Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
State Highlights: Advocates See Promise In Mass. Governor's 'Aggressive' Plan To Revamp Health Care; Apple Joins Efforts To End Calif. Housing Crisis With $2.5B Pledge
Boston Globe: Charlie Baker Eyes A Legacy-Defining Revamp Of Mass. Health Care
Governor Charlie Baker has already hit the radio. His aides are briefing lawmakers. And come Monday, his health secretary will meet with hundreds of grass-roots activists. The one-time health insurance executive has planted himself at the epicenter of a renewed health care debate on Beacon Hill, armed with a litany of ideas about how to retool an industry he knows better than perhaps any other. (Dayal McCluskey and Stout, 11/4)
San Francisco Chronicle: Apple Pledges $2.5 Billion To Help With Housing Crisis
Apple will commit $2.5 billion to fund new homes, aid home buyers and prevent homelessness in California, becoming the latest Bay Area company pledging to combat the housing crisis. Apple’s move, by far the largest such commitment by a tech company to date, follows similar announcements by Google and Facebook. (Narayan, 11/4)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Illinois Leaders Demand Answers About Ambulance Diversion
Two leaders in the Illinois Legislature and a congressman from the state want to know why a handful of Chicago-area hospitals regularly close their doors to ambulances and why state regulators haven't done more to stop it. An investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that some of the top hospitals in Chicago go on ambulance diversion regularly and the state has been lax in its oversight. (Diedrich and Crowe, 11/4)
Modern Healthcare: Pa. High Court Tosses Seven-Year Medical Malpractice Limit
UPMC faces a medical malpractice suit stemming from a liver transplant in 2003 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out a state law barring malpractice lawsuits after seven years. In a 4-3 decision Thursday, the state ruled that the statute of repose, passed in 2002, unconstitutionally violates the right of access to the courts and lacks any substantial relationship to the legislative goal of controlling malpractice insurance costs and premiums. (Meyer, 11/1)
KCUR: Environmental Group Says Almost All Kansas Tap Water Is Too Contaminated
The water coming out of your tap might meet legal standards, but that doesn’t mean that it’s safe to drink — at least according to the Environmental Working Group, an environmental advocacy nonprofit. EWG found that nearly all of the 870 water utilities in Kansas tested for at least one contaminate above what it considers safe, though most water utilities in the state meet federal standards, which are different than EWG’s. (Grimmett, 11/1)
Sacramento Bee: How Sacramento Pot Dispensaries Pay Taxes, Without Banking
When the owners of Sacramento’s retail cannabis dispensaries pay their taxes, they walk into City Hall hauling trash bags or backpacks stuffed with cash, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single trip. This, for obvious reasons, initially raised alarms among everyone involved. Worried about counting so much cash at the first-floor revenue counter at City Hall, staffers allowed the dispensary owners to come behind the glass and get their money counted in a traditionally restricted area. (Clift and Kasler, 11/1)
New Orleans Times-Picayune: Famous Athletes Seek This Tulane Clinic After Their Careers And Want To Know, 'What Is The Cost?'
[Terry] Joseph is one of the more than 600 former professional football players who have cycled through Tulane’s Professional Athlete Care Team (PACT) clinic since it began operations in 2013. The clinic, a cloistered facility on the fourth floor of Tulane Hospital, sees former professional athletes during an exhaustive 2½-day screening process that determines what may ail them after their playing days finish. Its purpose is to diagnose, not treat, the issues it uncovers by developing for these players a comprehensive and intimate understanding of the inner workings of their bodies and minds. (Johnson, 11/2)
Sacramento Bee: 84,000 Kaiser Health Care Workers Vote To Ratify Contract
More than 84,000 health care workers voted to ratify a new four-year collective bargaining contract with Kaiser Permanente, backing an agreement that provides for annual wage increases and certain limitations on outsourcing, the health care giant announced Friday. (Anderson, 11/2)
Modern Healthcare: Kaiser And 84,000 Unionized Employees Ratify Contract
Kaiser Permanente and more than 84,000 workers represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions ratified a four-year contract, the Oakland, Calif.-based integrated health system announced Friday. The agreement builds on the deal between Kaiser and more than 57,000 California employees represented by the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West completed last month. The remaining 26,000-plus employees are in Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C. (Kacik, 11/1)
Sacramento Bee: 25,000 UC Service, Health Care Workers To Strike In November
More than 25,000 service and health care workers at the University of California will stage a one-day walkout on Nov. 13 over concerns about how their employer is outsourcing jobs that should be performed by union-represented workers. Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed six new unfair labor complaints against the UC in late October alleging that it is violating state laws, UC’s own wage and procurement policies and the terms of collective bargaining agreements. (Anderson, 11/1)
The Associated Press: Inmate Says He Was Told To Wash, Reuse Disposable Catheters
Brad Vanzant uses a wheelchair, has one kidney, and since 2015 has relied on catheters to drain his bladder. He's also an Idaho prison inmate, which means his medical supplies must be approved and provided by the state's private health care contractor, Corizon Health. (11/1)
Boston Globe: College Students Ponder Their Texting Habits In The Wake Of A Young Man’s Suicide
The prosecution of a former Boston College student who is accused of driving her boyfriend to suicide with tens of thousands of sometimes abusive messages highlighted the social challenges many young people face in an age of compulsive communication — how to maintain healthy boundaries when the text exchanges rarely stop, intruding on their time at home, at meals, even when they’re asleep. That can be especially delicate for those in romantic relationships, where constant texting can intensify already heady emotions and increase the pressure to respond quickly, no matter the hour. (Cramer and Tziperman Lotan, 11/3)
Los Angeles Times: L.A. Voided Old Tickets, Warrants. It Won't Help Homeless People
When Los Angeles officials decided to toss out millions of citations and warrants in early October, they hailed it as a boon for homeless people. The purge, they said, would “unclog” the court system and stop the cycle of debt and arrests that has made it harder for the poorest Angelenos to land jobs and housing. But weeks after the announcement by L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey and LAPD Chief Michel Moore, it has become clear that their amnesty program is unlikely to end the criminal consequences for low-level offenses by people who live outdoors. (Holland, 11/4)
Iowa Public Radio: Board Recommends Allowing Iowans With PTSD To Qualify For Medical Cannabis
A state board voted Friday to recommend allowing patients with post-traumatic stress disorder to qualify for Iowa’s medical cannabis program, a recommendation that now goes to the Iowa Board of Medicine for final consideration. Four board members, who are also medical professionals, approved this after stating there is not enough scientific evidence supporting use of cannabis to treat PTSD. (Sostaric, 11/1)
Belleville News-Democrat: Legal Marijuana Is Coming To Illinois, But What Will Happen If You Bring It To Missouri?
On Jan. 1, Illinois residents will be allowed to possess any combination of 30 grams of cannabis flower, 5 grams of cannabis concentrate, and 500 milligrams of THC contained in a cannabis-infused product. Non-residents will be able to possess half of those amounts.Illinois’ law also prohibits transporting cannabis across state lines. (Bustos, 11/4)
Boston Globe: Mass. Medical Marijuana Patients Say Baker Lacks Authority To Ban Cannabis Vapes
Massachusetts health officials have no legal authority to ban the sale of regulated marijuana vapes, a group of medical marijuana patients argued in a legal filing this week. Governor Charlie Baker announced an emergency statewide ban on the sale of all vaping products Sept. 24, contending the broad policy was needed to protect public health amid an outbreak of vaping-related lung illnesses that federal authorities now say have sickened nearly 2,000 Americans and killed at least 37, including two in Massachusetts. (Adams, 11/1)
