First Edition: October 19, 2018

California Healthline: As Billions In Tax Dollars Flow To Private Medicaid Plans, Who’s Minding The Store?
With no insurance through his job, Jose Nuñez relied on Medicaid, the nation’s public insurance program that assists 75 million low-income Americans. Like most people on Medicaid, the Los Angeles trucker was assigned to a private insurance company that coordinated his medical visits and treatment in exchange for receiving a set fee per month — an arrangement known as managed care. (Terhune, 10/18)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Republicans’ Preexisting Political Problem
Ensuring that people with preexisting health conditions can get and keep health insurance has become one of the leading issues around the country ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. And it has put Republicans in something of a bind — many either voted to repeal these coverage protections as part of the 2017 effort in Congress or have signed onto a lawsuit that would invalidate them. (10/18)

The New York Times: Republican Candidates Soften Tone On Health Care As Their Leaders Dig In
In advertisements, in debates and on the campaign trail, Republican candidates are abandoning their promise to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act and are swearing that they never voted to undo protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions — and never will. But as the candidates seek to assuage voters who say health care is their top issue, their leaders are staying the course, setting up a collision between campaign promises and the party’s agenda should Republicans emerge from the midterms in control of Congress. (Edmondson, 10/18)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Lawmakers Who Voted For Years To Repeal Obamacare Now Campaigning To Save Popular Parts Of It
Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country are suddenly telling voters they’ll protect preexisting conditions rules, brushing aside the fact that many voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act dozens of times and that GOP leaders pledge to resume that fight in 2019. The shift reflects the growing popularity of Obamacare and Democrats’ success in using the issue to make a compelling closing argument in the midterm races. (Haberkorn, 10/18)

The Washington Post: Trump Says ‘All Republicans’ Back Protections For Preexisting Conditions, Despite Repeated Attempts To Repeal Obamacare
President Trump expressed support Thursday for one of the most popular provisions of an Obama-era law protecting people with preexisting conditions, even as he has repeatedly promised to scrap the law and his administration is waging a legal fight to overturn it. “All Republicans support people with pre-existing conditions, and if they don’t, they will after I speak to them,” Trump said in a tweet Thursday afternoon. “I am in total support. Also, Democrats will destroy your Medicare, and I will keep it healthy and well!” (Sonmez, 10/18)

The Hill: Trump: All Republicans Will Support People With Pre-Existing Conditions 'After I Speak To Them'
“Did he drop his lawsuit to eliminate protections for those with pre-existing conditions and just not tell anybody?” tweeted Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.). Trump also supported ObamaCare repeal bills in the House and Senate last year that would allow states to get waivers to allow insurers to spike premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. (Sullivan, 10/18)

The Hill: McConnell Defends Trump-Backed Lawsuit Against ObamaCare 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) defended the Trump administration’s decision to join a lawsuit that seeks to overturn ObamaCare and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. “It’s no secret that we preferred to start over" to repeal and replace Obamacare, McConnell said in a newly published interview with Bloomberg. “So no, I don’t fault the administration for trying to give us an opportunity to do this differently and to go in a different direction.” (Weixel, 10/18)

Politico: House GOP Leader McMorris Rodgers Faces Obamacare Backlash
Cathy McMorris Rodgers got an earful about health care on a recent Friday afternoon knocking on doors in the suburban Balboa neighborhood of Spokane. McMorris Rodgers, the top-ranking Republican woman in the House facing the toughest reelection contest of her career, heard one resident complain his wife’s monthly insurance premiums have swelled to over $700 per month. Another agonized about affording long-term care for her elderly mother. Yet another worried whether Medicare would go bankrupt. (Demko, 10/17)

Modern Healthcare: Will Republicans Keep Their New Promises On Pre-Existing Condition Protections?
With their increasingly ardent campaign promises to protect health coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, House and Senate Republican candidates will face pressure to keep those commitments if they win in November. GOP leaders, including Vice President Mike Pence, say they want to try again in 2019 to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Last year's GOP repeal bills would have significantly weakened the law's provisions, letting states re-establish the use of medical underwriting by insurers. (Meyer, 10/18)

