The New York Times: House Passes Budget Deal To Raise Spending And Reopen Government
The House gave final approval early Friday to a far-reaching budget deal that will reopen the federal government and boost spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, hours after a one-man blockade by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky delayed the votes and forced the government to close. With the House’s approval, before dawn and Friday’s workday, the government will reopen before most Americans knew it closed, with a deal to provide $300 billion in additional funds for this fiscal year and next to military and non-military programs, disaster relief for the victims of last year’s hurricanes and wildfires, and a higher statutory debt ceiling. (Kaplan, 2/8)

The Washington Post: Government Shutdown Set To End As House Passes Sweeping Budget Bill
The 240-to-186 House vote came just after 5 a.m., about three hours after the Senate cleared the legislation on a vote of 71 to 28, with wide bipartisan support. (DeBonis and Werner, 2/9)

The New York Times: From Clinics To Child Insurance, Budget Deal Affects Health Care
The budget deal in Congress is billed as a measure to grant stability to a government funding process that has lurched from crisis to crisis — but it is also stuffed with provisions that will broadly affect the nation’s health care system, like repealing an advisory board to curb Medicare spending and funding community health centers. Many of the provisions have been in gestation for months, even years in some cases. Some will save money. Many will cost money — potentially a lot of money. ... The bill [also] increases discounts that pharmaceutical companies must give seniors enrolled in the Medicare Part D drug plans, by making the so-called “doughnut hole” smaller. This was a policy that was part of the Affordable Care Act, but the new legislation would speed up implementation by one year. (Pear, 2/8)

The New York Times: What’s Hidden In The Senate Spending Bill?
The bill would kill an unpopular provision of the Affordable Care Act, its Independent Payment Advisory Board, which was devised to help keep Medicare spending growth from rising above a set level. No one has ever been appointed to the board, and its services have not yet been needed — Medicare spending has experienced unusually slow growth rates in recent years — but the board was long denounced by Republicans as a rationing board, and disliked by some Democrats for taking payment policy authority away from Congress. (Sanger-Katz, Plumer, Green and Tankersley, 2/8)

The Washington Post: 12 Of The Most Important Things In Congress’s Massive Spending Deal
Some Democrats are calling this deal a win because it gives a “historic” boost to nondefense spending. Overall, domestic spending would rise by $60 billion this fiscal year and $78 billion the following year. (Long and Stein, 2/8)

Politico: Congress Votes To End Government Shutdown
“What makes Democrats proudest of this bill is that after a decade of cuts to programs that help the middle class, we have a dramatic reversal," added Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who helped craft the deal along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and House leaders. "Funding for education, infrastructure, fighting drug abuse, and medical research will all, for the first time in years, get very significant increases, and we have placed Washington on a path to deliver more help to the middle class in the future.” (Bresnahan, Scholtes and Caygle, 2/8)

The Hill: Popular Bill To Fight Drug Prices Left Out Of Budget Deal
Drug pricing advocates are decrying the budget deal announced Wednesday for leaving out a bipartisan drug pricing measure that they had pushed for. The measure would prevent branded drug companies from using delay tactics to prevent cheaper generic competitors from coming onto the market. (Sullivan, 2/8)

Modern Healthcare: Congress' Omnibus Spending Bill Likely Includes Federal Reinsurance Pool 
The Senate's two-year spending caps deal paves the way for lawmakers to include a big insurer ask in their spending omnibus: reinsurance and short-term funding of cost-sharing reduction payments. Reinsurance is the "most important" policy Congress could pass to lower premiums because of the funding backstop and certainty for high-cost coverage of sick enrollees, said Justine Handelman, senior vice president of policy at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. The proposal gaining momentum is a bipartisan House bill by Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) that would funnel $10 billion annually for three years into a federal funding pool. (Luthi, 2/8)

