CNN: Harris Backs 'Medicare For All' And Eliminating Private Insurance As We Know It
California Sen. Kamala Harris fully embraced "Medicare-for-all" single payer health insurance at a CNN town hall Monday and said she's willing to end private insurance to make it happen. "We need to have Medicare-for-all," Harris told a questioner in the audience, noting it's something she feels "very strongly" about. When pressed by CNN's Jake Tapper if that means eliminating private insurance, the senator answered affirmatively, saying she would be OK with cutting insurers out of the mix. She also accused them of thinking only of their bottom lines and of burdening Americans with paperwork and approval processes. (Luhby and Krieg, 1/29)

Fox News: Kamala Harris Vows To Get Rid Of Private Health Care Plans: 'Let's Eliminate All Of That. Let's Move On'
Her statements appeared to be a full-throated call for single-payer health insurance, as opposed to merely expanding Medicare, and a dramatic embrace of the kind of proposals advocated by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper. (Re, 1/28)

Meanwhile, a look at California Gov. Gavin Newsom's incremental steps toward getting more people covered —

KQED: Newsom's Tactic: Not Yet Health Care For All, But Health Care For More
It was way easier for candidate Gavin Newsom to endorse single-payer health care coverage for everyone than it is now for Gov. Newsom to deliver it. Yet hardcore advocates say they’re pleased with the moves he’s made thus far—even if it may take years to come to fruition. (Aguilera, 1/28)

Bloomberg: Insys Founder Tries To Shift Blame To Underlings In Opioid Trial 
Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor didn’t know underlings were cutting side deals with doctors who got fees for writing prescriptions of his company’s opioid-based painkiller, his lawyer told a Boston jury at the start of his racketeering trial. Alec Burlakoff, a former Insys sales executive, sought to block Kapoor from reviewing payments to doctors who wrote prescriptions for the Subsys painkiller so the manager could have “free rein’’ over the project, Beth Wilkinson, Kapoor’s lawyer, said Monday in her opening statement. (Feeley, Lawrence and Griffin, 1/28)

ABC News: Trial Begins For Pharma Exec Accused Of Using 'Bribes And Fraud' To Sell Fentanyl
Kapoor, the billionaire founder of the Arizona-based company Insys Therapeutics Inc., has entered a plea of not guilty. Kapoor, along with six other Insys executives, is facing charges relating to racketeering, mail fraud and wire fraud conspiracy. (Katersky, 1/28)

Reuters: 'Greed' Fueled Insys Founder's Opioid Bribe Scheme: Prosecutor
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lazarus told a Boston federal jury at the trial’s start that Kapoor oversaw the bribing of doctors who were paid to act as speakers at poorly-attended sham events at restaurants ostensibly meant to educate clinicians about its product, Subsys. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved Subsys as a treatment for severe cancer pain. Yet Lazarus said doctors who took bribes often prescribed Subsys to patients without cancer, creating higher sales. “This is a case about greed, about greed and its consequences, the consequences of putting profits over people,” Lazarus said in his opening statement. (Raymond, 1/28)

The Associated Press: Prosecutor: Drug Company Founder Motivated By 'Greed' In Fentanyl Bribery Scheme
Kapoor is the highest-level pharmaceutical figure to face trial amid the opioid epidemic that's claiming thousands of lives every year. His lawyers say Insys is not responsible for the drug crisis, noting that its medication makes up a small fraction of the prescription opioid market. (1/28)

Meanwhile, a Massachusetts judge ruled on Monday that the state’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma for allegedly helping spawn the opioid crisis should be released in full to the public —

CNN: Sackler Family, Members Of Purdue Pharma Accused Of Profiting From The Opioid Crisis
A court ruling Monday in Massachusetts will expose details about one of America's richest families and their connection to the nation's opioid crisis. The Sacklers and members of their company Purdue Pharma have been named in a lawsuit that accuses them of profiting from the opioid crisis by aggressively marketing OxyContin, claims denied by attorneys for the family and Purdue. The suit had been heavily redacted, but on Monday, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders ruled that the unredacted amended complaint must be publicly released by February 1. (Marco, 1/29)

Stat: Judge Orders Full Release Of Redacted Lawsuit Against Purdue
The complete document could shed light on decisions made by Purdue’s board and how much money company executives made. The decision from Judge Janet Sanders in Suffolk County Superior Court came in response to a motion filed by media organizations, including STAT and the Boston Globe, to release the full lawsuit, which was originally filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in June. (Joseph, 1/28)

