First Edition: May 14, 2019

Kaiser Health News: Dealing With Hospital Closure, Pioneer Kansas Town Asks: What Comes Next?
A slight drizzle had begun in the gray December sky outside Community Christian Church as Reta Baker, president of the local hospital, stepped through the doors to join a weekly morning coffee organized by Fort Scott’s chamber of commerce. The town manager was there, along with the franchisee of the local McDonald’s, an insurance agency owner and the receptionist from the big auto sales lot. Baker, who grew up on a farm south of town, knew them all. (Tribble, 5/14)

Kaiser Health News: Eric Swalwell’s Tweet About Georgia’s New Abortion Restriction Only Slightly Off-Key
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Tuesday the state’s latest abortion restriction. Political reaction to the measure, which prohibits the procedure once a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat — usually at about the six-week mark — was swift. ... Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, was among the critics who weighed in. “The so-called ‘heartbeat’ law outlaws abortion before most women even know that they’re pregnant,” Swalwell posted on Twitter. “This is one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in our country.” (Luthra, 5/14)

Politico: Dems Tee Up New Document Fight With DOJ Over Obamacare
House Democrats are mounting yet another confrontation with the Justice Department that could lead to subpoenas, but this time it's not about special counsel Robert Mueller's report — it's about health care. Five committee chairman foreshadowed a possible subpoena as soon as May 24 if Attorney General William Barr declines to provide documents related to his decision to stop defending the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — the health care law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. (Cheney, 5/14)

Stat: Joe Biden May Resurface A Long-Held Dream: A White House Laser-Focused On Cancer 
[Joe] Biden’s announcement that he will run for president in 2020, however, has resurfaced his dream: a White House that makes cancer a signature issue, backed by a politician whose life was so publicly upended by the disease. With much of the early debate in the Democratic primary centering on health care, Biden’s stint as cancer-advocate-in-chief and orchestrator of the Obama administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” could give him the opportunity to make the disease, its treatments, and his own grief central to the presidential election. (Facher, 5/14)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Kamala Harris’s Claim That Medicare-For-All ‘Doesn’t Get Rid Of All Insurance’
This is one of those inside-the-Beltway exchanges that probably leaves many Americans scratching their heads. Harris, a 2020 presidential hopeful, is a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s plan to create a “single-payer” government-run health-care system. It’s called Medicare-for-all since it will be more all-encompassing than the current government-run program for the elderly. Harris made these remarks after Tapper asked her if she wanted to clarify comments she had made in a CNN town hall in January. At the time, her remarks “let’s eliminate all of that” were widely interpreted to mean doing away with private insurance. In her recent appearance, she argued that in context she was talking about health-care bureaucracy today. (Rereading the full exchange, she has a point.) She said she did think there was a role for private insurance in the government-run system. (Kessler, 5/14)

The Hill: Inslee Signs Nation's First Public-Option Insurance Bill
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), a 2020 presidential candidate, signed off Monday on a first-in-the-nation public-option insurance plan. The state will offer public health care plans that cover standard services to all residents, regardless of income, by 2021, Inslee said at a press conference. The plans will still be administered by private insurance companies, but the terms will be set by the state. Inslee called the bill a "template" for the U.S. (Hellmann, 5/13)

Seattle Times: Inslee Signs Bill Creating A Public Option For Washington State’s Health-Insurance Exchange
The plans won’t be available until January 2021, and it’s too early to know what exact coverage they will offer or how much they’ll drive down health-insurance costs. But in remarks Monday, Inslee called it the first state public-option plan in America and a counterweight to attempts by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration to roll back health-care coverage. “This legislation is one way for our state to push back, to ensure that all Washingtonians have high-quality health-care insurance, an option they can afford that is available across the state of Washington,” said Inslee, who is also running for president. (O'Sullivan, 5/13)

