The Associated Press: Health Law Sign-Ups Lagging As Saturday Deadline Is Looming
With just days left to enroll, fewer people are signing up for the Affordable Care Act , even though premiums are stable, more plans are available and millions of uninsured people can still get financial help. Barring an enrollment surge, the nation's uninsured rate could edge up again after a yearslong coverage expansion that has seen about 20 million people obtain health insurance. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/12)

The Hill: ObamaCare Sign-Ups Surge In Final Weeks But Lag Last Year's Numbers
More people are signing up for ObamaCare plans as the open enrollment period comes to a close, but the overall numbers are down compared to last year. From Dec. 2 to 8, the sixth week of open enrollment, 934,269 people signed up for coverage via healthcare.gov, the most in any one-week period this year. That compares with the 1,073,921 sign-ups from the same period in 2017. (Hellmann, 12/12)

Tampa Bay Times: Florida On Track, Again, To Lead The Nation In Obamacare Sign-Ups
Florida is on track to enroll more than a million people for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year, putting the state on track to again outpace the rest of the nation. The state continues to lead the country with just over 999,000 people enrolled already, a number that advocates say will continue to climb through Saturday’s deadline for signing up. (Griffin, 12/13)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Health Exchange To Allow Consumers To Finish Enrollments After Dec. 15 Deadline
The Maryland health exchange is responding to a last-minute spike in enrollment in the final week of this year’s sign-up period by allowing people who are “in line” to complete their enrollment after the Dec. 15 deadline. The state has made the same move in years past to accommodate the last-minute rush, and the federal exchange has a similar plan this year. The plans are for policies that begin Jan. 1. (Cohn, 12/12)

Pioneer Press: Time Running Out To Sign Up For MNsure 2019 Coverage 
Minnesotans who buy health plans on MNsure, the state’s individual insurance market, have until midnight Saturday to sign up for coverage that starts Jan.1. Nate Clark, CEO of MNsure, says with nearly 106,000 signups as of Wednesday morning enrollments are “tracking well ahead of last year.” MNsure will have extended hours Thursday through Saturday to handle the annual rush to get covered before the deadline. (Magan, 12/12)

North Carolina Health News: In The Final Week Of Enrollment, Obamacare Marketplace Offers Many Avenues To Getting Insurance
If you thought you an Obamacare plan might cost you too much, think again. In fact, you could pay nothing. As this year’s enrollment period for insurance through the Affordable Care Act draws to a close, advocates are making the point that some plans could actually cost nothing, after tax credits. (Duong and Hoban, 12/12)

Georgia Health News: Georgia Sees Last-Minute Enrollment Surge, But Trails Last Year’s Total
Just a few days are left before the deadline for sign-ups in the 2019 health insurance exchange.Yet as of Dec. 8, the number of Georgians who had enrolled in the health insurance exchange was less than half of last year’s total sign-up figure, federal health officials report. (Miller, 12/12)

St. Louis Public Radio: Missouri Health Insurance Enrollment Drops As Deadline Looms
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 101,274 people in Missouri enrolled in a 2019 plan after the sixth week of the enrollment period, which began Nov. 1. That’s down 25 percent from the same period last year. Nationwide, enrollment is down 11 percent over the same period last year. (Fentem, 12/12)

KQED: The Obamacare Mandate Is Ending. If California Does Nothing, 1 Million Could Lose Health Care
Obamacare has led to a record number of Californians having medical coverage. But a new study warns that if the state does nothing to counteract the Trump administration’s moves to undermine Obamacare, up to 1 million more Californians could be without health insurance within the next five years. (Aguilera, 12/12)

The Hill: Dems Aim To Punt Vote On ObamaCare Taxes 
Health-care companies are making a last-minute push to delay ObamaCare taxes as part of a year-end government funding deal, but they face resistance from Democrats who want to punt the issue until next year when they control the House. Powerful health-care lobbies are pushing lawmakers to delay the implementation of the taxes, worried about taking a financial hit. Lawmakers have voted to push off the health law’s medical device tax, health insurance tax, and tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health plans in the past with bipartisan support. (Sullivan, 12/13)

Concord Monitor: Sununu Joins Governors Urging Repeal Of Obamacare Taxes
Gov. Chris Sununu is leading 11 Republican governors to urge Congress to repeal two Obamacare health taxes that they say are raising premiums, hoping to capitalize on a dwindling lame-duck session before Democrats retake the House. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan sent Wednesday, the governors asked lawmakers to abolish the Health Insurance Premium Tax (HIT) and the Medical Device Tax (MDT) from the Affordable Healthcare Act. (DeWitt, 12/12)

And in other news from Capitol Hill —

ProPublica: 'Landmark' Maternal Health Legislation Clears Major Hurdle
Congress moved a big step closer on Tuesday toward addressing one of the most fundamental problems underlying the maternal mortality crisis in the United States: the shortage of reliable data about what kills American mothers. The House of Representatives unanimously approved H.R. 1318, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, to help states improve how they track and investigate deaths of expectant and new mothers. (Martin, 12/12)

