USA Today: Tax Credits Cut Average ACA Premiums To $105
Less than a week before Obamacare enrollment closes Feb. 15, federal regulators said Monday that the average monthly premium after tax credits ranges from $47 in Mississippi to $172 in New Jersey. The new push for enrollment comes as wait times for the federal call centers increase despite 40 percent more workers taking calls for healthcare.gov, which has about 14,000 call center employees this week. Waits at the end of January averaged 2 1/2 minutes; midafternoon waits Monday were closer to 15 to 20 minutes. (O'Donnell, 2/10)

Los Angeles Times: New Obamacare Enrollment In L.A. County Tops 81,000 As Deadline Nears
More than 81,000 people in Los Angeles County have newly signed up for Obamacare coverage ahead of the Sunday deadline for open enrollment. The pace of enrollment in the L.A. area has slowed considerably from a year ago when 400,889 people signed up during the first six-month enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act. That high turnout surpassed enrollment in most other states last year. (Terhune, 2/9)

NBC News: Community Colleges Push To Enroll Students In Health Insurance
Miami Dade College (which has the largest student enrollment in the country), as well as other community colleges throughout the nation are pushing for students to enroll in health care because they see a link between health insurance and maintaining students in college and actually graduating. (Sesin, 2/9)

NPR: Insurers And Austin Mayor Promote Obamacare To Texas Latinos
More than 900,000 Texans have signed up for health insurance so far this year – about 200,000 more than last year. The deadline for signing up for a health plan on healthcare.gov is Saturday, and some groups in south Texas are making a big push to get Latinos to enroll. (Zaragovia, 2/10)

NBC News: Texas Groups Push To Enroll Latinos Before Health Insurance Deadline
In Texas, roughly 740,000 people enrolled in the federal insurance marketplace during the first go-round. And in Travis County, which encompasses the booming Texas capital, about 40,000 people enrolled. But Latinos didn't benefit to the extent others did; only about 10,000 were Latino, according to Frank Rodriguez, director of the Latino HealthCare Forum (Castillo, 2/10).

Meanwhile, news outlets also report on these insurance marketplace developments -

The Seattle Times: Tax Forms Mean New Troubles For Health Care Exchange
Washington’s health insurance exchange last week began sending out federal tax forms, and that has a created a new set of challenges to sort out. The exchange has mailed documents called 1095-A forms to most of its 130,000 customer accounts, and the form is also supposed to be available through customers’ online accounts. However, some customers are finding that they’re unable to view the forms through Washington Healthplanfinder and exchange officials say they’re working with their contractor, Deloitte, to fix the situation. (Stiffler, 2/9)

Kaiser Health News: UnitedHealthcare’s Efforts To Join California Marketplace Meet Resistance
UnitedHealthcare can’t have its cake and eat it too. That’s the message from the California health insurance marketplace, which turned aside a request from the nation’s largest health insurer to sell statewide on the exchange because it opted not to join when the effort was getting off the ground in 2014. California is one of a handful of states that adopted policies to encourage insurers to participate in the marketplace by creating waiting periods of up to three years if insurers didn’t participate the first year. Among the others is New York, Oregon, Colorado and New Mexico, according to a study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University for the Commonwealth Fund. (Andrews, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Medicaid Expansion In Jeopardy In Two Red States
Efforts in two Western states to accept hundreds of millions in federal funds to expand Medicaid are running into roadblocks with conservative lawmakers, in spite of Republican governors who back the expansions. In Wyoming, the state Senate voted 19 to 11 against expanding health coverage to about 17,600 low-income, uninsured residents. Moments after the vote, a state House committee said it would no longer consider its own version of Medicaid expansion, effectively killing any hopes this year. (Wilson, 2/9)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Wolf Opts For Traditional Medicaid Expansion
Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Gov. Wolf on Monday moved to dismantle his predecessor's alternative to Medicaid expansion and implement a traditional plan to extend health insurance to hundreds of thousands of low-income Pennsylvanians. Wolf said the "Healthy PA" alternative plan instituted by Gov. Tom Corbett was flawed, confusing some patients and leading others to lose treatment. He called his action a step "toward simplifying a complicated process and ensuring hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians have greater access to the health insurance they need." (Worden, 2/9)