The New York Times: New Tax Will Help Washington Residents Pay For Long-Term Care
Eligible residents who live in Washington State will have a new benefit available to them starting in 2025: a $100-per-day allowance for a variety of long-term care services, which will last up to a year. The money will come from a payroll tax that begins in 2022, according to rules in a bill that the state’s governor signed Monday. Residents’ employers will put 0.58 percent of their paychecks — $290 for every $50,000 in income — into a state fund. Washington does not have a state income tax. (Lieber, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Washington Now 1st State With Long-Term Care Program
Inslee, surrounded by a large group of lawmakers and advocates of the measure, called it a "win for all Washington workers." "This benefit will be available for those who need it when the time comes to face the fact that daily living presents some challenges, and you need just a little help," he said before signing the measure. "This is going to make sure that help is there without bankrupting your family." (La Corte, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Maryland Gov Signs 1st-In-Nation Measure To Help Uninsured
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed a first-in-the-nation measure Monday to make it easier for people without health insurance to find out if they qualify for low-cost insurance after they file their taxes. The new law will create a box for people to check on state income tax returns. If a taxpayer checks the box, the state's health care exchange will see if the person qualifies, based on information in the tax return. Those who qualify for Medicaid will be enrolled automatically. The exchange will reach out to people who qualify for private coverage. (5/13)

The Baltimore Sun: Do You Have Health Insurance? Gov. Hogan Signs Law To Use Tax Return Question To Guide Marylanders To Coverage 
The bill that created the “Maryland Easy Enrollment Health Program” was among more than 180 pieces of legislation passed by state lawmakers that Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, signed into law during a State House ceremony on Monday. (Wood, 5/13)

The New York Times: Largest U.S. Measles Outbreak In 25 Years Surpasses 800 Cases
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday reported a new total of 839 individual cases of measles across 23 states so far this year, as the largest outbreak of measles in the United States in a quarter century continued. Pennsylvania is the latest state with a measles outbreak, though most cases have occurred in New York, Michigan and Washington State. The disease spread in Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and in Rockland County, New York, before being carried to Michigan. A large outbreak in southern Washington State spread mostly among unvaccinated children under 10 years old. And in late April, hundreds of people were put under quarantine at two Los Angeles universities after an outbreak there. (Cai, Lu and Reinhard, 5/13)

The Associated Press: US Measles Cases Still Climbing, Topping 800 For Year
In all, 23 states have reported cases this year. The vast majority of illnesses have been in New York — most of them among unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities. That pattern continued last week, with most of the 75 new cases coming from New York. (5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Measles Outbreaks, Up To 839 Cases, Show No Sign Of Slowing
Several states, including New York, are considering measures to restrict exemptions to school vaccination requirements on religious grounds.An Alabama lawmaker filed a bill last week to eliminate that state’s religious exemption. Connecticut lawmakers are considering amending legislation or adding a bill to the legislative session that would eliminate a religious exemption. Dozens of antivaccination advocates, many of whom said that their children were harmed by vaccines, testified for hours Monday in Connecticut at an informational hearing on the topic. (McKay, 5/13)

NPR: How A Measles Outbreak Was Halted In The 1990s
This year's measles outbreak is the largest since the 1990s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that 75 more measles cases were confirmed last week in 23 states, bringing the U.S. total to 839 so far this year. The outbreak from 1989 through 1991 was much larger than today's, with more than 27,000 cases in 1990 alone. But the conditions that lead to that outbreak and what it took to end it are dramatically different from the ones the U.S. is seeing today. (Hogan, 5/13)

The New York Times: $2 Billion Verdict Against Monsanto Is Third To Find Roundup Caused Cancer
A jury in Oakland, Calif., ordered Monsanto on Monday to pay a couple more than $2 billion in damages after finding that its Roundup weed killer caused their cancer — the third jury to conclude that the company failed to warn consumers of its flagship product’s dangers. Thousands of additional lawsuits against Monsanto, which Bayer acquired last year, are queued up in state and federal courts. The couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, used Roundup on their Northern California property for decades. In 2011, Mr. Pilliod, now 76, was given a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 2015, his wife, who is 74, learned she had the same disease. (Cohen, 5/13)

