The New York Times: Trump Officials Scoff At ‘Medicare For All’ Drive
The Trump administration is hitting back against advocates of “Medicare for all” even as the proposal gains momentum among left-leaning Democrats in this election year. Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said on Thursday that the administration had a vision for “reforming the American health care system” that would shrink, not expand, the federal role. In a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Mr. Azar said that Medicare could barely afford to keep its current commitments. “Medicare is running out of other people’s money, and those other people happen to be our children,” he said. (Pear, 7/26)

Modern Healthcare: Azar Promises Continued Medicare Billing Overhaul, Regulatory Relief
HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday doubled down on promises to overhaul the Medicare billing structures to drive down government costs and vowed to put out new guidance for providers on the anti-kickback laws and HIPAA. HHS will write new guidance for laws that "stand in the way of healthcare providers" and hold back the healthcare system's transition to value-based care, Azar told a conservative audience at the Heritage Foundation. He also highlighted the CMS' new request for information on the Stark law and noted that additional requests are coming to prepare the administration as it overhauls anti-kickback and HIPAA rules. (Luthi, 7/26)

NPR: Medicare's 'Flat Fee' Payment Proposal Draws Ire Of Some Doctors And Patients
The Trump administration announced a plan Friday that would affect about 40 percent of the payments physicians receive from Medicare. Not everybody's pleased. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services calls its proposed plan a historic effort to reduce paperwork and improve patient care. But some doctors and advocates for patients fear it could be a disaster. (Bebinger, 7/27)

Modern Healthcare: Proposed Site-Neutral Payment Policy Sets The Stage For Battle Royale Between CMS, Hospitals 
As the CMS charts a path to level pay for outpatient services, it's also leading toward a head-to-head battle with powerful hospital lobbying groups as some providers win and lose with site-neutral payments. If the agency's 2019 proposal to pay the same rate for services delivered at off-campus hospital outpatient departments and independent doctors' offices is finalized, the CMS said it would save Medicare $610 million and patients about $150 million via lower co-payments. That represents about 1% of the around $75 billion hospitals receive a year from the CMS for outpatient services. (Kacik, 7/26)

The New York Times: Federal Authorities Say They Have Met Deadline To Reunite Migrant Families
The federal government reported Thursday that it would meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite the last “eligible” migrant families separated at the Southwest border, but hundreds of children remained in federal custody as a result of a contentious immigration policy that has drawn international condemnation. (Dickerson, Correal and Ferman, 7/26)

The Washington Post: Hundreds Of Migrant Children Remain In Custody, Though Most Separated Families Are Reunited At Court Deadline
But 711 children remain in government shelters because their parents have criminal records, their cases remain under review or the parents are no longer in the United States, officials said. The latter group includes 431 parents. Chris Meekins, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services, which has led the reunification effort, told reporters that “hundreds of staff have worked 24/7” to meet the court’s 30-day deadline. Administration officials said they would work with the court to figure out how to return the remaining children, including those whose parents have been deported. (Miroff and Schmidt, 7/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Government Rushes To Meet Family-Reunification Deadline
Several immigrant advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Kids in Need of Defense, said they remained concerned the government’s reunification efforts weren’t going far enough. Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer handling the group’s lawsuit that prompted the reunifications, said his organization was still waiting for information about which parents and children had been brought back together and where they were. “The Trump administration is trying to sweep them under the rug by unilaterally picking and choosing who is eligible for reunification,” Mr. Gelernt said. “We will continue to hold the government accountable and get these families back together.” (Caldwell and Campo-Flores, 7/26)

The Hill: Hundreds Of Migrant Children Still Separated From Parents As Deadline Nears 
Officials with HHS and DHS said the children are in custody for a variety of reasons, and not solely because of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance policy." Administration officials also disputed reports that the parents who waived their unification rights did not have a choice in the matter. Immigration activists have said they are also concerned parents might have signed away their rights without knowing what they were doing. (Wheeler and Weixel, 7/26)

The Associated Press: US Government: Over 1,800 Migrant Kids Reunited By Deadline
Shy children were given a meal and a plane or bus ticket to locations around the U.S. as non-profit groups tried to smooth the way for kids reunited with their parents as a deadline loomed following their separations at the U.S. Mexico border. The Trump administration said Thursday that more than 1,800 children 5 years and older had been reunited with parents or sponsors hours before the deadline. That included 1,442 children who were returned to parents who were in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and another 378 who were released under a variety of other circumstances. (Spagat, Long and Snow, 7/27)

Reuters: Reunited Family's Next Challenge: Fighting For U.S. Asylum
Maria Marroquin Perdomo fretted as she waited with her 11-year-old son, Abisai, in the New Orleans International Airport. A day earlier, the mother and son had been reunited in Texas after being separated by U.S. immigration officials for more than a month, an ordeal that followed a harrowing journey from Honduras. Now they awaited another reunion: With the father Abisai had not seen in person since he was an infant. (Thevenot and Elliott, 7/26)

