Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
State Highlights: Single-Payer Becoming Litmus Test For Calif. Democrats; Wis. State Employees Could Be Facing Steep Premium Hikes
San Jose Mercury News: California Single-Payer Bill Puts Dems In Tough Position
A sweeping proposal to replace private medical insurance in California with a single, government-run health care system has suddenly taken on sharp political edges for Democrats, threatening party unity even as it promises to mobilize voters on the left. Supporters say “single-payer” proposals like Senate Bill 562, which the state Senate could vote on this week, are becoming a hard-and-fast litmus test for Democrats in California, and perhaps nationally — despite the long odds of one state going it alone with a top-to-bottom health care overhaul. (Murphy, 5/27)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Walker: Wisconsin Should Avoid 10% Hike On State Worker Insurance
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration warned Friday that rejecting his insurance overhaul for state employees could lead to a 10% increase in workers’ premiums. In calculations released Friday, administration officials said they might have to make the double-digit increase to state worker coverage if the state doesn’t switch to a self-insurance model for its employees. (Price, 5/26)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Proposal Would Help Keep Chronically Ill Out Of Emergency Rooms
Last year in Wisconsin, thousands of people visited an emergency room more than seven times each — a stream of bad outcomes for taxpayers, the health care industry and the patients themselves. To respond, lawmakers voted last week to give hospitals a powerful financial incentive to reduce emergency room costs within the state's Medicaid health programs for the needy. The pilot proposal: Work with diabetics and patients with asthma and heart disease to control the health conditions that are landing them in the emergency room. (Stein, 5/27)
The Associated Press: Kansas Legislators To Reopen Debate Over Guns At Hospitals
Kansas legislators are facing a midsummer deadline to approve costly security upgrades for state hospitals and mental institutions in order to keep in place a four-year-old ban on concealed weapons inside the facilities. While the conservative state frequently embraces pro-gun policies, this debate is unique. Even Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and GOP lawmakers who are strong supporters of concealed carry don’t want the exemption for hospitals to disappear, fearing the prospect of guns around mental patients or in areas with specialized equipment. (Hanna, 5/27)
Texas Tribune: Child Welfare Overhaul Bills Await Abbott's Signature
Texas legislators cast final votes Sunday evening on a pair of bills overhauling how the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services works with and finds homes for abused and neglected children. With just over 24 hours before the legislative session is set to end, both chambers voted to adopt final versions of Senate Bill 11. The bill, a top legislative priority for Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus, would have the Department of Family and Protective Services create a "community-based care" model, allowing contracted organizations to monitor children in foster care and adoptive homes and a relative's home. (Evans, 5/28)
Austin American-Statesman: Major Child Protective Services Reforms Head To Gov. Abbott’s Desk
Major bills to address the state’s troubled child welfare system are now headed for Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Both the House and the Senate on Sunday gave final approval on changes to Senate Bill 11 filed by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, which would expand “community-based foster care” to at least two additional areas in the state over the next two years. The state would have to transfer foster care case management, including caseworker visits, court-related duties and decision-making on where children live, learn and receive services, to a nonprofit agency or a governmental entity such as a county or municipality. (Chang, 5/28)
The CT Mirror: CT Optometrists Sharply Focused On Banning Online Competition
A smartphone app that inexpensively checks eyes and renews prescriptions for contact lenses is cutting-edge, catnip for investors looking for the next big thing. But the political calculus of a bricks-and-mortar institution, the local optometrist, trying to ban the use of a disruptive web technology in Connecticut is decidedly old school. Startups offering online renewals are few and national, while the optometrists opposing them are numerous and local. (Pazniokas, 5/30)
The New York Times: A Right To Bingo, But Not Clean Water, In New York’s Constitution
The Bill of Rights in the New York State Constitution protects a number of essential liberties. Freedom of worship? Check. The right to assemble? Check. Freedom to divorce? That, too. The right to play bingo and gamble on horses? You bet. But environmental activists and some lawmakers say that one liberty that is conspicuously absent from the Constitution’s Bill of Rights is the right to a clean environment. Citing recent instances of contaminated water supplies and what they call an assault on the environment by the Trump administration, they are now determined to change that. (Foderaro, 5/26)
