First Edition: February 21, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Trump Administration Proposes Rule To Loosen Curbs On Short-Term Health Plans
The new rule is expected to entice younger and healthier people from the general insurance pool by allowing a range of lower-cost options that don’t include all the benefits required by the federal law — including plans that can reject people with preexisting medical conditions. Most short-term coverage excludes benefits for maternity care, preventive care, mental health services or substance abuse treatment. (Appleby, 2/20)

Kaiser Health News: Bad Bedside Manna: Bank Loans Signed In The Hospital Leave Patients Vulnerable
Laura Cameron, then three months pregnant, tripped and fell in a parking lot and landed in the emergency room last May — her blood pressure was low and she was scared and in pain. She was flat on her back and plugged into a saline drip when a hospital employee approached her gurney to discuss how she would pay her hospital bill. Though both Cameron, 28, and her husband, Keith, have insurance, the bill would likely come to about $830, the representative said. If that sounded unmanageable, she offered, they could take out a loan through a bank that had a partnership with the hospital. (Luthra, 2/21)

The New York Times: Trump Moves To Relax Rules On Cheaper Health Insurance
The Trump administration took another swipe at the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, proposing new rules that would make it much easier for consumers to buy less expensive health insurance policies that do not comply with coverage requirements of the law. Under current rules, such “short-term, limited-duration insurance” cannot last for more than three months. Under the proposal, the limit would be 364 days. (Pear, 2/20)

The Associated Press: Trump Plan: Less Health Insurance For Lower Premiums
The proposed regulations would expand an alternative to the comprehensive medical plans required under former President Barack Obama's health law. Individuals could buy so-called "short-term" policies for up to 12 months. But the coverage would omit key consumer protections and offer fewer benefits, making it unattractive for older people or those with health problems. The plans would come with a disclaimer that they don't meet the Affordable Care Act's safeguards, such as guaranteed coverage, ten broad classes of benefits, and limits on how much older adults have to pay. Insurers could also charge more if a consumer's medical history discloses health problems. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Short-Term Health Plans Skirting ACA-Required Benefits And Protections To Be Expanded
“It’s one step in the direction of providing Americans with health insurance options that are both more affordable and more individualized for families’ circumstances,” Azar said in a conference call with reporters to announce the proposed rule. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, echoed that portrayal of the rewrite as health reform. “While in the past these plans have been a bridge, now they can be a lifeline,” she said. (Goldstein, 2/20)

NPR: The Trump Administration Wants To Allow Insurance Plans That Don't Meet Obamacare Standards
Under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, short-term plans can last up to three months. But the Trump administration wants to extend that time limit to a year, or more. "In 2008, one of the important policy motivators for what ultimately became the ACA was protecting people from so-called mini-med plans that provided coverage in name only," says Rodney Whitlock, a health care consultant with ML Strategies who worked as a Republican staffer on the Senate Finance Committee when the Affordable Care Act was written. "But in a world without the individual mandate, short-term health plans make perfect sense. Now people who have no utilization can go out and buy coverage with no benefits." (Kodjak, 2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Proposal Would Loosen Limits On Short-Term Insurance
Republicans say allowing the extension of short-term plans would lower premiums by fostering competition and giving consumers more choices. Critics say it would allow for the sale of “junk” plans that have limited benefits and have been subject to fraud in the past, returning the market to the days before the ACA. “Bottom line: This is a green light to discriminate against Americans with pre-existing conditions that’s going to make quality health insurance more expensive and less accessible,” said Oregon’s Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees many health-care issues. (Armour, 2/20)