ProPublica: “Hidden In Plain Sight”: Hundreds Of Immigrants And Teens Housed In Opaque Network Of Chicago-Area Shelters
As the Trump administration has come under fire in recent weeks for its zero tolerance immigration crackdown, much attention has focused on the children and conditions at shelters along the country’s southern border and in major metropolitan areas on the coasts. ...The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services cited Heartland for a supervision violation after an employee was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor at the International Children’s Crisis Center in Bronzeville in 2015. (Cohen, Eldelb and Sanchez, 7/27)

The New York Times: Chaos Marks Effort To Reunite Separated Families, New York Officials Say
The children first came to New York in the dark and some left that way, too. Others, after much confusion, did not leave at all. As the federal government raced to meet a deadline on Thursday to reunite parents and children separated at the Southwest border, New York officials and lawyers for the children described the efforts as chaotic and contradictory, leaving many families still divided. (Robbins, 7/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Children Grapple With Trauma Of Deportation, As Experts Struggle To Find Solutions 
With violence, migration and, in some cases, forced separation, comes trauma. Cities with significant populations of Central American migrants like New Orleans are having to grapple with the demand for specialized mental health resources, especially in the pediatric sector. Experts say they generally see this trauma occur across three primary points of time: violence experienced in the child's country of origin, any adverse experiences that occur along the journey, and the stress of resettlement in the United States. (Lopez, 7/26)

Chicago Tribune: Naperville Father, Facing Deportation, Fights To Stay In U.S. To Help Care For Daughter Who Has Spina Bifida 
Joyce Medina, who turns 3 this fall, proudly showed off her new red wheelchair, slowly pushing its small wheels across the wood floor of her Naperville home and looking up at the adults in the room for their approval. When her shyness took over, Joyce crawled to her father, Alejandro Medina Franco, and was lifted into his lap, her brown eyes peeking out from his embrace. On many days, Medina Franco rises at 5:30 a.m., either to go to work as a landscaper or to prepare to take Joyce to her latest appointment in Chicago, where a collection of specialists treats her severe spina bifida. (Coen, 7/26)

In other news, a poll finds a stark communication barrier for when Hispanic patients seek care —

The Associated Press: AP-NORC Poll: Latinos Health Care Communication Woes
Nearly 6 in 10 Hispanic adults have had a difficult time communicating with a health care provider because of a language or cultural barrier, and when they do they often turn to outside sources for help, according to a new study conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (Swanson and Contreras, 7/27)

Modern Healthcare: Democratic Attorneys General Sue To Block Association Health Plan Rule 
Twelve Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration Thursday to block a new rule making it easier for small firms and individuals to band together in association health plans free from many Affordable Care Act market rules. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged the final rule issued by the U.S. Department of Labor last month violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. (Meyer, 7/26)

Boston Globe: Healey Leads 12-State Lawsuit Against Department Of Labor For New Regulation
The complaint, filed Thursday in US District Court in Washington D.C., contends that the US Department of Labor’s regulation “would allow associations to market low-quality health care plans across the country and avoid the protections for consumers in the Affordable Care Act,” according to a statement from Healey’s office. (Cote, 7/27)

The Hill: States Sue Trump Administration Over Expansion Of Skimpy Group Insurance Plans 
Association health plans allow small businesses and other groups to band together to buy health insurance. The rule allows more groups to join together to form associations. The move is part of a broader Trump administration effort to open up skimpier, cheaper plans as an alternative to ObamaCare plans. (Weixel, 7/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Sues Trump Administration Over Small-Business Health Policy
The Labor Department said the plans will not deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or charge them more, and will help employers control health care costs. The 11 other attorneys general joining with California’s represent New York, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington state. (Ho, 7/26)

The Hill: House Dems Pressure GOP On Pre-Existing Conditions Protections
A resolution backed by top House Democrats would allow the House to intervene in a pending federal lawsuit to defend the legality of ObamaCare. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), mirrors one introduced in the Senate last week and is aimed squarely at congressional Republicans. (Weixel, 7/26)

In other health law news —

The Hill: Congressional Watchdog Finds Energy Dept. Violated Law With Anti-ObamaCare Tweet 
A congressional watchdog agency found Thursday that the Department of Energy violated the law last year with a negative tweet about ObamaCare. The report from the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, finds that the Department of Energy violated the law because its funding is not directed to be used for health-care messaging. (Sullivan, 7/26)

The Hill: Modest Premium Increases Hurt Democrats’ Midterm Messaging
Health insurers are proposing relatively modest premium bumps for next year, despite doomsday predictions from Democrats that the Trump administration’s changes to ObamaCare would bring massive increases in 2019. That could make it a challenge for Democrats looking to weaponize rising premiums heading into the midterm elections. (Hellmann, 7/26)

