First Edition: February 13, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Trump’s Budget Proposal Swings At Drug Prices With A Glancing Blow
President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal flirts with combating high prescription drug prices, but industry watchers say the tweaks to Medicare and Medicaid do little more than dance around the edges of lowering the actual prices of drugs. The White House’s proposal, which comes after Congress passed a two-year spending deal last week, though, sets the tone for the administration’s focus on prescription drugs. (Tribble, 2/12)
Kaiser Health News:
California Joins States That Would Evict Veterans Who Seek Aid-In-Dying Option
California voters passed a law two years ago that allows terminally ill people to take lethal drugs to end their lives, but controversy is growing over a newer rule that effectively bans that option in the state’s eight veterans’ homes. Proponents of medical aid-in-dying and residents of the Veterans Home of California-Yountville — the largest in the nation — are protesting a regulation passed last year by the California Department of Veterans Affairs, or CalVet, that requires that anyone living in the facilities must be discharged if they intend to use the law. (Aleccia, 2/13)
Kaiser Health News:
Maryland Offers Many Insured Men Free Vasectomy Coverage
It was a well-intentioned effort to provide men with some of the same financial protection from birth control costs that women get. But a new Maryland law may jeopardize the ability of thousands of consumers — both men and women — to use health savings accounts. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, mandates that insurers cover vasectomies without requiring patients to pay anything out-of-pocket — just as they must do for more than a dozen birth control methods for women. (Andrews, 2/13)
Kaiser Health News:
KHN On NPR: The Uniquely American Problem Of High Prescription Drug Costs
Kaiser Health News Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal discussed drug costs with Scott Simon, the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday, Feb. 10. This is a transcript of that conversation. (2/12)
The New York Times:
White House Proposes $4.4 Trillion Budget That Adds $7 Trillion To Deficits
President Trump sent Congress a $4.4 trillion budget proposal on Monday outlining steep cuts to domestic programs, large increases in military spending and a ballooning federal deficit that illustrates how far Republicans have strayed from their longtime embrace of balanced budgets. The blueprint has little to no chance of being enacted as written and amounts to a vision statement by Mr. Trump, who as a businessman once called himself the “king of debt” and has overseen a federal spending spree that will earn him that title in an entirely different arena. (Davis, 2/12)
The Associated Press:
Trump's High-Spending Budget Reverses Longtime GOP Dogma
Trump's budget revived his calls for big cuts to domestic programs that benefit the poor and middle class, such as food stamps, housing subsidies and student loans. Retirement benefits would remain mostly untouched by Trump's plan, as he has pledged, though Medicare providers would absorb about $500 billion in cuts — a nearly 6 percent reduction. Some beneficiaries in Social Security's disability program would have to re-enter the workforce under proposed changes to eligibility rules. (Taylor and Crutsinger, 2/13)
The Associated Press:
Winners And Losers Under Medicare Drug Plan In Trump Budget
Some Medicare beneficiaries would face higher prescription drug costs under President Donald Trump's budget even as the sickest patients save thousands of dollars, a complex trade-off that may make it harder to sell Congress on the plan in an election year. In budget documents, the administration said its proposals strike a balance between improving the popular "Part D" prescription benefit for the 42 million seniors enrolled, while correcting design flaws that increase program costs for taxpayers. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is expected to testify on the proposal later this week in Congress. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/13)
The Washington Post:
Trump Wants To Overhaul America’s Safety Net With Giant Cuts To Housing, Food Stamps And Health Care
The spending plan reaches beyond the White House’s own power over the government social safety net and presumes lawmakers will overhaul long-standing entitlement programs for the poor in ways beyond what Congress so far has been willing to do. The changes call on lawmakers to eliminate the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and transform the rest of that program into a system of capped payments to states; convert food assistance into a hybrid of commodity deliveries and traditional cash benefits; and expand requirements that low-income people work to qualify for federal assistance. (Jan, Dewey, Goldstein and Stein, 2/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
White House Eyes Role Of Middlemen In Drug Price Fight
On the surface, the plans to lower drug prices in the Trump Administration’s 2019 budget shouldn’t cause much pain to the health-care industry. A closer look shows where policymakers are hoping to get deeper cost savings. In the 2019 budget released Monday, the White House unveiled a series of plans to lower drug prices, including making certain generic drugs free and capping out of pocket spending for Medicare beneficiaries. (Grant, 2/12)
The Hill:
Trump Releases Budget Proposal For Health Department
The Department of Health and Human Services would receive $95.4 billion under the budget proposal released by the Trump administration Monday. Under the proposal, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would face a cut but the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration would see increases. (Hellmann, 2/12)
The Hill:
Trump Budget Seeks Savings Through ObamaCare Repeal
The White House budget for fiscal 2019 seeks major savings by repealing ObamaCare and endorsed a Senate GOP bill as the best way to do so. “The Budget supports a two-part approach to repealing and replacing Obamacare, starting with enactment of legislation modeled closely after the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) bill as soon as possible,” the White House said in its budget request. (Weixel, 2/12)
Los Angeles Times:
White House Releases Budget, Forecasts A Decade Of Mounting Debt
His budget would slash almost $700 billion in federal healthcare spending that helps low- and moderate-income Americans who rely on insurance marketplaces created by the 2010 healthcare law. As Republicans proposed last year, the plan would replace much existing healthcare spending with grants to states, allowing each one to craft its own health program. Similar proposals last year failed in the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has indicated that the chamber won't consider another run at Obamacare this year. (Parsons, 2/12)
The New York Times:
What’s In The White House Budget Request?
