First Edition: November 22, 2023

KFF Health News: Why Long-Term Care Insurance Falls Short For So Many
For 35 years, Angela Jemmott and her five brothers paid premiums on a long-term care insurance policy for their 91-year-old mother. But the policy does not cover home health aides whose assistance allows her to stay in her Sacramento, California, bungalow, near the friends and neighbors she loves. Her family pays $4,000 a month for that. “We want her to stay in her house,” Jemmott said. “That’s what’s probably keeping her alive, because she’s in her element, not in a strange place.” (Rau and Aleccia, 11/22)

KFF Health News: A Guide To Long-Term Care Insurance
If you’re wealthy, you’ll be able to afford help in your home or care in an assisted living facility or a nursing home. If you’re poor, you can turn to Medicaid for nursing homes or aides at home. But if you’re middle-class, you’ll have a thorny decision to make: whether to buy long-term care insurance. It’s a more complex decision than for other types of insurance because it’s very difficult to accurately predict your finances or health decades into the future. (Rau, 11/22)

KFF Health News: Anti-Abortion Groups Shrug Off Election Losses, Look To Courts, Statehouses For Path Forward
Anti-abortion groups are firing off a warning shot for 2024: We’re not going anywhere. Their leaders say they’re undeterred by recent election setbacks and plan to plow ahead on what they’ve done for years, including working through state legislatures, federal agencies, and federal courts to outlaw abortion. And at least one prominent anti-abortion group is calling on conservative states to make it harder for voters to enact ballot measures, a tactic Republican lawmakers attempted in Ohio before voters there enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. (Pradhan, 11/22)

KFF Health News: From Hospital To Hospitality: Spin Doctors Brand Getting Sick As An Adventure. It's Not
The last time I stepped on a plane for vacation, for fun, was more than three years ago. I haven’t been able to visit California, whose coast I adore. Nor Rome, where my husband and I lived for some time. And yet, I’m told, I’ve been on a journey. Two journeys, actually: First, a “traumatic brain injury journey,” experienced at Johns Hopkins Hospital after I banged my head and developed trouble with my balance and gait. More recently, I’ve been a traveling companion on my husband’s “cancer journey” at Memorial Sloan Kettering, in New York City. (Rosenthal, 11/22)

KFF Health News: Watch: A Nation In Transition
CBS Reports’ “A Nation in Transition” follows trans youth from three states where lawmakers have recently debated policies that would directly affect their lives: California, Tennessee, and Texas. More than two-thirds of states in the U.S. either passed or proposed laws restricting gender-affirming care during the 2023 legislative season. In the documentary, KFF Health News editor-at-large for public health Céline Gounder discusses how families of transgender youth are uprooting their lives due to anti-trans policies and their ripple effects. (11/22)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
“Health Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from the KFF Health News newsroom to the airwaves each week. (11/21)

The Hill: COVID Deaths Tick Up In Some States Ahead Of Holidays
Several states are experiencing increases in deaths related to COVID-19 as the holidays approach and this year’s respiratory viral season sets in. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), eight states saw increases in coronavirus deaths based on data available through Nov. 11: Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee. The absolute increases ranged from 0.1 percent in Colorado to 3 percent in Maryland. (Choi, 11/21)

The Boston Globe: COVID-19 Levels In Boston-Area Waste Water Increase Slightly
Public health officials are distributing rapid COVID-19 tests and urging people to receive an updated vaccine as levels of coronavirus in Boston-area waste water rise ahead of the holiday season. Boston Public Health Commission officials said they will hand out 10,000 free testing kits at community centers and other distribution hubs across the city. As of Nov. 15, coronavirus levels rose 93 percent over the previous 14 days, the commission said. (Sweeney, 11/21)

Axios: Omicron Still Driving COVID Infections For Second Holiday Season
With the holidays approaching, it may be the first time in years that COVID-19 is not a predominant concern – but the Omicron wave of the pandemic is not exactly over. In the two years since Omicron emerged, it has continued to rank as the predominant strain in the U.S., and its subvariants are now driving most of the country's coronavirus infections. (Habeshian, 11/21)

Axios: COVID, RSV Cases Rise As Americans Gather For The Holidays
Virus activity is picking up again as millions of Americans crisscross the country for Thanksgiving, taking fewer precautions to protect themselves against illness as concerns about COVID-19 fade away. Indoor holiday gatherings are expected to fuel a spike in cases of COVID-19, RSV and the flu — and with vaccinations against all three respiratory viruses lagging, health experts worry hospitals could be slammed again this winter. (Reed, 11/22)

Axios: Nursing Home Vaccination Rates Are Low As COVID Cases Rise
Only about 17% of nursing home residents and 2% of staff are up to date on their COVID-19 shots as cases rise across the country and health officials prepare for another seasonal tripledemic of respiratory diseases. (Reed, 11/22)

