The Associated Press: Administration Sends States $1B In Grants To Battle Opioids
The Trump administration is awarding more than $1 billion in grants to help states confront the opioid epidemic, with most of the money going to expand access to treatment and recovery services. Officials say more than $900 million comes from a grant program Congress approved this spring as part of a budget bill. Lawmakers are working on another bipartisan bill to address the opioid problem and hope to have final legislation to President Donald Trump by year's end. (9/19)

The Hill: Trump Admin Awards Over $1 Billion In Grants To Fight Opioid Epidemic 
“Addressing the opioid crisis with all the resources possible and the best science we have is a top priority for President Trump and for everyone at HHS,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “The more than $1 billion in additional funding that we provided this week will build on progress we have seen in tackling this epidemic through empowering communities and families on the frontlines.” (Sullivan, 9/19)

Seattle Times: Washington To Get Almost $30 Million From Federal Government To Fight Opioid Abuse
Washington state is set to receive $29.8 million in federal funding to fight opioid abuse, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday. The award is the largest Washington has received from the federal government to combat the opioid epidemic, and builds on an $11 million grant the state received last year. Of the money slated for Washington, $21.6 million will go toward increasing access to drugs that treat opioid addiction in addition to prevention efforts. Another $8.2 million will fund community health centers, academic institutions and rural groups that provide services to people suffering from substance abuse and mental-health issues. (Cornwell, 9/19)

Masslive.Com: Massachusetts Gets $50M For Opioid Treatment
Massachusetts is to receive more than $50 million in federal funding for the treatment of opioid use disorder in the state as well as to expand access to substance use disorder and mental health services, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday. (Flynn, 9/19)

KOB 4: $11 Million Awarded To New Mexico To Fight Opioid Crisis
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $11 million to the state of New Mexico to help fight the opioid crisis. (Camacho, 9/19)

In other news on the crisis —

The Baltimore Sun: University Of Maryland Virus Institute Joins Hunt For Opioid Treatment 
A University of Maryland medical research institute has been tapped to test a promising opioid addiction treatment that aims to curb the cravings that are often responsible for relapses but not controlled well by other common therapies. The Institute of Human Virology, a center in the school of medicine that normally focuses on infectious diseases, plans to announce today that it has won a $12 million federal grant to investigate the therapy over the next five or six years. (Cohn, 9/19)

Stat: Jerome Adams Reflects On His First Year As U.S. Surgeon General 
Earlier this month, Dr. Jerome Adams marked one year as surgeon general — a position nicknamed “America’s doctor.” In that time, he’s worked with the Trump administration as it declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency; traveled to 26 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; and issued a rare advisory that has led to more Americans carrying naloxone. On Thursday, Adams also released a report containing the latest opioid data and recommendations for what people can do to stem the addiction crisis. (Joseph, 9/20)

Boston Globe: ACLU Challenges Jail’s Policy Of Denying Meds To Addicted Inmates
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging a county jail’s policy of denying inmates access to the medications that treat addiction. The lawsuit asks the US District Court to require the Essex County House of Correction in Middleton to provide methadone to an Ipswich man who has relied on the medication to maintain his sobriety for nearly two years. (Freyer, 9/20)

Politico: Republicans ‘Duck And Cover’ On Pre-Existing Conditions
Republicans are struggling to convince voters they will protect people with pre-existing conditions as Democrats trying to build a blue wave for November pound them for threatening to take away sick people’s health care. Republicans have sought for weeks to defuse public angst over the issue, alternately vowing to protect coverage for vulnerable Americans while trying to fire up opposition to Democrats’ growing embrace of single payer. (Cancryn, 9/19)

Chicago Sun Times: Planned Parenthood Boosts Casten Campaign With $400K Ad Buy
Planned Parenthood on Thursday plans to announce a six-figure ad buy to help bolster Democrat Sean Casten’s campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., in an effort to help Democrats win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall. Casten, a political newcomer and former clean energy businessman who defeated six others in the March primary, is endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which will spend about $400,000 to reach out to more than 110,000 voters, Planned Parenthood announced Thursday. (Stondeles, 9/20)