Nashville Tennessean: Health Insurance Marketplace Options Expanding In Tennessee Next Year
Next year, Tennessee consumers will have more options for coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, as carriers reverse the trend of previous years and re-enter or expand in the state’s individual market. Right now, five different insurance carriers have filed with the state to sell individual health plans in 2019. This is the most carriers selling in Tennessee’s individual market since 2016. (Tolbert, 7/26)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Congress And Health Care. Again.
Almost exactly a year after the GOP-led Senate killed a bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, the Republican House this week passed bills that would tinker around the edges of the health law. While none of the bills is expected to pass the Senate, House Republicans hope their action can help blunt Democratic attacks over health care in the midterm elections this fall. Meanwhile, officials in Washington continue to react to recent court decisions regarding work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries and payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act. (7/26)

USA Today: Hospitals Know How To Protect Mothers. They Just Aren’t Doing It.
Every year, thousands of women suffer life-altering injuries or die during childbirth because hospitals and medical workers skip safety practices known to head off disaster, a USA TODAY investigation has found. Doctors and nurses should be weighing bloody pads to track blood loss so they recognize the danger sooner. They should be giving medication within an hour of spotting dangerously high blood pressure to fend off strokes. These are not complicated procedures requiring expensive technology. They are among basic tasks that experts have recommended for years because they can save mothers’ lives. (Young, 7/26)

USA Today: Deadly Deliveries: How Hospitals Are Failing Mothers In 13 Graphics
The U.S. healthcare system is one of the most expensive in the world. Yet America’s maternal death rate is the highest among developed nations. (7/26)

USA Today: 'Mommy Went To Heaven'
Like thousands of women facing childbirth emergencies every year, YoLanda Mention didn’t get the care recommended by leading experts for new mothers experiencing severe high blood pressure, according to court records. Now, her family goes on without her. (Young, 7/26)

USA Today: Deadly Deliveries: “I Am One Of The 50,000” (Videos)
Women from across the country retell harrowing stories of surviving life-threatening complications during childbirth. (7/26)

In other women's health news —

Politico: Texas Anti-Abortion Group Tacks To The Right, Dividing State Republicans
Texas Right to Life’s attempts to move the state Legislature further to the right are faltering this election season. And that may be just fine with some conservative and rival anti-abortion groups. The group's political action committee spent $2 million backing 17 challengers to incumbent state House and Senate lawmakers. Only three won their March primaries. Meanwhile, the group's attacks on lawmakers with strong anti-abortion records and free spending are stirring questions about whether it's more beholden to deep-pocketed donors and their agendas than to its core mission. (Rayasam, 7/26)

KQED: California May Soon Be First State To Require Public Universities To Offer Abortion Pills
A bill advancing in the Legislature would make California the first in the nation to require that abortion pills be available at on-campus health centers. The legislation, which has passed the Senate and is advancing in the Assembly, would mandate that all California State University and University of California campuses make the prescription abortion drug RU 486 available at their on-campus student health centers by Jan. 1, 2022. (Castillo, 7/26)

Kansas City Star: Missouri Passes Bill To Require 3D Mammogram Coverage
Starting next month, all health insurers in Missouri will be required to cover 3D mammograms, as well as the traditional flat images. ...The medical community isn’t in total agreement, but a consensus is growing among specialists that 3D is the way to go for spotting breast cancer. (Marso, 7/27)

People: Woman Dies Days After Giving Birth As Medics Assumed She Can't Afford Ambulance Ride, Mom Claims
A mother of three from Florida died days after experiencing a stroke, and the four paramedics who arrived on scene have now been suspended after an investigation revealed they mishandled the response, PEOPLE confirms. In the early morning hours of July 4, Nicole Black found her daughter, 30-year-old Crystle Galloway, unresponsive in a bathtub just six days after she had given birth to a son via cesarean. When Galloway regained consciousness a short time later and complained about her head, Black quickly called emergency services and explained that her daughter was breathing but was “drooling from the mouth,” she told the Tampa Bay Times. (Hahn, 6/27)

The Fiscal Times: How Much Does Fear Of Malpractice Lawsuits Drive Health Care Costs?
Now, a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Duke University law professor Michael Frakes and MIT health care economist Jonathan Gruber puts a number on it, finding that fear of lawsuits increases the intensity, and cost, of inpatient hospital care by 5 percent, without benefiting patient health. The researchers reached their conclusion by finding a control group who could not sure for malpractice: active-duty military members treated in the military health care system. (Rosenberg, 7/25)

PBS NewsHour: Millennials Rack Up The Most Medical Debt, And More Frequently
People often imagine medical debt as something that comes from late-life catastrophic illness. But a recent study shows millennials carry a greater amount of this kind of debt than older Americans, and incur it more frequently. (Santhanam, 7/26)

And Kaiser Health News' Bill Of The Month involves a transgender woman's surgery —

Kaiser Health News: A Transgender Woman’s Quest For Surgery Caught In Political Crosswinds
With the country on course to enshrine the rights of transgender Americans, Wren Vetens introduced herself as a woman for the first time in January 2016, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. After being raised as a boy and grappling with her gender identity for years, it felt liberating to be referred to as “she.” Vetens, who is now 24, began taking hormones to develop female characteristics that spring, as the Obama administration unveiled a landmark rule barring most health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity, under peril of losing federal funding. (Huetteman, 7/26)

