The New York Times: How Trump’s Plan For Immigrants On Welfare Could Hurt A Million New Yorkers
Buying fresh vegetables for children, heating an apartment, using Medicaid to manage diabetes. Those are all legal means of support provided by the government for low-income residents of the United States. But a new rule in the works from the Trump administration would make it difficult, if not impossible, for immigrants who use those benefits to obtain green cards. New York City officials estimated that at least a million people here could be hurt by this plan, warning that the children of immigrants seeking green cards would be most vulnerable. (Robbins, 8/13)

Seattle Times: As Trump Considers Penalties, Seattle-Area Immigrants Turn Down Public Benefits They’re Entitled To Claim 
A new wave of fear is running through immigrant communities. So far, the Trump administration has adopted policies cracking down on those living here illegally. Now, it is turning its attention to immigrants here legally who it contends are a drain on taxpayer money. According to leaked documents, the Department of Homeland Security plans to propose a rule making it harder for some immigrants to stay here if they or family members have used any of a wide array of public benefits, including food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized insurance through the Affordable Care Act, support for pregnant women and new mothers, housing vouchers and the earned income tax credit. (Shapiro, 8/12)

Meanwhile, in other news —

NPR: Judge Pleased With Government Effort But Hundreds Of Children Still In Custody
In documents filed Thursday, government officials told U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw that 559 children between the ages of 5 and 17 have yet to be reunited with their families. Of those, 365 have parents who were deported, and officials have contact information for all but five. (Romo, 8/10)

The New York Times: A Congressman, A Financial Deal And An Intricate Web Of Conflicts
Representative Christopher Collins once said that the success of an obscure Australian company’s drug would be carved on his tombstone. Instead, its failure has upended his congressional career. The three-term congressman’s infectious enthusiasm for Innate Immunotherapeutics, the tiny biotech firm, led to his indictment on Wednesday, when he and several other investors were accused of insider trading. Prosecutors said that he tipped off his son to the poor results of the company’s clinical drug trial for a notoriously intractable form of multiple sclerosis before they were public, allowing the son and others to dump their stock and save hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Thomas and Kaplan, 8/11)

The New York Times: Representative Chris Collins Suspends Bid For Re-Election After Insider Trading Charges
Days after federal prosecutors charged him with insider trading, Representative Chris Collins announced on Saturday that he was abandoning his re-election bid amid worries that his legal troubles could make vulnerable his otherwise solidly Republican district in western New York. How exactly the suspension of Mr. Collins’s campaign would play out was not immediately clear, as the process to get off the ballot can be onerous in New York, and Mr. Collins did not say how he would remove himself. (Goldmacher, 8/11)

The New York Times: As Catholic Hospitals Expand, So Do Limits On Some Procedures
After experiencing life-threatening pre-eclampsia during her first two pregnancies, Jennafer Norris decided she could not risk getting pregnant again. But several years later, suffering debilitating headaches and soaring blood pressure, she realized her I.U.D. had failed. She was pregnant, and the condition had returned. At 30 weeks, with her health deteriorating, she was admitted to her local hospital in Rogers, Ark., for an emergency cesarean section. To ensure that she would never again be at risk, she asked her obstetrician to tie her tubes immediately following the delivery. The doctor’s response stunned her. “She said she’d love to but couldn’t because it was a Catholic hospital,” Ms. Norris, 38, recalled in an interview. (Hafner, 8/10)

Meanwhile —

Modern Healthcare: CHI-Dignity Merger Approval May Hinge On Catholic Religious Rules For Care 
Catholic religious rules could pose serious obstacles to the pending merger between Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, a deal that would create the nation's largest not-for-profit hospital company by revenue. Those rules, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, substantially shaped the way the deal, initially announced in 2016, was structured. The reason is that 15 of Dignity's 39 hospitals are historically non-Catholic and provide services that are prohibited under Catholic doctrine, forcing the dealmakers to craft a merger model that worked around the directives. (Meyer, 8/11)

Modern Healthcare: A Waiting Game: Meeting Minutes Reveal Challenges To Closing CHI, Dignity Megadeal 
The respective governing boards at Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives have encountered multiple setbacks in their quest to merge the two organizations since formal negotiations began in 2016, and there are few indications that they will consummate the deal soon. Paperwork filed with the California attorney general hint at some fundamental problems with combining the organizations, which have contrasting financial standings and differing management structures. The deal also needs approvals at multiple levels within the Catholic Church. (Bannow, 8/11)

