First Edition: Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024

KFF Health News: Older Americans Living Alone Often Rely On Neighbors Or Others Willing To Help
Donald Hammen, 80, and his longtime next-door neighbor in south Minneapolis, Julie McMahon, have an understanding. Every morning, she checks to see whether he’s raised the blinds in his dining room window. If not, she’ll call Hammen or let herself into his house to see what’s going on. Should McMahon find Hammen in a bad way, she plans to contact his sister-in-law, who lives in a suburb of Des Moines. That’s his closest relative. Hammen never married or had children, and his younger brother died in 2022. (Graham, 11/12)

KFF Health News: California Dengue Cases Prompt Swift Response From Public Health Officials 
Jason Farned and his team at the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District had spent years preparing for the likely arrival of dengue, a dangerous virus typically found in tropical climates outside the mainland United States. They’d watched nervously as invasive Aedes mosquito species that can carry the virus appeared in Los Angeles about a decade ago and began to spread, likely introduced by international trade and enticed to stay by a warming climate that makes it easier for mosquitoes to thrive. (Boyd-Barrett, 11/12)

KFF Health News: Many Voters Backed Abortion Rights And Donald Trump, A Challenge For Democrats 
Voters in three states — Arizona, Missouri, and Nevada — chose on Tuesday to advance protections for abortion rights in their state constitutions. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is likely to win all three states in his victorious bid for the White House. It’s a conundrum for Democrats, who expected ballot initiatives on abortion rights in those states to boost the prospects of their candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris. But data from VoteCast, a large survey of U.S. voters conducted by The Associated Press and partners including KFF, found that about 3 in 10 voters in Arizona, Missouri, and Nevada who supported the abortion rights measures also voted for Trump. (Varney, 11/8)

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?' Podcast: Trump 2.0 
Health care might not have been the biggest issue in the campaign, but the return of Donald Trump to the presidency is likely to have a seismic impact on health policy over the next four years. Changes to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and the nation’s public health infrastructure are likely on the agenda. But how far Trump goes will depend largely on who staffs key health policy roles and on whether Democrats take a majority in the U.S. House, where several races remain uncalled. (11/8)

Modern Healthcare: US Uninsured Rate Hits 7.6%, CDC Report Shows
The share of Americans lacking health insurance has remained largely steady in recent years, but questions remain about the future. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday shows 7.6% of Americans, or 25.3 million people, lacked health insurance during the time of data collection from April to June. Although the rate represents a 0.4 percentage point increase from the year-ago period, it is consistent with 2023's full-year uninsured rate — a historic annual low. (Berryman, 11/11)

Bloomberg: Cigna Says It Won’t Pursue Combination With Rival Humana
Cigna Group said it won’t pursue a combination with rival insurer Humana Inc. The two health insurance giants held talks about a deal last year, but Cigna walked away after the two companies failed to agree on a price, Bloomberg News reported in December. The discussions were revived as the US government intensified its effort to control Medicare costs that have eaten away at Humana’s finances and market value, Bloomberg News reported last month. (Tozzi, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: The Sickest Patients Are Fleeing Private Medicare Plans—Costing Taxpayers Billions
A Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data found a pattern of Medicare Advantage’s sickest patients dropping their privately run coverage just as their health needs soared. Plans run by the private insurers in the Medicare Advantage system are supposed to offer old and disabled people the same benefits they would get from traditional Medicare. The plans can be a bargain for people because they limit out-of-pocket expenses and often offer extra benefits such as dental care. As recipients get sicker, though, they may have more difficulty accessing services than people with traditional Medicare. (Mathews, Weaver and McGinty, 11/11)

Fortune Well: Shopping For A 2025 Medigap Policy? There May Be Some Good News For You
In all but four states—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York—if apply for a Medigap policy after the first six months of Medicare eligibility, the insurer can reject you due to a pre-existing condition or charge you more because of it. (A pre-existing condition could be anything from high blood pressure to diabetes to Alzheimer’s, according to a recent KFF health research group report.) “A Medigap insurer can generally turn you down for whatever reason they see fit,” says Ryan Ramsey, associate director of health coverage and benefits at the National Council on Aging. (Eisenberg, 11/11)

