State Highlights: Bracing For Calif.’s Single-Payer Brawl; Md.’s Sweeping Law To Expand Contraception Access Takes Effect

Los Angeles Times: Get Ready For A Revived Brawl Over Single-Payer Healthcare In California
Whether it was bracing for a possible repeal of Obamacare or pondering an ambitious single-payer program that would overhaul how California provided medical care to its residents, the issue of healthcare kept politicians and policy wonks busy in 2017. That’s not likely to let up in 2018. ... Here’s a primer on the healthcare agenda in California politics. (Mason, 12/28)

The Baltimore Sun: New Maryland Law Makes Contraceptives More Affordable, Easier To Get 
Marylanders will have an easier time getting birth control next year under a sweeping new law aimed at expanding and protecting people’s access to contraception. Under the law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, insurers are required to provide most forms of birth control with no out-of-pocket costs to the patient. The law also requires insurers to cover vasectomies, or sterilization, for men without charging out-of-pocket expenses. And insurers must pay for over-the-counter birth control, including the Plan B emergency contraception, also known as the morning-after pill. The pill is taken after sexual intercourse to prevent a pregnancy. (McDaniels, 12/28)

Reuters: Illinois Judge Rejects Lawsuit Challenging Abortion Coverage Expansion
An Illinois law expanding state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income Medicaid recipients was set to go into effect next month after an Illinois judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by abortion opponents seeking to block it. Abortion foes will appeal Thursday's Sangamon County Circuit Court decision, said Peter Breen, a lawyer for the conservative Thomas More Society, who filed the suit last month along with some state lawmakers and anti-abortion groups. (Kenning, 12/28)

Columbus Dispatch: Anthem To Begin Denying Ohio Customers Coverage For ER Visits It Deems Non-Emergencies
A major Ohio health insurer is being criticized for plans to deny coverage for what it says are non-emergency visits to the emergency room. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has said it will implement the change in Ohio — where it has 3.5 million health-insurance customers — along with Indiana and New Hampshire beginning Monday, Jan. 1. (Matzer Rose, 12/28)

Denver Post: Colorado To Spend $20 Million To Relieve Ongoing Backlog Of Mental Competency Evaluations; Critics Say Problem Was Foreseeable 
People with mental illness who are accused of crimes in Colorado are waiting up to four times as long as legally allowed for evaluations and treatment because the system is so overwhelmed, their attorneys say. Colorado is bound by a 2012 lawsuit settlement to conduct mental competency evaluations or begin treatment for people found incompetent to stand trial within 28 days of a judge’s order. But for the second time in six months, the state has revealed it is failing to meet the requirements of the federal settlement. (Brown, 12/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Blood-Testing Firm Theranos Gets $100 Million Lifeline From Fortress
The embattled Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos Inc. told its investors this week that it has secured a $100 million loan from Fortress Investment Group LLC, averting for now a possible bankruptcy filing as its remaining cash dwindled. The loan is “subject to achieving certain product and operational milestones,” Theranos’s founder and chief executive officer, Elizabeth Holmes, told the company’s shareholders in an email Friday evening that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. A spokeswoman for the company didn’t respond to requests for comment. (Carreyrou, 12/24)

KJZZ: Judge Calls For Hearing After KJZZ Report On Arizona Prison Health Care
In 2015, inmates settled a lawsuit with the state over poor health care conditions in state prisons. More than two years later, ADC and Corizon have failed to meet the more than 100 stipulations agreed to in the settlement. (Jenkins, 12/29)

The Star Tribune: 'One-Stop Shopping' Model Gets Mental Health Care To Thousands 
A year ago, Minnesota became one of just eight states selected by federal officials to develop a statewide network of clinics that would provide “one-stop shopping” for mental health care. Since then, the model has taken flight. Nearly 5,000 people with a range of disorders, including mental illnesses and chemical addictions, enrolled in the program in just the first three months. State officials estimate that, if current trends continue, the program will be serving more than 15,000 patients by July, making it one of the broadest expansions of Minnesota’s community mental health system in years. (Serres, 12/29)

Los Angeles Times: Regulators Warned Against Housing Near Freeways Due To Health Risks. Now They're Warming To It
Twelve years ago, California air quality officials delivered a warning to cities and counties: Avoid putting new homes in high-pollution zones within 500 feet of freeways. That advice, which relied on years of research linking traffic pollution to asthma, heart attacks and other health problems, was aimed at keeping "children and other vulnerable populations out of harm's way," according to the state Air Resources Board's 2005 handbook. (Barboza and Zahniser, 12/27)

Dallas Morning News: More North Texas Health Care Companies Could Be Left In Critical Condition In 2018 
The so-called “restructuring epidemic” in the healthcare sector is projected to only get worse, and health care businesses in Texas are already among the most frequent to find themselves in critical condition. There were a slew of bankruptcies filed in Texas in 2017, including Lewisville’s Adeptus Health, which owns free-standing emergency rooms, Walnut Hill Medical Center in Dallas, and nursing home operator Preferred Care, based in Plano. (Rice, 12/28)

Denver Post: Physical Therapists Can Continue To Stick It To Their Patients, Judge Rules In Acupuncture Challenge 
The more than 6,000 licensed physical therapists in Colorado can continue to offer “dry needling” as a form of treatment after a Denver judge knocked down a lawsuit by the state’s licensed acupuncturists challenging the practice.I n a tightly written, eight-page decision, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones dismissed the lawsuit by the Acupuncture Association of Colorado largely because the group’s challenge of a 2012 rule allowing physical therapists to engage in dry needling comes years too late. (Migoya, 12/29)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: 14 Philly-Area Superfund Sites In Flood Zones, Sea-Level-Rise Areas
An Inquirer analysis of EPA documents shows that 14 Superfund sites in Philadelphia, its suburbs and South Jersey are within flood zones or areas susceptible to rising seas connected with climate change. ...Though each Superfund site on the priorities list gets a score for the threat it poses to public health, flood risk is not part of that calculation. (Kummer, 12/29)

Los Angeles Times: Freeway Pollution Travels Farther Than We Thought. Here's How To Protect Yourself
If anyone knows where to find refuge from air pollution near Los Angeles freeways, it’s Suzanne Paulson.The UCLA atmospheric chemistry professor has spent years studying how invisible plumes of dirty air from car- and truck-choked roadways spread into surrounding neighborhoods — increasing residents’ risk of cancer, asthma, heart disease and other illnesses. So when she bought a home in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Santa Monica in 2007, she made sure it was on a quiet street far from the 10 Freeway — well beyond the 500-foot zone where California air quality regulators say it’s unhealthful to put homes, schools and day cares. (Barboza, 12/30)

The Associated Press: In An Unusual Step, North Carolina Police Tell Victims About Destroyed Rape Kits
When Veronica was raped more than 13 years ago, she says neither the police nor the hospital staff believed her story that a longtime friend attacked her while his mother was in the next room. "I was treated like a female crying wolf," said Veronica, who says the man raped her while she was unconscious. She believes he drugged her drink. (1/1)