The Washington Post: In Big Reversal, New Trump Budget Will Give Up On Longtime Republican Goal Of Eliminating Deficit
President Trump on Monday will offer a budget plan that falls far short of eliminating the government’s deficit over 10 years, conceding that huge tax cuts and new spending increases make this goal unattainable, three people familiar with the proposal said. ... The budget is expected to target spending cuts at social welfare programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, large segments of government spending that have long been eyed by Republicans for cuts. The White House is looking at ways to curb these programs by expanding work requirements for beneficiaries, but it is unclear how much money changes like this would save or whether it would find enough political support. (Paletta, 2/11)

The Associated Press: Trump’s $4 Trillion Budget Helps Move Deficit Sharply Higher
The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday. The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year. (Taylor, 2/12)

The Hill: Five Questions About The New Trump Budget And Health Issues
The White House is expected to release its fiscal 2019 budget request on Monday, and health advocates will be watching closely to see if this year’s proposal will contain deep cuts to the agencies charged with bolstering public health and finding cures for complex diseases. Lawmakers from both parties are also waiting to see if the budget will propose major changes to the anti-drug office that have already sparked an outcry. (Roubein, 2/11)

The Hill: Trump Budget To Include Billions To Combat Opioid Epidemic
President Trump’s budget will propose billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic plaguing the country, months after the administration designated the crisis a national public health emergency. The White House’s fiscal 2019 budget set to be released Monday will include nearly $17 billion for the opioid epidemic that’s killing more Americans per year than car accidents, according to an outline from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). (Roubein, 2/11)

Politico: Trump To Demand Tough Budget Cuts For Domestic Programs
The budget calls for roughly $17 billion in “opioid-related spending,” with the vast majority going to treatment, prevention and recovery. For veterans' health care, Trump’s budget would set aside $85.5 billion, far above last year’s levels. (Ferris and Scholtes, 2/11)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Chief Goes Against The Administration Stereotype
Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, came to the job with a résumé straight out of the Trump administration’s playbook. A millionaire with a libertarian bent, he made his money working for the industry he now regulates, and had investments in 20 health care companies whose products could come before the agency for approval. Pharmaceutical and medical device executives enthusiastically supported his nomination, while consumer and public health groups sounded the requisite alarms. (Kaplan and Thomas, 2/11)

In other administration news —

PBS NewsHour: How Will CDC Cuts Affect Health Programs Abroad And At Home?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recently lost hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cuts, including a $750 million cut in December. On Friday, President Trump signed a bill that slashed $1.35 billion from its Prevention and Public Health Fund over the next 10 years. (Yeager, 2/11)

The Associated Press: Trump To Nominate Jim Carroll As Next Drug Czar
President Donald Trump has tapped deputy White House chief of staff Jim Carroll to serve as the administration's next drug czar. Carroll's position as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy will make him the most public face of the administration's efforts to fight the opioid epidemic — an effort critics say hasn't gone nearly far enough. (2/9)

The Washington Post: White House Official Nominated As Nation's Drug Czar
Jim Carroll would be the first Trump appointee to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Trump’s first pick, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), withdrew his nomination after The Washington Post reported that he was the chief advocate of a law that weakened DEA enforcement against drug manufacturers who aggressively peddled opioids. The office has been leaderless despite Trump calling the opioid epidemic one of his top priorities. He declared it a public health emergency in October, a designation that was extended last month. But the White House has offered no concrete solutions on how to solve the crisis, and little has happened in the months since the declaration was made. (Zezima, 2/9)

The Hill: Kelly Deputy Named Drug Czar
Trump's first nominee for that post, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Penn.), withdrew last year after it was revealed that he had helped guide legislation that critics argue makes it harder for the Drug Enforcement Administration to freeze suspicious shipments of opioids. (Greenwood, 2/9)

Modern Healthcare: Beacon Of Light: Healthcare Additions In Budget Law Pleasantly Surprise Providers 
Congress' long-awaited budget deal, passed before dawn last Friday, serves as the most significant piece of healthcare legislation since President Donald Trump took office. The extensive healthcare package, hammered out largely behind closed doors in the Senate, in many ways took Washington by surprise. Among its provisions were an extra four years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, a repeal of the Affordable Care Act's Independent Payment Advisory Board, and a provision to accelerate the closure of what's known as the Medicare Part D "donut hole" for seniors. (Luthi, 2/9)

Denver Post: Federal Budget Deal Tosses Colorado Community Health Centers A Lifeline — But Not A Very Long One 
The $400 billion budget deal to end this week’s brief federal shutdown contained two measures that make Colorado health advocates very happy, at least for the short term. The bill provides a two-year extension of funding for community health centers, which serve more than 500,000 mostly low-income Coloradans a year. The bill also delays for two years cuts to payments that hospitals receive when they care for large numbers of uninsured or underinsured patients. (Ingold, 2/9)