The Associated Press: Georgia's Kemp: School Safety 'Has Nothing To Do' With Guns
Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp has unveiled a $90 million proposal for school security focused on mental health and local control. But absent from his plan was any mention of the topic that has dominated the national conversation around school safety: guns. "This is a school safety proposal. This has nothing to do with Second Amendment protections or gun control ideas that my opponent might have," Kemp said, referring to Democrat Stacey Abrams. (9/19)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Trump's Undue Credit For Slowing Health Costs
What a difference a year makes. From predicting that the Affordable Care Act would "implode" and "explode," President Donald Trump is now claiming credit for modest average premium increases expected next year. In remarks this week, Trump appeared to cite a recent analysis by Avalere Health and The Associated Press in asserting that premium costs are now "far lower" than they would have been under a Democratic president, because his administration has been managing premiums "very, very carefully." Not so. (9/19)

In other health law news —

Health News Florida: Changes To Some ACA Plans Will Lead To Higher Prescription Costs
Consumers signing up for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace should double check how prescriptions are covered. Advocates say some insurers are changing their plans and it could mean higher out-of-pocket costs for patients who depend on costly prescriptions. (Ochoa, 9/19)

The New York Times: They Were Seeking Mental Health Care. Instead They Drowned In A Sheriff’s Van.
Nicolette Green had decided to get better. The medication she was taking to treat her schizophrenia had calmed her and cleared her head. On Tuesday morning, her oldest daughter, Rose, with whom she had spent the weekend waiting out Hurricane Florence, drove her to her regular counseling session. A new therapist saw Ms. Green, 43, that day. And within a half-hour of evaluating her, he wanted her committed, said Donnela Green-Johnson, Ms. Green’s sister. ... Then Rose watched, troubled, as sheriff’s deputies patted her mother down and put her in a van to take her to a hospital almost two hours away. Rose, 19, recalled the deputies having handcuffs out when they frisked her mother, though she did not know if they put them on.(Pager, Robertson and Dixon, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Women Die In Flooded Van Driven By South Carolina Deputies
As South Carolina rivers overflowed from Florence's torrential rain, deputies taking two women to a mental health facility drove into floodwaters that engulfed their van and trapped the women inside, officials said Wednesday. The two deputies worked to free the women, who were being transported Tuesday night as part of a court order, but were not able to save them from the back of the van, Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson told reporters. (Kinnard, 9/20)

The Washington Post: S.C. Florence Deaths: Horry County Sheriff’s Detainees Die When Floodwaters Sweep Away Transport Van
By the time a rescue team arrived, the deputies were stranded on top of the van. It was too late for the women. Richardson said a diver was able to get a look at the bodies, but as of Wednesday afternoon the van and women remained submerged. “They’re in a ditch,” the coroner said. “It’s deep, swift, dark and contaminated. You’ve got snakes, tree limbs and trash.” A dive team was assembling to extract the women, he said, but he was not sure when conditions would allow it. (Selk, 9/19)

Modern Healthcare: Recovering From Florence, Hospitals Get An Outside Assist
When Atrium Health's mobile hospital unit arrived into Burgaw, N.C., on Monday from its home-base in Charlotte, residents of the rural area had been without medical care for days in the wake of Hurricane Florence. They lined up for help even as the medical team was setting up in a Family Dollar parking lot. The area's Pender Memorial Hospital, a critical access hospital, was evacuated ahead of the storm and remained closed because of flooding. The nearest open hospital sat at least 50 miles to the south in Wilmington, N.C., a city unreachable by ground transportation after rising floodwaters cut if off from the rest of the state. (Livingston, 9/19)

NPR: Do Hurricanes' Low Barometric Pressure Trigger Births?
Have you heard the theory that low air pressure during a hurricane can cause a surge in births? Supposedly a steep drop in barometric pressure makes it easier for a baby to pop out. As Hurricane Florence ripped through the Carolinas, we wondered if that was really true. "It's one of those old wives' tales," said Dr. Hal Lawrence, executive vice president and CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (Cohen, 9/19)

Kaiser Health News: Chaos And Agitation: Helping A Patient Survive A Hurricane
As Hurricane Florence barreled toward her coastal community, Patty Younts grappled with a question: Where should a person with dementia go? Her husband, Howard, 66, suffers from a type of dementia called posterior cortical atrophy, which has robbed him of short-term memory and made him almost blind. Their home on Pawley Island in South Carolina, where they have lived for more than 30 years, lay in a mandatory evacuation zone. Staying could mean exposing themselves to raging winds and a storm surge. But leaving would mean upending the familiar routines and sense of security that her husband relies on. (Bailey, 9/20)

