The New York Times: Trump Proposes A Record $4.75 Trillion Budget
President Trump sent Congress on Monday a record $4.75 trillion budget request that calls for increased military spending and sharp cuts to domestic programs like education and environmental protection for the 2020 fiscal year. (Tankersley and Tackett, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump’s 2020 Budget: The Top 10 Takeaways
The biggest losers: Under Trump’s budget proposal, 10 major departments and agencies would see their budgets slashed by 10 percent (or more) in the next year alone: Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, State, Transportation, Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. (Long, 3/11)

The Associated Press: Highlights Of Trump's $4.7 Trillion Budget Request
Under Trump's proposal, the budget deficit is projected to hit $1.1 trillion next year — the highest in a decade. The administration is counting on robust economic growth, including from the 2017 Republican tax cuts, to push down the red ink. (3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump 2020 Budget To Include Big Domestic Cuts, $8.6 Billion For Border Wall 
The budget proposal ran into an immediate buzz saw on Capitol Hill, where many Democrats flatly rejected it and even some Republicans sought to distance themselves from key details. (Paletta, Werner and Stein, 3/11)

The Associated Press: Pelosi Rejects Trump's Proposed Budget Cuts As 'Cruel'
President Donald Trump proposed a record $4.7 trillion budget, pushing the federal deficit past $1 trillion but counting on optimistic growth, accounting shuffles and steep domestic cuts to bring future spending into balance in 15 years. Reviving his border wall fight with Congress, Trump wants more than $8 billion for the barrier with Mexico, and he's also asking for a big boost in military spending. That's alongside steep cuts in health care and economic support programs for the poor that Democrats — and even some Republicans — will oppose. (3/12)

The Washington Post: Trump 2020 Budget: Which Department Budgets Would Be Cut
While the cuts are unlikely to become reality — Congress has rejected many of Trump’s previous requests — the budget is an important signal of the administration’s priorities and suggests a major funding fight in October. (Rabinowitz and Uhrmacher, 3/11)

The Hill: Dems Unite Against Trump's Budget  — But Challenges Coming
House Democrats are banding together this week in opposition to President Trump’s 2020 budget proposal, but the unity may prove to be short-lived as party leaders prepare their own budget blueprint in the weeks ahead. Democrats are coming off of a trying week following an uproar over controversial remarks from freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — an episode that both distracted from their ambitious legislative agenda and exposed internal fissures within the diverse caucus. (Lillis, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Proposes $4.7 Trillion Budget For Fiscal 2020
“The lack of seriousness that the president brings to budget negotiations only further damages his relationship with Congress,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Monday. “Democrats wholeheartedly reject his proposal.” (Davidson, 3/11)

Los Angeles Times: For A President Who Doesn’t Sweat Details, A New $4.7-Trillion Budget Gets Short Shrift
While past presidents used the release of their annual spending plans as an opportunity to lay out short- and long-term visions, and to influence subsequent negotiations on Capitol Hill, Trump has taken the lack of regard for budgets to new lows, reflecting his own lack of interest in policy details, his administration’s thin staffing and its overall ambivalence about the nitty-gritty of policy-making. (Bierman, 3/11)

The Hill: Five Takeaways From Trump's Budget
The president’s budget proposal was a stark reminder that his political base is his most important audience. The proposal is riddled with red meat for dedicated GOP voters. It includes promises to repeal and replace ObamaCare and to institute work requirements for anti-poverty programs such as food stamps. It puts money toward school voucher programs and proposes $2.7 trillion worth of cuts to government programs over a decade. (Elis, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Medicare-For-All V. Medicare-For-Less: Trump’s Proposed Cuts Put Health Care At Center Of 2020 Race
Trump’s 10-year budget unveiled Monday calls for more than $845 billion in reductions for Medicare, aiming to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal program that gives insurance to older Americans. It’s part of a broader proposed belt-tightening effort after deficits soared during the president’s first two years in office in part due to massive tax cuts for the wealthy. The move immediately tees up a potential messaging battle between Democratic proposals for Medicare-for-all — castigated by Republicans as a socialist boondoggle — and a kind of Medicare-for-less approach. focused on cutting back on spending, from the GOP. (Olorunnipa and Sullivan, 3/11)

Stat: Trump Budget Pitches Capping Seniors’ Drug Costs, Cutting NIH Funding
The White House on Monday proposed capping out-of-pocket prescription drug expenses for seniors covered by Medicare, re-emphasizing Trump administration support for a concept endorsed both by pharmaceutical companies and congressional Democrats. The proposal came within President Trump’s draft budget proposal — a document that also calls for a roughly $5.5 billion funding cut for the National Institutes of Health, despite the recent announcement of research and public health initiatives to end new HIV transmissions by 2030 and develop new treatments for childhood cancer. (Facher, 3/12)

The Associated Press: Hospital Groups Protest Cuts In Trump Budget
Hospital groups are objecting strongly to hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts in President Donald Trump’s budget. Two major hospital trade groups did not mince words in blog posts Monday by their leaders. Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, is calling proposed Medicare cuts “arbitrary and blunt,” adding, “the impact on care for seniors would be devastating.” (3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Budget Proposes Huge Cuts To Medicaid And Medicare
The Trump administration is proposing a sharp slowdown in Medicaid spending as part of a broad reduction in the government’s investment in health care, calling for the public insurance for the poor to morph from an entitlement program to state block grants even after a Republican Congress rejected the idea. The budget released by the White House on Monday also calls for a sizable reduction for Medicare, the federal insurance for older Americans that President Trump has consistently promised to protect. Most of the trims relate to changing payments to doctors and hospitals and renewing efforts to ferret out fraud and wasteful billing — oft-cited targets by presidents of both parties. (Goldstein and Stein, 3/11)