Reuters: Pennsylvania Launches Medicaid Expansion: Governor
The state of Pennsylvania has launched an expansion of the Medicaid health insurance program, governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said in a statement on Monday. "Today is the first step toward simplifying a complicated process and ensuring hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians have greater access to the health insurance they need," said Wolf, who ousted Republican Governor Tom Corbett in November's election. (2/9)

WLRN: Expanded Medicaid's Time May Have Come At Last, Miami-Dade Legislators Say
The stars seem to be aligning for Medicaid expansion in the Florida Legislature this year. After two years of blunt refusals to even consider it, some top Republicans, like Miami State Sen. Anitere Flores are saying the time has come. "And what's interesting," Flores said after a Monday interview with the Miami Herald editorial board, "is that you have the buy-in from the business community, from the private sector, from your nontraditional supporters of government funding." (Stone, 2/9)

CQ Healthbeat: Utah Republicans Weigh Medicaid Expansion
The Utah legislature will debate Medicaid expansion this week, days after the issue faltered in Wyoming. A few states are weighing whether to broaden eligibility in Medicaid, the federal and state partnership for the poor. The issue died in Tennessee last week after GOP Gov. Bill Haslam was unable to persuade other Republicans to expand coverage. In Utah, a plan by Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is competing against a different, narrower proposal by other Republicans to expand benefits for people who are medically frail. On Tuesday, Utah Republican legislators will meet in a closed-door meeting before deciding how to proceed. (Adams, 2/9)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Alternative Plan For Kansas Medicaid Expansion Introduced
An alternative plan to expand Medicaid loaded with elements meant to woo Republicans has been introduced in Kansas. But it could face the same difficult political climate that killed similar bills in other states last week. Rep. Tom Sloan said Monday that the proposal introduced by the Vision 2020 Committee he chairs represents a Kansas solution that can appeal even to those who campaigned on unwavering opposition to the federal health care reforms spearheaded by President Barack Obama. (Marso, 2/9)

In other Medicaid news -

The Des Moines Register: Why Medicaid Won't Let You Spend More
William Robertson of Perry wrote in wondering why Medicaid doesn't cover his co-pay at pharmacies. Robertson says he's supposed to be covered by Medicaid and additional insurance for retired military. He also complained that he and his wife, who moved into Rowley Masonic Community nursing home in 2013, are limited to $50 of spending per month or they lose the Medicaid, administered by Iowa's Department of Human Services. (Rood, 2/8)

The Wall Street Journal: New Questions Swirl On An Affordable Care Act Challenger
One of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case against the Affordable Care Act listed a short-term-stay motel as her address when she joined the lawsuit, potentially calling into question her basis for suing. Rose Luck is among four plaintiffs suing the Obama administration to eliminate tax credits under the law that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans. They say the wording of the 2010 law allows consumers to tap the credits only in states that run their own insurance exchanges, and not their home state of Virginia, which is one of as many as 37 states that use the federal enrollment system. (Radnofsky and Kendall, 2/9)

Stateline: Employed White Southerners Most Likely To Lose Coverage In Supreme Court Case
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down tax credits for people buying health insurance on the federal exchange, about 8.2 million Americans in 34 states could lose their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Most of the people likely to be affected are white, employed, and low- to middle-class. They also are concentrated in a single region of the country: the South. Health insurance rates in those states are expected to rise by as much as 35 percent, which may make coverage unaffordable even for those who don’t qualify for tax credits. (Ollove, 2/9)

Kaiser Health News: Beyond ‘Repeal And Replace,’ Ideas Emerge To Improve, Simplify Health Law
"Repeal and replace” has been the rallying cry for Republicans since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010. But now that most of the law’s provisions have taken effect, some health experts are pitching ways to improve it, rather than eliminate it. An ideologically diverse panel at the National Health Policy Conference Monday presented somewhat different lists of ideas to make the law work better. But they all agreed on one thing: The Affordable Care Act is too complicated." (Rovner, 2/9)

