First Edition: November 3, 2014

Kaiser Health News: California Audit Finds Backlog Of 11,000 Nursing Home Investigations
California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle found that the complaints had been open for a year on average – a time frame she called unreasonable and “very concerning.” Nearly 370 open complaints arose from situations that put patients in “immediate jeopardy,” meaning they caused or were likely to cause serious injury or death, according to the review, which looked at cases open as of April 2014. In the Los Angeles County district, 65 immediate jeopardy complaints were open an average of 514 days. (Gorman, 10/31)

Kaiser Health News: Home Health Workers Struggle For Better Pay And Health Insurance
Holly Dawson believes her job is a calling. She is one of about 2 million home care workers in the country. The jobs come with long hours and low pay. Each workday, Dawson drives through the Cleveland suburbs to help people take their medicines, bathe and do the dishes. She also takes time to lend a sympathetic ear. George Grellinger, a former client of hers, has dementia. He recently fell down the back steps of his home. Dawson remains friends and regularly stops in to check on him. To remain living at home, Grellinger had to switch to an aide who is covered by his veterans’ benefits. (Tribble, 11/3)

The New York Times: Defects Found Before Debut Of Health Insurance Site For Small Businesses
The Obama administration has discovered a number of defects in the online marketplace that will offer health insurance to millions of small-business employees, but federal officials said the problems could probably be fixed before the website goes live on Nov. 15. The website, for businesses with 50 or fewer employees, was created by the Affordable Care Act and was supposed to open Oct. 1, 2013, but officials could not meet that deadline. Since then, they have been trying to build the site. (Pear, 11/1)

The New York Times: Repeal Of Health Law, Once Central To G.O.P., Is Side Issue In Campaigns
Republican attacks on the health care law dominated the early months of the campaign, but now have largely receded from view. The focus instead has been more on tethering Democratic candidates to Mr. Obama with a broad-brush condemnation of his policies. And even though some Republican candidates still vow to repeal the law, almost none have offered an alternative. Mr. Gillespie and Mike McFadden, the Republican challenger to Senator Al Franken in Minnesota, stand as exceptions, to little effect. Like Mr. Gillespie in his race against Senator Mark Warner, Mr. McFadden holds little chance of defeating the incumbent on Tuesday. (Weisman, 10/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Voters Favor GOP By Slim Margin For Control Of Congress, WSJ/NBC News Poll Shows
The survey found plentiful evidence that Election Day will draw an electorate that thinks the nation is on the wrong track and dislikes the direction in which President Barack Obama has led the country. With eight or more Senate races considered close, even a slight advantage for Republicans could produce enough victories to give the party the six seats it needs to gain control of the chamber. (O'Connor, 11/2)

Los Angeles Times: For Republicans, Election Victory Won't End Struggles
A GOP Congress would almost certainly pick a quick fight with the White House over Obamacare, immigration and what Republicans see as the administration's anti-coal policies. Problem is, even if Republicans take the Senate, their majority would likely fall short of the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic filibuster, or the 67 votes needed to overcome a presidential veto. ... Party officials, including Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell, who would become Senate majority leader, are already trying to temper expectations. Last week McConnell warned that repealing Obamacare in its entirety may be unrealistic. "Remember who's in the White House for two more years," he cautioned. But tea party activists immediately forced him to backtrack, and he vowed to do his best for full repeal, perhaps by using the upcoming budget process. ... Critics note that despite GOP demands to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they have yet to offer a viable alternative. (Memoli and Mascaro, 10/31)

The Associated Press: Republicans Mull Strategy If They Control Congress
In interviews, GOP senators talked at times of an ambitious conservative push for fewer regulations, lower taxes and other long-held priorities. But they also outlined more pragmatic, modest agendas that might avoid Obama's veto .... There was virtually no talk of balancing the budget, repealing Obama's health care law or achieving similar GOP campaign pledges that prove politically impossible in Washington.... Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says leaders of both parties must be willing to defy key supporters, and even risk their political careers, to end government gridlock. With his re-election virtually assured, Graham has told business leaders he wants Congress to improve roads and bridges and to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, among other things. That will require ending some tax breaks and finding new sources of revenue, which is anathema to many Republicans, he said. (Babington, 11/2)

Los Angeles Times: Poll: Support For Lighter Sentences, But Not 2 Health Care Measures
Voters strongly back a ballot measure to soften penalties for certain drug and theft crimes, but two healthcare initiatives face much stiffer opposition, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows. The healthcare-related measures, Propositions 45 and 46, have faced an onslaught of negative advertising from well-financed opposition campaigns, damaging their prospects at the ballot box Tuesday. (Mason, 11/2)

Politico: Anti-Abortion 'Personhood' Movement Faces North Dakota Test
Radical elements in the anti-abortion movement keep coming up short in their effort to define an embryo as a “person” with constitutional rights. It’s failed on the ballot in conservative strongholds like Mississippi and in Republican-dominated legislatures around the country. (Haberkorn, 11/3)

The Washington Post: Planned Parenthood Vs. Personhood In Colorado
Amendment 67 would allow prosecutors to bring charges against someone who commits a crime against a fetus. Proponents are going out of their way to insist that the measure has nothing to do with abortion, and Alderman, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, is worried that voters won't recognize its similarity to other "personhood" initiatives they've rejected in the past. (Zezima, 11/2)

