First Edition: June 14, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
5 Things To Know About Medicaid Work Requirements
The Trump administration’s decision in January to give states the power to impose work requirements on Medicaid enrollees faces a federal court hearing Friday. The lawsuit before the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., will determine whether tens of thousands of low-income adults in Kentucky will have to find jobs or volunteer in order to retain their health coverage. (Galewitz, 6/14)
Kaiser Health News:
Puerto Rico’s Water System Stutters Back To Normal
Carmen Rodríguez Santiago counts herself lucky to have any water service at home. But eight months after Hurricane Maria, the 52-year-old security guard said the faucets in her cream-and-pink-colored house still run dry every two to three days, and the water, when it returns, is flecked with sediment. Puerto Rican officials claim that water service on the U.S. island has been restored to more than 96 percent of customers as of June 6, but the report of progress masks underlying problems. Outside of cities, service has been slower to be reconnect. Flow is often intermittent and the water quality is uncertain. (Heredia Rodriguez, 6/14)
Kaiser Health News:
That ‘Living Will’ You Signed? At The ER, It Could Be Open To Interpretation.
“Don’t resuscitate this patient; he has a living will,” the nurse told Dr. Monica Williams-Murphy, handing her a document. Williams-Murphy looked at the sheet bearing the signature of the unconscious 78-year-old man, who’d been rushed from a nursing home to the emergency room. “Do everything possible,” it read, with a check approving cardiopulmonary resuscitation. (Graham, 6/14)
The Associated Press:
Worker Protections Seen At Risk In Trump Health Care Shift
The Trump administration's latest move against "Obamacare" could jeopardize legal protections on pre-existing medical conditions for millions of people with employer coverage, particularly workers in small businesses, say law and insurance experts. At issue is Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recent decision that the Justice Department will no longer defend key parts of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act in court. That includes the law's unpopular requirement to carry health insurance, but also widely supported provisions that protect people with pre-existing medical conditions and limit what insurers can charge older, sicker customers. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
Get Health Coverage At Work? Lawsuit Against ACA Could Affect You, Too
Most of the attention surrounding a recent Justice Department request to strike down parts of the ACA has focused on the individual market, where people buy their own coverage. But the request would also rewind some protections for the vast majority of Americans—some 175 million people—who get health coverage via small and large employers, analysts said. “Anyone who just thinks this is just impacting the 12 to 15 million individuals with individual coverage is wrong,” said Timothy Jost, an emeritus law professor at Washington and Lee University. (Armour, 6/13)
The Associated Press:
Experts: Protections On Pre-Existing Conditions At Risk
The Trump administration's latest move against "Obamacare" could jeopardize legal protections on pre-existing medical conditions for millions of people with employer coverage, particularly workers in small businesses, say law and insurance experts. At issue is Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recent decision that the Justice Department will no longer defend key parts of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act in court. That includes the law's unpopular requirement to carry health insurance, but also widely supported provisions that protect people with pre-existing medical conditions and limit what insurers can charge older, sicker customers. (6/14)
The Washington Post Fact Check:
President Trump’s Flip-Flop On Coverage For Preexisting Health Conditions
In plain English, the attorney general’s letter means that the Trump administration no longer supports a provision of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, that makes it possible for people to buy insurance if they have preexisting health conditions. Sessions, in an unusual step, sided with plaintiffs who had argued the ACA was now unconstitutional because Congress, in the tax bill, eliminated the penalty for not buying insurance, known as the individual mandate. Sessions said the Justice Department would no longer defend the law in a lawsuit brought by Republican-led states, a surprise stance that led to the resignation of a senior career lawyer at the Justice Department. (Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly, 6/14)
The Hill:
House Dems Demand Answers From HHS On DOJ's ObamaCare Decision
A group of House Democratic leaders are demanding answers from the Trump administration about the role the Department Health and Human Services (HHS) played in the Department of Justice’s decision not to defend key parts of ObamaCare in federal court. The lawmakers asked HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma if their respective agencies conducted any analysis on the impact the decision will have on the country’s health-care system. (Weixel, 6/13)
The Hill:
Insurance Experts: ObamaCare Mandate Repeal Driving Premium Increases
Increases in health-care costs and policy changes are driving ObamaCare premium increases for the 2019 plan year, according to a new report released Wednesday. The American Academy of Actuaries says that the elimination of the individual mandate penalty and the expansion of cheaper health plans with fewer benefits will contribute to premium increases next year. (Hellmann, 6/13)
The Hill:
Dems Seek To Leverage ObamaCare Fight For Midterms
Democrats are seizing on the Trump administration’s push in court to overturn ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, hoping to leverage the issue ahead of November’s midterm elections as some Republicans rush to distance themselves from the move. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to join a legal battle arguing that one of the most popular parts of ObamaCare should be struck down is being viewed by Democrats as a political gift, with the party apparatus quickly using the issue to attack GOP candidates and rally their base. (Sullivan, 6/14)
Politico Pro:
Obamacare Navigators In The Dark About 2019
