First Edition: June 28, 2016

Kaiser Health News: Supreme Court Strikes Down Key Restrictions In Texas Anti-Abortion Law
One of the key questions was which side Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has been a swing vote on abortion issues, would join. He signed onto the majority opinion with the four justices who traditionally support abortion rights.The immediate impact of the ruling means that the plaintiff in the case, Whole Woman’s Health, will not have to close any more of its Texas clinics. (Rovner, 6/27)

Kaiser Health News: Doctors Wrestle With Mixed Messages When Deciding Whether To Prescribe Painkillers
Steve Diaz, an emergency medicine doctor at Augusta’s MaineGeneral Health, says he knows what patients want when they come to him in pain. Drugs. And preferably strong ones. ... And with abuse of prescription painkillers like OxyContin, methadone and Percocet soaring, the instinct, public health experts say, should be to say no. ... But [a] federal policy — a provision of the 2010 federal health law linking hospital payments to patient satisfaction surveys — may be complicating efforts to curb opioid prescribing as part of the nation’s effort to address the painkiller abuse epidemic. (Luthra, 6/28)

Kaiser Health News: End-Of-Life Care Better For Patients With Cancer, Dementia: Study Finds
A new study offers surprising findings about end-of-life care -- specifically, physicians tend to be more likely to accommodate the advanced-care wishes of patients with cancer or dementia than renal disease, congestive heart failure, pulmonary disease or frailty. “There’s been a lot of focus on end-of-life care for cancer,” said Melissa Wachterman, the study’s principal author and a physician at the VA Boston Healthcare System and the Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “But most people don’t die of cancer. And the quality of end-of-life care for those dying of other conditions … is not as good.” The research was published online Sunday in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Luthra, 6/27)

California Healthline: Old Motels Get New Life Helping Homeless Heal
Just up the freeway from Disneyland, in the Orange County city of Buena Park, Paul Leon stood outside the beat-up remnant of a seedy motel. Above him, a faded pink sign advertised the Coral Motel, whose rooms back in its prime cost 35 bucks a night. “This particular motel was going to be taken back by the city of Buena Park, because of the drugs, alcohol, prostitution,” Leon explained. But Leon, CEO of the Irvine-based Illumination Foundation, a homeless services nonprofit, had a different idea. He proposed turning the motel lobby into a triage center and converting the rooms into clean recovery facilities for homeless people recently discharged from the hospital. And that’s what he did. (Gorn, 6/28)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Restrictions
The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed and strengthened constitutional protections for abortion rights, striking down parts of a restrictive Texas law that could have drastically reduced the number of abortion clinics in the state, leaving them only in the largest metropolitan areas. The 5-to-3 decision was the court’s most sweeping statement on abortion since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, which reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. (Liptak, 6/27)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Clinic Restrictions
The Texas provisions required doctors who perform abortions at clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and ordered clinics to meet hospital-like standards of surgical centers. (Barnes, 6/27)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Rules Against Texas And For Science In Abortion Case
As the Texas case made its way through the federal courts over the years, numerous misunderstandings and pure fiction about the health risks of abortion entered the debate. Among them were claims that the procedure is fraught with complications, causes cancer, leads to reduced fertility and results in depression, or even suicide. One of the most critical questions the Supreme Court had to address was whether courts need to consider scientific evidence supporting the laws. A lower court said they do not. But there was a lot for the justices to look at in the medical literature. (Cha, 6/27)

The Wall Street Journal: SCOTUS Abortion Ruling: Highlights From The Majority And Dissenting Opinions
Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion, was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. [Here] are excerpts from the majority opinion, the concurring opinion by Justice Ginsburg and dissenting opinions by Justices Alito and Thomas. (Gershman and Palazzolo, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Strengthens Right To Abortion, Strikes Down Texas Restrictions On Clinics
“We conclude that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes,” Breyer wrote in Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellderstedt. “Each places substantial obstacles in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the federal Constitution.” (Savage, 6/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court Rejects Texas Abortion Law As ‘Undue Burden’
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Monday: “The decision erodes states’ lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women, and subjects more innocent life to being lost.” He added that “Texas’ goal is to protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women.” President Barack Obama, whose administration argued against the law, said: “These restrictions harm women’s health and place an unconstitutional obstacle in the path of a woman’s reproductive freedom.” (Bravin, 6/27)

The New York Times: Reactions To The Supreme Court Ruling On Texas’ Abortion Law
In a major abortion ruling Monday, the Supreme Court struck down parts of a Texas law that would have forced dozens of clinics to close. Here are reactions from all sides of the issue. (6/27)

Reuters: Abortion Providers Aim To Reopen Some Closed Texas Clinics
Abortion providers in Texas reacted with surprise and elation on Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to throw out the state's restrictive abortion law and said they aimed to reopen some clinics shut down since the measure was passed in 2013. Since the law was passed by a Republican-led legislature and signed by a Republican governor, the number of abortion clinics in Texas, the second-most-populous U.S. state with about 27 million people, has fallen from 41 to 19. (Herskovitz, 6/28)