Reuters: California Jury Hits Bayer With $2 Billion Award In Roundup Cancer Trial
It was the third consecutive U.S. jury verdict against the company in litigation over the chemical, which Bayer acquired as part of its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto last year. Both other jury verdicts also came in California, one in state court and one in federal court. The jury in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland on Monday said the company was liable for plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod's contracting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a spokeswoman for the couple said. (5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: In Latest Roundup Herbicide Defeat For Bayer, Jury Awards California Couple $2 Billion
The company now has until August to reevaluate its legal strategy and try to appease investors before the next scheduled trial. That trial will be the first to unfold outside the San Francisco Bay Area, often seen as an unfavorable setting for corporate defendants. It will be in St. Louis, the former headquarters of Monsanto and now home to Bayer’s global seed business. Bayer has appealed a $78.5 million verdict reached in August, the first Roundup case to go to trial. It has said it would appeal the second, a more than $80 million jury award decided in March. Some investors have pushed Bayer to settle the cases soon, though companies facing product-liability claims often bring a dozen or more cases to trial before seriously entering settlement talks. (Randazzo and Bender, 5/13)

CNN: Jury Returns $2 Billion Verdict Against Monsanto For Couple With Cancer
Bayer said the jury was presented with "cherry-picked findings" inconsistent with a statement last month by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which announced that glyphosate was not a carcinogen and posed no public health risk when used as directed. (Nedelman, 5/13)

Bloomberg: Jury Awards $2 Billion To Couple Claiming Monsanto’s Roundup Gave Them Cancer
The jurors agreed that Alva and Alberta Pilliod’s exposure to Roundup used for residential landscaping was a “substantial factor” in their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The jury awarded damages of about $55 million for the couple’s medical bills and pain and suffering on top of the punitive damages. The verdict will be vulnerable to a legal challenge by Bayer because courts have generally held that punitive damages shouldn’t be more than 10 times higher than compensatory damages.Roundup manufacturer Monsanto Co., which Bayer acquired last June, is the named defendant in similar U.S. lawsuits filed by at least 13,400 plaintiffs. (5/13)

Stat: N.J. Finalizes Rules On Pharma Gifts To Doctors, Eases Meal Limits
After more than a year of debate, New Jersey eased some of the provisions in a controversial rule that governs the sort of gifts and payments that drug makers can give to doctors. In a filing last week, the state acceded to complaints from the restaurant and hospitality industry that the initial proposal on meals was too restrictive and unrealistic. However, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal left in place a $10,000 annual cap on what physicians can earn from drug makers for such activities as promotional speaking and consulting. Research work, however, is exempt. (Silverman, 5/13)

Stat: A Biotech Exec Seizes On Big Ideas, From Anti-Aging Therapies To Antibiotics
Nathaniel “Ned” David, the co-founder and president of Unity Biotechnology (UBX), is one of biotech’s big idea guys. Before starting Unity in 2011, David founded four other companies that raised $1.5 billion in financing and now employ 400 people. The idea behind Unity is particularly vast: The company is targeting the science around aging, and all the diseases that can result from it. Its first studies, due to read out over the next few years, are in arthritis and eye diseases like glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. The goal, David says, is not to extend life, but to increase “healthspan,” the length of time during which people are healthy. (Herper, 5/14)

The New York Times: Stem Cell Treatments Flourish With Little Evidence That They Work
A surgeon recommended a hip replacement, but Kenneth Cevoli said no thanks. “They’re really quick to try to give you fake joints and make a bunch of money off you,” he said. At 71, Mr. Cevoli, a high-school guidance counselor in Teterboro, N.J., coaches cross country, teaches mogul skiing, surfs and works summers as a lifeguard on Cape Cod. Despite pain in his left hip and knee, he questioned the need for major surgery, worrying it would sideline him for too long. (Grady and Abelson, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Planned Parenthood Funding In Texas At Stake In Hearing
A federal appeals court is about to again take up the issue of whether and how states can cut off federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. A federal district judge blocked Texas' effort to stop Planned Parenthood funding in 2017. But a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the district judge didn't follow proper legal standards. (5/14)

