First Edition: May 25, 2023
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF Health News:
A Trans Teen No Longer Feels Welcome In Florida. So She Left
Josie had put off packing long enough. The high school sophomore in St. Augustine, Florida, sat on her bed while her mom, Sarah, pulled clothes from her closet. It held a trove of good memories — like the red dress Josie wore to the winter homecoming dance and a pink cover-up she sported at a friend’s pool party. Good times like these have felt scarce lately. Josie, who’s transgender, no longer feels welcome in Florida. ... Josie moved more than a thousand miles from St. Augustine — and her parents — to start a new life in Rhode Island and stay with her aunt and uncle, who live outside Providence. (Colombini, 5/25)
KFF Health News:
This Panel Will Decide Whose Medicine To Make Affordable. Its Choice Will Be Tricky
Catherine Reitzel’s multiple sclerosis medication costs nearly $100,000 a year. Kris Garcia relies on a drug for a blood-clotting disorder that runs $10,000 for a three-day supply. And Mariana Marquez-Farmer would likely die within days without her monthly $300 vial of insulin. At best, a Colorado panel of medical and pharmacy experts seeking to cut the costs of expensive drugs will be able to help only one of them. (Hawryluk, 5/25)
KFF Health News:
California Hospitals Seek A Broad Bailout, But They Don’t All Need It
One of the country’s richest hospitals, which caters to Hollywood elites, accepted nearly $28 million last year from an unusual source: a charity that siphons money from other California hospitals, many of which serve the state’s poorest residents. Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles secured the grant under California’s recession-era financing scheme that allows wealthy hospitals to take valuable health care tax money from poorer ones. Hospitals across the state agreed in 2009 to the arrangement in order to tap billions more per year in taxpayer dollars to support the state’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal. (Young and Hart, 5/25)
Politico:
Biden Calls For Stricter Gun Laws A Year After Texas School Shooting
President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Congress to pass stronger gun laws, including a ban on assault rifles, while commemorating the anniversary of the elementary school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers exactly one year earlier in Uvalde, Texas. “We still need to ban AR-15 firearms — assault weapons — once again,” Biden said at the White House. “We can’t end this epidemic until Congress has some common-sense gun safety laws that keep weapons of war off our streets.” (Kim, 5/24)
The New York Times:
A Look At The Fight For Gun Control Since The Uvalde Shooting
From Colorado to Michigan to New Jersey, proponents of gun regulation have passed laws intended to limit access to firearms or blunt the effects of the Supreme Court case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. Opponents have moved swiftly to contest many such restrictions, using Bruen as the basis for one court challenge after another. And in states that were already gun friendly, gun rights groups have worked to further expand access to firearms. (Dewan, 5/24)
The New York Times:
Potential Debt Ceiling Deal Would Barely Change Federal Spending Path
Yet in talks with Mr. Biden, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his lieutenants have focused almost entirely on cutting a small corner of the budget — known as nondefense discretionary spending — that includes funding for education, environmental protection, national parks, domestic law enforcement and other areas. That budget line accounts for less than 15 percent of the $6.3 trillion the government is expected to spend this year. It is not outsized, by historical standards. It is already projected to shrink, as a share of the economy, over the next decade. And it has nothing to do with the big drivers of projected spending growth in the coming years: the safety-net programs Social Security and Medicare, which are facing increasingly large payouts as the American population ages. (Tankersley, 5/24)
Modern Healthcare:
How A Debt Default Could Hurt Medicare, Medicaid Payments
Hospitals and health systems hope for a resolution to the federal government’s debt ceiling standoff, warning that a failure to reach an agreement could have a catastrophic impact on provider payments. Republicans and Democrats continue to haggle over a deal to raise the $31.4 trillion national debt limit and keep the U.S. from defaulting on its agreements, potentially in early June. (Hudson and Nzanga, 5/24)
The Boston Globe:
McGovern Works Biden To Hold Line On Food Programs In Debt Limit Talks
The phone rang while Representative Jim McGovern was enjoying time with his family on the evening of Mother’s Day. “We have a problem,” Caitlin Hodgkins, his policy director, told him. She said President Biden had indicated to reporters that he’d consider additional work requirements on food assistance programs as part of negotiations to raise the debt limit. (Kopan, 5/24)
Military.Com:
VA Issues New Warning That Default Could Have 'Catastrophic' Effects For Veterans
The Treasury Department pays $25 billion worth of bills for the Department of Veterans Affairs each month -- for veterans benefits, employee salaries, private health care, pharmacy costs and other programs like payments to small and veteran-owned companies that do business with the VA. A default on the debt on June 1 could put all those payments at risk -- a situation that could be "catastrophic," VA Secretary Denis McDonough said Wednesday, paraphrasing his boss, President Joe Biden. (Kime, 5/24)
Military Times:
Vets Will See A Cost-Of-Living Boost In Benefit Checks Next Year
