State Highlights: Calif. Pharmacists Broaden Scope Of Practice; Mo. Bill Would Expand Medicaid For Vets

California Healthline: California Pharmacists Report Progress in Move To Broaden Scope of Practice
Pharmacists are about to finish one phase and start another in the march toward broadening their scope of practice in California to include more primary care services. Using new guidelines created in a bill signed into state law about a year ago, pharmacists have been retooling regulations to include new duties. (Lauer, 1/20)

St. Louis Public Radio: Proposal Would Expand Medicaid To Military Vets In Missouri
A Republican member of the Missouri Senate is proposing expanding Medicaid to military veterans who are currently ineligible. Last year, state Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, put together an alternative Medicaid proposal that would have combined expansion with various reforms, but it went nowhere. Silvey said his new bill, which he expects to file Wednesday, would make veterans earning between 19 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level eligible for Medicaid. (Griffin, 1/20)

The Kansas City Star: Missouri Senator Pushing Medicaid Expansion For Vets
With Republican legislative leaders declaring Medicaid expansion dead on arrival this year, Sen. Ryan Silvey is hopeful Missouri will at least be able to expand coverage for veterans. The Kansas City Republican plans push for legislation allowing veterans and their families to qualify for Medicaid if they make less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently, to be eligible for Medicaid in Missouri, a non-elderly adult must have a dependent child and can earn no more than 19 percent of the poverty level, or roughly $3,700 for a single mother with two children. (Hancock, 1/20)

The Witchita Eagle: Caregiver Act Aims To Reduce Hospital Readmissions
When Brenda Love of Wichita worked as a hospital emergency-room nurse, she often treated patients who had just gotten out of the hospital and were on their way back in – especially seniors. ... Experiences like that brought Love to the [Kansas] state Capitol last week as part of a group of seniors and supporters pressing for a bill requiring hospitals to interact more directly with caregivers when they discharge a patient. The red-vested volunteers, members of the American Association of Retired Persons, met with numerous members of the Legislature and even buttonholed the governor in the Statehouse lobby to pitch for their bill. (Lefler, 1/17)

Arizona Republic: Governor Unveils Budget Cuts, Limits School Suit Costs
[The proposed budget] also passes additional costs on to cities and counties and, in one case, presumes voter approval for changing how state trust lands are run, as well as approval of cuts to health-care reimbursements from federal officials within three months. (Hansen and Pitzl, 1/20)

The Associated Press: Nursing Home Industry Asks Minnesota For $200M
Advocates for Minnesota's nursing home industry are looking for $200 million from the state, saying underfunding has forced some facilities to close. The plan would overhaul reimbursements to nursing homes. Patti Cullen, president of Care Providers of Minnesota, said these payments haven't kept up with inflation amid previous budget cuts. State laws don't allow facilities to charge private patients more than what's provided by Medicaid. (1/20)

The West Virginia Gazette: Six West Va. Hospitals To Lose Medicare Funding Over Infection, Injury Rates
Six West Virginia hospitals will lose 1 percent of their Medicare reimbursement after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that each had high rates of potentially avoidable “hospital acquired conditions,” including falls, bed sores and certain infections. (Nuzum, 1/20)

Los Angeles Times: CalPERS President Rob Feckner Is Reelected To 11th Term
During his long tenure, Feckner has steered CalPERS away from sometimes strident, anti-corporate activism; backed a campaign that successfully defeated a 2005 initiative that would have reduced some pension benefits; and helped the nearly $300-billion fund recover billions of dollars in losses from the recession of 2008-09 and its aftermath. ... It is also confronting the growing costs of providing promised lifetime health insurance to retirees and dealing with a gap of tens of billions of dollars in fund assets needed to pay for current and future retirement benefits to 1.7 million members. (Lifsher, 1/20)

Kaiser Health News: Insuring Your Health: Mass. Malpractice Reforms Offer Faster, More Open Process For Injured Patients
When a woman had gall bladder surgery at a Massachusetts hospital in 2013, doctors noticed something suspicious on a CT scan that they thought could be ovarian cancer. But the recommendation that the patient get a pelvic ultrasound fell through the cracks. Months later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer. Normally, this type of medical mistake could mark the start of a protracted malpractice lawsuit. But in Massachusetts, where medical, legal and consumer groups have worked together in support of a recently enacted law that tries to preempt litigation by establishing a process and timeframe for discussing mistakes, that’s not what happened, according to her attorney who recounted the case in an interview. (Andrews, 1/20)