The New York Times: Budget Deficits Would Balloon Under The Bipartisan Spending Deal
According to a preliminary analysis of the deal, federal deficits would surpass $1 trillion by 2019, a level not seen since the recession and its aftermath. (Parlapiano, 2/8)

The Hill: ObamaCare Enrollment Tells Tale Of Two Systems 
Most states that operate their own ObamaCare exchanges saw more people sign up in 2018 than last year, while 29 of the 34 states that rely on the federal government to promote enrollment saw their sign-ups fall. Of the 17 state-based marketplaces, 11 saw enrollment increases: Colorado, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington, Kentucky and Oregon while California, Idaho, Maryland, Vermont, Arkansas and New Mexico saw decreases. (Hellmann, 2/8)

The Star Tribune: MNsure, Other State Exchanges Top Feds On Enrollment
Insurance enrollment via state-based health insurance exchanges such as Minnesota’s MNsure held steady for 2018, while sign-ups declined about 5 percent across the much larger group of states using the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website. The findings by the National Academy for State Health Policy raise a question about whether the intensity of outreach campaigns contributed to the difference, since the Trump administration limited marketing for the federal exchange while MNsure and other state-based groups maintained efforts. (Snowbeck, 2/8)

Boston Globe: Number Of Sign-Ups On State’s Health Connector Holds Steady
The number of people buying health coverage through the state’s insurance exchange remained steady this year, despite a chaotic start to the open-enrollment period. Officials at the Massachusetts Health Connector said Thursday that 252,786 residents signed up for 2018 coverage, about 6,000 more than last year. (McCluskey, 2/8)

The Associated Press: CVS Health Eyes Data, Wage Boosts With $1.5B Tax Benefit
CVS Health's fourth-quarter earnings nearly doubled, fueled by a $1.5 billion tax benefit that will help the drugstore chain expand its growing role in customer care. The company said Thursday that it will use the break it gets from the recently completed federal tax overhaul to raise starting pay for its hourly workers and pare debt ahead of its planned, $69 billion acquisition of the insurer Aetna. (Murphy, 2/8)

The Wall Street Journal: CVS To Raise Starting Pay To $11 An Hour
CVS Health Corp. said it will use some of the extra cash from the U.S. tax overhaul to raise its starting hourly pay to $11 for U.S. workers, the latest company to announce employee perks in the wake of the legislation. The company, with 240,000 U.S. workers, currently pays a starting wage of $9 an hour, though many employees make more. It said that in addition to raising the minimum, it will increase pay for lower-wage retail workers at its nearly 10,000 U.S. stores. CVS didn’t provide an average increase. (Terlep, 2/8)

The Hill: CVS Boosts Hourly Starting Pay To $11 After Tax Cut
CVS Health announced Thursday it would boost starting wages for employees and increase other benefits, citing tax-reform legislation that gave the company a $1.5 billion tax break. Effective April 2018, the starting wage for hourly employees will increase to $11 an hour from $9 an hour. (Hellmann, 2/8)

Reuters: CVS Says Aetna Acquisition Still Expected In 2018
CVS Health Corp on Thursday said that a request for more information from U.S. antitrust regulators reviewing its proposed $69 billion acquisition of health insurer Aetna Inc does not impact its expectation that the deal will close in the second half of 2018. (2/8)

Bloomberg: New Drugs Are Coming To Fight Nasty Flu Seasons
Flu has been on a vicious march this winter, evading vaccines, overwhelming hospitals and prompting school closures from California to Hong Kong in its wake. But relief in the form of new drugs is on the way. Almost two decades after Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu first reached pharmacy shelves, researchers around the world are pushing ahead with a raft of new options. None will arrive in time to help sufferers this winter, but the most advanced -- developed by Roche and Shionogi & Co. -- could be on the market in Japan within months and available in the U.S. and Europe next winter. (Gale, 2/8)