The Associated Press: Is Your Doctor's Office The Most Dangerous Place For Data?
Everyone worries about stolen credit cards or hacked bank accounts, but just visiting the doctor may put you at greater risk for identity fraud. Those medical forms you give the receptionist and send to your health insurer provide fertile ground for criminals looking to steal your identity, since health care businesses can lag far behind banks and credit card companies in protecting sensitive information. The names, birthdates and — most importantly — Social Security numbers detailed on those forms can help hackers open fake credit lines, file false tax returns and create fake medical records. (Murphy and Bailey, 2/9)

Los Angeles Times: Spending On Cyberattack Insurance Soars As Hacks Become More Common
Hackers are wreaking havoc on big organizations, but they're also spurring a new market — cyberattack liability insurance. Once-complacent businesses, stung by debilitating cyberattacks at Target Corp., JPMorgan Chase Co. and other well-known companies, are on a cyberattack insurance shopping spree. "Everyone's swamped with new applications," said Nick Economidis, an underwriter at cyberattack insurance provider Beazley Group. The hack of health insurer Anthem Inc.'s computer system — a breach disclosed last week affecting up to 80 million customers — is bound to create more demand. (Panzar and Dave, 2/9)

Politico Pro: Cyber Laws Would Not Have Stopped Anthem Hack
Lawmakers reacted to the latest massive data breach at health insurer Anthem with statements stressing the importance of passing cybersecurity legislation. The catch? Nothing on the table in Washington today would have done much to stop the breach from happening or changed the way it was dealt with, experts say. (Kopan, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal's Moneybeat: New York Regulator Polls Insurers On Cyber-Threats
New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky released results Monday of a survey of 43 insurers operating in the state as his department ramps up training for its own employees that will allow them to better identify vulnerabilities in the insurers and banks they oversee. (Scism, 2/9)

Reuters: New York Plans Cybersecurity Reviews Of Insurers After Breach
New York's Financial Services Department said on Monday it planned to do regular cybersecurity reviews of insurers in the wake of the massive breach at health insurer Anthem Inc. The state agency said in a statement that it will "integrate regular, targeted assessments of cyber security preparedness at insurance companies as part of the department's examination process." (2/9)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Venture Capital Shifts To Specialty, Rare-illness Drugs
Venture-capital funding of drug research and development has shifted in recent years to specialty and rare-disease medicines, according to a report released Monday by BIO, the biotechnology trade organization. Those medicines often carry high price tags that insurers have thus far fought less than some other drugs because there are no or few alternatives. (Sell, 2/10)

Reuters: New Wave Of Drugs Poised To Shake Up Glaucoma Treatment
For the first time in 20 years, patients suffering from the eye disease glaucoma may soon have new treatments as several young companies look to shake up the $5.6 billion global market. There is no cure for glaucoma, which damages the optic nerve and is expected to affect more than 4 million Americans by 2030, up from 2.7 million today. But treatments help patients manage the disease and may prevent the onset of blindness. (Clarke, 2/10)

In other industry news -

Bloomberg: Quitting Smoking Has Been Just Fine For CVS
CVS Health Corp., the largest provider of prescription drugs in the U.S., posted fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates as demand for drugs outweighed the drop in revenue from a decision to stop selling tobacco products. CVS stopped selling cigarettes in September, making the fourth quarter the first full financial period without any tobacco-related revenue. CVS previously generated about $2 billion annually in tobacco sales. (Cortez, 2/9)

Stateline: In States With Looser Immunization Laws, Lower Rates
State immunization rates vary widely, with generally lower rates of inoculation occurring in states that make it relatively easy to get an exception. Lawmakers in California, Oregon, and Washington state are trying to tighten their laws to allow fewer nonmedical exemptions. Laws allowing religious exemptions have been around longer than those allowing philosophical or “personal belief” exemptions, said Joy Wilson, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. In many but not all states, philosophical exemptions are easier to get than religious exemptions, which typically require parents to cite and explain the religious doctrine in question. Overall, states with philosophical exemptions have 2.5 times the rate of opt-outs than states with only religious exemptions. (Vestal, 2/9)

The Washington Post: California Officials Warn Against ‘Measles Parties’
In a warning issued yesterday, the California Department of Health seemed to state the obvious: “CDPH strongly recommends against the intentional exposure of children to measles,” the agency said. “It unnecessarily places the exposed children at potentially grave risk and could contribute to further spread.” (Kaplan, 2/10)