The Hill: Incoming GOP Congressman Says Vaccines May Cause Autism, Contradicting CDC 
An incoming Republican Congressman told constituents at a town hall this week that he believes vaccines may cause autism, contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and other scientific institutions, according to tennessean.com. Mark Green, a physician who won his race in November to fill the seat of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), vowed to "stand on the CDC's desk and get the real data on vaccines,"adding he was doing so "because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines," according to tennessean.com. (Hellmann, 12/12)

Politico Pro: Trump Administration Keeps GOP Senators In Line On Medicare Drug Proposal
Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch has backed off plans to publicly challenge a Trump administration proposal to change how Medicare pays for certain drugs after White House and top HHS officials urged Senate Republicans to give them more time. Hatch floated sending a letter criticizing the way the controversial plan would bypass Congress and link some Medicare drug payments to lower prices in other developed countries, lawmakers and sources familiar with the effort told POLITICO. (Cancryn and Karlin-Smith, 12/12)

Texas Tribune: U.S. House Passes Farm Bill To Relief Of Texas Farmers, SNAP Proponents
The Farm Bill, one of the most important pieces of federal legislation to millions of Texans, successfully made its way through both chambers of Congress this week and awaits the signature of President Donald Trump. Formally known as the Agriculture and Nutrition Act, the Farm Bill is a massive spending package that will deliver $867 billion over 10 years to subsidize farming and nutrition. (Eversden and Livingston, 12/12)

The New York Times: Fetal Tissue Research Is Curtailed By Trump Administration
Should the government pay for medical research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses? This debate, ever smoldering, has erupted again, pitting anti-abortion forces in the Trump administration against scientists who say the tissue is essential for studies that benefit millions of patients. In a letter last week that read like a shot across the bow, the National Institutes of Health warned the University California, San Francisco, that its $2 million contract for research involving the tissue, previously renewed for a year at a time, would be extended for only 90 days and might then be canceled. (Grady, 12/12)

The Washington Post: Fetal Tissue Research Targeted By Abortion Foes Inside Administration
Since HHS announced in late September a wide-ranging audit of the use of fetal tissue in federally funded research, groups that have long sought to outlaw its use say they are finally being heard. They view such research as morally repugnant and unnecessary because they contend other techniques can be used — an assertion many scientists reject. “This is a pro-life administration,” said David Prentice, vice president and research director of the antiabortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, who said members of his group and the affiliated Susan B. Anthony List have met with Pence to press their case. “It’s just nice to have someone who will listen and not just close the door in your face.” (Bernstein, Goldstein and Sun, 12/12)

Stat: Freeze On Fetal Tissue Procurement May Impede Work At NIH Cancer Lab
The National Institutes of Health freeze on fetal tissue procurement is threatening to hamper work at an agency lab conducting cancer research, the latest sign that a Trump administration decision could slow the efforts of some scientists who depend on the samples. ...The spokeswoman, Renate Myles, declined to identify the lab for “security reasons,” but said that the group is working on cancer immunotherapy.Two other NIH labs, one in Montana and another at the National Eye Institute, are also conducting research using fetal tissue that could ultimately be affected by the suspension. (Swetlitz, 12/12)

Modern Healthcare: DOJ Joins Whistle-Blower Lawsuit Against Sutter Health
The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened in a lawsuit alleging Sutter Health submitted unsupported diagnosis codes to inflate its Medicare Advantage payments. A whistle-blower accused Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter and its affiliated medical group, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, of knowingly submitting unsupported diagnosis codes for certain patients that inflated their risk scores, resulting in higher payments to the providers under the Medicare Advantage program. (Bannow, 12/12)

Sacramento Bee: U.S. Attorney General, Whistleblower Allege Sutter Health Overcharged Medicare
“Federal healthcare programs rely on the accuracy of information submitted by healthcare providers to ensure that patients are afforded the appropriate level of care and that managed care plans receive appropriate compensation,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “Today’s action sends a clear message that we will seek to hold healthcare providers responsible if they fail to ensure that the information they submit is truthful.” (Anderson, 12/11)

California Healthline: Feds Join Lawsuit Alleging Sutter Health Padded Revenue With False Patient Data 
At issue is how Sutter Health and its affiliate Palo Alto Medical Foundation diagnosed patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage, which covers about one-third of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide. The program is funded by the government but offers health plans through private insurers. The lawsuit says Sutter, which has about 48,000 Medicare Advantage enrollees, is liable for at least “hundreds of millions of dollars” in restitution, damages and penalties. The complaint alleges that Sutter submitted unsupported diagnoses, which overstated the medical risk of patients and led to inflated payments. (Young, 12/13)

CNN: Fentanyl Is The Deadliest Drug In America, CDC Confirms
Fentanyl is now the most commonly used drug involved in drug overdoses, according to a new government report. The latest numbers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics say that the rate of drug overdoses involving the synthetic opioid skyrocketed by about 113% each year from 2013 through 2016. The number of total drug overdoses jumped 54% each year between 2011 and 2016. In 2016, there were 63,632 drug overdose deaths. (Kounang, 12/12)

