Latest KFF Health News Stories
Each week, KHN’s Shefali Luthra finds interesting reads from around the Web.
Media outlets report on news from Mississippi, Alabama, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and D.C.
Whether it’s conversation at this week’s Academy Health’s Datapalooza conference or on Twitter, medical experts are weighing in about the positives and not-so-positive roles being played by artificial intelligence and other forms of technology in health care settings.
How Viruses Tag-Team With Bacteria To Trick Immune System By Providing A Decoy
A chance observation a few years ago has provided insight into how viruses and bacteria work together during infections. In other public health news: pain, pedestrian deaths, mental health, allergies, ADHD, genetics, and mosquitoes.
Measles Outbreaks Tests Already Fractured Trust Orthodox Jewish Community Has With Local Governments
Rockland County, New York, besieged by one of the country’s largest measles outbreaks, took the unusual step of banning all vaccinated children from public places. Many of those effected by the outbreak are from the Orthodox Jewish community, and advocates worry the government’s response could strain an already distrustful relationship.
First Liver Transplant From An HIV Donor Succeeds; Leaving This Kind Of Legacy ‘Was Quite Important’
There used to be a ban on using organs from people with the AIDS virus. “Here’s a disease that in the past was a death sentence and now has been so well-controlled that it offers people with that disease an opportunity to save somebody else,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, a Johns Hopkins surgeon.
New York Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit says the Sackler family’s monetary moves were fraudulent, on the basis that the company was already insolvent or close to it. The suit is just the latest legal fight facing the Sackler family for its role in the opioid crisis. Meanwhile, departing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has laid out his vision for a new brand of painkillers.
From April through December 2018, outside inspectors found deficiencies that caused “actual harm” to veterans at 52 out of the 99 VA nursing homes they reviewed. “That is really bad. It’s really bad,” said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a New York-based nonprofit advocate of nursing home care improvement.
The commercial also states that most patients pay between zero and $47 a month, depending on insurance coverage and eligibility for financial-assistance programs. Listing drug prices in TV ads has been a topic of fierce debate recently: proponents see it as a way to increase transparency, but critics say it’s meaningless at best and confusing for consumers at worst.
As former Vice President Joe Biden mulls a presidential run, his past with abortion rights could become baggage as he runs in a party that’s shifted further away from the antiabortion movement. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) highlights the divide that’s growing between incrementalist candidates and progressive ones.
According to Politico, CMS staffers’ objections about the deals — which use federal funds for Republican-connected communication consultants to help CMS Administrator Seema Verma — were ignored in some cases. The agency’s use of outside contracts and subcontracts is legal, but experts and current officials say it is not transparent and raises ethical questions.
Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have had their work requirements approved by the federal government, and several other states have requests pending with the Trump administration. But a judge this week ruled that the new restrictions are illegal, leaving the future uncertain for many.
President Donald Trump said Republican senators will come up with a “spectacular” plan to replace the health law, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear he’s happy to hear what the White House comes up with but won’t be leading the way in crafting new legislation. Other Republican lawmakers are discussing alternatives.
Implementing association health plans available outside the strict requirements of the health law was framed by the White House as an affordable alternative, but U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia saw it differently. “The final rule is clearly an end-run around the ACA,” wrote Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush. “Indeed, as the president directed, and the secretary of labor confirmed, the final rule was designed to expand access to AHPs to avoid the most stringent requirements of the ACA.” It was the second blow this week to Trump administration’s health care efforts.
In the peak of the HIV epidemic in 1992, more than 2,300 new, full-blown AIDS cases were diagnosed in San Francisco. In 2017, the most recent official statistics available, 221 people were diagnosed with HIV, and that number is only expected to drop. The city may serve as a model to follow as the Trump administration works toward its goal of eradicating the virus.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Doughnut Hole Is Gone, But Medicare’s Uncapped Drug Costs Still Bite Into Budgets
Beneficiaries pay 25 percent of the price of their brand-name drugs until they reach $5,100 in out-of-pocket costs. After that, their obligation drops to 5 percent. But it never disappears.
Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Health Care’s Back (In Court)
It’s been a wild week for health policy, mostly because of developments surrounding two different legal cases. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner join KHN’s Julie Rovner to sort it out with a discussion of a setback for Medicaid work requirements and the Trump administration’s decision to back a lawsuit claiming the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Also, Rovner interviews filmmaker Mike Eisenberg about his movie “To Err Is Human: A Patient Safety Documentary.”
Nation’s First HIV-To-HIV Kidney Transplant With Living Donor Succeeds
The organ transplant from a living donor opens up the universe of available organs.
Editorial pages focus on the GOP’s proposals to keep chipping away at and ultimately destroy the Health Law and the Democrats plans to shore it up.