The Hill: States Fight Trump On Non-ObamaCare Health Plans 
The Trump administration's new policy of expanding the sale of “short-term” insurance plans as a cheaper alternative to ObamaCare is quickly running into opposition from state regulators. The Department of Health and Human Services is urging states to cooperate with the federal government, but instead, insurance commissioners are panning the new plans as "junk” insurance and state legislatures are putting restrictions on their sales. (Weixel, 8/12)

: Losing Health Insurance Coverage Mid-Year? 3 Options For Consumers

The New York Times: ‘So, So Jaded’: The Campaign To Stop Brett Kavanaugh Struggles For Liftoff
The two dozen or so liberal activists who had gathered in a darkened cafe on an unusually sticky evening recently were wrestling with a familiar challenge: how to persuade Susan Collins, Maine’s moderate Republican senator, to vote no. She had already helped sink her party’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and activists last Tuesday understood that they need to rally the same fervent clamor and rejectionist energy to pressure her to vote no again — this time on the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. (Fandos and Edmondson, 8/11)

Politico: Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings Set For Sept. 4
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearings will start on Sept. 4 and last between three and four days, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on Friday. That scheduling tees up the GOP to meet its goal of getting President Donald Trump's pick seated on the high court by the time its term begins in early October, barring unforeseen obstacles or a breakthrough by Democrats who are pushing to derail Kavanaugh's confirmation. (Schor, 8/10)

The Washington Post: White House Counts On Kavanaugh In Battle Against ‘Administrative State'
The White House did not mince words when it introduced Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to business and industry leaders on the occasion of his nomination to the Supreme Court this summer. “Judge Kavanaugh has overruled federal agency action 75 times,” the administration said in a one-page unsigned memo touting what it considered the highlights of Kavanaugh’s 12 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (Barnes and Mufson, 8/12)

Politico: Lax State Ethics Rules Leave Health Agencies Vulnerable To Conflicts
When Surgeon General Jerome Adams was the top health official in Indiana, he owned thousands of dollars in tobacco and pharmaceutical stocks which potentially conflicted with his state responsibilities. Those stocks were never revealed under lax Indiana disclosure laws. His investments became public only when he was required to divest them to serve as the nation’s top doctor — and HHS says he is in full compliance with federal ethics laws. (Ehley, Karlin-Smith, Pradhan and Haberkorn, 8/12)

In other news on Trump administration officials —

The New York Times: U.S. Ambassador Denies Threatening Ecuador Over Breast-Feeding Resolution
An American diplomat involved in an effort by the Trump administration to prevent the introduction of a breast-feeding resolution at a global health conference this spring denied making threats to Ecuador, the country that initially sponsored the resolution. In an interview, Todd C. Chapman, the United States ambassador to Ecuador, said that allegations reported by The New York Times on July 8 that he threatened Ecuadorean officials with trade sanctions and withdrawal of some military assistance were “patently false and inaccurate.” (Jacobs and Belluck, 8/12)

The New York Times: Outside Influence: The Veterans Agency’s Shadowy Leadership
A new secretary was sworn in at the Department of Veterans Affairs in late July, but the people actually in charge of the agency may not have changed, and they are not at the headquarters in Washington, but on the manicured grounds of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s West Palm Beach estate. A shadowy threesome known in the department as the “Mar-a-Lago crowd” has been quietly empowered by the president to help steer the veterans agency, and the men are exerting their influence in ways that affect millions of veterans, according to interviews with four former senior officials at the department and a report by the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica. (Philipps, 8/10)

The Hill: Fearing ‘Blue Wave,’ Drug, Insurance Companies Build Single-Payer Defense
Powerful health-care interests worried that a Democratic “blue wave” could give new energy to single-payer health-care legislation have created a new group to take on the issue. The formation of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future is a sign of the health-care industry’s alarm over growing support for a single payer health-care law within the Democratic Party. (Sullivan, 8/10)

Reuters: Monsanto Ordered To Pay $289 Million In Roundup Cancer Trial
A California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a school groundskeeper who said the company’s weedkillers, including Roundup, caused his cancer. The company was ordered pay $289 million in damages. The case of the groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, 46, was the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging that Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers cause cancer. Monsanto, a unit of the German conglomerate Bayer following a $62.5 billion acquisition, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States. (8/10)

The Associated Press: Jury Awards $289M To Man Who Blames Roundup For Cancer
"I'm glad to be here to be able to help in a cause that's way bigger than me," Dewayne Johnson said at a news conference Friday after the verdict was announced. Johnson, 46, alleges that heavy contact with the herbicide caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The state Superior Court jury agreed that Roundup contributed to Johnson's cancer and Monsanto should have provided a label warning of the potential health hazard. (Elias, 8/11)