The Associated Press: Texas May Not Restore Lost Abortion Clinics Despite Ruling
Even with those mandates now gone, Planned Parenthood and others providers are not yet making promises about breaking ground on new facilities in Texas. And any openings, they cautioned, could take years, meaning that women in rural Texas counties are still likely to face hours-long drives to abortion clinics for the foreseeable future. Buildings need to be leased. Staffs need to be hired. Clinics must still obtain state licenses and funds for medical equipment must be raised. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Legislature is all but certain to remain hostile to abortion providers that try to expand. (Weber, 6/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court Abortion Ruling Scrambles Front Line Of Access Fight
Nancy Northup, head of the Center for Reproductive Rights that brought the Texas case, described the opinion as a “game-changer” in her organization’s efforts to challenge state laws. (Radnofsky, 6/27)

The New York Times: Abortion Ruling Could Create Waves Of Legal Challenges
From Texas to Alabama to Wisconsin, more than a dozen Republican-run states in recent years have passed laws requiring that abortion clinics have hospital-grade facilities or use doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Now, Monday’s Supreme Court ruling ... will quickly reverberate across the country. (Eckholm, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Supreme Court Ruling Imperils Abortion Laws In Many States
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which led the legal challenge, similar admitting-privilege requirements are in effect in Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee, and are on hold in Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. The hospital-like outpatient surgery standards are in place in Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and are on hold in Tennessee, according to the center. Monday's ruling is likely to remove an ongoing threat to the only abortion clinic still operating in Mississippi. (Crary, 6/28)

Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Ruling Is Likely To Change The Landscape Of 'Abortion Desert'
About half the women in the South live in counties without abortion clinics, as do 53% of women in the Midwest, compared with 38% nationwide, according to the most recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive rights. Since the Texas law passed, many women without clinics nearby or whose clinics had long waits have paid to travel to have abortions in neighboring states. Advocates said there’s a pressing need to reopen clinics that serve women in remote western cities such as Lubbock, Midland and San Angelo. (Hennessy-Fiske, 6/27)

The New York Times: Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Reverberates In Presidential Campaign
The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down parts of a restrictive abortion law in Texas rippled through the presidential campaign after its release on Monday, with Democrats and Republicans looking to rally voters with reminders that the future of the court was at stake in November. The next president looks to have at least one and potentially several vacancies to fill in the next four years, and Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump have both warned that the fate of laws on immigration, guns and abortion will probably be determined by who gets to fill those openings. (Rappeport, 6/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court’s Abortion Ruling Divides Officials Along Party Lines
The Supreme Court’s ruling invalidating a Texas law regulating abortion clinics split Washington along party lines, much as the issue divides the nation. Democrats said the 5-3 ruling protected women’s right to choose whether to have an abortion. Republicans said that the decision would weaken standards of care and make it harder for states to protect their citizens. (Hughes, 6/27)

Politico: Supreme Court's Abortion Ruling Will Have Nationwide Impact
The decision’s political ramifications are significant. It will galvanize both sides of the divisive abortion debate as the presidential campaign builds toward the national party conventions, and intensify the political focus on the Supreme Court’s vacancy, which has been frozen in the Senate. The Whole Women’s Health decision is sure to be cited as the two sides in the debate remind voters that the next president will almost certainly name several justices to the bench, providing a rare opportunity to cement the court’s political stance for years to come. (Haberkorn, 6/27)

The New York Times: Senate To Take Up House Bill On Zika Funding, Barbs And All
The House is not in session this week, providing lawmakers a timeout after last week’s tumultuous Democratic sit-in. But senators will be in town, and they have a fight of their own coming over a spending package to address the Zika public health threat. The military construction and veterans’ spending bill forced through by House Republicans with no debate early Thursday morning contains $1.1 billion for Zika preparation and prevention — but it also contains some poison-pill provisions that are likely to drive off any Democratic support, notably one restricting the use of the money by Planned Parenthood. (Hulse, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Congressional Dysfunction Likely To Stall Zika Funding Bill
President Barack Obama's $1.9 billion emergency request to combat a potential public health crisis from the Zika virus is more than 4 months old, but congressional dysfunction appears likely to scuttle a scaled-back version of the president's request, raising the prospect that Congress may leave on a seven-week vacation next month without addressing Zika. (Taylor, 6/28)

Politico: Congress' Zika Fail Could Bite GOP In Election
The [Zika] stalemate carries real political risk: In 2014, Republicans blasted the Obama administration and Democrats’ response to Ebola, contributing to a public perception in the midterm election of feckless Democratic rule. Republicans gained control of the Senate that year — but now find their playbook is being used against them. Republicans “taught us with Ebola,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “A public health crisis? Take it seriously. I don’t believe they’ve taken it seriously at all.” (Everett and Haberkorn, 6/28)

