State Highlights: Scope-Of-Practice Bills Trigger Turf Battles; Fla. Sends Hospital-Funding Plan To Feds

The Texas Tribune: Bills On Medical Authority Spark More Doc Fights
Every two years, it seems, lawmakers are asked to recalibrate a few delicate balances between groups of health professionals trying to keep others from encroaching into their business. More than a dozen bills this year — some moving, some apparently stuck — would give professionals like nurse practitioners and physical therapists more autonomy to operate independently from medical doctors. Others would expand the range of medical professionals like optometrists, allowing them to prescribe painkillers, or create new classes of non-doctor medical professionals, like dental hygiene practitioners. (Walters, 4/21)

The Associated Press: Florida Sends Feds Formal Hospital Funding Proposal
Florida is submitting a proposal to the federal government based on a Senate plan to extend funding for hospitals that treat low-income patients. The proposal would extend funds through June 2017. It also distributes the $2 billion funding more broadly and includes money for Florida medical schools, county health departments and federally qualified health centers. (4/20)

Tampa Bay Times: Politicking, Negotiations Continue Over Low Income Pool
Florida has officially petitioned the federal government to renew a $2.2 billion program for hospitals that treat low-income patients, the state Agency for Health Care Administration said Monday. State health officials are asking the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to continue the so-called Low Income Pool program through June 30, 2017. They have submitted a plan created by the Florida Senate that would distribute the funds more broadly than in the past. ... The uncertainty surrounding the Low Income Pool has brought the budget building process to a virtual halt in Tallahassee. It has also become part of a larger debate on whether to extend subsidized health care coverage to more than 800,000 low-income Floridians. (McGrory, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Nemours Foundation Sues United Healthcare Of Delaware
The foundation that owns the Alfred I. du Pont Hospital for Children in Wilmington filed a federal lawsuit against United Healthcare of Delaware on Monday over pediatric care provided to children covered by Medicaid and another state-subsidized health care program. Despite termination of the hospital's in-network agreement, Nemours says it has an obligation and responsibility under the agreement, as well as state law, to continue to treat United's members under certain conditions and for certain periods of time. But Nemours claims that the Medicaid rate it has been receiving from United for those services is not adequate, and that it has not been paid in full for providing medically necessary services, including emergency care, to United members, including those on Medicaid and Delaware Healthy Children Program. (Chase, 4/20)

California Healthline: Youth Immigrants Face Health Risks
Immigration status affects the health of young immigrants in California, according to a new study from UCLA... The report found that [h]alf of immigrant youth delay getting needed medical care, mostly because of cost or lack of insurance. (Gorn, 4/20)

Minnesota Public Radio: House, Senate Health Bills At Odds Over MinnesotaCare
Democrats in the Minnesota Senate released a plan today to fund health and human services for the next two years. The proposal would increase spending by about $341 million to fund programs including child protection services, nursing homes and mental health services. (Richert, 4/20)

The Sacramento Bee: Religion Complicates California Vaccine Debate
Most states allow for a religious vaccine exemption. Since California does not have a religious exemption distinct from the personal belief exemption, doing away with the personal belief exemption, as SB 277 would do, also would bar parents from invoking religion to skip shots. (White, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Lawmaker Wants To Restrict Access To Birth Certificate Data
A Minnesota lawmaker wants to restrict public access to parental contact information listed on birth certificates, citing privacy concerns. Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, said she wants to prevent companies from collecting the email addresses, home addresses and phone numbers that parents list on birth certificates. (4/20)

Tampa Bay Times: Also Under Consideration: Health Care Bills That Aren't Medicaid Expansion
While a contentious debate over Medicaid expansion has overshadowed much of the 2015 legislative session, it isn't the only health care issue under consideration. A proposal that would allow doctors to make better use of digital communications technology is gaining steam late in the session, as are bills seeking to expand the prescribing powers of nurses and encourage medical tourism. Lawmakers are also advancing a plan that would broaden the list of vaccines that pharmacists and pharmacy interns can administer (HB 279/SB 792). (McGrory, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Indiana Governor Extends Needle Exchange Program To Curb HIV
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Monday extended a needle exchange program in a rural, southern Indiana county to help combat an HIV outbreak, even though he generally opposes such programs. Pence approved the 30-day extension of a March 26 executive order that declared a public health emergency in Scott County, about 30 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky. Republican Pence opposes such programs as part of a statewide anti-drug policy but said the efforts to fight the outbreak must continue. (Schroeder, 4/20)

The Associated Press: NY Blueprint Lists Steps To End AIDS Scourge
Experts and advocates in New York, a state hit hard early in the AIDS epidemic, have drafted a blueprint for reducing new HIV infections and related deaths to the point of nearly ending them in five years. The plan, requested by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, expands steps already reducing deaths and newly diagnosed infections statewide to fractions of what they once were. (4/21)

Kaiser Health News: Cash-And-Carry Health Insurance For Some In Los Angeles
The largest publicly run health plan in the nation, L.A. Care, will allow customers who do not have traditional bank accounts to pay their health insurance premiums with cash. One in four Americans who were previously uninsured and eligible for federal insurance subsidies do not have a bank account, relying instead on pre-paid debit cards, money orders and cash to pay bills, according to a study by Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. (Varney, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Abortion Restrictions Relying On 'Junk Science,' Rights Advocates Say
In Montana, the Legislature has approved and sent to the governor a bill that would require a fetus to be anesthetized before an abortion is performed so it would not feel pain. In Arizona and Arkansas, doctors are now required to tell women that drug-induced abortions can be "reversed" mid-procedure, even though the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says the reversal claims are "not supported by the body of scientific evidence." (La Ganga, 4/20)