Politico: Senate Downplays Obamacare Repeal
July was supposed to be the big month for Obamacare repeal in Congress. But Senate Republicans are downplaying expectations that they’ll use a powerful budget tool called reconciliation to undo Obamacare through a simple majority vote this summer — and conservatives are none too pleased. Republicans pledged earlier this year that they would use the budget reconciliation tool to knock out parts of Obamacare. That was to start this month, to get rid of some unpopular Obamacare taxes or mandates even if they can’t scrap the whole law. But persistent divisions among Republicans, along with the reelection concerns of some GOP senators in liberal or swing states, are again slowing things down. (Haberkorn and Bade, 7/9)

Meanwhile, some Indian companies see a growing outsourcing market coming from the health law.

Reuters: India IT Outsourcing Firms Seek Booster Shot From Obamacare
India's IT outsourcing firms are betting on U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare reform to rev up revenue growth, which is slowing as the $146 billion industry's key financial and manufacturing clients spend less on software services. The United States is the biggest market for the outsourcing industry, and accounts for 90 percent of all healthcare-related contracts, which researchers Everest Group expect to more than double to about $68 billion in 2020 from nearly $31 billion two years ago, largely due to "Obamacare." (Bhattacharjee, 78)

Stateline: On Medicaid Expansion, A Question Of Math And Politics
With its ruling in King v. Burwell last month, the U.S. Supreme Court likely settled the question of whether President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act will survive. Whether and when the health law will be fully implemented in all 50 states is a different question. ... But in the mostly Southern and Midwestern states that have rejected expansion, opposition shows little sign of abating. (Vestal, 7/8)

Kaiser Health News: Montana Could Face Tough Bargaining With Federal Officials On Medicaid Expansion Plan
Montana’s blueprint for expanding Medicaid on terms that are palatable to the fragile bipartisan legislative majority that passed an expansion law earlier this year has been released for public comment before it is formally submitted to federal officials. A leading expert on Medicaid waivers, however, says Montana is unlikely to get exactly what it wants. (Whitney, 7/9)

Georgia Health News: A Good Omen For Georgia Medicaid Plan?
An Ohio program that gave insurance to thousands of low-income patients helped them improve on health measures and also produced unexpectedly low costs, according to a study published Tuesday. Those findings may have a significant impact in Georgia. State officials are considering a proposal from Grady Health System in Atlanta to extend coverage to uninsured Georgians through a special Medicaid “waiver.’’ Grady officials say the waiver program would be modeled after the Cleveland MetroHealth Care Plus program. (Miller, 7/8)

Texas News Service: Next: Expanding Health Coverage
The latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has created a new wave of activism. Texas health advocates are working to close the health care coverage gap for the state's 1.5 million uninsured adults. Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of Center for Public Policy Priorities, says working families are paying the price for the state's decision not to expand Medicaid coverage. She says a family of four earning $25,000 a year, considered above the poverty line, can pay as little as $45 a month for coverage with federal subsidies. (Galatas, 7/8)

Meanwhile, Arkansas moves forward with plans to create a state exchange -

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: For Health Exchange, Tech Code To Be Copy
In establishing its health insurance exchange for individual consumers, an Arkansas board will seek to copy computer code from another state's enrollment system rather than building its own code from scratch, the board decided Wednesday. At a meeting in Little Rock, the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board also unanimously approved a name -- My Arkansas Insurance -- and a logo for the exchanges it is creating for individuals and small businesses. The logo features a pinwheel pattern, representing a colorful umbrella, inside an outline of the state's borders. (Davis, 7/9)

The Hill: White House Offers Initial Support For Medical Cures Bill
The Obama administration gave an early endorsement Wednesday for a bipartisan medical cures bill headed to the [full] House this week, while also calling for changes to several GOP-backed proposals. A statement from the White House said it largely supports the multi-billion dollar legislation, which is designed to speed up drug development. (Ferris, 7/8)

