The Washington Post: Trump Roils First Debate Among GOP Contenders
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee disagreed sharply over changes to Social Security and other entitlements. Christie argues that fiscal realities make cutbacks inevitable, while Huckabee has insisted that the safety net for the elderly must be preserved. ... The Republicans voiced outrage over recently surfaced clandestine videos of Planned Parenthood employees discussing the harvesting of organs from aborted fetuses. ... The Fox moderators put [former Florida Gov. Jeb] Bush on the defensive over his role on the board of former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s charitable foundation, which supported Planned Parenthood. ... [Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, a recent entrant into the race, sought to make the most of his turn on the main debate stage. He delivered impassioned defenses of his expansion of Medicaid in Ohio to help lift up the poor as well as on gay rights. (Tumulty and Rucker, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Candidates Hold Raucous Debate
The result was a two-hour debate that underscored just how unwieldy the GOP primary campaign will be, despite the party leadership’s efforts to make the process more orderly and less damaging to the eventual nominee than 2012. ... At points throughout the night, Mr. Trump was forced to defend the number of times he has filed for bankruptcy, his support for government-funded, universal health insurance and the donations he has given to Mrs. Clinton and her family’s foundation. (O'Connor, Hook and Ballhaus, 8/7)

Los Angeles Times: Republicans Try To Find Footing In Race By Attacking Trump, And Each Other, In 1st Debate
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who had been seen as the party’s most likely nominee earlier in the campaign, sought to regain his footing after comments on immigration, women’s health and the Iraq war that had made him a target from both the left and right. ... Over two hours, the candidates were quizzed on prominent issues including the fight against the Islamic State and the Iran nuclear deal reached last month, as well as the recent controversy over funding Planned Parenthood, same-sex marriage, healthcare and the economy. The candidates’ jabs at one another were sometimes veiled ones, while others directed at the president and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton more blunt. (Mascaro, Mehta and Memoli, 8/6)

The Associated Press: FACT CHECK: GOP Candidates Veer From The Truth In 1st Debate
BUSH: "You get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something that doesn't suppress wages and kill jobs." THE FACTS: According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent in March 2010, when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. In June of this year, it had fallen to 5.3 percent. The economy has added more than 12 million jobs since March 2010. While the health care law doesn't seem to have had a major impact on jobs, some lesser consequences are likely. The Congressional Budget Office projected that having government subsidized health insurance will prompt some people to leave the labor market, since they can get coverage without a job. And although Republicans may be able to repeal Obama's law, it's unclear if and how they would replace it. (Lederman, 8/7)

The San Francisco Chronicle: Trump Keeps The Spotlight In First GOP Debate
Abortion laws, and the videos an anti-abortion group recently released attacking Planned Parenthood, also took center stage, with the candidates trying to one-up one another in their quest to take the toughest stand. (Wildermuth, 8/6)

USA Today: The GOP Primary Debate: Five Takeaways
JOHN KASICH’S HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE ... The Ohio governor barely cracked the top 10 field, but the home-state setting played to his advantage. Kasich, who has battled image problems about his temper, offered a compassionate conservative stance defending his expansion of Medicaid and acceptance of gay marriage as the law of the land. (Davis, 8/7)

And on the Democratic side of the campaign trail -

Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton Meets With Healthcare Workers
Hillary Clinton brought her presidential campaign to Los Angeles on Thursday, telling home healthcare workers that she wants to improve their working conditions, training and wages so more people can remain at home as they age. Clinton met with eight women, all of whom had either worked in home healthcare or hired someone for care-giving, for a round table discussion at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. (Karlamangla, 8/6)

Politico: Mitch McConnell: GOP Shouldn’t Shut Down Government Over Planned Parenthood
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans should not use a must-pass government spending bill to defund Planned Parenthood, despite increasing pressure from conservatives who want to use a threat of a shutdown to target the embattled women’s health group. In a wide-ranging news conference with reporters Thursday, McConnell warned of the consequences for Republicans if the party triggers a government shutdown over a controversial policy dispute, like the GOP did with Obamacare in 2013. (Kim, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Mitch McConnell Sees No Government Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood Fight
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Thursday beat back suggestions that a fight over federal funding for Planned Parenthood would end in a government shutdown this fall, putting him at odds with the conservative wing of the Republican base as the issue spreads into the presidential race. (Hughes, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: 5 Things To Know About Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been thrust into a political fracas following the release of five undercover videos by an antiabortion group that show Planned Parenthood officials discussing obtaining fetal tissue for research. Republicans are seeking to halt federal funding of the organization, though an attempt in the Senate was blocked. (Armour, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Blue Cross Raises Rate Hike Sought On Affordable Care Plans
North Carolina's largest health insurer says higher-than-anticipated costs after two years of selling federally subsidized coverage has forced it to seek premium increases even greater than it thought would be necessary two months ago. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina said Thursday that it now seeks an average 34.6 percent higher premium for insurance sold under President Barack Obama's health insurance overhaul law. The company said in June that it wanted to raise rates by an average of almost 26 percent starting in January, compared with this year's allowed 13.5 percent increase. (Dalesio and Masters, 8/7)

