First Edition: June 17, 2015

Kaiser Health News: How Four Words In Huge Health Law Divide The Supreme Court
In an analysis for Kaiser Health News, Stuart Taylor Jr. writes: "The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to issue a decision this month in a case that could again threaten a key aspect of President Barack Obama’s health law. But this time around, unlike three years ago when the court rejected a constitutional challenge to the law’s individual mandate, the case, King v. Burwell, focuses primarily on statutory interpretation." (Taylor, 6/17)

Kaiser Health News: State Auditor Slams California’s Oversight Of Medi-Cal Plans Used By 9 Million
California health officials failed to ensure that more than 9 million residents enrolled in Medi-Cal managed care plans had access to doctors when they needed them, the state auditor said in a stinging report Tuesday. Health officials might have learned about those problems from calls to an ombudsman’s office – but thousands went unanswered every month. (Feder Ostrov, 6/16)

The New York Times: G.O.P. Is Wary That Health Care Win Could Have Its Own Risks
Republicans who have been hoping that the Supreme Court will upend President Obama’s health care law are now confronting an urgent and uncomfortable question: What if they win? Republicans in Congress would face an enormously complicated challenge to fashion an alternative, and they fear the fallout could lead to election losses if millions of Americans abruptly found themselves without health insurance. (Pear, 6/17)

Politico: A State Fix If Court Hits Obamacare?
The White House claims it has no contingency plan if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare subsidies in 34 states that rely on HealthCare.gov rather than operate their own exchanges. Congress is so deeply divided that Republicans don’t even agree among themselves on what to do if 6.4 million Americans see the subsidies vanish. That could leave the whole mess up to the states — and they don’t have an easy remedy either. The 34 states would have to figure out how to establish their own exchanges to keep the subsidies flowing. Some red states insist they won’t even try to fix what they think is a Washington problem, meaning the coverage gap between red and blue states could become even deeper. (Pradhan, 6/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Insurers Playing A Game Of Thrones
Big U.S. insurers are courting one another for possible multibillion-dollar deals. How they pair off could have significant implications for the managed-care industry, its individual and corporate customers, and U.S. medical providers. Each potential target has strengths in different parts of the managed-care puzzle. (Weaver, 6/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Humana Won’t Get Lost In Merger Shuffle
All of a sudden, Humana isn’t the only health insurer available for sale. That is good news for its would-be buyers, although it doesn’t have to be calamitous for Humana. The U.S. managed-care industry is in a merger-and-acquisitions frenzy as the five largest insurers— UnitedHealth, Anthem, Aetna, Cigna, and Humana—explore a series of possible combinations, according to The Wall Street Journal. (Grant, 6/16)

NPR: Defeat By Deductible: Millennials Aren't Hip To Health Insurance Lingo
Young adults, who generally have little experience managing their own health care expenses, are finding it especially hard signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. (Singh, 6/16)

Politico: NIH Boost Masks GOP Cuts Elsewhere From Obama's Budget
House Republicans rolled out a giant $153 billion spending bill Tuesday that tries to put a kinder, gentler — some say smarter — face on what are still deep cuts from President Barack Obama’s domestic budget. More than in the past, there are clear winners led by the National Institutes of Health together with the Centers for Disease Control and modest new investments in education initiatives targeted to early childhood, disadvantaged minority students and the disabled. (Rogers, 6/16)

Politico: Lifesavers, Budget Breakers: Tackling Prescription Drug Costs
Drug spending shot up by 13 percent to hit $374 billion in 2014, as the breakthrough hepatitis C cure Sovaldi — at $84,000 for a 12-week treatment — put the spotlight on the eye-popping costs of some new drugs. Facing a pipeline full of pricey new cholesterol, cancer and anti-inflammatory drugs, a national conversation is swirling around what, if anything, can or should be done to restrain prices. (6/16)

Politico: 'War On Women': The GOP Counteroffensive
Republicans believe they’ve found one way to begin to blunt incessant attacks that they’re anti-women: increase access to over-the-counter birth control. Democrats call the proposal by several GOP senators a political ploy by a party that’s more interested in fighting reproductive rights and Obamacare. (Kim and Haberkorn, 6/17)