In other flu news —

Sacramento Bee: Use These Apps To See ZIP Codes Where Flu Is Raging In Sacramento Area
Mobile apps and websites allow people to track common illnesses, including influenza, right down to the ZIP code – and sometimes even street – where the sickness was reported. In the case of DoctorsReport.com, founder Dan Shaw said he culls information from physicians. (Anderson, 2/8)

The New York Times: Drug Industry Wages Opioid Fight Using An Anti-Addiction Ally
As Minnesota lawmakers prepared to push a proposed tax on opioid sales in November, the pharmaceutical industry lobbyists who opposed the bill set up a meeting with its sponsors, and they brought an unusual guest: Jessica Hulsey Nickel, a prominent anti-addiction advocate in Washington. Ms. Nickel told the lawmakers that she took no position on the tax and was simply offering her group’s resources to help fight the state’s drug epidemic. But her presence along with five representatives from the industry’s trade group raised eyebrows among the Minnesota lawmakers, who believed that drug companies needed to be held accountable for the prescription opioid crisis — not embraced as an ally. (Corkery and Thomas, 2/8)

Miami Herald: Sessions Talks Tough About Tackling Nation's Opioid Epidemic At Summit In Miami
As an opioid epidemic scars the nation, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled from Tampa to Key West to Miami this week to declare a new war on drugs — one intended to stop the deadly toll of addictive painkillers, heroin and fentanyl in Florida and other ravaged states. Sessions acknowledged at a South Florida opioid summit on Thursday that the battle will be far different from the one carried out against the Colombian cartels and cocaine cowboys of the violent Miami Vice era. (Weaver, 2/8)

Stat: Investors Want Shareholders To Urge AmerisourceBergen To Mitigate Opioid Crisis
Agroup of institutional investors has launched a campaign to convince shareholders in AmerisourceBergen (ABC), one of the nation’s largest wholesalers, to support a proposal that would require the company to provide more information on steps taken to manage financial and reputational risks associated with the opioid crisis. The move was expected after the Securities and Exchange Commission last month rejected efforts by the company to omit the proposals from its upcoming annual shareholder meeting on March 1. Another proposal would require the wholesaler to disclose if its board clawed back compensation from senior executives due to misconduct. (Silverman, 2/8)

And in more news —

Los Angeles Times: Trifecta Of Opioids, Alcohol And Suicide Are Blamed For The Drop In U.S. Life Expectancy
An epidemic of despair is disproportionately claiming the lives of rural white Americans in the prime of adulthood. And for a second year in a row, their deaths by drugs, drink and self-destruction have caused life expectancy in the United States to fall. That milestone, suggests an editorial in a respected medical journal, marks a sustained reversal of close to a century of improving health for Americans. And it raises a puzzling mystery: What is causing the despair, and what will restore hope and health to these battered Americans? (Healy, 2/8)

The Associated Press: ‘Kryptonite’ Guitarist’s Family Says Doctor Fed Opioid Habit
The family of a longtime guitarist for 3 Doors Down is accusing an Alabama doctor of fueling the rocker’s opioid addiction before he died of a drug overdose. Matthew Roberts, 38, was found dead in August 2016 in the hallway of a hotel outside Milwaukee, where he was to perform in a charity concert. (Martin, 2/8)

The Star Tribune: Hennepin County Embarks On Its Most Ambitious Opioid Prevention Strategy
Hennepin County should equip all law enforcement officers with naloxone, hire a response czar and provide more options for users to get clean as part of a strategy unveiled Thursday to combat the deadly opioid epidemic. County commissioners were presented with a comprehensive response to a crisis that took a record 162 lives in the county last year. The problem isn’t unique to Minnesota, as more than 60,000 people in the United States died from opioid overdoses in 2016, more than were killed by gunfire, traffic accidents and HIV combined. (Chanen, 2/8)

