The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Sen. Cassidy Maps A Plan To Overhaul Obamacare
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is throwing his hat into the ring of Republicans vying to shape the party’s health care policy this summer. GOP lawmakers have been wrestling for months over what to do if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act’s tax credits in most of the country, a move that would upend a big part of the law. A decision is expected in June, and Republican leaders believe it will give them a chance to overhaul a law they have long opposed. Mr. Cassidy, a freshman senator and a physician before going into politics, outlined a plan to let states choose to opt out of the law, widely known as Obamacare, if the court strikes down the credits. (Radnofsky, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Pelosi Predicts GOP Ruin On Health Care Case
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republicans will "rue the day" if the Supreme Court buys their arguments and invalidates tax subsidies for millions of people under President Barack Obama's health care law. Republicans have said they will try to ensure people don't lose coverage if the high court rules this summer against tax subsidies for health care coverage in certain states. But they haven't said how they would do it. (Werner, 5/13)

Knee replacement surgery was the most popular elective surgery among consumers who got insurance for the first time through Obamacare -

National Journal: Knee Replacement Surgery Is The Most Popular Procedure Among The Newly Insured
Knee-replacement surgery was the most disproportionately popular "preference-sensitive" health care treatment that people who are newly insured under the Affordable Care Act received in the first few months of 2014, according to a new analysis from the Society of Actuaries. Preference-sensitive care, to untangle the jargon, is health care that you can put off without inviting a crisis, even if you might like to get it. A visit to the emergency room visit or to the doctor to manage a chronic condition like diabetes is not preference-sensitive. Getting your knee replaced, on the other hand, is more optional. (Scott, 5/13)

And three questions to help consumers sift through student health care choices -

The Associated Press: 3 Questions To Help Sort Student Health Coverage Choices
A key question remains for many students who've finally settled on a college destination: How will they or their parents handle health care coverage? A doctor's office visit can cost over $100 for someone without insurance. A car accident that turns into a short hospital day can quickly bury a student and his or her parents in more than $30,000 in debt. Plus those who skip coverage may face a penalty under the federal health care overhaul. Brokers say students heading off to school in the fall can finalize their insurance plans as late as July or August. But they should start thinking about their needs long before they begin packing for a dorm. (Murphy, 5/13)

PoliticoPro: Skyrocketing Medicaid Sign-Ups Stir State Expansion Fights
Medicaid enrollment under Obamacare is skyrocketing past expectations, giving some GOP governors who oppose the program’s expansion under the health law an “I told you so” moment. More than 12 million people have signed up for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act since January 2014, and in many states that embraced that piece of the law, enrollment is hundreds of thousands beyond initial projections. (Pradhan, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Louisiana House Agrees To Financing Mechanism For Medicaid Expansion
House lawmakers gave quick, unanimous passage to a proposal that would help pay for a Medicaid expansion if Louisiana's next governor wants to provide coverage to the working poor. With a 96-0 vote Wednesday, the proposal by Republican House Speaker Chuck Kleckley was sent to the Senate for consideration. (5/13)

Fairbanks (Alaska) News Miner: Legislators Dwell On Failings In Third Hearing On Medicaid Expansion
The third day of hearings on Medicaid expansion held by the House Finance Committee in Anchorage this week sounded much like the first two days. Legislators continued to question the administration on the failings of the Medicaid provider payment system, with little attention paid to other elements of Gov. Bill Walker’s Medicaid bill. The Wednesday meeting was the third of four scheduled this week on Gov. Bill Walker’s House Bill 148, which chiefly aims to expand Medicaid eligibility to 40,000 Alaskans and introduces some reforms to the large program. The bill is one of three Walker put on the agenda for the special session. (Buxton, 5/13)

The Tennessean: 64 Percent Favor Insure Tennessee
Almost two-thirds of registered voters favor Insure Tennessee, Gov. Bill Haslam's controversial health insurance plan, according to a new poll conducted by Vanderbilt University. The latest edition of the Vanderbilt poll shows 64 percent of registered voters polled favor Insure Tennessee, compared to 19 percent who oppose it. As expected, Democrats support the plan more than any other group, with 85 percent of self-identified Democrats saying they're in favor of the plan. (Boucher, 5/13)

Health News Colorado: Lawmakers Question Future Of Health Exchange
Colorado lawmakers grilled managers for the state health exchange Wednesday, but did not embrace or oppose specific fee hikes. Managers at Connect for Health Colorado earlier this week recommended hiking the user fees from 1.4 percent to as high as 4.5 percent to fund about $54 million a year in expenses, a huge jump from long-promised costs of $26 million a year. At the same time, exchange managers also are pushing for a separate hike in assessments on all health insurance customers in the state — even those who buy insurance outside the state exchange. (Kerwin McCrimmon, 5/13)

The Denver Post: Colorado Health Insurance Exchange Questioned By Oversight Committee
The legislative committee overseeing the state health insurance exchange Wednesday questioned the competence of a volunteer board guiding the exchange. "Did this get set up properly with a part-time, volunteer board?" asked committee chair Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango. (Draper, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Hawaii Plans Changes For Health Exchange
Gov. David Ige's administration says Hawaii's health insurance exchange will have to make changes to comply with federal Affordable Care Act. Deputy Chief of Staff Laurel Johnston said Wednesday the administration's plan calls for using the federal government's information technology to run the Hawaii Health Connector's troubled insurance exchange. (McAvoy, 5/13)