The Hill: Terminally Ill Man Awarded $289 Million In Lawsuit Against Monsanto
The jury said that the packaging of the product should have indicated the risks of using it. The Environmental Protection Agency says Roundup is safe to use if label directions are followed properly, though the World Health Organization has classified the product’s active ingredient as a “probable human carcinogen.” (Anapol, 8/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Monsanto Hit By $289 Million Verdict In Cancer Case
Monsanto said it would appeal. Punitive damages, especially those many times higher than the compensatory awards, are often reduced by the trial judge or reversed on appeal. “We are sympathetic to Mr. Johnson and his family,” Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge said in a statement. However, he said numerous scientific studies and health authorities in the U.S. and other countries found that glyphosate didn’t cause cancer. (Armental, 8/10)

The Washington Post: CRISPR: Are Gene-Edited Ingredients Already In Your Food?
In a gleaming laboratory hidden from the highway by a Hampton Inn and a Denny’s restaurant, a researcher with the biotech firm Calyxt works the controls of a boxy robot. The robot whirs like an arcade claw machine, dropping blips of DNA into tubes with pipettes. It’s building an enzyme that rewrites DNA — and transforming food and agriculture in the process. (Dewey, 8/11)

Stat: Glaucoma May Be An Autoimmune Disease, Study Finds 
Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear were stumped when they saw T cells in the retinas of mice with glaucoma, so they called in an immunologist. Now their collaboration has produced the intriguing conclusion that glaucoma might be an autoimmune disease. In a paper released Friday, they reported that T cells, key soldiers in the immune system’s defense against microbes, play a role in the prolonged retinal degeneration seen in glaucoma. They also identified the target of the T cells: heat shock proteins, manufactured by both human cells and the bacteria residing within us. (Farber, 8/13)

NPR: 'Human Cell Atlas' Helps Scientists Trace Building Blocks Of Disease
If you flip open a biology textbook or do a quick search on Google, you'll quickly learn that there are a few hundred types of cells in the human body. "And it's true, because in broad categories, a few hundred is a good characterization," says Aviv Regev, a core member of the Broad Institute, a genetics research center in Cambridge, Mass. But look a little closer, as Regev has been doing, and a far more complicated picture emerges. (Weintraub, 8/13)

PBS NewsHour: After A C-Section, Women Who Want A Vaginal Birth May Struggle To Find Care
Some women who have had one or more cesarean sections, like she did, may want to give birth vaginally with their next child, a practice known as a vaginal birth after cesarean, or VBAC. VBACs are controversial in the American medical community, and some hospitals or doctors refuse to perform them, despite guidance from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that they are a safe option for many women. (Enkling, 8/12)

The Washington Post: Empathy Researcher Tania Singer Created An Intimidating Work Environment, Former Colleagues Say
If there is anyone who knows the potentially devastating effects of hurt feelings, it is Tania Singer. The 48-year-old neuroscientist has spent her career looking at the physical, social, even economic benefits of making people more empathetic. She has mapped the brains of people watching their loved ones experiencing pain, for example, and sought scientific answers to questions about the roots of good and evil that have puzzled humans since the dawn of sentience. (Wootson, 8/12)

Stat: FDA Clears Natural Cycles, Controversial App For Contraception
The FDA on Friday cleared the first-ever app to prevent pregnancy — but not everyone is convinced it works. The app, Natural Cycles, isn’t your typical form of contraception. It asks women to take their temperature upon waking and keep a daily log in its interface. It uses that data to help women keep track of when they’re ovulating.  (Sheridan, 8/10)

Politico Pro: Anti-Sex Trafficking Activists Enlisting Health Providers
The vast majority of trafficking victims are believed to come through the health care system at some point, making providers well-positioned to intervene. But advocates say they’re trying to combat limited awareness among providers and dispel persistent misconceptions about trafficking victims. (Goldberg, 8/10)

Los Angeles Times: In The Game Of Online Dating, Men And Women Try To Level Up, Study Finds
In the world of online dating, men and women are looking to find someone a little out of their league, according to a new study. Scientists who analyzed user data from a popular dating site have found that heterosexual men and women reach out to potential dating partners who are on average about 25% more attractive than they are. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, shed new light on the patterns and priorities of men and women when playing the online dating game. (Khan, 8/10)

San Jose Mercury News: Hoping To Save Limbs And Toes, California Moves To Curtail Diabetes
More than 2.5 million people in the state have been diagnosed with adult diabetes, or Type 2, and risk a similar fate if it goes unchecked. That’s especially true for low-income patients, who may lack regular preventive medical services. ...That disparity is part of the impetus for a new diabetes prevention program for patients in Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid health program for low-income residents. (Gorn, 8/12)

