First Edition: February 23, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ The Long Wait Ends For Short-Term Plan Rules
The Trump administration finally released a long-awaited rule that would allow significant expansion of health insurance policies that do not meet all the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, both in terms of what they cover and how much they charge. The administration says it wants to broaden the availability of so-called short-term insurance plans to give people who buy their own insurance more choices of lower-cost coverage. (2/22)

Kaiser Health News: Evaluations Of Medicaid Experiments By States, CMS Are Weak, GAO Says
With federal spending on Medicaid experiments soaring in recent years, a congressional watchdog said state and federal governments fail to adequately evaluate if the efforts improve care and save money. A study by the Government Accountability Office released Thursday found some states don’t complete evaluation reports for up to seven years after an experiment begins and often fail to answer vital questions to determine effectiveness. The GAO also slammed the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for failing to make results from Medicaid evaluation reports public in a timely manner. (Galewitz, 2/23)

Kaiser Health News: Ten ERs In Colorado Tried To Curtail Opioids And Did Better Than Expected
One of the most common reasons patients head to an emergency room is pain. In response, doctors may try something simple at first, like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If that wasn’t effective, the second line of defense has been the big guns.“Percocet or Vicodin,” explained ER doctor Peter Bakes of Swedish Medical Center, “medications that certainly have contributed to the rising opioid epidemic.” (Daley, 2/23)

The New York Times: Opening Mental Hospitals Unlikely To Prevent Mass Shootings, Experts Say
President Trump called again on Thursday for the opening of more mental hospitals to help prevent mass murders like the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Yet ramping up institutional care, experts say, likely would not have prevented most of the spree killings regularly making headlines in this country. “We’re going to be talking about mental institutions. And when you have some person like this, you can bring them into a mental institution, and they can see what they can do. But we’ve got to get them out of our communities,” the president said during a meeting at the White House with state and local officials. (Carey, 2/22)

CNN: Trump's Language On School Shooter's Mental Health Could Be Harmful, Experts Say
In a tweet Thursday, President Donald Trump described someone who would shoot up a school as a "savage sicko." At CNN's town hall on the Parkland, Florida, school shootings on Wednesday, NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch described the gunman as "an insane monster" who is "nuts" and crazy." And at a White House briefing Thursday, the President again used the term "sicko." The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, struggled with depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, according to a 2016 Florida Department of Children and Families report. But having a mental health diagnosis does not mean he would become violent, many experts say. And although Trump has said he wants to focus on mental health to stop school shootings, calling Cruz a "sicko" doesn't help, those experts claim. (Christensen, 2/22)

The New York Times: States Mull ‘Red Flag’ Gun Seizures From People Deemed Dangerous
In the last two months, law enforcement authorities in California took a gun away from a 38-year-old man who had threatened to kill himself, his wife and their young child if she left him. They removed three weapons from a 23-year-old ex-Marine who, the authorities said, had developed a paranoia that all males wanted to harm him. And they took a handgun from a 39-year-old man whose terrified neighbors reported that he was firing his weapon in the backyard; the man, who said he thought he was aiming for raccoons and rats, was found to be intoxicated, the police said. (Johnson, 2/23)

The Associated Press: 4 Governors Join Forces On Gun Safety, Pledge To Share Intel
The governors of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island have created a coalition of like-minded states on gun control, promising to expand existing efforts to share information on illegal guns, and ultimately make progress on gun safety measures where they contend the federal government has faltered. The four Democrats announced the formation of "States for Gun Safety" on Thursday. They plan to urge other governors to join the group at a National Governors Association meeting this weekend in Washington, D.C. (Haigh, 2/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Four Governors Join Forces To Stem Movement Of Illegal Guns
A memorandum of understanding signed by the governors of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island creates a task force of law-enforcement members from the four states who will analyze and share information on guns purchased outside of the region that were involved in crimes in the hopes of intercepting people suspected of illegally bringing guns across the four states’ borders. The agreement also allows their law enforcement agencies to share information from their mental health registries, which aren’t included in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. (King, 2/22)

The Hill: Dem Asks Trump Health Chief For Timeline On Gun Research 
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is asking Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar what his next steps are on gun violence research after he expressed support for the idea last week. In an unexpected move, Azar told a congressional hearing last week that he backs research on gun violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which he oversees. Starting that research is a top goal for Democrats on gun issues, and Markey said he was “heartened” by Azar’s comments. (Sullivan, 2/22)

