State Highlights: Four Employees Of Florida Group Home Face Charges Of Abuse Of Disabled Woman; Georgia Investigates Company Marketing Health Care ‘Sharing’ Plans As Complaints Rise

The Washington Post: Florida Caretakers Charged With Abuse Of Woman In Attain Incorporated Group Home After Review Of Video
The caretaker who called authorities said the disabled woman had been acting out and ended up with minor injuries. But surveillance video would reveal the full story of a patient “willfully tortur[ed] and maliciously punished,” police said. The footage shows four employees at a Florida group home shoving and hitting the woman. One staffer steps with her full weight on the patient’s head as she struggles on the ground — force that “could have easily caused great bodily harm or even death,” a Mount Dora police detective wrote in an affidavit. (Knowles, 8/28)

Georgia Health News: Marketer For Health Sharing Ministries Under State Investigation
An Atlanta-based company that markets health care sharing plans is being investigated by the state insurance department, Georgia Health News has learned. Other states also have investigated Aliera, according to published reports. (Miller, 8/28)

Reuters: Let It Burn: U.S. Fights Wildfires With Fire, Backed By Trump
It was the kind of fire that has terrified communities across the drought-ridden U.S. West in the past few years: a ponderosa pine forest ablaze in the mountains of New Mexico filling the air with thick, aromatic smoke. Except this fire was deliberately set by state penitentiary prisoners, dressed in red flame-resistant clothing and dripping a mix of gasoline and diesel around trees and scrub. (8/28)

The CT Mirror: Mental Illness Is A Distraction In Conversations On Gun Violence, Advocates Say
Two days after gunmen killed more than 30 people in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Tex., Julie Learson rallied with 250 Connecticut residents on the steps of the state Capitol. But unlike the scores of adults and children who held signs demanding legislative action to stop mass shootings, Learson clutched a piece of cardboard that read, “White supremacy and toxic masculinity are terrorist ideologies, not mental illnesses.” (Lyons, 8/29)

California Healthline: Governor’s ‘Mental Health Czar’ Seeks New Blueprint For Care In California
In a career full of twists, turns and high-powered assignments, Thomas Insel may now be embarking on one of his most daunting tasks yet — helping California find its way out of a worrisome mental health care crisis. This year, he assumed a new role to help Gov. Gavin Newsom revamp mental health care in the state. Newsom called Insel his “mental health czar,” though his position is unpaid and Insel says it grants him “no authority.” Even so, he is zigzagging across California this summer, visiting mental health facilities to try to understand what works and what doesn’t. (Waters, 8/28)

Dallas Morning News: Texas Is Kicking Far Fewer Little Kids Out Of The Classroom Thanks To This Law 
Dallas was among the first districts in Texas to move away from suspensions for children in the early grades by banning such discipline except in extreme cases. Research has repeatedly shown that black students and those with disabilities are suspended at higher rates than average and are more harshly punished for similar infractions than their peers. (Ayala, 8/28)

The Advocate: Woman's Hospital Invests In Germ-Fighting Technology 
Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge has invested in patented electrostatic technology to deliver disinfectant to the sides, underside and backside of surfaces, which conventional cleaning methods might miss. Healthcare facilities must contend with a wide range of infection threats, from influenza viruses to antimicrobial-resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus that can cause healthcare-associated infections, according to a news release. (8/28)

Des Moines Register: Ed Brown In Negotiations To Step Down From His Job As CEO Of The Iowa Clinic
The longtime chief executive officer of the Iowa Clinic is in negotiations to step down from his job at the expansive medical practice in central Iowa. Ed Brown is in talks with the board of directors for the Iowa Clinic to leave the position after more than two decades, according to Jennifer Tinnermeier, chief legal officer for the clinic. She did not elaborate on why Brown is leaving. (Rodriguez, 8/28)

Modern Healthcare: Priority Health, Total Health Care To Merge In Southeast Michigan
Priority Health and Total Health Care announced Wednesday a plan to merge in which Detroit-based Total Health will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Grand Rapids-based Priority, officials said. The proposed deal must gain state approval to become final, potentially later this year, said Marti Lolli, Priority Health's chief marketing officer. (Greene, 8/28)

Sacramento Bee: California Lacks Oversight Of Hospice Facilities, Caregivers
In California, where the population is rapidly aging and end-of-life care is on the rise, patient advocates and researchers say the state’s oversight of hospice facilities and hospice care has not caught up. Largely subsidized by federal money through Medicare, hospice care consists of nurses entering hospitals, nursing homes or patients’ homes to ease patients’ pain in their last months of living. (Chen, 8/28)

Boston Globe: As Costs Mount, States Scramble For New Ways To Pay For Late-In-Life Care
The cost of such care is growing as the population ages, straining family finances and Medicaid budgets. Holding out little hope that a gridlocked Congress will come to the rescue, states are jumping into the breach. At least a dozen are crafting policies — ranging from caregiver subsidies to expanded home care services to insurance funded through payroll withdrawals — to help millions of disabled seniors afford personal care assistance. (Weisman, 8/28)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lawyers For Quintez Cephus Accusers Criticize UW-Madison Reinstatement
Lawyers for the two women who accused fellow University of Wisconsin-Madison student Quintez Cephus of sexual assault — charges of which he was acquitted by a jury — are calling on the university to further explain its decision to reinstate Cephus. ...Cephus, a wide receiver for the Badgers, was criminally charged with two counts of sexual assault in August 2018. He pleaded not guilty and sued the university in federal court in an attempt to pause the Title IX process until the criminal case was over. (Vielmetti, 8/28)

The Washington Post: ‘Cold, Callous Letter’ Critical Of D.C. Homeless Encampments Stirs Controversy
An organization that promotes development in a fast-gentrifying District neighborhood is defending a letter critical of homeless encampments that some advocates called insensitive. NoMa Business Improvement District President Robin-Eve Jasper wrote in the public letter that “conditions are worsening” for pedestrians who use underpasses beneath railroad tracks that bisect the neighborhood. The letter notes increasing reports of harassment and aggressive panhandling by those living in the encampments. (Moyer, 8/28)

The Washington Post: Austin's Homeless Crisis Is Latest Target In National Debate Over Right To Sleep On The Streets
Christopher Paul hasn’t felt a police officer tapping at his foot in more than a month — the tap, tap, tap that usually meant he was about to get another citation that he was never going to pay. Living on the streets for five years after he lost his graphic design job, Paul has been having undisturbed nights since the Austin City Council and mayor eased restrictions on “public camping” this summer, a move that liberal lawmakers billed as a humane and pragmatic reform of the criminal justice system. But the change has drawn the ire of Republicans and local business owners who decry it as a threat to public safety and the local economy, exposing a partisan clash over how to manage poverty and affordable housing in America’s cities. (Craig, 8/28)