The president’s budget singles out abortion providers and would prohibit Health and Human Services funding, including money used for family planning, from going to any clinic or health care facility that also offers abortion services. Though the language is broadly written, its intended target is Planned Parenthood, which relies on government funding to offer a variety of services to women other than abortion. The budget would help achieve the longstanding goal of social conservatives to cut off Planned Parenthood from federal assistance. (2/12)
The Hill:
Trump Budget Proposes Big Changes To Anti-Drug Office
President Trump’s budget is proposing moving two grants out of the anti-drug office, a major change that’s already sparked a backlash from lawmakers and more than 150 advocacy organizations. The administration has justified the proposal in its budget, saying it “will enable ONDCP to focus resources on its core mission: to reduce drug use and its consequences by leading and coordinating the development, implementation and assessment of U.S. drug policy.” (Roubein, 2/12)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Cuts 2019: What Trump Proposed Cutting In His Budget
Many of the cuts in the plan are unlikely to become reality: Congress just increased spending limits last week, and it rarely dares to change entitlement programs. But the budget is an important signal of the administration’s priorities. (2/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump’s Budget Proposal Projects Big Jump In Deficits
The blueprint underscores what has become clear in recent months: that the budget austerity Republicans pursued in 2011 has ended. GOP lawmakers and Mr. Trump are now pursuing fiscal policies that tolerate wider deficits in a bid to ramp up economic growth. (Davidson, 2/12)
The Washington Post:
White House Budget Proposal Includes Huge Deficits, Cuts In Safety Net
“Does it balance? No, it doesn’t,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Monday. “I probably could have made it balance, but you all would have rightly absolutely excoriated us for using funny numbers because it would have taken funny numbers do to it.” (Paletta and Werner, 2/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Pick For Indian Health Services Cites Business Savvy, But Financial History Show Struggles
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the troubled Indian Health Service left his latest employer in a state of financial disarray, filed for personal bankruptcy and had liens imposed on one of his own businesses for failing to pay federal taxes, according to public documents and interviews. The nominee, Robert Weaver, a member of the Quapaw tribe of Oklahoma, has cited his private-sector business acumen and leadership of several small businesses as key qualifications to lead the agency and its roughly $6 billion budget. (Frosch and Weaver, 2/13)
Politico:
Trump's HHS Worked With Conservative Group On Planned Parenthood Policy
A conservative legal organization worked with the Trump administration to make it easier for states to defund Planned Parenthood, according to documents obtained by congressional Democrats and shared with POLITICO. HHS last month told states they no longer have to comply with Obama administration policy that made it difficult for states to exclude the women's health group from their Medicaid programs — an announcement timed to the March of Life anti-abortion rally. HHS received a draft legal analysis from the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom a week before the announcement, according to House Oversight Committee ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings. (Haberkorn, 2/12)
Stat:
NIH Funding Contributed To 210 Approved Drugs In Recent Years, Study Says
A new study makes a strong case for the importance of government support for basic research: Federally funded studies contributed to the science that underlies every one of the 210 new drugs approved between 2010 and 2016. Researchers at Bentley University scoured millions of research papers for mentions of those 210 new molecular entities, or NMEs, as well as studies on their molecular targets. Then, they looked to see which of those studies had received any funding from the National Institutes of Health. (Thielking, 2/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Amazon’s Latest Ambition? To Be A Major Hospital Supplier
Amazon.com Inc. is pushing to turn its nascent medical-supplies business into a major supplier to U.S. hospitals and outpatient clinics that could compete with incumbent distributors of items from gauze to hip implants. Amazon has invited hospital executives to its Seattle headquarters on several occasions, most recently in late January, to solicit information about the sector and sound out ideas for expanding the company’s business-to-business marketplace, Amazon Business, into one where hospitals could shop to stock outpatient locations, operating suites and emergency rooms, according to hospital executives who attended the meetings. (Evans and Stevens, 2/13)
Bloomberg:
A Long Era Of Low Health Care Inflation May Be Coming To End
Hospital prices increased 2.2 percent in December, the fastest rate in four years, according to an analysis by Altarum, a nonprofit health-care research organization. The group analyzes data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources to estimate the underlying prices that health plans and consumers pay for medical goods and services. While overall medical inflation was restrained last year, the report warns that “we could very well be at the cusp” of a return to a more typical pattern where increases in health-care prices outpace the broader inflation rate. (Tozzi, 2/12)
The Hill:
Trump Officials Face Decision On Lifetime Limits For Medicaid
The Trump administration is facing a crucial test of how much flexibility they are willing to give states to remake their Medicaid programs. Federal officials have already given the green light to two states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, and at least eight other states are hoping to follow. (Weixel, 2/13)
The New York Times:
He Took A Drug To Prevent AIDS. Then He Couldn’t Get Disability Insurance.
