First Edition: January 16, 2020

Kaiser Health News: What The 2020s Have In Store For Aging Boomers
Within 10 years, all of the nation’s 74 million baby boomers will be 65 or older. The most senior among them will be on the cusp of 85. Even sooner, by 2025, the number of seniors (65 million) is expected to surpass that of children age 13 and under (58 million) for the first time, according to Census Bureau projections. “In the history of the human species, there’s never been a time like [this],” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, referring to the changing balance between young people and old. (Graham, 1/16)

Modern Healthcare: ACA's Impact On Racial Health Disparities Has Stalled
While black and Hispanic adult uninsured rates dramatically declined thanks to the Affordable Care Act, that progress has largely stalled in recent years and the overall uninsured rate has started to climb, according to a new study released Thursday. Since 2015, black adults in Medicaid expansion states were more likely to be insured than white adults in those states, according to the Commonwealth Fund report. More than 74% of black adults and 58% of Hispanic adults reported having a regular healthcare provider in 2018 compared to 71% and 55% in 2013, the study showed. (Johnson, 1/16)

ABC News: Progress Stalled On Closing Racial Gap In Health Insurance Since Trump Took Office
Between 2013 and 2016, the uninsured rate dropped from 24.4% to 13.7% among black adults, and from 40.2% to 25.5% among Hispanic adults, according to a report published Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research foundation. Uninsured white Americans dropped from 14.5% to 8.2% during the same period. (Schumaker, 1/16)

US News: Obamacare Curbed Racial And Ethnic Coverage Gaps, But Progress Has Slowed
States that expanded their Medicaid programs saw the largest improvement overall. From 2013 to 2018, the black-white gap in insurance coverage dropped from 8.4 to 3.7 percentage points in expansion states, for example, while the Hispanic-white gap fell from 23.2 to 12.7 percentage points. Gains were so significant that the uninsured rate among blacks in expansion states in 2018 – 10.1% – was lower than the 12.3% rate among whites in non-expansion states, the report says. (Galvin, 1/16)

The Hill: Health Insurers Urge Supreme Court To Take ObamaCare Case, Uphold Health Law
The health insurance lobby America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) on Wednesday filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a case challenging ObamaCare and to rule to uphold the health law. The health insurers are siding with a group of Democratic-led states that have asked the high court to take up the GOP-led case challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now. (Sullivan, 1/15)

The Associated Press: Groups Push For 'Medicare For All' Support As Primaries Near
"Medicare for All" has played a role in nearly every stage of the Democratic presidential campaign, but there's been some quibbling over how that phrase is defined. With just weeks until the first 2020 contests, several groups are organizing grassroots efforts aimed at convincing voters they should back candidates who fully support the legislation from which the phrase is derived. This week, as candidates descended on Iowa for Tuesday's debate at Drake University, U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan, co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, planned a Medicare for All town hall in Des Moines. (Kinnard, 1/15)

The Hill: Bloomberg Vows To Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes If Elected President
Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday said he would ban the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes and raise taxes on traditional cigarettes if he wins the White House. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, said he would also push to reduce the amount of nicotine in traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products to "nonaddictive levels." (Hellmann, 1/15)

Reuters: UnitedHealth Bets On Government Health Plan Growth In 2020
UnitedHealth Group Inc, the largest U.S. health insurer, reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, and said it expects strong sales of its government health plans this year. The company also reported solid sales growth in its pharmacy benefits business. (Maddipatla, 1/15)

The Associated Press: Another Strong UnitedHealth Quarter, 2019 Profit At $13.84B
Growing Medicare Advantage coverage and fat profits from UnitedHealth’s Optum business, which strays beyond the company’s health insurance core, contributed to better-than-expected earnings in the quarter. Revenue grew 4% to $60.9 billion, just shy of analyst projections for $60.96 billion, according to FactSet. The insurer, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, normally tops Wall Street expectations for earnings and revenue every quarter. (Murphy, 1/15)

Forbes: UnitedHealth Group Says Medicare Growth ‘Strongest Ever’
“We finished the year encouraged by continued performance improvement in Medicaid, early market interest in our new innovative line of employer-sponsored benefit offerings and 2020 individual Medicare Advantage annual enrollment results, which were our strongest ever,” UnitedHealth Group chief executive David Wichmann, told analysts Wednesday morning on the company’s earnings call. “Within our Medicare Advantage offerings, including dual eligible growth, we expect to serve 700,000 more people in 2020, nearer to the upper-end of the range of performance offered at the (December) investor conference.” (Japsen, 1/15)