Kaiser Health News: A Transgender Woman’s ‘Bait-And-Switch’ $92,000 Surgery Bill
Wren Vetens thought she’d done everything possible to prepare for her surgery. She chose a doctoral program in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a school that not only embraced transgender students like her, but also granted insurance coverage for her gender confirmation surgery when she enrolled in 2016. When uncertainty over the fate of an Obama-era anti-discrimination rule allowed the state to discontinue such coverage, Vetens and her mother, Dr. Kimberly Moreland, an OB-GYN, shopped for another plan. (Huetteman, 7/26)

The Washington Post: Fentanyl-Related Deaths Continue ‘Staggering’ Rise In Maryland
The number of fentanyl-related deaths in Maryland reached an all-time high in 2017 and is on track to continue increasing in 2018, officials said, part of a nationwide overdose epidemic being driven by the powerful synthetic drug. Maryland fatalities caused by fentanyl jumped 42 percent from 2016 to 2017 — from 1,119 to 1,594 — even as deaths related to heroin use declined, according to data released by the Maryland Department of Health on Thursday. (Chason, 7/26)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland's Drug-Related Deaths Increase For Seventh Straight Year, Reach All-Time High In 2017 
It was the seventh year drug fatalities rose in the state, emphasizing the difficulty law enforcement and health officials have had in stemming the epidemic. “This is an escalating epidemic,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana S. Wen. “But still we don’t even see the peak of this epidemic yet.” Baltimore is its epicenter with 761 deaths last year, the most of any jurisdiction. (McDaniels, 7/26)

The New York Times: Clean, Sober And $41,000 Deep In Out-Of-Pocket Addiction Recovery Costs
Tess Henry’s family paid $12,000 for 30 days of rehab from opioid addiction. She had done two more cycles of treatment without achieving sobriety. So her family agreed to pay $20,000 for 28 days of more rehab. But they never got the chance. A few days after assuring her mother that she planned to fly to Virginia to resume treatment, Ms. Henry was murdered. (Moore, 7/26)

And in other news —

KCUR: Jackson County Joins Ever-Mounting Litigation Over Opioid Epidemic 
Jackson County has become the latest government body to sue drug companies and distributors for their alleged complicity in the opioid epidemic. The suit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in Kansas City, names dozens of businesses, including drug giants like Johnson & Johnson and pharmacies like CVS. It says at least 308 people in Jackson County died of opioid overdoses between 2013 and 2017. (Margolies, 7/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Drug Giant McKesson Has More Than Just An Opioids Problem
It’s been 18 months since McKesson, the San Francisco pharmaceutical drug distributor — and one of the largest public companies in America — was hit with a record $150 million in fines from the Drug Enforcement Administration for failing to report suspicious orders for controlled substances. ... Analysts say McKesson, like other middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain, is facing so many other headwinds that the potential liability from opioids lawsuits is just one of a litany of problems that make for a bleak future. (Ho, 7/26)

Stateline: ‘My Soul And My Role Aligned’ — How Hospice Workers Deal With Death 
As more Americans opt for hospice care, keeping hospice workers dedicated, replenished and content is a growing concern. The number of hospice patients grew 167 percent between 2000 and 2016, to more than 1.4 million, according to a March 2018 report from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which provides Congress with analyses regarding Medicare. Nearly half of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2015 had received hospice services. (Ollove, 7/26)

Los Angeles Times: Precision Medicine Offers A Glimmer Of Hope For Alzheimer's Disease
The decades-long search for effective ways to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease is littered with failures, leaving 5.7 million Americans already stricken with this form of dementia without a lifeline. The rest of us are left to hope we won’t be among the 1 in 10 over 65 who gets the devastating diagnosis. But precision medicine — an approach that is changing the treatment of cancer and spawning targeted therapies for a wide range of diseases — may open new avenues for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. And new ways to test experimental treatments promise to more quickly identify treatments that work, and perhaps the patients in whom they will work best. (Healy, 7/26)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: CDC Study Shows What AIDS Advocates Already Knew
According to the CDC’s own statistics, there are 15,000 people in metro Atlanta who are living with HIV but don’t know their status; there has been an almost 90 percent increase of new HIV infections in the African-American community alone, again predominantly gay and bisexual men, ages 13-24; one in two gay black men will be impacted by HIV in their lifetime; Georgia ranks fifth in the nation for new HIV infections and, in metro Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb counties rank No. 1 and 2, respectively, in the state. ...Without CDC funding, AID Atlanta was forced to halt its Evolution program, which did outreach to gay black men, and lay off its four staff members. (Bonds Staples, 7/27)

