State Highlights: Calif. Assisted Suicide Bill Lacks Votes; Colo. Teen Pregnancy Plan Gets ‘Startling Results’; Ruling Against N.J. Nonprofit Hospital

Los Angeles Times: Aid-In-Dying Bill Will Be Revived
An emotionally charged aid-in-dying bill is seriously ailing in the California Legislature. It soon could go into a deep coma. ... The proposal is slated for its first Assembly hearing Tuesday in the Health Committee. But sponsors say it's short two to five votes. Ten are needed to clear the 19-member panel. ... Sponsors have already delayed the committee hearing once. And they say that unless enough votes surface by Tuesday, they'll put the bill on life support until at least late August, but probably until next year. (Skelton, 7/5)

Los Angeles Times: California Tax Officials Blast Blue Shield In Audit
In a scathing audit, state tax officials slammed nonprofit health insurer Blue Shield of California for stockpiling "extraordinarily high surpluses" — more than $4 billion — and for failing to offer more affordable coverage or other public benefits. The California Franchise Tax Board cited those reasons, among others, for revoking Blue Shield's state tax exemption last year, according to documents related to the audit that were reviewed by The Times. These details have remained secret until now because the insurer and tax board have refused to make public the audit and related records. (Terhune, 7/5)

Kaiser Health News: LA Police Unit Works To Get Treatment For Mentally Ill Instead Of Jail Time
The Los Angeles Police Department’s mental evaluation unit is the largest mental health policing program of its kind in the nation, with 61 sworn officers and 28 mental health workers from the county. The unit has become a vital resource for the 10,000-person police force in Los Angeles. (O'Neill, 7/6)

Los Angeles Times: Children At Detention Center Given Adult Doses Of Hepatitis A Vaccine
An adult dose of a hepatitis A vaccine was given to about 250 immigrant children at a Texan detention facility, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said. As of Saturday, no adverse reactions had been reported, said Richard Rocha, an ICE spokesman, in an email. While significant adverse reactions were not expected, healthcare professionals said they would monitor children for any side effects in the next five days. (Schachar, 7/4)

The New York Times: Colorado’s Effort Against Teenage Pregnancies Is A Startling Success
Over the past six years, Colorado has conducted one of the largest ever real-life experiments with long-acting birth control. If teenagers and poor women were offered free intrauterine devices and implants that prevent pregnancy for years, state officials asked, would those women choose them? They did in a big way, and the results were startling. The birthrate for teenagers across the state plunged by 40 percent from 2009 to 2013, while their rate of abortions fell by 42 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. There was a similar decline in births for another group particularly vulnerable to unplanned pregnancies: unmarried women under 25 who have not finished high school. (Tavernise, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: N.J. Hospitals Monitor Effects Of Tax-Court Ruling In Morristown
A court’s ruling that a New Jersey nonprofit hospital essentially functioned as a for-profit business, and therefore owed property taxes, could have implications for hospitals and nonprofit organizations across the state. The opinion issued late last month was the result of a lawsuit filed against Morristown by Atlantic Health System Hospital Corp., parent company of Morristown Medical Center, after the town denied the hospital’s property-tax exemptions in the years 2006 through 2008. (Ramey, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Appeals Court Upholds $237M Judgment Against SC Hospital
A federal appeals court has upheld a $237 million judgment against a South Carolina hospital in a false Medicare claims case. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Tuomey Healthcare System’s challenge Thursday. ... a jury found that Tuomey submitted nearly 22,000 false claims to Medicare under an arrangement with doctors that amounted to an illegal kickback scheme. Prosecutors said the fraudulent claims totaled $39 million. (7/2)

The Associated Press: Pennsylvania Backs Off Plan To Change Nursing Home Payments
The Wolf administration is backing off a proposal to restructure Medicaid payments to nursing homes that a trade association found would have rewarded 13 homes accused by Pennsylvania state prosecutors of failing to meet residents' most basic needs. Pennsylvania's Human Services Secretary Ted Dallas told advocacy groups Thursday that responses to the proposal prompted his agency to reconsider it. (6/2)

The Associated Press: Doctor Linked To Sen. Menendez Released From Jail
A Florida doctor charged with corruption alongside New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has been released under a bond agreement. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Hopkins approved an $18 million bond package for Dr. Salomon Melgen on Thursday, and he walked out of jail with his wife and daughter hours later. (Sedensky, 7/2)

