CNN: Case Threatening Obamacare Mandate For Cost-Free Preventive Services Goes Before Federal Appellate Court 
The seemingly never-ending legal war over Obamacare returns Monday to a familiar battlefront: the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The latest case concerns the Affordable Care Act provision that mandates insurers cover preventive care services at no cost to patients. The appeals court is reviewing a district judge’s ruling that wiped away that requirement for certain preventive services – a ruling that was paused while the appeal plays out. Two of the three circuit judges on the panel hearing arguments in the case, brought by employers and individuals in Texas, have shown previous hostility to former President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law. (Sneed and Luhby, 3/4)

KFF Health News: America Worries About Health Costs — And Voters Want To Hear From Biden And Republicans
President Joe Biden is counting on outrage over abortion restrictions to help drive turnout for his reelection. Former President Donald Trump is promising to take another swing at repealing Obamacare. But around America’s kitchen tables, those are hardly the only health topics voters want to hear about in the 2024 campaigns. A new KFF tracking poll shows that health care tops the list of basic expenses Americans worry about — more than gas, food, and rent. (Appleby and Galewitz, 3/4)

Stat: Congress Gives Doctors Medicare Pay Bump, Sets Up December Fight In New Funding Package
Doctors will get a 1.68% pay hike in Medicare starting March 9 under a deal struck over the weekend to fund part of the government. The pay bump is among multiple Medicare payment policies that now will run until the end of December. That year-end deadline lines up with the expiration of telehealth pay policies, setting the stage for a large health legislative package and giving Congress another shot at aligning hospital and doctor office payments and reforming the business practices of drug middlemen. (Wilkerson and Cohrs, 3/3)

Modern Healthcare: Providers Warn Congress Over DSH Cut Delay, Health Center Funding
Hospitals and other providers waiting for Congress to complete a slew of overdue spending bills are pressing for swift action to eliminate financial uncertainty—which lawmakers themselves compounded with the odd double deadline they set for themselves. Congress passed a short-term spending bill Thursday that established two deadlines: one on March 8 to pass a half-dozen full-year appropriations bills, including the Food and Drug Administration's, and a second on March 22 to approve the remaining six spending bills. (McAuliff, 3/1)

The Hill: Congress Unveils Long-Awaited Funding Bills Ahead Of Shutdown Threat
Congressional leaders on Sunday finally revealed long-awaited bipartisan bills to fund parts of the government for most of the year, setting off a bicameral sprint to avert looming shutdown threat in less than a week. The weekend rollout entails six full-year spending bills to fund a slew of agencies until early fall, including the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation (DOT), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Veterans Affairs (VA), Justice (DOJ), Commerce and Energy. (Folley, 3/3)

Modern Healthcare: Change Healthcare Opens Backup Pharmacy System As Outage Continues
Nine days after a cyberattack that disrupted pharmacy services across the U.S., UnitedHealth Group has established an alternate system and created a financial assistance program for healthcare providers, the company announced Friday. Change Healthcare, part of UnitedHealth Group's Optum subsidiary, opened a temporary version of its Rx ePrescribing service at 2 p.m. EST Friday for drugstores, hospital and nursing home pharmacies, and other affected providers. (Berryman, 3/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Medical Providers Fight To Survive After Change Healthcare Hack 
“This is absolutely devastating financially for us,” said Jennifer Fenton, executive director of Equine Healing Collaborative, a nonprofit psychotherapy center with four locations in California. The center is owed more than $50,000 in unpaid claims and it furloughed five clinicians Thursday, Fenton said. Without relief, the remaining nine face the same fate [this] week, she said. (Rundle, Stupp and Nash, 3/1)

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Hack Poses Financial Challenges For Smaller Pharmacies
As the ripple effects from a hack on a UnitedHealth Group Inc. unit extend for more than a week, some health-care providers face an increasingly difficult dilemma: whether to deny medication to patients or risk not being paid for costly treatment. For days, providers have been unable to verify if a patient’s health insurance will cover the cost of their prescription. ... However, operators of smaller pharmacies say they can only cover the cost of prescriptions — while they wait to be reimbursed — for so long. (Pashankar, 3/1)