Modern Healthcare: OIG Report Finds Holes In Hospital Price Transparency Compliance
Many hospitals are not publishing their prices in accordance with the price transparency law, a federal watchdog's new report found. More than a third of the 100 hospitals reviewed by the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Inspector General did not post machine-readable pricing data files correctly, or at all, as required by the 2021 federal law, according to the report released Friday. Most of the violations were related to disclosing the rates hospitals negotiated with insurers, metadata errors and outdated information. Five hospitals did not post any machine-readable files. (Kacik, 11/8)

Politico: RFK Jr. Crowdsources Names For Trump Appointees
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is working to crowdsource names for the more than 4,000 appointees under the second upcoming Trump administration. Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine crusader, launched a website that asks the public to submit names of candidates who might be qualified for positions in environmental, energy, agriculture, labor policies and beyond. (Borst, 11/11)

Reuters: RFK Jr Reviewing Resumes For Top Trump Health Jobs, Sources Say
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the former independent presidential candidate, is reviewing candidate resumes for the top jobs at the U.S. government's health agencies in Donald Trump's incoming administration, a former Kennedy aide and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. Kennedy, of the famed political family, has been asked to recommend appointees for all regulatory health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration, said Del Bigtree, who was director of communications for Kennedy's campaign and remains close to the former candidate. (Kelly, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Demands Republicans Allow Some Nominees To Bypass Senate
President-elect Donald Trump demanded that the next Republican leader of the Senate agree to allow him to push through at least some nominees without requiring a vote, a move that would give more power to the White House to get around congressional opposition. The statement by Trump, who prevailed on Election Day by winning all seven of the battleground states, showed him muscling the incoming Senate majority weeks before the Republicans are set to take over the chamber. The GOP senators, who are set to have a 53-47 margin in the next Congress, are voting on a new leader this week. (Hughes and Bravin, 11/10)

Bloomberg: Trump’s Reliance On US House To Fill His Cabinet Strains Likely Majority
President-elect Donald Trump is raiding the House of Representatives as he stocks his cabinet, threatening to cut into what’s likely to be a razor-thin majority for Speaker Mike Johnson in the early days of his new administration. On the House side, Trump has selected Mike Waltz, a Florida congressman who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, to serve as his national security advisor, according to people familiar with the choice. Waltz joins Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman and chair of the Republican caucus, as lawmakers primed to leave Capitol Hill for a job working for the incoming president. The loss of two Republicans will tighten margins considerably for Johnson. (Leonard and Lowenkron, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s New Border Czar Championed Family-Separation Policy In First Term
Donald Trump has chosen a pugnacious anti-illegal immigration hard-liner, Tom Homan, to oversee the president-elect’s proposed mass deportation campaign, picking a key figure from his first term who makes no apologies for some of its most controversial policies, including the separation of migrant parents from their children. Homan, who served as the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, will take on the role of “border czar,” Trump announced late Sunday night. (Hackman, Restuccia and Vipers, 11/11)

The New York Times: Trump Chooses Lee Zeldin To Run E.P.A. As He Plans To Gut Climate Rules
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Monday that he would nominate former Representative Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a position that is expected to be central to Mr. Trump’s plans to dismantle landmark climate regulations. During Mr. Zeldin’s tenure in the House, he voted against clean water legislation at least a dozen times, and clean air legislation at least half a dozen times, according to the League of Conservation Voters scorecard. (Davenport and Friedman, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Tracking Who Trump Has Picked To Fill His Cabinet, Administration 
Here are the people Donald Trump has picked or is considering to fill his Cabinet and key positions in his administration, including potential picks for Health and Human Services. (11/11)