Politico: Trump Proposal Boosts Skimpy Insurance Plans, Again Undercutting Obamacare
“The way that you get to lower premiums is to reduce benefits,” said Kevin Lucia, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. “It’s a quick fix, but ultimately those products don’t help consumers who need them.” (Demko, 2/20)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Administration Takes New Steps To Loosen Health Insurance Rules
Among the other leading patient groups that condemned the proposed new rules are the American Heart Assn., the American Lung Assn., the Arthritis Foundation, Consumers Union, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the March of Dimes. The administration is already under fire for proposing last month to make it easier for self-employed Americans, small businesses and others to band together to get health insurance through what are called association health plans. Association plans do not have to offer a comprehensive set of so-called essential health benefits, a key requirement of the 2010 health law. (Levey, 2/20)

The Hill: Dems Decry ObamaCare Change As New Attempt At 'Sabotage'
Three high-ranking Democrats blasted the Trump administration’s move Tuesday to expand access to plans that don’t meet ObamaCare’s requirements, calling it the “latest step” in the White House’s “effort to sabotage our nation’s healthcare system.” The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a proposed rule Tuesday that would increase the maximum length of short-term health plans from less than three months to nearly a year. The three-month limit had been set by the Obama administration. (Roubein, 2/20)

Politico: Trump IRS Seeks Millions In Obamacare Fines Even Though Law Is 'Dead'
Hundreds of companies face prospective fines for violating Obamacare’s employer mandate by the same Trump administration that has done virtually everything in its power to abolish the federal health care law. Internal Revenue Service notices recently began arriving in corporate mailboxes, in some cases demanding millions of dollars in fines — an awkward development as the White House touts its business-friendly tax package. The notices will likely spur another legal fight over the health law — this time featuring the administration defending a statute that President Donald Trump has repeatedly declared dead. (Demko and Haberkorn, 2/20)

The New York Times: Trump Moves To Regulate ‘Bump Stock’ Devices
President Trump — under pressure from angry, grieving students from a Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people last week — ordered the Justice Department on Tuesday to issue regulations banning so-called bump stocks, which convert semiautomatic guns into automatic weapons like those used last year in the massacre of concertgoers in Las Vegas. (Shear, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Trump, Citing ‘Evil Massacre’ In Florida, Starts Talking About Gun Control
In private, [Trump] has indicated that he might do more, telling advisers and friends in recent days that he is determined to push for some sort of gun-control legislation, according to people familiar with the conversations. In one such discussion, during dinner with television commentator Geraldo Rivera at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, the president listened with interest as Rivera suggested raising the minimum age at which a person could buy a semiautomatic weapon from 18 to 21. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday that the idea is “on the table for us to discuss.” (Johnson, Berman and Dawsey, 2/20)

The Washington Post: ‘I Would Rather Not Be Alone.’ Behind Their Anger, Florida Students Are Still Teens Struggling With Trauma.
She was tired of catching herself staring blankly at the wall, so Hannah Karcinell sent a group text to her friends: “Hi, I’m thinking of having a thing at my house.” Those friends invited their friends, and now she was waiting for everyone on her back patio, wearing a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School cheerleading tank top. She heard a thud. Her whole body tensed. “Should I put the food out now?” her mom called from the house. Hannah turned. The sound, she realized, had just been Jodi Karcinell pushing open the back door, which sticks. (Contrera, 2/20)

The Associated Press: Florida Shooting Survivors In Capital, Demand Action On Guns
Students who survived the Florida school shooting prepared to flood the Capitol Wednesday pushing to ban the assault-style rifle used to kill 17 people, vowing to make changes in the November election if they can't persuade lawmakers to change laws before their legislative session ends. About 100 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students arrived at a Tallahassee high school to extended applause late Tuesday after a 400-mile trip on three buses. They told the 500 students and parents waiting for them that they are fighting to protect all students. (Farrington, Replogle and Lush, 2/21)

The Associated Press: Shulkin Intends To Stay In VA Post With White House Support
Campaigning to keep his job, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Tuesday he had no intention of quitting despite blistering findings of travel abuses connected to his 11-day trip to Europe. He issued an extraordinary warning to VA staff rebelling against him: Get back in line or get out. Speaking after a Tuesday meeting at the White House, Shulkin told The Associated Press that White House chief of staff John Kelly affirmed he still had the trust of President Donald Trump. (Yen, 2/20)