Reuters: White House Says Open To Working With Congress On Disease Research Bill
The White House said on Wednesday it was open to working with Congress on a bill that would invest in disease research and would be paid for with sales of oil from U.S. emergency reserves. The House of Representatives is considering a bipartisan bill that would increase funding for the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to boost research and approvals of new treatments for rare diseases. ... The White House expressed general support for the bill but expressed concern about increasing funding without addressing mandatory spending caps known as sequestration. (Rampton and Gardner, 7/8)

POLITICO: Republicans Face Tough Funding Question On 21st Century Cures
The House Rules Committee is taking up 21st Century Cures this afternoon along with 29 amendments from lawmakers. Only a couple of amendments are likely to make it to the floor vote later this week, when they’ll likely be defeated, according to Democratic aides. That includes an amendment to strip Hyde Amendment language that was added to NIH and FDA funding over Democratic objections last week. It’s purely symbolic since FDA and NIH don’t deal with abortion, but GOP appropriators wanted to make sure that the same rider they put on Labor-H bills also gets applied to the new mandatory spending. (Villacorta & Mershon, 7/8)

The Hill: Conservative Breaks With Heritage On Medical Research
One of the House’s most conservative members is urging his GOP colleagues to support a multibillion-dollar medical cures bill over the concerns of the influential Heritage Action Foundation. Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) penned a letter late Tuesday in support of the 21st Century Cures Act, which creates billions of dollars of new funding for research at the National Institutes of Health. (Ferris, 7/8)

USA Today: Born Into Suffering: More Babies Arrive Dependent On Drugs
Shortly after he was born, tremors wracked Leopoldo Bautista's tiny body as he suffered through the pain of drug withdrawal — pain his mother understands. Samantha Adams is being treated with methadone for a heroin addiction, and she passed the methadone into Leopoldo's system. Sitting vigil with him at Norton Hospital, she tears up as she describes the 10-day-old "going through what I'd been through." Being born into suffering is becoming ever more common as research shows a continuing surge in drug-dependent infants amid a national epidemic of pain pill and now heroin abuse, with no end in sight. (Ungar, 7/8)

USA Today: Advocates Push To Expand Use Of Medications To Treat Addiction
Medications that treat addiction – buprenorphine, methadone and a third named naltrexone -- are a cornerstone of the Obama administration's plan to combat the opiate epidemic. One consequence of the addiction epidemic: The death rate from drug overdoses more than doubled from 1999 to 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug overdoses now kill nearly 44,000 Americans a year – more than car accidents. Opiate addicts who are given such "medication-assisted treatment" cut their risk of death from all causes – from overdoses to car accidents – in half, said Melinda Campopiano, medical officer at the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (Szabo, 7/8)

CBS News: Life Begins With Agony Of Withdrawal For Opiate-Addicted Babies
America's heroin problem is getting worse. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control says that in just six years, heroin use has risen 150 percent to more than a half-million Americans. Over a decade, use by women alone is up 100 percent. The most innocent victims of drug abuse are babies. A newborn in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Tufts Medical Center in Boston was given morphine to ease his withdrawals. He was in the hospital for three weeks. The jerking movements this baby boy had were symptoms of opiate addiction. (Quijano, 7/8)

Medical Daily: America's Heroin Epidemic Explained
It’s easy to turn a blind eye to the current heroin epidemic the United States finds itself in. Most people are under the impression that no one close to them has a problem with addiction, no one close to them will ever have a problem with addiction, or people who have a trouble with addiction are a flaw in the human species. If only they knew how quickly and easily anyone can pick up a smack habit. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that heroin use in the U.S. is only becoming more common among people with historically low drug abuse rates. (Caba, 7/8)