The Hill: CDC: Fentanyl Is Deadliest Drug In America 
There were a total of 63,632 drug overdose deaths in 2016, with fentanyl found to be involved in nearly 29 percent of those cases, according to the report. By comparison, fentanyl was involved in only 4 percent of all drug fatalities in 2011. That year, oxycodone ranked first, involving 13 percent of all fatal overdoses. (Weixel, 12/12)

NPR: Report Highlights Fentanyl's Deadly Role In The Overdose Crisis
Back in 2011, oxycodone was the drug most commonly linked to overdose deaths. Starting in 2012 and lasting until 2015, heroin surpassed painkillers to become the drug most often involved. But then fentanyl, a synthetic opioid pain reliever 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, infiltrated the American drug supply — what the CDC calls "the third wave" of the opioid epidemic. By 2016, overdose deaths involving fentanyl had become more common than any other. (Wamsley, 12/12)

In other news on the national drug epidemic —

The Associated Press: New Effort In Maryland To Combat Upsurge In Fentanyl Deaths
A new effort in Maryland to prosecute more fentanyl cases in federal court is designed to help combat an alarming increase of fatalities caused by the potent synthetic opioid that's fueling the deadliest overdose epidemic in U.S. history. Fentanyl — a synthetic opioid both cheap to produce and up to 50 times more powerful than heroin — was the driving force behind Maryland's all-time high number of drug fatalities last year, rising from 1,119 in 2016 to 1,594 in 2017. But this year's projected total exceeds 2,000 deaths from fentanyl, a 25 percent increase from last year's grim milestone. (McFadden, 12/12)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Study: Opioid Use Rising Among Pregnant Hospital Patients In Pa.
Opioid use among patients seeking pregnancy-related care at Pennsylvania hospitals has risen significantly since 2000, according to new data published by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4). The research brief, published this week, showed that opioid use was present in one in every 51 maternal hospital stays — hospital visits for deliveries or other pregnancy-related issues — in the state in 2016 and 2017. (Whelan, 12/12)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Many Questions Remain As Officials Hustle To Launch New Addiction Care System
Gov. Chris Sununu and state health officials are now investing heavily in a new system they say will significantly improve care for those struggling with addiction. This so-called "hub and spoke" plan kicks off at the start of the new year. Now, with that launch date just weeks away, NHPR’s Britta Greene and Sarah Gibson having been reporting on how the effort is taking shape. (Greene and Gibson, 12/12)

The Hill: Drug Company To Offer Cheaper Opioid Overdose Treatment After Hiking Price 600 Percent 
A drug company is offering a significantly cheaper version of its life-saving opioid overdose treatment after a Senate investigation found that it spiked the price of its drug. A report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations last month found that the company, Kaléo, hiked the price of its drug Evzio to $4,100 for two injectors, raising the price by more than 600 percent between 2014 and 2017. (Sullivan, 12/12)

CQ: Drug Manufacturer Announces Cheaper, Generic Opioid Antidote
Kaleo currently sells Evzio, a naloxone auto-injector that uses voice navigation to walk individuals through how to counteract an overdose. The generic will mirror Evzio in terms of design and formulation and is expected to be released in mid-2019. “We have been in dialogues with a broad array with different members of the community — different organizations both in the administration and other members of government,” Omar Khalil, Kaleo’s general manager for addiction and neurology, told CQ. Khalil said this included the Office of the Surgeon General and Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio and Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., the top lawmakers on a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. (Raman, 12/12)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Kaléo To Create Generic Opioid Overdose Antidote And Cut Prices On Evzio Brand
In addition, a generic version of Evzio should be on the market by midyear 2019 at a list price of $178 per two-dose kit, the company said. Kaléo subsidiary IJ Therapeutics will offer the product. The company’s change to the pricing of the potentially life-saving drug came weeks after Kaléo was the focus of a CBS “60 Minutes” segment in November that reported it “jacked up” the drug’s list price from about $575 to $4,000. The current list price is $4,100, the company confirmed Wednesday. (Smith, 12/12)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Drug Company Lowers Price Of Overdose Remedy After Sen. Rob Portman Accused It Of Gouging
The company has been working “for some time” with insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to increase access to the drug, said a statement from kaléo President and CEO Spencer Williamson. “With approximately 130 people dying daily from opioid overdoses, we recognize that more needs to be done to improve access for patients,” Williamson’s statement said. (Eaton, 12/12)

Modern Healthcare: Blues Antitrust Case Just Got Tougher For The Insurers 
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers must defend themselves against a major class action case accusing them of anticompetitive practices on much less favorable legal grounds. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district judge's April ruling that the combination of the Blues plans' exclusive territories, in which they agreed not to compete, and the agreement to limit competition on non-Blues branded products is a per se violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Meyer 12/12)