AP: Physicians, Clinic Ask Judge To Block Enforcement Of Part Of A North Dakota Abortion Law
Physicians and the former, sole abortion provider in North Dakota on Tuesday asked a judge to block enforcement of part of a revised law that bans most abortions, saying a provision that allows the procedure to protect a woman’s health is too vague. North Dakota outlaws all abortions, except in cases where women could face death or a “serious health risk.” People who perform abortions could be charged with a felony under the law, but patients would not. (Dura, 11/22)

AP: Democratic Division Blocks Effort To End Michigan's 24-Hour Wait For An Abortion
Michigan Democrats, who early this year had built on the state’s recent reputation for safeguarding abortion rights, have stalled on the once-assured effort due to dissent within the state legislative caucus in recent months.Two key pieces of legislation that would have repealed a 24-hour wait period required for patients receiving an abortion and also allowed state Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions were left out of a package signed Tuesday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Cappelletti, 11/21)

The Hill: Biden Skeptical Of China’s Cooperation On Curbing Fentanyl: ‘We Have To Verify It’
President Biden said Tuesday that he took important steps during his meeting last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping to curb the flow of fentanyl into the United States, but that he will have to verify that the Chinese follow through. Biden and Xi met in San Francisco during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and the White House said their conversations on the deadly opioid fentanyl was a top deliverable out of the talks. Biden reiterated Tuesday that he “made important progress” during his meeting with Xi, as well as with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (Gangitano, 11/21)

Bloomberg: Biden Asks Congress For More Funding, Tighter Laws To Counter Fentanyl Crisis
President Joe Biden pressed lawmakers to approve more funding and tighten laws to help block fentanyl trafficking, following his agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to crack down on the deadly drug. Biden on Tuesday heralded an agreement with Xi, who pledged during their summit last week to carry out a law-enforcement campaign against Chinese fentanyl components, and his talks with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on stopping the flow of drugs across the southwest border. (Jacobs, 11/21)

Stat: Bernie Sanders Calls In Merck, J&J, And Bristol Myers Squibb
Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on Tuesday mounted a public pressure campaign to get the executives of Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Bristol Myers Squibb to testify in a January hearing on why the United States pays more for prescription drugs than other countries. (Cohrs, 11/21)

Politico: Amid Drug Pricing Battle, PhRMA Gave House GOP-Linked Group $7.5 Million
The pharmaceutical industry’s leading lobbying organization contributed $7.5 million to the American Action Network last year, a group linked to House Republicans, according to an analysis of 2022 tax forms. It’s the most PhRMA has ever given to the group in a year, though the network has received $34.5 million in PhRMA cash since 2010, according to Issue One, a campaign finance reform advocacy group. (Wilson and Oprysko, 11/21)

Stat: House Republicans Call CDC Director To Testify 
A House committee that has sparred with the Biden administration over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the virus’ origins is delving back into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s role. The Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing Nov. 30 with CDC Director Mandy Cohen, who assumed the leadership post this summer. While this is far from the first time the GOP-controlled panel has interrogated the CDC’s pandemic work, it will be the first time Cohen appears before them. (Owermohle, 11/21)

Politico: Food Aid For Low-Income Mothers, Babies Becomes Spending Flashpoint
Congress’ failure to include extra aid money for low-income moms and babies in last week’s spending bill sets up a potential showdown early next year. At stake: whether the government will have to begin turning away large numbers of mothers and their children from the program, known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, breaking with decades of precedent. (Brown and Lee Hill, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Health Plans Ducking 2024 Medicare Advantage Rule, AHA Tells CMS
Medicare Advantage insurers are already finding ways to skirt new federal regulations designed to ease beneficiary access to medical care, according to the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals. ... Citing a notice UnitedHealthcare sent hospitals Oct. 30 outlining its coverage policies for 2024, however, the hospital trade groups says insurers are not complying and continue to set higher bars for coverage than the regulation allows. (Bennett, 11/21)

MoneyWatch: Wilcox Ice Cream Recalls All Flavors Due To Possible Listeria Contamination
Wilcox Ice Cream is recalling all flavors of Wilcox brand ice cream, yogurt and ice cream bars, as well as Leonardo's brand gelato, because the products could be contaminated with listeria, the company said. ..."As part of our investigation, we determined that preliminary testing showed that the ice cream mix purchased to make our products may contain listeria monocytogenes," Wilcox said in a recall notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration. (Gibson, 11/21)