The Concord Monitor: In Vermont, Recovery Centers Fill Gaps In System
Here, there are no clinicians administering Suboxone or methadone. No requirements to participate in a 12-step program. No judgment, however, if you happen to be in one – or interested in joining. Instead, in this former pet store at the edge of Barre – a Vermont town of about 9,000 in the middle of rolling hills, a few miles away from the state capital – there’s a pool table and a communal kitchen. There are couches and a deck of cards. The walls and tables from the front entrance to the sprawling community room are lined with signs and brochures and other pamphlets about a free health shuttle, a cooking academy, a therapeutic yoga class, an adult education program, a list of resources for drug and alcohol addiction. There are a handful of staffers who sit ready to welcome whoever walks through the front door with a conversation about what help they might need and where they might be able to find it. There’s one part-time staffer, in particular, who serves as a bridge between this space and clinical treatment options for opiate addiction. (McDermott, 7/9)

NPR: Despite National Progress, Colorectal Cancer Hot Spots Remain
One of the great successes in the war on cancer has been the steep decline in the death rate from colorectal cancer. Since 1970, the colorectal cancer death rate per 100,000 Americans has been cut in half, falling to 15.1 in 2011 from 29.2 in 1970. ... Even so, colorectal cancer remains the third biggest cancer killer. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 49,700 deaths from colorectal cancer this year. It's also the case that progress against the disease has been uneven. (Hensley, 7/8)

The Washington Post: The 3 Hot Spots In The U.S. With The Highest Colon Cancer Death Rates
Although the risk of death from colorectal cancer in the United States has dropped dramatically in recent decades, there are three "hot spots" in Appalachia and the rural South where death rates are "unnecessarily high," researchers said. (Sun, 7/8)

NBC News: Colon Cancer Deaths Tumble, But Not In These Hotspots
Colon cancer deaths are moving briskly down across the U.S. — with the exception of three large hotspots, researchers reported Wednesday. A "perfect storm" of high obesity rates, low education and a lack of access to medical care make for frighteningly high colon cancer rates in the Mississippi delta, western Appalachia and the borderland between Virginia and North Carolina, the American Cancer Society finds. "In the Mississippi delta, rates among black men are not declining at all," said Rebecca Siegel of the American Cancer Society, who led the study. (Fox, 7/8)

Meanwhile, a report on a volunteer program that transports cancer patients to their treatments -

Cincinnati Enquirer: Road To Cancer Recovery Is ‘Paved With Volunteers’
The “road to recovery” from cancer is literally paved with volunteers. The Road to Recovery is an American Cancer Society program in which volunteers provide transportation for cancer patients with no other way to get to treatment facilities. Volunteers made almost 1,000 trips for 64 patients in Northern Kentucky alone in a year. (Moynahan, 7/8)

The Associated Press: Suicide Attempts Most Common In Newer Soldiers, Study Found
War-time suicide attempts in the Army are most common in newer enlisted soldiers who have not been deployed, while officers are less likely to try to end their lives. At both levels, attempts are more common among women and those without a high school diploma, according to a study billed as the most comprehensive analysis of a problem that has plagued the U.S. military in recent years. (Tanner, 7/8)

Kaiser Health News: Patrick Kennedy On Moving Mental Health Policy Out Of ‘The Dark Ages’
Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., was a senior in high school the first time he checked into rehab. His struggle with drug addiction and bipolar disorder continued to haunt him through his 16 years in Congress. But his first-hand experience with these illnesses also drives his long-standing interest in shaping public policies to confront the challenges faced by people with mental health problems. ... Kennedy [talked] about problems he sees in the nation’s mental health system and the steps needed to fix them. (Pockros, 7/9)

The Washington Post: Fish Oil Pills: A $1.2 Billion Industry Built, So Far, On Empty Promises
For anyone wondering about whether to take a fish oil pill to improve your health, the Web site of the National Institutes of Health has some advice. Yes. And no. One page on the Web site endorses taking fish oil supplements, saying they are likely effective for heart disease ... But another page suggests that, in fact, the fish oil pills seem useless ... Few issues better reflect the American confusion over diet. People in the United States spend about $1.2 billion annually for fish oil pills and related supplements even though the vast majority of research published recently in major journals provides no evidence of a health benefit. (Whoriskey, 7/8)