The New York Times: Another Shooting, Another Gun Debate. Will The Outcome Be The Same?
Around 2:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, President Trump was in the study off the Oval Office when John F. Kelly, his chief of staff, arrived with news of a school shooting in Florida. Mr. Trump shook his head, according to an aide, and muttered, “Again.” Mark Barden was visiting a playground named for his 7-year-old son killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School when a friend texted him: Be careful watching television. It’s happening. Again. (Baker and Shear, 2/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Stance On Guns Puts Pressure On Congress
President Donald Trump’s calls for changes to gun laws in the wake of last week’s Florida school shooting push Congress toward a new politically fraught debate just months before the midterm elections. For more than a decade, and after multiple attacks on students, lawmakers have shied from making any significant changes to gun legislation in part because of the influence of the National Rifle Association. (Bykowicz, Peterson and Nicholas, 2/22)

The New York Times: Major Shootings Led To Tougher Gun Laws, But To What End?
Since last week’s deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., a pitched national conversation about gun policy has dominated town hall meetings, a White House summit meeting, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and the never-ending stream of social media feeds. Below is a brief review of several laws governing guns in the United States and how effective those policies have been in curbing violence. (Qiu and Bank, 2/23)

Politico: Scott Walker Wants To Save Obamacare In Wisconsin
Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, one of the nation’s most militantly anti-Obamacare governors, is making strengthening the health care law a key plank of his reelection platform as Republicans fret over potential losses in November. Walker wants to prop up his Obamacare market with a $200 million program that would compensate health insurers for high-cost patients so they don’t hike premiums for everyone. He also would enshrine Obamacare protections for people with pre-existing conditions. (Pradhan, 2/23)

The Hill: Top Dems Press Idaho On Plan To Get Around ObamaCare Rules 
Top congressional Democrats are pressing Idaho on its controversial plan to circumvent certain ObamaCare requirements. The top four Democrats on the congressional committees overseeing health care wrote to Idaho insurance commissioner Dean Cameron on Thursday asking if his moves comply with federal law and requesting a staff briefing on the state’s plans. (Sullivan, 2/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Indian Health Service Nominee Says He Was Forced To Withdraw
Robert Weaver, President Donald Trump’s former nominee to lead the Indian Health Service, said in a letter circulated to some tribal leaders and lobbyists Thursday that he was forced under duress to withdraw from consideration late last week. Mr. Weaver, an insurance broker and member of the Quapaw tribe of Oklahoma, said in the letter that he was contacted by an official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at 4:30 p.m. last Friday. (Weaver and Frosch, 2/22)

The Wall Street Journal: MiMedx, Fast-Growing Developer Of Tissue Graft Products, Didn’t Report Payments To Doctors
MiMedx Group Inc., a fast-growing tissue-graft developer, has financial ties to more than 20 doctors, according to a review of doctors’ disclosures by The Wall Street Journal, but the company hasn’t reported these payments to the government under a 2013 law. The company says its products, made from donated placental tissue, aren’t among those that require a disclosure of doctor payments. At least one of MiMedx’s direct competitors, Osiris Therapeutics Inc., regularly provides information on its ties to doctors and reported $1.03 million in such payments in 2016. (Morgenson, 2/22)

The Washington Post: Va. House Budget Includes Medicaid Expansion; Senate Version Does Not
Virginia’s House and Senate on Thursday approved starkly different state budget plans, one flush enough for teacher raises, expanded health care and more financial aid for college students, the other filled with painful cuts. The difference boiled down to Medicaid expansion. More than a dozen House Republicans abandoned their long-standing opposition to expansion, teaming up with Democrats to include it in their two-year spending plan, which would take effect July 1. (Vozzella and Schneider, 2/22)

The Hill: Study: Not Enough Providers To Address Opioid Epidemic In 11 States 
States in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic don't have enough doctors to address the opioid epidemic, according to a new study released this week. Eleven states and the District of Columbia lack an adequate number of providers to prescribe buprenorphine, a medicine used to prevent relapse in people with opioid addictions, according to research from Avalere Health, a health consulting firm in Washington, D.C. (Hellmann, 2/22)

