First Edition: June 14, 2017

Kaiser Health News: AARP: States Lag In Keeping Medicaid Enrollees Out Of Nursing Homes
States are making tepid progress helping millions of elderly and disabled people on Medicaid avoid costly nursing home care by arranging home or community services for them instead, according to an AARP report released Wednesday. “Although most states have experienced modest improvements over time, the pace of change is not keeping up with demographic demands,” said the report, which compared states’ efforts to improve long-term care services over the past several years. AARP’s first two reports on the subject were in 2011 and 2014. (Galewitz, 6/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Republicans Push To Reach Health Deal
Senate Republicans raced Tuesday to bridge divisions over rickety insurance markets and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies in their pursuit of a health-care deal. While President Donald Trump predicted a deal would emerge, hard work remained behind the scenes. (Peterson, Radnofsky and Armour, 6/13)

The Associated Press: Sources: Trump Tells Senators House Health Bill 'Mean'
President Donald Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House-passed health care bill he helped revive is "mean" and urged them to craft a version that is "more generous," congressional sources said. Trump's remarks were a surprising slap at a Republican-written House measure that was shepherded by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and whose passage the president lobbied for and praised. At a Rose Garden ceremony minutes after the bill's narrow House passage on May 4, Trump called it "a great plan." (Fram, 6/13)

Reuters: Trump Hosts Lunch With Republican Senators, Obamacare Repeal On Menu
During the portion of the lunch open to reporters, Trump told the lawmakers their healthcare bill would need to be "generous" and "kind." "That may be adding additional money into it," he said, without offering details on how much money might be needed or how it might be used. (Cornwell and Roscoe, 6/13)

The Washington Post: Trump Calls House Health Bill That He Celebrated In The Rose Garden ‘Mean’
Trump’s labeling of the House bill as “mean” was a significant shift of tone that followed months of private and public negotiations, during which he called the bill “great” and urged GOP lawmakers to vote for it. Following the House vote, Trump hosted an event in the Rose Garden to celebrate its passage. Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), who attended the lunch, said Trump talked about “making sure that we have a bill that protects people with preexisting conditions” and how to design a tax credit for purchasing insurance that works for lower-income and elderly people in particular. (Snell and Sullivan, 6/13)

USA Today: Trump Told Senators The Obamacare Repeal Bill He Once Celebrated Is 'Mean'
Democrats and some moderate Republicans have attacked the House bill for eliminating a requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions and for rolling back the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid to cover millions of poor people. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill will result in 23 million more people being uninsured by 2026. (Collins, 6/13)

Politico: Trump Knocks House Health Care Bill As Too Harsh
The president also said Republicans risk getting savaged in the 2018 midterms if they fail to repeal Obamacare after a seven-year campaign against the law. But he made clear that the Senate needs to pass a bill that Republicans are able to more easily defend and is not viewed as an attack on Americans from low-income households, as the House bill has been portrayed by critics, the sources said. He also advocated more robust tax credits for people who buy insurance on the individual market, a move that would increase the bill’s cost. (Everett, Haberkorn and Dawsey, 6/13)

The Washington Post: Cruz’s Fragile Alliance With GOP Leaders Now Pivotal In Health-Care Push
The Republican attempt to reshape the nation’s health-care system has grown increasingly dependent this week on the fragile alliance between Senate GOP leaders and a man they have clashed bitterly with for years: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Senate leaders are struggling to build conservative support for their emerging bill, with GOP aides and senators voicing growing skepticism that hard-right Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) can be persuaded to back it. Conservative organizations, meanwhile, are complaining that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is offering proposals that would not sufficiently dismantle the law known as Obamacare. (Sullivan and Snell, 6/13)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Congressman Sees Health-Care Bill On President’s Desk By August
A Republican congressman who helped shepherd the party’s health-care overhaul bill through the House last month predicted Tuesday that a final bill will pass the Senate and land on the president’s desk before August. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden’s estimate, described at The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network meeting in Washington, suggests he is optimistic that Senate leaders will be able to meet a self-imposed July 4 deadline for passing their health legislation. (Hackman, 6/13)

USA Today: Latest Estimate: 13 Million People To Lose Health Coverage With GOP Plan
About 13 million people will lose health insurance in the next 10 years if the House-passed Affordable Care Act replacement plan is enacted, according to a new report out Tuesday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' office of the actuary. The estimate, while hardly rosy, is still about 10 million fewer people than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated would lose coverage under the American Health Care Act (AHCA), now being considered by the Senate. (O'Donnell, 6/13)

Politico: Federal Actuary: 13M More Uninsured Under GOP Repeal Package
The coverage estimate is well below the 23 million more uninsured that the CBO has projected under the American Health Care Act. The congressional scorekeeper additionally estimated that the American Health Care Act would reduce spending by only $119 billion over a decade. The disparity is a result of differing assumptions about whether cost-saving measures in the House bill will work. The CMS actuary and CBO have disagreed in the past on the budgetary effects of legislation, including surrounding the enactment of Obamacare. The new actuary's analysis does not estimate the effects of taxes repealed. (Demko, 6/13)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Obamacare 'Death Spiral' Is A Half-Told Tale
An AP Fact Check finds that the Trump administration is being selective with its information when it argues Obamacare is in a "death spiral." Vice President Mike Pence made that case Tuesday in remarks to federal employees. He correctly cited statistics showing 10.3 million people are enrolled in subsidized health insurance markets, far fewer than the 23 million projected for 2017. But he left out the fact that the law's Medicaid expansion is covering an estimated 12 million people. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/14)