Los Angeles Times: California Measles Outbreak: 123 Cases, Latest Is In Solano County
The California-centered measles outbreak has spread to Solano County, as the number of cases rose to at least 123 in 11 California counties, seven other states and Mexico. The California Department of Public Health reported Monday that there are now 107 cases in the state, with one case now confirmed in Solano County. (Xia, 2/9)

The Washington Post: Measles Outbreak Spreads To Three More States And Washington DC; 121 People Now Affected
The total is on pace to easily surpass the 644 cases in the United States in 2014, the greatest number since measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. Last week, the CDC reported 102 cases in 14 states. Authorities have said the resurgence is mostly caused by the growing number of people who are declining to vaccinate their children for personal reasons, or delaying the vaccinations. (Bernstein and Dennis, 2/9)

WBUR: Groups Resist Baker Push On MassHealth
Groups representing people dependent on state health insurance programs are resisting Gov. Charlie Baker’s push for authority to make major changes in the MassHealth program. Advocacy groups on Monday were delivering letters to Baker administration officials and legislative leaders expressing opposition to powers sought by Baker in his emergency legislation (H 49) to balance the state budget. Baker has requested authority to restructure MassHealth benefits “to the extent permitted by federal law.” (Dumcius and Norton, 2/9)

Georgia Health News: Emory, WellStar Discuss A Blockbuster Merger
In the turbulent business of health care, bigger is often better. Nowhere is that more evident than in the stunning announcement Monday that Emory University and WellStar Health System are talking about merging their medical assets in metro Atlanta. If a deal is consummated, the resulting nonprofit health system would clearly be Georgia’s biggest and would comprise one of the largest such organizations in the nation. (Miller, 2/9)

The News Journal: Delaware Health System To Close Inpatient, Outpatient Psychiatric Services
Christiana Care Health System will close Rosenblum Center on Feb. 20, and progressively close its outpatient psychiatric services in a move company officials say is part of a plan to overhaul its behavioral health care services. Parents, advocates and many medical professionals say the effects will be heart-wrenching and throw people living with issues ranging from bipolar disorder to post traumatic stress disorder into a potential tailspin. (Rini, 2/9)

The Des Moines Register: Supporters: Mental Hospital Is Irreplaceable
Closing down the state mental-health institute [in Mount Pleasant, Iowa] would erase intensive services that some people need to turn their lives around, supporters said Saturday. Brian Ingram of Boone, who went through an addiction treatment program here years ago, said he'd failed other attempts to get sober. Ingram stood up next to his old counselor and recounted how he's now a homeowner with a steady job who's been sober nearly 14 years. "I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Kim and Mount Pleasant. That's the truth," he said, drawing applause from about 200 people. (Leys, 2/9)

The Des Moines Register: Supreme Court To Hear Telemed-Abortion Case March 11
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland's quest to keep dispensing abortion pills via a unique telemedicine system will be considered next month by the Iowa Supreme Court. Planned Parenthood wants the high court to overturn rulings by state regulators and a district judge, which would effectively ban use of the system. Doctors using it in Des Moines or Iowa City visit via closed-circuit video with patients in outlying clinics, then dispense abortion-inducing pills. (Leys, 2/9)

Center for Investigative Reporting: VA Inspector General Finally Releases Report On Wisconsin Hospital
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Inspector General has publicly released its scathing report documenting runaway painkiller prescriptions and abuse of administrative authority at the VA hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin. But the move, which came nearly a year after the independent watchdog closed its case, is unlikely to satisfy veterans’ advocates and members of Congress, who have expressed outrage that the findings weren’t shared with them and the public earlier. (Glantz, 2/9)

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Access To Dental Care Still A Problem For Low-Income People In Wisconsin
In 2013, the most recent year for which figures are available, emergency departments at Wisconsin hospitals saw 27,741 patients who were in pain because of dental problems, such as abscesses — an average of 533 a week. The total was an improvement, but not by much. In 2009, emergency departments in the state saw 29,592 patients for dental problems — an average of 569 a week. Most of the visits stem from the limited access to dental care for people who are covered by BadgerCare Plus, the state's largest Medicaid program, or for people who are uninsured. (Boulton, 2/9)