In other health industry news —

Bloomberg: Health Insurance Feud That Threatened Surprise Bills Is Resolved 
UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer, agreed to renew its contract with a large hospital staffing company after a months-long stand-off that threatened to put millions of people at risk of surprise medical bills. The contract between UnitedHealth’s insurance unit and Envision Healthcare, owned by private-equity giant KKR & Co., was set to expire Jan. 1. The companies announced the deal in separate press releases Tuesday morning. Representatives for UnitedHealth and Envision both declined to comment on details of the new agreement. (Tozi, 12/11)

Bloomberg: J&J Is Said Willing To Pay $400 Million-Plus In Hip-Device Cases 
Johnson & Johnson is willing to pay more than $400 million to settle some of the thousands of consumers’ allegations that the company sold defective artificial hips and hid the health risks of the devices, people familiar with the negotiations said. The world’s largest health-care products maker has settled, or is in the process of settling, about 3,300 of 10,000 lawsuits targeting its Pinnacle line of hip-replacement devices, a judge said in a Dec. 9 court filing. (Feeley, 12/12)

The New York Times: Christmas Is A Peak Time For Heart Attacks
Christmas may be the peak time for heart attacks — at least in Sweden. Swedish researchers studied 283,014 heart attacks between 1998 and 2013 that were documented in a registry that included the date and time when symptoms started. They found that compared with days in the two weeks before and after Christmas, the risk of heart attack was 15 percent higher on Christmas Day and 37 percent higher on Christmas Eve. (Bakalar, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: On Christmas Eve, Santa Delivers Presents ... And A Few Extra Heart Attacks
On Dec. 24, the risk of a heart attack is 37% higher than normal, the researchers found. On Christmas itself, the increase in risk dips to 29%. Even on Boxing Day, it’s still 21% above normal levels. For the sake of comparison, Mondays are known to be a time of increased heart attack risk. But in Sweden, the risk was only about 10% higher on the first day of the workweek. The BMJ study isn’t the first to report an association between the holiday season and myocardial mayhem. A 2004 paper in the journal Circulation, for example, found that deaths due to all kinds of heart disease were higher in the U.S. on both Christmas and New Year’s Day. (Kaplan, 12/13)

In other heart health news —

The New York Times: Women With Heart Emergencies Less Likely To Get Proper Care
Women with cardiac emergencies are less likely than men to receive proper treatment when the ambulance arrives, a new study reports. The analysis, in Women’s Health Issues, used four years of data from a federal government database to compile information on out-of-hospital emergencies involving people 40 and older with chest pain or cardiac arrest. Almost 2.4 million people, 1.2 million of them women, were included. (Bakalar, 12/13)

CNN: FDA Sends Warning To Company At Center Of Heart Medication Recall
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to the Chinese maker of an ingredient in popular heart drugs and said it continues to test the ingredient for cancer-causing chemicals. The letter, sent in late November, details manufacturing violations at the facility of Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., pointing out cross-contamination from one line to another, control issues and impurity control problems. (Christensen, 12/12)

And a doctor makes an argument that the gut is as important as the heart —

Boston Globe: A Doctor Explains Why Gut Health Is As Important As Heart Health
Medical researchers increasingly say that intestinal health is more important than we have previously believed. The dense and delicate nerve networks that ensheathe the bowels and the long arm of the immune system that patrols the gut wall suggest that the intestines not only digest food, but may regulate mood, emotion, and play a central role in immunologic response to disease. (Jangi, 12/12)

The New York Times: U.S. Diplomats With Mysterious Illness In Cuba Had Inner-Ear Damage, Doctors Say
The American government employees in Cuba who suffered mystifying symptoms — dizziness, insomnia, difficulty concentrating — after hearing a strange high-pitched sound all had one thing in common: damage to the part of the inner ear responsible for balance, according to the first doctors to examine them after the episodes. Two years after Americans posted at the United States Embassy in Havana began experiencing the peculiar phenomenon, doctors at the University of Miami on Wednesday published a scientific paper that confirms what these patients have said all along: Their condition is real, not the result of mass hysteria, a response to intense news media coverage or a stress reaction to being evacuated, as doctors in Cuba had suggested. (Robles, 12/12)

The Associated Press: Cuba Health Mystery: Diplomats Had Inner-Ear Damage Early On
"What caused it, who did it, why it was done — we don't know any of those things," said Dr. Michael Hoffer of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who led the exams. The U.S. says since late 2016, 26 people associated with the embassy in Havana suffered problems that include dizziness, ear pain and ringing, and cognitive problems such as difficulty thinking — a health mystery that has damaged U.S.-Cuba relations. Cuba has adamantly denied any involvement. (Kay and Neergaard, 12/12)

CNN: Cuba 'Acoustic Attack' Mystery Continues As Study Offers More Details On US Diplomats' Symptoms
A separate study, previously published in the medical journal JAMA in March, described the symptoms of 21 personnel who sought medical attention and found that a majority of them reported problems with memory, concentration, balance, eyesight, hearing, sleeping or headaches that lasted more than three months. Three people eventually needed hearing aids for moderate to severe hearing loss, and others had ringing or pressure in their ears according to that report. (Howard, 12/12)