Georgia Health News: Gwinnett, Metro Atlanta Top Exchange Enrollment
Gwinnett County, in suburban Atlanta, had by far the highest enrollment among Georgia counties in the state’s 2015 health insurance exchange, said a report released Wednesday. The exchange enrollment of 73,839 in Gwinnett is more than 14,000 higher than in the second-place finisher, neighboring Fulton County, even though Fulton is the only Georgia county with a higher overall population than Gwinnett’s. The other three counties in the state’s top 5 were DeKalb, with 52,016 enrollees, Cobb, with 43,958, and Clayton, with 21,764, according to a report on the state’s second year of open enrollment, compiled by Georgians for a Healthy Future, a consumer advocacy group. (Miller, 5/13)

And a Sacramento couple struggles to take advantage of subsidized health care coverage through Covered California -

Kaiser Health News: Learning A New Health Insurance System The Hard Way
The insurance program was called 'Believe Me' — but Kairis Chiaji had her doubts. She and her husband Arthur were skeptical that the new health plan they purchased for 2015 would actually work out. That’s because their experience in 2014 had been a disaster, she said. The Sacramento, Calif., couple had been thrilled to learn last year about the prospect of subsidized coverage under the nation’s health law, she recalled. Each of them had been uninsured for years when they signed up for coverage through the state exchange, Covered California. (Gold, 5/14)

The New York Times: House Approves Revised Measure Banning Most Abortions After 20 Weeks
The House on Wednesday voted to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, approving a revised version of a bill that Republican leaders had abruptly pulled in January amid objections from some of their own members. The measure passed in a 242-to-184 vote, with one member voting present. The bill dropped a provision in the original version that would have required women who became pregnant through rape to report their assault to law enforcement authorities to be eligible for an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Huetteman, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: House Passes Bill Banning Abortions After 20 Weeks
The House on Wednesday passed modified legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, months after concerns from centrist and female Republicans derailed a vote on the bill. The legislation stands little chance of becoming law, as President Barack Obama is unlikely to sign it even if it clears Congress. Still, the bill highlights the challenges Republicans face tackling an issue important to conservatives without alienating some women voters ahead of the 2016 elections. (Peterson and Radnofsky, 5/13)

The Washington Post: House Approves 20-Week Abortion Ban
The bill seeks to ban any abortions beyond the midpoint of pregnancy — before a fetus is typically deemed viable, but after antiabortion activists say the fetus can feel pain. It faces an uphill course in the Senate, and President Obama has said he would veto it. But House passage of the measure had been a priority for antiabortion groups hoping to push the needle on public opinion and inject the issue into the 2016 presidential race. (Somashekhar, 5/13)

The Associated Press: GOP Wins House OK For Bill Banning Most Late-Term Abortions
Republicans have won House approval for a late-term abortion ban after dropping rape provisions that were opposed by GOP women, forcing party leaders to rewrite the measure. The near party-line 242-184 vote marked a victory for conservatives and anti-abortion organizations. But the path to passage also showed how hard it will be for the GOP to satisfy such groups while retaining support from women in the 2016 elections. (Fram, 5/13)

Politico: After Earlier Stumble, House Passes 20-Week Abortion Ban
The House approved a bill Wednesday that would enact a nationwide abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, months after a group of female Republican lawmakers pressured House leaders into pulling an earlier version of the legislation. The bill passed 242-184, mostly along party lines. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, but House Republicans are hoping the outcome in their chamber will put pressure on the Senate to take it up. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) quickly pledged to reintroduce a companion bill. (Mershon and Villacorta, 5/13)

Arizona Republic: House Passes Rep. Trent Franks' 20-Week Abortion Ban
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks', R-Ariz., signature issue, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, passed the U.S. House on Wednesday, though it's unlikely to become law. Anti-abortion advocates, however, celebrated the passage of Franks' bill as a sign of progress on efforts to limit abortions nationwide. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner called it the most "pro-life" legislation ever to come before the House. (Sanders, 5/13)

Politico: FDA’s Still Waiting, But Upton Promises New Funding With Cures
FDA’s coffers once-again came up empty in the updated 21st Century Cures draft bill released Wednesday, but Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton pledged that more funding will be added — and that a complete pay-for will be attached — when the full committee considers the bill next week. The draft released ahead of a Health subcommittee markup Thursday includes $10 billion in mandatory spending for the NIH and a new six-month rare disease exclusivity for drug companies as well as other incentives, including a boost in Medicare pay for new antibiotics used in hospitals. (Karlin and Norma, 5/13)

Modern Healthcare: Interest Groups Seek To Add Goodies To Fast-Moving FDA Overhaul Bill
Why is the nation's capital suddenly obsessed with biomedical innovation? And why is the fruit of that obsession, the proposed 21st Century Cures Act, moving like a freight train through the usually deadlocked congressional process .... Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen called the NIH funding a horse trade “providing perks to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to approve medications and devices faster based on weaker evidence.” Observers say nearly every sector of the healthcare industry—even those that seem only tangentially related to the subject of the bipartisan legislation—has gotten involved in lobbying the bill. (Tahir, 5/12)

