State Highlights: Conn. Hospital CEO Salaries Draw Scrutiny; Calif. Counties Provide Non-Emergency Care To Undocumented Adults

The Connecticut Mirror: Hospital CEO Pay: Red Herring Or Key In State Funding Debate?
As hospital leaders warn of potential job and service reductions in response to state funding cuts, the six- and seven-figure pay packages of Connecticut hospital executives have emerged as a point of contention. (Levin Becker, 9/25)

NPR: California Counties Add Health Care For Immigrant Adults
A California county voted Tuesday to restore primary health care services to undocumented adults living in the county. Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco, joins 46 other California counties that have agreed to provide non-emergency care to immigrants who entered the country illegally. (Romero, 9/24)

News Service Of Florida: Bondi, Hospital System Reach $3.5M Settlement
Two days after the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $115 million legal settlement with Adventist Health System, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday her office has reached a $3.5 million settlement with the Altamonte Springs-based hospital system. Both settlements, which stem from whistleblower lawsuits filed by Adventist employees, involve allegations that the hospital firm had improper financial arrangements with physicians. (9/24)

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Assembly Passes Measure Cutting Taxpayer Funding Of Planned Parenthood
The state Assembly voted Thursday to strip Planned Parenthood of about $3.5 million in government funding a year. The measure passed, 60-35, with all Republicans backing it and all Democrats opposing it. It now goes to the Senate, which like the Assembly is controlled by Republicans. (Marley, 9/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Fail To Override Christie Veto
New Jersey Democrats unsuccessfully attempted on Thursday to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of a gun-control bill when most GOP supporters of the legislation decided not to buck the presidential candidate. The legislation would have prevented people with a documented history of mental illness from expunging that record to buy a gun. (Haddon, 9/24)

The New York Times: Alabama Vote Is Rare Win In The South For The U.A.W.
The 2-to-1 margin of victory at the small factory, which makes seats for trucks, represents an unusual win in the uphill battle to organize autoworkers in the South. But it was unclear whether the vote signaled a broader breakthrough for labor and the U.A.W. in a region that has historically been allergic to most unions. Employees at C.V.G. cited low pay, which tops out at $15.80 an hour, the growing use of temporary workers at even lower wages and rising health insurance costs as reasons they voted to join the union. (Cohen, 9/24)

Kaiser Health News: D.C. Women To Get Access To Full Year’s Worth Of Contraceptives
Under a new law, District of Columbia women will be able to scratch one item off their list of things to worry about: running out of birth control pills. Under the law, which passed its congressional review period this month, women will be able to get a year’s supply of pills at once. Prescriptions for birth control pills typically have to be renewed every 30 or 90 days, potentially resulting in women missing scheduled pills. The yearlong provision will begin in 2017. (Andrews, 9/25)

The Associated Press: Utah Unveils Tool Showing Impact Of Federal Budget Crisis
Lawwmakers worried about Utah's reliance on U.S. government funds unveiled an online calculator Thursday that shows how the state would be hit by various federal budget disasters like a shutdown. ... The calculator comes with several built-in scenarios that the commission says are "extreme but possible," such as broad federal spending cuts and or deep slashes to Medicaid money. On the website, the public can access a slimmed down version of a more sophisticated tool that legislative budget staff can use. (Price, 9/24)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Mental Health Advocates Question 72-Hour Involuntary Hold Proposal
Several advocates for people with mental illness on Wednesday panned a proposal that would allow treatment facilities to hold people in crisis situations for up to 72 hours as involuntary patients. “This is a deprivation of liberty,” Mike Burgess, a spokesperson with the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, said during a meeting of the Kansas Mental Health Coalition. It would be better, he said, to expand access to voluntary treatment. (Ranney, 9/24)

Health News Florida: Orlando Health To 5,000 Patients: Redo Mammograms
Orlando Health mailed letters today to more than 5,300 patients who may have gotten bad mammograms. Women who went to the Boston Diagnostic Imaging location on Orange Avenue from May of 2013 to July of 2015 are asked to call Orlando Health. It’s unclear why the Boston Diagnostic center has lost its accreditation, but Orlando Health bought the center last December. (Aboraya, 9/24)

Health News Florida: Isolation Increases Florida's Rural Suicide Rates
Florida's rural counties are seeing suicide rates for youth almost double that of the state's large cities. And experts say isolation, poverty, access to firearms and a lack of mental health resources are to blame. ... the teen suicide rate in Florida's small towns has doubled in the past 20 years. From 2012 through 2014, almost 8,000 youth younger than 21 killed themselves in Florida. Of those, 520 come from rural communities -- a significant number given their populations. Also, experts say the number of teen suicides could be much higher, in part because medical examiners and law enforcement don't have an objective set of criteria to decide whether to label a death as suicide. (Miller and Klingener, 9/24)

The Associated Press: Chiropractor Says Iowa Officials Wrong About Payment Rules
A chiropractor accused of improper Medicaid billings says Iowa officials are wrong about coverage eligibility for some conditions. Prosecutors said Thursday that Elizabeth Kressin, of Spencer, had submitted improper claims for more than seven years for what the prosecutors said were medically unnecessary chiropractic procedures for which payments weren't allowed. They include bed wetting, colic and ear infections. (9/25)

The Associated Press: Survey Shows Big Drop In Uninsured Nevada Kindergartners
An annual health survey of Nevada kindergartners shows a big drop in the percentage of children without health insurance, a change that researchers attribute to more use of Medicaid benefits. The seventh annual report from the Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, showed 7.6 percent of kindergartners were uninsured last school year, down from 12.6 percent a year earlier. (Rindels, 9/24)

The Charlotte Observer: New Charlotte VA Center Will Expand Veterans Health Care In Region
Charlotte’s new Veterans Affairs Health Care Center won’t open officially for more than six months. ... The Charlotte site is one of seven new VA health centers approved by Congress in 2010. The Salisbury hospital region is one of the fastest growing in the country, said VA spokesman Barthalomew Major. An estimated 140,000 veterans live in the Charlotte metropolitan area, about 60,000 in Mecklenburg County alone. Although the number of veterans nationwide is declining, the number of veterans enrolled in the VA health-care system in increasing, Major said. Over the past 10 years, the number of VA patients nationwide has increased by 23 percent, but in the Salisbury region, the increase has been 66 percent, he said. (Garloch, 9/24)

The Detroit Free Press: Doctor: Lead Seen In More Flint Kids Since Water Switch
Flint’s ongoing water woes are now associated with an immediate and irreversible danger — possible lead poisoning of some of the city’s children, according to a review of blood test results by a Hurley Children’s Hospital pediatrician. ... State officials say their own review of blood test results have not shown the same increase that [Dr. Mona] Hanna-Attisha found. Moreover, water tests have similarly shown lead within federally accepted levels, they say. (Erb, 9/24)

The San Antonio Express-News: Judge To Halt Medicaid Cuts For Therapy Services
A judge has decided to temporarily block tens of millions of dollars in planned Medicaid funding cuts, likely ensuring that thousands of children with disabilities will continue to access therapy services after Oct. 1. (Rosenthal, 9/24)