The Washington Post: Hurricane Florence, ‘Just A Cat 1,’ Reveals Flaw With Saffir-Simpson Scale
Rolling across the Atlantic Ocean early last week, bearing down on the Carolinas, Hurricane Florence grew into a Category 4 storm, nearly a 5 — and that got everyone’s attention. People know that a Cat 5 is as big and bad as a storm can get. In Craven County, N.C., authorities changed their voluntary evacuation order to “mandatory” for all 105,000 residents. Then Florence ran into some shearing winds, and downshifted to a Cat 3 — and then a Cat 2. (Achenbach and Wax-Thibodeaux, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Floods Prevent Inspectors From Studying Environmental Harm
Aerial photographs show widespread devastation to farms and industrial sites in eastern North Carolina, with tell-tale trails of rainbow-colored sheen indicating potential contamination visible on top of the black floodwaters. However, conditions remain so bad more than five days after Hurricane Florence made landfall that the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality said its inspectors have been unable to visit the hardest hit areas or collect samples of the floodwater for lab testing. The agency’s regional office in Fayetteville had one foot of water inside, while other locations were without electricity. (Biesecker, 9/20)

The Associated Press: Maria's Death Toll Climbed Long After Rain Stopped
Disabled and elderly people were discharged from overwhelmed hospitals with bedsores that led to fatal infections. Medical oxygen ran out. People caught lung infections in sweltering private nursing homes and state facilities. Kidney patients got abbreviated treatments from dialysis centers that lacked generator fuel and fresh water, despite pleas for federal and local officials to treat them as a higher priority, according to patient advocates. (Weissenstein, Campoy and Sosa, 9/20)

Miami Herald: Puerto Rico Kidney Patients Travel Hours For Healthcare
After the small hospital on Vieques was flooded by Maria and then overcome by toxic mold, authorities were forced to shut it down and set up a new clinic in what had been a hurricane shelter. While the new center has shiny new medical equipment, it doesn’t provide many basic services — including a delivery ward, X-rays and dialysis. (Wyss, 9/20)

The Wall Street Journal: A Year After Maria, Puerto Rico Is Pushed To Precipice
A year after Hurricane Maria tore through this mountain town, some shops have reopened, residents chat under gazebos in the serene central square and a nearby bridge wrecked by floodwaters stands sturdy. But the town of 21,000 people is dotted with boarded-up businesses, including El Navideño, a local institution strung year-round with Christmas lights. Some abandoned homes lie in ruin. Others are covered in blue tarps serving as temporary roofs. The surrounding lush landscape is interspersed with idle farmland. (Campo-Flores and Scurria, 9/20)

The New York Times: Kavanaugh’s Supporters And His Accuser Are At An Impasse Over Her Testimony
The confrontation between Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his accuser devolved into a polarizing stalemate on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans advanced competing narratives to convince voters that the other side has been unfair in the Supreme Court confirmation battle. Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who alleged that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, said a Senate hearing set for Monday to hear her allegation would not be fair and Democrats insisted that an F.B.I. investigation take place first. Backed by President Trump, Senate Republicans rejected any F.B.I. inquiry, and said that Monday was her chance to be heard. (Baker and Fandos, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Senate Republican Signal They Will Forge Ahead On Embattled Nominee Kavanaugh
GOP senators who fretted earlier this week about the prospects for President Trump’s pick are now largely pushing for a vote on Kavanaugh, who is accused of sexually assaulting now-professor Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers, amid signs that she may decline to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Trump is more convinced he should stand by Kavanaugh than he was two days ago, people close to the White House say. (Kim, Dawsey and Wagner, 9/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Plan To Push Ahead On Kavanaugh Confirmation
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the hearing would start at 10 a.m. Monday, and he pressed Dr. Ford to testify. In a letter to her lawyers, he gave her a deadline of 10 a.m. Friday to submit her biography and prepared remarks if she planned to testify. Dr. Ford’s attorneys issued a statement late Wednesday calling for more witnesses to be involved in the hearing—not just Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. It didn’t say whether Dr. Ford would attend the hearing. “The rush to a hearing is unnecessary, and contrary to the Committee discovering the truth,” the attorneys wrote. (Andrews, Peterson and Hughes, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Republicans Push To Confirm Kavanaugh Amid Fears It Will Come At A Political Cost
Already burdened by an unpopular president and an energized Democratic electorate, the male-dominated GOP is now facing a torrent of scrutiny about how it is handling Kavanaugh’s accuser and whether the party’s push to install him on the high court by next week could come at a steep political cost with women and the independent voters who are the keystone for congressional majorities. The uncertainty in Republican ranks evoked uneasy memories of how the hearings for Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination spurred what became known as the “Year of the Woman” in 1992, when a wave of Democratic women won office, and underscored widespread GOP disquiet over the fast-changing culture and the power of the #MeToo movement. (Costa, 9/19)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Pushes Kavanaugh Accuser To Testify About Sexual Assault Allegation, But Risks A #MeToo Backlash
“There’s a real risk, it seems to me. It further inflames Democratic and independent women,” said David Brady, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank. “[Those groups] are the big danger in the midterms anyway. I’d be polling the [heck] out of this.” President Trump raised doubts Wednesday about Ford’s story. Ford, a Palo Alto University psychology professor, says Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and covered her mouth to silence her when the two were high school students in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. Trump said it's "very hard for me to imagine anything happened," calling the accusation “unfair.” Trump added he hoped to hear from Ford. (Wire and Haberkorn, 9/19)