Modern Healthcare: HHS, Medicaid Get Deep Cuts In White House Budget Proposal
In a budget request with a $2.7 trillion federal spending cut, the Trump administration on Monday would give HHS $87.1 billion in funding. The White House also aims to cut Medicaid spending by nearly $1.5 trillion from 2020 through 2029 through repealing the Affordable Care Act's expansion of the program and converting overall funding to a block grant or per capita caps to states. (King, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Budget Seeks Cuts In Science Funding
President Trump’s third budget request, released Monday, again seeks cuts to a number of scientific and medical research enterprises, including a 13 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a 12 percent cut at the National Institutes of Health and the termination of an Energy Department program that funds speculative technologies deemed too risky for private investors. (Achenbach, Guarino, Kaplan and Dennis, 3/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Budget Request Cuts Funds For Health And Human Services
The administration’s budget signals cuts at almost every institute that is part of the NIH. For example, the budget proposes a cut of $897 million for the National Cancer Institute, down from $6.14 billion this year. Another big NIH component, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, would lose about $486 million in funding, to $3 billion from $3.49 billion for fiscal 2019, accounting for rounding. The Food and Drug Administration would fare considerably better under the president’s proposal, with a $643 million increase in funding, to $6.14 billion. (Burton and Armour, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Wants The E-Cigarette Industry To Pay $100 Million A Year In User Fees
The e-cigarette industry would pay $100 million a year in user fees under the Trump administration budget proposal released Monday. The funds would go to beefed-up regulatory oversight by the Food and Drug Administration. E-cigarettes are not subject to such fees now, but several other types of tobacco products are, including cigarettes, cigars and snuff. The agency is expected to collect an estimated $712 million in user fees in the current fiscal year, with cigarettes accounting for more than 86 percent of the amount. (McGinley, 3/11)

The Hill: Trump Calls For Cutting NIH Budget, Imposing User Fees On E-Cigarette Industry 
“The proposal supports FDA’s goal to prevent a new generation of children from becoming addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes,” the budget request says. (Sullivan and Hellmann, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Budget Calls For $291 Million To Fund HIV Initiative
The Trump administration is calling for $291 million for its domestic campaign to stop the transmission of HIV in the United States within a decade, proposing significant new resources for programs that have not received major increases in the past few decades. The administration announced a budget for fiscal 2020 on Monday that follows President Trump’s State of the Union pledge to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. (Sun, 3/11)

Kaiser Health News: Trump’s Budget Offers $291M To Fight HIV In U.S. But Trims Overseas Efforts
The allocation to combat HIV in the U.S. would be split between multiple programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive $140 million to work with state and local health departments to reduce new infections. Another share — approximately $120 million — would be directed to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides HIV-related medical care, support services and medications to patients. President Donald Trump pledged in his State of the Union speech last month to eradicate the transmission of HIV in the United States in the next decade. Jennifer Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said these funds “are actual real increases to those programs if they should go through.” (Heredia Rodriguez, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Budget Proposal Adds Funding For Fighting HIV/AIDS In U.S., Cuts Contribution To Global Effort
It also proposed a 29% cut to its fiscal 2020 contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a Geneva-based, international financing organization, and a $1 billion decrease in U.S. funding for the Global Fund over the next three years. The U.S. would match $1 for every $3 pledged by other donors in a coming fundraising round for the next three-year period, the budget said. That is down from a $1 for every $2 match from the U.S. during fundraising for the current three-year period, which ends this year. The new match level “challenges other donors to make significant new commitments to fighting the three diseases,” the budget document said. (McKay, 3/11)

Politico: Trump's Budget Would Steer $20M To Jack Nicklaus-Backed Hospital Project
The White House's proposed budget includes funding for a small children's health program sought by one of President Donald Trump's golfing buddies: Jack Nicklaus. Under the administration's fiscal 2020 funding plan released Monday, HHS would steer $20 million toward a mobile children's hospital project at Miami's Nicklaus Children's Hospital, named for the legendary golfer. (Diamond, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Proposal Would Slash Total Cancer Funding While Boosting Pediatric Cancer Research
The Trump administration’s budget proposes a $50 million increase for pediatric cancer research for the next fiscal year, while cutting overall funding for the National Cancer Institute by almost $900 million. The budget said the childhood cancer request was the first step in investing $500 million over the next 10 years, something President Trump called for last month in his State of the Union address. (McGinley, 3/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Budget Would Boost Spending On Veterans
The Trump administration’s proposed budget for fiscal 2020 would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency that has seen a steady rise in funding over the past nearly two-decades of war. President Trump made a focus on veterans issues part of his central campaign pledge. The budget would provide a 9.6% boost in overall spending, bringing the total budget to $220.2 billion. (Kesling, 3/11)

Politico: Trump's Budget: Winners And Losers
The White House wants to trim $17 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the upcoming fiscal year and almost $220 billion over a decade. The plan also calls for trading out some SNAP benefits for “Harvest Boxes” that would deliver bundles of nonperishable foods to low-income families. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says that switch could save the government more than $129 billion over 10 years. (Scholtes, 3/11)