The New York Times: Doctors’ Notes For Pregnant Employees Can Backfire, Experts Warn
Women who seek accommodations from their employers during pregnancy are sometimes fired or forced into unpaid leave for a surprising reason: Their doctor’s note was not carefully worded, experts warned on Wednesday. ... In roughly 70 percent of pregnancy-related cases investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the last decade, a female employee was fired. Doctors’ notes often play a pivotal role in employment conflicts, Dr. Jackson and her colleagues said. (Saint Louis, 7/8)

The Miami Herald: As Consumers Shoulder More Costs, Health Care Prices Remain Hidden In Florida, Other States
Consumers with health insurance shouldered more of the expense for their medical care in 2014, but Florida and nearly every other state did little to require that prices for hospitals and doctors be made public — hindering comparison shopping and allowing dominant hospital systems and insurers to drive up costs overall, according to a report released Wednesday. Florida was among 45 states that received a failing grade for neglecting to adopt laws that give patients the data they need to plan for their healthcare expenses, according to the report produced by two nonprofit groups, Catalyst for Payment Reform in California and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute in Connecticut. (Chang, 7/8)

CNBC: Health-Care Cost Rising? Blame The Kids
Health-care spending on children grew at a much faster pace than the overall U.S. population over a three-year span, driven in part by an increase in hospital admissions for newborn babies, according to a new study. The wide disparity identified in the Health Care Cost Institute report raises questions about whether that higher spending rate is actually leading to better health outcomes for kids, and to what extent insurance prices will be affected if the trend continues. (Mangan, 7/8)

The Associated Press: Strong Sales, But High Abandonment For Fitness Trackers
Deepak Jayasimha's fitness tracker is now with his father-in-law in India, where it sits unused. Annabel Kelly foisted hers off on the kids. Virginia Atkinson took hers off to charge the battery and hasn't picked it up since February. Although sales of Fitbit and other fitness trackers are strong, many of their owners lose enthusiasm for them once the novelty of knowing how many steps they've taken wears off. One research firm, Endeavour Partners, estimates that about a third of these trackers get abandoned after six months. A health care investment fund, Rock Health, says Fitbit's regulatory filings suggest that only half of Fitbit's nearly 20 million registered users were still active as of the first quarter of 2015. (Jesdanun, 7/8)

The Huffington Post: Blood Tests Could Soon Be As Easy As A Trip To The Drugstore
A little-known healthcare start-up is slowly setting the stage to transform blood tests. Theranos, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that offers about 153 tests for under $10, scored three major coups in the past week. First, they won FDA approval for their patented technology that performs complex medical tests using just a few drops, rather than a few vials, of blood. Its first application, named in the FDA announcement, extends to the company’s herpes simplex 1 test. (Almendrala, 7/8)

WBUR: Self-Diagnosing Online? Study Finds Sites Are Only Accurate About Half Of The Time
There’s a new warning for those of us who go online to figure out why we have a stomach ache or a nagging cough or occasional chest pain. Symptom checkers — those tools that let you enter information and then produce a diagnosis — are accurate about half of the time, according to a study out of Harvard Medical School. Looking at 23 websites, the Harvard study found that a third listed the correct diagnosis as the first option for patients. Half the sites had the right diagnosis among their top three results, and 58 percent listed it in their top 20 suggestions. (Bebinger, 7/9)

Meanwhile, some device makers vow to compensate hospitals if their products fail to perform as advertised -

Reuters: Medical Device Makers Beef Up Product Guarantees To Woo U.S. Hospitals
Medical device makers, facing sluggish sales and increasing pressure to prove the value of their products, are beefing up guarantees to compensate U.S. hospitals if a device does not perform as expected. Medtronic Plc, Johnson & Johnson and St Jude Medical Inc are among the first to provide the newer guarantees, some of which offer to share in the cost of follow-up treatment tied to their heart devices, company executives told Reuters. Orthopedic implant makers are exploring such agreements for hip and knee devices. (Kelley, 7/8)