Kaiser Health News: Advances In Treating Hep C Lead To New Option For Transplant Patients
After her kidneys failed from the same illness that took the lives of her mother and brother, Anne Rupp went on dialysis in May 2016, spending three hours a day, three times a week undergoing the blood-cleaning procedure. She hated it. Rupp, who had polycystic kidney disease, joined more than 95,000 other Americans on kidney transplant lists. She knew the wait could stretch out for years. (Appleby, 8/13)

The Washington Post: Short Boys May Get Growth Hormones But The Decision Is Difficult
Erica Nicholson knew that her son, Sam, was small. Considering that she was barely 5 feet and 100 pounds and that his older sister was a “peanut,” it didn’t seem unusual. “I make small babies,” Nicholson said. But her daughter was growing. Sam, however, was so small that he looked like a baby compared with his peers, she said. When he was 4, his feet did not touch the ground on a training bike his sister had used at the same age. (Vander Schaaff, 8/12)

WBUR: Treating Teen Depression Might Improve Mental Health Of Parents Too
An estimated 12.8 percent of adolescents in the U.S. experience at least one episode of major depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. According to previous studies, many of those teens' mental health is linked to depression in their parents.But new research suggests there's a flipside to that parental effect: When teens are treated for depression, their parents' mental health improves, too. (Chatterjee, 8/12)

The Washington Post: Teens Don’t Get Enough Sleep, And That Can Affect Their Health
Did you sleep well last night? If not, you’re in good company. About a third of American adults don’t get the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many people don’t get enough sleep or sleep poorly because of their jobs or hectic schedules: They work long shifts at night or have to rush to get their kids ready to catch a 6 a.m. school bus. Some 50 million to 70 million Americans have a chronic sleep disorder such as insomnia or sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts throughout the night. (Underwood, 8/11)

The Washington Post: New School Year Nerves Can Sometimes Be Dangerous Anxiety
Back-to-school season is upon us, and while some kids look forward to returning to class, others are a bundle of nerves. Parents may reassure and soothe, but they may also worry: Does my anxious child have a real problem? “Anxiety is a normal, healthy human emotion,” says John Walkup, a psychiatrist at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. (Adams, 8/12)

Stat: That Pathetic Alzheimer's Pipeline? It's Even Worse Than You Think
If it were any other disease, outraged patients and their families would be writing their legislators and demonstrating in front of drug makers’ headquarters. But Alzheimer’s is no ordinary disease, so the latest revelation that very few experimental drugs are being tested to see whether they might help people with moderate, let alone severe, dementia passed this week without so much as an indignant press release from advocacy groups or other Alzheimer’s organizations. (Begley, 8/10)

Boston Globe: New Mass. Law Aims To Improve Alzheimer’s Care
The multifaceted law aims to improve the diagnosis and treatment of an illness that afflicts 120,000 Massachusetts residents and 5.7 million Americans. ...The legislation requires physicians, physician assistants, and nurses to undergo training in diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, before they can obtain or renew their licenses. (Freyer, 8/13)

The Wall Street Journal: IBM Has A Watson Dilemma
Can Watson cure cancer? That’s what International Business Machines Corp. asked soon after its artificial-intelligence system beat humans at the quiz show “Jeopardy!” in 2011. Watson could read documents quickly and find patterns in data. Could it match patient information with the latest in medical studies to deliver personalized treatment recommendations? (Hernandez and Greenwald, 8/11)

In other health and technology news —

Bloomberg: Sensors To Smartphones Bring Patent Wars To Diabetes Monitoring 
Diabetes treatment has evolved since Mary Fortune was diagnosed in 1967 and hospitalized because there was no reliable way monitor her blood sugar. These days, a glucose skin patch transmits her levels day and night to her iPhone and shares the data with others. Fortune and other diabetics are benefiting from an explosion in technology and innovation, from under-the-skin sensors that eliminate the need for painful finger pricks, to smartphone alerts when glucose levels rise too high. But the technology, and its integration with mobile devices, has brought the types of lawsuits typically seen by Silicon Valley companies. (Decker, 8/11)

CQ: Patient Monitors At Hospitals Could Be Hacked, McAfee Says
Monitoring systems in hospitals that track patients’ vital signs such as heartbeat, blood pressure and oxygen levels are susceptible to hacking, the security research firm McAfee said in a report released over the weekend. The weakness is that such data is typically sent over unencrypted networks to a central monitoring station, which helps doctors and nurses keep an eye on dozens of patients at once. (Ratnam, 8/13)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Drugs In The Mail: How Postal Service Is Fighting Drugs In Cincinnati Is A Mystery
The United States Postal Inspection Service has a commitment to privacy, but a look at local drug investigations found that postal inspectors are spending a lot of time with canine companions, and not to play fetch. ... According to the United States Postal Inspection Service annual report, inspectors seized more than 40,000 pounds of illegal drugs along with $22,487,980 from packages, resulting in 1,954 arrests in 2017. (Mitchell, 8/13)