The Wall Street Journal: UnitedHealth Group Reports Higher Revenue In Latest Quarter
UnitedHealth’s results will likely reassure managed-care investors that medical costs aren’t seeing a big uptick due to strong flu activity. The medical loss ratio—the percentage of premium revenue spent on health care—at its insurance unit was 82.5%, lower than analysts had expected. On a call with analysts, UnitedHealth said flu had a “very modest impact” on its fourth-quarter insurance results, with some increase in outpatient care but inpatient activity close to normal. (Barba, 1/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Investors Shouldn’t Risk Skipping Health Insurance
Health-care investors don’t have to fear Medicare for All. U.S. health insurers’ stocks are trading near all-time highs, but the looming 2020 election has resulted in some volatile trading: The sector sold off on Monday after an influential poll released last week showed Sen. Bernie Sanders gaining ground among Iowa caucus-goers. (Grant, 1/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Juul Scales Back Overseas Expansion
Juul Labs Inc. told staff this week it may exit the South Korean market and has postponed its planned launch in New Zealand, as the troubled e-cigarette company scales back its expansion outside the U.S. The company aggressively pushed to enter new markets last year, but, in the rush to expand, it made missteps that resulted in embarrassing setbacks, according to current and former employees. In China, for example, online retailers pulled Juul off their sites just days after the company had launched there. (Maloney, 1/15)

Stat: A Court Struck Down A Ban On Pharma ‘Price Gouging.’ One State Wants To Revive It — And Others Could Follow
In one of their first acts of 2020, state lawmakers will attempt to bring a vanquished bill back from the dead. Lawmakers in New Hampshire next month are set to consider a proposed ban on generic drug “price gouging” — the latest in a series of attempts by statehouses to tackle prescription drug costs. But as most state legislatures around the country pursue new, aggressive ideas to lower drug prices, the Granite State is revisiting a bill largely left for dead after a federal court struck down Maryland’s version two years ago. (Facher, 1/16)

Stat: Verily Tangos With A Health Tech Partner — And Steps On A Few Toes
Verily was one of the most-talked-about debutants at this year’s J.P. Morgan ball. For the first time in its five-year history, the Alphabet life sciences spinout presented to some of the 9,000 health care executives and investors who descended upon Union Square, and Verily’s mercurial CEO, Andy Conrad, faced pressure both to impress and entertain. (Brodwin, 1/16)

The New York Times: Overwhelmed By Medical Bills, And Finding Help On TikTok
When severe pain sent Eva Zavala to an emergency room last March, her treatment involved an ultrasound and some blood work. Her visit left her with a medical bill for more than a thousand dollars, after insurance. It was an overwhelming cost for Ms. Zavala, 22, a medical assistant in Oregon. She had barely made a dent in the total amount she owed when, several months later, she came across a video on TikTok. (Fortin, 1/16)

The New York Times: Where Surgeons Don’t Bother With Checklists
Ten years ago, checklists for surgeons were all the rage. Inspired by the preflight routines of airline pilots, surgical checklists were shown to prevent tragic errors, reduce infections and save lives. Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard-trained surgeon, championed them in The New Yorker and wrote a book about them, “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” (McNeil, 1/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Physician Burnout Is Widespread, Especially Among Those In Midcareer
Physicians between the ages of 40 and 54 experience a higher rate of burnout than older or younger doctors, according to a recent survey of more than 15,000 physicians who cited administrative tasks and work hours as key drivers of their stress. Nearly half of Generation X physicians who were surveyed said they felt burned out, compared with 39% of baby boomers, ages 55 to 73, and 38% of millennials, ages 25 to 39. Roughly half of all the doctors surveyed also said that they would be willing to take a substantial pay cut to achieve a better work-life balance. (Abbott, 1/15)

The Associated Press: Chinese Health Officials Can't Rule Out Person-To-Person Spread Of New Virus
The possibility that a new virus in central China could spread between humans cannot be ruled out, though the risk of transmission at the moment appears to be low, Chinese officials said Wednesday. Forty-one people in the city of Wuhan have received a preliminary diagnosis of a novel coronavirus, a family of viruses that can cause both the common cold and more serious diseases. A 61-year-old man with severe underlying conditions died from the coronavirus on Saturday. (1/15)

The New York Times: How Anti-Vaccine Activists Defeated A Bill To End Religious Exemptions
As a measles outbreak raged last year, New York lawmakers passed a bill ending all nonmedical exemptions to immunization, handing supporters of such efforts across the nation a major victory. Then the focus shifted to New Jersey, where an even more sweeping bill had been making its way through the State Legislature that would have barred nearly all exemptions to vaccines for students at any public or private school, including colleges, which were not covered by the New York law. (Tully, Otterman and Hoffman, 1/16)

Stat: New Heart Transplant Method Being Tested For The First Time In The U.S.
More than 250,000 people in the U.S. are currently at the end stages of heart failure, up to 15% of whom are in desperate need of a transplant. A new method of “reanimating” donor hearts from those who have died from cardiac failure is currently being tested in the U.S., and may soon ease that burden. As part of the new procedure, known as “donation after cardiac death,” or DCD, transplants, organs are retrieved from those who have died because their heart stopped — either naturally or because physicians discontinued life support. (Chakradhar, 1/16)