Stat: Listening To The Inner Worlds Of Children Who Can't Move Or Speak 
For a therapeutic clown, silliness is serious business. Helen Donnelly, who personifies Dr. Flap, had spent years on stages and under big tops, traveling with Cirque du Soleil, doing solo shows, speaking made-up languages, dancing in front of clotheslines hung with cuts of meat. When she started working at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, her absurdities took on a different aim: to transport kids out of the disorienting realities of medical treatment and into imaginary worlds where they had a sense of control. (Boodman, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Scientists Skeptical About Gene-Edited Baby Experiment
When a Chinese scientist last month claimed to have created the first gene-edited babies, scientists around the world were stunned and alarmed, saying the research had been done without proper disclosure or oversight. Now, scientists who examined the very limited available data from the experiments are questioning whether the gene edits the scientist claimed he made were even successful. One prominent scientist has called for a moratorium on genetically editing human embryos to create a pregnancy until technical, social and scientific questions are better understood. (Marcus, 12/12)

CNN: People With Eczema At Higher Risk Of Suicidal Thoughts And Attempts, Study Says
Eczema is a common skin condition that can pack a profound psychological punch: People with eczema are more likely to have suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts than others without the condition, according to new research published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Dermatology. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is a skin disease that's chronic and inflammatory -- meaning it involves an immune system reaction. It affects 18 million adults (more than 7%) and 9.6 million children (13%) in the United States, according to the researchers from University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. (Scutti, 12/12)

Stat: Developmental Delays Persist As Brazil’s Zika Babies Grow Up
The Zika virus has faded from the world’s headlines. But the damage the strange mosquito-borne virus inflicted on some children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy very much remains. A new study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, reports that in a group of Zika babies from Brazil who are being followed to assess their progress, 14 percent had severe developmental problems. (Branswell, 12/12)

The Washington Post: How Many Years Do We Lose To The Air We Breathe?
The average person on Earth would live 2.6 years longer if their air contained none of the deadliest type of pollution, according to researchers at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. Your number depends on where you live. (12/12)

The Washington Post: Kotex Tampons: Kimberly-Clark Recalls U By Kotex Sleek Tampons After Unraveling In People's Bodies
Some Kotex tampons have been recalled after reports that the feminine-care product was unraveling and coming apart inside consumers' bodies. Kimberly-Clark, which manufacturers personal-care products, announced Tuesday that the regular absorbency U by Kotex Sleek Tampons have been recalled in the United States and Canada because of “a quality-related defect,” explaining that some consumers reported having to seek medical attention “to remove tampon pieces left in the body.” (Bever, 12/12)

CNN: Salmonella: 87 More Cases Linked To Recalled Beef
Eighty-seven more people have been sickened with salmonella linked to recalled beef products, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. A total of 333 have become ill and 91 have been hospitalized since illnesses began in August. No deaths have been reported. Illnesses have been reported in 28 states; Michigan, Mississippi and West Virginia are the latest. The CDC said the outbreak investigation is ongoing. (Thomas, 12/12)

WBUR: Many Top Medical Training Programs Lack Paid Family Leave Policies, Study Finds
Crafting a good paid parental leave policy requires balancing sometimes-competing needs — the pulls of parenthood, hospital staffing concerns and the importance of graduating competent doctors, the study says. It is not prescriptive, though it does suggest a need for more research into optimal policies. (Wasser, 12/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Study: Many Diabetics Are Testing Their Blood Sugar Levels Too Often
Many believe adults with stable Type 2 diabetes, who are on medications that don't cause hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, do not need to regularly test their glucose levels. Previous research has deemed daily tracking unnecessary. (Parker, 12/12)

Reuters: Longer Breastfeeding Tied To Lower Risk Of Liver Disease
Mothers who breastfeed for six months or more may have less fat in their livers and a lower risk of liver disease, a U.S. study suggests. Breastfeeding has long been tied to health benefits for women, including lower risks for heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers. The current study focused on whether nursing might also be tied to a reduced risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFDL), which is usually linked with obesity and certain eating habits. (12/12)

PBS NewsHour: Even A Haircut Can Prompt A Conversation About Health Care
In the old days, a man went to a barber shop for a haircut and a shave. But at Urban Kutz in Cleveland, patrons are more likely to be wearing a blood pressure cuff than a neck wrap. Gabriel Kramer of the PBS station Ideastream shares a story about a barber whose customers were “starting to disappear” and who decided to turn his shop into a health care resource as a result. (Kramer, 12/12)

The New York Times: Starting School Later Really Does Help Teens Get Sleep
Delaying school start times has helped Seattle teenagers get a better night’s sleep. During puberty, circadian rhythm is altered, and sleeping and waking are typically delayed to a later time. This creates a problem: Adolescent wake-sleep patterns do not coincide with those of conventional social life, and teenagers rarely get the recommended eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. (Bakalar, 12/12)