The New York Times: Fact Check: These Statements By Trump’s Cabinet Don’t Match Policy
Members of the White House cabinet took turns praising President Trump at a gathering on Monday, adopting the commander in chief’s evaluations of himself. Their mimicry was not limited to a day of flattery; several have also adopted Mr. Trump’s rhetorical style of doubling down on false claims and pushing so-called alternative facts. At least four Trump administration cabinet secretaries have defended austere budget cuts and policy shifts at their departments with misleading statements in congressional testimony and other official settings. Here’s an assessment. (Qiu, 6/13)

The New York Times: Trump Says Market Is Failing, But One Insurer Bets Big On Obamacare
The Obamacare insurance markets aren’t as shaky as President Trump seems to believe. On Tuesday, the insurer Centene announced plans to expand aggressively into the state marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act. Centene said it intended to sell individual policies for the first time in Nevada, Missouri and Kansas, and to grow its presence in six other states, including Ohio and Florida. (Sanger-Katz and Abelson, 6/13)

The Associated Press: Key Insurer Centene Plans To Expand Health Exchange Presence
This growth spurt could fill some big holes that have developed in the exchanges, the only place where people can buy individual coverage with help from an income-based tax credit. Currently, 25 counties in Missouri, 20 in Ohio and another two in Washington have no insurers lined up to sell coverage on the exchange in 2018. (Murphy, 6/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Centene To Expand Affordable Care Act Marketplace Offerings
Mr. Neidorff said that Centene’s expansion reflects that “we do very well in the exchanges; it’s been a good business segment for us.” Despite the lack of clarity around the future of the ACA, as Republicans in Congress work to pass a health-care bill, Mr. Neidorff said Centene is making its calls based on the information it has now, rather than the possible changes to come. “We think we have the agility to deal with the various regulatory environments,” he said. “We tend to make decisions around the facts that are known at that point in time.” (Wilde Mathews, 6/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Anthem’s Boss Faces Tough Choices In Health-Care Debate
Anthem Inc.’s business is swirling with uncertainty as Congress debates new health-care legislation. That means tough choices are looming for the insurer’s chief executive, Joseph R. Swedish. One of those difficult decisions was revealed last week, when Anthem said it will withdraw from the Ohio insurance marketplace in 2018. Anthem’s departure leaves 18 Ohio counties poised to have no plans available through the marketplace next year. (Wilde Mathews, 6/13)

The Washington Post: Where The Obamacare Exchanges Might Have Zero Insurance Options In 2018
Next year, dozens of counties across the country could be left with no insurance companies offering insurance in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Nationwide, that leaves 35 thousand marketplace enrollees living in a county with no affordable way to purchase insurance (As it stands, people who receive subsidies can only use them to purchase coverage in the marketplace.), and 2.4 million would be left with just one insurer’s plan to choose from. That’s out of 12.2 million enrollees total. (Soffen and Uhrmacher, 6/14)

The Associated Press: Congress Passes Long-Sought VA Accountability Bill
Congress approved long-sought legislation Tuesday to make firing employees easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs, part of an effort urged by President Donald Trump to fix a struggling agency serving millions of veterans. The House cleared the bill, 368-55, replacing an earlier version that Democrats had criticized as overly unfair to workers. The Senate passed the bipartisan legislation by voice vote last week. It will go to Trump later this week for his signature. (Yen, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: Congress Approves VA Reform Bill That Will Make It Easier To Fire Department Managers
The act, which won bipartisan support and endorsements from veterans’ groups, is the latest attempt by Capitol Hill to respond to the 2014 VA scandals involving long wait times for medical care and attempts by VA employees to cover up the delays. (Rosenblatt, 6/13)

The Washington Post: Do Opioid Drug-Abuse Deterrents Actually Work? FDA Wants To Know.
The Food and Drug Administration is ramping up scrutiny of anti-abuse features on opioid painkillers to try to determine if they actually do what they're intended to do. On Tuesday, the agency announced a two-day public meeting that will focus on whether the agency has “the right information to determine whether these products are having their intended impact on limiting abuse and helping to curb the epidemic,” according to an accompanying statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. (McGinley, 6/13)

The Associated Press: Prosecutors' Lawsuit Says Opioid Drug Makers Deceived Public
A new lawsuit invokes the plight of a baby born dependent on opioid drugs, as three Tennessee prosecutors and the baby's guardian accuse several drug manufacturers of unleashing an epidemic through deceptive marketing about the risks of addiction to painkillers. "Baby Doe spent his first days in the neonatal intensive care unit writhing in agony as he went through detoxification," according to the suit filed Tuesday in the Sullivan County Circuit Court in Kingsport, Tennessee. The infant boy, who is not identified, was born in March of 2015. (Burke, 6/13)