House lawmakers this week finalized plans to guarantee a cost-of-living boost in veterans benefits next year, sending legislation to the White House to be signed into law in coming days. The move guarantees that veterans’ support payments will keep pace with increases in Social Security checks and other federal stipends. It’s a non-controversial annual procedure for Congress, but one that needs to be finished before the end of the year to ensure that veterans benefits keep pace with inflation costs. (Shane III, 5/24)
Stat:
Biden Wants To Tackle High Drug Prices In Medicaid
The Biden administration wants to help states control Medicaid prescription drug costs by making prices more transparent and curbing the practice of so-called spread pricing. The goal is to give states more leverage in price negotiations by forcing drugmakers to share and publish details about their pricing data. The government would collect specific drug pricing information from makers of up to 10 particularly high-cost drugs. (Wilkerson, 5/24)
NPR:
Medicaid Enrollees Are Losing Coverage In States Like Florida
States have begun to remove people from Medicaid, something they could not do for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic. State Medicaid programs are reviewing the eligibility of roughly 90 million beneficiaries in the U.S., now that a rule suspending that process has expired. Those who remain eligible should be able to keep their coverage, and those who don't will lose it. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/24)
Modern Healthcare:
PBM Legislation Passes House Energy And Commerce Committee
Pharmacy benefit managers would be required to report more information on their deals with pharmaceutical companies under legislation unanimously approved by a House panel on Wednesday. The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the Promoting Access to Treatments and Increasing Extremely Needed Transparency (PATIENT) Act of 2023, sponsored by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), on a 49-0 vote. The panel's health subcommittee cleared the same measure last week. (Nzanga, 5/24)
AP:
Pending Abortion Restrictions Strain Providers In US Southeast
A wave of newly approved abortion restrictions in the Southeastern United States has sent providers scrambling to reconfigure their services for a region with already severely limited access. Pending bans at varying stages of pregnancy in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida — states that had been holdouts providing wider access to the procedure — are threatening to further delay abortions as appointments pile up and doctors work to understand the new limitations. (Pollard, 5/25)
Reuters:
Abortion Pill Case Spurs US Democrats' ‘Judge Shopping’ Bill
Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday said they would introduce a bill designed to rein in the practice known as "judge shopping," where lawsuits are filed in small courts to increase their chances of being assigned to sympathetic judges. The lawmakers sponsoring the bill said it was spurred by a recent ruling from a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas that could, if upheld on appeal, limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide. (Wiessner, 5/24)
AP:
Indiana Doctor Faces Discipline Hearing Over 10-Year-Old Ohio Girl's Abortion
An Indiana board is set to hear allegations Thursday that an Indianapolis doctor should face disciplinary action after she spoke publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio. The Medical Licensing Board’s hearing comes after Indiana’s Republican attorney general accused Dr. Caitlin Bernard of violating state law by not reporting the girl’s child abuse to Indiana authorities. She’s also accused of breaking federal patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment. (Davies, 5/25)
The Hill:
DeSantis Says Roles To Play For Federal And State Governments On Abortion
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said the federal and state governments both have a role to play in deciding abortion policy in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. DeSantis said during an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, his first since announcing his campaign for president on Twitter earlier that evening, that he is concerned about a Democratic administration and Congress “trying to nationalize” abortion throughout the country. ... “Dobbs returned the issue to the elected representatives of the people, and so I think that there’s a role for both the federal [government] and states,” he said. (Gans, 5/24)
AP:
Haley Commits To Federal Abortion Ban But Says It's Unlikely Without More Republicans In Congress
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday pledged to sign a federal ban on abortion but noted that passing one would be highly unlikely without more Republicans in Congress. Although Haley didn’t say how many weeks a federal ban should encompass, her commitment to signing one is the most specific she has been on the issue during her presidential campaign. The former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said “no one has been honest” about how difficult a ban could be to achieve, in a closely divided federal government. (Kinnard and Ramer, 5/24)
USA Today:
Paralyzed Man Walks Naturally With Brain, Spinal Cord Implants
A Dutch man whose spinal cord was injured in a bike accident a dozen years ago can now walk thanks to stimulators implanted on his brain and spinal cord, according to a study published Wednesday. Previous versions of the spinal cord stimulation that Gert-Jan Oskam received have helped people stand and take steps, but only after first pushing a button to activate the device. The new system enables him to merely think about walking before he can do it. (Weintraub, 5/24)
The New York Times:
Brain And Spine Implants Allow Paralyzed Man To Walk Naturally Again
Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, with a combination of devices, scientists have given him control over his lower body again. “For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.” (Whang, 5/24)
The Washington Post:
6 Takeaways From The Washington Post-KFF Survey Of Transgender Americans
Since January, state legislators have introduced more than 200 bills that seek to limit transgender rights, whether it is access to gender-affirming care, what children can learn about transgender identity in schools or whether trans girls can play sports. In this atmosphere of intense polarization around transgender rights, The Washington Post and KFF set out to hear what transgender Americans had to say, on topics ranging from their experiences as children in school to navigating the workplace, the doctor’s office and family relationships as adults. The resulting Post-KFF Trans Survey, which also includes responses from cisgender Americans on trans-related restrictions, is the largest nongovernmental survey of U.S. trans adults to rely on random sampling methods. (Shin, 5/23)
The Washington Post:
For Trans People, Medical Visits Can Be More Traumatizing Than Healing
One trans woman recalled a doctor calling her “it.” A nonbinary person was grilled about their use of “they/them” pronouns during an ultrasound. A trans-masculine person moved out of Tennessee, fearing they would lose access to hormone therapy as legislators passed bills restricting gender-affirming care. Transgender Americans often face subtle discrimination, outright hostility and ill-informed medical professionals in their interactions with the health-care system, according to a poll by The Washington Post and KFF, a nonprofit focused on national health issues. (Nirappil, 5/24)
The Washington Post:
Trans Kids Crave Acceptance At School In A Nation That Often Resists It
Rowan Johnson learned what it meant to be transgender not from a parent or a teacher, but from Jerry Springer. Home from school one day when they were about 8 years old, Johnson caught Springer’s often-raucous daytime talk show. “There are girls here to tell their parents they want to be boys,” Johnson recalls hearing at the top of the hour. (Meckler, 5/24)
The New York Times:
For One Group Of Teenagers, Social Media Seems A Clear Net Benefit
The surgeon general’s warning Tuesday about social media’s “profound risk of harm” to young people included a significant qualification. For some of them, the warning said, social media can be beneficial to health in important ways. For one group in particular — the growing share of young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer — social media can be a lifeline, researchers and teenagers say. Especially for those growing up in unwelcoming families or communities, social media often provides a sense of identity and belonging at a crucial age, much earlier than for many L.G.B.T.Q. people in previous generations. (Miller, 5/24)
AP:
Republican-Controlled Committee Rejects Louisiana Bill To Ban Gender-Affirming Care For Minors
Bucking the trend of other reliably red states adopting restrictions on young transgender people, a Republican-controlled Louisiana legislative committee voted Wednesday to a kill a bill that would have banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Proponents of Louisiana’s failed bill, which would have prohibited hormone treatments, gender-affirming surgery or puberty-blocking drugs for any transgender minor, say they fear that the state could draw minors from surrounding states — where there are bans — seeking gender-affirming health care. Those in Louisiana’s LGBTQ+ community say gender-affirming care in the state is not as easily accessible as conservatives make it seem. (Cline, 5/24)
AP:
DEA's Failure To Punish Distributor Blamed In Opioid Crisis Raises Revolving Door Questions
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors to keep shipping highly addictive painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended it be stripped of its license for its “cavalier disregard” of thousands of suspicious orders fueling the opioid crisis. The DEA did not respond to repeated questions from The Associated Press about its handling of the case against Morris & Dickson Co. or the involvement of a high-profile consultant the company had hired to stave off punishment and who is now DEA Administrator Anne Milgram’s top deputy. (Mustian and Goodman, 5/25)
Stateline:
Births Decline In Most States, Continuing A Long-Term Trend
Fast-growing Texas and Florida had the biggest increases in the number of births last year, while a dozen other states — half of them in the South — continued to rebound from pandemic lows. In the United States as a whole, however, the number of births has plateaued after a modest increase following the worst of the pandemic, according to preliminary data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Henderson, 5/25)
NBC News:
Clues Emerge About Possible Factors Behind Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
The prevailing theory points to three possible factors: First, the infant is at a critical stage of development during the first year of life. Second, the baby is exposed to a stressor, such as sleeping face down, which can lower the amount of oxygen in their blood while raising the level of carbon dioxide. And third, the infant has an underlying abnormality that makes it harder to survive that traumatic event. A study published Thursday in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology points to one such abnormality. (Bendix, 5/25)
AP:
Aging America: Baby Boomers Push Nation's Median Age Higher As Fewer Children Are Born