Three years ago, Dr. Philip J. Cheng, a urology resident at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, nicked himself while preparing an H.I.V.-positive patient for surgery. Following hospital protocol, he took a one-month course of Truvada, a cocktail of two anti-H.I.V. drugs, to prevent infection. Later, because he was an unattached gay man, he decided to keep taking Truvada to protect himself from getting H.I.V. through sex. (McNeil, 2/12)
The Associated Press:
Can Gene Therapy Be Harnessed To Fight The AIDS Virus?
For more than a decade, the strongest AIDS drugs could not fully control Matt Chappell's HIV infection. Now his body controls it by itself, and researchers are trying to perfect the gene editing that made this possible. Scientists removed some of his blood cells, disabled a gene to help them resist HIV, and returned these "edited" cells to him in 2014. So far, it has given the San Francisco man the next best thing to a cure. (Marchione, 2/13)
Stat:
Risky Tactic, Desperate Need: Trial To Test Brain Implants For Opioid Addiction
The arsenal of therapies available to combat opioid addiction has expanded beyond pills and shots to include over-the-ear electrodes and virtual reality headsets. But an upcoming clinical trial could push the boundaries of addiction treatment further, and by a more invasive means than any therapy currently embraced by medical experts. The therapy, called deep brain stimulation, requires electrodes to be implanted into the brain to regulate activity in the brain’s neurons, much like a pacemaker does to the heart. Deep brain stimulation is currently used to treat tremors related to Parkinson’s disease, and is being tested on patients diagnosed with a variety of brain disorders. (Blau, 2/13)
NPR:
U.S. Opioid Crisis Has Cost $1 Trillion Since 2001, Economists Say
The opioid epidemic has cost the U.S. more than a trillion dollars since 2001, according to a new study, and may exceed another $500 million over the next 3 years. The report by Altarum, a nonprofit group that studies the health economy, examined CDC mortality data through June of last year. The greatest financial cost of the opioid epidemic, according to the report, is in lost earnings and productivity losses to employers. Early deaths and substance abuse disorders also take a toll on local, state and federal government through lost tax revenue. (Allen, 2/13)
Stateline:
Why Police Backing Is Key To Needle Exchanges
Until the opioid epidemic began seeping into nearly every city and town in the country, the idea of a Main Street storefront offering free needles, alcohol wipes and small metal cookers for heroin users was unthinkable in a conservative Southern city like this one. But these days, most of the roughly 100,000 residents of this historic port on the Cape Fear River are painfully aware that their community has a serious drug problem. Syringes carpet sections of public walkways, drug users congregate in vacant lots, and an increasing number of residents are attending the funerals of friends and family members who have died of an opioid overdose. (Vetal, 2/13)
Stat:
Opioid Makers Gave Millions To Patient Advocacy Groups To Sway Prescribing
As the nation grapples with a worsening opioid crisis, a new report suggests that drug makers provided substantial funding to patient advocacy groups and physicians in recent years in order to influence the controversial debate over appropriate usage and prescribing. Specifically, five drug companies funneled nearly $9 million to 14 groups working on chronic pain and issues related to opioid use between 2012 and 2017. At the same time, physicians affiliated with these groups accepted more than $1.6 million from the same companies. In total, the drug makers made more than $10 million in payments since January 2012. (Silverman, 2/12)
The New York Times:
Meth, The Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere.