Detroit Free Press: Nurx App Offers Women Access To Birth Control In Michigan
Nurx is like Uber for birth control. The new mobile health platform that launched earlier this month in Michigan is offering women access to birth control from state-licensed doctors and partner pharmacies. Through the Nurx app, women can get birth control delivered to their homes. The app offers easier access to birth control at a time when contraceptives are under fire, developers say. Six states permit pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives, and eight states allow health care institutions to refuse to provide contraception-related services. (Zlatopolsky, 5/27)
Georgia Health News: High School Students Learn To Eat Better — And Feed Others Better
Fannin High, with enrollment of roughly 1,000 students, is the only high school in mountainous, forested Fannin County, which borders Tennessee and has only about 25,000 residents. Burch’s class shows that the movement to get Georgia students eating healthier stretches much farther than big cities and suburbs. The idea of teaching about food in traditionally rural areas of Georgia such as Fannin County may seem paradoxical, but it’s necessary partly because times have changed. (Campbell, 5/29)
The Star Tribune: State's Day Care Centers Have Troubling Gaps On Immunizations
Hundreds of child care centers across Minnesota are not following state requirements that parents get their children vaccinated for the measles or provide written exemptions, according to state health data reviewed by the Star Tribune. The situation provides fertile ground for the highly contagious measles virus to continue to spread as the outbreak, which has sickened 68, continues into its eighth week. (Howatt, 5/28)
Seattle Times: Swedish Double-Booked Its Surgeries, And The Patients Didn’t Know
In recent years, some of Swedish’s top brain and spine surgeons routinely ran multiple operating rooms at the same time while keeping patients in the dark about the practice, according to internal surgery data obtained by The Seattle Times as well as interviews with patients and medical staffers. Four surgeons at the Swedish Neuroscience Institute — [Rod] Oskouian, David Newell, Johnny Delashaw and Jens Chapman — ran multiple operating rooms during more than half their cases over the past three years, according to the data. Oskouian did it 70 percent of the time. To manage two rooms, surgeons generally leave less-experienced doctors receiving specialized training to handle parts of the surgery. (Baker and Mayo, 5/28)
Sacramento Bee: Sacramento State Lab Employees Say Their Jobs Are Making Them Sick
A chemical spill at Sacramento State last year has led to questions about whether the university is putting its lab workers at risk from exposure to hazardous substances. Some lab employees say they work in areas so poorly ventilated that acidic fumes corrode metal and rubber, and two workers claim that exposure to these substances and others may have led to their inability to have children. (Lambert, 5/28)
The Baltimore Sun: Helistroke: Flying Doctors To Stroke Victims May Improve Outcomes
The approach, which Hopkins doctors call helistroke, is unusual in medicine. Normally stroke patients are transferred to other hospitals for advanced treatment. Johns Hopkins and Suburban are testing whether whisking the doctor to the ailing patient leads to better outcomes. It is one of the many ways that hospitals are trying to increase the use of catheters to treat certain kinds of severe strokes. Strokes occur when a blood flow is interrupted to part of the brain, either by a clot of a rupture of a blood vessel. They are the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, killing more than 130,000 each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They afflict about 800,000 people each year and are a leading cause of disability. (McDaniels, 5/30)
Des Moines Register: Iowa Farm Teaches Adults With Autism Life Lessons
Like many other acreages across Iowa, the symbiotic relationships between soil, weather, farmers, seeds and pollinators produce the foods that make up our dinners. Because on this particular acreage, most employees have autism spectrum disorder, which can severely impair communication and social skills, The Des Moines Register reported. So while the men of the Homestead and the specifically trained associates who work alongside them harvest veggies for a Community Supported Agriculture program, their mission is more than farming. (Crowder, 5/27)
Sacramento Bee: Paid Maternity Leave For Teachers In California Bill
California public school employees would be fully paid for at least six weeks during their maternity leave under a bill moving through the California Legislature. In a move that would apply to those working for school districts and community colleges, pregnant certificated, academic and classified employees would not need to spend their accrued leave to compensate for those days. The measure passed the state Assembly on Monday and will next be considered in the state Senate. (Ko, 5/26)