The Washington Post: Five Major Psychiatric Diseases Have Overlapping Patterns Of Genetic Activity, New Study Shows
Certain patterns of genetic activity appear to be common among five distinct psychiatric disorders — autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and alcoholism — according to a new study. The paper, appearing in the journal Science, was released Thursday. Scientists analyzed data from 700 human brains, all donated either from patients who suffered one of these major psychiatric disorders or from people who had not been diagnosed with mental illness. The scientists found similar levels of particular molecules in the brains of people with autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; other commonalities between bipolar and major depression; and other matches between major depression and alcoholism. (Nutt, 2/8)

The Washington Post: Sex Harassment Can Make Victims Physically Sick, Studies Reveal
When Rebecca Thurston read the accounts of 150 women and girls sexually abused by a Michigan athletic doctor, one of the first things she worried about was their health — not the psychological effect of the abuse, but the long-term physical toll it could take on their bodies. An epidemiologist, Thurston has spent the past four years studying women who have suffered sexual abuse and harassment. Over time, she discovered, sexual harassment can work like a poison, stiffening women’s blood vessels, worsening blood flow and harming the inner lining of their hearts. (Wan, 2/8)

Stat: Mouse Footprints Could Help Scientists Develop New Pain Drugs. Here's How
Neurobiologist David Roberson fancies himself a palm reader. Or rather, a paw reader. Roberson, an investigator at Boston Children’s Hospital, is trying to create a sharper way to measure pain and test pain drugs by measuring the fancy footwork of rodents. The scientist says current methods to measure pain in rats aren’t all that great, because the animals are often in the middle of a panic attack when a predator — in this case, a scientist — is looming. (Thielking, 2/9)

The New York Times: Two Prostate Cancer Drugs Delay Spread Of The Disease By Two Years
They are among the most challenging prostate cancer patients to treat: about 150,000 men worldwide each year whose cancer is aggressive enough to defy standard hormonal therapy, but has not yet spread to the point where it can be seen on scans. These patients enter a tense limbo which often ends too quickly with the cancer metastasizing to their bones, lymph nodes or other organs — sometimes causing intense pain. (Belluck, 2/8)

Stat: The Future Of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Could Be In Mini, Moveable Labs
Last November, Oxitec introduced its first “mobile production unit” in Juiz de Fora, an inland city of 500,000. Eggs from the Piracicaba factory are raised in mosquito hatcheries crammed inside the 40-foot rectangular lab that could pass for a white shipping container, condensing the work of a high-tech Silicon Valley-esque facility into just a single room. In coming months, the company said, it hopes to finalize contracts with another handful of Brazilian cities, beginning with interventions that cover areas with as few as 10,000 residents. (Facher, 2/9)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Hysterectomies That Save Ovaries Still Carry Health Risks, Study Finds
For years, surgeons performing hysterectomies have opted to leave the patients' ovaries in place, when possible, to reduce the risk of heart disease and other health problems. But preserving ovaries may not help as much as was previously thought, a new study suggests. (Washington, 2/8)

KCUR: Ruling From Kansas Court Could Spur Anti-Abortion Amendment Push 
The Kansas Supreme Court could soon decide whether there’s a right to abortion in the state constitution. Gov. Jeff Colyer wants lawmakers to consider amending the constitution to establish that such a right doesn’t exist. In his first address to lawmakers this week, the Republican governor called for amending the state constitution to help protect Kansas abortion restrictions. That came in response to a case pending before the Kansas high court. Justices are considering a lower court ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the state constitution. (Koranda, 2/8)

Des Moines Register: 'Fetal Heartbeat' Anti-Abortion Bill Advances In Iowa Senate
Amid sharply differing and emotional opinions, an Iowa Senate subcommittee has advanced a bill to ban nearly all Iowa abortions in what some conservative lawmakers hope could become a constitutional test before the nation's highest court. The Senate panel voted 2-1 Thursday to approve Senate Study Bill 3143, sending it for further consideration before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A similar bill, although not identical, is pending in the Iowa House. (Petroski, 2/8)