The Seattle Times: Why Health Care Has Become A Top Target For Cybercriminals
Cyberattacks of all sorts have plagued large corporations, small businesses and individuals for decades now, but in the past several years, health care has become a top target, according to federal and local cybersecurity experts. These organizations hold a massive amount of patient data — including medical records, financial information, Social Security numbers, names and addresses. They’re also among the few businesses that stay open 24/7, meaning they might be more likely to prioritize avoiding disruptions and, therefore, more likely to pay a hacker’s ransom. (Takahama, 3/1)

Axios: Medicare Advantage Patients Get Less Home Health Care: Study
Medicare Advantage patients were found to get skimpier home health care and worse outcomes than their counterparts in traditional Medicare in a study published in JAMA Health Forum. With more than half of Medicare beneficiaries in MA plans, there's growing concern about how the plans are run, including whether their guardrails around coverage are reducing access to care. (Reed, 3/4)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Advantage Costs Are Rising, But Not Bankrupting Insurer
Health insurer laments about a recent string of bad Medicare Advantage news might give some people the idea that these companies are in trouble. Surprisingly high medical spending last year combined with a series of unfavorable policies from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, including a proposal to slightly reduce the benchmark payment rate next year, compelled top Medicare Advantage carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna to warn investors that earnings may not meet previous projections. (Berryman, 3/1)

Stat: Why Talkspace Is Targeting Medicare, A Tricky Market
Over the last few years, virtual mental health company Talkspace has been on a relentless quest to conquer the insurance market. The next step in that journey, Medicare, may prove the most challenging yet. (Aguilar, 3/4)

Stat: For AI In Health Care Standards, Federal Regulators Join With Industry Group
At first glance, the Coalition for Health AI looks like any technology lobbying group. Its membership — including Microsoft, Google, and many of the nation’s largest academic hospitals — forms a formidable presence in Washington. But on Monday, the coalition forged a different deal with federal regulators. It will work with them to develop quality and safety standards for artificial intelligence, an experiment that will test whether industry and government can effectively partner in the regulation of a fast-moving technology. (Ross, 3/4)

Modern Healthcare: Penn Medicine To Build Cancer Center In $400M Project
Penn Medicine plans to build a 195,000-square-foot cancer facility at its Princeton Medical Center in Plainsboro, New Jersey. The $401 million project is expected to include an outpatient imaging center and parking garage. The cancer center would have more than 40 exam rooms, about 30 infusion chairs and two radiation oncology linear accelerators, a spokesperson said Friday. (DeSilva, 3/1)

Vox: What The CDC’s New COVID Guidelines Could Mean For You 
“It’s a reasonable move,” said Aaron Glatt, an infectious disease doctor and hospital epidemiologist at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital on Long Island. “When you’re doing public health, you have to look at what is going to be listened to, and what is doable.” Guidelines that adhere to the highest standards of infection control might please purists in public health who don’t have to make policies for the real world. However, guidelines that seem to acknowledge that workers often don’t have paid sick leave and emergency child care, and that social interactions are important to folks, are more likely not only to be followed but to engender trust in public health authorities. (Landman, 3/1)

The Washington Post: How To Know You're No Longer Contagious With Covid, According To Experts 
The United States has entered a different stage in the pandemic. Four years after the virus emerged, the covid-19 landscape has changed dramatically. ... So now you’ve got covid-19. When can you exit isolation? If you do resume activities outside your home, can you be sure you’re no longer contagious? The important thing to consider, experts say, is that every person and every case of covid is unique. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how sick a person will get or how long a person remains infectious. The guidelines offer a framework, but patients should take into account their circumstances, priorities and resources to assess risk. (Sun and Achenbach, 3/2)

CIDRAP: US Respiratory Virus Levels Remain High As Flu Rises In Central States 
Respiratory illness levels in the United States remained high but stable last week, with flu activity rising in some regions of the country and indicators declining for both COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest data updates. (3/1)

On the spread of measles —

Fox2 Detroit: 2 More Measles Cases Detected In Michigan
Two more cases of measles were confirmed by Michigan health officials after the state detected its first positive case in more than four years last week. Wayne County Public Health says they have a confirmed case associated with international travel in an adult residing in Wayne County. Washtenaw County Health Department also confirms a case of measles in an adult with recent international travel. (Wynn, 3/3)