The New York Times: Trump Lauded Farmers, Medicare And AIDS Programs. Then He Unsheathed The Budget Knife.
Some suggested cuts, like the proposal to slash Special Olympics funding, have become a perennial target. When the Education Department put funds for the Special Olympics on the chopping block again on Monday, it determined that the funding could be better found privately or at the state level. The department faces a 10 percent overall budget reduction, and has proposed eliminating dozens of programs it says “achieved their original purpose, duplicate other programs, are narrowly focused or are unable to demonstrate effectiveness,” according to budget documents. (Rogers, 3/12)

The Associated Press: In Dems' 'Medicare For All' Battle Cry, GOP Sees '20 Weapon
"Medicare for All" has become catnip for Democratic presidential candidates and many lawmakers, yet Republicans prepping for next year's congressional races are also flocking to it — for entirely different reasons. GOP strategists say they'll use proposals to expand government-run health insurance to pummel Democrats for plotting to eliminate job-provided coverage, raise taxes and make doctors' office visits resemble trips to the dreaded Department of Motor Vehicles. (3/11)

Kaiser Health News: ‘Medicare-For-All’ Gets Buzzy In Unexpected Locales
It was a sleepy Saturday in mid-February. But Virginia Sanders was speaking, and the audience was rapt. “One might not have the power. But a thousand has the power,” she said. “Don’t let anybody fool you that you don’t.” Sanders, 76, has been an organizer and activist all her life. She marched in the civil rights movement. She protested against the Vietnam War. During the 2016 primary, friends recall, this petite black woman marched up to men in Ku Klux Klan robes to distribute flyers about then-candidate Bernie Sanders — no relation. (Luthra, 3/12)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Ocasio-Cortez’s Misleading Complaint: Trump Did Not Transfer Funds For The Opioid Emergency
C-SPAN tweeted out a five-minute clip of Ocasio-Cortez questioning James W. Carroll, the White House’s director of drug policy, with this quote highlighted: “@AOC compares #OpioidCrisis to #SouthernBorder: ‘So, we’ve got two emergencies, one is treated with an actual action and the other is just to raise awareness.’" Ocasio-Cortez then retweeted it with the comment above, earning nearly 50,000 retweets and likes. (Kessler, 3/12)

In other news on the opioid crisis —

Sacramento Bee: Doctor Sees Bureaucratic Headache In Prescription Form Fix
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Monday a bill meant to give doctors, pharmacists and the California Department of Justice more time to implement new security measures for prescriptions of controlled substances such as opioid pain medications. However, the new law known as Assembly Bill 149 adds a new requirement: that serial numbers on the prescription pads be readable as bar codes by Jan. 2, 2021. (Anderson, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals, Insurers Set To Resist Price Transparency Proposal
Hospitals and insurers are gearing up to battle a Trump administration plan that could require the public disclosure of negotiated prices for medical services, part of an effort to lower U.S. health-care costs. Patient advocates have largely cheered the idea, saying consumers should be able to price shop before they pick a doctor or undergo treatment. But industry groups are attacking the administration’s legal authority to mandate price disclosure, which could upend hospitals’ negotiations with insurers, and are criticizing any requirement as too complex to implement. (Armour and Wilde Mathews, 3/11)

NPR: Trump Makes Bid For 'More Transparency' In Hospital Charges To Insurers
The Trump Administration is weighing whether to require hospitals to publicly reveal the prices they charge insurance companies for medical procedures and services — prices that are currently negotiated in private and kept confidential. The Department of Health and Human services says its aim is to boost competition and cut costs by letting consumers see how prices vary from place to place. But health economists say such "transparency" might not actually bring down costs for patients. (Kodjak, 3/11)

In other hospital news —

Modern Healthcare: Hospitals Don't Want To Help Fund DSH Cut Delays
Hospitals face a potentially Catch-22 fight over a key lobbying priority — $4 billion in Medicaid disproportionate-share hospital cuts slated to start Oct. 1. Lawmakers appear poised to follow through with another delay. But the Senate Finance Committee is also eying simultaneous cuts to other hospital funding streams because, for the first time since DSH cut delays started, Congress now has to find a way to pay for them. This is due to a change to the way Congressional Budget Office scores the delays. (Luthi, 3/11)

Stat: Hospitals Shift Data To The Cloud, As Tech Giants Offer Security And AI 
After years of baby steps, hospitals nationwide are moving increasing amounts of health data into the cloud to guard against malware attacks and seize opportunities to use artificial intelligence to analyze data on patients, operations, and finances. Health care’s shift to centralized data storage on the internet — and away from on-premises server warehouses — seems as dull as the laying of new water pipes in hospital basements. But these pipes are carrying vast amounts of sensitive data as well as the ambitions of dominant vendors such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure — all of which are swiftly ramping up their offerings to win hospital contracts. (Ross, 3/12)

Chicago Tribune: Illinois Hospitals Say They're Not Getting Paid, Question State's Outsourcing Of Medicaid
Last year, Illinois’ governor at the time, Bruce Rauner, revamped and expanded a program for paying for care for millions of Illinois residents, many of them poor. Called Medicaid managed care, the system — in which health insurance companies and organizations administer Medicaid benefits for the state — held the promise of improving care for patients and saving the state money. One year later, the reality is far different, hospital officials say. Payments from the companies are routinely late, and sometimes don’t come at all, hospital officials say. Sinai Health System, for example, which serves many low-income patients, has had to hire a consultant to help it get paid. (Schencker, 3/11)