NPR: Trump Plans To Revoke Many Biden Policies. Where Does That Leave Marijuana?
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to come to the White House with a laundry list of policies he wants to change or reverse. The Biden administration has moved to ease longtime restrictions on cannabis — so, what might Trump's arrival mean for the push to legalize marijuana? There are signs that cannabis could be a rare issue on which Trump carries a Biden policy forward. (Chappell, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Wisconsin’s High Court Hears Case Set To Decide State’s Abortion Rights 
Wisconsin’s highest court heard oral arguments Monday for a case set to shape the future of reproductive rights in the state, hinging on a question: Does a law inked before the Civil War ban abortion today? Chances are solid for abortion rights advocates, given the bench’s 4-to-3 liberal majority. A decision is expected in early 2025.The hearing marked the first state battle over the fate of abortion access since Donald Trump won reelection as president — after sending mixed messages on restrictions — and the courtroom volleys quickly turned tense. (Paquette, 11/11)

USA Today Network: Top Republican Says Florida Lawmakers Won't Revisit Abortion Issue
Unbowed by the failure of the proposed abortion-rights amendment to reach the required 60% approval by voters last week, proponents are calling upon the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature to repeal the state's six-week abortion ban next year. Don't count on it. The ACLU of Florida called Amendment 4's failure a "temporary loss," but the incoming Florida Senate president said in a statement he will not look to change anything, suggesting the current abortion ban will stand. (Goñi-Lessan, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Women Stockpile Abortion Pills Before Trump Term 
Women are seeking out abortion medication in higher-than-usual numbers ahead of a Donald Trump presidency that they fear could severely curtail access to reproductive care. Aid Access, one of the largest suppliers of abortion pills, reported receiving 10,000 requests for the medication in the 24 hours after the election was called for the Republican nominee early Wednesday — roughly 17 times the 600 that the organization typically gets in a day. (Iati, 11/11)

Time: Why Abortion Rights Won In Three States That Voted For Trump 
Experts say the results demonstrate a "cognitive dissonance" on how people feel about abortion and the candidates they choose to elect. (Lee, 11/11)

NBC News: Study Maps How Nonprofit Religious Groups Set Up Facilities Near Abortion Clinics
When patients who have appointments at the Planned Parenthood in Carbondale, Illinois, are late, staff members often know where to find them — at the crisis pregnancy center right next door. “We have stories all of the time of patients who are misled. They actually think they’re at a Planned Parenthood Health Center and then, not until after they’re on the table getting an ultrasound, they realize it’s not,” said Cristina Villarreal, chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Illinois. (Brooks, 11/8)

Bloomberg: Prison Health Firm Wellpath Declares Bankruptcy
Wellpath Holdings Inc., one of the largest providers of health-care services to prisons and jails across the US, has filed bankruptcy after failing to meet its debt obligations while grappling with high labor costs. The H.I.G. Capital-backed firm, which filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, listed assets and liabilities between $1 billion to $10 billion each. In a separate statement, Wellpath said it has secured a $522 million debtor-in-possession financing facility from some lenders and plans to sell some businesses. (Ma and Phakdeetham, 11/11)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente Streamlines Operations To Cut Costs 
Kaiser Permanente has continued implementing cost-cutting measures in an attempt to quell losses stemming in part from high medical expenses. Kaiser has reduced administrative expenses, implemented controls on discretionary spending and streamlined business operations to help offset costs attributed to higher-than-expected utilization, increased patient acuity and pharmaceutical spending, the nonprofit health system said Friday in its third-quarter earnings report. (Hudson, 11/8)

Colorado Sun: Denver Health Was Losing 90% Of N₂O To Leaks. So It Cut The Gas.
Deep inside Denver Health’s main building, on a locked floor that even most doctors who work at the hospital have never visited, around giant tanks of oxygen and under low-hanging ductwork and plumbing, there is a cramped room with eight tall, blue cylinders of compressed gas. (Ingold, 11/8)

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Cleveland’s Former St. Vincent Charity Hospital Now Set To Be Demolished 
Paperwork has been submitted to the city of Cleveland Department of Building and Housing to demolish St. Vincent Charity Community Health Center -- formerly known as St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. A clerk at the Department of Building and Housing confirmed Monday that paperwork had been received and said it would take several weeks to process. This comes almost exactly two years after St. Vincent ended all-inpatient and emergency room care. (Sims, 11/11)