Miami Herald: Governor Can Put Funding For Pro-Life Centers Into Florida Law
A bill that would change state law to cement funding for pregnancy support centers, which discourage abortion and provide some medical services for unplanned pregnancies, will head to Gov. Rick Scott’s desk after it was passed by the Senate Thursday. The bill makes more permanent a contract the Department of Health has with the Florida Pregnancy Care Network, which runs more than 100 pregnancy centers through a collection of largely faith-based groups. (Koh, 2/8)

The Associated Press: South Dakota Considers Ban On Teaching About Gender Identity
South Dakota lawmakers will consider banning public school teaching on gender identity in elementary and middle schools, a push that critics say targets transgender students in the same way some states limit the positive portrayal of homosexuality in the classroom. The state would be the first in the nation to block instruction on gender identity or gender expression, said Nathan Smith, public policy director at GLSEN, a national group focused on safe schools for LGBTQ students. (Nord, 2/8)

Los Angeles Times: California Would Bar Organized Tackle Football Before High School Under New Bill
California would become the first state to prohibit minors from playing organized tackle football before high school under a proposal made Thursday by lawmakers concerned about the health risks. Just days after the Super Bowl, Assembly members Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) and Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) said they are introducing the “Safe Youth Football Act,” legislation that will be considered this year by state lawmakers. (McGreevy, 2/9)

Seattle Times: Washington State Senate Democrats, Republicans Clash In Midnight Showdown Over Future Of Home Health-Care Workers 
The bill would restructure the way tens of thousands of home health-care workers are contracted with by the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Requested by DSHS and supported by Democrats — along with two Republican co-sponsors — the bill could also lead to thousands of workers paying dues to Service Employees International Union 775 (SEIU). That’s because it could allow SEIU to eventually negotiate a contract that removes the provision that lets home health-care workers opt out of paying union dues. (O'Sullivan, 2/8)

New Hampshire Public Radio: N.H. House Passes Bill Banning Gay Conversion Therapy After Legislative Do-Over
The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would ban gay conversion therapy for minors. They did that – even though they voted the same bill down just last month. (Moon, 2/8)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Family And Medical Leave Bill Advances Once More In N.H.
The New Hampshire House voted Thursday morning to move forward on bringing a family and medical leave program to the state, even after the commerce committee recommended against it. An amended version of the bill — which raises the amount of weekly contributions employees could divert toward the program from 0.5 percent to 0.67 — passed the House 186 to 164. (McDermott, 2/8)

The Associated Press: Bacteria-Infected Mosquitoes Might Be Good Thing For Miami
Mosquitoes are a year-round downside to living in subtropical Miami, but millions of bacteria-infected mosquitoes flying in a suburban neighborhood are being hailed as an innovation that may kill off more bugs that spread Zika and other viruses. Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control and Habitat Management Division is releasing non-biting male mosquitoes infected with naturally occurring Wolbachia bacteria to mate with wild female mosquitoes. (2/8)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Hospitals — Surprise — Have Made New Discoveries On Frostbite
The grueling 13-day cold snap that started around Christmas sent dozens of Minnesotans to the hospital with frostbite, and with temperatures hitting subzero again this week, doctors are seeing another spurt in cases. Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) staff members treated three severe frostbite patients over Super Bowl weekend and another three since Monday. (Howatt, 2/8)

The Baltimore Sun: School-Based Health Center Works To Keep Kids In Class, Out Of Emergency Rooms 
The clinic at KIPP is the only one in the city run by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and it offers comprehensive, in-house medical care to many of the 1,500 students who attend the elementary school, or the Ujima Village Academy middle school. Both schools are located in the same building and operated by KIPP, a national network of public charter schools. At least at these schools, the days are gone when a school nurse could only offer basic care for scrapes, fevers and stomachaches. (Richman, 2/9)