Reuters: U.S. Budget Deal Grants $1.5 Billion For Drug-Affected Babies, Families
A U.S. budget deal adopted by Congress on Friday includes what advocates call a landmark compromise to provide an estimated $1.5 billion over 10 years to try to keep struggling families together, including those with babies born dependent on opioids. The provision allows assistance on mental health, substance abuse and parenting whenever any child is deemed at imminent risk of entering foster care. It also offers support for relatives who unexpectedly assume responsibility for a child when a parent cannot. (Wilson and Shiffman, 2/9)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ There’s A Really Big Health Bill In That Budget Deal
The bipartisan budget deal that passed Congress this week includes enough health policy changes to keep reporters and analysts busy for months. In addition to renewing funding for Community Health Centers for two more years, the bill extends funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program for four years beyond the six approved last month; repeals the controversial (but never implemented) Independent Payment Advisory Board for Medicare and permanently repeals Medicare’s caps on certain types of outpatient therapy. (2/9)

Stat: How Will Amazon Revolutionize Health Care? Follow Its Footprints In Seattle
Amazon’s effort to shake up health care is as tantalizing as it is opaque — a giant black box hanging over one-fifth of the American economy. But several clues about its plans are plainly visible in its hometown of Seattle, where it has hired executives from health industry heavyweights and spurred adoption of technologies it may eventually use to upend drug distribution and other aspects of care. (Ross, 2/12)

In other health industry news —

Modern Healthcare: Investors Demand Change When They Don't Like What They See 
Tenet Healthcare Corp. management has for the past couple of years been in a delicate dance for control of the company—carefully acquiescing to its biggest investor's spins and steps. That investor, Glenview Capital Management, has been at times a passive shareholder, a friendly owner with designated board members and now an essentially hostile, activist owner.  Investors are getting more active in pursuing changes at healthcare companies. (Bannow, 2/10)

Reuters: OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Stops Promoting Opioids, Cuts Sales Staff
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma said on Saturday that it has cut its sales force in half and will stop promoting opioids to physicians, following widespread criticism of the ways drugmakers market addictive painkillers. The drugmaker said it will inform doctors Monday that its sales representatives will no longer visit physicians’ offices to discuss the company’s opioid products. It will now have about 200 sales representatives, Purdue said. (2/10)

The Hill: OxyContin Maker Will Stop Marketing Opioid Products To Doctors Amid Scrutiny
"We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers," the company said in a statement. Purdue also said it will start referring opioid-related requests and questions from prescribers to health-care professionals in its medical affairs department. (Greenwood, 2/10)

Bloomberg: Pain Pill Giant Purdue To Stop Promotion Of Opioids To Doctors 
OxyContin, approved in 1995, is the closely held company’s biggest-selling drug, though sales of the pain pill have declined in recent years amid competition from generics. It generated $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data compiled by Symphony Health Solutions. It also sells the painkiller Hysingla. Purdue is credited with helping develop many modern tactics of aggressive pharmaceutical promotion. (Hopkins, 2/9)

PBS NewsHour: OxyContin Maker Purdue Will Stop Selling Doctors On Opioids
Amid several lawsuits that accuse manufacturing giant Purdue Pharma of contributing to the country’s opioid epidemic, the company announced Saturday it will cut sales staff by more than half and stop marketing opioids to doctors. Reporter Lev Facher, who wrote for STAT that it marked the end of an aggressive, opioid marketing era that Purdue created, joins Hari Sreenivasan from Washington, D.C. (Facher, 2/11)

The New York Times: To Cut Drug Deaths, City Considers Sanctioned Places To Shoot Up
In 2016, the opioid epidemic claimed 1,374 lives in New York City. That’s roughly four drug overdose deaths each day. One death every seven hours. It’s a harrowing statistic that continues to soar, and New York City officials are floating an idea that so far has not been tried in the United States: sanctioned locations where drug users can shoot up under the supervision of medical staff ready to revive them if they overdose. (Ferre-Sadurni, 2/9)

The Washington Post: At The Heart Of Canada’s Fentanyl Crisis, Extreme Efforts That U.S. Cities May Follow
Beneath a blue tarp that blocks out a gray sky, Jordanna Coleman inhales the smoke from a heated mixture of heroin and methamphetamine, sucking the addictive vapor deep into her lungs. The drugs and pipe, acquired elsewhere, are hers. But the shelter, the equipment she uses to prepare her fix and the volunteers standing by to respond if she overdoses are provided by a small nonprofit. Funding and supplies come from the city of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia. (Bernstein, 2/11)

