First Edition: Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024

KFF Health News: 12 States Promised To Open The Books On Their Opioid Settlement Funds. We Checked Up On Them
To discover how millions in opioid settlement funds are being spent in Idaho, you can visit the state attorney general’s website, which hosts 91 documents from state and local entities getting the money. What you’ll find is a lot of bureaucratese. Nearly three years ago, these jurisdictions signed an agreement promising annual reports “specifying the activities and amounts” they have funded. But many of those reports remain difficult, if not impossible, for the average person to decipher. (Pattani, 11/7)

KFF Health News: Tribal Health Leaders Say Feds Haven’t Treated Syphilis Outbreak As A Public Health Emergency
Natalie Holt sees reminders nearly everywhere of the serious toll a years-long syphilis outbreak has taken in South Dakota. Scrambling to tamp down the spread of the devastating disease, public health officials are blasting messages to South Dakotans on billboards and television, urging people to get tested. Holt works in Aberdeen, a city of about 28,000 surrounded by a sea of prairie, as a physician and the chief medical officer for the Great Plains Area Indian Health Service, one of 12 regional divisions of the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the U.S. (Orozco Rodriguez, 11/7)

KFF Health News: 7 Of 10 States Backed Abortion Rights. But Little To Change Yet
Voters backed abortion rights in seven of the 10 states where the issue appeared on ballots Tuesday — at first glance, seemingly reshaping the nation’s patchwork of abortion rules. Colorado, Maryland, Montana, and New York — states where abortions are already permitted at least until fetal viability — all will add abortion protections to their state constitutions. Nevada voters also favored protections and can enshrine them by passing the measure again in the next general election. (Sable-Smith, 11/6)

KFF Health News: Prepared For A Trump Win, California’s Attorney General Is Ready To Fight 
If President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Senate try to roll back reproductive health rights or pursue a widely prophesied national abortion ban, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is poised to challenge him. Two years ago, Bonta, a Democrat who heads the state justice department, directed his staff to draft legal analyses against a possible national abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 50 years of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade. Bonta said they thought through arguments, even going so far as to decide in which court they would file suit. (Castle Work, 11/6)

The New York Times: Trump Will Return to Power With a More Expansive Agenda
Few agencies face a future quite as uncertain as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is responsible for gun regulations. And Mr. Trump’s return to power could lead to significant upheaval for millions of Americans dependent on the Affordable Care Act, after record levels of enrollment under Mr. Biden. Increased subsidies could expire next year without action from congressional Republicans and Mr. Trump, causing premiums to spike. (Baker and Savage, 11/6)

Modern Healthcare: What Trump's Healthcare Policies On Medicare, ACA Might Look Like
Bipartisan groups in Congress have been pursuing greater transparency across the health sector, ways to reduce prescription drug prices and tougher oversight of pharmacy benefit managers as they seek to trim hospital spending in Medicare, boost pay for physicians, and curb prior authorizations in Medicare Advantage. Donald Trump did not talk much about such issues in the campaign, but in his previous term he supported price transparency rules for hospitals, sought to ban PBMs from keeping drug rebates and proposed linking U.S. pharmaceutical prices to international benchmarks. (McAuliff, 11/6)

Politico: The Trump Agenda: Here’s What To Expect From His Second Term 
Though some of Donald Trump’s largest agenda items — tax breaks and Affordable Care Act changes — will take congressional approval, many won’t. The Trump administration will be able to change immigration enforcement, impose tariffs, change health regulations, intervene in overseas wars and shape the education system without help from the Hill. (Payne, 11/6)

ABC News: What A 2nd Trump Term May Look Like For Health Care Issues Including ACA, Abortion 
Donald Trump has been inconsistent on what his plans are regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the landmark law signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama. During his first term, Trump tried several times to repeal the ACA but was unsuccessful. In November 2023, he also vowed to replace it in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. Since then, he has shifted course. In March, Trump said is "not running to terminate" the ACA but said he wanted to make it "better" and "less expensive," in a post on Truth Social. There could also be changes to Medicare, a federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older and younger people with disabilities. (Kekatos, 11/6)