Reuters: 23andMe Cuts 40% Of Its Workforce, Discontinues All Therapy Programs
Genetic testing firm 23andMe said on Monday it is reducing about 40%, or 200 employees, from its workforce and discontinuing further development of all its therapies as part of a restructuring program. “We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships,” said CEO Anne Wojcicki. The company said it is evaluating strategic alternatives, including licensing agreements and asset sales, for its therapies in development. (11/11)

Stat: AstraZeneca Has To Resubmit Closely Watched Cancer Drug To FDA
AstraZeneca said Tuesday it has had to resubmit a closely watched medicine for U.S. approval in a different form of lung cancer, a step that will delay the drug’s arrival on the market and that will add to questions about how widely it could be used. (Joseph, 11/12)

Stat: Schizophrenia Drug AbbVie Picked Up In $9 Billion Acquisition Fails In Key Trials
AbbVie said Monday that its experimental treatment for schizophrenia failed to significantly help patients in two trials, a blow to the company, which got the drug through its recent $9 billion acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics. (Chen, 11/11)

Axios: Robot Learned Surgical Tasks From Videos And AI
A research team used videos of surgeries and the machine learning architecture behind ChatGPT to successfully train a robot to do basic tasks like manipulate a needle, lift body tissue and suture. Showing a robot can perform with the skill of a doctor opens up new possibilities for devices like the widely used da Vinci surgical system and reduce the risk of medical errors, the Johns Hopkins-led scientists said. (Bettelheim, 11/12)

AP: South Carolina Lab Recaptures 5 Escaped Monkeys. 13 Still Loose
Employees at a South Carolina compound that breeds monkeys for medical research have recaptured five more animals that escaped last week from an enclosure that wasn’t fully locked. As of Monday afternoon, 30 of the 43 monkeys that made it outside the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee are back in the company’s custody unharmed, police said in a statement. (11/11)

North Carolina Health News: Helene Washed Away One Of This Rural County's Only Dental Clinics
When your house is flooded and all your soggy belongings are piled on the street in front of your home, having a cavity or a toothache might seem like a small problem. But it could become a bigger problem for residents of Avery County, where one of the primary dental clinics was inundated with floodwaters generated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene in late September. (Baxley, 11/11)

American Homefront Project: In Carolina Mountains, The VA Makes House Calls To Vets Still Isolated From Helene
More than a month after Helene wreaked havoc on western North Carolina, the regional Veterans Affairs' health care system is still sending teams to visit veterans who remain isolated and in need of vital supplies. Some of the biggest initial issues like road access have improved, said Matthew Bain, a nurse who was part of three VA outreach teams roving the mountains on a recent day. But things are still far from normal. (Price, 11/10)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Judge Gives NH More Time To End ER Boarding Of Psychiatric Patients
A federal judge has again given the state more time to end its practice of holding mental health patients in emergency departments for prolonged periods. For over a decade, people held involuntarily for mental health treatment have faced lengthy waits in the emergency room – often days or longer – before they’re transferred to an appropriate inpatient facility, because the state has too few psychiatric beds. (Cuno-Booth, 11/10)

The Texas Tribune: Strapped Texas Counties To Seek State EMS Funding 
County Commissioner Rick Bailey knows immediately when one of his Johnson County constituents has suffered a health scare. That’s typically when the calls and texts roll in from residents wanting to know more about ambulance service for those living outside the city limits of Cleburne or Burleson. “I do get complaints if there has been an accident or a heart attack, saying ‘Hey, why did it take so long?’” Bailey said. (Langford, 11/11)

Native News Online: 'You Can’t Gangster A Horse': Native Youth Connect with Culture to Break Cycles of Addiction
Native Americans now have the highest rate of drug-overdose deaths among teenagers and young adults of any ethnic group. At a Portland-based Native American health-care nonprofit, prevention specialists and tribal elders are blending traditional horsemanship and other Native culture with clinical approaches to prevent addiction before it starts. (Wild, 11/11)