The Associated Press: Hip-Hop, Health Care Share Spotlight In Pivotal House Race
Hip-hop, health care and Brett Kavanaugh have emerged as issues in a tight congressional race in New York's Hudson Valley that pits a freshman Republican congressman against a rapper-turned-corporate lawyer seeking his first political office. Democrat Antonio Delgado is running on universal access to Medicare, creating good jobs and eliminating tax loopholes for the rich. But his supporters say Republicans have instead obsessed over his brief rap career more than a decade ago, portraying Delgado, who is black, as a thuggish "big-city liberal" who denigrated police, women and American values. (Esch, 10/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Immigrant Children Are Staying Longer In Government Custody
Migrant children who come into the U.S. without family are staying longer in crowded shelters as authorities struggle to handle their growing numbers and to screen potential sponsors, according to government data and advocates. The average stay for unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, most illegally, is now 59 days. That is up from 56 in June and 41 last year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is caring for about 13,000 newly arrived immigrant children. (Caldwell, 10/19)

Politico: Senior Energy Dept. Aide Moving To Veterans Affairs
John Mashburn, a former Trump White House official, is leaving the Energy Department for a senior position at the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to three people familiar with the move. Mashburn, a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, is stepping down after six months on the job. One of the people said he’s joining the VA in a high-level role advising the head of the department, Robert Wilkie. (Restuccia and Hesson, 10/18)

The Associated Press: Virginia To Start Accepting New Medicaid Applications
Virginia is set to start accepting enrollment applications from the roughly 400,000 low-income adults newly eligible for Medicaid. Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday that the state would begin accepting applications on Nov. 1 for new coverage that will begin at the start of 2019. (10/18)

The Washington Post: Enrollment In Va.’s Expanded Medicaid Program Starts Nov. 1
“It was a long time coming, but we’re glad it’s here,” Northam (D) said at a state office building in Richmond. “I really believe that we can be leaders in Virginia and show the rest of the country how to move forward.” As Medicaid-expansion states go, Virginia is bringing up the rear, signing on long after most states that opted to enlarge the federal-state insurance program for the poor. Northam appeared to be referring to the bipartisan compromise that finally made expansion possible after years of GOP resistance. (Vozzella, 10/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Opioid Makers Ask Counties For Proof Of Harm
Purdue Pharma LP has a request for counties suing the drug manufacturer for allegedly causing the opioid epidemic: Show us how we are to blame. As the number of opioid lawsuits against Purdue and other drug manufacturers reaches 1,500 and counting, the companies are pushing their adversaries to offer specific details to back up their claims. (Randazzo, 10/18)

Stat: Cardinal Health Pushed To Redo Executive Pay To Reflect Opioid Settlements
As the number of lawsuits over the opioid crisis mounts, Cardinal Health (CAH) is being pushed by members of an investor coalition to overhaul the way executive pay is calculated in order to reflect the potential cost of any settlements or fines. In a recently filed shareholder proposal, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a Rhode Island state pension fund argue the wholesaler should change its approach to tallying profits over concerns any possible payments will be substantial, and that Cardinal executives should bear some of the costs. To add more pressure, a letter is being sent to shareholder this week in advance of an annual shareholder meeting scheduled for Nov. 7. (Silverman, 10/18)

Stat: FDA Expert Panel Chair Defies His Panel For Endorsing Opioid Painkiller
In an unusual move, the chair of a Food and Drug Administration panel is defying a recommendation that his own panel made last week to endorse a powerful opioid painkiller, because he believes the drug represents a “danger” to public health. And to make sure his views are known, Dr. Raeford Brown, the panel chair, conveyed his concerns in a letter on Thursday to FDA officials. At issue is Dsuvia, which the FDA’s Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee last Friday voted 10-to-3 to recommend for combating moderate-to-severe acute pain, but only for adults in medically supervised settings. (Silverman, 10/18)

Reuters: Roseanne Character Dies Of Opioid Overdose As 'The Conners' Take Over
One of television's best-known families returned on Tuesday without its matriarch, as the character of feisty Roseanne Conner was killed off through an accidental opioid overdose. ... Audiences had last seen Roseanne Conner hiding an opioid addiction stemming from knee pain and about to undergo long-delayed, costly surgery. (Serjeant, 10/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Novartis To Buy Cancer-Drug Maker Endocyte For $2.1 Billion
Novartis AG on Thursday said it would pay $2.1 billion for Endocyte Inc., a U.S. company developing a new treatment for prostate cancer, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant’s latest move to double down on high-value prescription drugs. Endocyte specializes in so-called radiopharmaceuticals, a new class of drug that carries radioactive substances directly to cancer cells so they can kill tumor cells at close range. Novartis agreed to pay $24 a share for the company. (Roland and Mancini, 10/18)