The Associated Press: Delaware Decides Against State Health Insurance Exchange
Delaware officials have decided not to develop the state's own health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act and instead will keep the current federal partnership model. Delaware was granted approval in June to develop a state-based health insurance marketplace, but Health and Social Services Secretary Rita Landgraf told the Delaware Health Care Commission the state will not move forward with the plan. (Chase, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Head Of Washington Health Exchange To Step Down
The man who has led the Washington health insurance exchange since its inception in 2012 has announced he will be stepping down at the end of the month. Richard Onizuka says his goal has been to establish a health insurance marketplace that best served the people of Washington. Now that the exchange has helped hundreds of thousands of people get health insurance, he’s ready to step aside. (8/6)

Reuters: Hospitals Seek Justice Department Probe Of Anthem-Cigna Deal
Hospitals are urging antitrust regulators to consider whether health insurer Anthem Inc.’s planned acquisition of rival Cigna Corp. would boost health care costs. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, the hospital industry’s largest lobbying group said combining the No. 1 and No. 5 health insurers threatens to reduce competition in 817 geographic markets serving 45 million consumers. (Humer, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug-Plan Managers Wield ‘Potent Weapon’
CVS Health Corp.’s decision to stop covering Pfizer Inc.’s anti-impotence pill Viagra for many of its drug-benefit plan members is the latest example of the tough tactics some health-care managers are using to control rising drug costs. CVS and rival Express Scripts Holding Co., which together dominate the U.S. market for administering drug-benefit plans for employers and insurers, are excluding more drugs from coverage if there are viable alternatives in attempts to squeeze greater price discounts from manufacturers. The pharmacy-benefit managers, or PBMs, are steering patients to other drugs they say have equivalent safety and efficacy, but at lower costs. (Loftus, 8/6)

The Associated Press: IBM Makes $1B Buy To Boost Watson's Health Care Capabilities
IBM says it will pay $1 billion to acquire medical imaging and software company Merge Healthcare, part of an effort to boost the health care capabilities of Watson, its cognitive computing system. Merge's technology is used by 7,500 hospitals and doctor's offices to sort medical images and scans, as well as researchers and pharmaceutical companies. IBM said Thursday it hopes to combine the company's technology with its Watson system to help customers sort and analyze images, medical scans, lab results and other electronic health records. (8/8)

California Healthline: IBM Hopes CVS-Watson Partnership Leads To More Connections In Cloud
With a store in "almost every neighborhood" in the country, CVS pharmacies seemed the perfect match for Watson Health, IBM's big-data-crunching artificial intelligence system, officials from both companies said after the new partnership was announced last week. (Lauer, 8/6)

St. Louis Public Radio: Emergency Room Visits For Asthma More Frequent For Missouri's Poorest Children
Audrey Collins’ two daughters were diagnosed with asthma as infants. When they had trouble breathing, she would use a nebulizer machine with a tiny attachment for their faces. “And if it didn’t get better, I’d take her to the emergency room. And we were in there a lot,” Collins said, during a recent visit with her daughters to a mobile asthma clinic parked outside their pediatrician’s office in north St. Louis. One in five children in north St. Louis city and north St. Louis County are diagnosed with asthma; pediatricians here say it’s their top issue of focus. Poor air quality, restricted access to preventive care and low socioeconomic conditions all appear to be exacerbated in those areas, making pediatric asthma rates twice as high as the statewide average, according to new numbers from the Missouri Hospital Association. When children’s asthma gets out of control, they often wind up in the emergency room, creating an emotional (and often financial) toll on their families. (Bouscaren, 8/6)

Kaiser Health News: Study Casts Doubt On Assumptions About Hospital ‘Frequent Fliers’
"Super-utilizers are the frequent fliers of the health care system, whose serious illnesses send them to the hospital multiple times every year and cost the system hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Figuring out how best to address these patients’ needs and reduce their financial impact on the health care system is a subject of intense interest among policymakers. Now a new study has found that, in contrast to the notion that “once a super-utilizer, always a super-utilizer,” many patients who use health care services intensely do so for a relatively brief period of time. (Andrews, 8/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Planned Parenthood Clinics Challenge Florida Action Against Them
Three Planned Parenthood Federation of America clinics in Florida are fighting back after Florida’s health agency ordered them to stop performing second-trimester abortions because they lacked the proper licenses. Planned Parenthood said it was in full compliance with Florida law and that the report released on Wednesday by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration falsely said the clinics performed unlicensed procedures. (Armour, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Governor To Cut State Medicaid Money To Planned Parenthood
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said Thursday that he is cutting off state Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood in the face of undercover videos shot by anti-abortion activists that implied the group was selling fetal tissue to researchers. The Republican governor sent Planned Parenthood Southeast a letter announcing that he was terminating agreements that allowed Planned Parenthood to be reimbursed for providing health care services to Medicaid patients. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is running for GOP presidential nomination, announced a similar decision Monday. (Chandler, 8/6)

