State Highlights: Minn. Lawmakers Face Deadline To Stabilize Individual Insurance Market; Calif. To Revisit Whether Docs On Probation Should Notify Their Patients

Pioneer Press: Minnesota Leaders Want To Stabilize The Health Insurance Market — And Need To Act Soon
Minnesota lawmakers are facing a fast-approaching deadline to try to stabilize the state’s 2018 individual health insurance market. Any such package, which will likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars but could lower premiums by more than 20 percent, has to be passed by April 1 — and lawmakers are still trying to figure out the best approach...Less than 5 percent of Minnesotans get their health insurance through the state’s individual insurance market, but those roughly 190,000 people have been through a lot in recent years. Premiums have skyrocketed even as options have narrowed, and there’s a very real chance that the market could go away altogether. (Montgomery, 3/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Sacramento Battle Over Telling Patients About Doctors’ Probation 
Dr. Wanda Heffernon, a former UCSF anesthesiologist, made headlines in 2001 when she pleaded guilty to stealing credit cards from her fellow physicians and forging prescriptions to feed her drug addiction. While facing those charges, she worked as a physical therapist at a nursing home in San Mateo County, where she was accused — and later convicted — of elder abuse after prying a diamond wedding ring off a 94-year-old patient, bruising the woman’s finger in the process. The judge who sentenced Heffernon to two years in prison noted the extreme vulnerability of the victim and remarked that there was “a dark side to Ms. Heffernon that is difficult to fathom.” (Gutierrez, 3/10)

Texas Tribune: Lawmaker Blasts Health Agency Over Contracting; Agency Fires Back 
The chairman of a legislative oversight panel chided Gov. Greg Abbott’s top health care appointee this week for allegedly failing to identify all of his agency’s high-dollar government contracts and gave him less less than a week to come into compliance. The health commission later fired back, saying the fault lay not with them but with the independent government body that operates the website where contract information is published. (Root and Walters, 3/10)

The Washington Post: Why Critics Say A Texas Bill Lets Anti-Abortion Doctors Lie To Pregnant Women
An ultrasound technician had just told Rachel Tittle that she was carrying a baby girl when things went terribly wrong. She was 20 weeks pregnant at the time and couldn't wait to become a mother. That's when a doctor walked into her examination room and delivered the news that still haunts her six years later. “They told me my baby's abdomen was full of fluid — and if nothing changed very soon, it was going to stop her heart,” Tittle told The Washington Post, recalling the 2011 incident. “It was a horrible, horrible experience.” (Holley, 3/11)

Sacramento Bee: California HIV Laws Could Go From Felonies To Misdemeanors
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener has proposed Senate Bill 239 to repeal the laws, saying they do not reflect current HIV medical practices, and have not helped stop the spread of HIV and AIDS... California law says it’s a felony for an HIV-positive person to have unprotected sex without informing their partner that they are infected. It is also a felony for HIV-positive people to donate blood, body organs or other tissue. Those convicted can spend up to seven years in prison if found guilty. Another law upgrades a misdemeanor for prostitution to a felony if the person charged has HIV or AIDS. (Ohsahl, 3/12)

Arizona Republic: Campaign Aims To Raise HIV And AIDS Awareness Among Women And Girls Through A Special Day
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, today 67 percent of all diagnoses involve gay or bisexual men, meaning about a third come from other populations — many of them heterosexual women like Dennis, she noted. Dr. Randy Gelow II, a family-medicine physician who focuses on the treatment of HIV in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, is working to help raise awareness of the issue along with Banner Health in Phoenix. (Newman, 3/10)

Denver Post: Children's Hospital Colorado Offers Medical Day Treatment For Sick Kids
They are students at Medical Day Treatment, a school inside Children’s Hospital Colorado for kids who are too sick, or too “medically fragile,” to attend regular school. They enrolled here because they missed too much school for doctors’ appointments, physical therapy, chemotherapy or dialysis, or couldn’t last a seven-hour school day without needing a nap, or needed a nurse nearby to check the g-tubes or intravenous lines inserted into their stomachs and arms. Some are waiting for transplants. Many of them — including J.J., whose condition makes so much skin grow on his hands and face that it falls off around him but so little elsewhere that parts of him are nearly down to flesh — were bullied. (Brown, 3/12)

Seattle Times: At Cost-Plagued UW Dentistry School, Deficit Now Totals $35 Million 
Almost a year after the University of Washington mapped out a financial recovery plan for the deficit-ridden School of Dentistry, the school’s red ink has grown by another $6 million, and now totals $35 million. To try to erase the shortfall, the school is freezing reserves and most staff hiring, as well as travel and expenditures for conferences, food and beverages. It has audited its books, and hired a comptroller to oversee expenses. (Long, 3/12)