Politico: Grassley In Firing Line On Kavanaugh Assault Allegation
Sen. Chuck Grassley has cultivated a decadeslong reputation for protecting whistleblowers and fighting for government transparency. Now he’s plunging into the harrowing task of probing a sexual assault allegation while advancing a Supreme Court nominee that could define him and the GOP for years to come. (Everett and Schor, 9/20)

Stat: Gawande-Led Venture Taps Consulting Giant To Hone Strategy For Chronically Ill 
The health venture led by Dr. Atul Gawande is working with a global consulting powerhouse to hone its strategy for improving care of chronically ill patients who account for the vast majority of medical costs, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. The partnership with Boston-based Monitor Group, the business consulting arm of Deloitte, signals a desire to deliver stepped-up services — enabled by data and modern technology — to frequent users of health care within Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase, the companies that hired Gawande to rein in their 1.2 million employees’ health spending. (Ross, 9/20)

In other industry news —

The New York Times: Life Insurance Offering More Incentive To Live Longer
Brian and Carla Restid, a couple in their mid-60s, bought life insurance four years ago to protect their lifestyle in retirement. A year later, they upgraded to a pilot program offered by the insurer to get fitter, healthier and more energized. In exchange for working to improve their well-being and providing details about the process, they have saved $700 so far in premiums. (Sullivan, 9/19)

Bloomberg: Orthodonists Aren't Smiling About Teeth-Straightening Startups 
It’s easier than ever to get straighter teeth. Orthodontists think that’s a big problem. Where metal braces installed in a doctor’s office were once the only way to correct misaligned teeth, a new method that uses removable clear aligners can eliminate a visit to an orthodonist and save patients thousands of dollars. That’s what led Deniece Hudson, who always dreamed of having straighter teeth, to a startup called SmileDirectClub. (Wolf, 9/20)

Stat: For CRISPR Patents, The Ugliest Phase May Be Still To Come
Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents awarded to the Broad Institute described a significantly different invention than does a patent application (in limbo since 2012) from the University of California. As a result, the Broad’s patents do not “interfere” with the one UC applied for. That allowed the Broad to keep its valuable intellectual property and left UC’s CRISPR hanging by a thread. The chances that UC can persuade the full appeals court to re-hear its case for interference, let alone get the Supreme Court to, are next to nil. If not that, what comes next? (Begley, 9/17)

USA Today: Maternal Deaths: What States Aren't Doing To Save New Mothers' Lives
If you were going to try to stop mothers from dying in childbirth, you might try what most states in America have done: assign a panel of experts to review what’s going wrong and offer ideas to fix it. But that hasn’t worked. Death rates among pregnant women and new mothers have gotten worse, even as wealthy countries elsewhere improved. Today, the U.S. is the most dangerous place in the developed world to deliver a baby. (Ungar, 9/20)

In other public health news: kidney stones, IVF, Apple's heart-monitoring watch, and more —

The New York Times: Kidney Stones Are More Beautiful Than You Might Think
Kidney stones, the painful urinary deposits that affect more than 10 percent of people worldwide, are surprisingly dynamic, forming much like microscopic coral reefs, according to new research that could provide insights into how to better diagnose and treat the condition. The findings, published last week in the journal Scientific Reports, challenge assumptions by many doctors that kidney stones are homogeneous and insoluble. Instead, they resemble nanoscale coral reefs or limestone formations: complex, calcium-rich rocks with strata that accumulate and dissolve over time, researchers found. (Baumgaertner, 9/19)