Los Angeles Times: Judge Orders Truce In USC-UC San Diego Fight Over Alzheimer's Study Data
A judge ordered a temporary truce Wednesday in the unusually public and nasty fight involving UC San Diego and USC over control of a historic, nationwide study on Alzheimer's disease. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes accepted USC's promise that it will not alter data and computer systems that are part of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), a $100-million nationwide project that has been based at, and managed by, UC San Diego since 1991. The university last week sued the director of the study, Paul Aisen, eight of his campus colleagues and USC, accusing them of hijacking a study that involves dozens of research institutions across the country. (Robbins, Fikes and Gordon, 7/8)

Detroit Free Press/USA Today: Patient Lost Teeth After Chemo He Didn't Need
A man with lower back pain was treated like he had blood cancer and given chemotherapy and radiation — even though tests showed he didn't have cancer, an expert testified Wednesday at the sentencing hearing for Dr. Farid Fata. The once-prominent Oakland County physician, facing prison for insurance fraud by grossly over treating hundreds of patients, quietly watched in a federal courtroom in downtown Detroit as the expert witness described the treatment of Robert Sobieray, who was told he also had metastatic bone cancer. "I'm not sure what they thought they were radiating," said Dr. David Steensma, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and cancer physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who testified for prosecutors. (Allen, 7/8)

The Associated Press: Expert Testifies Against Cancer Doctor At Sentencing Hearing
An expert who looked at the files of 100 patients of a Detroit-area cancer doctor facing prison for unnecessary treatments testified Wednesday that the records were disturbing. Dr. David Steensma of Harvard Medical School said some patients received hundreds of unnecessary chemotherapy treatments. He testified for the government at the third day of a sentencing hearing for Dr. Farid Fata, an Oakland County oncologist who was charged with widespread health care fraud. He pleaded guilty last fall to fraud, money laundering and conspiracy and could get his sentence Thursday or Friday. (7/8)

Kaiser Health News: An Explicit Contract Makes Surrogacy Viable For An Oregon Woman
During the past few years, Oregon has quietly become a prime location for women willing to carry children for those unable to get pregnant. ... But surrogacy arrangements are often informal agreements, and they can go wrong. A surrogate may face unexpected medical bills, or the intended parents may change their mind. Yet Mardi Palan is excited about becoming a surrogate, and that’s due in part to a very thorough contract she has signed governing the terms of her surrogacy. (Foden-Vencil, 7/9)

The Associated Press: Catholic Church Gets Win In Liberal California Legislature
The Catholic Church, often out of step with California's liberal Legislature, notched a prominent win at the statehouse this week after aligning with advocates for the disabled and medical groups to defeat a proposal to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives. ... Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez wrote to the Assembly Health Committee last month, warning against a state that responds to suffering by "making it easier for people to kill themselves." An archdiocese website urged volunteers to get involved. ... Using English and Spanish, the Diocese of Orange urged parishioners on its website to write members of the Legislature to oppose the bill. (Blood, 7/8)

The Associated Press: Medicaid Group Says Providers Should Be Paid For Quality
The group formed by [Rhode Island] Gov. Gina Raimondo to transform the Medicaid system recommended paying health care providers for the quality of their services in its final report, which was released Wednesday. Most Medicaid payments in Rhode Island are made based on the amount of services provided. That can incentivize providers to focus on volume rather than value. (McDermott, 7/8)

Reuters: Hospitals Lose Bid To Recover $16M In Medicare Bad Debts
The U.S. does not have to reimburse more than 70 hospitals owned by Community Health Systems Inc for about $16 million in Medicare patients' uncollectible debts, a Washington, D.C., judge has ruled, in an issue that has divided judges in the district. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled on Tuesday that the Tennessee-based Community Health Systems had not provided enough evidence that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services changed its policy on reimbursing bad debts in 2004, in violation of federal law. (Pierson, 7/8)

Iowa State Daily: Iowa Mental Health Care Review Pending
No set criteria exist yet to gauge whether or not a redesign of how Iowa delivers mental health treatment, which included the controversial closing of two mental health institutes June 30, will be as beneficial to Iowans as hoped, Gov. Terry Branstad said in an IowaWatch interview. Branstad said he will continue to review a four-year plan for re-designing how Iowa provides mental health care. The redesign plan, implemented in 2012, is to bring mental health care services from being delivered at the county level to being delivered in a regional level containing multiple counties. Fifteen mental health regions exist in Iowa. Mental health care advocates in Iowa have not embraced the changes, and Branstad is well aware of that. (Tendall, 7/8)