In other legislative news -

The Oregonian: Bills In Congress Would Give USDA Mandatory Recall Authority
Two bills were introduced in Congress on Wednesday to bolster the authority of the U.S. Department of Agriculture following the agency's slow response to successive salmonella outbreaks. One bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York in the U.S. Senate, would give the USDA mandatory recall authority. The other bill, introduced in the U.S. House by Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., would ban antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and also force a recall of products contaminated with pathogens that cause serious illness. (Terry, 5/13)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Woman's Outpatient Surgery Bill An Eye-Popping $38,000
Teresa Anderson was pleasantly surprised how quick and hassle-free her eyelid-lift surgery was at Havasu Regional Medical Center's outpatient-surgery facility in April 2014. ... Weeks later, the bills arrived at her Lake Havasu City home. Her surgeon, anesthesiologist and X-ray provider submitted bills and were paid nearly $2,250. Only one remained: Havasu Regional's bill. When it finally arrived last May, what she saw shocked her. An explanation of benefits from her insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, showed she and Blue Cross had been billed $38,526 by Havasu Regional for prep work, surgery and recovery lasting less than three hours. (Alltucker, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Montana Court Revives Health Insurance Discrimination Lawsuit
The Montana Supreme Court has revived the case of a woman who says it's unfair for hospitals to charge different rates to treat insured and uninsured patients. The high court reversed District Judge James Reynolds' decision last year to throw out the case challenging the agreements hospitals make with insurance companies to set discounts for the companies' customers. (Volz, 5/13)

In other hospital industry news -

Bloomberg: Tenet Says Hospitals Target Of Criminal Probe Over Kickbacks
Four Tenet Healthcare Corp. hospitals are the target of a federal criminal probe into allegations executives paid kickbacks to obstetric clinics for patient referrals, the company said in securities filings. The investigation arose from a 2009 whistle-blower lawsuit accusing Tenet’s hospitals of paying local clinics to send pregnant, undocumented Hispanic women to their facilities for deliveries covered by Medicaid, officials of the Dallas-based hospital chain said in a May 4 filing. (Feeley, 5/13)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Net Income Rises At Twin Cities Hospitals In 2013, Report Says
Hospitals in the Twin Cities saw net income increase for a second consecutive year in 2013, according to a report released Wednesday, even as the number of patient days in the hospital continued to decline. Collectively, 30 Twin Cities area hospitals reported net income of $641.1 million in 2013, up from $533.7 million in 2012, according to an annual report on hospital finances from Allan Baumgarten, an independent hospital analyst in St. Louis Park. (Snowbeck, 5/13)

The New York Times: Guiding Wealthy Retirees On Health Expenses
Death and disease don’t discriminate, and that has many high-net-worth retirees worried. They realize fate could determine the quality of their retirement more than their lifetime of planning. ... Enter big brokerage firms with services not typically associated with wealth management. Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are either offering to connect wealthy clients with providers that offer specialized health care, or training advisers to deal with such worries about health and aging among clients. (Sullivan, 5/13)

Bloomberg: Stan Druckenmiller Sees 'Massive Problem' Caused By Aging
Billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller said an aging population will present a “massive, massive problem” in 15 years. “The young people are not going to be talking about cutting back,” Druckenmiller said at a New York event hosted by Addepar, a technology company that provides software to financial advisers, fund managers and family offices. “There will be nothing to cut back.” Druckenmiller, 61, has argued for several years that the mushrooming costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt the nation’s youth and eventually result in a crisis worse than the financial meltdown of 2008. The government will have to reduce payments to the elderly, he said at the event. (Foxman, 5/13)

PBS NewsHour: Don’t Make This Medicare Mistake: COBRA Is Not Like Employer Health Insurance
COBRA can provide continuation of health insurance for 18 months up to 36 months and can be a literal lifesaver for people who lose their jobs and health coverage or, as in this situation, lose access to group coverage because of a divorce. What it does not do, however, is take the place of employer group coverage in the eyes of Medicare. An employer plan may excuse someone from needing to sign up for Medicare when they turn 65. However, COBRA does not qualify as group health coverage from an active employer. (Moeller, 5/13)

And the U.S. sees a boom in fertility treatments, some costing as much as $30,000 --

The Wall Street Journal: $30,000 Baby: U.S. Sees Boom In Fertility Treatments
Miryam Gerdine and her husband, both 44 years old, are expecting their first child in June, but the happy occasion comes with a price tag: The Maryland couple spent $30,000 on in vitro fertilization and other procedures. Delayed childbearing has allowed more women to join the workforce, but many who wait until their late 30s and 40s struggle to get pregnant. (Shah, 5/14)

The Washington Post: VA Improperly Spent $6 Billion Annually, Senior Official Says
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been spending at least $6 billion a year in violation of federal contracting rules to pay for medical care and supplies, wasting taxpayer money and putting veterans at risk, according to an internal memo written by the agency’s senior official for procurement. In a 35-page document addressed to VA Secretary Robert McDonald, the official accuses other agency leaders of “gross mismanagement” and making a “mockery” of federal acquisition laws that require competitive bidding and proper contracts. (Rein and Wax-Thibodeaux, 5/14)