The Hill: House Panel Announces Opioid Enforcement Bills Ahead Of Hearing
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Thursday unveiled eight bills it will examine during a hearing next week on enforcement-related measures to help combat the opioid crisis. Specifically, the hearing Wednesday will delve into how to help communities balance enforcement with patient safety; it’s the first of three hearings the panel will convene on opioid legislation. (Roubein, 2/22)

The New York Times: Opioids Tied To Risk Of Fatal Infections
Opioids may be tied to an increased risk of life-threatening infections.Animal studies have shown that opioids suppress the immune system, but their clinical effect in human infections has not been widely studied. In a new report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers looked at 1,233 patients with invasive pneumococcal disease, an infection that is fatal in about 10 percent of cases, with higher death rates in the elderly. They compared them with 24,399 controls. (Bakalar, 2/21)

The Associated Press: Drugs Likely In Deaths Of 3 Found On San Francisco Street
Public health authorities are warning against the dangers of buying drugs potentially laced with fentanyl after three men were found dead near a school in San Francisco's historic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. It's unlikely the medical examiner's office will determine the cause of death Thursday, but the department wanted to alert health care officials and drug users, said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Public Health. (Har, 2/22)

NPR: New Sepsis Alert System Relies On Algorithms And A Nurse's Wisdom
A quarter of a million Americans die every year from sepsis, which is the body's reaction to overwhelming infection. This cascade of organ failure can be nipped in the bud if health care workers know it's ramping up, but that's often not easy to do. "Sepsis is a really frustrating disease," says Dr. David Carlbom, a critical care pulmonologist, and medical director of the sepsis program at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. "There's no blood test for sepsis," he says. "There's nothing you can look at under the microscope and say 'this is sepsis.' " (Harris, 2/22)

The New York Times: Measles Cases In Europe Quadrupled In 2017
Measles cases soared in Europe last year, and at least 35 children died of the highly infectious disease, according to the World Health Organization. The virus found its way into pockets of unvaccinated children all over the continent, from Romania to Britain. The number of recorded cases quadrupled, to 21,315 in 2017 from 5,273 in 2016, a record low. (McNeil, 2/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Herbal Supplement Has Some New Yorkers Talking, Instead Of Coughing
If there’s one thing New Yorkers love more than discovering a new secret remedy, it’s telling other New Yorkers about it. “I’d been super sick for a week and half and couldn’t stop coughing,” said Alex Schweder, an architect and professor of design at Pratt Institute. That’s when his girlfriend gave him a bottle of Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa, an “herbal dietary supplement with honey and loquat,” according to the label. (Rovner, 2/22)

The Washington Post: WWII Veteran's Death: Nursing Home Workers Face Charges, Including Murder
The World War II vet threw one of his legs over the edge of his hospital bed, gasped for air and called out desperately to an empty room: “Help me, help me, help me.” Minutes later, 89-year-old James Dempsey, who had pressed a call button in his room, cried out again: “Help me. Help me. Help.” It was early on a February morning in 2014 — and Dempsey was dying, all alone. (Bever and Selk, 2/22)

Reuters: Puerto Rico Governor Announces Independent Probe Into Maria Death Toll
Puerto Rico's governor said on Thursday he has tapped researchers at the George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., to lead an independent probe into his administration's controversial tally of deaths caused by Hurricane Maria. Governor Ricardo Rossello said in a statement it was "of great interest to the state to identify how many lives were lost" in Maria, announcing an investigation led by Carlos Santos-Burgoa, director of the Global Health Policy Program at GWU's Milken Institute School of Public Health. (Brown, 2/22)

The Associated Press: Budget Cuts Could Close Kentucky's Poison Control Center
Kentucky could become the only state in the country without access to a poison control center, including the national hotline used by police, hospitals and parents more than 136 times a day for guidance on exposure to opioids and other harmful substances. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's proposed two-year spending plan eliminates $729,000 in state funds for the Kentucky Poison Control Center, or 43 percent of its $1.7 million budget. Most of the other funding comes from Norton Healthcare, the Louisville-based not-for-profit hospital system that has operated the center for decades. (2/22)

The Associated Press: Some Patients Are Being Notified Of Potential Privacy Issue
The University of Virginia Health System says it’s notifying more than 1,880 patients that an unauthorized third party may have been able to view some of their private medical information. A University of Virginia Health System news release says they learned in December that the third party may have been able to view patient information from early May 3, 2015, through most of 2016. (2/22)