The Associated Press: Wolf Begins Unwinding Corbett Changes To Medicaid Benefits
[Pennsylvania] Gov. Tom Wolf's administration said Monday it is taking steps to simplify the benefits packages for more than 1 million adult Medicaid recipients and undo what advocates for the poor had called a severe cutback for some adults under a plan advocated by former Gov. Tom Corbett. The administration released a Monday letter to a federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official saying it is withdrawing a Corbett request for approval to create a low-risk benefits package for healthier adults on Medicaid. (Levy, 2/9)

California Healthline: How Immigration Changes, Proposal For Undocumented Could Affect Medi-Cal
The number of uninsured in California has been cut by about half in the past two years, in part because of the expansion of Medi-Cal benefits. The last big group of uninsured is the undocumented, who are excluded from participating in state health benefit exchanges like Covered California. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program. ... Two recent developments could change that picture dramatically. (Gorn, 2/9)

North Carolina Health News: Return On Health Care Investment In Rural NC County
Karen Daniels’ husband used to fly airplanes and would sometimes remind her that velocity is irrelevant without direction. Daniels, vice president of nursing services at Halifax Regional Medical Center in Roanoke Rapids, references this principle in describing her community’s past efforts at improving the health and well-being of its residents. (Sisk, 2/9)

The Des Moines Register: Biofeedback Practitioner Resists Order To Quit
A former high-school English teacher says Iowa regulators had no right to make her stop charging people hundreds of dollars to analyze their brain waves via electronic sensors. ... [Amy] Putney has asked a judge to overturn a "cease and desist" order that the Iowa Board of Medicine sent her in December. The board accused her of practicing medicine without a license or training as a physician. It said that if she continued to do so, she could face a court order or a felony criminal charge. (Leys, 2/9)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Kansas Home Health Provider Sentenced For Medicaid Fraud
A Kansas City, Kan., home health attendant was sentenced last week in U.S. District Court in a federal case based on fraudulent Medicaid billing practices. Doris Betts was charged in April 2014 with six counts of health care fraud. She pleaded guilty and was convicted in November in a joint enforcement effort between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Office of Inspector General and Kansas Attorney General’s Office. (2/9)

The Wall Street Journal's Capital Journal: Medicare And Social Security Costs? Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
Two words seem to be slipping from the Washington vernacular: entitlement reform. There was a time, not long ago, when both parties were at least paying lip service to the idea that the Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs—their long-term solvency in peril, their contributions to long-term deficits and debt daunting -- needed to be adjusted before they either broke the bank or failed future retirees. Now a combination of factors has blunted the reform drive. (Gerald F. Seib, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal: How Obama’s Budget Delays Fiscal Pain
The budget proposes additional increases to Medicare means-testing: reducing federal Part B and Part D subsidies to higher-income households. It also would increase the Medicare Part B deductible, introduce a Part B surcharge for beneficiaries who purchase rich supplemental Medigap coverage, and introduce home health co-payments. The latter three changes would apply only to new beneficiaries—and all the changes would take effect in 2019, more than a year after President Obama leaves office. (Chris Jacobs, 2/9)

The Washington Post: A Massively Inappropriate Attack
On Sunday, The Post published the editorial “‘Massive resistance,’ again,” equating House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (R-Stafford) to white supremacist Harry F. Byrd. ... Massive resistance was aimed at denying ALL African American children equal educational opportunity. It grew from opposition to obeying the Supreme Court and U.S. Constitution. The fight over Medicaid expansion, on the other hand, is an issue created by the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare. The justices simultaneously gave each state the option to refuse to participate in any future expansion of the Medicaid program. (Norman Leahy and Paul Goldman, 2/9)

