State Highlights: Connecticut Lawmakers Refocus Health Goals After Defeat Of Public Option Plan; Minnesota Families With Disabilities Struggle With Annual Needs Assessments

The CT Mirror: With Outlook Bleak For Public Option, Lawmakers Shift To New 2020 Health Care Agenda
A day after the legislative session ended and still reeling from the defeat of a sweeping public option bill, lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont vowed in June to revive the health care overhaul next year. But as the General Assembly gets closer to reconvening, prospects for a resurrected public option measure are looking dim, and the debate around health care reform has shifted to cost containment, prescription drugs and reinsurance proposals that have bipartisan support. (Carlesso, 10/7)

The Star Tribune: High-Stakes Assessments Upend Lives Of Families With Disabilities 
Each year, tens of thousands of Minnesotans with disabilities and their families undergo this agonizing, high-stakes ritual, known as a comprehensive needs assessment. A stranger with a laptop comes to their home and asks hundreds of questions about the medical needs and care of their loved ones. ... A few careless answers about medications, or a forgotten detail about an emergency room visit, could spell disaster for these families. The right response could bring thousands of dollars in assistance to pay for nursing care, physical therapy and medical equipment; the wrong answer could consign the family to a life of sleep deprivation, medical emergencies and isolation. (Serres and Howatt, 10/6)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Nearly 2 Million Ohioans Could Lose Insurance Because Of Pre-Existing Conditions
Twenty-nine percent of non-elderly adult Ohioans are at risk of losing their insurance because of pre-existing conditions – if a federal appeals court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, according to new research. The Kaiser Family Foundation released estimates Friday showing 53.9 million Americans and just under 2 million Ohioans had a host of deniable conditions – from most forms of cancer in the past decade to mental health disorders, pregnancy, sleep apnea and arthritis. (Hancock, 10/4)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Health Care Modernization Task Force Being Announced By Gov. Bill Lee's Administration
Seven months after Gov. Bill Lee announced he would assemble a task force to advise the state on how to improve its approach to health care, his administration says it has now done so. Membership on the long-awaited "Health Care Modernization Task Force" will be announced this week, wrote Stuart McWhorter, Lee's finance and administration commissioner, in an op-ed in the Tennessean. (Allison, 10/6)

Boston Globe: Statewide Initiative Launched To Prevent Suicides Among People Of Color
A new statewide initiative seeks to reduce suicides among people of color by expanding outreach, providing more culturally relevant resources, and initiating potentially uncomfortable conversations about race, privilege, and how they affect access to mental health services. The project, which grew out of the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention’s Alliance for Equity, includes a range of actions to engage communities and spur dialogue. (Cox, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Report: Alabama Hospitals Pay Hackers In Ransomware Attack
An Alabama hospital system that quit accepting new patients after a ransomware attack said Saturday it had gotten a key to unlock its computer systems. A statement from DCH Health Systems didn't say how the three-hospital system got the information needed to unlock its data. But The Tuscaloosa News quoted spokesman Brad Fisher as saying the hospital system paid the attackers. (10/5)

The New York Times: Hot Tub Displays At State Fair Eyed As Link To Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak
The hot tub exhibits at a state fair might be to blame for North Carolina’s recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever, which sickened more than 100 people and killed at least one, health officials said. Visitors to the N.C. Mountain State Fair who developed the lung infections were more likely to have walked past the hot tub displays inside the Davis Event Center, where several vendor displays were housed, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release on Thursday. (Ortiz, 10/6)

New Hampshire Union Leader: NH Health Officials Warn EEE Threat Remains Across State 
State health officials are warning residents the risk of contracting diseases from mosquitoes remains until a hard frost — when temperatures drop below freezing for several hours — occurs statewide. “Fall is the riskiest time of year for contracting diseases from mosquitoes,” said Lisa Morris, director of the Division of Public Health Services, in a statement. (Feely, 10/6)

MPR: In Minnesota, 4 Out Of 5 Gun Deaths Are Suicides
Most Americans are unaware that suicides — not mass shootings, other murders or accidental gun discharges — account for the majority of gun deaths in the United States, according to a recent survey from APM Research Lab. As many as three-fifths of gun deaths in the U.S. are the result of people intentionally killing themselves. (Roth, 10/7)

St. Louis Public Radio: 'Now It's Normal': Many St. Louis Students Live In The Shadow Of Gun Violence
The fear of pain or death from gun violence is crippling for some students at Emerson Academy. Many say the violence has stripped away their childhood freedoms. Smith says he tries to stay out of harm’s way. (Henderson, 10/7)