The Washington Post: 9 Big Takeaways From Memo Accusing VA Of Making A ‘Mockery’ Of Spending Rules
In March, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ senior procurement official, Jan R. Frye, sent a memo to Secretary Robert McDonald accusing other agency leaders of “gross mismanagement.” In the 35-page document, he describes a culture of “lawlessness and chaos” at the Veterans Health Administration, the massive health-care system for 8.7 million veterans. (Rein, 5/13)

The New York Times: Study Asks If Carrot Or Stick Can Better Help Smokers Stop
The trial, which was described in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, was the largest yet to test whether offering people financial incentives could lead to better health. It used theories about human decision making that have been developed in psychology and economics departments over several decades and put them into practice with more than 2,500 people who either worked at CVS Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain by sales, or were friends or relatives of those employees. (Tavernise, 5/13)

NPR: Smokers More Likely To Quit If Their Own Cash Is On The Line
A new study finds that employer-based programs to help people stop smoking would work better if they tapped into highly motivating feelings — such as the fear of losing money. This conclusion flows from a study involving the employees of CVS/Caremark. Some workers got postcards asking them if they wanted a cash reward to quit smoking. One card ended up in the hands of Camelia Escarcega in Rialto, Calif., whose sister works for CVS. (Harris, 5/13)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Study Finds Incentives To Quit Smoking Are About How, Not How Much
We already know that the prospect of earning some cash helps people quit smoking. But a new study from the University of Pennsylvania found that the way cash rewards are structured can make a big difference in how well such programs work. People were far more likely to quit for six months if they had some skin in the game. The problem was getting them to invest some of their own money - they got it back if they stopped smoking - in a reward program. (Burling, 5/14)

NBC News: Want Me To Quit Smoking? Pay Me
Here's a new way to get people to quit smoking: pay them. A pilot program that tried this rewards-based approach worked unexpectedly well, researchers reported Wednesday. Offering such a reward may work especially well for employers who dish out thousands of dollars a year more in health insurance payouts to smokers than they spend on non-smokers, the researchers said. And it may pay to tailor the incentive. They found that a select group of people who agreed to put down a $150 "bet" that they could kick the habit were very motivated to quit. After a year, more than half of them were still not smoking, the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Fox and Edwards, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Multibillion-Dollar Investment Needed To Fight Drug-Resistant ‘Superbugs’
A multibillion-dollar investment into the global pharmaceuticals industry is needed to ward off the threat of drug-resistant “superbugs,” according to Jim O’Neill, the economist leading a review into antimicrobial resistance for the U.K. government. Mr. O’Neill, best known for coining the “BRIC” acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China while at Goldman Sachs, estimated that as much as $37 billion is needed over the next 10 years to spur the industry to develop innovative antibiotics, since there is little market incentive to do so. (Roland, 5/13)

Los Angeles Times: Hospitals Step Up Search For Best Scope-Cleaning Protocol
Three months after deadly superbug outbreaks sparked alarm nationwide, U.S. hospitals are still searching for how best to clean a controversial medical scope and keep patients safe. Federal regulators have declined to pull the difficult-to-clean duodenoscopes off the market, and there's no indication that manufacturers can quickly redesign the reusable devices, which are employed in nearly 700,000 procedures annually. (Terhune and Petersen, 5/14)

Meanwhile, on another public health policy issue -

McClatchy: Breast Cancer Proposal Could Leave 17 Million Without Mammogram Coverage
A new report estimates that 17 million women ages 40 to 49 could lose free annual mammogram coverage if an influential medical panel adopts its proposed breast cancer screening guidelines. The new figures from consulting firm Avalere Health are the latest development in a growing medical and political controversy that was resurrected last month after Congress quashed it in 2010. (Pugh, 5/13)

Columbus Dispatch: Report: Thousands Would Lose Medicaid Coverage Under House Plan
Ohio’s former Medicaid director warned on Wednesday that thousands of poor children and adults would lose tax-funded health coverage under provisions the House tucked into the state budget. The plan would require most children, parents and adults to make monthly contributions to a health-savings account or lose Medicaid benefits, regardless of their income. A new report by John R. Corlett, president and executive director of the Center for Community Solutions, a non-partisan research group in Cleveland, said a mother of three earning 100 percent of the federal poverty level or about $20,000 a year would pay $100 a month to cover her children. (Candisky, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Alaska Medicaid System Case On Hold To Allow Work For Fixes
An attorney with the Alaska Department of Law says litigation against a vendor hired to develop and implement a Medicaid payment system was put on hold to allow continued work to resolve major system problems. Stacie Kraly told the House Finance Committee, meeting in Anchorage, that the state and Xerox plan to meet by July 31 to establish whether the state finds the system acceptable. If it does, the state health department would seek system certification by the federal government. (5/13)