NPR: Later School Start Times Really Do Work To Help Teens Get More Sleep
In Seattle, school and city officials recently made the shift. Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, the district moved the official start times for middle and high schools nearly an hour later, from 7:50 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. This was no easy feat; it meant rescheduling extracurricular activities and bus routes. But the bottom line goal was met: Teenagers used the extra time to sleep in. Researchers at the University of Washington studied the high school students both before and after the start-time change. Their findings appear in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. (Neighmond, 12/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Surgery Adds Three Years To Lives Of Prostate-Cancer Patients, Study Finds
A three-decade study found that prostate-removal surgery added an average of nearly three years to lives of men with prostate cancer, compared with those who didn’t get surgery and were monitored. The results suggest the benefits of surgery in men with advanced prostate cancer. Yet men in the early stages of the slow-moving but life-threatening disease might want to wait before undergoing the procedure or forgo it entirely, the study’s authors and other experts say. (Loftus, 12/12)

Stat: Most Prostate Cancer Patients Don't Need Aggressive Treatment, Study Says
Nearly 30 years after it began, a study of prostate cancer patients shows both that the disease will not cause harm to the majority of men who have it, and that aggressive treatment is warranted for men with an intermediate risk of spread. The nuanced results come from a new update to a landmark study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, that has followed 695 Swedish men since they were diagnosed with localized prostate cancer between October 1989 and February 1999. (Weintraub, 12/12)

CNN: Excess Body Weight Responsible For 4% Of Cancers Worldwide, Study Says
Excess body weight was responsible for 3.9% of cancer globally, or 544,300 cases, in 2012, according to a new report. The report, published Wednesday in the journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, also highlights a relationship between obesity and the risk of 13 cancers, including postmenopausal breast cancer and liver cancer, and a probable relationship with three others, including prostate cancer. (Thomas, 12/12)

KCUR: Additional Illnesses Hurt Survival Chances For Missouri Breast Cancer Patients, Study Finds 
Nearly 5,000 women in Missouri were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, the last year for which figures are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about 130 cases per 100,000 women, making breast cancer the leading type of cancer for Missouri women by far – nearly two-and-a-half times the diagnosis rate for lung cancer. The incidence of breast cancer in Kansas isn’t much lower – about 124 cases per 100,000 women. (Margolies, 12/12)

Philadelphia Inquirer: As Surgeons Tout Robot-Assisted Breast Cancer Surgeries, Safety Remains A Question
Is doing major surgery through small incisions better for the patient than more traumatic traditional methods? The answer is surprisingly complicated. While minimally invasive technology generally reduces pain and recovery time, comparative complication rates aren’t clear without high-quality clinical trials. (McCullough, 12/12)

Politico: Telemedicine Demand Spurs Rural Broadband Push In Texas
Texas Republicans don’t usually look to Lyndon Johnson for inspiration. But the need for improved broadband services in rural areas — to spread telemedicine, viewed as the next frontier of medicine — has caused some to look to the former president’s efforts to connect those same areas to the electrical grid. (Rayasam, 12/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Californians Want State To Spend Surplus On Health Care For All, Free Community College
Californians are in a spending mood with the state flush with cash, and they’re putting a priority on creating a universal health care system and making community colleges free, a new poll indicates. They’re much less enthusiastic about two priorities of outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown — the troubled high-speed rail project and saving money for the day the economy turns bad, according to a poll released Wednesday night by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. (Byrne, 12/12)

KQED: Poll: Californians Want Universal Health Coverage, Free Community College
In a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, 60 percent of adults said universal health coverage should be a high or very high priority.“ The election polls indicated that health care was a major concern for Californians," said Mark Baldassare, president of PPIC. "And that seems to be reflected here." (Orr, 12/12)

The Associated Press: Florida School Massacre Panel Recommends Arming Teachers
The panel investigating the Florida high school massacre recommended Wednesday that teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission voted 13-1 to recommend the Legislature allow the arming of teachers, saying it’s not enough to have one or two police officers or armed guards on campus. Florida law adopted after the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead allows districts to arm non-teaching staff members such as principals, librarians and custodians — 13 of the 67 districts do, mostly in rural parts of the state. (Spencer and Anderson, 12/12)

Tampa Bay Times: Reps. Kathy Castor, Charlie Crist Repeat Call For Federal Investigation Into All Children’s Heart Unit
U.S. Reps. Kathy Castor and Charlie Crist doubled down on their request for a federal investigation into the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute on Wednesday, a day after the hospital announced resignations by the CEO and other top executives. They had already released a statement calling for action after a Tampa Bay Times investigation found that the mortality rate at the hospital’s heart surgery unit had tripled from 2015 to 2017. (Bedi and McGrory, 12/12)

The Associated Press: No Psychiatric Hospital Employee Responsible For Escape
No single employee was directly responsible for the escape of a man from a Hawaii psychiatric hospital, a state investigation found, but questions remain about how he was able to walk out of the facility and fly to California, officials said Wednesday. The state attorney general's office completed an administrative investigation more than a year after Randall Saito escaped from Hawaii State Hospital. Officials on Wednesday released findings of the investigation, but they said a redacted report will be posted online later Wednesday or Thursday. (12/12)

