First Edition: August 7, 2015

Kaiser Health News: Study Casts Doubt On Assumptions About Hospital ‘Frequent Fliers’
"Super-utilizers are the frequent fliers of the health care system, whose serious illnesses send them to the hospital multiple times every year and cost the system hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Figuring out how best to address these patients’ needs and reduce their financial impact on the health care system is a subject of intense interest among policymakers. Now a new study has found that, in contrast to the notion that “once a super-utilizer, always a super-utilizer,” many patients who use health care services intensely do so for a relatively brief period of time. (Andrews, 8/7)

Kaiser Health News: Patients In Iowa Worry About Private Management Of Medicaid
Brenda Hummel’s 7-year-old daughter Andrea was born with severe epilepsy. Like many children with significant diseases or disabilities, she has health insurance through Medicaid. Hummel navigated Iowa’s Medicaid resources for years to find just the right doctors and care for her daughter. But now Iowa’s governor, Republican Terry Branstad, is moving full speed ahead with a plan to put private companies in charge of managing Medicaid’s services, and that has Hummel worried. (Masters, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug-Plan Managers Wield ‘Potent Weapon’
CVS Health Corp.’s decision to stop covering Pfizer Inc.’s anti-impotence pill Viagra for many of its drug-benefit plan members is the latest example of the tough tactics some health-care managers are using to control rising drug costs. CVS and rival Express Scripts Holding Co., which together dominate the U.S. market for administering drug-benefit plans for employers and insurers, are excluding more drugs from coverage if there are viable alternatives in attempts to squeeze greater price discounts from manufacturers. The pharmacy-benefit managers, or PBMs, are steering patients to other drugs they say have equivalent safety and efficacy, but at lower costs. (Loftus, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Mitch McConnell Sees No Government Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood Fight
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Thursday beat back suggestions that a fight over federal funding for Planned Parenthood would end in a government shutdown this fall, putting him at odds with the conservative wing of the Republican base as the issue spreads into the presidential race. (Hughes, 8/6)

Politico: Mitch McConnell: GOP Shouldn’t Shut Down Government Over Planned Parenthood
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans should not use a must-pass government spending bill to defund Planned Parenthood, despite increasing pressure from conservatives who want to use a threat of a shutdown to target the embattled women’s health group. In a wide-ranging news conference with reporters Thursday, McConnell warned of the consequences for Republicans if the party triggers a government shutdown over a controversial policy dispute, like the GOP did with Obamacare in 2013. (Kim, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Trump Roils First Debate Among GOP Contenders
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee disagreed sharply over changes to Social Security and other entitlements. Christie argues that fiscal realities make cutbacks inevitable, while Huckabee has insisted that the safety net for the elderly must be preserved. ... The Republicans voiced outrage over recently surfaced clandestine videos of Planned Parenthood employees discussing the harvesting of organs from aborted fetuses. ... The Fox moderators put [former Florida Gov. Jeb] Bush on the defensive over his role on the board of former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s charitable foundation, which supported Planned Parenthood. ... [Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, a recent entrant into the race, sought to make the most of his turn on the main debate stage. He delivered impassioned defenses of his expansion of Medicaid in Ohio to help lift up the poor as well as on gay rights. (Tumulty and Rucker, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Candidates Hold Raucous Debate
The result was a two-hour debate that underscored just how unwieldy the GOP primary campaign will be, despite the party leadership’s efforts to make the process more orderly and less damaging to the eventual nominee than 2012. ... At points throughout the night, Mr. Trump was forced to defend the number of times he has filed for bankruptcy, his support for government-funded, universal health insurance and the donations he has given to Mrs. Clinton and her family’s foundation. (O'Connor, Hook and Ballhaus, 8/7)

Los Angeles Times: Republicans Try To Find Footing In Race By Attacking Trump, And Each Other, In 1st Debate
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who had been seen as the party’s most likely nominee earlier in the campaign, sought to regain his footing after comments on immigration, women’s health and the Iraq war that had made him a target from both the left and right. ... Over two hours, the candidates were quizzed on prominent issues including the fight against the Islamic State and the Iran nuclear deal reached last month, as well as the recent controversy over funding Planned Parenthood, same-sex marriage, healthcare and the economy. The candidates’ jabs at one another were sometimes veiled ones, while others directed at the president and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton more blunt. (Mascaro, Mehta and Memoli, 8/6)