Columbus Dispatch: Hocking County Seeks Tax Increase To Help Children Taken From Addicts
When parents or guardians overdose on heroin or fentanyl, sometimes passing out in the front seat of their car and leaving children strapped into car carriers behind them, the children are taken away. To raise funds to help these displaced children, Hocking County wants to raise property taxes with a 1-mill levy that would be on the ballot in November. (Meibers, 8/12)

Boston Globe: In California, A Glimpse At The Future Of Elite Children’s Hospitals
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford is billed as the hospital of the future, but it doesn’t look much like a hospital at all. It is some hybrid of hotel, museum, and high-tech laboratory. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/11)

The New York Times: Containers Of Hurricane Donations Found Rotting In Puerto Rico Parking Lot
At least 10 trailers full of food, water and baby supplies donated for victims of Hurricane Maria were left to rot at a state elections office in Puerto Rico, where they broke open and became infested by rats. Radio Isla, a local radio station, posted a video Friday showing cases of beans, water, Tylenol and other goods covered in rat and lizard droppings. (Robles, 8/10)

The Associated Press: List Grows Of People Said To Know Of Ohio St. Doctor's Abuse
Several former students and student-athletes at Ohio State University have described sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Dr. Richard Strauss, who worked at the university from 1978 until he retired in 1998. Interviews with Strauss' victims and lawsuits filed on their behalf have named several Ohio State officials alleged to have known about the abuse but done nothing about it. (8/11)

Columbus Dispatch: Program Brings Hospital To Your Home At A Fraction Of The Cost
Conrad is one of six patients who have participated in Mount Carmel’s Hospital at Home initiative, which seeks to serve 40 patients through a $500,000 Trinity Health Innovation Challenge grant. ...The initiative is reserved for patients 65 or older who have specific diagnoses: certain skin infections; congestive heart failure resulting in fluid in the lungs; pneumonia; and other certain lung conditions, such as emphysema or bronchitis. (Viviano, 8/12)

Health News Florida: Democratic Candidates Push For Expanded Health Coverage
Reflecting the same fault lines that have emerged nationally, Florida’s Democratic and Republican candidates for governor are deeply split over whether the state should take a more direct role in providing health care. And that split is resonating in a campaign where health care has become one of the touchstone issues for the five Democrats running in the Aug. 28 primary. (Sexton, 8/13)

The Associated Press: Pennsylvania Health Aide Sentenced For Scalding Disabled Man
A Pennsylvania health aide who authorities say poured scalding water on a disabled man in his care, leaving him with burns on 20 percent of his body has been sentenced to serve up to five years in prison. The state attorney general's office has announced that 27-year-old Akeem Nixon of Erie, Pennsylvania, was sentenced Thursday to serve between two and a half and five years in prison. Nixon had pleaded guilty in June to neglect of a care-dependent person and aggravated assault. (8/10)

The Associated Press: Mayo Clinic Names Head Of Florida Campus As New CEO
Mayo Clinic will get a new president and chief executive at the end of the year when Dr. Gianrico Farrugia takes over from Dr. John Noseworthy, the world-renowned health care organization announced Friday. Farrugia, the CEO of Mayo's campus in Jacksonville, Florida, since 2015, told The Associated Press that he will work closely with Noseworthy during the transition period. Noseworthy announced his plan to retire in February in keeping with Mayo's tradition of rotating its top leadership position every eight to 10 years. (8/10)

Boston Globe: Boston-Based Partners In Health Receives $15 Million From Wagner Foundation
The $15 million gift to Partners in Health came from the private Wagner Foundation, and represented the largest donation in the foundation’s 13-year history. The money will target new programs, including tools to collect and store data in remote Liberia, where health records are sometimes kept in decaying handwritten ledgers. (Nierenberg, 8/13)

Sacramento Bee: How One Health Care Company Prepared For Wildfire
After evacuating two weeks ago for the Mendocino Complex Fire, hospice CEO Corrigan Gommenginger offered that advice as the most critical piece for leadership teams at small health care companies all around California. ...When an evacuation advisory was made a day after the Ranch and River fires chewed their way into Lake County, they said, they felt that they were as prepared as they could be. (Anderson, 8/11)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Mental Health Remains A Challenge For N.H. Hospitals
In the winter of 2017, Concord Hospital first sounded the alarm on the lack of available beds for mental health patients. Those suffering from mental health-related conditions found themselves languishing in the hospital’s emergency department for weeks until a bed could open up. They spilled into hallways and treatment rooms, and the hospital converted space to make room. The overflow increased wait times for all emergency room patients. (Andrews, 8/11)