Montgomery Advertiser: Bentley Ends Medicaid Contracts With Planned Parenthood
Gov. Robert Bentley Thursday said he was moving to end Medicaid’s contracts with Planned Parenthood, following the release of videos showing members of the organization discussing the sales of fetal parts. “As a doctor and Alabama’s governor, the issue of human life, from conception to birth and beyond, is extremely important,” Bentley said in a statement. “I respect human life and do not want Alabama to be associated with an organization that does not.” In a statement, Planned Parenthood Southeast CEO Staci Fox said the organization was disappointed Bentley had been “distracted by a deceptive attack.” (Lyman, 8/6)

Al.com: Gov. Robert Bentley Seeks To End Medicaid Agreement With Planned Parenthood
Gov. Robert Bentley announced today he was terminating an agreement between the Alabama Medicaid Agency and Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood responded by issuing a statement saying, in part, that federal courts have ruled that states cannot exclude abortion providers from Medicaid. (Cason, 8/6)

The Associated Press: No Kansas Reports On Fetal Tissue In 15 Years
Kansas has received no reports on the handling of fetal tissue in the 15 years that the information has been required whenever such tissue is transferred, the state health department has disclosed amid a national debate over abortion providers' practices. The three abortion providers in the state say they don't have programs for the legal donation of fetal tissue for research by women who've terminated their pregnancies, and follow all state and federal laws. There are also no records to indicate that any other entities, such as hospitals, have had reportable transfers. (8/6)

Winston-Salem Journal: Senate Medicaid Reform Contains Compromise, But Insists On Cabinet-Level Department
The state Senate unveiled its latest Medicaid reform initiative Thursday, compromising with the House on a bigger role for provider-led entities, but still insisting on creating a cabinet-level N.C. Medicaid Department. The version contains other potential sticking points, such as behavioral health managed care organizations (MCOs) playing a subcontractor services role, and the Senate's pursuit of reducing, then eliminating, state financing for the N.C. Community Care Networks. ... Medicaid reform is one of the biggest sticking points between state Republican leaders and Gov. Pat McCrory, who has said repeatedly he thinks that the program is broken, though some health care advocates dispute that assessment. (Craver, 8/6)

Raleigh News & Observer: NC Senate Proposal Would Reshape Medicaid
A bill that calls for the privatization of Medicaid using a mix of commercial insurers and in-state health care providers began moving through the Senate on Thursday, but it was unclear how much of the newest proposal the state House likes. The legislature has been talking about multiple changes in the government insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled, but the House and Senate have been far apart on the details for more than a year. This latest Senate proposal comes after months of discussions between Republicans in the two chambers. (Bonner, 8/6)

WRAL: Senate Offers Reworked Medicaid Plan
North Carolina would create a new department to run its health insurance program for the poor and disabled under a bill the Senate Health Care Committee rolled out Thursday. The measure represents the latest ante in a long-running disagreement between leaders in the Senate, the House and Gov. Pat McCrory's administration about how best to run the state's $20 billion Medicaid program. According to its authors, the reworked bill is an effort to bridge those differences. (Binker, 8/6)

The Associated Press: State Supreme Court OKs New Hospital In Biloxi
The Mississippi Supreme Court has let stand the state's approval of a plan by Harrison HMA, owners of Gulf Coast Medical Center, to build a hospital in Biloxi. The Mississippi Department of Health issued a certificate of need for the project in 2012. Mississippi requires a CON in a process designed to avoid duplication of health care services and control costs. (8/6)

The Washington Post: Hospital In Maryland Suburb To Become Outpatient Facility By 2018
Plans to convert most of Laurel Regional Hospital to an outpatient facility are stirring concern among residents and community leaders who say they are worried about losing jobs and medical services in an area that is far from other hospitals. (Koh, 8/6)