The Chicago Tribune: Medicaid Expansion In Illinois Should Be Praised
In 2013, the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn wisely made a decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and, thus, help low-income Illinoisans get and stay healthy. But Wednesday’s Tribune editorial called the expansion law a “debacle” and a “failure.” In fact, the expansion is an enormously positive achievement. It is true that consultants hired by the state five years ago “guesstimated” that 342,000 adults would become eligible for the expansion. The enrollment figure now stands at 541,000. The higher enrollment demonstrates how difficult it has been to count low-income adults, even though they were cared for at various times in emergency rooms, homeless shelters, mental health clinics, social-service agencies and jails. (Julie Hamos, 2/9)

Modern Healthcare: New GOP Reform Plan Unlikely To Stave Off Chaos If Justices Kill Subsidies
Congressional Republican leaders are hoping their new Obamacare repeal-and-replace proposal will convince Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court that it's safe to strike down the premium subsidies at the heart of the healthcare reform law. ... Some conservatives argue that the new plan proposed by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) will cover more people than the Affordable Care Act for less money. That's impossible to prove or disprove now because the proposal can't be scored by the Congressional Budget Office until it's put into legislative form, and that's not likely to happen any time soon. (Harris Meyer, 2/9)

The New York Times: What Would Jesus Do About Measles?
Measles is back. Last year, about 650 cases were reported in the United States — the largest outbreak in almost 20 years. This year, more than a hundred have already been reported. Parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children because they can; 19 states have philosophical exemptions to vaccination, and 47 have religious exemptions. The other reason is that parents are not scared of the disease. But I’m scared. I lived through the 1991 Philadelphia measles epidemic. Between October 1990 and June 1991, more than 1,400 people living in Philadelphia were infected with measles, and nine children died. (Paul A. Offit, 2/10)

Los Angeles Times: Vaccine Exemptions Should Be Harder To Get, But Don't Eliminate Them
The fear of the spread of measles is now swamping the fear of vaccines. Sadly, but predictably, the fear of disease is provoking an overreaction to risk, precisely what the anti-vaccine community is accused of. There are calls in California to completely eliminate personal-belief and religious exemptions for mandatory childhood vaccination. That call, though understandable, is a step too far. (David Ropeik, 2/9)

The New York Times' Opinionator: Insurance And Its Discontents
The phone call came two billing cycles after Ben and I had increased his session frequency to twice a week. A woman identifying herself as “an independently licensed care advocate” with a large insurance company left a message asking me to call back. My neck tightened. No psychologist wants to hear from an insurer. Like some ne’er-do-well relative, insurers call only when they want money — or rather, when they want to keep money they’d once promised to disburse. ... The peer reviewer, when I spoke with him by phone, seemed less interested in hearing about Ben than in finding a sanctioned justification for cutting off reimbursement. Denial of treatment is allowed under a handful of conditions, and the reviewer moved down a list of them .... Finally, the reviewer implied that it was Ben himself who was the problem. (Darcy Lockman, 2/10)

USA Today: No, Abortion Is Not A 'Social Good'
A new Gallup poll finds that only about one in three Americans is satisfied with U.S. abortion policies — the lowest share since 2001. What's more, among the Americans who are dissatisfied with our abortion laws, twice as many (24%) want stricter rather than less strict (12%) laws. In such an environment, one might expect abortion-rights advocates to be looking for ways to find common ground with their anti-abortion adversaries. (Gary Bauer, 2/9)

The New York Times: Reform After The Ebola Debacle
The World Health Organization’s anemic performance in handling the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa may yield one positive outcome: sweeping, and long overdue, institutional reforms to improve its ability to respond more quickly to the next outbreak of a lethal infectious disease. Scrambling to answer growing criticism, the W.H.O.’s executive board recently endorsed changes to enhance the agency’s rapid response capabilities. (2/10)

JAMA Pediatrics: Access To Mental Health Services
Pediatric mental disorders affect 1 in 5 children, and most serious mental disorders begin early in life, approximately 50% by age 14 years and 75% by age 24 years. The Surgeon General’s report on mental health called national attention to the public health relevance of pediatric mental disorders, citing encouraging news of an increasing number of evidence-based treatments, as well as the discouraging news that most youth struggling with mental disorders receive no mental health services and that even when services are accessed, they are often inadequate in quality and/or quantity. More than a decade later, still less than half of young people with a mental disorder obtain treatment. (John V. Campo, Jeffrey A. Bridge and Cynthia A. Fontanella, 2/9)