AP: CVS, Walgreens Plan To Start Dispensing Abortion Pill Mifepristone In Few States
The drugstore chains CVS Health and Walgreens plan to start dispensing an abortion pill in a few states within weeks. CVS Health will start filling prescriptions for mifepristone in Rhode Island and neighboring Massachusetts “in the weeks ahead,” spokeswoman Amy Thibault said Friday. Walgreens will begin dispensing the medication within a week, spokesman Fraser Engerman said. The chain will start with some locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois. (Murphy, 3/1)

Military.com: VA Set To Make Its Abortion Policy Official On Monday, Despite Opposition From Republicans In Congress 
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday will finalize its policy of providing abortions to veterans and other beneficiaries in certain cases, including in states that have banned the procedure, according to a federal notice. The move will make the abortion policy official, but the VA has been providing veterans and covered dependents abortions on an interim basis since September 2022 -- just months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade -- if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or their life or health is at risk because of the pregnancy. The policy also allows VA doctors to provide abortion counseling to any patient. (Kheel, 3/1)

USA Today: Abortion To Be Center Issue In North Carolina Governor Race
Along with hosting one of the nation’s most competitive races for governor and serving as a make-or-break state for either party’s road to the White House, North Carolina will offer one of the latest referendums on abortion in 2024. (Kuchar, 3/4)

KFF Health News: California Pushes To Expand The Universe Of Abortion Care Providers
California’s efforts to expand access to abortion care are enabling more types of medical practitioners to perform certain abortion procedures — potentially a boon for patients in rural areas especially, but a source of concern for doctors’ groups that have long fought efforts to expand the role of non-physicians. The latest move is a law that enables trained physician assistants, also known as physician associates, to perform first-trimester abortions without a supervising physician present. (Udesky, 3/4)

The Washington Post: France Votes On Adding Abortion Rights To Constitution — A Reaction To U.S. 
Women’s rights groups on Monday were gearing up to celebrate France becoming the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in its constitution — an effort galvanized by the rollback of protections in the United States. On Monday evening, French lawmakers will vote in a special meeting at Versailles on whether to add abortion to the constitution as a “guaranteed freedom.” The bill needs the approval of three-fifths of lawmakers. But because the lower and upper houses already overwhelmingly endorsed it in separate votes, there is little suspense about the outcome of the joint session. (Adam, 3/4)

AP: Alabama IVF Ruling Highlights Importance Of State Supreme Court Races In This Year's US Elections 
The recent ruling in Alabama that frozen embryos are legally considered children created a political firestorm after the decision halted treatment for many couples seeking to have families through fertility treatments. It also has turned the spotlight on the importance of institutions that are poised to play a central in this year’s elections: state supreme courts. Decisions by states’ highest courts have become especially critical in the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion. This year, campaigns for state supreme court seats are expected to be among the most expensive and bitterly contested races on the ballot. At stake are future decisions over abortion, other reproductive rights, gerrymandering, voting rights and other crucial issues. (Fernando, 3/1)

The Washington Post: Conservative Christian Women In Red States Are Rising Up To Defend IVF 
Across red-state America, conservative Christian women have become outspoken, even angry advocates. They’ve decried the Alabama ruling on their social media pages, galvanized to defend both their values and in vitro fertilization. Their comments have often appeared amid photos of the babies that IVF made possible. (Hennessy-Fiske, 3/1)

USA Today: House Democrats Launch New Attack On GOP After Alabama IVF Ruling
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a memo, first shared with USA TODAY, attacking vulnerable House Republicans for being “all talk, no action” on IVF and promising “to make House Republicans’ blatant disrespect for women and families a defining campaign issue.” The memo takes aim at a pair of resolutions House GOP lawmakers introduced last week expressing support for continued access to IVF and new protections for the procedure. The resolutions, considered non-binding, have no impact on federal law. (Tran, 3/4)

The Washington Post: Louisiana’s Ban On Destruction Of IVF Embryos Strips Patients’ Options 
A 1986 Louisiana law has led IVF clinics to ship patients’ embryos out of state for decades, which some say makes an already taxing medical process more difficult. (Kaur, 3/3)

Stat: Study: Many Costly Generic Drugs Are Unavailable At Alternative Pharmacies
A growing number of alternative pharmacies — such as those run by Costco, Amazon, and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs — may be increasingly popular with American consumers, but a new analysis finds many of the most expensive generic medicines are unavailable, prices vary widely, and savings can be modest. (Silverman, 3/1)

