First Edition: August 14, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Feds Urge States To Encourage Cheaper Plans Off The Exchanges
For those who make too much money to qualify for health insurance subsidies on the individual market, there may be no Goldilocks moment when shopping for a plan. No choice is just right. A policy with an affordable premium may come with a deductible that’s too high. If the copayments for physician visits are reasonable, the plan may not include their preferred doctors. (Andrews, 8/14)

Kaiser Health News: ‘No One Is Ever Really Ready’: Aid-In-Dying Patient Chooses His Last Day
In the end, it wasn’t easy for Aaron McQ to decide when to die. The 50-year-old Seattle man — a former world traveler, triathlete and cyclist — learned he had leukemia five years ago, followed by an even grimmer diagnosis in 2016: a rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. An interior and urban designer who legally changed his given name, McQ had been in pain and physical decline for years. Then the disease threatened to shut down his ability to swallow and breathe. (Aleccia, 8/14)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: The Latest On Workplace Wellness Programs
Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby joins a discussion on Cleveland’s WCLV about current thinking on workplace wellness programs. In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine is pushing a Cleveland Clinic-inspired wellness plan for Ohio’s Medicaid population. Appleby outlines how these wellness plans have historically functioned, their pros, cons and the recent regulatory developments around them. (8/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Tech Giants Pledge To Ease Patient, Provider Access To Health Data
Major tech companies committed Monday to removing technological barriers that have hindered patient and provider access to health-care data online. At a Trump administration event focused on developing more health-care apps, companies including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. unit Google and Microsoft Corp. said they would “share the common quest to unlock the potential in health care data, to deliver better outcomes at lower costs.” (McKinnon, 8/13)

The Hill: Tech Companies Earn White House Praise For Committing To Easier Health Data Access 
Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle, along with the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), all pledged their support to improving healthcare data interoperability. The pledges came during Monday's Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference. "Today’s announcements represent a watershed moment toward fostering more innovation in America’s healthcare systems," White House senior advisor Matt Lira said in a statement to The Hill. (Breland, 8/13)

The Hill: Patients Often End Up With Expensive Medical Bills, Even When They Go To In-Network Facilities: Analysis 
About 1 in 6 hospital stays for patients enrolled in large employer health plans results in out-of-network bills, which tend to be costly and not fully covered by insurance, according to an analysis released Monday. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) study of medical bills from large employer plans found that 18 percent of inpatient admissions result in out-of-network claims. (Hellmann, 8/13)

Reuters: Icahn Reverses Position On Cigna-Express Scripts Deal
Activist investor Carl Icahn said on Monday that he no longer intended to solicit proxies to vote against the $52 billion Cigna-Express Scripts deal, a turn around from his position last week when he urged the health insurer's shareholders to vote against it. Icahn's comments come after proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis & Co and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc (ISS), as well as hedge fund Glenview Capital Management, extended their support for the deal. (8/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Icahn Backs Down On Cigna-Express Scripts Deal
Cigna has said Mr. Icahn doesn’t understand the dynamics of health care and appeared to be betting against the deal for a profit. It called his opposition “misguided and shortsighted” in a statement last week. Mr. Icahn said in his statement that he informed the Securities and Exchange Commission he will no longer solicit proxies to vote against the transaction. (Lombardo, 8/13)

USA Today: Teen Vaping: FDA Weighs Ban On Flavored E-Cigarette Liquid
Teen vaping is at the tipping point before possible epidemic levels, federal officials and public health advocates agree, but they're feuding over how fast and far to go to rein in the booming electronic cigarette industry. Some of the health groups that sued the Food and Drug Administration for delaying regulation of vape products by four years charged last week that the agency let several new devices similar to the youth-favored Juul hit the market without approval. (O'Donnell, Alltucker and Chu, 8/13)

The Associated Press: White House Called Toxins Contamination ‘PR Nightmare'
Lauren Woeher wonders if her 16-month-old daughter has been harmed by tap water contaminated with toxic industrial compounds used in products like nonstick cookware, carpets, firefighting foam and fast-food wrappers. Henry Betz, at 76, rattles around his house alone at night, thinking about the water his family unknowingly drank for years that was tainted by the same contaminants, and the pancreatic cancers that killed wife Betty Jean and two others in his household. (Knickmeyer, 8/13)

Stat: The Future Of RNAi Medicine Is Exciting — But Incredibly Uncertain
On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever drug to rely on a Nobel-prize-winning technique that mutes disease-causing genes — a watershed moment for that field of research, and a starting pistol for the race to find a way to use the therapy for other debilitating genetic diseases like ALS or Huntington’s. But already, a major question looms: What if the technique won’t work in other parts of the body? The first-ever RNAi drug, patisiran, targets the liver. So, too, do similar, already-approved therapies in the broader category of “sequence-based drugs.” There’s a simple reason for that: The liver is an easy target. The liver is the body’s filter; if something is in your blood, it will eventually pass into the organ. (Sheridan, 8/13)

The New York Times: To Address School Shootings, U.S. Wants Students To Learn Bleeding-Control Techniques
In a nod to the sad reality that shootings at the nation’s schools are far too prevalent, the United States government will award a $1.8 million grant to create a program to teach high school students proper bleeding-control techniques. The goal of the program, called School-Age Trauma Training, is “to enhance a bystander’s ability to take decisive, lifesaving action to assist victims with traumatic injuries,” according to the Department of Homeland Security, which posted notice of the grant online last month. (Gomez, 8/13)