Seattle Times: Free To Check In, But Not To Leave: Patients Seeking Mental-Health Treatment In Washington Have Been Held Against Their Will 
The question of discharging patients from a psychiatric hospital is exceedingly fraught. Doctors are only supposed to admit patients with serious mental-health conditions, and have to balance patients’ right to leave against concerns about their welfare. Washington is one of just a few states where patients who check in to a hospital must be “released immediately” upon their request, with no additional time for observation, according to state law. Yet many patients don’t realize that even if they check in voluntarily, a hospital can legally hold them against their will. (Gilbert, 10/6)

Texas Tribune: Texas State University's Safety Questioned After Broken Emergency Phones
Long before federal authorities began scrutinizing Texas State University's campus crime data, the police department was hampered by lack of resources, former employees say. Surveillance camera feeds were broken. Emergency phones malfunctioned. And a thinly staffed dispatch system sometimes relied on trained students. (Najmabadi, 10/7)

Cincinnati Enquirer: After Dayton Shooting, Gov. DeWine Wants To 'Do Something' On Guns. But Can He Do Anything?
Two months ago, mourners in Dayton interrupted Gov. Mike DeWine with chants of "do something." But as DeWine tries to balance the interests of gun owners, domestic violence victims, mental health advocates, GOP lawmakers, judges and prosecutors, perhaps the better call would have been: "do anything." (Balmert, 10/4)

Health News Florida: Report: State Funding Favors Students In Poverty, But Majority Nonwhite Schools Still Suffer
The Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach county school districts spend more per student in schools with a majority of white students, the report from the nonprofit Education Reform Now found. However, all three districts spend significantly more on high-poverty schools than low-poverty schools. The trend was consistent in most urban districts statewide. (Bakeman, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: CommonSpirit Reports $600 Million Operating Loss In Fiscal 2019
A perfect storm of operating declines, merger costs and impairment charges culminated in a $602 million operating loss in CommonSpirit Health's first annual financial report as a merged health system. The 142-hospital, Chicago-based system, formed through a February 1 merger, is currently working through the gargantuan task of combining two already large health systems, Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, in parallel with a performance improvement plan designed to save $2 billion over four years. (Bannow, 10/4)

Kaiser Health News: Extent Of Health Coverage Gains From California Gig Worker Law Uncertain
A new California law that reclassifies some independent contractors as employees, requiring they be offered a range of benefits and worker protections, will likely expand health insurance coverage in the state, health policy experts say. But it might end up harming some workers. That’s in part because the law, which takes effect Jan. 1, could cut two ways. While inducing many employers to extend health insurance to newly reclassified employees, it might prompt others to shift some workers from full-time to part-time status to avoid offering them health coverage, or — in the case of some small firms — to drop such benefits altogether. (Findlay, 10/7)

The Associated Press: DC Public Psychiatric Hospital To Get Drinking Water Fixed
A public psychiatric hospital in the nation’s capital may soon have running water again. The district’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Wayne Turnage, tells WTOP-FM that St. Elizabeths Hospital’s water operations should be fully operational by Friday. The district-owned facility has been without running water since Sept. 26 when the bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease were found in its water system. (10/7)

The Advocate: New Our Lady Of The Lake Children's Hospital To Enhance Access For Patients In Acadiana 
The $230 million Our Lady of the Lake children’s hospital that opened this week in Baton Rouge will enhance services offered at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Lafayette, hospital officials said Friday. The new children's hospital, part of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady of the Lake Health System, which operates Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Our Lady of Lourdes, opened its doors at 6 a.m. Friday, beginning a new chapter in the hospital’s 105-year history. (Daigle, 10/4)

Austin American-Statesman: Map Shows Disparity In Life Expectancy Along East, West Line In Austin
A new map by a Houston-based nonprofit shows clear disparities in life expectancy on either side of a line along Interstate 35 in Travis County, with those in the west living often more than a decade longer than in areas in the east. The map, released Monday by the Episcopal Health Foundation, relied on six years of mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics and drills down to the neighborhood-level by looking at census tracts. It found huge differences in life expectancy in neighborhoods sometimes only a few miles apart. (Huber, 10/4)

The Washington Post: University Of Maryland Professors Complain Of Mold, Mildew In Campus Offices
Thurka Sangaramoorthy, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland’s flagship campus, had to throw away her furniture, her collection of about 1,000 books, invaluable documents and personal mementos collected since she started teaching at the school in 2012. The reason? A combination of mold, mildew and moisture that have plagued her office in Woods Hall, which houses the university’s anthropology department on the College Park campus, Sangaramoorthy said. (Lumpkin, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Maine On Track For Legal Marijuana Sales By Spring 2020
Maine marijuana enthusiasts will probably be able to purchase their preferred products in retail stores by March 2020 after years of waiting. Voters approved legal adult-use marijuana at the polls in November 2016, and the road to legal sales has been long and bumpy. (10/6)