The New York Times: N.Y. Lawmakers Want To Allow Teenagers To Get Vaccines, Even If Parents Say No
After a measles outbreak in Brooklyn and Rockland County and amid growing concerns about the anti-vaccine movement, a pair of state legislators are proposing allowing minors to receive vaccinations without permission from their parents. The bill would allow any child 14 years or older to be vaccinated and given booster shots for a range of diseases including mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, influenza, hepatitis B and measles, which seemed to be the primary reason for alarm after the recent outbreaks. (McKinley, 3/11)

USA Today: Vaccines: Facts About Vaccines As Tetanus, Mumps, Whooping Cough Rise
Reports about the return of preventable diseases have been spreading almost as fast as the outbreaks themselves, which are often linked to unvaccinated communities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 228 individual cases of measles in 12 states from Jan. 1 to March 7. As recently as 2016, there were 86 such cases nationwide for the whole year. In 2000, the illness was declared eliminated in the U.S. Mumps and pertussis – whooping cough – have also been on the rise in recent years, the CDC said. (Ortiz, 3/12)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Measles Outbreak 2019 Has An Important Lesson About Our Future
There was a time when lax laws in Arizona and more than a dozen other states could accommodate the eccentricities of anti-vaxxers and the uncommon religious beliefs of certain parents. We never needed full compliance to protect the herd. With 93-95 percent of people vaccinated, you could still prevent outbreaks. But eccentricity has turned to fad, and a movement of anti-vaxxers has grown more adroit at recruiting numbers in their communities and in the Legislature. (Boas, 3/11)

St. Louis Public Radio: Health Officials On Alert After Measles Case Confirmed In Jefferson County
Health officials in Jefferson County are trying to find people who may have come in contact with a person there who has caught measles. The person caught the virus after traveling, according to officials at the Jefferson County Health Department. (Fentem, 3/11)

The New York Times: Your Environment Is Cleaner. Your Immune System Has Never Been So Unprepared.
Should you pick your nose? Don’t laugh. Scientifically, it’s an interesting question. Should your children pick their noses? Should your children eat dirt? Maybe: Your body needs to know what immune challenges lurk in the immediate environment. Should you use antibacterial soap or hand sanitizers? No. Are we taking too many antibiotics? Yes. (Richtel, 3/12)

Kaiser Health News: ‘Medieval’ Diseases Flare As Unsanitary Living Conditions Proliferate
Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean is a top priority. But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often littered with needles and trash, and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.“I worry about all those diseases,” said Millar, 43, who said she has been homeless most of her life. (Gorman, 3/12)

The Washington Post: This HIV Pill Saves Lives. So Why Is It So Hard To Get In The Deep South?
Even in a tiny town in the Mississippi Delta, Robert Rowland, an openly gay, single, middle-aged man, has no problem finding sex partners. What he can’t find is PrEP, the once-a-day pill that protects users against HIV infection, or a doctor who knows much about it, or a drugstore that stocks it. So every few months, he said, he drives three hours to Open Arms, the health center here that distributes an estimated 80 percent of these pills in the state. He refills his prescription, updates a nurse on his recent sexual history and gets a quick physical exam. (Bernstein, 3/11)

The New York Times: Incendiary N.R.A. Videos Find New Critics: N.R.A. Leaders
The flash point was Thomas the Tank Engine. Last September, the National Rifle Association’s famously combative spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, provoked widespread outrage when she took to the gun group’s streaming service to mock ethnic diversity on the popular children’s program “Thomas & Friends,” portraying the show’s talking trains in Ku Klux Klan hoods. Now, growing unease over the site’s inflammatory rhetoric, and whether it has strayed too far from the N.R.A.’s core gun-rights mission, has put its future in doubt. (Hakim, 3/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Can Breast Cancer Be Treated Without Surgery?
When Sabrina Jones was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, she expected to have surgery to remove the tumor—and her entire breast. “My first instinct was ‘Get it out, get the cancer out,’” Ms. Jones said. But the 52-year-old manager at an educational-tech company responded so well to chemotherapy, her surgeon at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston informed her that the cancerous tumor was completely gone. He asked her to participate in an experiment in which she skipped surgery altogether. (Lagnado, 3/11)

Reuters: World Must Prepare For Inevitable Next Flu Pandemic, WHO Says
The world will inevitably face another pandemic of flu and needs to prepare for the potential devastation that could cause, and not underestimate the risks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Outlining a global plan to fight the viral disease and get ahead of a potential global outbreak, the WHO said the next influenza pandemic "is a matter of when, not if." (3/11)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Workers Face Violence ‘Epidemic'
It's a problem that happens at far greater rates in the healthcare sector than it does in the private sector overall, according to federal data. In fact, between 2002 and 2013, incidents of serious workplace violence were four times more common in healthcare than in private industry on average, according to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA counts serious workplace violence as incidents requiring days off. (Johnson, 3/11)

Marketplace: Full-Time School Nurses In Short Supply
According to the CDC, rates of diseases like diabetes and epilepsy have surged in children over the past few decades. Mental health needs have increased. Despite this, a 2018 study in the Journal of School Nursing found that fewer than 40 percent of schools employ full-time school nurses. (Feinberg, 3/11)