The Miami Herald: Jackson 2016 Budget Calls For More Surgeries
Miami-Dade’s public hospital system is counting on more patient admissions, more emergency room visits and more surgeries next year to cover a projected spending increase of about $95 million over the prior year, largely because of the hiring of additional full-time employees, the return of merit pay raises and rising prices for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. As the county’s public hospital network, Jackson Health System runs four hospitals, about a dozen primary-care clinics, two nursing homes and other medical facilities and services that are projected to cost $1.66 billion for the year beginning Oct. 1, according to a budget proposal released this week. (Chang, 7/4)

The Baltimore Sun: City Schools Purge About 1,000 Dependents From Health Care Rolls
More than 1,000 spouses and children of city schools employees were purged from the district's benefit rolls after an audit found they weren't eligible for health insurance plans. The audit yielded $3.6 million in savings, according to schools CEO Gregory Thornton. In reviewing records of 5,336 city school employees, auditors found that 651 children and 392 adults no longer qualified for coverage as dependents. (Green, 7/2)

New Hampshire Union Leader: John Kacavas: Justice In health Care Is About Patients
After leading the prosecution of some of New Hampshire's most heinous criminals, John Kacavas' professional life now takes place far outside the glare of the media spotlight. Not that Kacavas - who stepped down as U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire in April - sees his new role, as the chief legal counsel for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, as such a departure from his old one. (Siefer, 7/4)

The Washington Post: Civil Psychiatric Commitments Rose In Virginia In Possible ‘Deeds Effect’
A new study by the University of Virginia found that the number of civil commitments of people in mental distress rose last year, perhaps in response to changes enacted after the fatal encounter between Sen. R. Creigh Deeds and his mentally ill son. “Roughly speaking, there’s been about a 10 percent increase,” said Richard J. Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at U-Va. and chairman of the state Supreme Court’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform from 2006-2011. (Kunkle, 7/2)

The Associated Press: Student Sues Fordham Over Demand For Mental Health Records
A graduate student has sued Fordham University, seeking $5 million in damages and saying the college violated her civil rights by demanding her entire record of mental health treatment as a condition for returning. The federal lawsuit by Emily Pierce also names the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, saying the agency has been investigating her discrimination complaint for two years but has gone silent. (Virtanen, 7/3)

The Washington Post: Drones To Deliver Medicine To Rural Virginia Field Hospital
The sprawling field hospital that springs up in rural southwest Virginia every summer has been called the largest health-care outreach operation of its kind. This year, the event will have another first. Unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — will deliver medicine to the Wise County Fairgrounds in part to study how the emerging technology would be used in humanitarian crises around the world. (Portnoy, 7/3)

The Washington Post: Fighting Md.’s Surge In Heroin Use Requires A New Strategy, Task Force Told
Heroin use has spiked sharply in the past few years, a trend that has alarmed local as well as state politicians. In 2013, the number of fatal heroin overdoses had nearly doubled from the amount since 2010, and it surpassed the state’s 387 homicides. After flirting with the idea of declaring a state of emergency concerning the heroin epidemic, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) created the task force to develop a response to the crisis by December. (Koh, 7/2)

The Baltimore Sun: HIV In Young People Rising In Maryland
As the rate of HIV cases among young people rises in Maryland, public health officials are scrambling for new ways to address the problem — or risk undermining years of success. Among those newly diagnosed with HIV statewide, the proportion of those ages 20 to 29 nearly doubled — from 16 percent in 2003 to 31 percent in 2012, the most recent data available. The proportion of infected teens increased at about the same pace. (McDaniels, 7/4)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Funding Woes To Close Chanute Facility For Mentally Ill
The co-owners of a 45-bed nursing facility here that cares for people with severe and persistent mental illnesses have decided to shutter the business. “We just got our rate-setting form from the state, telling us that our per-day reimbursement would be going down by $4.96 per person, per day,” said Mary Harding, director of nursing at Applewood Rehabilitation, Inc. The decision comes on the heels of state officials announcing last month that Osawatomie State Hospital had reached its maximum capacity and had begun putting would-be patients on a waiting list. (Ranney, 7/3)

The Seattle Times: 'Outlier': Seattle Doctor Wants STD Drugs For Partners Of Gay Men
A Seattle doctor who primarily treats gay men is protesting a King County policy that restricts his patients with sexually transmitted diseases from receiving free antibiotics for their partners — while heterosexual couples routinely get the treatment. Dr. Warren Dinges, who runs the downtown Seattle Infectious Disease Clinic, said he’s seen a spike in the past several months in chlamydia and gonorrhea infections in his patients. (Aleccia, 7/4)