Stat: Many Opioid Recovery Groups Offer Rejection Instead Of Refuge 
The last time Mark Palinski went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, he was asked to leave and never come back. He stills remembers the argument: All he had done was advocate for the use of the “gold standard” treatment opioid addiction, a common medication called buprenorphine. To Palinski, buprenorphine is a godsend. It helped him finally beat opioid addiction decades after he was prescribed Vicodin for a schoolyard kickball accident, leaving him hooked on painkillers at age 11. (Facher, 11/12)

The New York Times: Excessive Drinking Persisted In The Years After Covid Arrived
Americans started drinking more as the Covid-19 pandemic got underway. They were stressed, isolated, uncertain — the world as they had known it had changed overnight. Two years into the disaster, the trend had not abated, researchers reported on Monday. The percentage of Americans who consumed alcohol, which had already risen from 2018 to 2020, inched up further in 2021 and 2022. And more people reported heavy or binge drinking. (Rabin, 11/11)

The Washington Post: 4 In 10 U.S. Adults With Hypertension Don’t Know They Have It 
About 41 percent of U.S. adults with hypertension are unaware they have it, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics. Left untreated, high blood pressure can increase the risk for heart disease and stroke. The American College of Cardiology defines hypertension as having systolic blood pressure of 130 mm Hg or above, or diastolic blood pressure of 80 mm Hg or above. (McMahan, 11/11)

NBC News: More Women Seek Testosterone Therapy, Prompted By Influencers, Doctors Say
Do women have a testosterone problem? Social media influencers believe they do. And with the rise of telemedicine and testosterone replacement clinics opening up across the country, access to the drug has never been easier. In the U.S., prescriptions for testosterone increased nearly 50% between 2013 and 2023, according to recent data from the health technology company IQVIA. Doctors say interest in the hormone isn’t being driven only by men, but also by women in their 40s and 50s. (Syal, 11/10)

CIDRAP: CDC Reports Slight Flu Rise In Children, First Kid's Flu Death Of Season 
In its weekly flu season update today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said though activity remains low nationally, there are slight increases in children, along with the first confirmed pediatric flu death of the 2024-25 season. (Schnirring, 11/8)

CIDRAP: Study Finds No Adverse Brain Development In Kids Exposed To COVID In Utero
A study of children exposed to maternal COVID-19 before birth found no adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes by 2 years and a slight increase in parent-reported infant self-regulatory behavior—a generally positive finding—at 6 months. (Van Beusekom, 11/8)

Crain's Detroit Business: Blue Cross Michigan To Pay Out $12.7M Over Vaccine Mandate 
Jurors in U.S. District Court in Detroit punished Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for terminating an employee for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic, potentially setting a precedent for employers across the state. The jury awarded $12.7 million to former IT specialist Lisa Domski after the Detroit-based insurance giant denied her religious accommodation request to forgo vaccination, as the company required it as a condition of her employment. Domski claimed the vaccine mandate violated her Catholic beliefs. (Walsh, 11/11)

CIDRAP: Africa CDC Launches Trial Of Smallpox Drug For Mpox
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the launch of a trial of the antiviral smallpox drug brincidofovir for the treatment of mpox. The trial will be conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in partnership with Emergent BioSolutions. The announcement comes after yesterday’s milestone of 50,000 mpox cases across the continent. Brincidofovir has not yet been tested in double-blind, placebo-controlled studies for mpox, and there are currently no approved therapeutics to treat mpox. (Soucheray, 11/8)

NPR: A Human Bird Flu Case Is Thought To Be Found In Canada For The First Time 
A case of H5 bird flu is believed to be detected in a human in Canada for the first time, health officials said Saturday. A teenager from the province of British Columbia tested positive for the virus and has been hospitalized, according to health officials from the province. The test is being sent to another lab to be confirmed. (Archie, 11/11)