In other news on the opioid crisis —

The Washington Post: Kratom Is Hailed As A Natural Pain Remedy, Assailed As An Addictive Killer. The U.S. Wants To Treat It Like Heroin.
Andrew Turner’s years in the military left him suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, back pain and the effects of an injury that mangled his hand. “I was a broken toy,” he said. Tossed aside. Barely able to get off the couch. Then he started using an herbal supplement that he says saved his life: kratom. (McGinley and Zezima, 2/10)

Houston Chronicle: Only Prescribe Opioids For Short Durations, Advises Texas Hospital Group 
Texas isn't one of the nation's hotbeds of opioid addiction, but concern about the ongoing crisis has caused the state's association of hospitals to give ERs advice on how to curb the misuse and abuse of such painkillers. ...The association released the guidelines the same day Congress passed a two-year budget including $6 billion to deal with the crisis — $3 billion in fiscal year 2018 and another $3 billion in fiscal year 2019. That's in addition to existing opioid-related funding, including the $1 billion over fiscal years 2017 and 2018 that Congress dedicated to the opioid epidemic in the 21st Century Cures Act. (Ackerman, 2/9)

Concord Monitor: Tool New To N.H. Aims To Predict Patients’ Likelihood For Opioid Overdose
A digital tool that uses patients’ medical histories to help predict whether they are susceptible to opioid overdoses has been approved for use in New Hampshire, joining long-established surveys that try to predict whether patients will become addicted to the painkillers. But none of these are perfect, a reflection of the difficulty of determining the effect of opioids on individuals. (Brooks, 2/11)

Nashville Tennessean: Some Tennessee Counties Lag In Opioid Progress: See The Interactive Map
Pharmacies in tiny Hamblen County northeast of Knoxville, Tenn. dispensed nearly three opioid prescriptions for every resident there, on average, in 2008 — the highest rate in the state. Less than 10 years later, the rate was almost cut in half. Hamlen County shows how the state has curtailed much of the flow of legal drugs that often fuel addiction. While still among the highest three states in the country, Tennessee decreased its opioid prescription rate by nearly 20 percent from 2008 to 2016, the most recent year for which federal data is available. (Reicher, 2/9)

Tampa Bay Times: Chronic Pain Sufferers Plead For A Nuanced Approach To Opioids
Gov. Rick Scott has proposed legislation that aims to put a dent in the opioid epidemic by prohibiting doctors from prescribing more than three days’ worth of opioids — or seven days if doctors can explain why that’s medically necessary. ...She [Michele Jacobvitz] and others fear they’re being lumped into that group unfairly. They’re part of a chronic pain community that also encompasses many of Florida’s seniors, who rely daily on pain medication.(Griffin, 2/9)

Tampa Bay Times: Tampa Bay Cops Take On New Duty: Saving Lives Threatened By Drug Overdose
Across the Tampa Bay area, law enforcement officers like Baden are arriving at overdose calls, administering naloxone and reviving people before paramedics arrive. Agencies here are part of a growing number in Florida and throughout the country that are handing out the antidote to patrol officers who are using it to bring drug users back from the brink of death. (Marrero, 2/12)

The Washington Post: This Flu Season Has Now Reached Pandemic Levels (But It's Not Technically A Pandemic)
This flu season is turning out to be so intense that the number of people seeking care at doctors' offices and emergency rooms has surged to levels not reported since the peak of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, federal officials said Friday. For yet another week, the flu continues to get worse. “We were hoping to have better news,” said Anne Schuchat, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This does not mean we’re having a pandemic,” Schuchat said. “But it is a signal of how very intense the flu season has been. We may be on track to break some recent records.” (Sun and Bever, 2/9)

NPR: CDC: 1 In 10 Deaths Last Week Caused By Flu Or Pneumonia
The peak of the flu season could still be several weeks away, federal health officials cautioned Friday. "We may be on track to break some recent records," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly all states are still reporting widespread flu activity, with less severe reports only coming from Oregon and Hawaii. (Harris, 2/9)

The Washington Post: 2018 Flu: Outbreaks Spread With More Deaths In Nasty Season
Angie Barwise had come down with the flu around the holidays. Days after Christmas, the 58-year-old Texas mother and grandmother was diagnosed with influenza, along with bronchitis and strep, her family told Fox affiliate KDFW. Doctors gave her antibiotics and Tamiflu, an antiviral medication used to help treat the flu, and, soon after, she started to bounce back. But almost exactly a month later, her family said, she was in the emergency room — this time, with a different strain of the virus. (Bever, 2/9)