NBC News: CVS To Pay Ohio $1.5 Million In Penalties Over Understaffing And Other Safety Issues At Pharmacies
CVS Health, one of the nation’s largest operators of retail chain pharmacies, will pay Ohio $1.5 million in penalties for problems largely related to understaffing and make changes that may soon be mandatory for all the state’s retail pharmacies, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy said Thursday. The penalties, the largest ever imposed by the state board, are part of the settlement of 27 safety cases the board was investigating at 22 CVS pharmacies. (Kaplan, 3/1)

Stat: RaDonda Vaught, Nurse Who Accidentally Killed Patient, To Speak At CommonSpirit Event On Patient Safety
CommonSpirit Health is hosting an educational event this month featuring RaDonda Vaught, the Tennessee nurse who was criminally prosecuted for accidentally killing a patient by injecting the wrong medication. (Bannow, 3/1)

Bloomberg: Monsanto Wins Mistrial In Roundup Case After Jury Deadlocks
A Bayer AG trial in Delaware over claims that the company’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict. Jurors in state court in Wilmington deliberated for about three days before saying Friday they couldn’t reach an agreement on whether Anthony Cloud’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was caused by exposure to Roundup made by Bayer’s Monsanto. Judge Vivian Medinilla declared a mistrial and dismissed the panel. (Feeley, 3/1)

In organ transplant news —

Reuters: Flying Dutchman Recognised As Longest-Surviving Heart Transplant Patient 
Four decades after being diagnosed with a serious heart condition and given just six months to live, Bert Janssen has set a Guinness World Record as the longest-surviving transplant patient. "I want to be an example for people," said the Dutchman, who was 17 when he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease which makes it harder for the heart to pump blood around the body. (Van Campenhout, Fiorin and Van Der Wouw, 3/4)

The New York Times: Texas Judge Blocks Paxton’s Request For Transgender Minors’ Records 
A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents on transgender minors and the gender-affirming care they may be receiving. In Texas, medical care for gender transition is prohibited for minors under a law passed last year. As part of an investigation into violations of the ban, the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded early last month that the nonprofit PFLAG National, which supports families in accessing gender-affirming care for children, provide information on minors in the state who may have received such treatments. (Edmonds, 3/3)

Bloomberg: DeSantis Rejects Bill To Restrict Social Media Access For Teens
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have barred social media companies, including Meta Platforms Inc. and TikTok Inc., from serving users under the age of 16, a move that would have made Florida the first state to enact such a ban. (Smith, 3/1)

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth, Mount Sinai Dispute Threatens New Yorkers' Healthcare Access
Thousands of New Yorkers face disruptions to their medical care after one of the country’s biggest hospitals left insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s private health insurance network on Friday amid an escalating dispute. The move pits the nation’s biggest health insurer against a powerhouse medical system in New York City that operates the country’s ninth-largest hospital. Because Mount Sinai Health System wants to be paid more for its services and UnitedHealth won’t agree, the hospital operator has terminated its contract with the insurer. (Tozzi and Denham, 3/1)

The Wall Street Journal: California Homelessness Measure Pits Newsom Against Mental-Health Advocates 
As Californians grow increasingly frustrated with the mental illness, drug abuse and homelessness evident on streets from San Francisco to San Diego, Gov. Gavin Newsom is staking his political capital on a multibillion-dollar ballot measure aimed at addressing all three problems. Some of his most likely supporters, including some advocates for the mentally ill, aren’t on the Democrat’s side, complicating his sales pitch to voters. (Mai-Duc, 3/3)

North Carolina Health News: Fentanyl Deaths Rising Among NC Children
In North Carolina, fentanyl contributed to the deaths of 10 children age 5 or younger in 2022. Just seven years prior, the state recorded only one death in that age group. For children ages 13 to 17, fentanyl deaths increased from four to 25 in that same time period, according to data shared with Child Fatality Task Force members. (Fernandez, 3/4)

KFF Health News: Journalists Examine Medicaid Unwinding, Farmworkers' Mental Health, And The Big Opioid Payback 
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (3/2)

