First Edition: August 7, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Once Its Greatest Foes, Doctors Are Embracing Single-Payer
When the American Medical Association — one of the nation’s most powerful health care groups — met in Chicago this June, its medical student caucus seized an opportunity for change. Though they had tried for years to advance a resolution calling on the organization to drop its decades-long opposition to single-payer health care, this was the first time it got a full hearing. The debate grew heated — older physicians warned their pay would decrease, calling younger advocates naïve to single-payer’s consequences. But this time, by the meeting’s end, the AMA’s older members had agreed to at least study the possibility of changing its stance. (Luthra, 8/7)

California Healthline: Medicaid Expansion Making Diabetes Meds More Accessible To Poor, Study Shows 
Low-income people with diabetes are better able to afford their medications and manage their disease in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a new study suggests. The Health Affairs study, released Monday afternoon, found a roughly 40 percent increase in the number of prescriptions filled for diabetes drugs in Medicaid programs of the 30 states (including Washington, D.C.) that expanded eligibility in 2014 and 2015, compared with prior years. (Bartolone, 8/6)

Kaiser Health News: How Genetic Tests Muddy Your Odds Of Getting A Long-Term-Care Policy 
In general, long-term-care insurers can indeed use genetic test results when they decide whether to offer you coverage. The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act prohibits health insurers from asking for or using your genetic information to make decisions about whether to sell you health insurance or how much to charge. But those rules don’t apply to long-term-care, life or disability insurance. (Andrews, 8/7)

The New York Times: Trump’s Short-Term Health Insurance Policies Quickly Run Into Headwinds
The Trump administration’s efforts to allow health insurers to market short-term medical plans as a cheap alternative to the Affordable Care Act are already running into headwinds, with state insurance regulators resisting the sales and state governments moving to restrict them. State insurance regulators, gathered over the past three days for a meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, expressed deep concern that short-term plans were being aggressively marketed in ways likely to mislead consumers. Many said the plans, which need not comply with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandates, were a poor substitute for comprehensive insurance. (Pear, 8/6)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Democrats Seize On Cherry-Picked Claim That ‘Medicare-For-All’ Would Save $2 Trillion
As our colleague David Weigel reported, Democrats have latched onto the catchy idea of “Medicare-for-all” (also known as M4A) as a way of expressing their support for universal health care. On July 30, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University released a working paper on the 10-year fiscal impact of the Medicare-for-all plan sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The report was written by Charles Blahous, a former economic adviser to George W. Bush and a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 2010 through 2015. (Kessler, 8/7)

The Associated Press: Could Hard-Right Supreme Court Haunt GOP? History Says Maybe
It's of little worry for Republicans or solace for Democrats bracing for battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Yet history suggests that if President Donald Trump cements an assertively conservative court for a generation, the GOP may ultimately pay a political price. When and how steep? That depends on how momentous the issues and how jolting the decisions, according to legal scholars who've studied the high court's impact on electoral politics. (Fram, 8/7)

Politico: Dems Zero In On Kavanaugh Ties To Judge In Sexual Harassment Scandal
Senate Democrats are gearing up to press Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his decades-long relationship with former Judge Alex Kozinski, who was forced into retirement last year by a mounting sexual harassment scandal. It’s not just what, if anything, Kavanaugh saw during his time as a Kozinski clerk in the early 1990s that’s on Democratic minds. They also want to know how President Donald Trump’s high court pick would address the judiciary’s ongoing internal reckoning with sexual misconduct that was sparked by Kozinski — one of Kavanaugh’s early mentors who introduced the younger appellate court judge at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006. (Schor, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: GM Cuts Different Type Of Health-Care Deal
General Motors Co. has struck a deal with a Detroit-based hospital system to offer a new coverage option to employees, upending the traditional benefits setup in an attempt to lower costs and improve care. The auto maker’s agreement with Henry Ford Health System covers everything from doctor visits to surgical procedures. By signing a contract directly with one health-care provider, as other companies have done, GM says it can offer a plan that costs employees less than other options while also promising special customer-service perks and quality standards. (Wilde Mathews, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Carl Icahn To Publicly Oppose $54 Billion Cigna-Express Scripts Deal
Carl Icahn is going public with his campaign to scuttle Cigna Corp.’s $54 billion plan to buy Express Scripts Holding Co. The billionaire activist investor plans to send an open letter Tuesday urging fellow Cigna shareholders to vote against the deal, which he calls a “$60 billion folly” carrying a “ridiculous” price tag, according to a draft seen by The Wall Street Journal. (Lombardo, 8/6)

