Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Nebraska Pioneers AI Program To Remove Medicaid Funding For Residents With Disabilities
NBC News: Nebraska Is Using An Algorithm Called InterRAI To Take Medicaid Funding From Disabled People
After Nebraska adopted interRAI’s assessment tool, nearly 900 people with developmental disabilities saw Medicaid funding for their daily care slashed. (Hixenbaugh, 9/8)
Healthcare news from California —
San Francisco Chronicle: New Liver Transplant Rule Gave California Man A Second Chance
Jerry Delgado was drinking himself to death. He discovered this in spring 2024, when he was told that alcohol had damaged his gallbladder; he later found out that his liver was badly injured too. Delgado, who is 41 and lives in Ukiah (Mendocino County), had known he was drinking too much, but he thought it wasn’t so bad. His drinking hadn’t affected his job or his relationships. He’d never driven drunk or had a drinking-related accident of any kind. (Allday, 9/6)
The 19th: California Could Soon End Child Marriage After Years Of Debate
California is set to end child marriage – years after more than a third of the nation had done so, and long after most other states had established a minimum age to wed. If signed by the governor, the law would make it illegal for anyone younger than 18 to get married as of January 1, 2027. (Padilla, 9/2)
KFF Health News: ‘It’s Triage’: California’s Next Governor Will Face Destabilizing Surge In Uninsured
By the time Democrat Xavier Becerra left Washington, D.C., more Americans than ever had health insurance, owing partly to his work over the years to pass, defend, and expand the Affordable Care Act. It’s an achievement the former congressman and former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services often touts as he campaigns for California governor against Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator. (Mai-Duc, 9/8)
More health news from across the U.S. —
The Washington Post: With Ohio’s Governorship Up For Grabs, A Toxic Race Turns Violent
An alleged assailant forced his way Sunday toward Democratic candidate Amy Acton at a county fair, officials and witnesses said. Authorities said he was carrying two pistols and a Taser. ... Acton, known statewide for directing the state’s early response to the covid-19 pandemic alongside Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine, is locked in a high-profile race with [Vivek] Ramaswamy, the billionaire entrepreneur. (Tumulty, Westfall, Schaffer and Cadell, 9/7)
NBC News: Minnesota Shooting Suspect Faced Repeated Warnings, Yet He Still Possessed A Gun
Before police say Carlton Neal Johnson II opened fire in Minneapolis Wednesday, killing two people and wounding five others, his history with law enforcement included domestic-related cases, allegations that he threatened to kill a woman and her child, and a years-old court order temporarily barring him from possessing firearms. Yet Johnson, 35, was legally permitted to carry the handgun he had purchased, authorities said. (Jacobs and Grinberg, 9/7)
ProPublica and The Denver Gazette: Regulators Knew This Marijuana Product Was Harming People. It Stayed on Shelves for More Than a Year.
In March 2022, Colorado public health officials started getting startling reports of liver damage tied to a new marijuana-based sleep aid that had quickly become a top seller in the state. But it wasn’t until June 2023, nearly 15 months later, that the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division would warn consumers that the danger had become so serious that the manufacturer had halted production of the sleep pills, called 1906 Midnight Drops, after more reports of “acute liver injury.” (Osher and Wyloge, 9/4)
ProPublica: Georgia Is Spending More On Lethal Injections, Records Reveal
As Georgia plans for its first execution in two years, a trove of records provides us with new information — and raises new questions — about the state’s lethal injection process. (Blau, 9/8)
The 19th: For Gary’s Families, A Power Outage Exposed The Limits Of SNAP’s Safety Net
When a powerful storm tore through Gary, Indiana, knocking out the power for two weeks, Tiffany Harrison, a mother of three, had to throw out all of the food that had spoiled in her fridge and deep freezer. It was a big hit to her family in this majority-Black city where roughly 2 in 5 people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to feed themselves, according to an analysis by the nonprofit news organization Capital B. At the time the power went out, Harrison’s deep freezer had been stocked with discount meat, like family packs of chicken, which she buys in bulk and breaks down into smaller packages so they can last throughout the month, she said. (Kutz, 9/4)
NBC News: What’s Next For Lindsay Clancy? Here’s How Other Major Mistrials Played Out
For six weeks Lindsay Clancy’s trial gripped the nation, taking over newscasts, podcasts and social media chatter. On Friday, it culminated in a mistrial. But what exactly happens after a mistrial? In the case of Clancy, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three young children, there are several options. Prosecutors could seek a retrial with a fresh jury on the same counts or lesser charges. If prosecutors do settle on lesser charges, the case could turn to a bench trial, at which a judge determines the verdict rather than a jury, or it could result in a plea deal. (Lenthang, 9/7)