NPR: IVF And Other Reproductive Tech Linked To High Blood Pressure In Kids
When patients come to Dr. Molly Quinn for infertility treatments, they usually aren't too interested in hearing about the possible downsides, she says. They just want to get pregnant. Still, she always discusses the risks. For example, there's an increased likelihood of twins or triplets — which increases the chances of medical complications for both moms and babies. And stimulating the ovaries to ripen extra eggs can, in a small number of cases, cause the ovaries to rupture. (Gordon, 9/19)

The New York Times: Apple Watch Series 4 Review: Faster, Bigger, With A Promise To Be Healthier
A few days ago, I sat in a medical recliner at the University of California, San Francisco. A cardiologist placed 10 stickerlike electrodes onto my limbs and chest and then connected the wires to a dated-looking contraption with a screen and a keyboard on a cart. About a minute later, a printer produced a chart of my heart’s electrical activity on red graph paper. The procedure I had undergone was an electrocardiogram, or an EKG, which is used to diagnose cardiac problems like arrhythmia and heart attacks. (Chen, 9/19)

Kaiser Health News: Despite Red Flags At Surgery Centers, Overseers Award Gold Seals
At his surgery center near San Diego, Rodney Davis wore scrubs, was referred to as “Dr. Rod” and carried the title of director of surgery. But he was a physician assistant, not a doctor, who anesthetized patients and performed liposuction with little input from his supervising doctor, court records show. So it was perhaps no surprise, in 2016, when an administrative judge stripped Davis of his license, concluding it was the only way to “protect the public.” State officials also accused two former medical directors of Pacific Liposculpture of enabling Davis to act as a doctor. (Jewett, 9/20)

Politico: Pulse Check At Work: Data Scientist
Health care is awash in data. And we’re all being tracked, maybe in ways we don’t even realize, by a new class of analysts, armed with increasingly savvy tools. So who are these people — these data scientists — and what exactly do they do? That's what we'll answer on this episode of "Pulse Check: At Work." (9/20)

The Associated Press: Flu Shots: A Pinch In The Arm, But Not Always In Your Wallet
It's flu shot season, but the pinch of a shot doesn't have to also hurt your wallet. Health officials recommend that nearly all Americans get flu vaccinations to blunt the impact of a disease that annually infects millions. Roughly 145 million Americans get flu shots each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That count represents about 60 percent of children and 40 percent of adults. (Stobbe, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Flu Cases Found In All Delaware Counties; 1 Hospitalized
Delaware health officials say flu cases have been confirmed in the state’s three counties and one person has been hospitalized. The News Journal of Wilmington reported Wednesday that at least one flu case has been confirmed in each county since last week. The state confirmed its first flu case last year in late October. The flu last year killed more than 30 Delawarians, the highest amount since the state started keeping records in 2004. (9/20)

The New York Times: Hospital Food You Can Get Excited About
On a Tuesday morning in March, chef Bruno Tison presided over a frenzied cook-off between teams from 16 health care facilities at Glen Cove Hospital on Long Island. Mr. Tison was hired last September by the nonprofit network Northwell Health to help transform the food service at the company’s 23 New York-area hospitals. Teams of cooks in towering chef caps, together with white-suited dietitians, had 45 minutes to transform a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables and meats piled on a table at the center of the auditorium into four-course meals of their own devising. Their creations not only had to meet restrictions for salt and calories, but were judged according to criteria not usually applied to hospital food like palatability, plate appearance and skill in cooking. (Schiffman, 9/20)

The CT Mirror: A Decade Of Delays, $23 Million Spent, As State Makes Fourth Try For Health Information Exchange
The idea of a single health information exchange across the state of Connecticut seems simple: Gather all health information in one place and make it available to every practitioner involved with a single patient to provide the best care possible. Unfortunately, in Connecticut this process has been anything but simple. Instead, it has been enormously expensive and time-consuming — costing the state $23 million and 11 years of work which, to this date, have yet to produce an exchange. (Werth, 9/20)

Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Public Schools Asked To Dedicate $432K Toward Childhood Trauma Practices
A state grant that funds Nashville public schools' trauma-informed practices will end this year, threatening to stall work that has shown to reduce the need for discipline in the classroom. Trauma-informed schools work to focus on the reducing the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences, which can hurt brain development of children and cause behavioral issues. (Gonzales, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Delaware Reports 1st West Nile Death Since 2012
Health officials are reporting Delaware’s first death related to West Nile Virus since 2012. The Division of Public Health officials announced Wednesday that a 73-year-old New Castle County man, who had been hospitalized since last month, died this week after becoming infected with the virus. The division has confirmed five cases of the virus this year, including the man who died. Officials say all five were men ranging in age from 57 to 75, including four in New Castle County and one in Sussex County. (9/19)