The Washington Post: D.C. Opioid Crisis: Dozens Criticize City Response At Council Hearing
D.C. lawmakers, public health experts, doctors and addiction treatment providers forcefully criticized the city’s efforts to address an explosion in fatal opioid overdoses, saying at a D.C. Council hearing Monday that city officials failed to heed best practices and haven’t adequately fixed their strategy. The joint hearing by the council’s health and judiciary committees served as a cathartic moment for advocates and medical professionals who bemoaned what they described as years of missed opportunities to save lives. Early in the hearing, council member and judiciary committee chairman Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) encouraged people to air their complaints. (Jamison, 1/28)

The Associated Press: Doc, Hospital Face 8 Wrongful Death Suits Over Drug Dosages
A woman died at an Ohio hospital minutes after receiving not one but two excessive doses of potentially lethal medication ordered by a doctor under investigation in connection with dozens of deaths , the woman's family alleged Monday. Their lawsuit over the May 2015 death of 85-year-old Norma Welch was one of two filed Monday against the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System and Dr. William Husel, the families' attorneys said. (Franko, 1/28)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee Vows Push For Lower Health Care Costs
During his inaugural address, Gov. Bill Lee identified three areas in which he said the state is struggling. He pointed to the ongoing opioid epidemic and struggling rural communities. The third area, he said, was health care. ...What is quickly becoming clear is that the issue of Medicaid expansion is not going away, especially among activists in Tennessee. During Lee's first week in office, three groups seized on the governor's recent appearance at a Nashville event to honor Martin Luther King Jr. while calling for Medicaid expansion in Tennessee. (Ebert, 1/29)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee's Opioid Crisis Leads To More Kids In Foster Care
Driven largely by the opioid epidemic, the number of kids entering foster care in Tennessee has jumped by more than 10 percent in the past two years, straining the budget of the Department of Children's Services. The $800 million agency, which is funded through a combination of federal and state dollars, needs an additional $78 million to care for those kids, said Jennifer Nichols, the agency's chief. (Wadhwani, 1/28)

Modern Healthcare: Surprise Medical Billing Gets Increased Industry Lobbying 
The debate over federal curbs on surprise medical bills has it all: inter-industry finger-pointing, slippery-slope warnings about rate-setting and dueling narratives about what the problem is. Last week President Donald Trump invited people who have been hit with surprise bills to the White House, where he vowed to end the practice that puts patients on the hook for the often exorbitant price tag of out-of-network treatment. The issue is a political winner. (Luthi, 1/28)

Kaiser Health News: Man Faints After Flu Shot, Gets Stuck With $4,700 Hospital Bill
Matt Gleason had skipped getting a flu shot for more than a decade. But after suffering a nasty bout of the virus last winter, he decided to get vaccinated at his Charlotte, N.C., workplace in October. “It was super easy and free,” said Gleason, 39, a sales operations analyst. That is, until Gleason fainted five minutes after getting the shot. Though he came to quickly and had a history of fainting, his colleague called 911. And when the paramedics sat him up, he began vomiting. That symptom worried him enough to agree to go to the hospital in an ambulance. (Galewitz, 1/28)

In any industry and costs news —

Kaiser Health News: Community Hospitals Link Arms With Prestigious Facilities To Raise Their Profiles
After seven years of a vigorous fight, Jim Hart worried he was running out of options. Diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 60, Hart had undergone virtually every treatment — surgery, radiation and hormones — to eradicate it. But a blood test showed that his level of prostate-specific antigen, which should have been undetectable, kept rising ominously. And doctors couldn’t determine where the residual cancer was lurking. (Boodman, 1/29)

The Hill: Wildfire Season Preparations Delayed By Shutdown
Park rangers are worrying about the lasting effects from the recent shutdown, particularly when it comes to preparations for the next fire season. The longest shutdown in U.S. history ended on Friday after 35 days, and it coincided with the crucial fire season planning period for many national parks and forests. (Green, 1/29)

The San Francisco Chronicle: Wildfire Prevention: Can California Make Up Ground Lost To Shutdown?
During the shutdown, no new logging projects went forward, nor did fuel reduction programs like brush clearing, controlled fires and slash-pile burns. Also, much of the planning and hiring of firefighters that typically gets done in winter was put on hold. Some federal employees, unauthorized to speak to the media, say fire programs at national parks and forests won’t be fully staffed before the new fire season begins. “A lot of preparation just didn’t happen,” said Stephen Graydon, a former firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and now executive director of Terra Fuego, a Butte County organization that works with the government to reduce fire risk. “It’s hard enough to get ahead on large-scale forest treatments. While I can’t give you a number of acres that wasn’t treated during the shutdown, we’ve lost opportunities. The shutdown will have a lasting effect.” (Alexander, 1/26)