The Corpus Christi Caller Times: Texas Hospitals Could Lose Millions To Medicare Readmission Penalties, Though Trending Down
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, hospitals have been penalized by taking away Medicare dollars for people who are readmitted. New records show that in the fourth year of the federal program, hospitals lost out on $420 million nationwide. Readmission rates have lowered since the penalties started, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health data. Heart failure readmission rates were up at 24.7 percent between July 2008 and June 2011, but dropped to 22.7 percent between July 2010 and June 2013. (Waller, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times/Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta Hospital Improperly Billed Rape Victims
Georgia's largest public hospital improperly charged more than 730 rape victims for forensic exams, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation has found. Under state law, Grady Memorial Hospital is supposed to provide rape exams free to victims and send the bills to a special state fund billing them is considered as unfair as a shooting victim paying police to dust the weapon for fingerprints. (Mariano, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Charleston VA Center Serving Hundreds Of New Patients
The Charleston VA Medical Center is expecting a record 10 percent growth for the fiscal year that winds up at the end of next month. Director Scott Isaacks told local media outlets Wednesday that each week between 150 and 200 veterans are enrolling as new patients at the Ralph Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center. (8/6)

The Associated Press: NYC Rolls Out Plan To Aid Mentally Ill Who Could Be Violent
Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration on Thursday unveiled a plan to help New Yorkers suffering from mental illness and who may be a threat to hurt themselves or others. The program, dubbed NYC Safe, is also an early move to combat increasingly visible homelessness in New York City, an issue that the mayor has said is linked to a lack of adequate care for people with mental illness. (Lemire, 8/6)

Crain's New York Business: Mayor Devotes $22M A Year To Improve Mental Health, Public Safety
New York City announced Thursday that it plans to devote $22 million annually to a new program, NYC Safe, that will "weave together law enforcement and clinical treatment" to address the needs of mentally ill residents who are prone to violence. The initiative is part of a larger mental-health agenda, outlined in a December report by the Mayor's Task Force on Mental Health and Criminal Justice, that Mayor Bill de Blasio said will receive nearly $350 million in funding over the next three years. The focal point of NYC Safe is a communication hub where Mr. de Blasio said staff members are already beginning to gather information on individuals at risk of hurting themselves or others. The city will disseminate the information to the appropriate agencies "to identify who we need to be aware of and give us a real-time picture of how and when to intervene before violence occurs," he said. (Lewis, 8/6)

The Associated Press: W.Va. Officials Announce Long-Term Care Background Checks
State health officials have announced a new background check program for long-term care workers in West Virginia. On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Resources announced its West Virginia Clearance for Access: Registry and Employment Screening program. (8/6)

The Associated Press: 126 Died In 2014 Using Death With Dignity
State health officials say 126 people died in Washington state last year after requesting and using a lethal prescription through Washington's Death with Dignity law. The Washington Health Department reported Thursday 176 people requested and received lethal doses of medication in 2014, a slight increase from the year before. Of those people, 170 died, but some died without ingesting the medication and the state does not know whether some of them took the medicine or not. (8/6)

The Associated Press: Federal Lawsuit Targets Confinement Of Mentally Ill Patients
Legal advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit against Delaware's prison commissioner Thursday, alleging that the Department of Correction is unconstitutionally subjecting mentally ill prisoners to solitary confinement without proper evaluation, monitoring and treatment. In the complaint, the American Civil Liberties Union and Community Legal Aid Society argue that solitary confinement can exacerbate symptoms of mentally ill inmates' disorders and violates their constitutional rights, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. (Chase, 8/6)

The Texas Tribune: New Law Helps Tackle Health Agency Woes
In January, Stuart Bowen took charge of a state office rocked by accusations of corruption, incompetence and inefficiency. Responsible for ferreting out fraud amid the programs and procedures of the sprawling Health and Human Services Commission, the office of Inspector General itself remains under a cloud. He hopes a new law kicking in Sept. 1 will help revive the office's performance and perception. (Bollag, 8/6)

The Register-Guard: Health Care Company Sues Eugene Paper Over Records Release
Several shareholders in the Eugene company that manages services to about 95,000 Lane County Oregon Health Plan patients have sued the state and Guard Publishing Co., publisher of The Register-Guard, to try to stop the state from releasing public records. Shareholders of Agate Resources Inc., the parent company of Trillium Community Health Plan — the coordinated care organization in Lane County — allege that disclosing the names and ownership interest of Agate shareholders would invade their personal privacy and threaten their professional reputations without serving any public interest. (McDonald, 8/6)

The Chicago Tribune: Cook County Health System To Replace Claims Administrator
Cook County's public health system is looking for a new company to process insurance claims after it canceled a contract with the firm it hired just a year ago. A spokeswoman at Cook County Health and Hospitals System confirmed Thursday that it plans to replace IlliniCare Health, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Centene, as its third-party administrator. The county posted a request for bids on Tuesday.The role also is critical for Cook County because the health system has taken on the risk of insuring more of its patients. The health system started its own managed care plan in 2012 to enroll patients who gained insurance through the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. (Sachdev, 8/6)

