First Edition: May 23, 2017

Kaiser Health News: GOP’s Health Bill Could Undercut Some Coverage In Job-Based Insurance
The American Health Care Act that recently passed the House would fundamentally change the individual insurance market, and it could significantly alter coverage for people who get coverage through their employers too. The bill would allow states to opt out of some of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, including no longer requiring plans sold on the individual market to cover 10 “essential health benefits,” such as hospitalization, drugs and maternity care. (Andrews, 5/23)

Kaiser Health News: Health Debate Heats Up In Montana For This Week’s Special Election
Montana’s one and only seat in the House of Representatives is up for grabs, and in the final weekend before Thursday’s special election, the underdog Democrat was hammering the Republican health care bill in TV ads. The ads open with Democrat Rob Quist asking, “Did you know half of all Montanans have a preexisting condition?” He then attacks Republican challenger Greg Gianforte for supporting the House-passed American Health Care Act, which would allow states to drop preexisting conditions protections. (Whitney, 5/23)

The Associated Press: Trump Administration Sending Congress $4.1 Trillion Budget
President Donald Trump is sending Congress a $4.1 trillion spending plan that relies on faster economic growth and steep cuts in a range of support programs for low-income individuals to balance the government’s books over the next decade. (Taylor and Crutsinger, 5/23)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Budget Proposal Slashes Spending By $3.6 Trillion Over 10 Years
President Trump on Tuesday will propose cutting federal spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years, a historic budget contraction that would severely ratchet back spending across dozens of programs and could completely reshape government assistance to the poor. The White House’s $4.094 trillion budget request for fiscal 2018 calls for cuts that hit Medicaid, food assistance and other anti-poverty programs. It would cut funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides benefits to the poor, by roughly 20 percent next year. (Paletta and Costa, 5/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Budget Seeks Cuts To Taxes, Safety-Net Programs
Among the reductions, the president’s budget proposes $250 billion in saving over a decade through the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative policy. Those savings would come largely through reductions to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people. Other unspecified reforms to Medicaid and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program would shave another $616 billion from government spending through 2027. (Nicholas, Davidson and Timiraos, 5/22)

The New York Times: Trump’s Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid And Anti-Poverty Efforts
Over the next decade, it calls for slashing more than $800 billion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while slicing $192 billion from nutritional assistance and $272 billion over all from welfare programs. And domestic programs outside of military and homeland security whose budgets are determined annually by Congress would also take a hit, their funding falling by $57 billion, or 10.6 percent. The plan would cut by more than $72 billion the disability benefits upon which millions of Americans rely. It would eliminate loan programs that subsidize college education for the poor and those who take jobs in government or nonprofit organizations. (Davis, 5/22)

The Washington Post: Trump To Poor Americans: Get To Work Or Lose Your Benefits
Making low-income Americans work to qualify for so-called welfare programs is a key theme of the budget. “If you are on food stamps and you are able bodied, we need you to go to work,” said budget director Mick Mulvaney during a White House briefing on Monday. He said the strengthened requirements in the budget focuses on putting the 6.8 million unemployed or underemployed Americans back to work. “There is a dignity to work,” he said, “and there’s a necessity to work to help the country succeed.” (Dewey and Jan, 5/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump’s Plan To Shift FDA Funding To Industry Draws Criticism
President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget proposed for the Food and Drug Administration puts the administration on a collision course with some in its own party in Congress over possible cuts in funding for the agency, according to FDA and congressional officials. The Trump plan calls for reductions in taxpayer funding of reviews of drugs and other medical products, as well as monitoring of food safety and medical-product safety, said staffers at the FDA and on Capitol Hill. Under the Trump plan, the cuts would be offset by an increase in user fees paid by the drug and medical-device industries to the agency for new-product reviews. (Burton, 5/22)

The Washington Post: Trump Budget Seeks Huge Cuts To Disease Prevention And Medical Research Departments
President Trump's 2018 budget request to Congress seeks massive cuts in spending on health programs, including medical research, disease prevention programs and health insurance for children of the working poor. The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion. (Achenbach and Sun, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Budget Shows Tiny Surplus In 10 Years, With Rosy Economic Forecast And Trillions In Domestic Cuts
The budget to be released Tuesday will show that the annual federal deficit, which was $585 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, will steadily decline until fiscal year 2027, when the nation will have a $16-billion surplus — the first since the start of the George W. Bush administration, though small in the context of what by then would be a nearly $6-trillion budget. (Bennett, 5/22)