Kansas City Star: Missouri Influencers Weigh In On Cutting Cost Of Health Care
The Star asked the Missouri Influencer panel to respond to readers who said their biggest healthcare issue is lowering the cost of health care and making it accessible for all, including those with pre-existing conditions. The question for the Influencers: What can policymakers do? (Marso, 8/13)

East Oregonian: Treatment Center Offers Care For Mentally Ill Inmates 
The Oregon Department of Corrections has opened a new behavioral health treatment center at Oregon State Penitentiary to help improve conditions for inmates with severe mental illness. Two years ago, DOC Director Colette Peters signed a memorandum of understanding with Disability Rights Oregon to increase out-of-cell time for these inmates and make other improvements. Peters agreed to give inmates at least 20 hours per week, or less than three hours per day, outside their cells by 2020. (Achen, 8/10)

San Diego Union-Times: Email Reveals Former Salk President's Efforts To Discourage Gender Discrimination Suit
The former president of the Salk Institute discouraged one of her professors from suing for gender discrimination, saying in a private email that legal action could damage the La Jolla science center’s reputation — and suggested it might harm the researcher’s career. Elizabeth Blackburn, a Nobel laureate, sent the email to biochemist Beverly Emerson on June 30, 2017. (Fikes and Robbins, 8/13)

The Star Tribune: Minneapolis Children's And Its Neonatal Doctors Set To Split Up
A dispute between Children’s Minnesota and doctors caring for its fragile premature newborns has spawned a lawsuit and a professional divorce that could undermine neonatal intensive care in the Twin Cities. Doctors with Minnesota Neonatal Physicians are leaving Children’s Minneapolis hospital at the end of the year and instead will staff expanded neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) at Maple Grove Hospital and North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale. The move came after an unsuccessful attempt by Children’s to switch them from private practitioners to hospital employees. (Olson, 8/12)

Kansas City Star: $90 Million Billing Scheme Reached More Hospitals, Suit Says
The $90 million billing scheme blasted in a state audit of a rural Missouri hospital spread to as many as 10 other hospitals, including four in Kansas and Missouri, a Mission Hills couple has alleged in federal court. ...An investigation by Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway a year ago led to a call for a federal investigation into what she said were “questionable laboratory billing practices.” (Davis, 8/13)

Cox Media Group: Company Trying To Keep Details Of Running Psychiatric Ward Secret 
A company trying to secure a $60.3 million contract to run a 21-bed psychiatric facility in Maine is shrouding its proposal in secrecy. Correct Care, based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, told The Associated Press its staffing, list of current and closed lawsuits and cost proposals to run the facility are exempt public records because it contains trade secrets in a letter with a redacted version of the proposal. (Leone, 8/12)

The Associated Press: High Number Of Cape Cod Mosquitoes With West Nile Virus
Public health officials say an unusually high number of mosquitoes have tested positive for West Nile virus on Cape Cod. The Cape Cod Times reports that state Department of Health said Thursday 14 mosquito samples from Falmouth, Barnstable, Dennis, Bourne and Yarmouth tested positive for the virus after being trapped Tuesday and July 31. (8/10)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Is Homelessness Illegal? New Court Rulings Raise The Question
The most sweeping ruling came Thursday from Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman, who banned homeless camps and told police to arrest anyone who defied his order. ...When Ruehlman late Thursday expanded his ban on homeless camps to the entire county, Black's reasoning presumably still applied: Communities can consider being homeless illegal if there is space available in shelters. (Horn and Curnutte, 8/10)

Georgia Health News: Emory’s Takeover Of DeKalb Medical Set To Occur Next Month
Now that the state has given its approval, DeKalb Medical will become part of Emory Healthcare on Sept. 1. The deal will continue to expand Emory’s reach in metro Atlanta. It’s one of Georgia’s leading hospital-based systems, along with WellStar, Piedmont and Northside. (Miller, 8/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Emory Plans To Wipe Out DeKalb Medical’s $170M In Debt When They Merge
Emory Healthcare’s absorption of DeKalb Medical Center has been approved by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. ...As part of the deal, she said, Emory will pay off DeKalb Medical’s more than $173 million in long-term debt it reported to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2016. (Brasch, 8/10)

