First Edition: June 13, 2017

Kaiser Health News: Zika In America: One Mother’s Saga
When her daughter was born at Providence St. Peter Hospital in January, the first thing Maria Rios checked was the baby’s head. She’d seen the terrifying photos on the internet — infants in Brazil and in Puerto Rico whose skulls were misshapen, even collapsed, ravaged by the Zika virus that has engulfed Latin America. Days earlier, U.S. doctors had told Rios — a 20-year-old, first-time mother — that she was infected with Zika, likely spread by a mosquito bite at her parents’ home in Colima, Mexico, last summer. Rios desperately wanted them to be wrong. (Aleccia, 6/13)

USA Today: Obamacare Repeal Drafted Quietly By Senate Republicans
Top Senate Republicans and their staff are plowing ahead with a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare in the hopes of getting legislation on the floor by mid-summer — even if their own GOP colleagues have no idea what the bill will contain. “It’s coming together and there’s a lot of feedback of (Congressional Budget Office) trying to get scores on different policy options ... but it’s coming,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, told reporters Monday evening. (Collins, 6/12)

Politico: Senate GOP Reins In Expectations For Killing Obamacare
Senate Republicans are aggressively trying to rein in expectations for their Obamacare repeal effort, wary of blowing a deadline or falling short of 50 votes on a promise that has driven the GOP's political strategy for much of the past decade. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is still aiming for an Obamacare repeal vote in June, though his lieutenants acknowledge that deadline could slip into July. And while GOP leaders want to hold the vote as soon as possible, Republicans continue to avoid hard deadlines and say factors outside their control could strike. (Everett, 6/12)

The Associated Press: HealthCare.Gov Dropout Trend Continues Under Trump
Continuing a dropout trend seen in the Obama years, about 16 percent of consumers who signed up for coverage this year through public health insurance markets had canceled their plans by early spring, the government said Monday. Figures released from the Health and Human Services department show that 10.3 million people were signed up and paying their premiums as of March 15. That's 1.9 million fewer than the 12.2 million who initially signed up during open enrollment season, which ended Jan. 31. (6/12)

Politico: Nearly 2M Fell Off Obamacare Coverage Rolls Through Mid-March
CMS said high costs and lack of affordability were the most common factors individuals cited when asked why they didn't keep their coverage. A separate report on enrollment trends attributed the drop-off to other factors, including securing a job with employer-sponsored insurance. (Pradhan, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Sens. Murray, Warren Request Probe Of Whether Trump ‘Undermined’ Obamacare
Two Senate Democrats have sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services’s independent watchdog, asking for an investigation into Trump administration actions that could have “undermined” the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate’s Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a member of the committee, requested that the department’s inspector general make public any actions taken by the Trump administration to destabilize the individual health-insurance market. (Hackman, 6/12)

The Associated Press: Iowa May Be First State With No Health Insurers On Exchange
"While legislation appears to slowly be moving at the federal level, it is unlikely any changes to the ACA will be enacted in time to keep Iowa's individual health insurance market from a total collapse leaving nearly 72,000 individuals with zero options to purchase health insurance for 2018," [Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug] Ommen said.(6/12)

The Washington Post: Iowa Asks To Rewrite Affordable Care Act Rules To Prop Up Its Insurance Exchange
Iowa is asking the Trump administration for permission to jettison fundamental aspects of its Affordable Care Act marketplace, contending that a large-scale rewriting of the rules is the only way to prevent the state from becoming the first without any health plans available under the law next year. In an extreme plan that Iowa’s insurance commissioner submitted to federal health officials on Monday, the state would essentially take an estimated $350 million in federal ACA money that its residents and insurers would ordinarily receive next year and use it for different purposes. (Goldstein, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Iowa Seeks To Revamp Affordable Care Act
Trump administration officials said they were open to supporting the Iowa proposal to the extent possible under the current health law. A White House official said the administration welcomed suggestions from the states to tweak the workings of the ACA within their borders, and officials “want to get to ‘yes’ with states. ”The Iowa proposal, which would offer one type of insurance plan and revamp the law’s subsidies that help people buy coverage, among other changes, would be in effect for 2018, though it could be extended. (Wilde Mathews and Radnofsky, 6/12)

The New York Times: John Kasich Backs Slow Medicaid Rollback, But With More Money
Ohio’s influential Republican governor, John R. Kasich, said on Monday that he could accept a gradual phaseout of the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but only if Congress provides states with more money than the House health care bill included and more flexibility to manage the health program for the poor. Mr. Kasich’s statement could prove significant as Senate Republicans try to find near unanimity on a bill to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. His position points to a compromise that moderate Senate Republicans could embrace — but that could challenge the chamber’s most conservative members. (Pear, 6/12)

Politico: With Or Without Washington, States Are Already Remaking Medicaid
Medicaid is now the biggest health program in the country, covering more than 70 million people, or 1-in-5 Americans. Spending surpassed $545 billion in 2015. Yet Medicaid, “the other M,” is often overshadowed by Medicare. But the depth and breadth of innovation in Medicaid in states across the country under Democratic and Republican governors, deserves more attention. That’s particularly true now as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress consider sweeping changes and deep spending cuts that would fundamentally change the program that provides health care for Americans with low income, the disabled, and millions of older Americans needing long-term services and support in nursing homes or in the community. (6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Can A Single Injection Conquer PTSD? The Army Wants To Find Out
The U.S. Army has commissioned a study to determine whether an anesthetic injection to the neck alleviates symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder—a treatment that, if proven effective, could be a big step toward easing an affliction affecting hundreds of thousands of troops who have returned from combat. The $2 million Army study constitutes the first large-scale randomized control research into use of the shots—called stellate ganglion blocks—to treat PTSD. The injections have been used for decades for arm pain and shingles. (Phillips, 6/12)