The Baltimore Sun: Johns Hopkins School Of Nursing Wins Grant To Expand Aging-In-Place Program
The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing was given a $3 million grant to implement an aging-in-place program for seniors across the country. The five-year program aims to help lower-income adults improve function, lesson disability and age in their homes, which research has shown can be a cost saver and is paid for in some states by Medicare and Medicaid, health programs for the elderly and the poor. (Cohn, 12/12)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Senate Passes Bill Requiring Quarterly Checks Of SNAP, Medicaid Eligibility
The Ohio Senate passed a bill that would require the state to verify each quarter whether recipients of Medicaid and food aid are eligible for the benefits they receive. The state verifies eligibility just yearly right now. (Hancock, 12/12)

The Associated Press: Report Says Suicide Rates In Virginia Are Slowly Increasing
A new state report says that suicide rates in Virginia have been slowly increasing in the last two decades. A recently released report from the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services said suicides have increased since 1999 and there was a 5.4 percent increase from 2015 to 2016. Handguns were the most common cause of death in suicides, used in 58 percent of all cases in Virginia, the report said. (12/13)

North Carolina Health News: Advocates See Potential For Child Death Prevention In Connecting State Data
Any time a child dies it’s a tragedy, but in 2017, 1,313 children younger than 17 in North Carolina died. For each of those tragedies, local and state health officials, medical examiners and child health experts review the circumstances around each child’s death in an attempt to learn how to prevent the next child from dying. But too often, those reviews are not coordinated across counties, and lessons that could be learned from looking at child death data on a statewide level get lost in a system that’s become too disconnected. (Hoban, 12/11)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. Officials Spent 8 Years Developing An Algorithm For Sentencing. Now, Lawmakers Want To Scrap It.
It is closing in on a decade since Pennsylvania legislators passed a law ordering the state Commission on Sentencing to develop a risk-assessment instrument — an algorithm that theoretically would make sentencing fairer, eliminate guesswork and judicial bias, and reduce incarceration. At hearings across the state this week on the commission’s latest proposal, reform advocates, people affected by the justice system, lawyers, and lawmakers called it racially biased and inaccurate. (Melamed, 12/12)

Houston Chronicle: Kingwood Resident Indicted In Connection With More Than $4M In Health Care Fraud 
A grand jury in Tulsa, Okla. indicted Kingwood resident and physician Jerry Keepers along with two other men in connection with an alleged conspiracy to commit $4.7 million in health care fraud. Keepers, named as a defendant in the indictment is charged with soliciting and receiving over $860,000 in illegal bribe and kickback payments from Tulsa residents Christopher Parks and Gary Lee, who is also a physician. (Contreras, 12/12)

The Baltimore Sun: Curbside Delivery: Mom Makes It To — But Not Inside — Howard County General Hospital To Have Her Baby 
Genet Sebani almost made it into the hospital in time to deliver her baby on Monday. Almost. Sebani planned to give birth at Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, but Monday she made it only to the driveway outside the front door. ...The hospital has a busy labor and delivery unit — more than 3,500 babies are born there every year. And staff have their choreography down for such emergencies. There’s even a special code for it. (Cohn, 12/12)

Philadelphia Inquirer: A Cannabis Futurist Foresees Dirt-Cheap Weed, THC Appetizers, And A Big Impact From Canada
It’s not a matter of if the United States will legalize cannabis, it’s simply a matter of when, says Jonathan Caulkins, with an air of inevitability. The important question the Carnegie Mellon University professor wants us to consider is this: What’s the best way of doing it on a national level that will have the fewest unintended and harmful consequences? (Wood, 12/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Behind The Supreme Court’s Dodge
Supreme Court watchers are looking for clues about the new conservative majority, and on Monday they were offered a surprising one. The Justices chose not to hear Gee v. Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast, drawing a sharp rebuke from three of the Court’s conservatives. At issue is whether patients may sue states in federal court for restricting or removing providers from their Medicaid programs. Many states excluded Planned Parenthood amid reports that the outfit illegally harvested fetal organs and engaged in fraudulent billing. Louisiana in Gee terminated its at-will contract with Planned Parenthood for reproductive services. (12/12)

The Hill: Planned Parenthood Provides Health Care For Millions Of Women In The US — We Can't Defund Them 
As a doctor, public health leader and the president of Planned Parenthood, I am driven by the belief that health care is a fundamental human right. This belief is often challenged, especially by those in power. But this week delivered a victory for anyone who shares my strongly held conviction that all people deserve access to affordable health care: The Supreme Court allowed lower court rulings to stand in Medicaid “defunding” cases, meaning Medicaid patients in Kansas and Louisiana can continue to rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control, cancer screenings and STD testing and treatment. (Leana S. Wen, 12/12)

Louisville Courier-Journal: McConnell, Mothers Are Dying While Giving Birth. Please Help.
Moms are dying. Pregnancy is one of the most common health conditions in the United States, and yet it is also one of the most dangerous. Thanks to reporting in national media, including the USA TODAY Network, pregnancy and pregnancy-related deaths have finally moved to the center of the health policy conversations being had by elected officials. But we must move beyond conversation. We need lawmakers to approve the funding to establish maternal mortality review committees — panels of experts that review pregnancy-related deaths and recommend solutions to prevent them. The House just passed a bipartisan bill to help with funding. We need Sen. Mitch McConnell to take the lead in the Senate. (Bekah Bischoff and Cheryl Parker, 12/12)