NPR: Updated Training Of Birth Control Counselors Boosts Use Of IUDs
The most effective reversible birth control methods are hormonal implants and intrauterine devices. Less than 1 percent of women using these long-acting contraceptive methods will become pregnant over the course of a year. That's compared to 9 percent of women using the pill who will get pregnant, and to 18 percent of women whose partners use a condom. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco had an interesting idea about how to increase that rate. Instead of directly educating women about IUDs and implants, they conducted a study to see if educating health care workers about the latest innovations and statistics regarding contraceptives would make a difference. It did. Unintended pregnancy rates among young women in the study dropped by almost half. (Aliferis, 6/16)

The New York Times: House Republicans Ease Opposition To Needle Exchanges
Faced with a health crisis resulting from a rise in heroin use in many of their home states, House Republicans are easing their longstanding opposition to federal funding in support of needle exchange programs. The annual health spending measure now taking shape in the House would still bar using federal dollars to buy sterile needles or syringes, but officials could use federal grant money to provide support for state and local drug treatment programs that include needle exchanges. (Hulse, 6/16)

The New York Times: John Kasich, Ohio’s Republican Rebel, Nears Run For President
The rebel tag is apt, but it may go only so far with conservatives. Mr. Kasich has expanded Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law, embraced the Common Core educational standards and said he was open to a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants — policies that he might have a hard time explaining to conservatives in Iowa. (Stolberg, 6/16)

The Associated Press: FDA Tells Food Industry To Phase Out Artificial Trans Fats
Popular foods like pie crusts, frostings and microwave popcorn will be largely rid of artery-clogging trans fats after a decision by the Obama administration to phase them out over the next three years. (Jalonick, 6/16)

The Washington Post: Why Doctors Used To Love Trans Fats
There’s a bit in the Woody Allen movie “Sleeper” where the protagonist, suddenly revived after being cryogenically frozen for two centuries, requests a bowl of wheat germ and organic honey for breakfast. “Ah yes,” a white coat-clad doctor says, a hint of derision in his voice. “Those were the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life preserving properties.” (Kaplan, 6/17)

The Washington Post: The 100-Year-Old Scientist Who Pushed The FDA To Ban Artificial Trans Fat
No one was more pleased by the Food and Drug Administration's decision Tuesday to eliminate artificial trans fats from the U.S. food supply than Fred Kummerow, a 100-year-old University of Illinois professor who has warned about the dangers of the artery-clogging substance for nearly six decades. (Dennis, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: California Budget Deal Grants Health Coverage To Children In U.S. Illegally
Immigrant children who are in the country illegally would receive public healthcare coverage in California under a budget deal announced Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders. An estimated 170,000 immigrants 18 and younger could qualify, marking another victory for advocates and lawmakers who have worked to make the state more welcoming to unauthorized residents. (Megerian and Mason, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: Medi-Cal Patients May Not Have Adequate Access To Doctors, Audit Finds
Since signing up for Medi-Cal more than a year ago, Kevin Hill hasn’t been able to find a doctor. He said he called at least 15 physicians near his home in Long Beach who were listed in his health plan’s provider directory. But either the phone numbers didn’t work or the doctors weren’t accepting new patients, he said. He's given up. “Now I just go to an emergency center to pay cash even though I can barely afford it,” the 58-year-old said. (Karlamangla, 6/16)

Center For Public Integrity: Audit: Feds Overpaid For Half Of Patients In UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage Plan
Federal officials have spent years locked in a secret legal battle with UnitedHealth Group, the nation's biggest Medicare Advantage insurer, after a government audit detected widespread overbilling at one of the company's health plans, newly released records show. The audit found that Medicare paid too much for nearly half of a sample of patients enrolled at PacifiCare of Washington state, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. (Schulte, 6/17)

The Associated Press: Miami Home Health Company To Pay $17M In Medicare Scam
A Miami home health company has agreed to pay $17 million for allegedly paying doctors to refer Medicare patients. Department of Justice officials said Tuesday that the settlement with Hebrew Homes Health Network Inc. is the largest involving alleged violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute by skilled nursing facilities in the United States. (6/16)