Los Angeles Times: Flu Deaths Reach A High, But Outbreak Shows Signs Of Easing
California health officials said Friday that 36 Californians under the age of 65 died of the flu in the first week of February — more than in any other week this season. The flu season nationwide is considered among the worst in a decade. Hospitals in California set up tents to triage flu patients, many pharmacies ran out of flu medicines and the death toll has been unusually high. Gabriella Chabot, a student at La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks, was among those who died of complications of the flu. (Karlamangla, 2/9)

Bloomberg: Historic Flu Season Drives Sales Across The Health-Care Industry 
A historically bad flu season has sent Americans to the doctor in droves -- and given a boost to companies across the health-care business. Hospitalization rates for flu have reached record levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rapid spread of the illness is worrisome, with a higher-than-normal number of deaths related to flu and pneumonia, including 53 children. (Levingston, 2/9)

And in news from the states —

Dallas Morning News: 35-Year-Old Texas Teacher On Life Support After Contracting Two Flu Strains 
A special education teacher from Central Texas is on life support at a Dallas hospital after she contracted two strains of the flu. The virus caused Crystal Whitley, 35, to develop sepsis, pneumonia and MRSA, a type of staph infection that is resistant to several antibiotics, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reports. The Mullin woman got the flu shot in October after giving birth to her son, has no underlying medical conditions and stays physically active. But two days after she was diagnosed with the flu Jan. 22, she was airlifted from Mullin, which is about 100 miles west of Waco, to Baylor Scott & White in Dallas on a ventilator. (Ballor, 2/11)

The Star Tribune: Klobuchar Seeks More Resources To Fight Flu Amid Deadly Outbreak 
In the midst of one of the worst flu outbreaks in years, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Sunday she wants to increase research aimed at developing a more effective flu vaccine. So far in Minnesota this flu season, more than 3,800 influenza-related hospitalizations have been reported, and the season is only half over, she said. For the entire previous flu season, the total was 3,700. (Pheifer, 2/11)

Seattle Times: ‘Things Are Improving’: What You Need To Know About Flu Season In Washington State 
While the nation grapples with the worst flu season in nearly a decade, the bug is seemingly losing momentum in Washington state. Overall, health-care providers statewide are seeing a downward trend of patients seeking help for flu symptoms in recent days, said Dr. Vivian Hawkins, an influenza coordinator at the state Department of Health. Communities or isolated areas, though, may still be experiencing high rates. (Lee, 2/9)

Georgia Health News: Flu Refuses To Wane, Has Now Killed 66 In Georgia
Georgia’s flu-related death toll this season now stands at 66, with two confirmed child deaths, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. The agency total means that 15 more deaths in the state were confirmed during the week of Jan. 28 through Feb. 3, the latest for which figures are available. (Miller, 2/10)

Sacramento Bee: So Far, 163 People Did Not Survive Flu Season In California
Influenza has now killed 163 people in California, according to statistics released Friday by the state Department of Public Health. The number has not risen so high this early in the flu season since 2013-2014 when more than 350 people had died within a comparable period. (Anderson, 2/9)

NPR: Why Can't I Put My Smartphone Down? Here's The Science
If the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov were alive today, what would he say about smartphones? He might not think of them as phones at all, but instead as remarkable tools for understanding how technology can manipulate our brains. Pavlov's own findings — from experiments he did more than a century ago, involving food, buzzers and slobbering dogs — offer key insights, into why our phones have become almost an extension of our bodies, modern researchers say. The findings also provide clues to how we can break our dependence. (Doucleff and Aubrey, 2/12)

The New York Times: The Most Dreaded Opponent At The Olympics: The Common Cold
Lari Lehtonen, an Olympic cross-country skier from Finland, pulled his two sons out of kindergarten a month ago. They were not allowed to attend birthday parties. They were prohibited from crowded indoor spaces. They could have play dates, but only after a call to the friend’s parents. This may sound like a peculiar style of helicopter parenting, but Lehtonen was not worried about his children — he was worried about himself. (Segal, 2/11)

The New York Times: Promising Malaria Drug Has A Striking Drawback: Blue Urine
Tests in West Africa have found that a safe drug long used to treat urinary tract infections is also effective against malaria. But the medication has one disadvantage: it turns urine a vivid blue. “This is something we need to solve, because it could stop people from using it,” said Teun Bousema, a microbiologist at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands and an author of the study, which was published Tuesday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (McNeil, 2/9)

NPR: Why Hospitals Have A Hard Time Swapping Old Patient Gowns For New Ones
A medical company is trying to make hospital gowns less terrible — maybe even good. The company is called Care+Wear and it's currently testing out the new gowns at MedStar Montgomery in Olney, Md. You know the old gown, sometimes called a "johnny": It's got the flimsy ties and the exposed back. The new gown from Care+Wear ties at the front like a robe. (Limbong, 2/11)