The Charlotte Observer: NC State Audit Says Former Medicaid Official Wasted Money Hiring People She Knew
A retired state Department of Health and Human Services manager wasted more than $1.6 million by hiring as temporary employees a dozen people whom she personally knew and paying them too much, according to a state audit released Wednesday. The audit does not name the manager, but Angie Sligh was head of the office that managed information systems for Medicaid in the period covered by the audit. She retired earlier this year. Before 2013, Sligh was in charge of the installation of a Medicaid bill-paying system that is now called NCTracks. Sligh and the work of her office have been the subject of previous critical audits. (Bonner, 5/13)

Dallas Morning News: Bridging The Dental Care Gap For Seniors
The lack of access to affordable dental care for older Americans is a growing problem in Texas and across the country as baby boomers retire and people live longer. Many adults 65 and older lack dental insurance, according to dentists, health care workers and senior advocates. Medicare, the largest health provider for people 65 and older, does not cover routine dental care. Dental services under Medicaid, the federal-state health coverage plan for low-income Americans, vary by state because they are considered optional benefits. Texas, for instance, does not offer Medicaid-funded dental services for older adults. (Cho, 5/13)

Dallas Morning News: Texas House OKs Limits On Abortions For Minors
House Republicans approved a bill late Wednesday that would restrict minors seeking a legal bypass to get an abortion without parental consent. The measure, approved on a 98-47 vote after four hours of debate, now goes to the Senate. Women under 18 years old are required to get parental consent to have an abortion in Texas, but those with absent parents or who may be abused or neglected can ask a judge to waive the requirement. The bill by Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, would limit where a girl can apply, extend the time judges have to rule and raise the standard of evidence the minor has to produce to convince a judge she needs a bypass. (Martin, 5/13)

Texas Tribune: Half Of TX Women Face Barriers To Reproductive Health
More than half of Texas women faced at least one barrier to accessing reproductive health care in the years after lawmakers dramatically altered the state’s family planning services, according to a new report by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. The project's researchers, who are based at the University of Texas at Austin, focused on access to reproductive services — including family planning, cervical cancer screenings and contraception — starting in 2011. That's the year the Republican-led Legislature cut the state’s budget for family planning by two-thirds and rejected a federally financed women’s health program in favor of a state-run program. (Ura, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Kansas Abortion Foes Seek Change In Law To Help With Lawsuit
Abortion opponents are urging Kansas legislators to rewrite part of a 2011 law that imposed special health and safety regulations on abortion providers, telling state senators Wednesday that the move would eliminate an issue in a lawsuit keeping the rules from being enforced. But an abortion-rights attorney representing father-daughter physicians who perform abortions and filed the suit said making the change would create new legal issues instead. (Hanna, 5/13)

The Sun Times Network: Gov. Haslam Signs Law Requiring Stricter Abortion Standards
A bill signed by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam last week requires much stricter abortion clinic standards than before, which may result in many women not being able to get a safe, convenient procedure. No announcement was made by the governor, and there has been very little press about it. However, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northup, said in a statement that the restrictions “opened the door for Tennessee politicians to begin demonstrating their hostility to women’s constitutional rights and indifference to their well-being, and now they have marched right through.” (Stecklow, 5/13)

Boston Globe: Massachusetts Health Regulators Lag On Nursing Home Scrutiny
Massachusetts health regulators acknowledged Wednesday they still have no timetable for intensifying scrutiny of nursing home sales and closings, even though the Legislature mandated stricter reviews 10 months ago. The admission came as a member of a board that sets state health policy urged regulators to move more swiftly, especially with the increased pace of for-profit companies buying up family-owned nursing homes. (Lazar, 5/14)

Kaiser Health News: A Top-Rated Nursing Home Is Hard To Find In Texas, 10 Other States
The problem for Sealy’s family and residents of many parts of the country is they have few, if any, higher-rated options if they want their loved ones close by. Texas has the highest percentage of one-and two-star homes in the country: 51 percent of its nursing homes are rated "below average," or "much below average," on Nursing Home Compare, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) Louisiana is close behind at 49 percent, with Oklahoma, Georgia and West Virginia tying for third at 46 percent. States with at least 40 percent of homes ranked at the bottom two rungs include North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. (Appleby, 5/14)

The Associated Press: Mass. Home Care Workers Press For $15/Hour Wage
Hundreds of homecare workers delivered hand-signed letters to Gov. Charlie Baker's office Wednesday pressing for what they called a $15 an hour "living wage." The workers rallied outside the Statehouse before handing the letters to Baker staff members in front of his third floor office. (Salsberg, 5/13)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Philadelphia Schools May Reduce Union Nurses With Private Ones
The Philadelphia School District is considering outsourcing its health services, officials said Wednesday - a move that might mean privatizing jobs held by unionized school nurses. Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said the district, rocked by years of brutal budgets, has to find a way to expand medical services and was exploring bringing in private providers to do so. (Graham, 5/14)