The Trump administration has yet to tell Obamacare outreach workers when or how to apply for another round of federal grants to boost enrollment around the country for 2019, compounding worries that federal officials will undermine the law during the upcoming sign-up season. The delay in starting the funding process for groups working as so-called navigators is increasing anxiety that they could lose staff or be hindered as they hone their outreach tactics for 2019 enrollment. (Pradhan and Glorioso, 6/12)
Los Angeles Times:
Nonprofit Hospitals Are Being Less Charitable. They Say That Shows Obamacare Is Working
California’s nonprofit hospitals are providing sharply less free and reduced-cost medical care than they did a few years ago, raising questions about the role and obligations of those institutions in the age of Obamacare. About 170 nonprofit general acute-care hospitals provided $651 million of charity care in 2016, down from $985 million in 2011, according to a report due out this week by the California Nurses Assn. (Cosgrove, 6/12)
Stat:
A Bill Would Keep Status Quo Of Contentious Hospital Drug-Discount Program
Amid ongoing debate over a drug discount program for safety-net hospitals, a lawmaker introduced a bill that would memorialize the intent of the controversial program and require the Trump administration to implement oft-delayed regulations about pricing and penalties. The bill arrives as Congress hashes out oversight of the 340B program, which was created in 1992 and requires drug makers to offer discounts of up to 50 percent on all outpatient drugs — for everything from AIDS to diabetes — to hospitals and clinics that serve indigent populations. There are currently more than 12,400 such providers, according to the Human Resources and Services Administration. (Silverman, 6/13)
Modern Healthcare:
Kentucky's Medicaid Work Requirement Faces Reckoning In Court
In a case with major national implications, the Trump administration and advocacy groups are set to argue in federal court in Washington Friday over whether the HHS secretary has the legal authority to allow Kentucky to establish a work requirement and other tough new conditions on people receiving Medicaid coverage. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama administration nominee, will hear oral arguments in the case, which was filed in January by the National Health Law Program, the Kentucky Equal Justice Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Meyer, 6/13)
Stat:
The DEA Is Playing 'Whack-A-Mole' As It Tries To Stamp Out The Opioid Crisis
Four years ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency decided to make it harder to obtain the most commonly prescribed opioid painkillers — specifically, pills such as Vicodin that contain hydrocodone. The move worked: Prescriptions for hydrocodone-based opioids fell by a whopping 26 percent between June 2013 and June 2015. But the tactic appears to have created yet another problem — there has been a notable uptick in illicit trading of opioids on the “dark net,” according to a new study published in BMJ. (Silverman, 6/13)
CQ:
House Holds Second Day Of Opioid Votes
The House moved into its second day of a two-week stretch focused on opioid bill votes. The chamber on Wednesday is expected to pass several more noncontroversial bills intended to combat the opioid crisis. The House passed 25 opioid bills on Tuesday sent to the chamber by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Wednesday’s opioid bills come from five different committees and have a broader focus, touching on topics from support programs to veterans issues. (Raman, 6/13)
The Washington Post:
Devastated By ALS, Trying To Save Others
Rahul Desikan sits at his dining room table, a large computer screen before him, and works on his latest scientific paper. He types a single letter, then another, then another. For a man in a hurry, desperately trying to rid the world of terrible diseases, it’s an excruciatingly slow process. Using a special mouse strapped to his forehead that detects his smallest movement, Desikan moves a cursor around an on-screen keyboard. When he finds the letter he wants, he clicks a button with his right thumb, and it appears in a white space to the side. Repeating the process over and over, he debates research ideas with colleagues, analyzes reams of data and competes for grants. He types so much that he occasionally wears out the clicker. (McGinley, 6/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Mystery Around Middle-Age Suicides
The recent suicides of two well-known figures—celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer Kate Spade —underscore a sobering reality: Suicide rates for people in middle age are higher than almost any other age group in the U.S. and rising quickly. A report released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that suicide rates for women 45 to 64 increased nearly 60% between 2000 and 2016. For men of the same age the suicide rate increased almost 37% over that time. (Reddy, 6/14)
The New York Times:
6 Therapists, Psychiatrists And Counselors Talk About Treating The Suicidal
Last week provided two grim case studies in how fans, friends and family react to the suicides of beloved celebrities. It also provided a view into something far more obscure: the insights of mental health workers who are on the front line of America’s suicide crisis. As news of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain’s suicides emerged last week, mental health workers took to The New York Times’s comment section to describe what the crisis looks like to them. (Tessier, 6/13)
NPR:
Suicide Rates In The U.S. Are Climbing Faster Among Women Than Men
The number of people dying by suicide in the United States has risen by about 30 percent in the past two decades. And while the majority of suicide-related deaths today are among boys and men, a study published Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics finds that the number of girls and women taking their own lives is rising. "Typically there's between three and three times as many suicides among males as among females," says Dr. Holly Hedegaard, a medical epidemiologist at the NCHS and the main author of the new study. In 2016, about 21 boys or men out of 100,000 took their own lives. On the other hand, just six girls or women out of 100,000 died by suicide that year. (Chatterjee, 6/14)
The New York Times:
That Huge Mediterranean Diet Study Was Flawed. But Was It Wrong?