The Washington Post: The Science Behind Sugar Cravings.
If you do an online search about sugar, you may become convinced that it’s evil and addictive — and that your sweet tooth will lead you to ruin. You’ll also see plenty of advice for how to curb your craving for sugary goodness. But what do we really know about how sugar affects us? Does eating sugar make us want to eat more of it? (Adams, 2/10)

Kaiser Health News: Could A Rare, Deadly ‘Superbug’ Fungus Be Gaining A Foothold?
The number of U.S. patients infected with a rare but dangerous fungal “superbug” called Candida auris has climbed quickly to 200 as of Dec. 31, according to the latest figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2016, there were only seven cases of the multidrug-resistant infection on the national radar. (Thill, 2/12)

The New York Times: Herpes Is Slowly Retreating, But The Infection Remains Common
The prevalence of both genital and oral herpes simplex virus infections has declined steadily since 2000. Still, roughly half of middle-aged Americans are infected. HSV-1, or oral herpes, causes cold sores around the mouth and face, and sometimes genital sores. HSV-2, genital herpes, is sexually transmitted, and causes sores around the genitals, buttocks and anus. HSV-2 can sometimes cause mouth sores as well. (Bakalar, 2/9)

NPR: App Shows Closed Captions To Hearing-Impaired Theatergoers
Jerry Bergman is sitting in the audience at a Broadway matinée performance of The Band's Visit. Despite the fact that a huge sign above the stage tells the audience — in English, Hebrew and Arabic — to turn off cellphones, Bergman is keeping his on so he can read closed captions while watching the show. He is one of an estimated 48 million Americans who have some degree of hearing loss. And he is availing himself of new technology that allows deaf and hearing-impaired people to enjoy shows with something most people have in their pocket — a smartphone. (Lunden, 2/11)

The New York Times: Are Hand Dryers Actually Full Of Bacteria? A Viral Photo Doesn’t Tell The Whole Story
The assignment from Nichole Ward’s microbiology professor was simple: Choose a location, open a petri dish for three minutes and observe what grew over the next two days. No one’s sample came back clean — a foregone conclusion given that a petri dish opened in any nonsterile room will collect microbes from the air. But when Ms. Ward returned to class with a dish that she had put in an enclosed Dyson hand dryer in a women’s restroom, the colonies of fungi and bacteria that had grown in it outstripped anything her classmates had found in their chosen locations. (Astor, 2/9)

Kaiser Health News: Doctors Learn How To Talk To Patients About Dying
Lynn Black’s mother-in-law, who had lupus and lung cancer, was rushed into a hospital intensive care unit last summer with shortness of breath. As she lay in bed, intubated and unresponsive, a parade of doctors told the family “all good news.” A cardiologist reported the patient’s heart was fine. An oncologist announced that the substance infiltrating her lungs was not cancer. An infectious-disease doctor assured the family, “We’ve got her on the right antibiotic.” (Bailey, 2/12)

The Washington Post: 7 Marathons, 7 Days, 7 Continents And One Man With Parkinson’s. Can He Make It?
During the first marathon, Bret Parker felt great — for the first 15 miles of ice and snow. “I was chugging along, and I had no symptoms,” he recalled the next day. “I was running a good pace. I said, ‘You got this.’ ”He paused. “And that was the kiss of death. I started slowing down. It got colder. It got windier. ”It was Jan. 30, and Bret was running a marathon on Antarctica. (Gardner, 2/11)

Politico: Houston District Becomes Unlikely Battleground For Vaccine Policy Fight
Texas House District 134 in southwest Houston, with its teeming 50 million-square-foot medical complex that includes Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center and 100,000 health workers, seems an improbable battleground for a political fight over vaccines. Yet it's the latest front in the war over vaccination requirements — and a proxy for the broader struggle between social conservatives and moderates for the soul of the Texas Republican Party. (Rayasam, 2/9)

Des Moines Register: 73% Of Iowans See Mental-Health System As In Crisis Or A Big Problem
Nearly three-quarters of Iowans believe the state’s mental-health system is in crisis or is a big problem, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. The mental-health system is by far the leading area of concern for Iowans among nine possibilities tested, according to the poll. Thirty-five percent of Iowans say the lack of mental-health services is a crisis, and 38 percent believe it's a big problem. (Leys, 2/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Department Of Insurance Opens Investigation Into Aetna
The California Department of Insurance opened an investigation into Aetna after a doctor formerly employed by the insurer made an admission under oath: He never looked at patients’ records before deciding to approve or deny care as a medical director. (Thadani, 2/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Hawaii’s Cesspools Threaten Drinking Water, Tourism
Paradise has a sewage problem. Cesspools—holes in the ground where untreated human waste is deposited—have become a crisis in Hawaii, threatening the state’s drinking water, its coral reefs and the famous beaches that are the lifeblood of its tourist economy. (Lovett, 2/11)