CBS News: Most Applesauce Lead Poisonings Were In Toddlers, FDA Says
Most reported patients in the growing applesauce lead poisoning probe are young children, a Food and Drug Administration spokesperson confirmed, as authorities continue to field reports from parents and doctors following last month's recall ... Information collected from consumer complaints and reports submitted to the FDA show "most patients fall between 1-4 years of age," the spokesperson said in a statement. (Tin, 11/21)

CBS News: It's OK To Indulge On Thanksgiving, Dietician Says, But Beware Of These Unhealthy Eating Behaviors
"Complicated relationships (around food) are much more heightened during times like this, where we're celebrating something that revolves culturally around food," says Amanda Holtzer, a registered dietician based in New Jersey. "That can really trigger a lot of potentially negative emotions in people with negative or complicated relationships with food." ... But Holtzer says indulging in a holiday meal like this isn't going to have a major impact on your body or your health. (Moniuszko, 11/21)

Daily Yonder: New Study Offers Surprising News About Rural Access To Dialysis
Rural residents as a group live farther from dialysis treatment facilities than their urban counterparts. Given that rural America generally scores lower on health care access, that’s not a surprise. But there is some unexpected news in a new study of dialysis access. One of the chronically medically underserved populations in rural America, African American residents, on average live closer to dialysis facilities than white residents do. (Carey, 11/22)

Axios: How Income Disparities Drive Heart Risks For Middle-Aged Adults
Over roughly the past two decades, middle-aged adults with lower incomes were more likely to develop high blood pressure, while those with higher incomes were more likely to develop diabetes and obesity, according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (Reed, 11/21)

CIDRAP: Studies Show Parental Involvement, Doctor Education Raise HPV Vaccine Uptake
Two new studies show that involving parents and kids, whether through physician-led education or reminder mailings from clinics, can increase the likelihood of childhood human papillomavirus virus (HPV) vaccination. The findings come at a precarious time for HPV vaccination in the United States. Despite an estimated 36,500 new cancer diagnoses annually linked to HPV, in 2022, for the first time since 2013, HPV vaccine series initiation did not increase among adolescents, according to an editorial yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. (Soucheray, 11/21)

CIDRAP: Outpatient Stewardship Intervention At Mayo Clinic Linked To Fewer Unnecessary Antibiotics
A multifaceted outpatient antibiotic stewardship intervention implemented at Mayo Clinic hospitals was associated with reduced unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory infections (URIs), researchers reported today in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The intervention, implemented across Mayo Clinic facilities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona in July 2020, aimed to reduce antibiotic use for Tier 3 URI syndromes, which are defined as URIs for which antibiotics are never indicated. (Dall, 11/21)

Reuters: European Patent Office Declares Moderna MRNA Patent Invalid
The European Patent Office declared a contested mRNA patent owned by Moderna (MRNA.O) invalid, the office said on Tuesday, handing a win to BioNTech (22UAy.DE) and its partner Pfizer (PFE.N) in a patent dispute between the two coronavirus vaccine makers. Moderna said in a statement that it disagreed with the office's decision and would lodge an appeal. Shares in Moderna were down 2.3% in premarket trading on Wall Street after the decision was announced by BioNTech earlier on Tuesday. (11/21)

Reuters: Novo Rations Ozempic Starter Kits Amid Surge In Use For Weight Loss
Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO) will ration starter kits of Ozempic in Europe and reduce supplies of another diabetes drug, Victoza, to prioritise producing Ozempic, which has seen a surge in demand from people using it to lose weight. Ozempic contains semaglutide, an ingredient in Novo's hugely popular anti-obesity drug Wegovy. Ozempic is not officially approved to treat obesity, but that hasn't held back demand. (Burger and Mathews, 11/21)

Reuters: Medtronic Shrugs Off Concerns Over Newer Weight-Loss Drugs, Raises Annual Forecast
Medtronic (MDT.N) raised its annual earnings forecast on Tuesday as strong sales in its surgical and diabetes units allayed concerns about the impact of new diabetes and weight-loss drugs on long-term growth, sending its shares up nearly 4% in morning trade. Makers of medical products used in bariatric surgery and glucose-monitoring devices have been trying to ease investor concerns over a potential hit to demand from the rising popularity of new GLP-1 drugs like Novo Nordisk's (NOVOb.CO) Ozempic and Eli Lilly's (LLY.N) Mounjaro. (Mandowara and Santhosh, 11/21)

Stat: Morphosys Mixed Study Results For Blood Cancer Drug
An experimental blood cancer drug from MorphoSys hit its primary target in a pivotal trial, the company announced late Monday, but the drug faltered in addressing patient symptoms, causing the company’s stock to fall in early Tuesday trading. (Joseph and Feuerstein, 11/21)