The study was a landmark, one of the few attempts to rigorously evaluate a particular diet. And the results were striking: A Mediterranean diet, with abundant vegetables and fruit, can slash the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But now that trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013, has come under fire. The authors retracted their original paper on Wednesday and published an unusual “re-analysis” of their data in the same journal. (Kolata, 6/13)
NPR:
New England Journal Of Medicine Retracts And Replaces Mediterranean Diet Study
The revised paper says only that people eating the Mediterranean diet had fewer strokes and heart attacks, not, as the original paper claimed, that the diet was the direct cause of those health benefits. Of course, a change in one paper — even a high-profile one — doesn't mean that researchers have lost faith in the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. "I don't know anybody who would turn around from this and say, 'Now that this has been revealed, we should all eat cotton candy and turn away from the Mediterranean diet,' " says David Allison, dean of the School of Public Health at Indiana University in Bloomington. (McCook, 6/13)
The Associated Press:
Science Says: What Happens When Researchers Make Mistakes
A top medical journal is correcting five studies and republishing a sixth after a British doctor scrutinized thousands of reports in eight journals over more than a decade and questioned some of their methods. The editor of the New England Journal of Medicine says no conclusions changed, and that the corrections it published Wednesday should raise public trust in science, not erode it. (Marchione, 6/13)
The Associated Press:
A Year After Shooting, GOP Lawmakers Hold Firm On Gun Rights
In the year since House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others were shot at a congressional baseball practice, mass shootings have occurred at a Texas church, a Las Vegas music festival and high schools in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas. Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a doctor who helped save Scalise's life last June, has watched those attacks unfold with the acute sensitivity of a mass shooting survivor. Each shooting is jarring, says Wenstrup — calling the Parkland shooting in particular sickening — but his views on gun control have not changed. (6/13)
Stat:
Is It Time To Target Autophagy To Treat Disease?
Agrowing number of small companies and a few large drug makers are taking a serious look at co-opting cellular recycling, or autophagy, as a way to treat disease. Cells use this process, whose Greek roots mean “self-eating,” to clear damaged proteins, adapt to starvation, or fight infection, all by digesting their own contents. When autophagy’s essential genes are mutated and the process goes wrong, diseases from cancer to inflammatory bowel disease to Parkinson’s can result. (Cooney, 6/14)
Politico:
Pulse Check: The Rise Of JUUL, With Tevi Troy
Tevi Troy helped lead the nation's health department under President George W. Bush. Now he's helping steer JUUL — the nation's most popular e-cigarette company — through the Washington policymaking process and public health scrutiny. "Using a JUUL is worse than doing nothing," Troy acknowledged on the podcast. But"if we can get people to switch away from [traditional] cigarettes… there's a potentially huge public health benefit." (Diamond, 6/13)
The Washington Post:
How Emoji Can Kill: As Gangs Move Online, Social Media Fuel Violence
Instead of tagging graffiti, some rival gang members now upload video of themselves chanting slurs in enemy territory. Taunts and fights that once played out over time on the street are these days hurled instantaneously on Twitter and Instagram. The online aggression can quickly translate into outbreaks of real violence — teens killing each other over emoji and virtually relayed gang signs. Social media have profoundly changed gang activity in the United States, according to a new report by a Chicago nonprofit. Of particular concern, researchers say, is how social media often appear to amplify and speed up the cycle of aggression and violence. (Wan, 6/13)
Stat:
The University Of California Will Finally Be Granted Two CRISPR Patents
In the never-ending saga of CRISPR patents, the University of California has finally put some points on the board, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granting it two genome-editing patents. One, granted on Tuesday, was first applied for in 2014. The other and more significant patent, applied for in 2015 but based on a 2012 discovery, will be granted next week. The granted patent, number 9,994.831, covers “methods and compositions for modifying a single stranded target nucleic acid.” Next week’s, which is to be issued on June 19, covers the use of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome-editing in anything other than a bacterial cell and, specifically, where the targeted region on the genome is 10 to 15 nucleotides, or base pairs, long — the “letters” that constitute DNA and its cousin RNA. Next week’s patent is considered more foundational and therefore significant. (Begley, 6/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
Puerto Rico Data Suggests Hurricane Maria Death Toll Is Much Higher
Newly released data from Puerto Rico’s government bolsters a conclusion reached by several studies that the death toll from last September’s Hurricane Maria vastly exceeds the official figure of 64. The number of deaths on the island from September to December 2017 surpassed the average for the same period over the previous four years by more than 1,400, according to mortality data released by the government Tuesday. The figures show the numbers of fatalities in September and October last year—2,928 and 3,040, respectively—are greater than the tally for any month going back to January 2013. (Campo-Flores, 6/13)
The Washington Post:
Bubonic Plague: Child In Idaho Has First Human Case In The State In 26 Years
A boy in Idaho is recovering after contracting plague — the first human case in the state in more than two decades, health officials say. Christine Myron, a spokeswoman for the Central District Health Department, said Wednesday that the child, who has not been publicly identified, is back home in Elmore County and “doing well” after being treated with antibiotics in the hospital. The child became ill late last month and, earlier this week, health authorities received laboratory confirmation that he had bubonic plague, Myron said. (Bever, 6/13)