State Highlights: Texas Bill Requiring Women To Pay Separate Premium For Abortions Advances; Mass. Governors’ Plan To Curb Health Costs Rebuffed

Texas Tribune: Bill Restricting Abortion Insurance Gets Initial Nod In Texas Senate
Texas women would have to pay a separate health insurance premium to get coverage for non-emergency abortions under a bill tentatively passed by the Texas Senate on Wednesday. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who is the lead author of the bill, said opponents of abortion should not be forced to pay for the procedure through their insurance plans and employers should be able to choose whether to include abortions in their health coverage. (Smith, 7/26)

Austin American-Statesman: Texas Senate Give Initial OK On Ban On Abortion Insurance Plans
The Texas Senate on Wednesday gave initial approval to Senate Bill 8, which would ban general insurance plans from covering abortions for private citizens, government employees and those who get insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The bill — approved 20-10 along party lines with Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville absent — would require women to purchase separate abortion coverage through a supplemental plan, said the bill’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe. (Lindell, 7/26)

Boston Globe: Lawmakers Again Reject Baker’s Plan To Rein In Health Care Costs
The Democrat-controlled House and Senate on Wednesday approved a related Baker proposal to raise $200 million a year for the state’s Medicaid program through new fees on employers and use it to help fund health costs. But they rejected a complementary set of proposals to curb spending, which Baker wanted lawmakers to approve as a package. (Dayal McCluskey, 7/26)

Los Angeles Times: USC President Admits University 'Could Have Done Better' In Handling Reports Of Medical School Dean's Drug Use
USC President C.L. Max Nikias acknowledged Wednesday that the university “could have done better” in its handling of a former medical school dean who a Times investigation found took drugs and associated with criminals and drug abusers. Nikias didn’t detail how the university could have done more but said USC currently has “only loosely defined procedures and guidelines for dealing with employee behavior outside the workplace.” He announced a new committee that would look at strengthening those procedures. (Hamilton, Pringle and Parvini, 7/26)

The New York Times: Case Of Zika Virus, Likely Spread By Mosquito, Is Reported In Texas
For the first time since last fall, officials in Texas have reported what they believe is a case of mosquito transmission of the Zika virus within the state’s borders. If correct, it would be the first known instance of local mosquito transmission within the continental United States this year. (McNeil, 7/26)

San Jose Mercury News: UC-Berkeley Fights Back Over CRISPR Patent Rights
On Tuesday, UC filed an appeal of the U.S. Patent Office’s decision last February that the patent claims to CRISPR by Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard do not interfere with those put forth by UC Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her European collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier. ...UC asserts that its team was the true inventor of the gene editing technology. (Krieger, 7/26)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Records First Locally Transmitted Zika Case Of The Year
A South Texas man was diagnosed with Zika this month, likely the first in the state so far this year to be infected by a local mosquito bite. The man, a resident of Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley, had not traveled out of the area, leading health officials to conclude he had contracted the disease locally. (Hixenbaugh, 7/26)

San Jose Mercury News: Palo Alto State Assemblyman Tackles Food Insecurity With Bill
The first bill proposed by a Palo Alto state assemblyman to be signed into law will make it easier for low-income California residents to access emergency food services. ...The bill, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed earlier this month, allows revision to the national 2-1-1 referral service so that residents can use the free phone number or online database to find entities that provide food to needy residents, including those with pending CalFresh applications. (Lee, 7/26)

Baltimore Sun: Investors Back Out Of Evergreen Health Deal
A group of investors that had applied to acquire Evergreen Health said Wednesday that they were backing out of the deal, leaving the Baltimore-based health insurer’s future in doubt. The investors said in a joint statement that “new financial information came to light that raised significant concerns” as they moved toward closing. (Wells, 7/26)

The Associated Press: Texas Nurse Gets 4 Years In Prison In $375M Health Care Scam
A registered nurse in Texas must serve four years in federal prison for her role in what prosecutors call a health care scam involving nearly $375 million in false claims. (7/26)

Health News Florida: Doctors With Multiple Malpractice Settlements Face Little Discipline In Florida
A review of state records shows that most continue to practice without discipline from the state system that oversees them. This means that either insurers pay to settle cases that have no merit, or the state hasn’t always followed up. (Gentry, 7/27)

San Jose Mercury News: Stanford: Measles Could Spread As Vaccination Rates Decline
In a new study, scholars at Stanford’s School of Medicine and the Baylor College of Medicine find that slight declines in childhood measles vaccinations would cause disproportionately big increases in measles cases and public health costs. According to the study, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, if just 5 percent fewer children in the 2-11 age range were inoculated against the measles, mumps and rubella (the MMR vaccine), the number of annual measles cases among that group would triple. (Deruy, 7/26)

Sacramento Bee: CA Latinos More Likely To Live In Polluted Communities
California has made great strides in scrubbing smog from its skies, yet pollution remains a problem in some parts of the state, with 44 percent of Latinos living in communities with poor air quality compared to about one-quarter of non-Latinos, according to a new state Senate report. The study, commissioned by the Legislative Latino Caucus, comes as Gov. Jerry Brown will be in Bell Gardens at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday to sign Assembly Bill 617, part of last week’s package of bills to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Miller and Luna, 7/26)

San Jose Mercury News: Smoked Out: Antioch Council Bans New Tobacco Stores
Antioch’s city council on Tuesday tentatively approved an ordinance prohibiting new retail businesses that specialize in tobacco products and drug paraphernalia. The 3-0 vote cleared the way for the proposed ordinance to become part of the Municipal Code at a subsequent council meeting. (Coetsee, 7/26)

San Antonio Press-Express: Young Texas ‘Medical Marijuana Refugee’ Sues Sessions Over Cannabis Laws
An 11-year-old Texas cannabis “refugee” has joined a retired NFL football player, an Iraq War veteran and two others in a lawsuit challenging beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the federal government’s stance on medical marijuana. The 88-page complaint comes as Sessions’ Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety is expected to release a review of ties between marijuana use and violent crime. (Brezosky, 7/26)