Stat: Trump Could Make Medicaid Spending A Target For Cuts
With former President Trump headed back to the White House, the U.S. Medicaid program, which covers medical care for people with low incomes, could face cuts. But Medicaid’s transformation to a program mostly run by private insurers adds an influential industry to its list of guardians, alongside the rural hospitals that rely on the program to balance their budgets. (Wilkerson, 11/6)

The Guardian: With Trump Returning To The Presidency, Everything From Abortion To Immigration Is Under Threat 
Project 2025, the rightwing playbook for a second Trump term, proposes using the 1873 Comstock Act, which outlaws the mailing of abortion-related materials, to ban people from shipping abortion pills. These pills account for about two-thirds of US abortions. If enacted to its fullest extent, the Comstock Act could not only ban pills but the very equipment that clinics need to do their jobs, and Trump could use the legislation to implement a nationwide de facto abortion ban. Donald Trump could also weaken the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that protects emergency abortion access. (11/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Will Create New Winners And Losers In Healthcare
For healthcare companies, Donald Trump’s victory means very different things depending on which part of the sector they operate in. For firms offering plans in the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), as well as Medicaid plans, it could be bad news. That explains why Oscar Health, which derives most of its business from Obamacare marketplaces, was down 8% Wednesday morning while Centene, a big Medicaid operator, was down 5%. But for businesses operating in Medicare Advantage, the privately run system that mainly serves seniors, a Republican victory is expected to provide major regulatory benefits. (Wainer, 11/6)

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth, Humana Soar On Trump Election Victory
Donald Trump’s re-election rippled through the health-care landscape as the new administration is expected to pull back on Biden-era measures affecting US health insurers, drug prices and public-health leadership. Insurers focused on the Medicare market jumped on the expectation that the government will pay higher rates to companies that provide private versions of the US health program for seniors. (Tozzi, Mufarech, and Smith, 11/6)

Stat: What Trump's Win Means For Biotech And Pharma
With Donald Trump now poised to become U.S. president for the second time in January, biotech and pharmaceutical leaders are preparing for the shift to an administration with a complicated history. Trump has positioned himself as business-friendly, but has criticized “Big Pharma” over high drug costs. During the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was supportive of the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to develop vaccines, but his campaign has more recently embraced vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (DeAngelis, Herper, Joseph, Mast and Silverman, 11/6)

The Washington Post: Trump And Allies Prepare To Take Power, Zero In On Cabinet Contenders 
President-elect Donald Trump and his allies prepared Wednesday to take power after a decisive election victory that could hand Republicans unified control of government and give Trump a broad mandate to pursue an agenda of radical change. (Alemany, Dawsey, Knowles, LeVine and Stein, 11/6)

The Hill: RFK Jr. Says ‘Entire Departments’ At FDA ‘Have To Go’
Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is slated to hold a potentially big role in a new Trump administration, said Wednesday there are “entire departments” within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that “have to go.” “In some categories … there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA … that have to go, that are not doing their job, they’re not protecting our kids,” Kennedy said during an interview on MSNBC. (Ventura, 11/6)

The New York Times: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Foe Of Drug Makers And Regulators, Is Poised To Wield New Power 
As an independent presidential candidate and as a surrogate for Mr. Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to upend the nation’s agriculture system and public health bureaucracy, effectively gutting whole swaths of the regulatory state, under the rubric of rooting out “cronyism” and corruption. Some have speculated that Mr. Trump will make him a “health czar” inside the White House, to guide the president on public health matters; a person familiar with the transition said Mr. Kennedy was at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday and spoke with Trump insiders about the public health agenda. (Stolberg and O'Brien, 11/6)

Bloomberg: Trump Win Gives RFK Jr. Free Rein To Shape Public Health
Donald Trump’s election win opens the door for vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to play a significant role in the administration and drastically change the nation’s public health practices. The former presidential candidate emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he challenged the safety of preventive shots. He’s also an opponent of drinking water fluoridation, a measure that has improved oral health for millions of Americans. (Mufarech, 11/6)