The New York Times: Trump Budget Cuts Programs For Poor While Sparing Many Older People
Taken together, the cuts represent a significant reordering of the social safety net, away from poor families and toward older Americans, regardless of income. Medicare would be untouched, and the main function of Social Security — retirement income — would flow unimpeded. (Alcindor, 5/22)

Politico: Trump's Budget Hits His Own Voters Hardest
The budget proposal underscores the wide gulf between campaigning and governing, even for a president who promised to rewrite the presidential rule book. (Restuccia, Nussbaum and Ferris, 5/22)

The New York Times: Trump Seeks Delay Of Ruling On Health Law Subsidies, Prolonging Uncertainty
The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Monday to delay ruling on a lawsuit that could determine whether the government will continue paying subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to health insurance companies for the benefit of low-income people — effectively prolonging uncertainty that is already rattling the health law. The request could further destabilize insurance markets as insurers are developing rates and deciding whether to participate in 2018. (Pear, 5/22)

The Associated Press: Uncertainty Grows As Trump Delays A Health Care Decision
In requesting the extension, lawyers for the Trump administration and the House said the parties are continuing to work on measures, "including potential legislative action," to resolve the issue. Requests for extensions are usually granted routinely. But Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of a cynical ploy. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/23)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Seeks Delay In Suit Over Health Law Subsidies
Insurers say they must know within weeks whether the federal payments will continue next year, since they face a June 21 deadline for deciding whether to participate in the exchanges in 2018. “It’s critical that we have certainty for 2018,” said Justine Handelman, senior vice president at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “Plans are deep in their decision-making for 2018, and if there’s not certainty, you could see a significant impact on premiums, up to 20%, to account for the fact that those cost-sharing payments aren’t there.” (Armour and Radnofsky, 5/22)

The Associated Press: Insurers Seek Stability As Trump Delays Health Care Decision
Uncertainty over the future of health care is growing deeper for millions of Americans who buy their own policies. While insurers released a blueprint Monday for stabilizing wobbly markets, the Trump administration is leaving in limbo billions of dollars in federal subsidy payments. ... a major insurer group released a framework for market stability that relies in part on a continuation of subsidies. The BlueCross BlueShield Association represents plans that are the backbone of insurance markets under the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, and would also be the mainstay with a Republican approach. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/22)

The Washington Post: Trump, House GOP Ask Appeals Court To Again Delay Decision On Health-Care Law Provision
The two-paragraph filing said that both parties “continue to discuss measures that would obviate the need” for the court to rule — a reference to Republicans’ efforts to abolish most of the ACA and install more conservative health-care policies. ... The cost-sharing subsidies are one of two major types of assistance the law provides to most people who buy private health plans through the marketplaces. The cost-sharing subsidies, focused on lower-income ACA customers, reach nearly 6 in 10 such people. The other assistance helps cover insurance premiums for more than 8 in 10. (Goldstein, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Democrats Demand Answers On Trump Threats To Sabotage Obamacare Insurance Markets
With concerns rising over the future of financial aid for low-income Americans who rely on Obamacare, senior congressional Democrats have asked the Trump administration for information on talks in which health insurance officials say a senior administration official linked the aid to the industry’s support for House Republican legislation to roll back the healthcare law. (Levey, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Conservative Group Runs Ads Thanking California GOP For Health Care Vote
A conservative advocacy group will run television ads thanking six California Republicans for voting for the GOP bill to roll back the Affordable Care Act. All 14 Republicans in California's congressional delegation voted for the bill, called the Affordable Health Care Act, when it passed the House without Democratic support last month. Democrats have pledged to make it a campaign issue. (Wire, 5/22)

The Associated Press: $400 Billion Price Tag For California Single-Payer Bill
A California bill that would eliminate health insurance companies and provide government-funded health coverage for everyone in the state would cost $400 billion and require significant tax increases, legislative analysts said Monday. Much of the cost would be offset by existing state, federal and private spending on health coverage, the analysis found, but total health care costs would increase by an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion a year. That's a massive sum in a state where the entire general fund budget is $125 billion. (5/22)