Stat: Clovis, With New Study Data, Hopes To Be First To Develop A PARP For Prostate Cancer
Women with certain types of ovarian and breast cancers are benefiting from a relatively new class of drugs known as PARP inhibitors. Soon, men with advanced prostate cancer might be helped, too. Clovis Oncology (CLVS) disclosed new clinical trial results Friday showing a 44 percent tumor response rate following treatment with its PARP inhibitor, called Rubraca. The median duration of response has not yet been reached. (Feuerstein, 10/19)

The New York Times: Project Baseline Aims To Ward Off Illness Before We Get Sick
One of the sobering facts about cancer treatment is that it often begins when it is already too late: Studies show that an alarming number of treatable cancers are diagnosed in the advanced stages of disease. That has long bothered Dr. Sam Gambhir, a top cancer researcher at Stanford University who lost his teenage son to brain cancer in 2015. Dr. Gambhir wondered if there were some surefire way to detect cancer long before people got sick. (O'Connor, 10/18)

The New York Times: Researchers Explore A Cancer Paradox
Cancer is a disease of mutations. Tumor cells are riddled with genetic mutations not found in healthy cells. Scientists estimate that it takes five to 10 key mutations for a healthy cell to become cancerous. Some of these mutations can be caused by assaults from the environment, such as ultraviolet rays and cigarette smoke. Others arise from harmful molecules produced by the cells themselves. In recent years, researchers have begun taking a closer look at these mutations, to try to understand how they arise in healthy cells, and what causes these cells to later erupt into full-blown cancer. (Zimmer, 10/18)

Stat: Feds Crack Down On Stem Cell Clinics That Touted Autism Treatments, Blindness Cures
For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission has cracked down on stem cell clinics for overzealous marketing claims, filing a complaint against two California clinics that promoted their treatments for everything from autism to Parkinson’s despite a lack of evidence. As part of a proposed settlement announced Thursday, the FTC is requiring the clinics — Regenerative Medical Group and Telehealth Medical Group — and their owner, Dr. Bryn Jarald Henderson, to stop making such claims and to inform past and current patients about the settlement. (Joseph, 10/18)

Stat: With Genome Sequencing, Some Sick Infants Are Getting A Shot At Healthy Lives
When babies become intensely ill, it can be difficult to know what has gone wrong. But the answer, quite often, is hidden somewhere in their genes. Whole-genome sequencing — in which scientists can read the nearly 3 billion chemical letters in DNA — can help turn up that answer. And scientists, increasingly, are laying out a case for using that tool in an intensive care setting, despite the upfront costs. (Keshavan, 10/19)

The Washington Post: Parents Of Children With AFM Warn About Rare Polio-Like Condition
It started with a sinus infection. Then 4-year-old Camdyn Carr couldn’t move the right side of his face or lift his arm to scratch his nose. His parents decided to take him a couple of hours away to see doctors who might be able to figure out what had afflicted their young boy. But as they drove from their Roanoke home to the University of Virginia, Carr’s whole body seized up and he was suddenly paralyzed. (McDaniels, 10/18)

Stat: An Ebola Outbreak Presents A New Mystery Involving Children 
Epidemiologists working on the world’s latest Ebola outbreak are racing to try to solve a mystery. Why have so many children — some still infants — been infected with the virus? The disproportionate number of recent infections among children in the Democratic Republic of Congo — specifically in Beni, the outbreak’s current hot spot — has come as a surprise; typically young children don’t make up a big proportion of cases during an Ebola outbreak. (Branswell, 10/19)

Los Angeles Times: The More Equal Women And Men Are, The Less They Want The Same Things, Study Finds
Imagine an egalitarian society that treats women and men with equal respect, where both sexes are afforded the same opportunities, and the economy is strong. What would happen to gender differences in this utopia? Would they dissolve? The answer, according to a new study, is a resounding no. The findings, published Thursday in Science, suggest that on the contrary, gender differences across six key personality traits — altruism, trust, risk, patience, and positive and negative reciprocity — increase in richer and more gender-equal societies. Meanwhile, in societies that are poorer and less egalitarian, these gender differences shrink. (Netburn, 10/18)