Boston Globe: Mega Hospital Alliance Called Off
Merger talks between Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center broke down this week, scrapping a deal that would have been the biggest alliance of two city hospitals in nearly two decades. Although they did not specify why the deal fell apart, the hospitals were apparently unable to overcome differences in culture, mission, and strategies for the future, analysts said. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/13)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: As Private Budget Talks Continue At Capitol, Rank-And-File Members Fret
Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders clammed up Wednesday about their still-unresolved negotiations on the two-year state budget, an information void that was increasingly filled by rising political tension among rank-and-file lawmakers who are not part of the private talks. ... Among the top-line issues under discussion at the governor’s residence are the House GOP’s desire to cut taxes by about $2 billion and eliminate the MinnesotaCare health insurance program for the working poor in favor of enrolling those individuals in MNsure. Dayton and Senate Democrats are seeking a big boost in school funding, and a gas tax increase to fund transportation projects. (Condon, 5/14)

Minnesota Public Radio: Health Care Dominates Budget Talks
Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders are meeting in private again today trying to reach an agreement on a two-year state budget. Before the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said the negotiations have focused on spending for health and human services programs. In particular, Bakk said negotiators are talking about a House Republican plan to eliminate MinnesotaCare, a state subsidized health insurance program for the working poor. (Scheck, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Minnesota Firm Wants Laid-off Wisconsin Health Workers
A Minnesota home care company plans to hire hundreds of employees who will lose their jobs when a Wisconsin long-term care nonprofit ceases operations this month at 11 locations, including Stevens Point, Adams, Neillsville and Marinette. Aderonke and Michael Mordi, president and vice president International Quality Homecare Corp., have announced they will hire at least 500 GeminiCares workers. The couple also said their company will expand into Wisconsin to maintain home care and other services with the GeminiCares workers' clients, the La Crosse Tribune reported. (5/13)

Boston Globe: For Hackers, People Are An IT System’s Weak Link
As big businesses spend millions of dollars to plug holes in their technology and block cyber criminals from databases of private consumer information, hackers are increasingly targeting a different weakness: employees. They are sending official-looking e-mails to large health systems, banks, retailers, and vendors to try to trick employees into giving up passwords or other credentials. ... That is how data from about 3,300 patients was breached last year at Partners HealthCare. (Dayal McCluskey and Fernandes, 5/13)

The Charlotte Observer: SC Man Will Get Sight-Saving Surgery As Liberal Donors Chip In
The Fort Mill, S.C., Republican who went public Tuesday with his plea for help paying for sight-saving surgery had raised almost $12,000 by Wednesday evening – most of it from self-described liberals and Affordable Care Act supporters saying they hope he’s learned a lesson. That’s enough to ensure he can get the treatment he needs, said Dr. Andrew Antoszyk, an eye surgeon with Charlotte Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Associates. After reading Luis Lang’s story in the Observer on Wednesday, Antoszyk said he’d work with Lang and with Novant Health to give him the care at reduced cost. (Helms, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Contested Utah Law Could Impact Contact Lens Industry
A law banning price-fixing for contact lenses that took effect this week in Utah is a setback for the nation's largest manufacturers that could have ripple effects across the country amid an increasingly bitter fight with discount retailers. The new law appears to clear the way for the largest online discount seller, Utah-based 1-800 Contacts, to disregard minimum prices set by the lens makers and sell at a discount across state lines, said Steve DelBianco, executive director of the Internet sellers trade group NetChoice. (5/13)

USA Today: Indiana Community's HIV Outbreak A Warning To Rural America
This small, close-knit community is a picture of rural America, with stubble-filled cornfields and a Main Street lined by churches, shops and sidewalks. It's also the unlikely epicenter of the largest outbreak of HIV, the AIDS virus, in Indiana's history -- and a warning to the rest of the nation. Public health experts say rural places everywhere contain the raw ingredients that led to Austin's tragedy. Many struggle with poverty, addiction and doctor shortages, and they lag behind urban areas in HIV-related funding, services and awareness. And the same lack of anonymity that gives rural towns their charm foments a strong stigma that discourages testing and treatment. (Ungar and Kenning, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Indiana Drafts County-level HIV, Hep C Rate Profiles
State health officials are creating profiles of HIV and hepatitis C rates for all 92 Indiana counties to help local officials detect outbreaks of either disease and determine if they can seek help under a new needle-exchange law, a top state disease expert said Wednesday. State epidemiologist Pam Pontones told members of the State Department of Health's executive board that the state agency hopes to quickly complete work on those profiles, which will also include intravenous drug use rates for each county. (Callahan, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Indiana Senate Approves Bill To Legalize Medical Marijuana
State senators voted Tuesday for a second time to send legislation to legalize medical marijuana to the House of Representatives, where the GOP majority has held hearings but otherwise given no certain signs of support. (Levy, 5/13)

Maine News: Corizon Health Fails To Improve Overall Performance
Private-sector health care provider Corizon Health Inc., which has a $126 million three-year contract for providing health care services in New York City's jails, has failed to improve its overall performance in the previous year, a review conducted by the city's health department revealed. A recent evaluation obtained by The Associated Press revealed that the overall performance of the private health care provider for New York City's jails failed to improve in previous year. Corizon Health Inc, which had a three- year of contract worth $126 million, expired on December 31. (Campbell, 5/13)

California Healthline: Assembly Committee Squashes Soda Tax
A proposed 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages failed on Monday in the Assembly Committee on Health. AB 1357, by Assembly member Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), would have established the Children and Family Health Promotion Program, raising $3 billion a year in soda taxes to spend on the prevention and treatment of diabetes and obesity. (Gorn, 5/13)