They huddled against the biting wind, pacing from one corner to another hoping to score heroin or pills. But a different drug was far more likely to be on offer outside the train station downtown, where homeless drug users live in tents pitched on the sidewalk. “Everybody has meth around here — everybody,” said Sean, a 27-year-old heroin user who hangs out downtown and gave only his first name. “It’s the easiest to find.” (Robles, 2/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
Scientists Unearth Hope For New Antibiotics
In a bag of backyard dirt, scientists have discovered a powerful new group of antibiotics they say can wipe out many infections in lab and animal tests, including some microbes that are resistant to most traditional antibiotics. Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York reported the discovery of the new antibiotics, called malacidins, on Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology. (Hotz, 2/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Ovarian Cancer Doesn’t Begin In The Ovaries, Researchers Say
A growing body of evidence suggests that ovarian cancer begins in the fallopian tubes and not the ovaries, giving researchers hope for developing better strategies to prevent and detect the deadly cancer. Among women with cancer, ovarian cancer is the fifth-leading cause of death, killing 14,000 American women a year. With no real way to screen for it, it usually isn’t diagnosed until it has spread and is in the later stages. (Reddy, 2/12)
The New York Times:
American Fertility Is Falling Short Of What Women Want
America’s fertility is in precipitous decline. Our team of forecasters at Demographic Intelligence projects 3.84 million births in 2017, down from about 3.95 million in 2016. And it’s likely to fall further — far short of what women themselves say they want for their family size. (Stone, 2/13)
The New York Times:
High Blood Sugar Levels Tied To Memory Decline
Increasing blood sugar levels are associated with cognitive decline, a long-term study has found. Researchers assessed cognitive function in 5,189 people, average age 66, and tested their blood sugar using HbA1c, a test that accurately measures blood glucose levels over a period of weeks or months. (The finger-prick blood test, in contrast, gives a reading only at a given moment in time.) They followed the group for up to 10 years, tracking blood glucose levels and periodically testing cognitive ability. The study is in the journal Diabetologia. (Bakalar, 2/12)
NPR:
A Song Explains Love's Science
Love is complicated, scientifically speaking. There's no single, specific "love chemical" that surges through our bodies when we see our beloved, and we can't point to a specific corner of the brain where love resides. Still, scientists have measured real changes in our bodies when we fall in love: an ebb and flow of signaling molecules. In that early lustful phase, sex hormones like testosterone fuel the libido (in both men and women). The dopamine highs of new attraction have been compared by some scientists to the effects of cocaine use. (Cole and Kellman, 2/13)
Los Angeles Times:
Drivers Who Get Stoned On 4/20 Are Just As Dangerous As Drivers Who Get Drunk On Super Bowl Sunday
Here's a pro tip from a couple of doctors: Be sure to make special plans on April 20. That date, of course, is the unofficial holiday devoted to celebrating all things marijuana. (You might know it better as "4/20.") The two physicians — John Staples of the University of British Columbia and Donald Redelmeier of the University of Toronto — aren't asking that you honor marijuana's medicinal properties by experiencing them directly. Rather, they're warning you to be on alert for others who do — and then get behind the wheel while they're still under the influence. (Kaplan, 2/12)
The Washington Post:
Foreign Accent Syndrome: American Woman Says She Woke Up Sounding British
Michelle Myers's accent is global, but she has never left the country. The Arizona woman says she has gone to bed with extreme headaches in the past and woke up speaking with what sounds like a foreign accent. At various points, Australian and Irish accents have inexplicably flowed from her mouth for about two weeks, then disappeared, Myers says. (Horton, 2/12)
The Washington Post:
This Woman Is First Human Infected With Rare Eye Worm
Abby Beckley thought her left eye was irritated because of a stray eyelash. She rubbed her eye, flushed it with water, but when the discomfort remained, she peered into the mirror. She thought she saw a piece of clear fuzz. She pinched it with her fingers and pulled it out. It was a worm. About half-inch long, translucent and threadlike. “It was alive and squiggling around,” she recalled. (Sun, 2/12)
Los Angeles Times:
He Once Held The Job As A Republican, But Now Steve Poizner Is Making A No-Party Bid For California Insurance Commissioner
Eight years after losing a bitter Republican primary for governor and stepping away from California's political scene, Steve Poizner said Monday that he will run again for the elected office he gave up in that contest — state insurance commissioner. This time, he won't run as a Republican. (Myers, 2/12)
The Associated Press:
Hospital OKs Agreement With Ohio City's Last Abortion Clinic
A hospital system on Monday authorized a patient-transfer agreement to keep the last abortion clinic in one Ohio city operating. The authorization of the transfer agreement with Capital Care of Toledo "formally puts in writing an existing practice to provide emergency medical care to all who need it to our community," ProMedica spokesman Tedra White said in a statement to The Blade. (2/12)