The Associated Press: New York Implementing Plan To End AIDS Epidemic By 2020
New York state is putting its plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2020 into action. ... The state's strategy includes stepped up HIV testing and treatment and a focus on the use of pre-exposure drugs that can help high-risk individuals avoid infection. (7/8)

NBC News: Needed: $5 Million To Fund Successful Birth Control Program
A program that helped cut abortions by 42 percent among teens and cut teen births by 40 percent is scrambling for cash after a big grant ran out and the state legislature refused to fund it. The Colorado Family Planning Initiative provided free or subsidized birth control to needy, high-risk women. The program posted a plea for funding last week, and hopes to keep going by cobbling together money from the state, the federal government, and private contributors, said Dr. Larry Wolk, Colorado's chief medical officer. (Fox, 7/8)

The Associated Press: California Lawmaker Drops Bill To Regulate E-Cigarettes
A California lawmaker was forced to forsake his own tobacco bill Wednesday after a legislative panel gutted its key provision calling for electronic cigarettes to be regulated as a tobacco product. The developments stalled the bill in the committee and threatened its chances of becoming law. (Horowitz, 7/8)

San Jose Mercury News: Stanford Opens South Bay Cancer Center Designed With Patients' Feedback
When its doors open next week, Stanford Cancer Center South Bay will be more than just a medical facility that is closer to local residents than Palo Alto: It will also feature some of the comforts of home. The 70,000-square-foot building at Highway 85 and Bascom Avenue could begin taking cancer patients for treatment and exams as soon as July 13. The vision for the center took off when Stanford announced in 2013 that it would occupy the vacant new building and asked patients and their advocates what they'd like to see offered. (Ballester, 7/8)

The North Coast Journal: The Shut Out: Why Humboldt County's Skilled Nursing Facilities Stopped Accepting Patients
Queenie [Spenceley] has been turned away from every skilled nursing facility in Humboldt County [in California]. It's not because she's ineligible: The facilities accept MediCal, MediCare and private payment. It's not because they're full .... It's not because she's too sick: Skilled nursing facilities are intended to serve patients with medical problems such as Queenie's. And it's not for lack of trying. Her husband, with the help of caseworkers, has repeatedly petitioned all six facilities to find a place for his wife. ... Spenceley's experience is not an anomaly. According to a statement from St. Joseph's Hospital, the organization that owns five of the six local skilled nursing facilities recently informed the hospital that the facilities would no longer accept its patients. (A sixth facility, Jerold Phelps in Garberville, has only eight beds and a long waiting list.) The company also severed its contract with the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), leaving the program with nowhere in-county to place clients with needs too great to remain at home. (Stansberry, 7/8)

The Associated Press: Maryland Right-To-Die Doc Seeks License Reinstatement
A Baltimore right-to-die advocate is asking a judge to reinstate his Maryland medical license. Dr. Lawrence Egbert’s hearing is set for Thursday in Baltimore. The state medical board revoked Egbert’s license in December, contending he assisted in the suicides of six people who died from inhaling helium. (7/8)

The Associated Press: NBA, GE Healthcare Fund Research To Benefit Player Health
Seeking further ways to prevent injuries, the NBA is joining with GE Healthcare to promote research that could benefit players' health. With Commissioner Adam Silver saying that players' well-being is the league's "highest priority," the league says Wednesday the partnership aims to "reduce injuries, lengthen careers and improve post-career health for NBA players." (7/8)

Bloomberg: The Case For Bigger Health Insurers
A wave of consolidation is sweeping through the U.S. health-insurance industry. Most recently, Aetna has offered to buy Humana, and more such mergers are on the way. That must be bad news for consumers, right? Not necessarily. As a rule, less competition is bad, because it means higher prices -- and that's the last thing U.S. health care needs. But health care is a complicated business. The likely effect of these mergers on the cost of insurance isn't so clear-cut. (7/8)