Columbus Dispatch: Social Security, Medicare And Medicaid Celebrated In Athens
About 1 in 3 Athens County residents receives at least one benefit from among the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. That is significant, local officials said. So, why not throw a public birthday party outside the county courthouse to celebrate the programs on their anniversary year? About 100 people turned out to sign giant birthday cards and eat slices of cake marking the 80th anniversary of Social Security and the 50th anniversary of the Medicare and Medicaid government health-insurance programs. (Lane, 5/14)

CBS News: Berkeley, California, To Require Cellphone Health Warnings
The city council of Berkeley, California, voted Tuesday night to pass a cellphone "right to know" law requiring health warnings with the purchase of a cellphone. ... When it goes into effect this summer it will be first safety ordinance of its kind in the country. Cellphone retailers will be required to include a city-prepared notice along with the purchase of a cellphone, informing consumers of the minimum separation distance a cellphone should be held from the body. (5/13)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: E-Cig Business Surveys Customers On Why They Vape
While the public health community continues to debate the pros and cons of electronic cigarettes, one Richmond-area e-cig company has surveyed its customers to shed light on why they use the devices. Avail Vapor LLC, a fast-growing Chesterfield County-based retailer of e-cigs, said it conducted a two-week survey that drew 8,500 responses, about half of them its own customers. James Xu, the co-founder and co-owner of Avail, said the survey results shed light on some of the key questions about e-cigs in the ongoing public health debate, such as whether the devices are a “gateway” to using conventional tobacco products, and whether e-cig users — known as “vapers” — typically use them exclusively or in combination with conventional tobacco products. (Reid Blackwell, 5/13)

California Healthline: Schools in California, Other States Ranked on Global Health Efforts
A new report ranks research schools in California and other states based on their efforts to improve global health, particularly among low-income populations, U-T San Diego reports. (5/13)

The Associated Press: Prosecution: Minnesota Group Helped Minnesota Woman Kill Herself
A jury is deliberating in the trial of a national right-to-die group accused of assisting the suicide of a Minnesota woman. The jury of seven men and five women heard closing arguments Wednesday in the trial for Final Exit Network Inc. (Forliti, 5/13)

Bloomberg View: Stuck In The Middle: Obamacare 3.0
The U.S. health-care system has been squeezing the country's middle class for years. The passage of the Affordable Care Act has relieved some of the pressure, but there's much more to do. With or without Obamacare, the issues are the same: access and cost. If losing your job also means losing your health insurance, you face a whole new kind of economic insecurity. And even if you have good insurance through your employer and aren't afraid of losing it, the ever-rising cost of health care is steadily eating away at your wages. The assurance of adequate coverage and better cost control would make a real difference to Americans of ordinary means. (5/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Argument Used Against Affordable Care Act Might Now Save It
It would be a historic irony if the argument the U.S. Supreme Court adopted in 2012 to derail federally enforced expansion of Medicaid — leaving nearly 4 million low-income Americans without health coverage — now came to the rescue of government-subsidized insurance for 7.7 million Americans. (Bob Egelko, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Obama’s Medicaid Extortion Gambit
Florida Gov. Rick Scott sued the federal government late last month for threatening to withhold more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds due the state under a waiver program first approved in 2005. And in Texas the Obama administration is threatening to cancel a five-year, $29-billion Medicaid waiver approved in 2011. What’s going on? The Obama administration says that expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would be a better way to accomplish the goals of the waivers. In other words, the feds are attempting to force the hand of these states, which have declined to expand Medicaid. (John Daniel Davidson, 5/13)

Forbes: Obama Administration Tries To Blackmail States Into Expanding Medicaid
The Obama administration is desperate for a national leader like Florida to expand Obamacare, hoping it will set off a chain reaction to convince leaders in other states to fall in line. So, frustrated with its lack of success in convincing conservatives to give up their principled opposition to Obamacare, the administration has moved on to a new tactic: Sopranos-style blackmail. (Jonathan Ingram and Josh Archambault, 5/13)

The Miami Herald: Scott's Finger-Pointing On Who's To Blame For Crisis Fails To Convince
Rick Scott has a problem. He has 840,000 working poor in the state that don’t have health insurance. But heck, if they’re really sick they can go to the emergency room. For the past nine years the state has taken billions in federal funds to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated or charity care. Apparently Gov. Scott is comfortable with that arrangement. But he has known for two years that these Low Income Pool funds, better known as LIP, were going away. (Paula Dockery, 5/13)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Counterpoint: Minnesota Health Care Nostalgia Vs. Today's Reality
MinnesotaCare no longer serves the low-income children and their parents for whom it was designed 23 years ago. Those folks are almost all on Medicaid now. The program now primarily covers low- and middle-income adults. The 2 percent provider tax that funds the program is set to expire. ... Minnesota taxpayers pick up the majority of the 93 percent of costs not paid by enrollees. ... MNsure has failed to meet enrollment numbers and has made life worse for many Minnesotans who struggle with a broken website, clogged call centers and overburdened county offices. ... Minnesota just approved another $90 million in spending on MNsure on top of the $200 million already spent. That’s why we think MinnesotaCare and MNsure should be combined into one program that is paid for and works better. The plan provides choices for families and better reimbursement for hospitals, and Minnesota will save over $1 billion over four years. (State Rep. Matt Dean, 5/14)