The New York Times: They Thought Hemophilia Was A ‘Lifelong Thing.’ They May Be Wrong.
Scientists are edging closer to defeating a longtime enemy of human health: hemophilia, the inability to form blood clots. After trying for decades to develop a gene therapy to treat this disease, researchers are starting to succeed. In recent experiments, brief intravenous infusions of powerful new treatments have rid patients — for now, at least — of a condition that has shadowed them all their lives. (Kolata, 8/13)

The New York Times: Clues To Your Health Are Hidden At 6.6 Million Spots In Your DNA
Scientists have created a powerful new tool to calculate a person’s inherited risks for heart disease, breast cancer and three other serious conditions. By surveying changes in DNA at 6.6 million places in the human genome, investigators at the Broad Institute and Harvard University were able to identify many more people at risk than do the usual genetic tests, which take into account very few genes. (Kolata, 8/13)

The Associated Press: Multi-Gene Test May Find Risk For Heart Disease And More
"What I foresee is in five years, each person will know this risk number, this 'polygenic risk score,' similar to the way each person knows his or her cholesterol," said Dr. Sekar Kathiresan who led the research team from the Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. (Neergaard, 8/13)

The New York Times: With Short, Intense Sessions, Some Patients Finish Therapy In Just Weeks
Six middle- and high-school students sat around a table on a Monday afternoon, watching a psychologist write three letters on a whiteboard: O-C-D. “What does O.C.D. stand for?” the psychologist, Avital Falk, asked the group. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder,” answered a timid 12-year-old boy wearing a blue blazer and red tie. “What makes it a disorder?” Dr. Falk asked.“Because it’s messing up our lives,” said Sydney, a chatty 14-year-old with long red hair. (Petersen, 8/13)

The New York Times: Lyme Disease Is Spreading Fast. Why Isn’t There A Vaccine?
We’ve all heard the advice about avoiding Lyme disease. If you walk through wooded or grassy areas where it’s prevalent, you should use insect repellent. Cover exposed skin. Check yourself thoroughly once you return home, and take a shower. If you see a tick, pluck it off your skin with tweezers. Look out for a bull’s eye-shaped rash and flulike symptoms in the summer. About 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year, making it the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in the United States. That number has tripled over the last 20 years. And experts estimate that the actual number of cases — not just those that happen to be reported to the agency — is more like 300,000 per year. (Zraick, 8/14)

The Washington Post: Prenatal Tdap Vaccine: Kaiser Permanente Study Shows No Link With Autism In Children
New research has shown that a common childhood vaccination given to pregnant women does not put their children at any increased risk of autism. A Kaiser Permanente study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics found no association between the prenatal Tdap (for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, also known as whooping cough) vaccine and autism spectrum disorder when looking at tens of thousands of children in the hospital system. It is the latest in a long line of studies showing that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Despite the abundant scientific evidence, a persistent conspiracy theory has misled some parents into fearing vaccines. (Bever, 8/13)

NPR: Laser Treatments May Help Some Women's Vaginal Pain
Women struggling with symptoms like vaginal dryness and pain during sex, may be drawn to treatments, marketed as "vaginal rejuvenation," that claim to fix such issues. Providers who offer the treatments, often dermatologists or plastic surgeons' offices, often claim they can not only cure discomfort, but also tighten the vagina and give it a more "youthful appearance." Recently the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to health care providers and their patients, effectively saying, please don't try to "rejuvenate" vaginas. (Watson, 8/13)

The Washington Post: Are Rich People More Likely To Lie, Cheat, Steal?
What is about money that makes people do bad things? It seems a fair question when the news is dominated by misdeeds of the rich and powerful. The Paul Manafort trial, now entering its third week, has revealed details of his alleged crimes: defrauding banks out of tens of millions of dollars, evading taxes by stashing huge sums in offshore accounts and using riches earned through unregistered work for foreign governments to buy $15,000 ostrich and python jackets. (Wan, 8/13)

Stat: Medical Students Are Skipping Class, Making Lectures Increasingly Obsolete 
The future doctors of America cut class. Not to gossip in the bathroom or flirt behind the bleachers. They skip to learn — at twice the speed. Some medical students follow along with class remotely, watching sped-up recordings of their professors at home, in their pajamas. Others rarely tune in. At one school, attendance is so bad that a Nobel laureate recently lectured to mostly empty seats. (Farber, 8/14)

The New York Times: He Signed The Denial Letter. Now He Helps Former N.F.L. Players Get Their Benefits
Retired N.F.L. players struggling with debilitating injuries years after they leave the field have a not-so-facetious way of describing the league’s approach to doling out their health benefits: “Delay, deny and hope you die.” Enter Paul Scott. (Belson, 8/14)

The Washington Post: Experts Say Maryland May Not Have Acted Quickly Enough To Save Football Player
Nearly 40 minutes after a 911 call was placed, Jordan McNair arrived at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park with a body temperature of 106 degrees, according to a hospital medical report. Once admitted, the 19-year-old Maryland football player was covered with ice and cold water, a cooling method known as cold-water immersion. It took 12 minutes for his body to cool to 102 degrees, which one medical expert called “a much, much safer temperature.” (Dougherty, 8/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Cities Oppose Plan To Allow Pot Delivery In Areas Where Sales Are Banned
California cities on Monday objected to a state proposal that would allow marijuana delivery to homes in areas where storefront pot sales have been banned locally. The changes, which are being considered by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, “will undermine a city’s ability to effectively regulate cannabis at the local level,” Charles Harvey, a legislative representative for the League of California Cities, said in a letter to the bureau. (McGreevy, 8/14)