First Edition: Jan. 12, 2024

KFF Health News: Rural Hospitals Are Caught In An Aging-Infrastructure Conundrum 
Kevin Stansbury, the CEO of Lincoln Community Hospital in the 800-person town of Hugo, Colorado, is facing a classic Catch-22: He could boost his rural hospital’s revenues by offering hip replacements and shoulder surgeries, but the 64-year-old hospital needs more money to be able to expand its operating room to do those procedures. “I’ve got a surgeon that’s willing to do it. My facility isn’t big enough,” Stansbury said. “And urgent services like obstetrics I can’t do in my hospital, because my facility won’t meet code.” (Hawryluk, 1/12)

KFF Health News: What Would A Nikki Haley Presidency Look Like For Health Care? 
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley will learn how her campaign is resonating with voters after the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, the first presidential nominating contest of this election year. Already, the former South Carolina governor — who became well known as one of the Affordable Care Act’s loudest critics during her tenure in office from 2011 to 2017 — has raised questions about what her presidency could mean for the nation’s health care policy. (Sausser, 1/12)

KFF Health News and PolitiFact: In A Fractious Rerun, GOP Rivals Haley And DeSantis Debate Health Care. Trump Sits It Out
The race to win the quickly approaching Iowa caucuses was the theme running through Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate hosted by CNN at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Front-runner Donald Trump was again absent and only two other candidates made the cut: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. DeSantis and Haley fired a frenzy of attacks at each other’s records and positions. The faceoff was moderated by CNN “State of the Union” co-anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. (1/11)

KFF Health News' 'What The Health?' Podcast: All About The (Government) Funding 
As this election year begins in earnest, making it harder for Congress to pass bills, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are still struggling to fund the government for the fiscal year that began last October. And many health priorities hang in the balance. (1/11)

The Washington Post: House Republican Revolt Scrambles Plan To Prevent Government Shutdown
Congress began leaving Washington on Thursday for the long holiday weekend without a plan for how to prevent a government shutdown next week, as a revolt over spending brewed among hard-right House Republicans. Funding for 20 percent of the government is set to expire on Jan. 19, and the rest expires on Feb. 2. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) have agreed on an overall $1.66 trillion spending deal for the 2024 fiscal year, but lawmakers won’t have time to enact it before the deadlines. So the Senate on Thursday took procedural steps to be able to pass a stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, to keep the government open while members work on long-term spending legislation. Members left town after that and are due to return on Tuesday. (Bogage and Sotomayor, 1/11)

Reuters: Millions Of US Women, Children Risk Hunger Without More Aid Funding, White House Says
The U.S. Congress must raise spending on a food assistance program for low-income women and children or 2 million could be turned away this year, Biden administration officials said on Thursday. A bitterly divided Congress has for months failed to reach agreement on 2024 government spending levels and is racing to avert a partial shutdown on Jan. 19. An eventual deal should include $1 billion more for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tanden on a call with reporters. (Douglas, 1/11)

The Washington Post: Lloyd Austin’s Hospitalization Prompts Inspector General Investigation
The Defense Department inspector general said Thursday it will investigate the mishandling of Lloyd Austin’s recent hospitalization, which the Pentagon chief and others close to him kept secret from the White House and Congress for days in an apparent breach of protocol after he developed serious complications from prostate cancer surgery. In a memo addressed to Austin, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and other officials, Inspector General Robert Storch said his staff would begin its work this month. He indicated that while the inquiry will be focused on the Office of the Secretary of Defense, its scope could broaden. (Lamothe and Alfaro, 1/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Weight-Loss Drugs Don’t Cause Suicidal Thoughts, FDA Says 
There is no evidence popular weight-loss drugs cause suicidal thoughts, federal officials said. The Food and Drug Administration’s preliminary analysis Thursday showed no clear relationship between adverse-event reports of suicidal thoughts or actions and the drugs for weight-loss and diabetes, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s. Millions of people have started taking drugs that can help some users shed a fifth of their body weight or more.  (Whyte, 1/11)