NPR: Whites Contribute More To Air Pollution — Minorities Bear The Burden
Pollution, much like wealth, is not distributed equally in the United States. Scientists and policymakers have long known that black and Hispanic Americans tend to live in neighborhoods with more pollution of all kinds, than white Americans. And because pollution exposure can cause a range of health problems, this inequity could be a driver of unequal health outcomes across the U.S. (Lambert, 3/11)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: One In Three Kids With ADHD Get No Support Services, New Study Finds
One in three students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not receive any support services at their schools, according to a national study of U.S. schoolchildren. The study — described as the largest of its kind — found that at least one in five students with ADHD receive no school-based services even when they experience significant academic and social impairment. (Giordano, 3/11)

CNN: Tattoo Therapy: How Ink Helps Sexual Assault Survivors Heal
For Olivia Adamson, her body art "is a visual reminder I am still alive. And still OK." What she particularly likes is the ability to touch it: the words "unbreakable" on the right side of her left foot and "survivor" in her aunt's handwriting on the inside of her left wrist. "If I am having a hard time, as soon as I touch my wrist and I run my finger over my word 'survivor,' it helps." Adamson, 24, of Austin, Texas, was sexually assaulted in November 2015 and in January 2016. In both cases, she knew the perpetrator. (Avramova, 3/12)

The Washington Post: New Concern On College Campuses: ‘Drunkorexia,’ A Combination Drinking And Eating Disorder
My college experience included this life-skills lesson: Drink alcohol on a full stomach, so you don’t get inebriated too quickly. Of course, most college students shouldn’t be drinking at all, but we know from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that close to 60 percent of college students ages 18 to 22 do consume alcohol, which makes harm-reducing approaches important. Unfortunately, campus authorities and researchers are reporting a practice that turns the full-stomach drinking strategy on its head: Rather than filling up before a night of partying, significant numbers of students refuse to eat all day before consuming alcohol. (Rosenbloom, 3/11)

CNN: Smoking During Pregnancy Doubles Risk Of Sudden Death For Baby, Study Says
Smoking even one cigarette a day during pregnancy can double the chance of sudden unexpected death for your baby, according to a new study analyzing over 20 million births, including over 19,000 unexpected infant deaths. The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed data on smoking during pregnancy from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's birth/infant death data set between 2007 and 2011 and found that the risk of death rises by .07 for each additional cigarette smoked, up to 20 a day, a typical pack of cigarettes. (LaMotte, 3/11)

Dallas Morning News: Ethiopians Didn't Have A Term For 'Stroke,' So This Dallas Doctor Created One
When Hareg Wolde arrived in the emergency room to see her mother, doctors gave her grave news. Her mother had suffered a massive stroke, they said, and she might not live through the night. Wolde was shocked. Just the day before, her mother, 68, had been strong and limber. She had climbed up and down the stairs of their Garland house with ease, cooked meals and cared for Wolde’s two young children. Now she lay unconscious, her right side paralyzed. (Kuchment, 3/11)

NPR: Transgender Coverage Exclusions From Health Insurance Come Under Fire
When Sgt. Anna Lange moved with her young family from Columbus, Ga., to the state's more rural Houston County, her main priority was being able to stay near her son. After five years of marriage — and many more years of internal turmoil — Lange had realized that despite being assigned male at birth, she'd felt female her entire life. She had decided to undergo gender transition and knew it would eventually end her marriage. She also knew her soon-to-be ex-wife would want to move back home to Houston County, an hour and a half's drive from Columbus. (Landman, 3/12)

The Associated Press: North Carolina Sued Again Over Transgender Rights
North Carolina is being sued again over its treatment of transgender people, as state employees argue that their health plan violated federal law by dropping coverage of medically necessary procedures. The new lawsuit comes amid unresolved litigation over North Carolina's so-called bathroom bill and the law that replaced it. (3/11)

Pioneer Press: Minnesota Senate Approves Plan To Help Cover Health Insurers’ Costs 
The Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate on Monday advanced a proposal to keep subsidizing health insurance companies for three years, setting up a conflict with DFL Gov. Tim Walz and Democrats. The proposal would maintain the reinsurance program, which lets the state absorb some of the expense to private health insurers to offset the cost of care for some of the pricier claims they cover. The Senate voted 37-28 to advance the bill, with some Democrats voting with their GOP peers in favor. Attempts fell short to align the bill with a health insurance rebate plan put forth by Walz. (Ferguson, 3/11)

The Star Tribune: Minn. Senate Vote Sets Up Clash Over Lowering Health Care Costs
The reinsurance program, launched in 2017, uses a combination of state and federal funds to offset health insurer costs for covering plan participants with high medical bills. It has been credited with helping lower premium prices for the roughly 155,000 residents who buy insurance on their own. “Reinsurance works,” Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, said in a statement. “It has been effective in stabilizing the market and proven to be cost-effective for the state.” (Van Oot, 3/12)

Miami Herald: FL Senators Weigh Using Genetic Testing In Insurance Coverage
As interest in commercially available genetic testing kits continues to rise, Florida senators are considering a proposal that would ban genetic test results from being used to deny or limit someone’s life, disability or long-term care insurance coverage. But the bill, which narrowly passed its first state Senate committee stop Monday, faces an uphill climb as some lawmakers and insurance lobbyists say the potential ban would hurt the industry’s ability to anticipate and calculate future risk. (Koh, 3/11)