The New York Times: Nearly 20 Million Have Gained Health Insurance Since 2010
The number of Americans without health insurance has fallen drastically in recent years, according to new data from the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2016, there were 28.6 million Americans without health insurance, down from more than 48 million in 2010. Some 12.4 percent of adults aged 18 to 24 were uninsured, 69.2 percent were covered by private plans and 20 percent had public coverage. (Bakalar, 5/22)

The Associated Press: Science Says: Medications Prevent Opioid Addiction Relapse
Remarks by a top U.S. health official have reignited a quarrel in the world of addiction and recovery: Does treating opioid addiction with medication save lives? Or does it trade one addiction for another? Health Secretary Tom Price’s recent comments — one replying to a reporter’s question, the other in a newspaper op-ed — waver between two strongly held views. Medication-assisted treatment, known as MAT, is backed by doctors. Yet it still has skeptics, especially among supporters of 12-step programs like Narcotics Anonymous, because it involves opioid-based medications. (Johnson, 5/22)

The Washington Post: Just One Alcoholic Drink A Day Increases Risk Of Breast Cancer, Study Says
Just one glass of wine or other alcoholic drink a day significantly raises the risk of breast cancer, while vigorous exercise such as running and bicycling reduces it, according to an expansive review of research on the effects of diet, nutrition and physical activity on the disease. The report, which was issued Tuesday, concluded that drinking the equivalent of one small glass of wine, beer or other alcohol a day — about 10 grams of alcohol — is linked to an increased cancer risk of 5 percent for pre-menopausal women and 9 percent for post-menopausal women. A standard drink has 14 grams of alcohol. (McGinley, 5/23)

NPR: Face-To-Face Sleep Education Plus 'Baby Boxes' Reduces Bed Sharing
Giving new moms face-to-face education about safe sleep practices — and providing them with a cardboard "baby box" where their newborns can sleep right when they get home — reduces the incidence of bed sharing, a significant risk factor for SIDS and other unexpected sleep-related deaths, a study from Temple University in Philadelphia has found. (Pao, 5/22)

The New York Times: In ‘Enormous Success,’ Scientists Tie 52 Genes To Human Intelligence
In a significant advance in the study of mental ability, a team of European and American scientists announced on Monday that they had identified 52 genes linked to intelligence in nearly 80,000 people. These genes do not determine intelligence, however. Their combined influence is minuscule, the researchers said, suggesting that thousands more are likely to be involved and still await discovery. Just as important, intelligence is profoundly shaped by the environment. (Zimmer, 5/22)

The Washington Post: Gender-Confirmation Surgeries Increase After Social Changes
More than 3,200 transgender surgeries, from “facial and body contouring” to actual “gender reassignment,” were performed in the United States last year, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said Monday in releasing the first such numbers ever reported. The 2016 total, reflecting a rapid evolution of public attitudes and health coverage, represented a 19 percent increase from the previous year, the data show. (Nutt, 5/22)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Appeals Court To Hear Case On Doctor Aid In Dying
Eric Seiff says his mother begged his father to end her life throughout the two years she suffered from breast cancer before dying in 1955. Mr. Seiff told himself at the time he would never prolong his death. Mr. Seiff, an 84-year-old lawyer, is among those plaintiffs arguing that doctors should have the right to prescribe a fatal dosage of medication, in most cases barbiturates, to mentally competent terminally ill people. Their case against the state is scheduled to be heard May 30 in the New York Court of Appeals in Albany, the state’s highest court. (Kanno-Youngs, 5/22)

The Associated Press: Catholics Challenge St. Louis' 'Abortion Sanctuary' Law
A group of St. Louis Catholics filed a lawsuit against the city Monday over a local ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on "reproductive health decisions," saying the law could force employers or landlords to go against their religious beliefs. The law, enacted in February, bars employers from hiring or firing people based on whether they have had an abortion, get pregnant outside of marriage, or use contraceptives or artificial insemination. Landlords also can't refuse to rent to someone based on those criteria. (Salter, 5/22)