Politico: Shulkin Says He Has White House Backing To Purge VA
Shulkin’s new chief of staff, Peter O’Rourke, is meeting with each staffer suspected of defying Shulkin “individually and as a group to determine, now that there is a clear direction where we are going, where people are going to stand," he said. "Those who crossed the line in the past are going to have to be accountable for those decisions." Shulkin and the White House on Friday named O’Rourke, who previously led an accountability office at VA, to replace Vivieca Wright Simpson after she retired last week. An IG report accused her of falsifying an email to get the VA to pay for Shulkin’s wife to accompany him on a trip to England and Denmark over the summer. (Allen, 2/20)

The Hill: New HHS Office That Enforces Health Workers' Religious Rights Received 300 Complaints In A Month 
More than 300 health workers have complained to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department over the last month, saying that their religious or conscience rights have been violated by their employer. The complaints follow the creation of a new division within HHS that focuses on enforcing those rights and investigating complaints from employees who say their rights have been violated. (Hellmann, 2/20)

The Hill: HHS Official Put On Leave Amid Probe Into Social Media Posts 
An official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been placed on leave while the department looks into inflammatory social media posts, CNN reported Tuesday. Jon Cordova, the principal deputy assistant secretary for administration at HHS, previously shared stories on his social media accounts that included false claims about Gold Star father Khizr Khan, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Hillary Clinton, CNN found. (Samuels, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Lesbian Couple Sues After Catholic Charities, HHS Deny Them As Foster Parents
A lesbian married couple from Texas is suing the federal government after they say that a Catholic nonprofit that receives taxpayer funding denied them the opportunity to serve as foster parents for refugee children because of their sexual orientation. Fatma Marouf, 41, and Bryn Esplin, 33, both professors at Texas A&M University in Fort Worth, said they were beginning the process to become refugee foster parents last year when they were told by a local charity, Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, that they did not qualify after it became clear that they were a same-sex couple, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in district court in Washington. (Rosenberg, 2/20)

The Hill: Dems Seek Reversal Of Nursing Home Regulatory Rollback
A group of Democratic senators want the Trump administration to reverse its steady rollback of regulations on nursing homes. In a letter sent to Alex Azar, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Democrats allege that the regulatory rollback “will inevitably weaken the safety of our nation’s nursing homes and put patients, many of whom are elderly and wholly reliant on this care, at greater risk.” (Weixel, 2/20)

The Hill: Science Group Reserves Nearly $2M In Airtime To Boost Dems In Three States 
A group focused on recruiting and training scientists to run for office is reserving nearly $2 million in TV ads in three states that house highly competitive House races in 2018. 314 Action, named after the first three digits of pi, reserved $1 million in broadcast TV ads in the Los Angeles media market, $500,000 in the Detroit media market and $350,000 in the Seattle media market. (Hagen, 2/21)

Bloomberg: Pharmaceutical Titan’s Senate Bid Will Test Voters’ Views On Drug Prices 
Bob Hugin helped build a pharmaceutical powerhouse. As he seeks to claim the seat of an embattled Democratic senator in New Jersey, that legacy could be both a blessing and a burden. Raised in Union City, a blue-collar town at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, Hugin, 63, was the first member of his family to go to college. Princeton was followed by the Marine Corps and a successful stint on Wall Street. He left in the dot-com era to join what was then a small and, as Hugin tells it, near-bankrupt biotechnology firm. (Spalding, 2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Deal Making Just Got Tougher For Struggling Generic Drugmakers
Merger mania has gripped health care. The generic drugs sector might have trouble joining the party. Generic drugmakers are being squeezed from both sides. Prices are falling because the companies that buy the drugs have consolidated, putting the relatively fragmented drugmakers at a disadvantage. And, the Food and Drug Administration has sped up approvals for new generic drugs, adding new competition to the market. (Grant, 2/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Trial Tests FTC’s Power To Referee Drug Makers’ Fight Against Generics
A trial under way in federal court in Philadelphia is testing the power of U.S. competition regulators to crack down on drugmakers’ alleged moves to thwart the sale of low-cost generics. The trial, which began Feb. 7, stems from a 2014 Federal Trade Commission lawsuit accusing AbbVie Inc. ABBV -0.52% of filing baseless patent-infringement lawsuits against two generic-drug companies to delay competition for its testosterone-replacement therapy AndroGel. AbbVie denies the allegations. (Loftus, 2/20)