The Associated Press: FACT CHECK: GOP Candidates Veer From The Truth In 1st Debate
BUSH: "You get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something that doesn't suppress wages and kill jobs." THE FACTS: According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent in March 2010, when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. In June of this year, it had fallen to 5.3 percent. The economy has added more than 12 million jobs since March 2010. While the health care law doesn't seem to have had a major impact on jobs, some lesser consequences are likely. The Congressional Budget Office projected that having government subsidized health insurance will prompt some people to leave the labor market, since they can get coverage without a job. And although Republicans may be able to repeal Obama's law, it's unclear if and how they would replace it. (Lederman, 8/7)

USA Today: The GOP Primary Debate: Five Takeaways
JOHN KASICH’S HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE ... The Ohio governor barely cracked the top 10 field, but the home-state setting played to his advantage. Kasich, who has battled image problems about his temper, offered a compassionate conservative stance defending his expansion of Medicaid and acceptance of gay marriage as the law of the land. (Davis, 8/7)

Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton Meets With Healthcare Workers
Hillary Clinton brought her presidential campaign to Los Angeles on Thursday, telling home healthcare workers that she wants to improve their working conditions, training and wages so more people can remain at home as they age. Clinton met with eight women, all of whom had either worked in home healthcare or hired someone for care-giving, for a round table discussion at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. (Karlamangla, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Planned Parenthood Clinics Challenge Florida Action Against Them
Three Planned Parenthood Federation of America clinics in Florida are fighting back after Florida’s health agency ordered them to stop performing second-trimester abortions because they lacked the proper licenses. Planned Parenthood said it was in full compliance with Florida law and that the report released on Wednesday by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration falsely said the clinics performed unlicensed procedures. (Armour, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: 5 Things To Know About Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been thrust into a political fracas following the release of five undercover videos by an antiabortion group that show Planned Parenthood officials discussing obtaining fetal tissue for research. Republicans are seeking to halt federal funding of the organization, though an attempt in the Senate was blocked. (Armour, 8/6)

The Associated Press: No Kansas Reports On Fetal Tissue In 15 Years
Kansas has received no reports on the handling of fetal tissue in the 15 years that the information has been required whenever such tissue is transferred, the state health department has disclosed amid a national debate over abortion providers' practices. The three abortion providers in the state say they don't have programs for the legal donation of fetal tissue for research by women who've terminated their pregnancies, and follow all state and federal laws. There are also no records to indicate that any other entities, such as hospitals, have had reportable transfers. (8/6)

The Washington Post: Hospital In Maryland Suburb To Become Outpatient Facility By 2018
Plans to convert most of Laurel Regional Hospital to an outpatient facility are stirring concern among residents and community leaders who say they are worried about losing jobs and medical services in an area that is far from other hospitals. (Koh, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times/Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta Hospital Improperly Billed Rape Victims
Georgia's largest public hospital improperly charged more than 730 rape victims for forensic exams, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation has found. Under state law, Grady Memorial Hospital is supposed to provide rape exams free to victims and send the bills to a special state fund billing them is considered as unfair as a shooting victim paying police to dust the weapon for fingerprints. (Mariano, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Rural Maryland Sees Jobs, Not Vice, In Medical Marijuana
Washington County is a proudly conservative place. Voters here haven’t backed a Democrat for president since 1964, and same-sex marriage lost by a landslide in a referendum three years ago. But when Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries pitched a proposal to put a medical-marijuana production plant here, the county’s five county commissioners — Republicans all — passed a resolution unanimously supporting the plan. (Dresser, 8/6)

NPR: Can A 32-Year-Old Doctor Cure Baltimore's Ills?
Neighborhoods in Baltimore are still struggling to recover from the riots that broke out following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who suffered a fatal injury to his spine while in police custody. In the aftermath of the unrest, we here at NPR spent many hours trying to understand the raw anger on display. We looked at police brutality, economic disparities and housing segregation in Baltimore. Our conversations eventually led us to Leana Wen. (Cornish, 8/6)