused by a fungus found in soil. State health officials announced earlier that 2016 broke the record for the most valley fever cases reported since the state started keeping count in 1995. Now, 2017 is on pace to have even more infections. (Karlamangla, 11/14)

NPR: For Some Native Americans, Uranium Contamination Feels Like Discrimination
Helen Nez had 10 children. Now she only has three. Seven of her children died of a disorder called Navajo neuropathy, which is linked to uranium contamination. "Many people died and some have liver disease, kidney disease and some suffer from cancer as a result," Nez said through a translator. (Morales, 11/14)