Boston Globe: Baker Proposal Would Fund Sheriffs, Birth Control For Poor, Aid To Hurricane Evacuees
Governor Charlie Baker released a $160 million supplemental state budget bill Thursday to fund services ranging from shelter beds for homeless families to prisons to reimbursing cities and towns for the costs of early voting. The legislation would dole out $42 million to the 14 sheriffs departments in the state, which frequently seek extra money from Beacon Hill appropriators; plow $2.5 million into helping residents of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands who came to the state because of the impacts of Hurricanes Maria and Irma; set aside $15 million for health care information technology; and allocate $1.6 million to backstop funding for family planning services for poor people in case federal funding runs out. (Miller, 2/8)

Modern Healthcare: Atrium Health To Merge With Navicent
Atrium Health, previously Carolinas HealthCare System, and Navicent Health signed a letter of intent to merge, the organizations announced Thursday. The merger of not-for-profits would give Atrium Health a regional presence in Georgia, opportunity to expand to other areas and bolster its service lines. Macon, Ga.-based Navicent, which would become part of Atrium, would gain access to capital and benefit from spreading costs over a wider patient base. The announcement came a day after Carolinas HealthCare changed its name to Atrium, in part because it wanted a name that didn't limit it to a certain geography. (Kacik, 2/8)

Minnesota Public Radio: 3M Asks For Delay In State Trial
3M is asking a judge to delay a trial scheduled to start next week in the state's $5 billion lawsuit claiming the company polluted groundwater in the east Twin Cities metro. The Maplewood-based company said it needs time to respond to a report released this week by the Minnesota Department of Health. (Marohn, 2/8)

Georgia Health News: Blurred State Lines: Macon Hospital System Lines Up N.C. Partner
Another seismic shift rocked Georgia hospital world Thursday, with a Macon system entering partnership talks with a huge Charlotte-based organization. Atrium Health – which just changed its name from Carolinas HealthCare – and Navicent Health have signed a letter of intent to enter into “a strategic combination.’’ (Miller, 2/8)

KCUR: Commission To Reevaluate 'Healthy Campus' Project In Kansas City, Kansas 
A major project designed to help improve community health in Kansas City, Kansas, has been put on hold, and local leaders will meet Thursday evening to discuss its fate. The Healthy Campus project envisions a grocery store, expanded YMCA, farmer’s market and additional housing in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, and it was a top initiative of former Mayor Mark Holland. But under the leadership of the man who defeated him, David Alvey, the Wyandotte County Commission will reassess the plan. (Smith, 2/8)

Health News Florida: Tobacco Settlement Money Not Intended For Research, Attorney Says
Tobacco settlement money used to prevent people from smoking has been extremely successful. But an amendment proposed by the state's Constitutional Revision Commission would take some of that money away from prevention and use it for cancer research. (Ochoa, 2/8)

The Associated Press: Ex-Pharmaceutical Firm Worker Headed To Prison In $1M Scheme
A former pharmaceutical company worker is headed to prison for accepting thousands of dollars from a marketing firm in exchange for filling medically unnecessary prescriptions, causing her employer to lose nearly $1 million. Julie Andresen previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and received a 15-month sentence Wednesday. The 40-year-old Haddonfield, New Jersey, resident will forfeit $161,378 and must pay $956,885 in restitution. (2/8)

Boston Globe: Mental Health Care Company Accused Of Medicaid Fraud To Pay $4 Million Settlement
A mental health care company accused of fraudulently billing the Massachusetts Medicaid program has agreed to pay $4 million in a settlement with Attorney General Maura Healey’s office. South Bay Community Services (formerly known as South Bay Mental Health) allegedly used unlicensed, unqualified, and unsupervised workers to treat patients. (Dayal McCluskey, 2/8)

