Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mangione Drops Plan To Seek Psychiatric Defense In UnitedHealthcare CEO Slaying Case
AP: Luigi Mangione's Won't Pursue A Psychiatric Defense
In a stunning reversal, Luigi Mangione ‘s lawyers told a judge Thursday that he will no longer be asserting a psychiatric defense at his state murder trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The retraction came just a day after Mangione’s lawyers told Judge Gregory Carro that they planned to pursue a defense involving claims that the 28-year-old Ivy League graduate was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the Dec. 4, 2024, killing. (Sisak, 6/19)
In other news about the healthcare industry —
Asheville Watchdog: UNC Health Seeks Approval For New Hospital In Asheville
UNC Health, the University of North Carolina’s hospital system, has applied for permission to open a 92-bed hospital near downtown Asheville. North Carolina’s state-owned nonprofit health provider, which already has a management agreement with UNCHealth Pardee in Henderson County, made the request to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services under the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) requirement, which requires regulatory approval. (Clifford, 6/20)
Chicago Tribune: Illinois Hospitals Owe The State More Than $700 Million
When West Suburban Medical Center closed in March, it didn’t just leave patients in a lurch; it also left the state high and dry. Around the time of its closure, the Oak Park hospital owed the state more than $51 million in taxes and penalties, along with $20 million that the state had advanced to help stabilize West Suburban and its sister facility, Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. (Schencker, 6/21)
Chicago Sun-Times: Hospital Billing Was Supposed To Be Made Easier To Decipher, But That's Not What's Happened, Sun-Times Finds
Five patients are at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge for a diagnostic echocardiogram. For the same noninvasive test of the heart, the five patients could each get different prices — as little as $973 or as much as $1,721, depending on their insurance provider and plan. If a patient is uninsured, they’d get a “discounted cash price” of $1,155 — hundreds of dollars less than those with certain insurance plans, according to the hospital’s publicly posted data. (Zimmerman, 6/19)
MPR News: Frustrated Rural Hospitals In Minnesota Are Still Waiting On Federal Funding
Rural health care providers in Minnesota and across the country are bracing for heavy Medicaid funding cuts next year. They're part of President Donald Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act he signed into law last year, and includes nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending cuts over 10 years. As it made its way through Congress, lawmakers worked to appease some congressional Republicans concerned about how cuts could disproportionately impact rural hospitals and health providers, which see a larger portion of Medicaid patients. (Work, 6/22)
KFF Health News: Indiana Takes On Powerful Hospitals By Capping Prices They Charge Employers
Tired of watching its employers struggle to afford the cost of healthcare, Republican-controlled Indiana is trying a traditionally liberal tactic to control costs: setting government price controls on hospitals. Under a law enacted last year, five of Indiana’s largest nonprofit hospital systems cannot charge patients covered by job-based health plans more than an established price cap. Hospitals that fail to keep prices below the threshold by 2029 risk losing their tax-exempt status — which would mean owing millions of dollars in state taxes. (Galewitz and Liss, 6/22)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘An Arm and a Leg’: Try These Tips When You Can’t Afford Your Rx
Last year, An Arm and a Leg set out on a mission: Collect the best advice about what to do when you can’t afford your prescription drugs. Dozens of listeners wrote in. The result was “The Prescription Drug Playbook.” (6/22)
On AI in healthcare —
ABC News: AI Model Helps Some Patients Get Diagnoses After Years Of Uncertainty: Study
An artificial intelligence (AI) model is helping some patients get diagnoses after years of unexplained illness, according to a new study. Researchers from OpenAI and Boston Children's Hospital took the existing genetic data of 18 pediatric patients -- many now adults -- and reviewed it through a newly developed AI model, cracking cases that stumped doctors for years. The team hopes its model will help thousands of American kids who are impacted. Researchers pointed out one in 10 Americans -- more than 30 million people, half of whom are children -- have a rare disease. (Anthony, 6/20)
Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Bets $3 Billion On AI To Cut Costs, Tame Backlash
At UnitedHealth Group Inc., artificial intelligence reads aloud summaries of medical charts as nurses drive to patients’ homes. It listens to millions of customer calls to find the causes of complaints. One trial even has AI agents calling doctors’ offices to schedule appointments for patients. The largest US health insurer plans to invest $3 billion in AI over 2026 and 2027. UnitedHealth executives say they’re seeing a 2-to-1 return, as AI automates cumbersome manual processes and makes workers more efficient. Executives say the technology can reduce friction for patients while lowering costs. (Tozzi, 6/19)