Stat: Artificial Hip Maker Demands Retraction Of A Paper Faulting Its Research
Last December, Brown University’s Dr. David Egilman and colleagues published a scholarly paper that identified serious flaws in a study of a hip prosthesis, and accused the medical device maker DePuy — a wholly owned subsidiary of J&J — of “grave fraudulence.” “J&J/DePuy violated the study protocol and manipulated data; consented participants in violation of standards protecting human subjects; and did not secure Institutional Review Board approval for all study sites,” they wrote about a clinical trial of the companies’ Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip replacement system, which was taken off the market in 2013 after many patients had to have the artificial hips removed. (Oransky and Marcus, 7/27)

MPR: All-Plant Impossible Burger And Its 'Blood' Are Safe, FDA Says
The Impossible Burger — a plant-based patty that mimics cow meat's bleeding — got the federal Food and Drug Administration's blessing this week in a letter saying the agency had "no questions" regarding the safety of the ingredient that makes the burger bleed. ... There had been safety and allergen concerns regarding the burger's soy leghemoglobin. (Nelson, 7/26)

Marketplace: The EPA Says TCE Causes Cancer, So Why Hasn't It Been Banned?
The federal government, on the verge of banning some uses of a carcinogenic industrial chemical at the close of the Obama administration, has delayed action under President Donald Trump and kept the chemical on the market. The chemical, trichloroethylene (or TCE) has long been used for degreasing and cleaning metal parts in factories, but has been classified a “human carcinogen” by the Environmental Protection Agency since 2011. (Tong, 7/26)

St. Louis Public Radio: The Weight Of Trauma: Racial Profiling On Black Citizens Has Lasting Effects
A study from the Journal of Mental Health Counselling found that 81 percent of the African-Americans who reported racial discrimination were more likely to experience symptoms of PTSD. The 10 Wash U students are just the latest to experience racial profiling in metro St. Louis. (Davis, 7/27)

The Washington Post: Providence Hospital In Northeast D.C. Will End Acute-Care Services
A hospital in Northeast Washington that serves many low-income residents announced Wednesday it will end acute-care services by the end of the year. Providence Hospital, a 283-bed facility in Ward 5’s Michigan Park neighborhood, said it will shift its focus to other services, including primary and urgent care, home care, community-based behavioral health care and senior care. Hospital officials issued a statement about the changes but declined to comment further Thursday. (Moyer, 7/26)

The Star Tribune: 2nd Neglect Death Blamed On Mpls. Care Provider; Dementia Client Found In Snowbank 
State investigators are faulting the operators of a Minneapolis assisted-living residence for the death of a 76-year-old dementia client who sneaked outside on a winter afternoon and was found hours later in a snowbank. Kum Sun Melcher, 76, slipped out of the Golden Nest residence in early March and was located nearby suffering from extreme hypothermia. (Walsh and Serres, 7/26)

Tampa Bay Times: Health Care Company Sues To Get Rick Scott’s Schedule
On Thursday, Aids Healthcare Foundation filed a lawsuit against Scott, accusing the Republican governor of violating the Florida public records law. They are asking the Leon County Circuit Court to order him to produce the records or, at least, review the records behind closed doors to determine whether the governor is right to keep them exempt. (Klas, 7/26)

The CT Mirror: DOC Commissioner Sued Twice In A Week Over Prisoners' Health Care
The commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Correction was sued twice this week, an indication of persistent concerns about the quality of medical care being provided to inmates. The most recent lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges that a 19-year-old man died after he repeatedly asked for medical attention he never received. (Rigg, 7/27)

Des Moines Register: Mercy's Clive Psychiatric Hospital Gains State Approval
Mental health advocates applauded Thursday after state regulators unanimously approved a psychiatric hospital to ease a chronic shortage of care for central Iowans in crisis. The 100-bed Mercy psychiatric hospital is to be built in Clive, where some neighbors last month raised fears that it could pose a danger to their children. Mental health experts said those fears were unfounded, and no opponents spoke at a hearing Thursday before the Iowa Health Facilities Council. (Leys, 7/26)

Bloomberg: Community Health Has Full Backing Of Top Holder Despite Share Slide 
Community Health Systems Inc. may be on life support, but its largest shareholder isn’t ready to pull the plug. That may be little comfort to other investors who bought in three years ago, when shares were trading above $50. It opened at just over $3 today. But Shanda Asset Management Holdings Chairman Tianqiao Chen said in an interview the hospital chain is on the right track and a turnaround is a matter of when, not if. (Darie, 7/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: 'A Done Deal?' Officials Work To Quell Skepticism Over Charity Hospital Redevelopment 
New Orleans residents attending a kickoff meeting to launch an economic development district around historic Charity Hospital on Wednesday (July 25) said they are concerned about how serious the state is about gathering public input. In less than a month, three developers will submit proposals outlining how they'd reuse the 1.2 million-square-foot former hospital to the LSU Foundation, which is leading the redevelopment effort for the state. Reinvigorating the neighborhood around the vacant building is a larger economic development effort being led by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, which is attempting to use the hospital's renovation as a catalyst. (Litten, 7/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: The Future Of Charity Hospital: Read 3 Developers' Initial Pitches 
The LSU Foundation on Thursday (July 26) released three developers' initial pitches to qualify for redeveloping the abandoned Charity Hospital, one day after local nonprofit officials held the first public meeting to discuss reinvigorating the area around the hospital. The foundation released interest letters submitted by the three developers who've been chosen to compete for the renovation of the 1.2 million-square-foot historic hospital. Their final proposals -- which are expected to provide full details of how each would redevelop the property -- aren't due until Aug. 20. (Litten, 7/26)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Lead Screening In Cleveland Schools Reveals High Levels In 11 Percent Of Kids
A partnership focused on increasing the number of Cleveland school children screened for potential lead poisoning resulted in a finding of high levels of the toxin in 11 percent of kids tested at four area elementary schools. The Partners in Health lead screening project, a collaborative of the city, Cleveland Municipal School District and students from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, has tested 156 children ages 3 to 5 years old since September. (Zeltner, 7/27)