The Washington Post: Exposed: After An Accidental Needle Stab, A Doctor’s Ebola Watch Begins
But Rubinson, who is director of the critical care resuscitation unit at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, had just spent three weeks working for the World Health Organization at the Kenema Government Hospital, and he knew that a fever was usually the first signal that a person harboring the deadly virus has become infectious. Now, he thought, the moonsuited doctors and nurses looking after him seemed surprised by how sick he was. The needle had provided the virus with an ideal route to invade his body. And if that needle hadn’t infected him, Rubinson found himself wondering, could he have had an earlier exposure that he hadn’t even known about? (Stead Sellers, 11/3)

Politico: Medicare In The 2014 Campaign: New Ads, Old Messages
There’s an element of nostalgia in campaign ads targeted at seniors. Both parties are talking about Medicare like it’s 2012. The ads are new, but the arguments are old: Republicans accuse Democratic incumbents of cutting $716 billion from Medicare as part of the health reform law in 2010. Democrats say the GOP lawmakers have been trying to “end Medicare as we know it” since 2011 by turning it into a voucher program as part of Rep Paul Ryan’s House budget plan. Neither attack is strictly true, but the vintage 2012 attacks just keep coming. (Wheaton, 11/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Federal-Benefit Changes For 2015
When you do the math on the increases in Social Security benefits and Medicare part A and B payments, then lump them with the changing costs of food, gas and health care, senior and disabled Americans still face tight budgets in 2015—and some could find themselves in a hole. (Waters, 11/01)

The Associated Press: Medicare Weighs Paying For End-Of-Life Counseling
Medicare said Friday it will consider paying doctors to counsel patients about their options for end-of-life care, the same idea that spurred accusations of "death panels" and fanned a political furor around President Barack Obama's health care law five years ago. The announcement came in a voluminous regulation on physician payment. It will "give the public ample opportunity to weigh in on the topic," said Medicare spokesman Aaron Albright. (10/31)

The New York Times: Bracing For The Falls Of An Aging Nation
As the population ages and people live longer in bad shape, the number of older Americans who fall and suffer serious, even fatal, injuries is soaring. So the retirement communities, assisted living facilities and nursing homes where millions of Americans live are trying to balance safety and their residents’ desire to live as they choose. ... The dangers are real. The number of people over 65 who died after a fall reached nearly 24,000 in 2012, the most recent year for which fatality numbers are available — almost double the number 10 years earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Hafner, 11/2)

The Washington Post: Efforts To Enable Americans To Age In Place Are Expanding, Survey Shows
A new survey of hundreds of federally sponsored local agencies that assist aging Americans has found increased efforts to help the elderly remain in their homes as they grow older, a policy known as aging in place. A 2013 survey by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging found that more than 70 percent of local service providers now offer programs to help people find alternatives to nursing homes or other institutional care. That’s up from less than a third in 2008, the survey said. (Kunkle, 11/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Wrestle With Extent of Ebola Treatment
U.S. hospitals are grappling with whether to withhold aggressive treatments from Ebola patients to avoid further exposing doctors and nurses to the virus. Some facilities have decided they will forgo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or may opt not to pursue invasive surgical procedures on deteriorating Ebola patients. Such procedures can expose health workers to bodily fluids that transmit the disease, and hospitals say in many cases have little chance of saving a patient. The decisions are sparking a thorny debate at hospitals across the country and calls for national guidelines. (Armour, 10/31)

The New York Times: Alarmed By Ebola, Public Isn’t Calmed By ‘Experts Say’
When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebola hot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well. ... Even defenders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the agency has hurt the case for trusting scientists, by making overly broad assurances early on, or changing guidelines on handling the disease, indicating that the earlier ones were not strict enough. This comes on top of a broader mistrust of elites. (Perez-Pena, 10/31)

The Associated Press: Scientists Try To Predict Number Of US Ebola Cases
Top medical experts studying the spread of Ebola say the public should expect more cases to emerge in the United States by year's end as infected people arrive here from West Africa, including American doctors and nurses returning from the hot zone and people fleeing from the deadly disease. But how many cases? ... This week, several top infectious disease experts ran simulations for The Associated Press that predicted as few as one or two additional infections by the end of 2014 to a worst-case scenario of 130. (Mendoza, 11/1)

The Wall Street Journal: New Jersey Details Ebola Quarantine Policy
Gov. Chris Christie provided a more detailed explanation of his quarantine policy, which has been criticized by public-health experts but appears to be broadly popular with the general public. New Jersey officials on Friday saiid travelers coming through Newark Liberty International Airport would be categorized into three tiers: high risk, some risk and low risk. Travelers from three Ebola-stricken countries who have fevers will be transported to a hospital for monitoring and tests, as state officials did with nurse Kaci Hickox. Travelers who have been to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia but haven't been in contact with Ebola patients and don't show symptoms wouldn’t be subject to quarantine, but would face 21-day monitoring by local health officials. (Dawsey, 10/31)

Politico: Paul 'Horrified' Over Quarantine
Sen. Rand Paul says the libertarian in him is "horrified" at the forced quarantine of a nurse who returned to the United States after treating Ebola patients in Africa. "The libertarian in me is horrified at indefinitely detaining or detaining anyone without a trial," the Kentucky Republican said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." ... "We have to be very careful of people’s civil liberties, but I’m also not saying government doesn’t have a role in trying to prevent contagion," Paul said, adding he believes the federal government should have instituted some travel restrictions. (Gold, 11/2)