The Associated Press: Chicago To Allow Health Coverage For Gender Reassignment Surgery
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans on Wednesday to allow reassignment surgery for the city’s employees as part of their health benefits package. “Chicago is known for being a city that is welcoming to all and inclusive of every resident, and this new policy is in line with our efforts to support the rights and well-being of transgender individuals,” Emanuel said in a statement. “With this change, Chicago will ensure that transgender city employees are able to receive the medical care that they need.” (8/6)

The Chicago Tribune: Illinois To Implement New 'ABLE' Accounts For People With Disabilities
State treasurers from across the country are meeting in Chicago Thursday and Friday to discuss how to implement a tax-exempt plan to help families cover the expenses of people with disabilities. The new ABLE accounts, which stands for Achieving a Better Life Experience, will operate much like 529 college savings plans in that the growth is federal tax-free and families are allowed to withdraw money for qualified expenses tax-free. (Rodriguez, 8/6)

The Elgin Courier-News: Agency For Developmentally Disabled Feels Impact Of Budget Gridlock
Jill Nomellini does not understand the concept of money. Her mom, Barb, has tried to teach her. But the 37-year-old has the mind of a young child and does not comprehend, her mother said. Nor does Jill understand exactly what is happening at the Association of Individual Development (AID), where she heads every day to do the job that she takes so much pride in doing. Jill is afraid AID will close, Barb Nomellini said. AID, with headquarters in Aurora and an office in Elgin along with smaller offices in Batavia and Yorkville, is in the crosshairs of Illinois legislators' battle over the fiscal year 2016 budget that has caused an impasse in Springfield. (Casas, 8/6)

The Associated Press: New Veterans Clinic In Pahrump Gets $12.1M Federal OK
Veterans in Pahrump, Nevada are getting a long-sought larger outpatient clinic now that a federal construction contract has been awarded. The news quickly turned political Wednesday when Nevada's freshman Republican Congressman Cresent Hardy took credit saying in a statement that longtime Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and the Democratic representative unseated by Hardy couldn't cut through "red tape" to make it happen. (Pierceall, 8/6)

The Chicago Tribune: CEO Of Health Care Company Charged In Undercover Fraud Probe
Doctors and nurses made visit after visit to the elderly man's home, even after watching him walk the dog, take a stroll down the street and repeatedly talk about visiting his grandkids. Yet the home visits were classified as treatment for the homebound, enabling a Chicago-based health care company to bill Medicare for thousands of dollars. The 71-year-old man, it turns out, was an undercover confidential source for federal agents who for months worked to gather evidence of alleged phony billing practices at Home Physician Services. (O'Connell, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Rural Maryland Sees Jobs, Not Vice, In Medical Marijuana
Washington County is a proudly conservative place. Voters here haven’t backed a Democrat for president since 1964, and same-sex marriage lost by a landslide in a referendum three years ago. But when Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries pitched a proposal to put a medical-marijuana production plant here, the county’s five county commissioners — Republicans all — passed a resolution unanimously supporting the plan. (Dresser, 8/6)

NPR: Can A 32-Year-Old Doctor Cure Baltimore's Ills?
Neighborhoods in Baltimore are still struggling to recover from the riots that broke out following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who suffered a fatal injury to his spine while in police custody. In the aftermath of the unrest, we here at NPR spent many hours trying to understand the raw anger on display. We looked at police brutality, economic disparities and housing segregation in Baltimore. Our conversations eventually led us to Leana Wen. (Cornish, 8/6)

Health Affairs: Federal Parity Law Associated With Increased Probability Of Using Out-Of-Network Substance Use Disorder Treatment Services
The [federal mental health parity law] of 2008 requires commercial insurers providing group coverage for substance use disorder services to offer benefits for those services at a level equal to those for medical or surgical benefits. ... the law extends parity to out-of-network services. We [used] insurance claims from large self-insured employers to evaluate whether federal parity was associated with changes in out-of-network treatment for 525,620 users of substance use disorder services. Federal parity was associated with an increased probability of using out-of-network services, an increased average number of out-of-network outpatient visits, and increased average total spending on out-of-network services among users of those services. Our findings were broadly consistent with the contention of federal parity proponents that extending parity to out-of-network services would broaden access to substance use disorder care obtained outside of plan networks. (McGinty et al., 8/3)

Health Affairs: Medicaid Dental Coverage Alone May Not Lower Rates Of Dental Emergency Department Visits
We examined county-level rates of ED visits for nontraumatic dental conditions in twenty-nine states in 2010 in relation to dental provider density and Medicaid coverage of nonemergency dental services. Higher density of dental providers was associated with lower rates of dental ED visits by patients with Medicaid in rural counties but not in urban counties, where most dental ED visits occurred. County-level Medicaid-funded dental ED visit rates were lower in states where Medicaid covered nonemergency dental services than in other states, although this difference was not significant after other factors were adjusted for. Providing dental coverage alone might not reduce Medicaid-funded dental ED visits if patients do not have access to dental providers. (Fingar et al., 8/3)