Los Angeles Times: The U.S. Healthcare System Needs More Skills For Paying Bills, Study Shows
Healthcare in the United States is really expensive, and one of the reasons is that managing healthcare bills is really, really expensive. Just how expensive? At one large academic medical center, the cost of collecting payments for a single primary-care doctor is upward of $99,000 a year. And billing for primary-care visits is a bargain compared with billing for trips to the emergency room, a hospital stay or a surgical procedure, according to a report published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. (Kaplan, 2/20)

NPR: Opioid Use Reduced By Half In An ER That Has Found Good Alternatives
One of the places many people are first prescribed opioids is a hospital emergency room. But in one of the busiest ERs in the U.S., doctors are relying less than they used to on oxycodone, Percocet, Vicodin and other opioids to ease patients' pain. In an unusual program designed to help stem the opioid epidemic, the emergency department at St. Joseph's University Medical Center in Paterson, N.J., has been exploring alternative painkillers and methods. That strategy has led to a 58 percent drop in the ER's opioid prescriptions in the program's first year, according to numbers provided by St. Joseph's Healthcare System's chair of emergency medicine, Dr. Mark Rosenberg. (Wang, 2/20)

The Washington Post: CDC Warns About Salmonella Infections Traced To Kratom
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and several states are investigating an outbreak of salmonella illness linked to kratom, an unregulated herbal supplement that is sometimes used for pain, anxiety and opioid-withdrawal symptoms, the CDC said Tuesday. The agency, which urged consumers to not use kratom in any form because of the possibility of contamination, said the infections started in October and have affected 20 states. Eleven people have been hospitalized, and no one has died. Most of the people sickened have reported consuming kratom in pills, powder or tea, according to the CDC, which didn't name any specific brands or suppliers. (McGinley, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Goucher Poll: More Than Half Of Marylanders Know Someone Who’s Been Addicted To Opioids
More than half of Marylanders say they personally know someone who has been addicted to opioids, according to a Goucher College poll released Wednesday that also found strong support for imposing term limits on state lawmakers and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The finding that 52 percent have direct ties to opioid abuse illustrates the growing scope of a crisis that was declared a state of emergency last year by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and was a major focus of the 2017 legislative session. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in late 2015 found that nearly 30 percent of Marylanders had a close friend or relative who was addicted. (Wiggins, 2/21)

The Washington Post: Stewart Calls Fellow Republicans ‘Flaccid’ And ‘Weak’ Over Plan To Expand Medicaid
U.S. Senate hopeful Corey R. Stewart attacked fellow Republicans on Tuesday as “flaccid, soft and weak” days after the GOP-controlled House of Delegates began to pursue Medicaid expansion after years of opposition. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, is the most well known of five Republicans seeking the party’s nomination to challenge Sen. Tim Kaine. He gained a statewide following last year when he almost defeated Ed Gillespie for the Republican nomination for governor. (Portnoy, 2/20)

The Associated Press: Carbs, Fat, DNA? Weight Loss Is Finicky, New Study Shows
A precision nutrition approach to weight loss didn't hold up in a study testing low fat versus low carb depending on dieters' DNA profiles. Previous research has suggested that a person's insulin levels or certain genes could interact with different types of diets to influence weight loss. Stanford University researchers examined this idea with 600 overweight adults who underwent genetic and insulin testing before being randomly assigned to reduce fat or carbohydrate intake. (Tanner, 2/20)