The Washington Post: Hookworms Burrowed Into A Teenager’s Skin, Causing A Painful Condition
Kelli Mulhollen Dumas said she thought the small, red bumps on her son's skin were bites from chiggers or mosquitoes. Her son, Michael, had just returned from Florida, and she knew he had spent a lot of time outdoors. But within days, she said, the 17-year-old had several more spots — then “his whole backside” was covered. Ultimately, Dumas said, areas on her son's feet, legs and buttocks were covered in a red, itchy rash — the telltale sign of certain type of hookworm, a parasite that can infect both animals and humans. (Bever, 7/26)

Pioneer Press: Former State Employee Sues Minnesota Department Of Health For ‘Toxic’ Work Culture In Whistle-Blower Lawsuit 
A former state government employee who claims she was fired after raising concerns about what she said was a “toxic” work environment is taking her case to court. Nancy Omondi, the former division director for the Minnesota Department of Health’s Health Regulation Division, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the state department in Ramsey County District Court this week. The suit seeks more than $50,000 in damages and alleges that the agency took retaliatory action against Omondi after she attempted to expose a “toxic” culture of bullying within her division as well as “illegal conduct” taking place within the department’s Office of Health Facility Complaints, the suit says. (Harner, 7/26)

New Hampshire Public Radio: State Gets $11.1M From EPA For Water Infrastructure Upgrades
New Hampshire will get more than $11 million from the Environmental Protection Agency this year for drinking water infrastructure upgrades. The state gets at least $8 million a year from the federal Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. (Ropeik, 7/26)

Miami Herald: FL Autism Therapists Accused Of Medicaid Fraud
Six behavioral therapists from a company with offices in Miami Lakes and Fort Lauderdale billed the state for “impossible” days of service that at times would have meant they worked for more than 24 hours in a day, state investigators concluded as part of a Medicaid fraud inquiry. The therapists, who mostly work with low-income children with autism and other developmental disabilities, were terminated from Medicaid last week. (Chang, 7/26)

Wyoming Public Media: Groups Call For Better Protections For Workers In Extreme Heat
A coalition of advocacy and labor groups have sent a petition to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). They’re calling for specific standards to protect construction, farm and other outdoor laborers from extreme heat. Right now there are no specific protections in place. Over 130 organizations and individuals, including former OSHA officials and the United Farmworkers Union, have signed onto the petition. (Budner, 7/26)

Health Affairs: Transgender And Cisgender US Veterans Have Few Health Differences
Transgender people have been able to serve openly in the military since June 2016. However, the administration of President Donald Trump has signaled its interest in reinstating a ban on transgender military service. In March 2018 President Trump issued a revised memorandum that stated, in part, that people with a “history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria” who “may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery—are disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances.” Whether and how the health of transgender service members differs from that of cisgender service members (that is, those who identify with their sex assigned at birth) is largely unknown. (Downing et al, 7/9)

Urban Institute: Public Spending On Children In Five Charts
How our government spends money—and who benefits—reflects our national priorities, but it’s not always clear where our tax dollars are going. In these five charts, we take a look at federal and state spending on children through programs and tax reductions. Children can’t vote or lobby for public resources, but their well-being and development affect the future economic and social health of the country. Investing in their health, education, and stability should be a national priority. So how much are we devoting to the kids’ share of public spending. (7/18)

The New England Journal of Medicine: Evaluation Of Medicare’s Bundled Payments Initiative For Medical Conditions
We used Medicare claims from 2013 through 2015 to identify admissions for the five most commonly selected medical conditions in BPCI [Bundled Payments for Care Improvement]: congestive heart failure (CHF), pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sepsis, and acute myocardial infarction (AMI). ... At baseline, the average Medicare payment per episode of care across the five conditions at BPCI hospitals was $24,280, which decreased to $23,993 during the intervention period .... Control hospitals had an average payment for all episodes of $23,901, which decreased to $23,503 during the intervention period .... Changes from baseline to the intervention period in clinical complexity, length of stay, emergency department use or readmission within 30 or 90 days after hospital discharge, or death within 30 or 90 days after admission did not differ significantly between the intervention and control hospitals.(Joynt Maddox et al., 7/19)