Stat: Solving The Fake News Problem In Science
Five sentences. Longer than a tweet but shorter than the average elementary school essay. That’s the length of an influential letter published in 1980 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s most prestigious medical journal. It alleged that narcotics are not addictive. This letter, combined with aggressive marketing efforts by pharmaceutical companies and the emergence of improving pain control as a focus for physicians and hospitals, led doctors to begin prescribing opioids as painkillers for conditions that once simply called for aspirin. The outcome of this perfect storm? Millions of Americans addicted to opioids, and more than 200,000 dead by overdose between 1999 and 2016. And that number keeps growing. Why was such a short letter so influential? It has what are considered to be the hallmarks of a reliable scientific publication: It appears in a prestigious journal and it has been highly cited by other researchers, 608 times as of 2017. (Josh Nicholson, 12/13)

Bloomberg: Crispr Babies: Gene Editing In Embryos Demands Caution, Consensus
A Chinese scientist’s claim to have edited the genes of human embryos has provoked condemnation from scientists worldwide, and rightly so. He Jiankui barged ahead without ensuring that the genetic changes he says he made — meant to confer resistance to HIV infection — would not cause unintended harm to the children, twins who have now been born.His insistence that he fully informed the parents of the risks involved is absurd: The risks are unknown. His experiment was conducted without oversight, and he’s published no report that would allow other scientists to check and verify his assertions. (12/12)

USA Today: Health Care Law Is Alive Despite Trump Drive To Destroy It, So Sign Up
If you want to buy individual health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, you need to do it by Saturday. Yes, this law is still with us. But while President Donald Trump’s two-year effort to destroy it has failed, his many smaller actions have made Americans less secure and ultimately less able to meet their fundamental health care needs. During Trump’s first year in office, the uninsured rate increased for the first time since 2010. This is bad for Americans and their health. It's also politically bad for Trump, and getting worse. (Andy Slavitt, 12/13)

Austin American-Statesman: Deadline Is Approaching To Sign Up For Health Insurance
The time is now and the clock is ticking to sign up for health care through HealthCare.gov or the Texas health insurance exchange. They are open for business, but only until Dec. 15, and we need your help to get anyone who needs it the health insurance that is right for them. (Geronimo Rodriguez Jr., 12/12)

New England Journal of Medicine: Influenza Cataclysm, 1918 
This year marks the centennial of an influenza pandemic that killed 50 million to 100 million people globally — arguably the single deadliest event in recorded human history. Evidence suggests that another pandemic at least as severe may occur one day. (David M. Morens and Jeffery K. Taubenberger, 12/13)

USA Today: Kids Need More Physical Education, It Should Be A Core School Subject
Spot quiz: What is the only subject in school that engages a child’s mind, body, and spirit, promotes their physical and emotional health, helps them to learn better and cultivates the character they need to become productive adults? And what subject is consistently underfunded, understaffed and underscheduled? If you answered physical education to both questions, you get an A grade. (William E. Simon Jr., 12/12)

New England Journal of Medicine: Remembering William
William was smoking on the shelter’s porch the day we met, looking like hell. When I introduced myself, he exhaled a brick of smoke into my face. I would need to earn his trust. But over time, William would lay the foundation for my education in patient care. (Britt Hultgren, 12/13)

The Washington Post: Teaching About Catastrophes While The World Burns Outside
Much of what we study in my class is remote in time — the Black Death, the Irish potato famine. But the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and now the California fires remind us that catastrophes are not a thing of the past, nor are they experiences limited to developing nations. Catastrophes are a constant, but by understanding them, those of us in California and beyond can be better prepared for the long process of recovery that lies ahead. (Laird M. Easton, 12/13)

New England Journal of Medicine: MACRA’s Patient Relationship Codes — Measuring Accountability For Costs 
Billing-code modifiers allow clinicians to report their relationship to the patient at a given point in time and for a particular service rendered. Ultimately, they will be used to assess clinician performance, particularly with respect to resource utilization and cost. (Samuel U. Takvorian, Justin E. Bekelman and Matthew J. Press, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Uprooting A Cause Of Homelessness — Racism
While black San Franciscans make up just 5.5 percent of the city’s general population, more than 40 percent of the city’s homeless population is black. Compare this to the proportion of white San Franciscans in the general population (48 percent) and in the homeless population (44 percent). We know that the black community is not alone in facing inequities in homelessness. (London Breed, 12/12)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Despite Good Intentions, City Council Bill Deters Physician Education And Limits Patient Access
On Nov. 30, the Council of the City of Philadelphia moved a proposed ordinance out of committee that could drastically reduce learning opportunities for physicians and other health-care providers in Philadelphia and require manufacturers to submit any product marketing materials to the city for review, even though the data has been reviewed by the FDA. A final vote is scheduled for Dec. 13. (Brad Klein, 12/12)