The New York Times: Black Lawmakers To Block Legalized Marijuana In N.Y. If Their Communities Don’t Benefit
Black lawmakers are blocking a push to legalize recreational marijuana in New York, warning that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal could perpetuate the racial inequality fostered under current drug laws. The lawmakers say that unless people of color are guaranteed a share of the potentially $3 billion industry, there may be no legalization this year. (Wang and Mays, 3/11)

Modern Healthcare: Scripps Supports California Bill To Fight Hospital Violence
The CEO of Scripps Health on Monday voiced support for a California proposal to increase penalties on people who attack hospitals workers. Assembly Bill 329, introduced Jan. 31, mandates up to one year in jail and fines of up to $2,000 for those who assault or batter a healthcare worker inside a hospital. Current California law imposes those penalties only on persons who attack first responders working outside hospitals in emergency situations. (Karash, 3/11)

Georgia Health News: Proposals To Fight HIV Move Forward In General Assembly
The Georgia House has passed legislation to facilitate needle exchange programs to help prevent new infections among intravenous drug users. Such programs allow drug users to get clean needles instead of sharing and reusing the old ones. The chamber has also approved a measure to expand the Medicaid drug formulary, a list of available drugs, to include more HIV medications. (Miller, 3/11)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Democrats Propose Bills Targeting ‘Men’s Reproductive Health'
A pair of Georgia Democrats are planning to file bills that address “men’s reproductive health” as a way to highlight the differences in how health care is treated between the sexes. The proposals would target men’s health and impose restrictions that the sponsors said mimic what is being asked of women. (Prabhu, 3/11)

Politico Pro: Texas Focuses On Teens' Mental Health After School Shooting
State lawmakers are prioritizing teen mental health funding this session in the wake of a Santa Fe school shooting that left 10 people dead last May. The effort echoes congressional Republicans' attempts to address mass shootings with mental health measures, which Democratic critics say distract from gun control legislation. (Rayasam, 3/11)

The CT Mirror: Connecticut Lawmakers Advance Hemp Legislation
A pair of bills allowing commercial hemp farming in Connecticut have cleared their first hurdle, winning unanimous approval from the legislature’s environment committee. Advocates were emboldened by the move, but acknowledged the measures still have a long way to go. (Carlesso, 3/11)

MPR: Senate Committee Torpedoes Legal Marijuana Bill
A Minnesota Senate committee Monday rejected a proposal to legalize marijuana in Minnesota, even rejecting a move by supporters of the bill that tried to change it to create a task force to study the issue. Six Republican members of the Judiciary and Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee repeatedly outvoted three Democrats who tried to keep the issue alive for the session. (Pugmire, 3/11)

The New York Times: Top Officials Resign From Troubled Texas Charity For Migrants
For months, Juan Sanchez was at the center of the national uproar over family separations at the Mexican border because the nonprofit he founded, Southwest Key Programs, was housing migrant children taken from their parents. On Monday, facing intense scrutiny from his own organization and federal investigations over alleged financial improprieties, he stepped down after 32 years at the helm. The charity’s chief financial officer, Melody Chung, left last month after a New York Times article outlined allegations of mismanagement and possible malfeasance at the charity. (Kulish, Barker and Ruiz, 3/11)

Chicago Tribune: Black Chicago Neighborhoods Farther From Trauma Care Than White Areas, Though New U. Of C. Trauma Center Helped 
Chicagoans in mostly black neighborhoods are still more likely to live far from hospital trauma centers than those in white neighborhoods — though the gap has shrunk dramatically since University of Chicago Medicine opened its trauma center last year, according to a new study. Before the trauma center opened — after years of campaigning by activists — Chicagoans in mostly black neighborhoods were 8.5 times more likely than people in mostly white neighborhoods to live in “trauma deserts,” according to the study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open on Friday. (Schencker, 3/11)

The Associated Press: Police Say Shooting At Care Facility Unrelated To Rape Case
The shooting of an armed man outside an Arizona long-term care facility does not appear to be connected to the rape of an incapacitated woman who later gave birth there, authorities said Monday. Phoenix police said the 58-year-old suspect, who was shot by an off-duty officer working security at Hacienda HealthCare, was targeting a woman in the facility's parking lot. Investigators say neither the shooter nor the woman was a resident there. (3/11)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Medicaid Program Warns Of Breach Of Personal Health Information
Arizona's Medicaid program accidentally sent the personal health information of 3,146 members to incorrect physical home addresses, state officials say. An internal AHCCCS investigation was initiated after a programming error caused 3,146 IRS 1095-B forms to be misdirected to incorrect physical home addresses, AHCCCS officials said Monday. (Innes, 3/11)

NH Times Union: Executive Councilors Quiz Bidders On $1B Medicaid Contract
xecutive councilors had some tough questions on Monday for the three companies that want to share a $1 billion contract to run New Hampshire Medicaid for the next five years, especially for the newcomer, Amerihealth Caritas, which bailed out of Iowa’s Medicaid program after a little more than a year in 2017. ...New Hampshire has good reason to be concerned, because it once had three companies managing its Medicaid program. When New Hampshire launched managed care for Medicaid in 2013, three companies won bids to run the government-funded health insurance program for low-income families. (Solomon, 3/11)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City School Menus Go Meatless On Mondays
It’s bye-bye, chicken parmigiana. Hello, veggie tacos, hummus and grilled cheese. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that all New York City public schools will officially have “Meatless Monday,” starting next fall. City schools had already cut meat from their menus on Mondays last fall, except for whatever meat appeared in salad bars, a city Department of Education spokesman said. But the mayor trumpeted the step as a formal new policy that will improve the health of children and the planet. (Brody and West, 3/11)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser's Battle Against Homelessness Uses Data Analytics
The latest project in Kaiser Permanente's effort to address the problem of chronic homelessness will involve using data analytics to more quickly identify patients with housing issues and accelerate interventions. The Oakland, Calif.-based health system announced Monday it was investing $3 million over the next three years to partner with New York-based not-for-profit Community Solutions to help further their efforts to end chronic homelessness in 15 Kaiser patient communities as part of their Built for Zero campaign. (Johnson, 3/11)