San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News: California Must Raise Medi-Cal Reimbursement Rates
California is serving as the national model for President Barack Obama's health care reforms, but that won't continue unless the state does something about its abysmal Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals caring for the 12 million Californians with Medi-Cal coverage. Gov. Jerry Brown has a golden opportunity to fix the problem Thursday when he unveils his May revised budget plan. But don't hold your breath. Despite expectations that he will have billions of dollars at his disposal because of California's booming economy, the governor has to date shown zero inclination to raise rates that rank among the worst in the nation. (5/13)

The Washington Post: The Abuse Of The Mentally Ill In America’s Prisons
It's been more than three months since a mentally ill woman, Natasha McKenna, died after she was shot four times with a Taser stun gun by a guard in the Fairfax County jail. Since her death on Feb. 8, county officials have offered repeated assurances that a full investigation is underway, and that the facts surrounding the guards’ struggle with Ms. McKenna — which was recorded in full on video — will be laid bare. (5/13)

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Is Controversy Over Mammograms Looming?
A draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force last month echoes a similar recommendation made in the fall of 2009. Namely, the task force recommends mammogram screening every two years for women ages 50 to 74 but does not recommend universal screening before age 50: “The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account.” (Chris Jacobs, 5/13)

The New York Times' Opinonator: When Doctors Help A Patient Die
Legally, the act of aiding or abetting the death of another has been considered a felony. Ethically, physician assistance in the death of a patient has been contrary to the precepts of bioethics, and in earlier times physicians took an oath that they would not provide any deadly substance to patients. The passage of this law in 2008 in Washington has opened a new window on this practice and served as a reminder to physicians that many feel we are not doing a good enough job in caring for the dying by providing excellent palliative care at the end of life. This is a new day for physicians. (Thomas R. McCormick, 5/13)

Arizona Republic: VA's Allies Mean Well, But They're Misguided
Calcified bureaucrats within Veterans Affairs are not alone blocking efforts to reform the agency's health-care system. They have allies in the leaders of veterans organizations. Some are understandable, if misguided. The American Legion defends the status quo because the group is invested in it, claiming credit for creating the VA. Far more puzzling is the resistance of the Disabled American Veterans, whose members would benefit greatly from a slimmed-down, more focused VA. (Editorial Board, 5/13)

Fox News: How FDA Plan To Lift Ban On Gay Blood Donations Missed The Mark
Under the new policy, men must abstain from having sex with other men for 12 months before they can donate blood. To me, this year-long period of abstinence does not make sense, nor will it help to address the problems we face today. It is important to have as many eligible blood donors as possible because the commitment from the general public to donate is sometimes forgotten as we get wrapped up in our daily routines. As a result, our nation continues to struggle in maintaining life-saving blood supplies in many areas and hospitals. Under the new policy, we will continue to have these issues as gay men remain limited as to when they can donate, so the pool of potential donors will not grow significantly. (Manny Alvarez, 5/13)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Less Research Training In Medical School? That's Actually Good
In Sunday's Health section of the Inquirer, reporter Ilene Raymond Rush interviewed the dean of Temple's medical school, Arthur Feldman. The dean tried to advance an agenda of academic empire building by bemoaning the fact that medical students today receive less research training than in the past. It requires that sort of exceptionally self-serving, academic nonsense to induce one of the exceedingly rare cases where this writer can quote William F. Buckley favorably. The late conservative publicist once said he'd rather be governed by the first 1,000 people in the Boston telephone directory instead of the Harvard faculty. Although Buckley's sentiment may be appropriate for any number of issues, its implicit derision of academic self-righteousness seems particularly apt here. (Daniel Hoffman, 5/13)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minnesotans, Meet The New Meth — Not The Same As The Old Meth
The next methamphetamine surge isn’t looming around the corner — it is here right now. Methamphetamine use in the Twin Cities has reached the same level it was at in 2005, at the peak of our first epidemic. According to the new report, “Drug Abuse Trends in Minneapolis/St. Paul: 2015,” released last week by Drug Abuse Dialogues, 2,593 people entered treatment in the Twin Cities for addiction to methamphetamine in 2014 (about 12 percent of total treatment admissions), compared with 2,465 in 2005. Law enforcement authorities have had their hands full as well. (Carol Falkowski, 5/13)

Dallas Morning News: Don’t Miss Out On Medicare’s Free Or Low-Cost Preventive Care
How often have you tried to ignore an ache or pain by telling yourself, “Maybe if I do nothing, it’ll go away.” Sometimes that works, but wishful thinking isn’t the best way to take care of yourself. Medicare’s new emphasis on preventive care acknowledges that. A few years ago, Medicare mostly concerned itself with paying for your treatment after you got sick. Now, it’s also focused on helping you stay healthy and avoid diseases and illnesses in the first place. People with Medicare are entitled to a broad range of exams, lab tests and screenings to detect health problems early, when they’re most treatable or curable. (Bob Moos, 5/14)