Pioneer Press: Woodbury’s Bold Move Results In 209 Medical Businesses, And Counting 
The grand openings are falling over each other. On Tuesday, a kidney care center. A stomach clinic next week, and a chiropractor’s office. A mental health clinic in June, following an orthopedic center and eye clinic. They are flooding into Woodbury, which is now home to 209 medical businesses. They are slipping into empty retail spaces, popping up in malls and erecting their own new buildings across the city. (Shaw, 8/12)

The Washington Post: The Cosmically Huge ‘If’ Of Medicare For All
Imagine a world in which the rosy assumptions Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) makes on behalf of his “Medicare for all” health-care plan turn out to be true. That is what Charles Blahous, a professor at George Mason University’s libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center, did in a paper released last month. He found that the government would expand massively — by a whopping $32.6 trillion over 10 years, gobbling up an additional 12.7 percent of gross domestic product by 2031. If everything went perfectly, millions more people would be covered and receive generous benefits over that decade, while the country as a whole would save $2 trillion in total health-care costs when reductions in private health-care spending are taken into account. But that is a cosmically huge “if.” (8/12)

The New York Times: Why America Needs Medicare For All
A growing majority of Americans agree: Health care shouldn’t be a business. They’re finally coming around to the idea that it can and should be a public good instead — something we can all turn to when the need arises. The favorite right-wing argument against Medicare for All — the most popular approach to universal, publicly financed heath care — is that it’s too expensive. More on those costs in a moment. But first, we should note that our current health care system is actually the most expensive in the world by a long shot, even though we have millions of uninsured and underinsured people and lackluster health outcomes. (Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara, 8/10)

The Wall Street Journal: A Lost Love And An ObamaCare Alternative
The man I intended to spend the rest of my life with died in a plane crash in 2010. It was devastating, so much so that I lost interest in my job, as the point of it was little more than paying down debt and saving for a future that wasn’t meant to be. I quit the job and was offered Cobra, which would have let me retain my health insurance up to 18 months after my resignation. But at more than $500 a month, Cobra was more than I could afford. I had $1,500 to my name, and it had to last for as many months as possible while I grieved and figured out what to do with my life without Joshua. A newly leased sedan, car insurance and student-loan payments left little room in my budget for health insurance. (Bolton, 8/12)

The Hill: New Medicare Drug Pricing Rule — A Small 'Step' In The Right Direction
The Trump administration’s most recent effort to fight high prices for prescription drugs takes a small step in the right direction. A recent new rule issued by Health and Human Services will use market-based competition to help lower the cost of prescription drugs for the more market- sensitive Medicare Advantage program. Medical care providers have a financial incentive to prescribe expensive medicines because they often earn a commission based on the value of the drugs they prescribe. Thus, the cheaper the drug, the less commission the care provider stands to earn. (Rea S. Hederman, 8/11)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Push For New Medicaid Work Requirements Just A Way To Distract Attention From Health Care Inequities
Not content with trying to defund Medicaid, Republicans continue to push changes in eligibility to make it harder to get, including work requirements. In compliance with a law passed by a heartless majority in the legislature last year, a few months ago the Ohio Department of Medicaid requested a waiver to implement work requirements for "able-bodied" Medicaid recipients. (Kenneth Frisof, 8/10)

The Washington Post: Why Are Nursing Homes Drugging Dementia Patients Without Their Consent?
A year and a half ago in a Texas nursing home, I met an 84-year-old resident with dementia named Felipa Natividad. Her sister, Aurora Suarez, told me that the staff dosed Natividad with Haldol, an antipsychotic drug, to ease the burden of bathing her. “They give my sister medication to sedate her on the days of her shower: Monday, Wednesday, Friday,” Suarez said. “They give her so much she sleeps through the lunch hour and supper.” A review of Natividad’s medical chart confirmed the schedule. Suarez said she had given her consent to use the drugs because she feared that the staff would not bathe her sister enough if she refused. But when Suarez saw the effect they had, she had second thoughts. She expressed them to the nursing home, but Natividad was taken off the antipsychotics only after she was placed in hospice care. (Hannah Flamm, 8/10)

Boston Globe: Brett Kavanaugh’s Record Makes His Antiabortion Stance Clear 
It would be easy for Massachusetts citizens to feel complacent about the security of their reproductive rights. A 1980 decision by the Supreme Judicial Court guarantees reproductive rights under the Massachusetts Constitution, and recently passed legislation (dubbed the NASTY Women Act) repealed several decades-old Massachusetts antiabortion laws. But Massachusetts should still care about what would happen if the Supreme Court — with a new Justice Kavanaugh — overturns Roe v. Wade. For women across the country, it would mean a return to the days when wealthy women in states that prohibit abortion could travel to a state where it was legal — an option not available for poor women. Massachusetts could become a destination state for women seeking abortions. (Nancy Gertner, 8/13)