Seattle Times: After Talia’s Death At Swedish In Seattle, Her Parents Seek Overhaul Of Hospital Cultures
In the days after a Seattle Times story last year chronicled the death of Talia Goldenberg, her parents were inundated with messages from around the country. Some of them came from other medical patients who felt their voices were sometimes ignored by doctors. They could relate to the troubles Talia faced at Swedish Health’s Cherry Hill facility in Seattle, where, shortly before a deadly turn of events, she had expressed frustration that her breathing troubles weren’t taken seriously after spinal surgery. Others came from nurses who longed to see improvements in how hospitals deliver care to patients. (Baker, 2/10)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Recovers $81 Million From Medicaid Technology Contractor 
The state of Maryland recovered $81 million from a contractor that officials said botched efforts to rebuild the state’s Medicaid computer system, Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Friday. The state terminated its $170 million contract with Computer Sciences Corp. in 2015 after complaining for a year about the company’s work. The state had already paid about $27 million to the company, much of it coming from federal funds. (Cohn, 2/9)

The Star Tribune: Insurance Plans Push Healthier Choices At Grocery Store
Sandy Brezinski savored the savings last week when her preferred brand of organic tortilla chips went on sale. Not only did her grocery store discount the item to $2.99, a program offered through her employer’s health insurance knocked another $2 off the price. “You get that for 99 cents,” Brezinski said. “How good is that?” (2/10)

Dallas Morning News: More Children Die From Abuse In Texas Than In Any Other State  
A report released this month by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that Leiliana [Wright] was just one of 217 Texas children killed by child abuse that year — a 34 percent increase from 2015. Texas reported more child fatalities than any other state in 2016, a sobering distinction it is has held since 2012, according to the report. Nationally, the number of fatalities resulting from child maltreatment rose 7 percent from 1,589 to 1,700 in 2016. In almost 30 percent of those deadly cases, child protection agencies had contact with the child or someone in their lives at least once within three years of the child's death, the report found. (Ballor and Garrett, 2/11)

Georgia Health News: Videos Are New State Tactic Against Teen Suicides
The Public Service Announcements, released by the GBI’s Child Fatality Review Panel, feature teens talking about depression and hopelessness – and ways to overcome them. ...Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 in Georgia and the third-leading cause of death for people ages 15-24, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. (Miller, 2/11)

The Oregonian: Low Vaccination Rates Put Some Oregon Schools At High Risk For Measles
Many charter schools in Oregon have such low student vaccination rates for measles that they'd be at risk if the bug – once declared eliminated in the United States – infected anyone in their school. An analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows that nearly 65 percent of the state's public charter schools lack what scientists call herd immunity against measles, meaning not enough children are immunized to prevent the disease from sweeping through their immediate community. (Terry, 2/11)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: New Orleans, Kenner Psychiatrists Accused Of Taking Medicare Kickbacks 
Two psychiatrists, one from New Orleans and the other from Kenner, are accused of receiving kickbacks for allegedly referring patients to a home health company for services they didn't need. A marketer who worked with the doctors has also been charged. Dr. Muhammad Kaleem Arshad, 62, of New Orleans, Dr. Padmini Nagaraj, 60 of Kenner and Joseph A. Haynes, 61, of New Orleans are each charged with three counts of receiving illegal health care kickbacks and one count of conspiracy to receive, the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced Friday (Feb. 9). The physicians also were charged with five counts each of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy. (LaRose, 2/10)

Columbus Dispatch: OhioHealth Plans $12M Wellness Center To Help Neurological Patients 'stay Active In Mind And Body'
OhioHealth announced plans Friday to construct a first-of-its-kind neuroscience wellness center, a facility that officials say will benefit people living with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and the after-effects of a stroke. The center will provide services to help patients manage their care on a lifelong continuum, beyond doctor’s appointments and hospital stays. (Widman Neese, 2/9)

Sacramento Bee: Demand For Hospital Chaplians Remains As Religous Belief Wanes
The demand for spiritual and religious care within hospitals hasn’t waned with the years, according to Sacramento-area chaplains and national spiritual care officials. All of the hospitals in the Sacramento area provide chaplain services, and Sutter Medical Center is building a new prayer room that is slated to open in June. (Sullivan, 2/11)