USA Today: Louisiana, The U.S. Incarceration Capital, Prepares For Expanded Medicaid
Here in the state that imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any other, the long-awaited July 1 launch of expanded Medicaid coverage will give those leaving prison a chance to at least continue what many describe as spotty treatment for the conditions that plagued them while behind bars. These include Dolfinette Martin, who has been out of prison for four years with no health coverage or medications to control her bipolar disorder, and Maryam Henderson-Uloho, who spent more than 12 years in prison, and who says she and other inmates seldom sought medical treatment because prison officials would write them up for "malingering" when they did.​ (O'Donnell, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: Patients Pay A Higher Share Of Hospital Bills, Study Finds
Patients, even those with employer-sponsored health plans, may face another condition after they are discharged from a hospital stay: acute sticker shock. Out-of-pocket hospitalization costs rose 37% from 2009 to 2013, with the average patient paying more than $1,000 per hospital visit, according to a study conducted by the University of Michigan. The survey took place before many of the Obamacare provisions were in place, including the health insurance marketplaces. (Channick, 6/27)

Reuters: Illinois Insurance Regulator Approves Aetna Purchase Of Humana
The Illinois Department of Insurance has approved Aetna Inc's proposed $34 billion acquisition of Humana Inc provided it is approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to an order dated June 23 posted on the department's website. Aetna announced the deal last summer and it is under review by the Justice Department, which is looking at competition concerns around its combined Medicare Advantage business for older people and the disabled. (Humer, 6/27)

The New York Times: AstraZeneca Pushes To Protect Crestor From Generic Competition
No more than a few hundred American children have a rare disease characterized by ultrahigh levels of bad cholesterol. Yet to the giant drug maker AstraZeneca, this small group could be worth billions of dollars. The company is making a bold attempt to fend off impending generic competition to its best-selling drug, the anti-cholesterol pill Crestor, by getting it approved to treat the rare disease. (Pollack, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Getting Overdose Antidote With Painkillers May Cut ER Visits
Overdoses don't happen just to heroin addicts — patients who legally use strong painkillers called opioids are at risk in the nation's epidemic, too. A new study says when patients were prescribed an overdose antidote along with those medications, they made fewer painkiller-related visits to the emergency room. (Neergaard, 6/27)

USA Today/The Tennessean: USDA Chief Tom Vilsack Targets Rural Opioid Problem
The chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will meet with state and local leaders in the Tennessee-Virginia border region this week as federal agencies look for local partners to combat opioid abuse in hard-hit rural areas across the nation. "There is no silver bullet. I wish there were," Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in an interview with The Tennessean. "If there was, we’d obviously be focused on it.” (Fletcher, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Allina Health Offers New Contract Proposal To Union Nurses
Allina Health says it's offering a new contract proposal to its union nurses who staff five hospitals in the Twin Cities area. The company has asked the Minnesota Nurses Association to come back to the bargaining table. The union said Monday it will review the proposal. The nurses returned to work Sunday following a seven-day strike. (6/27)

The Washington Post: Should Pregnant Women Be Induced At 39 Weeks?
When doctors who treat pregnant women recently met to debate the best time to induce labor, they came up with a surprising answer: 39 weeks — three weeks earlier than currently recommended. Their organization, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), has not changed its guidelines on late-term pregnancies. The guidelines say that doctors may consider elective induction at 41 weeks and should proceed with it at 42 weeks. But the question has some doctors reconsidering their assumptions about induction and has sparked criticism by women who contend there is already too much interference with uncomplicated pregnancies. (Margulies, 6/27)

The Washington Post: These Sisters Are Surviving A Dangerous Heart Ailment Together
Traditionally, sisters share everything. “There isn’t anything we keep from one another,’’ Nicole Fearrington says of herself and her sisters. “We are best friends.’’ She pauses. “Of course, this was something we did not expect — or choose — to share,’’ she says. By “this,” she means the heart condition that killed their father in 2003, and thus far afflicts four of six sisters, Nicole, 41, LaWanda, 39 , Candice, 34, and Kasi, 27. (Cimons, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: To Do Better In School, Kids Should Exercise Their Bodies As Well As Their Brains, Experts Say
Attention parents: If you’d like to see your kids do better in school, have them close their books, set down their pencils and go outside to play. That’s the latest advice from an international group of experts who studied the value of exercise in school-age kids. “Physical activity before, during and after school promotes scholastic performance in children and youth,” according to a new consensus statement published Monday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. (Kaplan, 6/27)

The New York Times: An N.Y.U. Study Gone Wrong, And A Top Researcher Dismissed
New York University’s medical school has quietly shut down eight studies at its prominent psychiatric research center and parted ways with a top researcher after discovering a series of violations in a study of an experimental, mind-altering drug. A subsequent federal investigation found lax oversight of study participants, most of whom had serious mental issues. The Food and Drug Administration investigators also found that records had been falsified and researchers had failed to keep accurate case histories. (Carey, 6/27)