Dallas Morning News: Do Your Kids — And The Ones They're Around Every Day — A Favor: Don't Skip Vaccinations
In the coming weeks, Texas children will head back to school, but many will return without the protections of vaccinations. Their parents are playing with the health of their children and that of classmates. Texas law requires children to receive vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis A and B, varicella and meningococcal disease. But since 2003, Texas law also allows families to opt out of vaccines for personal reasons. Plano, Fort Worth, Austin and Houston are among the areas with the most "conscientious exemptions" for kindergartners, each with over 400. (8/13)

Stat: Congress Must Listen To Addiction Patients On Health Record Privacy
America has an addiction problem: 28 million Americans use illicit drugs and 65 million are considered binge or heavy drinkers, which can lead to numerous health problems. More than 115 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses. Add in those who die as a result of other drugs or alcohol and the number skyrockets to more than 400 a day.Yet less than 10 percent of people with addiction will receive treatment for it. This constitutes a public health crisis of epic proportions — and one that has been present for decades. If policymakers want to address this crisis, they must focus on a basic but essential question: How do we encourage people with addictions to discuss their problematic substance use with the medical community? (H. Westley Clark, 8/13)

Stat: Using CRISPR For The 'Smaller Wins,' Like Making Chemotherapy Less Toxic
Although the phrase “war on cancer” was first uttered in 1971, the breakthroughs in biomedical research that have emerged during this decade have supercharged the fight. The introduction of CRISPR-Cas9 — the molecular scissors that can edit DNA — makes the idea of powerful new tools to treat and prevent cancer feel tantalizingly close. Ambitious efforts to prevent or beat cancer are important, but we can’t overlook or undervalue the incremental breakthroughs that could quickly reach patients and improve lives. What if, for example, we used CRISPR to make chemotherapy a bit less terrible for patients suffering with cancer now? That’s something my colleagues and I are trying to find out. (Eric B. Kmiec, 8/13

Columbus Dispatch: It's Time For Ohio To Update Care For Dementia Patients
The graying of America has been anticipated for decades, but Ohio is alone among the 50 states in having no comprehensive plan to address its inevitable consequence: growing numbers of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. We hope for that to change soon; a task force convened a year ago by the Ohio House of Representatives to study the issue has some proposals that deserve consideration. (8/11)

The Oregonian: Closing The Rural Health Gap In Oregon
As our nation continues to wrestle with how to provide high-quality, affordable health care to everyone, many Oregonians face additional obstacles when accessing care that have nothing to do with income and everything to do with their home address.According to statistics published by the Oregon Office of Rural Health, more than one-third of Oregonians live in rural communities, many of which do not have any primary care providers. Those that do require residents to travel a greater distance to attend an appointment on average than residents living in urban spaces. Just as concerning, data shows that the availability and quality of care provided in these regions can be lower than in urban areas. (Marv Nelson, Paul Stewart and Joyce Hollander-Rodriguez, 8/10)

The Washington Post: George Washington University Hospital Will Bring A Health System To Wards 7 And 8
Here in the District, where we boast one of the highest rates of insured residents in the nation, report after report tells us that our low-income residents and our communities of color have, among other disparities, disproportionately high HIV rates, infant and maternal mortality rates, and cancer death rates. These disparities are unacceptable. We cannot see them as inevitable or intractable. To give all Washingtonians a fair shot, we can and must do better. ...I am proud to announce that we have signed a letter of intent with George Washington University Hospital to make it our partner in operating, maintaining and governing the new hospital in Ward 8. (Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, 8/10)

San Jose Mercury News: California Should Require Warning Labels On Soda
Despite sugar-industry-funded research that deliberately minimized the health risks of sugar consumption, a clear and compelling body of evidence now shows a strong relationship between consumption of sugary drinks and chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart, liver, and dental diseases. ...A bill now pending in the state legislature (AB 1335) – based on ChangeLab Solutions’ model legislation – would require a safety warning on sugary-drink containers and at certain points of sale. (Benjamin Wining, 8/11)

Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles, Stop Doing Cocaine
In Los Angeles, conscious consumerism is in vogue. We vote with our dollars, leveraging purchasing power to effect change in a world that often defends the profitable status quo. Evidence of our ethical consumption is everywhere — in local markets stocked with fair-trade coffee and vegan items; on the radio in advertisements for conflict-free diamonds; on the road, where energy-efficient hybrids have become the norm rather than the exception. Yet the landscape of conscious consumption is marred by a conspicuous contradiction: If we truly care about our world, why do so many of us still view recreational cocaine use as permissible, harmless or even romantic? (Dan Johnson, 8/13)