The Boston Globe: Merck & Co. Buys Caraway Therapeutics
Merck & Co. has agreed to pay as much as $610 million to buy Caraway Therapeutics, a small, privately owned Cambridge biotech working on potential drugs for neurodegenerative and rare diseases. The total includes an undisclosed upfront payment and payments contingent on reaching goals for developing medicines to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and rare kidney diseases. (Saltzman, 11/21)

Reuters: Monsanto Hit With $165 Million Verdict Over PCBs In Seattle School
A U.S. jury has ordered Bayer's Monsanto to pay $165 million to employees of a school northeast of Seattle who claimed chemicals made by the company called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, leaked from light fixtures and got them sick. The Washington state court jury found the company liable for selling products containing PCBs used in the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington, that were not safe, and did not include adequate warnings. The award included nearly $50 million in compensatory damages, and $115 million in punitive damages. (Mindock, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Epic To Receive Payout From 2014 Tata Trade Secrets Lawsuit
Electronic health record giant Epic Systems will receive about $125 million in court-awarded payments from Tata Consultancy Services,  the Mumbai, India-based information-technology and consulting firm said in a regulatory filing Tuesday. In 2014, Verona, Wisconsin-based Epic alleged Tata illegally accessed Epic Systems' internal documents as Tata sought to enter the U.S. EHR market. (Turner, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: What UnitedHealth, Cigna Lawsuits Mean For AI, Automation
The alleged use of artificial intelligence for prior authorization and claim denials has led to lawsuits against two major health insurance companies. UnitedHealth Group and Cigna have been separately accused of allegedly using automated tools to deny some claims, which plaintiffs say reduces the insurers' labor costs. Both policymakers and physician leaders are asking insurance companies to open up their AI playbooks in response to these allegations. (Berryman and Turner, 11/21)

Stat: Turmoil At OpenAI Shows The Need For AI Standards In Health Care
The leadership turmoil within OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is triggering calls for stepped-up efforts to establish standards for how generative AI is used across the health care industry, where experts worry that one or two companies could end up with too much control. (Ross, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Mount Sinai Health System Names Brendan Carr As Next CEO
Mount Sinai Health System has named Dr. Brendan Carr as its next chief executive, effective early next year. Carr is a professor of emergency medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and chair of emergency medicine at the New York-based health system. He joined nonprofit Mount Sinai in February 2020. (Hudson, 11/21)

Politico: State Delays Essential Plan Expansion, Nixes Premiums
A long-awaited expansion of the state’s Essential Plan to cover a new income tier will not launch until at least April 1, according to an updated application filed last week by the Department of Health. The program’s expansion to cover New Yorkers earning between 200 percent and 250 percent of the federal poverty line, which state lawmakers authorized under last year’s budget, was originally slated for Jan. 1. However, the federal government did not approve the state’s waiver request in time for the beginning of open enrollment activities in October, the Health Department said. (Kaufman, 11/21)

Politico: N.J. Proposal Would Require Age Verification, Parental Permission For Social Media Use
An influential state lawmaker hopes to require age verification and parental consent for kids to join social media platforms, which would make New Jersey one of just a handful of states to impose the requirement. Assemblymember Herb Conaway (D-Burlington) on Monday introduced the legislation, NJ A5750 (22R), which would require social media platforms to verify that users are at least 18 and require minors to get consent to join from a parent or guardian. It would also ban certain online messages between adults and children. (Friedman, 11/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Law Giving Researchers Access To Gun Data Reinstated
Any intrusion on a gun owner’s privacy by providing the purchase records to academic researchers, the court said, must be weighed against the public value of learning more about weapons purchases and their effects. ... Among other findings ... the UC Davis researchers determined that “in the first week after the purchase of a handgun, the rate of suicide by means of firearms among purchasers was 57 times as high as the adjusted rate in the general population.” (Egelko, 11/21)

Politico: Legal Weed In Ohio Puts Pressure On Pennsylvania
After Ohio approved a legalization initiative on the ballot earlier this month with support from 57 percent of voters, the Keystone state will see a renewed push to embrace full legalization. But while pro-legalization advocates have pushed the policy for years, no adult-use cannabis bill has mustered enough bipartisan support to even make it to a floor vote in the state House or Senate — and that’s unlikely to change in the near future. “It’s going to be a long fight to get through both chambers,” said Democratic Rep. Rick Krajewski, who recently led a hearing on cannabis legalization in a Health subcommittee. (Zhang, 11/21)

Health News Florida: Nonprofit's Analysis Shows Florida Left Nearly $800M Unspent For People With Disabilities 
Nearly $800 million in state and federal matching funds meant for Floridians with lifelong disabilities have gone unspent over the past two years. According to an Orlando Sentinel report, this came to light after a budget analysis was conducted by The ARC of Florida, a nonprofit organization that advocates for services for people with disabilities. (11/21)