State Highlights: Fla., 42 Other States Earn Low Grades On Health Cost Transparency; In Minn., Allina Nurses To Vote On ‘Indefinite’ Strike

Health News Florida: Florida Earns 'F' On Price Transparency Report Card 
According to a new report, Florida and 42 other states fail to give the public easy access to health care pricing. The study, co-published by two nonprofits - Catalyst for Payment Reform and Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute - assessed how readily consumers were able to find health care prices in each state. Suzanne Delbanko , the executive director of Catalyst for Payment Reform, said Florida is not alone when it comes to getting an ‘F’ grade. (Miller, 8/15)

Minnesota Public Radio News: Allina Nurses Vote This Week Could Trigger Indefinite Strike
Union nurses at five Twin Cities hospitals will vote Thursday on whether to authorize another strike at five Allina hospitals. Negotiators for the Minnesota Nurses Association are urging their members to authorize an open-ended walkout. They hope the prospect of an indefinite strike will put more pressure on the health system to settle a contract.In June, 4,800 nurses struck Allina for one week. in a dispute that still centers on health benefits. (Benson, 8/15)

KQED: Arbitrate Or Else: Sutter Health Drives A Hard Bargain
Bay Area companies say Sutter Health is strong-arming them into a contract that would help the medical system secure its power over prices and potentially raise the cost of medical care for their employees in the future. Dozens of companies received a letter in recent months, via their insurance administrators, asking them to waive their rights to sue Sutter. If they don’t, the letter says, the companies’ employees who get care at Sutter will no longer have access to discounted in-network prices. (Dembosky, 8/15)

The Sacramento Bee: Opponents Try To Block California Vaccination Law As School Starts
As Sacramento area school districts step up efforts to ensure that kindergartners and seventh graders get vaccinated so they can attend class, a federal judge in San Diego is weighing whether to temporarily block the law that eliminated parents’ ability to exempt their children from shots by citing personal beliefs. Rebecca Estepp, spokeswoman for the nonprofit Education 4 All Foundation, said U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw announced he expects to decide the week of Aug. 22 whether to temporarily halt Senate Bill 277 while a lawsuit goes forward. The foundation is one of 21 plaintiffs in the suit. (Kalb, 8/15)

The Texas Tribune: Massive Health Data Warehouse Delayed Again, A Decade After Texas Pitched It
Texas health regulators are starting from scratch in designing a system to store massive amounts of data — after spending millions of dollars trying to roll out a version that’s now been scrapped. Charles Smith, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, said Monday that his agency had recently nixed a $121 million contract to create an Enterprise Data Warehouse, an enormous database that would store a wide range of information about the many programs the agency administers. First funded in 2007, the project was expected to be up and running a few years after. (Malewitz and Walters, 8/15)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Advocates Call On Feds To Investigate Mental Health Policies At N.H. State Prison 
A group of local and national advocates are calling on the federal government to investigate whether it’s unjust for people with a mental illness, who haven't been convicted of a crime, to be treated in a prison. New Hampshire is one of only a few states that transfers individuals with a violent mental illness to the Department of Corrections, and it’s been doing so for more than three decades. (Sutherland, 8/15)

Des Moines Register: Every Long-Term Facility In Iowa Turns Away Severely Ill Patient
Officials from Mercy, other Iowa hospitals and the state’s long-term care ombudsman agree: Iowa is grappling with a long-term care crisis. Many predict the problem will intensify as Iowa’s population ages. “Especially in states with an older population, which Iowa is, we’re going to be facing situations where people with cognitive disorders and dementia will be in hospitals. That challenge will just increasingly worsen,” said Francis Sanchez, a mental health medical director for Great River Health Systems in West Burlington. (Clayworth, 8/15)

Kansas Health Institute: Federal Project To Reduce Heart Attacks, Strokes Includes Kansas Practices
Nine Kansas medical practices and collaborative groups will participate in an experiment to find out if doctors could do a better job preventing heart attacks and strokes. The project is part of the Million Hearts federal initiative, which is trying to prevent 1 million heart attacks, strokes and heart disease deaths by 2017. Some of the participating practices will use a risk calculator adopted by the American Heart Association to try to pinpoint their patients’ risk of cardiovascular disease. (Hart, 8/15)

The Denver Post: One Lawsuit Dismissed, Another Allowed To Proceed In Case Of HIV-Positive Surgical Tech Who Stole Syringes 
Judges have issued competing rulings over the validity of lawsuits filed by patients who fear they may have been infected by a former surgical technologist at Swedish Medical Center who stole painkiller syringes while he was HIV positive. Denver District Court Judge Jay Grant on Thursday dismissed one of the lawsuits because free blood tests offered by Swedish had not found infections among those suing. (Osher, 8/15)

Modern Healthcare: Chinese Billionaire Takes 9.9% Stake In Community Health Systems
Tianqiao Chen, a Chinese billionaire who made his initial fortune in online gambling, has purchased a 9.9% stake in troubled hospital giant Community Health Systems, according to a regulatory filing Monday. Chen, through affiliate Shanda Media Limited, reported on Aug. 3 that he had accumulated 11.3 million shares of Franklin, Tenn.-based CHS, the filing said. (Dave Barkholz, 8/15)

Arizona Republic: Asian Pacific Health Group Takes Aim At Hepatitis B In Arizona
The small, six-member staff at Asian Pacific Community in Action in Phoenix has a big enemy: the infectious liver disease hepatitis B. It's a prevalent and now preventable virus that disproportionately affects Asians and Pacific Islanders, a growing population in Arizona. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Asian and Pacific Islander community makes up less than 5 percent of the United States population but accounts for more than half of those living with hepatitis B. (Quijada, 8/15)