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: Most Americans – Across Parties – Say 2018 Candidates’ Position On Pre-Existing Condition Protections Will Matter To Their Vote; Do Not Want Supreme Court To Overturn These ACA Protections
With less than four months to go until the Congressional midterm general election, a candidate’s position on continuing protections for people with pre-existing health conditions is at the forefront of the many health care issues on voters’ minds, finds the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll.Continuing pre-existing condition protections ranks first among six other candidate positions on health care issues with 63 percent of voters rating it the “most important” or a “very important” factor. Pre-existing condition protections rank highly across party identification, with majorities of Democratic (74%), independent (64%) and half of Republican (49%) voters saying a candidate’s position on this issue is either the “most important factor” in their vote or “very important, but not the most important factor.” (7/25)

JAMA: Effect Of Escitalopram Vs Placebo Treatment For Depression On Long-Term Cardiac Outcomes In Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial
In this randomized clinical trial that included 300 patients with recent acute coronary syndrome and depression, 24-week treatment with escitalopram compared with placebo resulted in an occurrence of major adverse cardiac outcomes of 40.9% vs 53.6% after a median follow-up of 8.1 years, a difference that was statistically significant. (Kim et al, 7/24)

JAMA Oncology: Association Of Circulating Tumor Cells With Late Recurrence Of Estrogen Receptor–Positive Breast Cancer: A Secondary Analysis Of A Randomized Clinical Trial
A single positive CTC assay result 5 years after diagnosis of hormone receptor–positive breast cancer provided independent prognostic information for late clinical recurrence, which provides proof of concept that liquid-based biomarkers may be used to risk stratify for late recurrence and guide therapy. (Sparano et al, 7/26)

CNN: Congress Should Force Trump To Fix Child Separation Outrage 
July 26th was the court-mandated deadline for the administration to reunify children between the ages of 5 and 17 with their parents. But the Trump administration has failed to meet that deadline. According to the administration's own data, as many as 463 parents have already been deported. Those parents and their children may never be reunited. The media may have moved on to new crises over Russia or Iran, but this does not mean that this crisis has been solved. As the Congress, we must ensure the Trump administration reunites every single family that it has separated, and without further delay. (Rep. Rosa DeLauro, 7/26)

The Houston Chronicle: Hold Trump Administration Accountable For Its Failure To Meet The Reunification Deadline 
We’ve reached the court-ordered deadline for the Trump administration to reunify families separated under its zero-tolerance policy. Expect federal officials and government attorneys to argue that they have returned all “eligible” children to their parents. Expect them to reason that, by doing so, they met the deadline imposed by Southern District of California Judge Dana Sabraw. Don’t believe the hype. (7/27)

Los Angeles Times: Why Did The Trump Administration Blow Its Family Reunification Deadline? Cruelty, Pure And Simple
The failure of the U.S. government to reverse the kidnapping of thousands of children from their parents has been chalked up to incompetence. People want to believe that this act of extraordinary cruelty — and the Trump administration’s inability to fix it — stems from our leaders’ lack of experience or common sense. But this too is a failure — of our collective imagination. The separation of children from their parents at the Southwest border is not simply a policy that has resulted in immeasurable harm, but a policy designed to inflict it. The government blew its Thursday deadline to reunite these families because it never intended to do so. (Brian Schatz, 7/27)

Boston Globe: Kentucky’s Crusade To Strip Health Coverage From Its Most Vulnerable Citizens
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that state governments are the laboratories of democracy. These days in Kentucky, it looks more like a torture chamber. The state’s Republican governor, Matt Bevin, is seemingly on a political crusade to take health care coverage away from hundreds of thousands of his state’s most vulnerable citizens. Earlier this year, Kentucky became the first state in the country to receive approval from the Trump administration to impose work requirements on its citizens who receive Medicaid benefits. (Michael A. Cohen, 7/26)

Des Moines Register: Nursing Home Industry Wins Big, But Seniors Lose Under Trump
Iowa was among the states that helped send Donald Trump to the White House. Voters ages 65 and older preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton 53 percent to 45 percent nationally. What do older Iowans have to look forward to now? The list includes nursing homes that are not held accountable when they abuse you, ignore you, drop you, give you the wrong medication or mistreat you in other ways. In the first year of the Trump administration, federal fines imposed on Iowa nursing homes in response to wrongdoing dropped by half, according to a review by Register reporter Clark Kauffman. Homes were fined $2.3 million in 2017, compared to $4.3 million during the last year of the Obama administration. In 2016, Iowa facilities were some of the worst in the nation with regard to serious, repeat-offense violations that caused harm to patients or placed residents in immediate jeopardy. And they didn’t suddenly improve when Trump took office. The number of violations that triggered fines actually increased his first year. Yet the penalties, on average, were half what they were the previous year. (7/26)