The Associated Press: Surgeon Denies Negligence In Removing Woman’s Healthy Kidney
A South Dakota surgeon admitted to mistakenly removing an Iowa woman’s healthy kidney but denied that he breached the standard of care, according to the surgeon’s response to a lawsuit filed by the patient. Dr. Scott Baker and The Surgical Institute of South Dakota acknowledged in an answer to Dena Knapp’s lawsuit that Baker removed Knapp’s right kidney instead of an adrenal gland and an associated mass, the Argus Leader reported. Knapp, of Milford, Iowa, filed the lawsuit last month alleging professional negligence. (9/19)

Detroit Free Press: Henry Ford Health System Leases New Tower In Royal Oak
A controversial new office tower going up in Royal Oak that critics said will upset the city's downtown economy just got a blue-chip, long-term tenant — the Henry Ford Health System. The nationally prominent health provider announced Wednesday it would lease the entire six-story building for the next 20 years. Henry Ford Health plans to open its high-tech outpatient center in mid-2020 and bring about 200 doctors, nurses and other health care workers to the site that formerly was a large parking lot in front of Royal Oak City Hall, officials said. (Laitner, 9/20)

Boston Globe: Decision On Humana’s Mass. Tax Break Delayed
Health insurance giant Humana is going to have to wait for that state tax incentive. The Louisville, Ky.-based company unveiled plans last month to open a digital health and analytics center in Fort Point, and employ as many as 250 people within the next five years. (Chesto, 9/19)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Transgender UW Employees Win Court Fight Over Surgeries
U.S. District Judge William Conley concluded that there was no legally valid reason to exclude medically necessary care for the workers and called some of the state’s arguments “unhinged from reality.” The plaintiffs, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, Alina Boyden, and Shannon Andrews, a researcher at UW School of Medicine, sued in the spring of 2017 after they were denied treatment their doctors had determined was a necessary part of the gender transitions. (Vielmetti, 9/19)

Los Angeles Times: More Than Six Women Accuse Orange County Surgeon And His Girlfriend Of Sexual Assault
As more than half a dozen women came forward Wednesday to accuse a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend of sexually assaulting them, one alleged victim described the couple as a “Bonnie and Clyde” team who drugged her and then forced her to participate in sexual acts, according to court documents. The new accusers have come forward just one day after Orange County prosecutors charged Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 38, and Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, with rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offenses and other crimes. (Winton and Fry, 9/19)

Sacramento Bee: How This Sacramento Business Let Clients Go And Yet Hired More Health Care Workers
In the last nine months, Edward Navales has hired roughly 50 new employees at the medical staffing business he operates in Sacramento. He also started offering all of his 130-plus employees a 401K plan in which his company makes a matching contribution. (Anderson, 9/20)

Health News Florida: School Mental Health Disclosure Requirement Concerns Parents
Children registering for school in Florida this year were asked to reveal some history about their mental health. The new requirement is part of a law rushed through the state legislature after the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (Ochoa, 9/20)

The Oregonian: Rush Delivery: Oregon Couple Delivers Their Newborn In SUV, Minutes From Hospital 
A Cascade Locks couple delivered their baby Tuesday in their SUV while parked on the side of the road near a Troutdale outlet mall. Valerie and Matt Gordon had planned to give birth to their second daughter with the help of a midwife group in Portland that had been managing the mother's maternity care. But after handing their 3-year-old daughter, Ada, and the family dog to Matt's parents at the outlet mall parking lot around 5 a.m. while Valerie's contractions intensified, the couple knew they had to change their plans. By that point, Valerie Gordon, 35, had been in labor for around 45 minutes. While they drove out of the Columbia Gorge Outlets parking lot, she felt the baby's head crowning. (Bailey, 9/19)

KQED: California’s Plan To Store Water Underground Could Risk Contamination
To contend with the likelihood of future extreme droughts, some of these new strategies rely on underground aquifers — an approach far removed from traditional dam-based water storage. While diversifying the toolbelt of water management strategies will likely help insulate the state against loss, a group of researchers at Stanford University are drawing attention to a risk they say has long ridden under the radar of public consciousness: the introduction of dangerous chemicals into California groundwater, both through industrial and natural pathways. (Heidt, 9/19)