JAMA Internal Medicine: Participation In Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs Among Older Patients After Acute Myocardial Infarction
This analysis of clinical data linked to Medicare claims finds the cardiac rehabilitation rate for older patients after acute myocardial infarction [heart attack] is low in the United States and suggests efforts be made for increasing referrals, and addressing attendance barriers, to rehabilitation sessions. ... Cardiac rehabilitation programs are multifaceted outpatient interventions that include individualized exercise regimens, health education, and structured support focused on cardiovascular risk reduction and medication adherence. ... Cardiac rehabilitation improves survival after AMI and is associated with improvements in lifestyle, functional capacity, and quality of life for older adults. (Doll et al., 8/3)

Preventing Chronic Disease: Implementation of Strategies to Recognize and Control Hypertension in a Multispecialty Clinic, Montana, 2012–2013
Benefis Medical Group, in Great Falls, Montana, improved identification and treatment of hypertension through multifaceted interventions [including enhanced use of electronic health records]. The interventions included adopting policies for collection of vital signs, enhancing system-level reporting capability, tracking patients for the registry, and conducting patient outreach activities. From baseline to follow-up (December 2012 through September 2013), the percentage of patients with a documented blood pressure increased from 67% to 80%, the percentage diagnosed with hypertension increased from 16% to 36%, and the percentage with blood pressure control increased from 41% to 64%. (Wall et al., 7/30)

Health Affairs/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Medicare's Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program
As part of its efforts to become a more prudent purchaser of health care services, Medicare has worked to create incentives for hospitals to avoid making patients sicker, instead of healthier, during their inpatient stay. These so-called hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) can lead to poor patient outcomes and higher spending on health care. ... Hospital associations have significant concerns with how Congress designed the program and how CMS is implementing it. ... Under the law, up to 25 percent of hospitals will be subject to the HAC penalty, but which hospitals are affected may change over time for multiple reasons. In future years, CMS is increasing the number of NHSN measures and using measures that a wider array of hospitals may report. (Cassidy, 8/6)

Urban Institute: Has Faster Health Care Spending Growth Returned?
Following several years of slow growth in U.S. national health spending from 2008 to 2013, recent reports suggest such growth has returned to a more typical level of approximately 5.6 percent in 2014, considerably faster than increases in gross domestic product (GDP). Interpreting these new data is difficult, however, because 2014 was the first year of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage expansion, under which an estimated 10.6 million individuals gained coverage. In this paper we estimate how the underlying spending growth rate, absent the coverage expansion, compares to GDP growth. ... there does not yet appear to be evidence of an underlying spike in health spending; such a spike may still occur but most of the recent bump can be explained by the ACA coverage expansion. (Holahan and McMorrow, 8/5)

The Kaiser Family Foundation: 2015 Survey Of Health Insurance Marketplace Assister Programs And Brokers
This report is based on findings from the 2015 Kaiser Family Foundation survey of Health Insurance Marketplace Assister Programs and Brokers. ... Seventy-nine percent of Assister Programs this year (and 80% last year) said most or nearly all consumers sought help because they lacked confidence to apply on their own; 82% of Programs this year (83% last year) said most or nearly all consumers needed help understanding their plan choices; 74% of Assister Programs (this year and last year) said most or nearly all consumers needed help understanding basic insurance terms, such as “deductible.” In addition, this year, like last year, most Assister Programs said it took one to two hours, on average, to help each consumer who was new to the Marketplace. (Pollitz, Tolbert and Ma, 8/6)

The Commonwealth Fund/Kaiser Family Foundation: Primary Care Providers’ Views Of Recent Trends In Health Care Delivery And Payment
A new survey from The Commonwealth Fund and The Kaiser Family Foundation asked primary care providers—physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants—about their experiences with and reactions to recent changes in health care delivery and payment. Providers’ views are generally positive regarding the impact of health information technology on quality of care, but they are more divided on the increased use of medical homes and accountable care organizations. Overall, providers are more negative about the increased reliance on quality metrics to assess their performance and about financial penalties. Many physicians expressed frustration with the speed and administrative burden of Medicaid and Medicare payments. (Ryan et al., 8/5)