Florida Phoenix: Lobbying For Ladapo: DeSantis Wants To See Florida Surgeon General Head U.S. Health Agency 
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday endorsed his own controversial State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo for a top health care position in the next Trump administration. DeSantis went on social media, where he called on his followers to repost a picture of Ladapo if they want to see him serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services once President-elect Donald Trump assumes office. (Sexton, 11/6)

Stat: Who To Know In The 'Make America Healthy Again' Movement
MAGA, meet MAHA. The sweeping election victory for President-elect Donald Trump this week also marks the start of an ambitious anti-chronic disease campaign, “Make America Healthy Again,” that has become central to Trump’s health agenda. (Cueto, 11/7)

Military.com: The Trump Cabinet: Who Will Be VA Secretary?
If the past is any indication, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the Department of Veterans Affairs is anyone's game. In 2017, just 10 days before his inauguration, Trump chose Dr. David Shulkin, then the VA's under secretary for health under President Barack Obama, for the top spot. When Trump dismissed Shulkin a little over a year later, he nominated his White House physician, then-Navy Adm. Ronny Jackson, for the post. (Kime, 11/6)

The Washington Post: With Trump Win, Focus Turns To Older Supreme Court Justices 
Some prominent voices on the left called earlier this year for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire while Joe Biden was still president, so a Democrat could nominate her replacement regardless of who won the election. Sotomayor, 70, is the oldest liberal justice and has Type 1 diabetes. Advocates feared a repeat of what happened with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who declined to retire during President Barack Obama’s tenure and died on the bench in 2020, while Donald Trump was in office. The vacancy allowed Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, cementing a powerful 6-3 conservative supermajority. (Jouvenal and Raji, 11/6)

NBC News: What Trump’s Victory Could Mean For Abortion Rights
President-elect Donald Trump has said he would not sign a federal abortion ban. But there are ways a new Trump administration could restrict abortion nationwide. One option is via Trump’s appointees to the Food and Drug Administration. Those leaders could try to get the agency to roll back certain changes made from 2016 to 2021 (in three presidential administrations, including Trump’s) that expanded access to the abortion medication mifepristone. Another path is for Trump appointees to the Justice Department to choose not to defend abortion pill access when legal challenges arise. Although the Supreme Court dismissed a case in June that sought to restrict access to mifepristone, the attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri filed a similar suit last month. Both cases were filed in a federal court in Amarillo, Texas, where the sole judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is a Trump appointee. (Bendix and Richardson, 11/7)

The New York Times: How Ballot Measures Will Change Abortion Access 
The 2024 election broke a ballot measure winning streak for abortion rights advocates. Voters in seven states, including Republican-led ones, had previously sided with abortion rights in every contest since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022. Advocates for abortion rights caution that opportunities to protect those rights through ballot measures may be dwindling. Most remaining states with abortion bans do not allow citizen-initiated measures to be placed on the ballot, and their Republican leaders are unlikely to put the issue to voters. (McCann and Schoenfeld Walker, 11/6)

Stat: Post-Roe Effort To Protect Abortion Rights Hits Its Limit, For Now
Advocates mounted a massive push to protect abortion rights at the state level in Tuesday’s election, but several notable defeats, and a new Trump presidency, leave abortion rights advocates staring down their biggest setbacks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. (Owermohle, 11/6)

Axios: Trump's Election Win Reveals America's Abortion Divide
Voters sent conflicting signals about abortion access on Tuesday, approving ballot proposals in seven states to expand abortion rights while also electing Republicans who could provide the margins to pass a nationwide ban next year. (Goldman, 11/7)

Politico: Harris Hoped To Ride Abortion To Another Post-Dobbs Democratic Victory. It Didn’t Work. 
The issue failed to stop Donald Trump, who on Tuesday overcame a large gender gap — and Democrats’ relentless focus on women’s reproductive health — to win back the White House. (Ollstein and Messerly, 11/6)

AP: Abortion Rights Amendment’s Passage Triggers New Legal Battle In Missouri
Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri filed in a state court Wednesday seeking to invalidate the state’s abortion ban and several laws that regulate the care. The Missouri amendment, which is to take effect Dec. 5, does not specifically override any state laws. Instead, the measure left it to advocates to ask courts to knock down bans that they believe would now be unconstitutional. Planned Parenthood leaders said Wednesday on a Zoom call with reporters that they want to start offering abortions at clinics in Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis if they get the judicial ruling they’re requesting — starting with blocking enforcement of laws on the book. (Fernando and Mulvihill, 11/6)