AP: Drugs Like Ozempic And Wegovy Show No Link With Suicide, FDA Says
But the agency also said officials cannot definitively rule out that “a small risk may exist” and that they’ll continue to look into reports regarding more than a dozen drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. (Aleccia, 1/11)

The New York Times: Grand Jury Declines To Indict Ohio Woman Who Miscarried At Home 
A grand jury in Ohio on Thursday declined to indict a woman who had miscarried a nonviable fetus at home on a felony charge of abuse of a corpse, ending a case that had drawn international scrutiny from lawyers and reproductive health advocates who had argued the charge was baseless and could endanger other patients. The woman, Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, Ohio, was arrested in October after passing a fetus in her bathroom and trying to flush the remains down the toilet. The police in Trumbull County had charged Ms. Watts using an extremely rare interpretation of a state law. The grand jury returned what is known as a no bill, meaning it chose not to indict. The case had been before a Trumbull County grand jury since November. Ms. Watts had pleaded not guilty. (Tumin, 1/11)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri Lawmakers Push To Ease Access To Birth Control
As some Missouri lawmakers seek to tighten abortion restrictions even further and confusion lingers about the legality of contraception, a bipartisan group of legislators wants to ease access to birth control. The proposal would allow pharmacies or clinics in Missouri to dispense an annual supply of contraception at one time, instead of just one or three months’ worth. (Pfeil, 1/11)

AP: Worried About Losing In 2024, Iowa's Republican Voters Are Less Interested In Talking About Abortion 
Republican presidential candidates these days are barely discussing abortion in Iowa just days away from the state's caucuses. (Price and Peoples, 1/12)

Politico: Abortion Rights Clashes With NIMBYism In California 
There would seem to be no place friendlier to abortion rights than Beverly Hills, where the City Council voted unanimously on a resolution supporting access to the procedure after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Which is why billboards going up Thursday in the famously wealthy city are such a surprise. “Los Angeles should be safe for abortion seekers,” the brightly colored signs read. “Fight back against attempts to shut down DuPont Clinic.” What’s going on? (Bluth, 1/11)

CBS News: Health Care Workers Protest Closure Of Midwifery Services At Manhattan Hospital
Health care workers are taking a stand against the closure of midwifery services at a hospital in Inwood, Manhattan. ... "We're vital. We're vital to the community," said Yvonne Torres, who has been a midwife at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital for 35 years. "I can walk along Broadway and see women that I delivered and also taken care of the children that I've delivered." It came as a shock when the Allen Hospital announced the closure of its midwifery program with no explanation. (Duddridge, 1/11)

Stat: Doulas Covered By Medicaid Under New York's New Plan
During the peak of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, Kendra Berger delivered her second child in the hospital. The experience was traumatic for Berger, a 35-year-old former nurse who lives in Holland, New York. She pushed when she wasn’t ready and her baby got stuck in the birthing canal. In the recovery room after birth, Berger started hemorrhaging and wound up needing a blood transfusion. And two weeks after birth, during her visit to the pediatrician with her newborn, she learned her baby’s clavicle had been broken during the delivery. (Nayak, 1/12)

The New York Times: Women With Depression During Or After Pregnancy Face Greater Suicide Risk, Even Years Later 
Women who experience depression during pregnancy or in the year after giving birth have a greater risk of suicide and attempted suicide — risks that persist for years, two new studies report. A research team analyzed records of nearly a million women in Sweden’s national medical registries from 2001 through 2017, comparing 86,551 women who had perinatal depression with 865,510 women who did not. The groups were matched by age and year they gave birth. (Belluck, 1/10)

Stateline: There's A New Pill For Postpartum Depression, But Many At-Risk Women Face Hurdles
The first pill for postpartum depression approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now available, but experts worry that minority and low-income women, who are disproportionately affected by the condition, won’t have easy access to the new medication. About 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression, federal data shows. Suicide and drug overdoses are among the leading causes of pregnancy-related death, defined as death during pregnancy, labor or within the first year of childbirth. (Hassanein, 1/11)