Austin American-Statesman: Central Health Sets Public Hearing For Saturday To Reconsider Sendero
Central Health is continuing to weigh the future of its nonprofit insurance provider, Sendero Health Plans, and will hold a special meeting on Saturday, where members of the public will be allowed to speak. Travis County commissioners on Tuesday delayed voting on the health district’s proposed $258 million budget for fiscal 2019, after several people spoke out against Central Health’s decision to suspend Sendero, which provides low-cost insurance to 24,000 residents. (Huber, 9/19)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Supreme Court Blames Domestic Violence Victim, Removes Kids
The Arizona Supreme Court severed an abused woman’s parental rights, saying it was in the best interests of her children. Hard truth: Being a victim of domestic violence cost this mother her children. (Valdez, 9/19)

New Hampshire Union Leader: Lancaster's Weeks Medical Center Breaks Ground On $14.2 Million Expansion 
The Weeks Medical Center on Wednesday broke ground on the $14.2 million Lancaster Patient Care Center to enhance healthcare services in the North Country. The 42,000 square-foot, three-story Care Center will connect to the exiting 71-year old Weeks hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital that offers medical, surgical, and intensive care services. Mike Lee, president of the Weeks Medical Center, said the facility serves 12,000 patients annually. He noted that the need for additional space, especially for primary care and outpatient services, has been recognized by the Weeks board of trustees for a decade. (Koziol, 9/19)

Miami Herald: Charter Schools Pick Nikolas Cruz’s Former Mental Health Provider
Florida’s largest charter school membership organization announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s former mental health care provider to render services to schools. Broward County’s Henderson Behavioral Health will provide mental health assessments, diagnoses, interventions, treatment and recovery services, free of charge, to students in need at member schools of the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools, according to a news release. (Wright, 9/20)

California Healthline: Bad Air And Inadequate Data Prove An Unhealthy Mix
Kira Hinslea wanted to play outside, but she knew she couldn’t until her mom checked an air-quality app on her phone. “Is it OK?” the 6-year-old eagerly asked her mother, Shirley Hinslea, one day late last month. Hinslea gave Kira the green light, and the child beamed with excitement. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” she yelled, sprinting from the kitchen, across the living room and out to the porch of their mobile home in this small Kern County town. (Ibarra, 9/19)

KCUR: As Missouri Voters Weigh Legalizing Medical Pot, Schools Leave To-Be Doctors In The Dark
Marijuana has been found to reduce seizures for some epileptic people, and [Lonnie] Kessler’s eager to see what it do could for him, but the Moberly man doesn’t have legal access to it. That could change, as there are three ballot measures on the Nov. 6 ballot in Missouri. Even if voters go for it, many doctors won’t be ready to offer medical pot to patients in part because few get trained on its use. A Washington University study from November of 2017 found that just 9 percent of medical schools teach about medical marijuana, and 90 percent of med school graduates say they aren’t ready to help patients use it. And that’s with 30 states having legalized the drug for medical use. (Smith, 9/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Care Is The Sleeper Issue Of 2018
The pre-existing-conditions offensive against the GOP is based on its votes to repeal ObamaCare. But the truth is that Ms. McSally, Mr. Cramer and every Republican in Congress who voted for repeal also voted to require states to provide protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The GOP approach was to let each state figure out how best to accomplish this under a federal system that worked better than the Affordable Care Act. Republicans trusted leaders in state capitals to do better than Washington for the people of their states. (Karl Rove, 9/19)

The Hill: How The GOP Fixed The Worst Of ObamaCare
In 2010, the backlash to the Affordable Care Act helped give Republicans the largest midterm election gains in 72 years. The catastrophic launch of the ACA’s exchanges in 2014 handed them control of the Senate, and with premiums soaring 105 percent during the reform’s first three years of operation, outrage over health care contributed to the election of President Trump. Yet, while GOP attempts to enact equally-sweeping legislation to “repeal and replace” the ACA have failed, Republicans nonetheless can claim credit for freeing Americans from its most painful, counter-productive and unpopular features. (Chris Pope, 9/19)

The New York Times: Why Sexual Assault Memories Stick 
As a psychiatrist I know something about how memory works. Neuroscience research tells us that memories formed under the influence of intense emotion — such as the feelings that accompany a sexual assault — are indelible in the way that memories of a routine day are not. That’s why it’s credible that Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers, has a vivid recollection of the alleged long-ago event. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” she told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.” (Richard A. Friedman, 9/19)