The United States grew older, faster, last decade. The share of residents 65 or older grew by more than a third from 2010 to 2020 and at the fastest rate of any decade in 130 years, while the share of children declined, according to new figures from the most recent census. The declining percentage of children under age 5 was particularly noteworthy in the figures from the 2020 head count released Thursday. Combined, the trends mean the median age in the U.S. jumped from 37.2 to 38.8 over the decade. (Schneider, 5/25)
Bloomberg:
Weight Loss Drugs Wegovy, Ozempic To Be Sold In Noom Subscription
Noom Inc., a startup that for years has touted a psychological path to weight loss, is now ready to add drugs to the equation. After a pilot last year, the company is launching its Noom Med option that will include prescriptions for obesity drugs like Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy for about $120 a month. It’s the latest weight-loss company to join the lifestyle-focused industry’s push into using highly effective, costly GLP-1 obesity drugs to help customers slim down. (Court, 5/24)
AP:
Resident Doctors At NYC's Elmhurst Hospital Reach Tentative Deal After 3-Day Strike
Resident physicians who went on strike at New York City’s Elmhurst Hospital Center have reached a tentative deal on the third day of their walkout and will return to work, their union announced Wednesday. The strike by about 160 residents that began Monday was New York City’s first strike by doctors since 1990, according to the Committee of Interns and Residents local of the Service Employees International Union, their union. (5/24)
AP:
Major Massachusetts Health Insurer Hit By Ransomware Attack, Member Data May Be Compromised
The second-largest health insurer in Massachusetts was the victim of a ransomware attack in which sensitive personal information as well as health information of current and past members may have been compromised, company officials said. Point32Health said in a statement on its website Tuesday that a “cybersecurity ransomware incident” affecting its Harvard Pilgrim Health Care program was detected April 17. (5/24)
Bloomberg:
California Hospital Operator Files Chapter 9 Bankruptcy
In yet another sign of the increasing financial stress facing US hospitals, a public health care operator in California has filed for bankruptcy protection. San Benito Health Care District in Hollister filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on Tuesday, citing labor costs, a years-long shortage of working capital and a $5.2 million overpayment from Medicare it had to return, the court filing said. The Chapter 9, which is filed by municipalities and public entities, is rare compared to other bankruptcy filings used by corporations and individuals. (Coleman-Lochner, 5/24)
Fox News:
New York Department Of Health To Repeal COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate For Health Care Workers
The New York State Department of Health said it will repeal the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for all workers at regulated health care facilities, which was imposed by the state. In a statement posted to the agency’s website, the Department of Health announced it had begun the process of repealing the coronavirus vaccine requirement for health care workers because of the changing landscape of the pandemic and the evolving vaccine recommendations. (Wehner, 5/24)
CIDRAP:
Air Pollution Exposure Linked To Severe COVID-19 Outcomes
Air pollution exposure is associated with a higher risk of experiencing severe outcomes from COVID-19 infections, including intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and death, according to new evidence in Nature Communications from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). (Soucheray, 5/24)
AP:
High Rates Of Asthma In Black Children Linked To Racist Housing Laws
Black children are more likely to have asthma than kids of any other race in America. They're more likely to live near polluting plants, and in rental housing with mold and other triggers, because of racist housing laws in the nation's past. Their asthma often is more severe and less likely to be controlled, because of poor medical care and mistrust of doctors. (Stafford, 5/23)
The Wall Street Journal:
Another Blow To The Return To Offices: Everyone’s Got Allergies
The most miserable allergy season in recent memory is filling offices with a symphony of coughs, sniffles and sneezes. The pollen has tormented employees—and any co-workers within earshot—as they constantly sniffle and interrupt presentations and meetings with coughing and sneezing fits. (Lukpat, 5/24)
AP:
Over Half Of The Contaminated Water Leaked At Nuclear Plant Recovered, Xcel Says
More than half of a radioactive isotope that leaked from a pipe at a Minnesota nuclear plant has been recovered, while crews are making “substantial progress” in recovering contaminated groundwater, officials said. The pipe initially leaked in November 2022 at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, allowing 400,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of water containing tritium to spill. The first leak wasn’t publicly announced until March, after a second leak was discovered at the site of a temporary fix to the first release. Industry experts have said the spill did not threaten public health, despite the monthslong delay in announcing the initial leak. (5/24)
AP:
CDC: 2 Dead Of Suspected Cases Of Meningitis After Surgeries In Mexico, Over 200 Patients At Risk
Federal officials say more than 200 patients could be at risk of fungal meningitis after having surgical procedures at clinics in a Mexico border city. ... The CDC is working with more than two dozen state and local health departments to contact people with potential exposure and urge them to go to their nearest medical facility for testing. Meningitis testing includes an MRI and a lumbar puncture, also called a spinal tap.(5/25)