Forbes: 21st Century Cures Is Good Health (And Fiscal) Policy
The FDA’s process for approving drugs is aging, and has failed to keep up with advances in basic science and modern analytic capabilities. Because of this, the cost of getting a new drug to market has grown from around $1 billion to over $2.6 billion. Effective patent life typically sits at around 11 years thanks to the length and complexity of FDA’s clinical trials. Simultaneously, investment in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds about half of all federal basic research (the foundation for all novel drug development) has stagnated since the early 2000s. These are very difficult problems to address. Which is why the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act – which would add additional oversight to the FDA and push it to embrace new tools like adaptive clinical trial designs and biomarkers – is so impressive. (Paul Howard and Yevgeniy Feyman, 7/9)

The New York Times: Why Is The Federal Government Afraid Of Fat?
Since the publication of the federal government’s 1980 Dietary Guidelines, dietary policy has focused on reducing total fat in the American diet — specifically, to no more than 30 percent of a person’s daily calories. This fear of fat has had far-reaching impacts, from consumer preferences to the billions of dollars spent by the military, government-run hospitals and school districts on food. Thirty-five years after that policy shift, it’s long past time for us to exonerate dietary fat. (David S. Ludwig, 7/9)

Huffington Post: Take Down the Confederate Flag - And Raise Up Medicaid Expansion
The killings in Charleston spurred the long overdue call to remove the Confederate flag from public buildings and from license plates. Removing the symbols of racism and inequity is a significant step. Just as critical is the need to remove racist barriers to quality health care. We must continue to fight for the nearly four million people who still don't have access to health care because of their state lawmakers' refusal to expand Medicaid. Nearly 90 percent of those in the health care coverage gap live in the South, and they are disproportionately people of color. (LeeAnn Hall, 7/7)

The Sacramento Bee: Struggling With A Life And Death Issue
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez was having a rough time. She was thinking of her mother, who died in 2007 and would have turned 70 this week, and she was having sleepless nights, struggling over an especially tough piece of legislation. Gonzalez truly believes in all the progressive causes. ... Then there is Senate Bill 128, which would allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of pills to terminally ill patients who have six months or fewer to live. [Supporters] pulled the bill from consideration on Tuesday. Although the Senate had approved the measure, [it] lacked votes in the Democratic-controlled Assembly Health Committee because of opposition from several Democrats, including Gonzalez, as well as Republicans. I [wanted] to understand the thinking and politics behind liberal opposition. Gonzalez proceeded to place her heart on her sleeve, and explain what was an intensely personal decision, not at all like pro-labor votes, which are easy for the former union leader. (Dan Morain, 7/8)

Health Affairs: King v. Burwell: A Brief Respite For Obamacare
Most health foundations in states with federally facilitated health insurance marketplaces breathed a collective sigh of relief after the King v. Burwell Supreme Court ruling, which retained the availability of federal subsidies for health insurance coverage. In Maine, where 89 percent of people in Marketplace plans qualified for subsidies, this ruling ensures that individuals and families can keep affordable health plans and promotes stability in our private insurance market—at least in the short term. As King v. Burwell recedes in the rear-view mirror, health funders need to focus our collective attention on the next set of fundamental threats to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) nascent successes. (Wendy Wolf and Morgan Hynd, 7/8)

news@JAMA: Learning About Competition From The UK's National Health Service
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) is a nationalized health care system—meaning its physicians are employed by the government. From that familiar fact, many conclude that the United States—with its competitive, private market-based delivery system—has nothing to learn from the NHS. That’s wrong. What’s wrong with this thought is that it equates “competition” with “private.” In fact, competition can exist even in a nationalized health system, and it does among NHS hospitals. Moreover, studies of NHS hospital competition illustrate just how important it is, leading to better management, higher quality, and lower mortality. (Austin Frakt, 7/8)