Stat: Study: Mutations In Stem Cells Of Young Donors Can Be Passed To Recipients
Doctors use stem cell transplants to treat patients with certain cancers or blood disorders. And donors, whose blood or bone marrow is used for the procedures, are typically young, for a variety of reasons. But a pilot study released Wednesday raised the possibility that such donors are also passing along mutations in stem cells that could lead to health problems for some recipients. (Joseph, 1/15)

NPR: Embryo Research In Mexico Raises Ethical Concerns
Researchers have conducted a controversial study that involved paying dozens of young women at a hospital near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to get artificially inseminated so their embryos could be flushed out of their bodies and analyzed for research purposes. The study showed that embryos created that way appear to be as healthy genetically as embryos created through standard in vitro fertilization. Physically, the embryos appear to, possibly, even be healthier, the study found. (Stein, 1/15)

The New York Times: Rich People Don’t Just Live Longer: They Also Get More Healthy Years
Yes, indeed, it’s good to be rich in old age. According to a new study, wealthy men and women don’t only live longer, they also get seven to nine more healthy years after 50 than the poorest individuals in the United States and in England. “It was surprising to find that the inequalities are exactly the same,” said Paola Zaninotto, a professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London and a lead author of the study. (Murphy, 1/16)

The New York Times: This Strange Microbe May Mark One Of Life’s Great Leaps
A bizarre tentacled microbe discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean may help explain the origins of complex life on this planet and solve one of the deepest mysteries in biology, scientists reported on Wednesday. Two billion years ago, simple cells gave rise to far more complex cells. Biologists have struggled for decades to learn how it happened. (Zimmer, 1/15)

Los Angeles Times: CTE Rears Its Ugly Head Again With New Aaron Hernandez Documentary
A new Netflix documentary promises a look inside the mind of Aaron Hernandez. Any look inside the mind of the onetime New England Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder and later killed himself will certainly delve into the topic of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Following his death at age 27, Hernandez was diagnosed with Stage 3 CTE by doctors at Boston University’s CTE Center, which studies repetitive head trauma in athletes and military personnel. (Schilken, 1/15)

NPR: Mighty Mice In Space May Help Disabled People On Earth
In early December at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, two anxious scientists were about to send 20 years of research into orbit. "I feel like our heart and soul is going up in that thing," Dr. Emily Germain-Lee told her husband, Dr. Se-Jin Lee, as they waited arm-in-arm for a SpaceX rocket to launch. A few seconds later the spacecraft took off, transporting some very unusual mice to the International Space Station, where they would spend more than a month in near zero gravity. (Hamilton, 1/16)

NPR: In The Lead Up To Menopause, Depression And Anxiety Can Spike
Hines knew she was likely going through perimenopause, that is the years leading up to menopause, when women's monthly hormonal cycles become erratic as their bodies prepare to stop menstruating. What she didn't realize — and many women don't know — is that the hormonal changes of perimenopause can bring with it changes in mood, and for some of us, a heightened risk of anxiety and depression. (Chatterjee, 1/16)

The Hill: CDC Lifts Warning About E. Coli Outbreak In Romaine Lettuce
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is lifting its warning about E. coli in romaine lettuce, saying the outbreak seems to be over. Since November, the CDC has been warning people not to eat romaine lettuce from the Salinas Valley growing region in California because of the risk of E. coli infection. The CDC is now removing that warning, saying, “This outbreak appears to be over.” (Sullivan, 1/15)

The New York Times: Life In A Troubled Mississippi Prison, Captured On Smuggled Phones
The cellphone rang once before someone picked up. On the other end was an inmate inside Unit 29 of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. “Hello,” he said. Then, in a steady voice that competed against a cacophony of rowdy conversations and a fuzzy signal, he urgently described to a complete stranger the turmoil he said existed on the inside. Some inmates needed medical attention, he said. All of them could use a hot shower. (Rojas, 1/16)

The New York Times: Trial Of 6-Year-Old’s Killer Exposes Lapses In City’s Child Welfare System
Zymere Perkins limped into his kindergarten class one day in April 2016, his legs so badly beaten he could barely walk, the latest in a series of injuries his teacher had seen. Not for the first time, the school contacted the city’s child welfare agency. Later, a social worker gently coaxed the story from the boy: His mother and her boyfriend had hurt him repeatedly. (Palmer, 1/15)

The Associated Press: Sleep Apnea Company Pays $37.5M To Settle Kickback Lawsuits
ResMed, a San Diego-based company that sells sleep apnea machines, will pay $37.5 million to settle allegations that it provided kickbacks to obtain customer referrals, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. The settlement covers five whistleblower lawsuits filed on behalf of the federal government. The lawsuits say that the company provided free services and equipment to medical equipment suppliers, sleep labs and other health care providers in violation of the federal False Claims Act. (1/15)