The Boston Globe: Gov. Maura Healey Promises State Will Protect Women’s Rights After Trump Election Victory
Governor Maura Healey vowed Wednesday that Massachusetts will continue to protect women’s rights and other priorities after Donald Trump’s election victory Tuesday night, giving the Republican a second term to advance his political agenda. During an afternoon news briefing, Healey said that Massachusetts is “a place where we will always stand up for people’s rights and freedoms, where women will have control over their own health care decisions, and where every person is respected, valued, and heard, whoever you are, wherever you were born, whoever you love.” (Andersen, 11/6)

Politico: Gavin Newsom Vows California Will ‘Defend Our Constitution’ In Wake Of Trump Win 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom gave his first statement today on the presidential election results, echoing the defiant remarks of other leading Democrats across the state, eager to again cast themselves as a counterweight to the next Trump administration. Like Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, Newsom did not mention Donald Trump by name but echoed Vice President Kamala Harris who in her concession speech vowed to continue the “fight for freedom.” (Holden, 11/6)

The Washington Post: LGBTQ+ Crisis Hotlines Report Uptick In Calls After Trump Victory 
Across the country, organizations and crisis hotlines catering to LGBTQ+ youths and adults have reported a staggering uptick in calls in the run-up to the election and since Donald Trump’s resounding victory. The Trevor Project was struggling to keep up with the number of people in crisis. “TrevorText and TrevorChat are currently experiencing long hold times due to the election,” a banner on the group’s site said Wednesday. (Javaid, 11/6)

Pink News: How Project 2025 – A Right-Wing Wish List For Trump’s Second Term – Threatens LGBTQ+ Rights
The handbook’s authors claim that one of the biggest problems facing the US today is the “toxic normalisation of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading school libraries.” Project 2025 goes on to say that “transgender ideology” is one form of “pornography” linked to the “sexualisation of children”. In total, “gender” is mentioned 111 times, and “LGBT” or “LGBTQ” 18 times, in the handbook. (11/6)

USA Today: Nebraska Voters Approve Legalization Of Medical Weed
Medical marijuana is now legal in the state of Nebraska, approved by voters on Tuesday. Two ballot measures dealing with medical marijuana were on the Nebraska ballot. Initiative Measure 437 establishes a new statute that will allow the use, possession and acquisition of up to 5 ounces of cannabis for medical purposes by a qualified patient with a written recommendation from a health care practitioner. The statue will also allow for a caregiver to assist a qualified patient with these activities. Initiative Measure 438 establishes a new statute that makes penalties inapplicable under state law for the possession, manufacture, distribution, delivery and dispensing of cannabis for medical purposes by registered private entities. The statute will also establish a Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to regulate such activities. (Cross, 11/6)

Gazette.com: Recreational Marijuana Ban Likely In Colorado Springs Amid Split Vote 
A charter ban on recreational marijuana establishments in Colorado Springs was likely to take precedence over a competing ballot question that would have approved retail cannabis sales in city limits, unofficial returns show Tuesday night. (Jent, 11/6)

AP: Trio Of Ballot Failures Leads Marijuana Backers To Refocus Their Efforts For Recreational Weed
The movement to legalize recreational marijuana has run into a wall of resistance, failing in all three states where it was on the ballot this year and leading proponents to weigh a tactical shift focused more on state legislatures and the federal government. It’s “going to be a potentially tougher hill to climb going forward to enact legalization in the other 26 states,” Paul Armentano, deputy director of the marijuana advocacy organization NORML, said Wednesday. (Lieb, 11/6)

The Wall Street Journal: CVS Names Former UnitedHealth Executive As Head Of Aetna 
CVS Health’s new chief executive, David Joyner, moved quickly to put his stamp on the company, promising a reorganization and new leadership at Aetna, its troubled insurance unit. In his first public call with analysts on Wednesday, Joyner focused extensively on his plans to fix Aetna, saying its performance was unacceptable and tied to significant past missteps. Aetna has seen higher-than-expected medical costs tank its performance, particularly in its Medicare business, where the insurer had bet on a big expansion this year. (Mathews, 11/6)