The Associated Press: Dairy Co-Op Sends Struggling Farmers Mental Health Info
A New England dairy cooperative sent its farmers information on mental health services in response to plummeting dairy prices. Valley News reports Agri-Mark vice president Bob Wellington sent a letter to the cooperative's farmers last week concerning falling milk prices. The letter included information about mental health support and suicide prevention hotlines. (2/8)

Urban Institute: What Do Patients With Diabetes Think Of Health Coaching?
City Health Works coaches use an evidence-based curriculum and motivational interviewing to educate clients about their chronic disease and help them improve their nutrition, medication adherence, physical activity, stress management, and engagement with primary care providers. Lay coaches are hired locally, receive intensive training, and consult with a registered dietician/diabetes educator and a social worker. The clients we interviewed were usually effusive in their praise, and said coaching helped them better understand and manage their condition. Some credited the trusting friendships they developed with their coach as making them more receptive to their coach’s advice. Coaches focused on teaching clients how to eat healthier, and most clients reported lowered hemoglobin A1c levels and feeling better physically and emotionally. (Burton and Thompson, 2/5)

The Commonwealth Fund: Sustainable Investment Social Interventions In Medicaid 
It is now widely recognized that social factors, such as unstable housing, lack of healthy food, unsafe neighborhoods, and unemployment, have a substantial impact on health care outcomes and spending, particularly with respect to lower-income populations. Moreover, there is an emerging body of research on which interventions are most likely to result in better outcomes and reductions in spending. As the nation’s largest payer for health care services for low-income populations, many of whom have substantial social service needs, Medicaid is front and center when it comes to these issues. State Medicaid agencies are increasingly focusing on how the program can cover and reimburse for nonclinical interventions, particularly in managed care, now the dominant service delivery model in Medicaid. (Bachrach, Guyer, Meier et al, 1/31)

Urban Institute: Why Does Medicare Advantage Work Better Than Marketplaces? 
The Medicare program offers an option called Medicare Advantage in which private insurance plans compete with traditional Medicare. The Affordable Care Act set up marketplaces in which insurers compete for enrollees. Both programs provide government-subsidized health insurance coverage in a regulated market that encourages private plans to compete for market share based on premiums, quality, provider networks, cost-sharing, and benefits. Yet the Medicare Advantage markets are substantially more robust, with higher private insurer participation and lower average premium growth. We assess how structural differences between Medicare Advantage and marketplaces led to these outcomes, and provide recommendations for strengthening the marketplaces. (Holahan, Skopec, Wengle et al, 1/30)

Health Affairs: Association Of A Regional Health Improvement Collaborative With Ambulatory Care–Sensitive Hospitalizations 
Although regional health improvement collaboratives have been adopted nationwide to improve primary care quality, their effects on avoidable hospitalizations and costs remain unclear. We quantified the association of the Better Health Partnership, a primary care–led regional health improvement collaborative operating in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland and surrounding suburbs), with hospitalization rates for ambulatory care–sensitive conditions. ... We estimated that 5,746 hospitalizations for ambulatory care–sensitive conditions were averted in 2009–14, leading to cost savings of nearly $40 million. (Tanenbaum, Cebul, Votruba et al, 2/5)

Bloomberg: CVS Earnings Make A Case For Pricey Aetna Deal 
It's hard to overshadow an industry-defining $67 billion merger of a drug-store mega-chain and large health insurer. But the CVS Health Inc.-Aetna Inc. tie-up is in the shade after last week's announcement of a health partnership between Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. ("ABC" from now on). CVS's already costly deal looks even more expensive after its warning on Thursday of a possible profit decline this year, despite an expected $1.2 billion benefit from tax cuts. CVS shares fell though it reported positive quarterly results.  (Max Nisen, 2/8)

The Washington Post: How Three Of America’s Biggest Companies Might Undo Decades Of Conservative Health-Care Policy
Last week, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced they would form an independent health-care company to serve their combined 1.2 million employees. Most commentators focused on the futuristic aspects of the project: “Technology solutions” that might, someday, help control the spiraling health-care costs Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and chief executive Warren Buffett described as “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” (Guian McKee, 2/8)