The Star Tribune: Mayo Clinic Proposes Medical Facility In Hudson
Mayo Clinic has proposed building a medical facility in Hudson, Wis., that would be part clinic and part hospital — a development that would signal increased competition among Minnesota health systems for patients east of the St. Croix River. A notice published this week by the plan commission in Hudson says Mayo Clinic is seeking a conditional use permit to develop the 100,000-square-foot medical facility on about 9 acres of vacant land near Interstate 94. (Snowbeck, 2/9)

Houston Chronicle: Houston: A City Stressed Out By Harvey 
This feeling of helplessness is common in Houston right now, said licensed professional counselor Rachel Eddins with Eddins Counseling. "It's chronic stress," she said. "People are living in dust in their houses still. They're still dealing with not knowing what insurance will cover. Their children are feeling less settled. There's financial stress. When you live in chaos for an ongoing period, it takes a toll." Couple that with the stress that comes with living in a big city day to day, and the anxiety levels can skyrocket. (Peyton, 2/9)

San Jose Mercury News: Mariah's Story: How A Bay Area Foster Child Died After Ingesting Meth Twice
Hundreds of pages of reports and records from San Joaquin Child Protective Services, the hospital, police and the coroner obtained by this news organization show a series of failures by the people tasked with protecting Mariah, from the social workers who chose not to remove her from the foster home after the first incident, to the doctors who appear to have accepted the foster mother’s suggestions that the drug poisoning occurred before the girl was in her care. But a leading toxicology expert briefed on the case said no doctor or social worker should have believed that excuse. (Gafni and DeBolt, 2/11)

Arizona Republic: Leprosy In Phoenix: Maricopa County Clinic Closing Amid Budget Cuts
Through most of the 20th century, people with the advanced disease would be sent to the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana., later renamed the Gillis W. Long Hansen’s Disease Center. Medical advancements allowed the federal government to establish a network of outpatient clinics in 1981 to care for people who lived otherwise normal lives. But Trump administration budget cuts will force the closure of all but 5 of the 17 regional Hansen's Disease clinics this year, including one in Maricopa County. (Alltucker, 2/9)

Columbus Dispatch: Will Requiring Parlors To Use Licensed Massage Therapists Shut Down Sex Trafficking Fronts?
Massage therapists and advocates for human-trafficking survivors don’t necessarily agree on the best way to shut down massage parlors in Ohio that are fronts for commercial sex operations. But they do agree it’s a rampant problem that needs addressing. (Widman Neese, 2/11)

New Hampshire Public Radio: N.H. Bill Seeks To Classify Sex Between Prisoners, Officers As Assault
A group of lawmakers from both parties are trying to fix a loophole in New Hampshire’s sexual assault law that allowed a former law enforcement official to evade charges that he raped an inmate who he was driving across the state last year. (McDermott, 2/10)

The Washington Post: The Next Pandemic Will Come Sooner Or Later. The CDC Needs Money To Prepare. 
The basic facts, that pathogens don’t stop at passport control and move fast in today’s globalized world, are why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been active in so many places abroad since the Ebola catastrophe. ...Congress should not let the CDC effort lapse. We’re not sanguine about the fiscal situation, with big tax cuts now in place and a new budget deal just signed that seems to be opening up the spending spigots. However, if the resources are available, this program merits a claim on them. The next pandemic will come along sooner or later. The United States should not wait for the winds and waters to carry it here; far better to be prepared and vigilant abroad, and to fully underwrite the CDC’s ability to do so. (2/11)

Forbes: Trump's Domestic Policy Chief: We Have An Ambitious Health Care Agenda For 2018
Recently, I spoke with Andrew Bremberg, Director of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, about Trump’s health care agenda for 2018. His view—and his boss’s view—is that the Trump administration has done more than people appreciate on Obamacare, and on health care more broadly. On health care, Trump’s “policy direction is more robust and substantive than some people understand,” Bremberg said. (Avik Roy, 2/4)

The Washington Post: The So-Called Obamacare Death Panel Meets Its Unfortunate End
This is one story, of many, about how the current generation of Americans is mortgaging their children and grandchildren’s future. Tucked into the massive spending agreement negotiated by Senate leaders is a repeal of an obscure panel of experts, the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, created under Obamacare, represented Congress’s peak effort at serious spending restraint on health care, which is probably why it had few champions and a long list of enemies. Now, before ever beginning its work, IPAB has been smothered. In a health-care bill that was mostly about extending benefits to uninsured Americans, the IPAB was one of the few checks on how much national wealth would go to the inefficient health-care industry. (2/9)

Los Angeles Times: The Koch Network Uses A Flagrant Falsehood To Defend A Dangerous And Irresponsible Law
You can always tell that defenders of a dangerous and irresponsible law have nothing to offer when they resort to flagrant misrepresentation to make their case. Step forward, Nathan Nascimento and David Barnes of the Koch brothers network. Nascimento and Barnes are representatives of the Koch brothers group's Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and Generation Opportunity, respectively. They were sufficiently ticked off at my takedown of one of their hobby horses, a federal "right-to-try" law, to complain about it in a letter to the editor, published Thursday. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/9)