The Associated Press: High Court Ruling Speeds Up Generic Biotech Drug Approval
A unanimous Supreme Court is speeding up the time for generic biotech drugs to become available to the public in a ruling that means a loss of billions in sales to the makers of original versions. The justices ruled Monday in favor of generic drug maker Sandoz in its dispute with rival Amgen over a near-copy of Amgen’s cancer drug Neupogen. (Hananel, 6/12)

The New York Times: More Than 10 Percent Of World’s Population Is Obese, Study Finds
More than 10 percent of the world’s population is now obese, a marked rise over the last 30 years that is leading to widespread health problems and millions of premature deaths, according to a new study, the most comprehensive research done on the subject. Published Monday in The New England Journal of Medicine, the study showed that the problem had swept the globe, including regions that have historically had food shortages, like Africa. (Richtel, 6/12)

USA Today: 2 Billion People Are Overweight Or Obese Globally, Study Says.
The findings represent "a growing and disturbing global public health crisis," said the authors of the paper, which was published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Among the 20 most-populous countries, the highest level of obesity among children and young adults was in the U.S., at nearly 13%. Egypt topped the list for adult obesity at about 35%, while the lowest rates were in Bangladesh and Vietnam, respectively, at 1%. (Rice, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Nassau County Sues Drugmakers Over Opioid Epidemic
Nassau County filed a lawsuit Monday against several pharmaceutical companies, alleging their prescription painkillers helped fuel the opioid epidemic that costs the county millions of dollars annually to combat. The complaint, filed in Nassau County Supreme Court, targets several companies including Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. , Purdue Pharma LP and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. The defendants also include drug distributors and doctors. (De Avila, 6/12)

The Associated Press: Petitions Oppose Texas Seeking Abortion Provider Waiver
Planned Parenthood has delivered what it says are 16,000-plus petition signatures opposing Texas’ asking the federal government to fund a state-run women’s health program excluding abortion providers. Activists turned in the petitions Monday at Gov. Greg Abbott’s office at the Texas Capitol. (6/12)

The Associated Press: Missouri Lawmakers Return For Special Session On Abortion
Missouri lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday after Republican Gov. Eric Greitens called for a special session aimed at imposing more abortion restrictions and undoing a St. Louis ordinance that bans discrimination over abortion and pregnancies. Greitens, an abortion opponent, announced last week he was bringing legislators back to work, the second time he's done so in less than a month. At issue now are a federal judge's ruling striking down some state laws on abortion and the St. Louis ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in housing and employment based on "reproductive health decisions." (6/12)

The Washington Post: Fever During Pregnancy May Increase Autism Risk In Offspring
A mother’s fever during pregnancy, especially in the second trimester, is associated with a higher risk that her child will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, researchers reported Tuesday. Three or more fevers after 12 weeks of gestation may be linked to an even greater risk of the condition. The study by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health adds support for the theory that infectious agents that trigger a pregnant woman’s immune response may disrupt a fetus’s brain development and lead to disorders such as autism. (Bernstein, 6/13)

The New York Times: The Liver: A ‘Blob’ That Runs The Body
To the Mesopotamians, the liver was the body’s premier organ, the seat of the human soul and emotions. The ancient Greeks linked the liver to pleasure: The words hepatic and hedonic are thought to share the same root. The Elizabethans referred to their monarch not as the head of state but as its liver, and woe to any people saddled with a lily-livered leader, whose bloodless cowardice would surely prove their undoing. Yet even the most ardent liverati of history may have underestimated the scope and complexity of the organ. (Angier, 6/12)

NPR: Owning A Dog Leads To More Walking And Exercise For Older Adults
Dog owners often say the best thing about dogs is their unconditional love. But new research suggests there's another benefit, too. Dog owners walk more. In a study published Monday in the journal BMC Public Health, dog owners on average walked 22 minutes more per day compared to people who didn't own a dog. And they weren't just dawdling. (Aubrey, 6/12)

The New York Times: Hearing Aids At The Mall? Congress Could Make It Happen
A few years hence, when you’ve finally tired of turning up the TV volume and making dinner reservations at 5:30 p.m. because any later and the place gets too loud, you may go shopping. Perhaps you’ll head to a local boutique called The Hear Better Store, or maybe Didja Ear That? (Reader nominees for kitschy names invited.) Maybe you’ll opt for a big-box retailer or a kiosk at your local pharmacy. (Span, 6/12)

The Washington Post: Congressman-Elect Gianforte Gets Anger Management But No Jail Time For Assaulting Reporter
Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte will perform community service and anger management classes but serve no jail time for body-slamming a reporter on the eve of his election last month. Gianforte pleaded guilty to charges that he assaulted Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs at the politician’s campaign headquarters on May 24 — an incident that was witnessed by other journalists and captured on audiotape. (Mettler, 6/12)