Stat: Hospital Compare Lifts The Veil On Sepsis Care. Check Your Hospital's Score
To help ensure timely, consistent, and high-quality care for sepsis patients, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted in 2015 the Sepsis National Hospital Inpatient Quality Measure (SEP-1) that had been developed by the National Quality Forum. This metric assesses hospitals’ timely treatment of sepsis, which costs more than $27 billion annually. Going a step further, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday began publishing sepsis treatment statistics for all hospitals across the country. This is the first time that this information is being made publicly available. (Steve Claypool, 7/26)

The New York Times: A Front-Page Insult To People With Disabilities
It is one of the distinct pleasures of urban life to be able to wake up on an otherwise fine summer morning, make yourself a cup of coffee, then choke on it at the sight of the front page of your local tabloid. But the cover of The New York Post on Thursday — the 28th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act — was more shocking than usual. It promoted a damaging misperception about people with disabilities, on a day better suited to celebrating their progress in one of the most neglected areas of American civil rights. (Peter Catapano, 7/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Washington Is Biased Against Babies
Unlike many other developed nations that seek to stimulate births, the U.S.—whose TFR is 1.87, below the 2.1 “replacement rate”—does not have an explicit population policy. Nor does government seem to weigh the costs and benefits of reduced fertility when debating any policy. For this reason, you might think that U.S. policy is agnostic when it comes to fertility. But at least in practice, U.S. policy tends to be antifertility. The federal government funds family-planning services through Medicaid and Title X. Abortion legalization has been shown to have reduced fertility considerably.While a woman’s ability to control her fertility is fundamental, we note a striking absence of policies that promote fertility. (Leonard M. Lopoo and Kerri Raissian, 7/25)

New England Journal of Medicine: Tickborne Diseases — Confronting A Growing Threat
Every spring, public health officials prepare for an upsurge in vectorborne diseases. As mosquito-borne illnesses have notoriously surged in the Americas, the U.S. incidence of tickborne infections has risen insidiously, triggering heightened attention from clinicians and researchers.Common Ticks Associated with Lyme Disease in North America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of reported cases of tickborne disease has more than doubled over the past 13 years. Bacteria cause most tickborne diseases in the United States, and Lyme disease accounts for 82% of reported cases, although other bacteria (including Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Rickettsia rickettsii) and parasites (such as Babesia microti) also cause substantial morbidity and mortality. (Catharine I. Paules, Hilary D. Marston, Marshall E. Bloom and Anthony S. Fauci, 7/25)

Stat: As The Dark Side Of IVF Slowly Comes Into Focus, Even More Transparency Is Needed
After several years of pumping my body full of hormones for monitored cycles and treatments, my husband and I had spent nearly $50,000 without the joy of having a child. Unlike the pictures of smiling parents and their new babies posted on clinic websites and social media feeds, I came away from IVF at 40 with a battered heart and bloated body, a biohazard container full of spent syringes, and a folder containing fuzzy black and white images of embryos that were never to blossom into children. I spent the next decade researching IVF, writing about it, and getting to know women and men around the world who were also traumatized by their experiences with IVF. Not surprisingly, they have not sought the spotlight, as reliving the experience can be excruciating. Some have been barred from speaking publicly because of lawsuit settlements. (Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, 7/27)

The Hill: High Hopes For President Trump’s Drug Pricing Plan
In May, the President gave his first major speech on lowering drug prices, making good on his campaign promise to go after drug makers to get lower prices for consumers. ... Now he will need to follow through to take on the driver of costs: Prescription drug companies. If drug pricing reform ends up just being angry tweets at companies that raise prices and rules that tie the hands of companies trying to negotiate discounts, President Trump will have missed an opportunity to score a victory on an issue that is critically important to American families. (Michael Steele, 7/26)

Stat: Flexible Electronics Are The Key To A Human 'Check Engine' Light
You probably know more about the health of your car than you know about your own health. When your car needs an oil change or a part is malfunctioning, embedded computers instantly let you know there is an issue. A similar “check engine” light remains the elusive grail of human health. New developments in patient recovery and health monitoring devices make me believe it will soon be within our grasp. (Jason Marsh, 7/27)

Austin American-Statesman: Budget Savings Shouldn’t Come At Texas Foster Kids' Expense
Faced with mounting anecdotal evidence that some foster children in Texas aren’t getting the medical services they need under the state’s Medicaid system, officials have started to quantify the scope of the problem. The early numbers are distressing — and they underscore the need for the Legislature to provide more funding and better safeguards for foster children in this critical program. (7/26)

Sacramento Bee: To Overcome Opioid Crisis, California Needs Legislators Who Will Be Real Leaders
Addressing the growing opioid epidemic in California will require our state elected officials to do more than author bills in Sacramento. While legislation is important, we need leaders to be the voices that draw those suffering with addiction out of darkness and despair and into the light of needed, quality treatment. (Pete Nielsen, 7/26)