Politico Pro: Shutdown Puts Rural Health Projects On Hold
Rural health programs and projects frozen by the federal shutdown could be delayed for months, even if Congress and President Donald Trump reach a long-term deal to fund the government. Projects to build homeless shelters, domestic abuse victim centers, rural hospitals and addiction treatment facilities around the country have been put on hold since the government shutdown began in December. Program managers worry the delay could set back these crucial services long after the funding impasse in Washington is resolved. (Ehley, 1/25)

Bloomberg: American Blamed For Singapore Data Leak On 14,200 HIV+ Patients 
Records of as many as 14,200 people with HIV and their 2,400 contacts have been “illegally disclosed online”, Singapore’s health ministry said in a statement, marking the second cyberattack the city-state has suffered in a year. The HIV-registry data was leaked by a U.S. citizen, Mikhy K. Farrera Brochez, who was deported from Singapore after serving jail time for fraud and drug-related offenses, the ministry said. The leaked information included names, test results and contact details of 5,400 Singaporean citizens and 8,800 foreigners. (Sundria, 1/28)

USA Today: American Leaks HIV Records Of 14,200 People, Singapore Says
[Singapore’s health ministry] said Mikhy K. Farrera Brochez recently put the official records of 5,400 Singaporeans and 8,800 foreigners online. These included HIV test results, names, identification numbers, phone numbers, addresses and other health information, it said. “While access to the confidential information has been disabled, it is still in the possession of the unauthorized person, and could still be publicly disclosed in the future,” it said in statement. “We are working with relevant parties to scan the internet for signs of further disclosure of the information.” (Liang, 1/28)

The Associated Press: Officials Urge Vaccinations Amid Northwest Measles Outbreak
Public health officials scrambling to contain a measles outbreak in the U.S. Northwest warned people to vaccinate their children Monday and worried that it could take months to contain the highly contagious viral illness due to a lower-than-normal vaccination rate at the epicenter of the crisis. The outbreak near Portland has sickened 35 people in Oregon and Washington since Jan. 1, with 11 more cases suspected. Most of the patients are children under 10, and one child has been hospitalized. (Flaccus, 1/28)

CNN: The Most Common Questions About Measles, Answered
Measles, the highly contagious and previously eliminated viral illness, has been spreading in communities across the United States in recent weeks, with Washington declaring a state of emergency last week and New York reporting in 2018 its second largest outbreak over the past two decades. As the cases increase in these communities, we sit down with Dr. Julia S. Sammons, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and medical director of the Department of Infection Prevention and Control at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, to talk about some of the most common questions about the illness. (Bracho-Sanchez, 1/28)

The Oregonian: OMSI Added As Possible Exposure Site As Measles Outbreak Reaches 35
One more unvaccinated child has measles, according to Clark County Public Health. The Monday announcement brings the total count of people infected with measles up to 35 -- the majority of whom are children. Public health officials also identified eight new locations where people might have been exposed to the measles virus and included two daycare centers. The virus is passed through the air and can linger in an isolated space for up to two hours. (Harbarger, 1/28)

PBS NewsHour: Washington State’s Measles Outbreak Coincides With Low Rates Of Immunization
Washington state is experiencing an outbreak of measles, with 35 confirmed cases in a single county. The disease's flare-up is reinforcing concerns about insufficient immunization in some communities. (Sreenivasan, 1/28)

Seattle Times: Amid Measles Outbreak, Legislation Proposed To Ban Vaccine Exemptions 
As measles cases continue to rise in Washington, state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would ban exemptions for the disease’s vaccine on a philosophical or personal basis. As of Monday afternoon, 35 cases of measles, which was eradicated in 1963 after introduction of a vaccine, had been confirmed in Clark County, with 25 of those being in children under the age of 10, according to Clark County Public Health. Thirty-one of those cases were in people that were not immunized, while the other four have yet to be verified. (Goldstein-Street, 1/28)

Meanwhile, in Missouri —

KCUR: Low Vaccination Rates Among Missouri Teens, According To Report 
When it comes to vaccinating adolescents, Missouri ranks among the worst in the nation. The report from the nonprofit United Health Foundation ranks Missouri 48th in the U.S. for overall adolescent vaccinations. Doctors say the pattern may be linked to a more widespread trend of “vaccine hesitancy” among parents in the U.S. Compared to the rest of the U.S., a lower percentage of teenagers in Missouri received three common vaccinations: human papillomavirus, meningococcus and TDAP – which prevents tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. (Farzan, 1/28)

The New York Times: Study Offers Hint Of Hope For Staving Off Dementia In Some People
In dementia research, so many paths have led nowhere that any glimmer of optimism is noteworthy. So some experts are heralding the results of a large new study, which found that people with hypertension who received intensive treatment to lower their blood pressure were less likely than those receiving standard blood pressure treatment to develop minor memory and thinking problems that often progress to dementia. (Belluck, 1/28)