USA Today: Tennessee Counties Sue Drugmakers Over Opioid Epidemic
In an unprecedented move, three Tennessee prosecutors are taking aim at drugmakers who supplied the opiates that addicted millions, using the state’s long-ridiculed and rarely used “crack tax” law. The district attorneys general for three east Tennessee judicial districts collectively representing nine counties filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Sullivan County Circuit Court against opioid drugmakers Purdue Pharma, Mallinckrodt and Endo Pharmaceuticals. (Satterfield, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: Ambulances Are So 2016. After A Cardiac Arrest, The Fastest Way To Send Help Is On A Flying Drone
The best medicine for a person who goes into sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock. That jolt temporarily stops the heart, along with its rapid or erratic beat. When the heart starts itself up again, it can revert to its normal rhythm and resume pumping blood to the brain and the rest of the body. The sooner this happens, the better. When a patient is shocked within one minute of collapse, the chance of survival is nearly 90%. But if it takes 10 minutes to administer a shock, the odds or survival fall below 5%. (Kaplan, 6/13)

NPR: Drones Might Help Save People In Cardiac Arrest
More than 350,000 cardiac arrests happen across the U.S. in places other than hospitals each year, according to the American Heart Association — and a person's chance of surviving is about 1 in 10. Drone-delivered AEDs beat ambulance trip times to the scenes of cardiac arrests, the researchers say in a letter published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Columbus, 6/13)

NPR: Scientists Say Brain Cell Transplants May Help Treat Parkinson's
Researchers are working to revive a radical treatment for Parkinson's disease. The treatment involves transplanting healthy brain cells to replace cells killed off by the disease. It's an approach that was tried decades ago and then set aside after disappointing results. Now, groups in Europe, the U.S. and Asia are preparing to try again, using cells they believe are safer and more effective. (Hamilton, 6/13)

The Washington Post: America’s New Tobacco Crisis: The Rich Stopped Smoking, The Poor Didn’t
After decades of lawsuits, public campaigns and painful struggles, Americans have finally done what once seemed impossible: Most of the country has quit smoking, saving millions of lives and leading to massive reductions in cancer. That is, unless those Americans are poor, uneducated or live in a rural area. (Wan, 6/13)

The New York Times: Noise May Raise Blood Pressure Risk
Airport noise could raise the risk for high blood pressure, a new study suggests. Greek researchers studied 420 people living near Athens International Airport, where an average of 600 airplanes take off and land every day. Maps made during construction of the airport divided the surrounding area by noise level: less than 50 decibels, 50 to 60 decibels (60 decibels is about the noise level of a room air-conditioner), and more than 60 decibels, so researchers could track noise exposure precisely. (Bakalar, 6/13)

The New York Times: At Airports, Making Travel Easier For Autistic Passengers
For Gearoid Mannion and his wife, Michelle, who live in County Clare, Ireland, air travel with their two autistic sons, Conor, 9, and Darragh, 7, is usually nothing short of a nightmare. The noise level, crowds and announcements at airports overwhelm the boys, and waiting in security and boarding lines is a concept that they don’t understand, Mr. Mannion said. “They get red in the face and start running around and crying and screaming or run toward the exit, because they want to go back home,” he said. The family’s recent experience at Shannon Airport in Ireland, when they were en route to a vacation in Málaga, Spain, however, gave them hope that flying didn’t have to be so stressful. (Vora, 6/13)

NPR: Nevada's Medicaid-For-All Bill Awaits Action From Republican Governor
Nevadans will find out this week whether their state will become the first in the country to allow anyone to buy into Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor and disabled. Earlier this month, Nevada's legislature, where Democrats hold the majority, passed a "Medicaid-for-all" bill, and it's now on Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's desk awaiting his signature or veto. If he does not act by Friday, it will automatically become law. (Kodjak, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra Says He Supports Single-Payer Health System For California
California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Tuesday that he supports a proposal for California to adopt a single-payer health plan and believes it will eventually be enacted because consumers will become “fed up” with the current system that he said is unaffordable to many. The state Senate approved a bill two weeks ago that would create a system where the state government would replace private insurance companies, paying doctors and hospitals for healthcare. The measure, pending in the Assembly, does not yet include a way to cover the $400-billion annual cost. (McGreevy, 6/13)

The Washington Post: D.C. Has One Of The Highest Rates Of Children With Health Insurance, Report Says
The District has one of the highest rates of health-insured children, with 98 percent covered, according to the latest Kids Count annual survey released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Coverage rates nationwide also reached a new high, with 95 percent of children insured in 2015, the report stated. (Chandler, 6/13)

The Associated Press: Missouri Senate Panel Advances Abortion Regulations
A panel of Missouri senators on Tuesday advanced legislation to create new abortion regulations — including annual inspections of clinics — requested by Republican Gov. Eric Greitens in his call for a special session focused solely on abortion laws. Members of the Senate Committee on Seniors, Families and Children voted 4-2 along party lines in favor of a package of proposals that would place new restrictions on abortion clinics. (6/13)