The Baltimore Sun: New Baltimore Wellness Center Works To Reduce Stigma Of Mental Illness 
Patients who receive mental health counseling at the new Simon Life and Wellness Center in Baltimore lie on white leather sofas with faux suede and fur pillows. Abstract art in warm hues adorns the walls and colorful flowers pop against the modern white interior design. It's not the typical decor for an urban mental health center, but the staff at Simon Life and Wellness in the Charles North neighborhood wants clients, many of them low-income, to see it as a cool and welcoming place. (McDaniels, 3/12)

The CT Mirror: Once Again, School Health Clinics Facing Cuts 
School-based health centers – which provide medical and mental health care and sometimes dental services and health education, often in schools with many low-income or high-risk students – have historically received widespread backing from policymakers in Connecticut. Research has linked them with improved academic performance and graduation rates, as well as better health measures, such as higher vaccination rates, reduced asthma complications and lower emergency department use. The report of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission – established after the 2012 shootings – noted the clinics’ potential to make it easier for students to get behavioral health care without the stigma sometimes associated with mental health facilities. (Levin Becker, 3/10)

WABE: In Georgia, Rural Hospitals Struggle To Survive 
The Affordable Care Act was supposed to help by insuring more people, but Georgia and 18 other states did not expand Medicaid, which would have covered more low-income residents. At the same time, rural hospitals were also having to meet requirements imposed by the ACA, like digitizing medical records, said George Pink, director of the NC Rural Health Research Program at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill... Nationwide, 80 hospitals have closed, and almost half of all rural hospitals are currently losing money, Pink said. (Yu, 3/10)

Richmond Times Dispatch: Survivors Urge Health Care Providers To Look For Signs Of Depression, Anxiety In Mothers
Health professionals of all stripes — not just the ones in mental health fields — need to be screening pregnant women and new moms for the illness, which impacts one in five new mothers, [Adrienne] Griffen said. Women who have recently given birth rarely care for themselves, but they desperately need to sleep, eat, exercise and take time off, Griffen said. (Kleiner, 3/13)

Texas Tribune: With Proposal To Penalize Men For Masturbating, Legislator Aims To Shake Up Health Debate 
When it comes to issues related to health, state Rep. Jessica Farrar says that men should have to undergo the same “unnecessary” and “invasive” procedures that she says Texas women are subjected to under recently passed state laws. That’s why the the Houston Democrat on Friday filed House Bill 4260, which would fine men $100 for masturbating and create a required booklet for men with medical information related to the benefits and concerns of a man seeking a vasectomy, a Viagra prescription or a colonoscopy. The bill would also let doctors invoke their "personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs" in refusing to perform an elective vasectomy or prescribe Viagra, among other proposed requirements in the bill. (Samuels, 3/12)

Austin American-Statesman: Texas Lawmaker Files Bill That Would Penalize Men For Masturbating
A Democratic lawmaker has filed a bill that would, among many provisions, create a $100 fine for men who masturbate and ejaculate outside of a woman’s vagina. The bill, called “A Man’s Right to Know,” was filed Friday, the filing deadline for the legislative session, and appears to satirize current and proposed laws and regulations that have been criticized for restricting women’s access to abortions and health care choices. (Chang, 3/11)

California Healthline: Proposed Law Would Require All California Children To Be Screened For Lead
Growing national concern about lead poisoning in children has prompted a California lawmaker to introduce legislation to ensure that all of the state’s kids are tested for the toxic metal. The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward), would change the state’s Health and Safety Code to require testing for all children aged six months to 6 years. (Ibarra, 3/13)

Dallas Morning News: Drinks At The Dentist Office? Texas Bill Takes Aim At Boozy Trend In Medicine 
Offering alcoholic beverages to patients as they wait to undergo procedures or while they are learning about a serious health care need is a practice that is both "appalling" and "irresponsible," Texas legislators said Thursday. The comments were made before the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce as state representatives reviewed SB 404, a proposed bill introduced by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham). It would prohibit health care providers from offering alcoholic beverages and penalize them for doing so. (Rice, 3/10)

The Newnan Times-Herald: Toxic Dumping Into Waterways Raises Concerns
Last week the Georgia House Natural Resources and Environment committee did not pass legislation that would notify residents when toxic pollutants are being dumped into nearby rivers, lakes and landfills. One of the biggest concerns with this ruling is the dumping of coal ash, according to the Georgia Water Coalition. Coal ash is the waste left over from burning coal. (Bell, 3/10)