Modern Healthcare: Pacs Group Delays Earnings Release Amid Fraud Investigation
Nursing home operator Pacs Group is delaying the release of its third quarter earnings as it faces a government investigation into fraud allegations, the company said Wednesday. Pacs Group CEO Jason Murray said in a news release, the company would release financial results for the three months ending Sept. 30 after the company’s audit committee and an external counsel investigate allegations made in a Hindenburg Research report that Pacs Group was “scamming” the government and investors. (Eastabrook, 11/6)

CNN: Compounded Semaglutide Associated With At Least 10 Deaths, Novo Nordisk CEO Warns 
Compounded versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in approved diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, have been associated with at least 100 hospitalizations and 10 deaths, the chief executive of Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk warned Wednesday. “Honestly, I’m quite alarmed by what we see in the US now,” Novo Nordisk President and CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen told CNN. “Patients who believe that they’re getting access to a safe product, and they believe they’re getting semaglutide … I know for a fact that they are not getting semaglutide, because there’s only one semaglutide, and that’s produced by Novo Nordisk, and we don’t sell that to others.” (Tirrell, 11/6)

CNN: Daytime Sleepiness May Be Linked With Pre-Dementia Syndrome, Study Finds 
 If you find yourself sleepy during your daily activities in your older age, you may need to consider it more than an inconvenience — since the fatigue may indicate you’re at higher risk for developing a condition that can lead to dementia, a new study has found. (Rogers, 11/6)

Bloomberg: Depression And Anxiety Remained High In The US After Covid Ebbed
Significantly more Americans experienced depression and anxiety in 2022 than in 2019, even as the disruptions and lockdowns caused by the Covid pandemic eased, according to a new report. Just over 21% of American adults in 2022 reported experiencing symptoms of depression in the previous two weeks, up 2.9% from three years earlier, according to a report released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics. Anxiety was reported by 18% of adults in 2022, a 2.6% increase, the data from the National Health Interview Survey found. (Mufarech, 11/7)

Axios: Teen Emergency Room Visits For Caffeine Overdose Spike
Emergency room visits due to eating or drinking too much caffeine roughly doubled among adolescents in the past several years, according to new data from Epic Research. The episodes are still relatively uncommon but they underscore the potential risks of excessive caffeine intake as energy drinks with high doses of the stimulant flood the market. (Reed, 11/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: Listeria Recall: Popular Brie And Soft Cheese Brands Affected
A cheese producer has issued a voluntary recall of several soft cheese products, including various brie varieties, sold in California and other states due to potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. Savencia Cheese USA announced the recall over the weekend after routine testing detected traces of the bacteria in its processing equipment. As a result, major retailers, including Safeway, Andronico’s and Whole Foods, have begun removing the affected products from store shelves. (Vaziri, 11/6)

AP: UK Identifies 4 Cases Of New Mpox Variant, The First Cluster Outside Africa 
British health officials say they have identified four cases of the new, more infectious version of mpox that first emerged in Congo, marking the first time the variant has caused a cluster of illness outside of Africa. Scientists said the risk to the public remains low. Authorities announced the first case of the new form of mpox in the U.K. last week, saying the case was being treated at a London hospital after recently traveling to countries in Africa with ongoing outbreaks. (11/6)

Reuters: Food Companies Sell Products That Are Less Healthy In Poorer Countries, Says Report
The world’s biggest food and beverage companies on average sell products in low-income countries that are less healthy than what they sell in high-income countries, according to a new report. Products sold by companies including Nestle, Pepsico and Unilever were assessed as part of a global index published by the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI), its first since 2021. The non-profit group found that across 30 companies, the products sold in low-income countries scored lower on a star rating system developed in Australia and New Zealand than those sold in high-income countries. (11/7)

Axios: Cancer Disparities Will Grow By 2050
The burden of cancer around the world will become even more uneven by 2050, according to a new study. Cancer cases and deaths will increase most in low- and middle-income countries that may have less access to health care or face competing priorities for allocating resources. (Goldman, 11/6)