CNN: Yogurts Can Now Make Limited Claim That The Food Lowers Diabetes Risk, FDA Says
In a decision nearly five years in the making, the US Food and Drug Administration has decided that yogurts can now make a limited claim that the food may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, the federal agency concluded Friday. The decision marks the first-ever qualified health claim the federal agency has issued for yogurt. (Rogers, 3/3)

Fox News: In Patients With Depression, Familiar Scents Could Help Trigger Happy Memories, Study Finds: ‘Break The Cycle’
A familiar scent could help individuals with depression recall memories more easily than verbal cues, a recent study published in JAMA Network Open noted. For people with major depressive disorder (MDD), a familiar smell might help them recall autobiographical memories and potentially help with mental health treatment, according to a group of researchers and social workers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Depression has been linked to issues with short-term memory, according to Healthline. (McGorry, 3/4)

The Washington Post: How To Recognize Mild Cognitive Impairment, And What To Do About It 
More than occasional forgetfulness, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) causes problems that disrupt daily life but don’t make it impossible to function, said Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. It is often but not always a precursor to dementia, he added. (Ellison, 3/3)

NPR: Swapping Red Meat For Plant-Based Protein Boosts Longevity And Climate Health
A new study published in Nature Food, finds that if people swap red and processed meat for plant protein a few times a week, it's good for their health – and can also reduce their diet-related carbon footprint. The study found cutting red meat consumption by half leads to significant changes. For instance, eating it twice a week instead of four times a week will shrink your carbon footprint by 25% and may also boost longevity. (Aubrey, 3/3)

WBAL: Trader Joe's Recalling Chicken Soup Dumplings, May Contain Hard Plastic
Trader Joe's Steamed Chicken Soup Dumplings are being recalled nationwide as the product may be contaminated with plastic that comes from a permanent marker pen, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. (Camponovo, 3/3)

Bloomberg: Do You Really Want To Find Out If You'll Get Alzheimer's? 
A few years ago, researchers made the unnerving discovery that in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, disordered clumps of abnormal proteins had been growing for 15 or even 20 years before their diagnosis. That means these pathological-looking deposits are silently accumulating in the brains of millions of seemingly healthy individuals in their 50s and 60s. (F.D. Flam, 3/2)

Scientific American: Florida Surgeon General Risks Making A Dangerous Measles Outbreak Much Worse 
An outbreak of measles in Florida has grown to 10 cases. Most have been linked to an elementary school with nearly three dozen unvaccinated students. The count includes seven cases tied to the school, two in the same county, and one travel-related case in another county. The situation is likely to get worse. Florida allows nonmedical vaccine exemptions, which have been slowly increasing in the state since 2021. (Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani, 3/1)

Los Angeles Times: How Alabama's IVF Ruling Unmasks The Hypocrisy Of Antiabortion Zealots 
We don’t know whether former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, had any leftover embryos after they availed themselves of the advanced reproductive technology known as in vitro fertilization to become the parents of their three children, who are now adults. In November 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion, the virulently antiabortion Pence told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the couple had struggled with infertility for years and that he would never dream of trying to stop others from using such technology to have kids. (Robin Abcarian, 3/3)

The New York Times: Living Slow Deaths Behind Bars
Many long-termers languish in cells or in substandard prison infirmaries or even in so-called long-term care units. With labored breathing, they limp to the mess hall and miss their chance to eat, sink deeper into dementia, fall and get seriously injured, and navigate hearing and vision impairment. At the same time, they are under the supervision of guards who lack the training and often the empathy to properly manage the diminished capacity of many older people to follow often senseless prison rules. When I was a commissioner, from 1984 to 1996, it was unusual for me to meet a parole candidate over the age of 50. Now there are more than 7,500 incarcerated people age 50 or older in New York, or about 25 percent of the state prison population. (Barbara Hanson Treen, 3/3)

The New York Times: Ozempic May Blow The Federal Budget 
The magnitude of potential benefit and potential cost — roughly $15,000 per year per person — posed by these drugs suggests that policymakers may have no alternative but to step in and bring their costs in line with their social benefits. If policymakers succeed in doing so, we could build a model for drug price negotiation that enables an extraordinary medical breakthrough to improve both our health and our fiscal position. Or we could do nothing and create one of the biggest fiscal problems of the decade, with pharma companies profiting at the expense of the taxpayer and of equitable health outcomes. (Brian Deese, Jonathan Gruber and Ryan Cummings, 3/4)