American Association of Medical Colleges: Altering The Course: Black Males In Medicine
While many initiatives and programs supported by foundations, medical schools, and government have contributed to increasing diversity in the physician pipeline, the number of applicants from one major demographic group—black males—has not increased above the number from 1978. That year, 1,410 black males applied to medical school, and in 2014, just 1,337 applied. A similar trend is observed for firsttime matriculants: in 1978, there were 542 black male matriculants to MD-granting institutions, and in 2014, there were 515. ... This report captures the major themes from ... interviews [with black students, physicians and others] and highlights research and data ... to understand these trends and find broad-based solutions. (8/3)

The Kaiser Family Foundation: Health And Access To Care And Coverage For Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Individuals In The U.S.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals often face challenges and barriers to accessing needed health services and, as a result, can experience worse health outcomes. These challenges can include stigma, discrimination, violence, and rejection by families and communities, as well as other barriers, such as inequality in the workplace and health insurance sectors, the provision of substandard care, and outright denial of care .... This issue brief provides an overview of what is known about LGBT health status, coverage, and access in the United States, and reviews the implications of the [federal health law], the Supreme Court rulings on marriage equality, and other recent policy developments. (Kates et al., 7/30)

Here is a selection of news coverage of other recent research:

Reuters: Medicare Rule May Needlessly Extend Some Hospital Stays
A decades old Medicare rule requiring a three-day hospital stay before patients can transfer to skilled nursing facilities may needlessly prolong hospitalizations, a study suggests. Researchers compared the average time patients were hospitalized between 2006 and 2010 in privately administered Medicare Advantage health plans that either stuck to this rule or allowed people to transfer to skilled nursing facilities sooner. Lengths of hospital stays increased with the rule in place and declined when it was waived, the study found. (Rapaport, 8/4)

Reuters: Cutting Junior Doctors' Hours May Not Lower Risk Of Surgical Deaths
Restrictions on U.S. medical residents’ hours implemented in 2011 don’t appear to have significantly lowered the risk of death or serious injury from surgery, a recent study suggests. Researchers compared data on surgical outcomes one year before the duty hour reforms and two years afterwards for five specialties: neurosurgery, obstetrics/gynecology, orthopedics, urology and vascular surgery. While rates of death and injury did decline over the study period, the changes were so small they might have been due to chance. (Rapaport, 7/30)

CBS News: What Young Cancer Patients Aren't Being Told About Their Fertility
A cancer diagnosis is devastating for anyone, but for young people it comes with an added concern: the possibility that the disease or its treatment will leave them unable to have children. There are ways to help many young cancer patients preserve their fertility, but a new study finds patients often are not aware of the options. The study, published ... in the journal Cancer, finds young women, especially, may not receive enough information before treatments have already limited their options. (Seidman, 7/27)

Reuters: Obese Patients Face Long Odds Returning To A Healthy Weight
The odds are against obese men and women trying to get to a healthy weight, particularly if they are severely obese, a U.K. study suggests. Researchers followed 76,704 obese men and 99,791 obese women for up to nine years. In any given year during the study, the probability that a patient might achieve a normal body weight was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women. (Rapaport, 7/30)

The Wall Street Journal: The Republican Rumble
The field may be too large to fit in a single stage, but Republican voters should be pleased that they have several plausible would-be Presidents to choose from. ... [Donald Trump's] appeal is attitude, not substance. You know, the art of the deal. The limits of that kind of appeal came through when the businessman was asked about his past support for “single-payer,” or government-run, health care. He replied that it works well in other countries and would have worked well here in the past, though it wouldn’t now for reasons he didn’t explain. He then flopped around with an answer that seemed to be about letting companies negotiate insurance rates across state lines, which large corporations can do already. Individuals and small business are the prisoners of state insurance exchanges. ... Debates are rarely definitive, especially this early. But the forum served the useful purpose of giving voters a chance to size up the field side-by-side for the first time. (8/7)

The Washington Post: The First Republican Debate: The Trump Show, The Kasich Dissent And Everybody Else
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, playing on his home turf in Cleveland, stood out as decidedly different from all his foes. He was “compassionate conservatism” come back to life. A Republican who not only accepted the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare but actually fought for it, Kasich didn’t back away. Instead, he offered a passionate and spirited defense of the program and a description of the good it does. Praising Medicaid is something that’s just not done at GOP events. (E.J. Dionne Jr., 8/7)

Slate: A Republican Presidential Candidate Just Gave One Of The Most Stirring Defenses Of Medicaid You’ll Ever See
Unsurprisingly, moderator Megyn Kelly asked Kasich about his Medicaid move (and St. Peter argument). And, once again, he didn't back down, instead delivering one of the most succinct and stirring defenses of the health care program for America's poor that I've ever seen. (Jordan Weissmann, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Debunking Budget Myths Before They Become Part Of 2016 Campaign
Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits and thus should not be touched. While one might expect to hear this more at a Democratic candidate debate, some Republicans have been arguing this. The fact is, most beneficiaries get more out of these programs than they paid into them, as CBO’s most recent long-term budget outlook showed: on average 10% more from Social Security and 250% more out of Medicare. That goes well beyond any reasonable definition of “earned.” We will hear a lot about repealing Obamacare in the coming campaign cycle, so it’s worth noting: Full repeal of the Affordable Care Act would increase the debt. Congressional Budget Office estimates published in June showed that repeal could cost $100 billion to $350 billion over the next decade. There are many ways to change the law that would save considerable money, but identifying those measures will require more than a simple promise to repeal Obamacare. (Maya MacGuineas, 8/6)