The Hill: Trump Officials Take New Step To Encourage Opioid Abuse Treatments
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday took a step to encourage the development of more drugs to treat opioid addiction. The FDA issued guidance to encourage the development of more drugs that can be used in what is known as Medication Assisted Treatment, a leading way to treat people with opioid addiction, through using certain drugs to reduce dependence on opioids. (Sullivan, 8/6)

Stat: FDA Will Expand The Way It Considers Medication-Assisted Treatment 
Now, rather than merely examining whether a potential treatment reduces opioid use, the agency will consider factors like whether a drug could reduce overdose rates or the transmission of infectious diseases. “We must consider new ways to gauge success beyond simply whether a patient in recovery has stopped using opioids, such as reducing relapse overdoses and infectious disease transmission,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. (Facher, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Jails, Prisons Slowly Loosen Resistance To Addiction Meds
Four inmates sit silently in the library of the Franklin County House of Correction one summer morning. But these men aren't here to read books. Under the supervision of a nurse and two corrections officers, they're taking their daily dose of buprenorphine. The drug, often known by the brand name Suboxone, is meant to control their heroin cravings and is commonly smuggled into jails and prisons. (8/7)

Stat: Congress Requests Sackler Deposition That Purdue Is Fighting To Keep Sealed 
Among the documents House lawmakers requested last week from opioid painkiller manufacturers is a deposition of the former president of Purdue Pharma — Dr. Richard Sackler — which is also being sought by STAT through the courts in Kentucky. The letters, sent Thursday by a bipartisan group of members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Purdue, Mallinckrodt, and Insys Therapeutics, ask for a broad range of documents related to the companies’ marketing strategies and what they knew about their drugs’ potential for abuse and when. But the letter to Purdue also specifies that the committee wants to see an unredacted copy of the deposition by Sackler, who is also a member of the family that owns the company. (Joseph, 8/6)

Stat: Can An App's Warnings To Avoid Triggers Prevent Opioid Addiction Relapses? 
It’s from Hey,Charlie, an app — conceived at a 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology health hackathon — that aims to help people avoid environmental triggers that might threaten their recovery from an opioid addiction. The app, now being piloted by several treatment centers in Boston and Framingham, Mass., monitors a user’s contacts and location, and sends pop-up notifications to caution them about risky acquaintances or neighborhoods. (Farber, 8/7)

NPR: A Simple Letter Helped Curb Overprescribing Of Antipsychotics By Some Doctors
The antipsychotic drug Seroquel was approved by the FDA years ago to help people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses. But too frequently the drug is also given to people who have Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. The problem with that? Seroquel can be deadly for dementia patients, according to the FDA. Now some researchers have conducted an experiment that convinced some of the general practice doctors who prescribe Seroquel most frequently to cut back. (Jaffe, 8/7)

Stat: Women Survive Heart Attack More Often When Doctor Is Female, Study Finds 
Much like shoes or skinny jeans, heart attacks can fit women a little differently than men. Their symptoms don’t always look the same, and for a meshwork of reasons, physicians all too often fail to diagnose heart attacks in women with enough time to intervene. The consequence: Women are more likely to die from heart attacks than men are. But, according to a new study, not if they’re treated by female doctors. (Farber, 8/6)

The New York Times: An Invasive New Tick Is Spreading In The U.S.
For the first time in 50 years, a new tick species has arrived in the United States — one that in its Asian home range carries fearsome diseases. The Asian long-horned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, is spreading rapidly along the Eastern Seaboard. It has been found in seven states and in the heavily populated suburbs of New York City. At the moment, public health experts say they are concerned, but not alarmed. (McNeil, 8/6)