The New York Times: Another Of Obamacare’s Unloved Provisions Is Gone
When congressional Republicans were hoping to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, they often railed against its least popular features as a sign of the structure’s overall dysfunction. Now that several big legislative repeal efforts have failed, they’ve instead started picking off those pieces, one at a time. The law’s individual mandate, the rule that anyone who can afford insurance must obtain it or pay a penalty, was effectively repealed in last year’s tax bill. A few weeks ago, Congress suspended or postponed enactment of several unloved taxes raised by the bill, including one on expensive employer health plans. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 2/9)

Los Angeles Times: California Confronts The Complexities Of Creating A Single-Payer Healthcare System
California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon may have expected to torpedo the idea of a statewide single-payer healthcare system for the long term last June, when he blocked a Senate bill on the issue from even receiving a hearing in his house. He was wrong, of course. His shelving of the Senate bill created a political uproar (including the threat of a recall effort), forcing him to create a special committee to examine the possibility of achieving universal health coverage in the state. On Monday and Wednesday, the Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage held its final hearings. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/9)

The New York Times: Heart Stents Are Useless For Most Stable Patients. They’re Still Widely Used.
When my children were little, if they complained about aches and pains, I’d sometimes rub some moisturizer on them and tell them the “cream” would help. It often did. The placebo effect is surprisingly effective. Moisturizer is cheap, it has almost no side effects, and it got the job done. It was a perfect solution. Other treatments also have a placebo effect, and make people feel better. Many of these are dangerous, though, and we have to weigh the downsides against that benefit. (Aaron E. Carroll, 2/12)

San Jose Mercury News: How Trump Decision Puts Women's Health At Risk
This devastating scenario where women are turned away at the most vulnerable time of their lives despite their doctor’s wishes could become more common thanks to the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This month, they announced the intention to create a new “conscience and religious freedom” division that introduces sweeping interpretations of so-called conscience protection laws covering medical providers, backed by aggressive enforcement. (Jody Steinauer and Lori Freedman, 2/10)

Columbus Dispatch: How Trump Could Really Help Women's Safety
The White House ousted a top aide, Rob Porter, after it was reported that he had physically and verbally abused two ex-wives. President Donald Trump was ″very saddened″ by the reports, spokesman Raj Shah said at Thursday’s news briefing, adding the White House does ″take violence against women and these types of allegations very seriously.” ... If they become interested in doing more than talk, here are some ideas: Push for more federal research dollars toward preventing domestic violence. Family abuse is a massive public-health problem in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four women and one in nine men are the victims of intimate-partner violence in their lifetimes. Significantly more research is needed on what drives batterers to abuse their partners and how best to prevent this particular form of domestic terror. (2/11)

Kansas City Star: Missouri's Medicaid Payment Rate Hurts Seniors Who Need Help
The Show-Me State is in a real crisis — one of its own making.Missouri is neglecting its most vulnerable citizens by refusing to provide adequate reimbursement for care and services provided under Medicaid. As a result, the care provided to our state’s oldest citizens at skilled nursing centers is being threatened today. And if this trend continues, that care may not be accessible in the future. (Daniel Rexroth, 2/10)

Lexington Herald Leader: Coal Miners, Who Helped Donald Trump Win, Could Now Use Some Help As Their Pensions And Health Are Imperiled
If coal miners could spend President Donald Trump’s words of praise, they’d be fine. Since they can’t, they need the government to keep its pension promises and protect them from an epidemic of severe black lung disease. Miners recently got hopeful news. Congress has agreed to develop a bipartisan plan by year’s end for easing the crisis that threatens 1.5 million workers and retirees, including 24,000 coal miners and Teamsters in Kentucky. (2/9)

San Jose Mercury News: AG Becerra's Delay Enables More Opioid Deaths
While state Attorney General Xavier Becerra has fiddled, thousands more Californians have died from opioid overdoses. It’s been more than 16 months since Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation mandating that physicians check a statewide database before prescribing addictive medications. (2/10)

Chicago Tribune: Should Illinois Legalize Recreational Marijuana?
When it comes to easing restrictions on cannabis, Illinois has not been a pioneer. Medical marijuana was legal in 19 other states and the District of Columbia before state law allowed it here in 2013. Nine states and D.C. have gone beyond, legalizing the sale and use of recreational pot. Lawmakers in Illinois have hung back, letting other states lead the way. And that’s exactly the right approach. The case for legalization is not one we dismiss. But there are good reasons not to rush into such a momentous decision. (2/9)