CBS News: First Lady Jill Biden, Actress Halle Berry To Visit Chicago's UIC To Discuss Women's Health
First Lady Jill Biden was in Chicago on Thursday to talk about the importance of women's health research. She made a stop at the University of Illinois Chicago to highlight the importance of more research on menopause and women's health. It's part of a White House initiative on women's health research that launched back in November. Biden said the initiative, "will make sure that women are not just an afterthought, but a first thought." (Bizzle and Gray, 1/11)

The Wall Street Journal: More Teens Who Use Marijuana Are Suffering From Psychosis 
Thousands of teenagers and young adults have developed delusions and paranoia after using cannabis. Legalization efforts have made cannabis more readily available in much of the country. More frequent use of marijuana that is many times as potent as strains common three decades ago is leading to more psychotic episodes, according to doctors and recent research. “This isn’t the cannabis of 20, 30 years ago,” said Dr. Deepali Gershan, an addiction psychiatrist at Compass Health Center in Northbrook, Ill. Up to 20% of her caseload is patients for whom she suspects cannabis use triggered a psychotic episode. (Wernau, 1/10)

The Hill: Jelly Roll Urges Congress To Pass Anti-Fentanyl Legislation 
Jason DeFord, the rapper-turned-country singer known as Jelly Roll, appeared before Congress on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to pass legislation combating the supply and distribution of fentanyl. “At every concert I perform, I witness the heartbreaking impact of fentanyl,” DeFord said. “I see fans grappling with this tragedy in the form of music, that they seek solace in music and hope that their experiences won’t befall others.” (Shapero, 1/11)

Fox News: Teen Drug Overdoses Hit Record High In 2022, Driven Primarily By Fentanyl Poisoning
A record number of high school teens died of drug overdoses in 2022 in an alarming trend driven primarily by fentanyl poisonings from counterfeit pills, according to a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Boston researchers found that an average of 22 adolescents ages 14 to 18 years old died each week in the U.S. from drug overdoses in 2022. (Llenas, 1/11)

USA Today: New Drug Addiction Study Suggests 'Just Say No' May Not Be For All
People can live healthier lives if they wean themselves off drugs, a new study shows. The study published Wednesday in the academic journal Addiction builds on growing evidence that addiction is a chronic disease, akin to diabetes or high blood pressure. People addicted to cocaine and methamphetamine saw improved health and recovery even with reduced use of the drug, researchers found. The study contrasts hardline approaches focused on complete abstinence, moving instead toward modern ideas on risk reduction to tamp down addiction. (Cuevas, 1/11)

Reuters: CVS To Close Some Pharmacies Within Target Stores
CVS Health said on Thursday it will close some pharmacies that operate inside Target stores during the first several months of the year. The closures will begin in February and be completed by the end of April, a company spokesperson said. Prescriptions will be transferred to a nearby CVS Pharmacy prior to closing, the spokesperson added. (1/11)

Modern Healthcare: E-Visit Billing On The Rise, Study Finds
More providers are billing patients for electronic messages exchanged through patient portals, according to a new study. The practice of e-visits, as it is known, took off at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Claims for the services peaked in April 2020 before falling to a low in June 2021, according to a wide-ranging study of claims data. However, those claims began rising again in 2022. (DeSilva, 1/11)

Modern Healthcare: Centene, Molina Seek Higher Medicaid Rates From States
Health insurance companies are having some success persuading states to boost Medicaid capitation rates amid risk pools that have worsened during the ongoing redeterminations process. Insurers such as Centene and Molina Healthcare have securing additional financing over the past year as more than 14 million people lost Medicaid coverage while states carry out unwinding the continuous coverage policy implemented early in the COVID-19 pandemic, which expired last year. (Tepper, 1/11)