The New York Times: The Key To Weight Loss Is Diet Quality, Not Quantity, A New Study Finds
Anyone who has ever been on a diet knows that the standard prescription for weight loss is to reduce the amount of calories you consume. But a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA, may turn that advice on its head. It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year. (O'Connor, 2/20)

The New York Times: How To Manage Stress Like An Olympic Biathlete
Race across the snow on skis as fast as you can. Now stop and shoot a target the size of an Oreo about 54 yards away. If you miss, you’ll ski penalty laps before you are allowed to race to the next set of targets. Most of us will never try the biathlon, a uniquely stressful sport that demands both physical intensity and emotional calm. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it. Talking to an Olympic biathlete about how she trains for competition can offer a life lesson in managing stress and dialing back intensity and aggression in an instant. (Parker-Pope, 2/21)

The New York Times: Short-Track Speedskaters Are Lopsided
Round and round the short-track speedskaters go, crouched low on the ice as they carve counterclockwise ovals, over and over. They lean so hard to the left that their fingers glide on the ice at the turns. The straightaways are so short that there is room for only one or two strides before the skaters lean hard into the next 180-degree curve, again and again. They spend their training hours in that position, their torsos torqued to the left, their weight on their left legs as their right legs sweep powerful strides. (Branch, 2/20)

Stat: CRISPR Could End Sickle Cell, But Will African-Americans Enroll In Studies?
The first attempts to use a groundbreaking gene-editing technology in people will likely target patients with sickle cell disease, a crippling inherited disorder that in the U.S. predominantly strikes African-Americans. That should be welcome news, after decades of sickle cell patients being neglected by the health care system, scientists, and drug companies. But the long and ugly history of unethical experimentation and mistreatment of black patients could make recruiting volunteers to try largely untested CRISPR therapies a tough sell. (McFarling, 2/21)

NPR: CRISPR In China: Cancer Treatment With Gene Editing Underway
Shaorong Deng is sitting up in bed at the Hangzhou Cancer Hospital waiting for his doctor. Thin and frail, the 53-year-old construction worker's coat drapes around his shoulders to protect against the chilly air. Deng has advanced cancer of the esophagus, a common form of cancer in China. He went through radiation and chemotherapy. But the cancer kept spreading. (Stein, 2/21)

The Associated Press: Preventive Treatment For Peanut Allergies Succeeds In Study
The first treatment to help prevent serious allergic reactions to peanuts may be on the way. A company said Tuesday that its daily capsules of peanut powder helped children build tolerance in a major study. Millions of children are allergic to peanuts, and some may have life-threatening reactions if accidentally exposed to them. Doctors have been testing daily doses of peanut, contained in a capsule and sprinkled over food, as a way to prevent that by gradually getting them used to very small amounts. (2/20)

The Associated Press: Centene-Bought Pharmacy Won't Give Missouri Execution Drugs
A Missouri health care company on Tuesday said a pharmacy it recently bought won't provide execution drugs to the state, a pledge that came after media reports that the suburban St. Louis business had been the state's secret source of the drugs for years. (2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: 3M Agrees To Pay $850 Million To Settle Minnesota Water Contamination Lawsuit
3M Co. will pay $850 million to settle Minnesota’s lawsuit, claiming the manufacturer contaminated water in the state for at least five decades. The deal reached by the company and state’s attorney general was announced hours after a trial over the suit was slated to begin Tuesday. (Tangel, 2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: A Child’s Deformity Caused By Medical Malpractice Extends MetLife’s Woes
When Nicole Herivaux was born at Coney Island Hospital in New York in 1980, doctors made a mistake that left one of her arms useless. Ms. Herivaux’s family sued and reached a settlement on the infant’s behalf. It provided $2,200-a-month in lifetime income paid out by an insurance firm, and lump sums of as much as $200,000 were sprinkled in to help, say, with college costs. (Scism, 2/21)