Columbus Dispatch: Allow Medicaid To Help Babies Born Drug Dependent
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, teamed with Republican senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Rob Portman of Ohio on a measure that would allow Medicaid to pay for NAS care in “pediatric recovery facilities” as well as in hospitals. Meanwhile, the Ohio Department of Medicaid is working on a request for a waiver to allow Medicaid coverage in case the senators’ legislative fix doesn’t go through. (9/20)

The New York Times: Raising Awareness Of BRCA Mutations
You don’t have to be Jewish to inherit one of the BRCA gene mutations. But these mutations, which increase the risk of adult-onset breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers, disproportionately injure Jewish people. One in 400 people in the general population carry a BRCA mutation; one in 40 in the Jewish (mostly Ashkenazi) population. Some of those affected are working to encourage more genetic testing to help prevent these cancers. (Susan Gubar, 9/20)

The Washington Post: Our Lack Of Pandemic Preparedness Could Prove Deadly
A few months ago, a disease caused by an engineered biological weapon played the antagonist in a fictional outbreak scenario that ended with more than 100 million dead and the global economy crippled. It was a frightening story with a real message for U.S. leaders responsible for ensuring the country's pandemic preparedness. Nature continues to create serious biological threats, with the possibility of a deadly new pandemic influenza perhaps the most worrying. Far less recognized, but potentially even more alarming: The biotechnology revolution now underway is substantially lowering the bar for the creation of biological weapons that themselves could cause pandemics. (Tom Inglesby and Eric Toner, 9/19)

Miami Herald: Reflecting On A Year Of Recovery In Puerto Rico
I am incredibly proud of the work that we have done and the efforts that continue to this day. Disaster response is most effective when it is state managed, locally executed, and federally supported. In our supporting role, DHS and FEMA remain committed to helping people before, during, and after disasters strike. And today we are focused on helping Puerto Rico, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, further strengthen their emergency response capabilities, capacity, and infrastructure resilience to be prepared for future catastrophes. (Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen, 9/20)

Columbus Dispatch: Trump Administration Makes 'Crisis Next Door' A Top Priority
President Trump has declared Sept. 16-23 Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week. This is the time to remember the lives lost and those in recovery. Importantly, it is also the time to prevent others from going down this path. (Jim Carroll, 9/20)

The Hill: How Private Sector Can Fight Opioid Epidemic
Companies can create drug-treatment programs for failed job applicants. In such programs, employers promise to give permanent jobs to those applicants who have tested positive for drug use but who then commit to long-term treatment, to regular testing and to remaining drug-free.One company is trying this approach. Belden Inc., which has a manufacturing plant in Richmond, Ind., was straining to keep its computer-networking factory running at full capacity. But more than one in ten of its job applicants were testing positive for drugs. (Mitchell S. Rosenthal, 9/19)

JAMA: Physician Burnout—A Serious Symptom, But Of What? 
A patient complains of intermittent wheezing. He cannot characterize the wheezing further with regard to timing, precipitating events, or how it affects his health. A physician makes a diagnosis of asthma without further evaluation, gives the patient several recommendations regarding lifestyle modification and potential precipitants, and prescribes an inhaled long-acting β-agonist and corticosteroid. Few physicians would endorse this approach to the patient’s care. Yet that is how the profession is approaching the issue of physician burnout. The term burnout has taken on meaning far beyond what is understood about it as an actual diagnosis or even a syndrome. The medical profession has taken a self-reported complaint of unhappiness and dissatisfaction and turned it into a call for action on what is claimed to be a national epidemic that purportedly affects half to two-thirds of practicing physicians. (Thomas L. Schwenk and Katherine J. Gold, 9/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Open Your App And Say ‘Ahh’ 
No one wants to sit in an exam room while the doctor spends precious minutes entering billing information into an electronic health record. But frustrations like this don’t mean we should give up on technology’s potential to improve health outcomes. The data collected by a new generation of digital health products—including smart watches, smartphones and fitness trackers—could help the medical community learn about treatments that might work for a patient like you, and which ones to avoid. The first step is enabling them to stream data wirelessly to your doctor’s EHR. (Sean Khozin and Paul Howard, 9/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Mother’s Plea For A Safe Injection Site In San Francisco
I believe my daughter would be alive today if she hadn’t gone to an isolated place to shoot up or if her boyfriend hadn’t hesitated before calling for help, fearing an arrest. It’s too late to save her, but it’s not too late to save other kids who will make stupid mistakes (as most of us have done). Let’s win the war on drugs by ending it. (Kaye Cleve, 9/19)