San Jose Mercury News: Kaiser Pledges $3 Million To End Homelessness
Kaiser Permanente on Monday pledged $3 million to fight homelessness in several Northern California communities, expanding the healthcare giant’s efforts to eradicate the crisis that has swept through its hometown of Oakland and beyond. Kaiser will partner with Community Solutions’ Built for Zero Initiative, a program that uses data to help local leaders better understand their homeless populations. (Kendall, 3/11)

Boston Globe: Suffolk DA Names ‘Discharge Integrity Team’ To Probe Fatal Police-Involved Shooting
In a break with tradition and in keeping with a campaign promise, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins Monday named a four-person team to oversee the investigation into the use of deadly force by Boston police officers last month. The four-person panel will meet monthly to assess the law enforcement inquiry into the death of 36-year-old Kasim Kahrim who was shot after he exchanged gunfire with two uniformed patrol officers on Feb. 22 in Roxbury, wounding one of the officers. (Ellement, 3/11)

Miami Herald: Why Don’t Florida Nursing Homes And ALFs Allow Medical Pot?
Fears over losing Medicaid and Medicare funding — because federal law still considers all marijuana use illegal — keep most nursing homes and assisted living facilities pot-free, despite recommendations from doctors to card-holding patients who reside there. Medical marijuana is a burgeoning industry in Florida, and seniors are a burgeoning population. (Gross, 3/11)

NH Times Union: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health CEO Named A Top Leader 
Dr. Joanne M. Conroy, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health CEO and President, has been named to Modern Healthcare’s inaugural listing of Women Leaders Luminaries. These are executives whose careers have been defined by reshaping the industry. They’re perennial figures in Modern Healthcare’s recognition programs. (3/11)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: No New Flu Deaths Reported In Cuyahoga County, But Hospitalizations Rise
There were no additional flu-related deaths reported in Cuyahoga, Summit or Medina counties during the week of Feb. 24, but hospitalizations for flu-related illnesses continued to climb in those counties. Cuyahoga County has reported nine deaths this flu season, which started the week of Dec. 30, 2018. (Washington, 3/11)

Los Angeles Times: Accidental Alcohol Poisoning Caused Death Of UC Irvine Student After Party, Coroner Says
The death of a UC Irvine freshman after an off-campus party in January was caused by accidental alcohol poisoning, the Orange County coroner’s office said Monday. Noah Domingo, 18, of La Crescenta died around 3:30 a.m. Jan. 12, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The results of a toxicology report revealed that his blood-alcohol level was about 0.33%. No other substances were detected in Domingo’s system at the time of his death, the Sheriff’s Department said. (Sclafani, 3/11)

Los Angeles Times: Trump’s Budget Priorities Are, Unsurprisingly, Disheartening
The endless press coverage notwithstanding, the details of President Trump’s new $4.7 trillion budget proposal — the cuts here, the increases there — aren’t all that important in the long run. Congress typically ignores most, if not all, of the headline-grabbing initiatives presidents pack into their annual spending blueprints. And with Democrats now controlling the House, Trump’s plan is even more likely to get the doorstop treatment. Still, the budget is a major statement about presidential priorities, and Trump’s are disheartening. In both the overall thrust and many of the smaller details, the budget betrays the president’s desire to put one interest — national security — ahead of all others, and to shift wealth from the lowest-income Americans back to the more affluent. (3/12)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Budget Is Heartless And Whackadoodle
Fair enough: President Trump’s heartless and whackadoodle budget, released on Monday, will never actually become law. Even when his party had unified control of government, he couldn’t get Capitol Hill to take major portions of his budget terribly seriously. Still, a president’s budget plan is a statement of his priorities. And based on this latest statement, Trump’s priorities continue to be redistributing wealth ever upward, from poor to rich, and selling the public more fantasies and lies. (Catherine Rampell, 3/11)

The Hill: Older Americans Will Suffer If White House Cuts HIV Funding
President Trump’s latest proposal would allow health insurance plans to limit the HIV/AIDs medications they cover through Medicare Part D. Patients relying on Medicare Part D, would be one of six “protected classes” now denied access to their needed medicines. The proposal is shortsighted, as it surely will not save the costs projected in the proposed budget. This is because of the rise in health costs, hospitalization and far more expensive acute treatment and strains on health systems, including in the mental health arena. (Michael W. Hodin, 3/11)

The Hill: 'Medicare For All' Doesn't Address Necessary Doctor Incentives
As House Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash..), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, prepare a proposal for “Medicare for All,” there’s another big problem in American health care that needs fixing. Insurers, payers and administrators must re-incentivize physicians to listen patiently and attentively to the stories patients have to tell. To tell one’s story and have the doctor hear, acknowledge and use that story as the basis for diagnosis and treatment of whatever is causing suffering is the point of going to the doctor, after all. But these days, doctors are shackled to electronic medical record (EMR) checklists that demand their attention to the laptop screen and distract from attentive communication with the patient. (Lara Ronan, 3/11)