CBS News: Measles Outbreak: Possible Exposure In Montgomery County
Montgomery County health officials are warning residents about possible measles exposures related to the outbreak in Philadelphia. Health officials said Thursday there are currently no confirmed cases in Montgomery County, but people may have come into contact ... last week with someone who has tested positive. The potential exposure happened at two places last Wednesday, Jan. 3, according to an email from the county. (Dougherty, 1/11)

CBS News: 20-30 People Potentially Exposed To Measles At Nemours Children's Hospital In Wilmington
About 20 to 30 people were potentially exposed to measles in late December at Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, the Delaware Department of Health said on Thursday. The Department of Health said the potential exposure happened on Dec. 29, 2023, when 20 to 30 people were potentially exposed to a person who was "not symptomatic but was infectious at the time of their visit to the facility." The DPH identified people who were potentially exposed and issued quarantine orders when necessary. (Ignudo, 1/11)

The Atlantic: A New Vaccination Crisis Has Emerged
For years now, health experts have been warning that COVID-era politics and the spread of anti-vaxxer lies have brought us to the brink of public-health catastrophe—that a Great Collapse of Vaccination Rates is nigh. This hasn’t come to pass. In spite of deep concerns about a generation of young parents who might soon give up on immunizations altogether—not simply for COVID, but perhaps for all disease—many of the stats we have are looking good. (Engber, 1/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Study Reveals Immune System Anomalies In People With Long COVID
A new analysis of blood samples from people with the vexing set of conditions known as long COVID lends fresh evidence to the idea that bits of the coronavirus can remain in the body wreaking havoc for years after infection, say researchers at UCSF and Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. Scientists around the world are in a race to figure out why millions of people suffer from persistent, debilitating symptoms after recovering from an acute COVID infection. (Asimov, 1/11)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Survivors At Higher Risk For Digestive Diseases, Study Suggests 
Adult COVID-19 survivors are at higher risk for digestive diseases, including gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, peptic ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gallbladder disease, nonalcoholic liver disease, and pancreatic disease—even among patients with mild infections, according to a study published yesterday in BMC Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 1/11)

CBS News: Positive Hepatitis A Case Confirmed From Olive Garden Employee In Deptford: Officials
The Gloucester County Department of Health confirmed a case of hepatitis A in a food handler at an Olive Garden in Deptford Thursday afternoon. Officials said the positive case from the food handler was around Dec. 26 through Dec. 30 at the Olive Garden at 1500 Almonesson Road. The health department is working to give vaccinations to coworkers who could've been exposed and are unvaccinated, according to the release. (Newbill, 1/11)

CBS News: Gov. Kathy Hochul Announces More Initiatives To Tackle Mental Health Issues
Gov. Kathy Hochul is doubling down on her pledge to address mental health in the state. ... "We're also going to be increasing our in-patient capacity as well by 1,000 more beds and helping our kids, helping them with eating disorders and more school-based mental health clinics, because parents can't take time of their jobs and take the kids to an appointment that might be at 11 o'clock in the morning. That doesn't work. You do it in school, where the kids are. That's where they're showing up every day," Hochul said. (1/11)

News Service of Florida: Florida Senate Poised To Pass Wide-Ranging Health Care Plan
The Florida Senate is poised to pass a wide-ranging health care plan that includes trying to boost the number of doctors in the state, shift patients away from emergency rooms and seed innovation efforts. (Saunders, 1/11)

NPR: Women In Gaza Struggle To Find Menstrual Pads, Running Water
Heba Usrof, a young woman in Gaza, is running out of options to deal with her menstrual cycle. Pads have disappeared from pharmacies and stores. It's been this way since the war that began in October, and it's a situation that mirrors how nearly every basic requirement — from food to medical aid — has become harder to find in Gaza over the past three months. "We go around and around, searching in all the pharmacies for pads, but we can't find any," Usrof says. (Batrawy and Bakr Bashir, 1/11)

Reuters: WHO Declares Cape Verde Free Of Malaria 
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Cape Verde free of malaria, hailing it as a significant milestone in the fight against the disease. Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, has faced severe epidemics in densely populated areas before it implemented targeted interventions. (1/12)