The New York Times: The Potentially Lifesaving Difference In How A Gun Is Stored
Legislators and gun safety advocates often focus on how guns are purchased. But many lives could be saved, especially among children, if they looked more at how they are stored. In the last decade, guns killed more than 14,000 American children. A startling number of those deaths — more than a third — were classified as suicides, and around 6 percent as accidents. Many more children were injured. Nearly everyone agrees that children should not be able to buy guns, and no state lets them do so on their own. When children die by suicide in this way, it’s a result of being able to get hold of a gun that someone else already obtained — often legally. (Carroll, 5/13)

The New York Times: Firing Up The Neural Symphony
The research on brain stimulation is advancing so quickly, and the findings are so puzzling, that a reader might feel tempted to simply pre-order a genius cap from Amazon, to make sense of it all later. In just the past month, scientists reported enhancing the working memory of older people, using electric current passed through a skullcap, and restoring some cognitive function in a brain-damaged woman, using implanted electrodes. Most recently, the Food and Drug Administration approved a smartphone-size stimulator intended to alleviate attention-deficit problems by delivering electric current through a patch placed on the forehead. (Carey, 5/14)

The New York Times: An Antibiotic Shot May Prevent Some Infections Of Pregnancy
A single injection of antibiotics significantly reduces the risk of infections when women who are giving birth require the aid of forceps or vacuum extraction, a new study concludes. The routine use of the prophylactic shot actually reduces antibiotic use in the long run, the study found. British researchers randomly assigned 3,420 women who had operative vaginal births to one of two groups: The first received a single shot of Augmentin (amoxicillin and clavulanic acid) within six hours of giving birth, and the second a placebo saline shot. (Bakalar, 5/13)

CNN: Moms Proudly Show Off Their Postpartum Bodies
Meg Boggs is on a mission to redefine the public perception of a woman's postpartum body. If she could tell moms two things to start them on a self-love journey it would be to "look in the mirror" and "get in the photo with your kids." The mother and blogger says she refused to be in photos the first couple of months of her daughter's life, "I regret so much that I wasn't in the photos with her. It's so important and you have to think about your kids and they are going to want you in the photos with them." (Brinkley, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Minnesota Senator Opens Up About Her Bouts Of Depression
Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota is sharing her experiences with depression for the first time as she calls for more federal funding for mental health programs. The Democrat said she battled depression as a teenager and again in her late 30s, the Star Tribune reported. "It just sort of feels like all the colors in the world start to fade out," Smith said. "The things that gave you a lot of joy, there's nothing there anymore." (5/13)

The Associated Press: California Sues US Over Home Health Worker Union Dues
Five states have joined forces to try and block a new rule from the Trump administration they say weakens labor unions and their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, announced the lawsuit on Monday with attorneys general in Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon. (5/13)

The Washington Post: Maryland Governor OKs Bill Requiring Pelvic Exam Consent 
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has signed a measure to require patients to provide explicit consent before health care practitioners and medical students can conduct a pelvic, prostate or rectal exam while the patient is under anesthesia. The measure, which was approved unanimously by the General Assembly, was signed Monday. (Witte, 5/13)

The Hill: Maryland Raises Legal Tobacco Purchasing Age To 21
The legal age to buy tobacco and nicotine products in Maryland will be raised from 18 to 21, and the state will add vaping devices to the list of tobacco products, under legislation signed Monday by Gov. Larry Hogan (R). The law was passed in response to an uptick in teen vaping, which federal officials have declared an “epidemic.” The law will take effect in October. (Weixel, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Dog Disease That Can Be Passed To Humans Confirmed In Iowa
Officials say a dog disease that can be passed to humans has been confirmed in Iowa. The state veterinarian, Dr. Jeff Kaisand, says several cases of canine brucellosis have been confirmed at a commercial breeding facility for small dogs in Marion County. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship says it is notifying people who have custody of the exposed dogs. Both the animals and the facilities are quarantined while the dogs undergo testing. (5/13)