Georgia Health News: CMS Mapping Tool On Prescriptions Helps Communities Fight Opioid Crisis
Leveraging community partnerships and critical data is one of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ key strategies to help tailor prevention and treatment efforts to combat the opioid crisis, particularly in rural communities. With that aim, CMS launched an expanded version of the Opioid Prescribing Mapping Tool, ensuring that CMS and our partners have the most complete and current data needed to effectively address the opioid epidemic across the country. (Jean Moody-Williams, 3/10)

Bloomberg: More Gun Research Will Lead To Better Firearm Policies
A congressional subcommittee held a hearing last week on the state of gun violence research in the U.S. The conclusion? It’s shamefully incomplete.As Andrew Morral of the Rand Corporation testified, “We know little about gun violence and its prevention compared to other safety and health threats, because the federal government has not had a comprehensive program of research in these areas for decades.” (3/11)

Stat: Let All Doctors Prescribe Buprenorphine For Opioid Use Disorder
The day each of us received our licenses from the Drug Enforcement Administration, we were able to write prescriptions for oxycodone and fentanyl, two drugs that have fueled the opioid overdose epidemic. But we couldn’t prescribe buprenorphine, a far safer partial opioid that is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder, without getting additional training, a special license with a number that begins with “X,” and agreeing to allow DEA agents to inspect our patient records. That doesn’t make sense to us, especially as our country is in the midst of an overdose epidemic. (Kevin Fiscella and Sarah E. Wakeman, 3/12)

The New York Times: How The Supreme Court Could Bring More Guns To New York City
A case before the Supreme Court this term could significantly affect whether densely populated cities like New York have the right to set their own gun policies. At a glance, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York is a limited dispute. It pits residents who have “premises licenses,” which allow them to possess guns only at their homes, against a New York City ordinance that restricts their travel with their weapons to shooting ranges and clubs within city borders. If the petitioners — a gun advocacy group along with three of these individuals — prevail, those with premises licenses will be allowed to take their handguns with them to out-of-town ranges. Not a big deal, right? (Jonathan M. Metzl, 3/11)

Stat: Biomarkup: Creating Or Promoting Medical Tests To Drive Revenue 
Tests aimed at our complex and ever-changing anatomy and physiology will catch states that may signal disease or may be incidental or fleeting. Because of this, some people are “overdiagnosed” and treated for conditions they do not have. Convincing estimates suggest that between 22 percent and 31 percent of women who are treated for breast cancer that was diagnosed by a mammogram (a radiographic biomarker) don’t have cancer. Instead, the mammogram detected something that would have not caused a problem or would have faded away. Treatment of overdiagnoses and false positives in breast cancer costs the U.S. health system $4 billion a year. The push for more screening and diagnostic testing can be traced in part to economics or, put more bluntly, revenue. (Kenneth D. Mandl and Arjun K. Manra, 3/12)

Los Angeles Times: Measles Outbreaks Show That Parents Who Skip Child Vaccinations Should Pay A Stiff Price
The outbreak of anti-vaccine ignorance that has produced an alarming nationwide series of measles also has rekindled a simmering debate over the non-vaccinating parents’ legal exposure: Should they be held liable for the threat their inaction has posed to innocent victims, and subjected to financial damages? (Michael Hiltzik, 3/11)

Arizona Republic: Curing An Onset Of Measles, Mumps And Ignorance
Arizona now has a confirmed case of measles with more expected. There also have been cases of the mumps. Each illness apparently spread by an epidemic of ignorance. Good news, however.There is a vaccine available for all three ailments. (EJ Montini, 3/10)

The New York Times: How To Make Sex More Dangerous
I cried the first time I saw a naked man. As a young woman growing up in a conservative Catholic household, I couldn’t even look at my own genitals, and thought I would go to hell for masturbating. The abstinence-only education I received — at school, at home, in the church — left me with years of shame, isolation and fear. I’ve watched the recent battles over allowing comprehensive sex ed in Colorado, Utah and Idaho, and I know how much is at stake for children. As a sex educator and entrepreneur, I’ve spoken with thousands of similarly miseducated young people, and I know the mental and physiological damage it can inflict. (Barrica, 3/11)

Sacramento Bee: Support SB 464 Help Keep Child Birth While Black Safe In CA
The California Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act, Senate Bill 464, authored with Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) — co-sponsored by Western Center on Law & Poverty, ACT for Women and Girls, Black Women for Wellness, and NARAL Pro-Choice California — was introduced in the State Legislature to address this issue. The bill would require all perinatal healthcare providers to undergo implicit bias training to curb the impact of bias on maternal health. (Holley Mitchell and Courtney McKinney, 3/10)

Sacramento Bee: STIs: Time To Address California’s Worst Public Health Crisis
In recent years, California has seen a record rise in cases of STIs and a spike in the number of stillbirths caused by syphilis. California now ranks first among all states for the total number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. (Scott Wiener and Todd Gloria, 3/8)

Tampa Bay Times: More Eyes On Pediatric Heart Programs
It should not take the deaths of young heart patients to spur action and better oversight of Florida’s cardiac programs. But the rising mortality rate at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital Pediatric Heart Institute revealed major gaps in how the state monitors quality of care and responds to problems. State lawmakers are right to consider legislation that would tighten oversight and better protect these fragile young patients. (3/8)