The New York Times' Opinionator: It’s Time To Compensate Kidney Donors
Last week I wrote about Iran, the only country in the world that pays kidney donors. Iran shows that a kidney market need not resemble organ trafficking. Indeed, its market is closely regulated and has pre-empted the exploitative and abusive illegal markets found in many other countries. Iran’s program has flaws, such as lack of follow-up for donors and limited support for poor recipients, that are typical of an underdeveloped health system. But the program also has lessons for countries like the United States, where the wait for a kidney can be as long as a decade. ... In the United States, some prominent kidney doctors believe we might learn something from Iran. (Tina Rosenberg, 8/6)

The New York Times: Missing The Warnings On Legionnaires’ Disease
The recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx, the largest in New York City’s history, shows how little is known about the cooling towers for air-conditioning systems that are the main incubators of the disease-causing bacteria. Even more dismaying has been the city’s sluggishness in responding to early-warning signs of a potential health problem. (8/7)

The Charlotte Observer: Wos Steps Down, Not A Moment Too Soon
Usually when Aldona Wos makes headlines, it’s a bad sign for North Carolinians. She was back there Wednesday, though, and for once the news was good: She’s leaving. Gov. Pat McCrory’s health secretary announced that she wants to spend more time with her family. We’re sure she’s a wonderful wife and mother. But she was an overwhelmed leader of one of state government’s biggest departments. (8/6)

Roll Call: Dental Medicaid Hurdles Must Be Addressed
In the half century since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicaid into law, it has helped to transform the American health care system, providing access to care to many of our most vulnerable friends, neighbors and family members. But Congress left out a key component of good health care – dental care. While dental coverage is part of the Medicaid benefit package for children, it is optional for adults and many people on Medicaid suffer from poor oral health. It is time to close that gap. (Maxine Feinberg, 8/7)

The Chicago Sun-Times: Abortion Rights Founded On A Core Dishonesty
For decades, I believed that displaying grisly photographs of aborted babies was the wrong way to make the pro-life case. Disturbing images, I thought, would only repel viewers, not persuade them. I now think I was wrong. There are many ways to make an argument. The Center for Medical Progress has demonstrated that a 2 x 4 has its uses. The videos the Center has released, precisely because they are graphic, shatter the complacency and denial that are essential for a regime of mass violence to proceed. They undermine the reassuring fiction that birth is a bright moral line. Five seconds before the baby emerges, it has no moral worth. Five seconds after — all moral worth. That is untenable logically and pitiless psychologically. (Mona Charen, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: Setting A California Standard For EMT Certification In Fire Departments
An L.A. Times investigation published in March revealed that a quarter of Compton firefighters aren't certified as emergency medical technicians. This prompted the county to strip most of Compton's firetrucks of automated external defibrillators, a device than can mean the difference between life and death for someone in cardiac arrest. (8/6)

JAMA: The Arc Of Health Literacy
It is a troubling paradox. In the midst of rapid expansion of medical knowledge intended to benefit many, too few actually understand medical information well enough to improve their health. A landmark 2006 report notes that only about 12% of US adults had a proficient state of health literacy whereby “individuals can obtain, process and understand the basic health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions.” ... As a result, despite abundant messaging from health professionals, the media, the Internet, and other sources, too many patients still have difficulty with seemingly routine tasks such as taking the right medicine at the right time, properly self-managing diabetes, or correctly following hospital discharge instructions. ... Now, an array of forces has catalyzed a reframing of the field. (Howard K. Koh and Rima E. Rudd, 8/6)

The New England Journal of Medicine: Combating Emerging Threats — Accelerating The Availability Of Medical Therapies
Public health leaders need to take action before the next new threatening infectious disease emerges. One high-priority action will be the development and prepositioning of scientifically sound and widely accepted protocols by global public health authorities, to have them ready for use at the onset of a deadly outbreak wherever it strikes. In addition, work is needed to augment global clinical trial infrastructure, streamline processes for careful ethical review of multisite international studies, and establish model agreements for managing data and addressing intellectual property issues. If we are to act on lessons learned, there is no time to waste in getting this work done. (Luciana Borio, Edward Cox and Nicole Lurie, 8/5)