Huffington Post: New Spending Agreement Repeals Obamacare’s Mythical Death Panel
Congressional leaders have agreed on a spending bill to keep the government open, and deep inside that agreement is a provision that helps explain why American health care is so expensive. The spending agreement, which Congress must still approve and President Donald Trump must still sign, actually affects health care in several ways. ... the bill would also repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which is a commission of experts that the Affordable Care Act created back in 2010. The Affordable Care Act sets a spending target for Medicare, as part of a broader effort by the law’s architects to reduce the cost of medical care. IPAB’s job is to make those targets stick, by recommending cuts if Medicare costs exceed the threshold. (Jonathan Cohn, 2/7)

JAMA: International Medical Graduates—A Critical Component Of The Global Health Workforce
According to the Educational Commission on Foreign Medical Graduates, 12 355 international medical graduates (IMGs) participated in the 2017 US match (7284 [59%] of whom were not US citizens) .... IMGs have faced a challenging year, with some affected by various iterations of a travel ban and further concerns related to H1-B visa restrictions. This is unfortunate, particularly when considering that IMGs provide care in many of the nation’s poorest and most rural communities. (Joseph Nwadiuko, Varshini Varadaraj and Anju Ranjit, 2/8)

San Jose Mercury News: Heart Screening Scan Should Be Available To All
We recently learned some of the details of President Trump’s 2018 physical examination. His exam included a Coronary Artery Calcium CT scan, the same type of scan that Air Force pilots, astronauts and senior military officers have long been given as a tool in determining fitness for duty. ...This early detection allows for the implementation of effective preventive medications and strategies. ... As leaders involved in the California Right Care Initiative public-private partnership that works to speed lifesaving medical advances to benefit the general public, we wonder, why can’t this easy and relatively inexpensive ($150) test that is used by certain members of our society — presidents, pilots and astronauts to name a few — be made available to the general public to better guide their treatment? (David Maron, William Bommer and Stephen Shortell, 2/8)

The New York Times: Marijuana Can Save Lives
There is a relationship between cannabis and opioids, but Mr. Sessions has it backward. Marijuana isn’t a gateway drug to opioid addiction; it’s a safer alternative to pain medicines. Mr. Sessions’s vow to crack down on marijuana will only make the opioid epidemic worse. (Richard A. Friedman, 2/8)

Los Angeles Times: With The Opioid Epidemic Raging, San Francisco Takes A Smart Gamble On Preventing Overdoses
With the opioid epidemic raging and thousands of people dying from overdoses annually, four Democrats in the California Legislature proposed a controversial but potentially effective response: letting a handful of counties experiment with safe injection sites. At these government-sanctioned centers, drug users could bring illicit controlled substances to inject in a clean space with clinical supervision to guard against lethal overdoses. In Canada and Europe, where injection sites have been used for decades, they are credited with saving lives and helping direct addicts into treatment. (2/8)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Abortion Bill's Only Aim Is To Make Women Miserable
SB 1394 would require that doctors ask women their reason for wanting an abortion, with a list of options from which to choose, and then to report those reasons to the state Department of Health Services. If she refuses to answer, her doctor must report that as well, though her name would remain confidential. (Laurie Roberts, 2/8)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Mental Health Support In The Newborn Nursery
A first reflex in taking in a tragedy of the rarity, horror and sadness of the suspected murder-suicide that occurred last week in St. Louis is to sift through the ashes looking for clues to warning signs that might have helped prevent it. Whether any signs are found may depend on whether Mary Jo Trokey — the new mother suspected of killing her family and herself — was ever screened for a perinatal mental health condition; if screened, whether she accessed treatment; and if treated, whether the treatment was optimized to meet the demands of any catastrophic mental health condition. (Cynthia Rogers and John N. Constantino, 2/8)