Stat: As Microbiome Testing Firms Proliferate, So Do Questions About Their Claims 
Microbiome testing companies have become a thing, offering consumers a chance to see a snapshot of the billions of microbes that reside in their bodies. Some promise even more from a swab: personalized advice on how to improve your health. ...There’s no doubt that the microbiome, the community of trillions of bacteria and viruses that live in a person’s body, has a profound impact on human health. But our understanding of the microbiome isn’t advanced enough, nor are the commercial tests precise enough, to guide customized health recommendations, experts told STAT. (Shaffer, 8/7)

The Washington Post: She Made A Career Out Of Studying The Brain. Then Hers Veered Off Course.
The walls inside Barbara Lipska’s office at the National Institute of Mental Health are plastered with race plaques: first-, second-, third-place awards. Lipska, 67, only started running in her 40s, but because she does nothing halfway, in short order she was doing marathons and triathlons, while commuting to work in Bethesda, Md., on her bike, a total of 40 miles a day. A decisive, fast-moving woman — capable, her boss tells me, of accomplishing the workload of three or four people — Lipska directs NIMH’s Human Brain Collection Core. “We might get a brain today,” she says hopefully on a Wednesday in late February. (Copeland, 8/6)

Stat: The FDA Is Poised To Approve Alnylam's First-Ever RNA Interference Drug 
After a decades-long wait, the FDA is on the brink of approving a landmark rare disease treatment — the first to rely on a Nobel prize-winning technique known as RNA interference, or RNAi. The widely anticipated approval will be a watershed moment not only for its manufacturer, Alnylam, but for the broader field of research into RNAi, which lets scientists mute genes that aren’t functioning properly. The FDA must announce its decision by Friday to meet a a regulatory deadline. (Sheridan, 8/7)

The Associated Press: Patients Who Accepted Infected Kidneys Cured Of Hepatitis C
Some patients in desperate need of a kidney transplant participated in a bold experiment where they received organs infected with hepatitis C. The gamble paid off. Their new organs are working fine thanks to medication that got rid of the virus, researchers reported Monday. (8/6)

The Associated Press: Cancer Study Of Nuclear Test Site Expected To Finish In 2019
A long-anticipated study into the cancer risks of New Mexico residents living near the site of the world’s first atomic bomb test likely will be published in 2019, the National Cancer Institute announced. Institute spokesman Michael Levin told The Associated Press that researchers are examining data on diet and radiation exposure on residents who lived near the World War II-era Trinity Test site, and scientists expect to finish the study by early next year. (Contreras, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Serena Williams Shares Postpartum Struggles On Social Media
Serena Williams says she's been struggling with postpartum emotions and wants other new moms to know they are "totally normal." The 23-time Grand Slam champion suffered the most lopsided defeat of her career, a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Johanna Konta in San Jose, California, last Tuesday. She then withdrew from this week's Rogers Cup in Montreal, citing personal reasons. (8/6)

NPR: What Does It Mean To Be A Doctor With A Disability?
Lisa Iezzoni was in medical school at Harvard in the early 1980s when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She started experiencing some of the symptoms, including fatigue, but she wasn't letting that get in the way of her goal. Then came the moment she scrubbed in on a surgery and the surgeon told her what he thought of her chances in the field. "He opined that I had no right to go into medicine because I lacked the most important quality in medicine," Iezzoni recalls "And that was 24/7 availability." (Gordon, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Thousands Of Inebriated Pedestrians Die Each Year In Traffic Accidents
It’s 11 p.m. on a Saturday on U Street in Washington, and music is blaring from the glittery bars and clubs. Many of the partyers will stick around till the bars close at 3 a.m., then pour out onto the sidewalks — and sometimes into the streets. “I’ve seen drunk people wandering into the street around 2 or 3 in the morning like zombies,” said Austin Loan, a bouncer checking IDs at Hawthorne, a restaurant with five bar areas and DJs on the weekends. “When you get drunk, you think you can rule the world. You may not be paying attention to anything else.” (Bergal, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Oklahoma Governor Signs Revised Medical Marijuana Guidelines
Gov. Mary Fallin has signed a revised set of emergency rules governing the use of medical marijuana in Oklahoma less than a week after they were approved by the state Board of Health. Fallin signed the regulations into law on Monday, describing them as "very basic" and "the best option in developing a proper regulatory framework." (8/6)