NPR: Letting Sunlight Indoors Kills Disease-Causing Bacteria
Even before Florence Nightingale advised that hospitals be designed to let daylight in, people observed that sunshine helps keep you healthy. But there was not much research to explain why that's the case, especially inside buildings. Researchers at the University of Oregon set up a study of dusty, dollhouse-size rooms to compare what happens in rooms exposed to daylight through regular glass, rooms exposed to only ultraviolet light and those kept dark. They used a mix of dust collected from actual homes in the Portland area and let the miniature rooms sit outdoors while keeping the insides at a normal room temperature. (O'Neil, 10/18)

The Washington Post: Scientists Argue Heart Stem Cell Trial Should Be Paused
Days after Harvard Medical School said it found extensive falsified or fabricated data from the laboratory of a prominent heart researcher, doctors and scientists are urging a halt to a medical trial based in part on his work. They say that sick people should not be subjected to the risks of an experiment whose underlying science has been called into question. In the ongoing, taxpayer-funded trial, cardiac stem cells are injected into the hearts of people with heart failure, in the hopes that those cells — alone or in combination with others — will improve patients’ heart function. (Johnson, 10/18)

The Associated Press: 93 Women Accuse Former USC Doctor Of Sex Abuse
Nearly 100 women who contend that they were sexually harassed or abused by a former University of Southern California gynecologist are suing the school, contending it ignored decades of complaints. "I am part of an accidental sisterhood of hundreds of women because the university we love betrayed our trust,” said Dana Loewy, who alleged that Dr. George Tyndall assaulted her during an examination in 1993. (10/19)

Los Angeles Times: Scores More Former Patients Sue USC Over Gynecologist's Alleged Sexual Misconduct
Andy Rubenstein, whose Texas firm D. Miller & Associates is representing hundreds of Tyndall’s former patients, said in a statement that “the survivors we represent are furious, and rightfully so. They are not going away.“ Generations of Trojan women have had to endure the same emotional pain and scars because USC did nothing,” Rubenstein said. “Since this story broke nearly six months ago, there has been no significant effort by USC to come clean or enact substantive change in the way it handles allegations of sexual assaults against its staff.” (Branson-Potts and Hamilton, 10/18)

The New York Times: A Wave Of Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against A Doctor, And Hospital Says It Knew
For almost 30 years, parents sought out Dr. Reginald Archibald when their children would not grow. They came to his clinic at The Rockefeller University Hospital, a prominent New York research institution, where he treated and studied children who were small for their age. He also may have sexually abused many of them. (Goldbaum, 10/18)

Los Angeles Times: How A Newport Beach Doctor Fell From Reality TV Star To Suspected Serial Rapist
Authorities continue to seek potential victims after additional charges were filed this week against a prominent Newport Beach doctor, who now is accused of attacking at least seven women. Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 38, once dubbed Orange County’s most eligible bachelor, and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, 31, are accused of rape by drugs, kidnapping, oral copulation by anesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offenses and other crimes. (Winton and Sclafani, 10/18)

The Wall Street Journal: NYC Health Department To Lead National Charge To Cut Sugar Intake
In an effort to decrease the amount of sugar in the food supply and stem a rise in obesity, the New York City Health Department will roll out on Friday a new effort pushing companies to significantly cut the sugar in packaged foods and drinks by 2025. The National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative, as it is being called, comprises a coalition of health departments across the country and other non-profits. Though voluntary for companies, the program builds on the work of a similar effort begun in 2009 aimed at reducing salt in foods. (West, 10/19)

The Associated Press: Hospital Says $2M Robot Enhances Surgery, Saves Money
A Delaware hospital says its new $2.1 million robot has performed more than 50 surgeries since it was introduced. The Beebe Medical Center’s Lewes Center for Robotic Surgery opened this summer. Robotic program head Dr. Kurt Wehberg tells The News Journal robot-assisted surgeries are less invasive than traditional procedures. And he says that translates into benefits for patients and practitioners alike. (10/18)