In other news on dementia and brain health —

The New York Times: Germs In Your Gut Are Talking To Your Brain. Scientists Want To Know What They’re Saying.
In 2014 John Cryan, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, attended a meeting in California about Alzheimer’s disease. He wasn’t an expert on dementia. Instead, he studied the microbiome, the trillions of microbes inside the healthy human body. Dr. Cryan and other scientists were beginning to find hints that these microbes could influence the brain and behavior. Perhaps, he told the scientific gathering, the microbiome has a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. (Zimmer, 1/28)

Los Angeles Times: Obesity, Climate Change And Hunger Must Be Fought As One, Health Experts Declare
Maybe, when it comes to finding a way out of a global crisis of obesity, we’re just thinking too small. Maybe the steps needed to reverse a pandemic of unhealthy weight gain are the same as those needed to solve two other crises of human health: malnutrition and climate change. So instead of trying to tackle each of these problems individually, public health experts recommend that we lash the three together. (Healy, 1/28)

The New York Times: Which Allergens Are In Your Food? You Can’t Always Tell From The Labels
When you’re shopping for someone who has a food allergy, a trip to the grocery store is like a police investigation. Each product must be scrutinized. Labels are examined, each ingredient studied. My 5-year-old son, Alexander, is allergic to almonds and hazelnuts, so my wife and I spend a lot of time trying to decipher food labels. If you miss something, even one word, you risk an allergic reaction. Although federal law requires manufacturers to include allergen warnings on prepackaged foods, it’s not always clear which products contain allergens and which do not. (Athas, 1/28)

The Wall Street Journal: The Transplant Surgeon Needed A New Heart—Even If It Had Hepatitis C
Robert Montgomery is passed out, asleep on a gurney in a hospital gown. He’s just had a heart biopsy, his seventh since a heart transplant he received here at NYU Langone Health three months earlier. Dr. Montgomery isn’t just any patient. He is the director of NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute. And he didn’t receive just any heart transplant. It was from a heroin user who died of a drug overdose and had hepatitis C, a disease Dr. Montgomery subsequently contracted and has already recovered from. (Reddy, 1/28)

MPR: Take It From An ER Doc: 'Don't Challenge Nature'
If you won't listen to your mother or the meteorologist that this week's deadly temperatures demand great caution, take it from an emergency room doctor. ...But getting to work, walking the dog or shoveling the snow are necessary for most of us, here are some best practices for keeping safe, keeping warm and keeping vehicles running during the polar vortex. (Nelson, 1/28)

Reuters: Apple Watch, Using Aetna Client Data, Wants To Help You Be Healthy
CVS Health Corp's health insurer Aetna on Tuesday said it is working with Apple Inc on a new health app for Apple Watches that uses an individual's medical history to set personalized health goals. Called "Attain," the Apple Watch app will reward Aetna customers for meeting activity goals and fulfilling recommended tasks, such as getting vaccinations or refilling medications, with a subsidy toward the cost of an Apple Watch or gift cards for U.S. retailers. (1/29)

The Associated Press: US Nobelist Was Told Of Gene-Edited Babies
Long before the claim of the world's first gene-edited babies became public, Chinese researcher He Jiankui shared the news with a U.S. Nobel laureate who objected to the experiment yet remained an adviser to He's biotech company. The revelation that another prominent scientist knew of the work, which was widely condemned when it was revealed, comes as scientists debate whether and how to alert troubling research, and the need for clearer guidelines. (1/28)

The New York Times: Fighting The Stigma Of Mental Illness Through Music
When Ronald Braunstein conducts an orchestra, there’s no sign of his bipolar disorder. He’s confident and happy. Music isn’t his only medicine, but its healing power is potent. Scientific research has shown that music helps fight depression, lower blood pressure and reduce pain. The National Institutes of Health has a partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts called Sound Health: Music and the Mind, to expand on the links between music and mental health. It explores how listening to, performing or creating music involves brain circuitry that can be harnessed to improve health and well-being. (Hollow, 1/29)

Stat: In Health Care, The Race Is On To Put Sensors In Your Gut 
First, health care entrepreneurs raced to claim the market to put an EKG on consumer’s wrists. Then came miniaturized glucose monitors and tracking devices inside chemotherapy pills. Now, the rush is on to tackle the most personally intrusive, and impactful, task of all: Embedding sensors all along your digestive tract. Around the world, researchers are developing ingestible sensors designed to help detect and treat everything from colon cancer, to minor indigestion, to Crohn’s disease, while potentially unlocking some of the biggest mysteries buried in the human gut. (Ross, 1/29)

CNN: More Screen Time For Toddlers Is Tied To Poorer Development A Few Years Later, Study Says
Among toddlers, spending a lot of time staring at screens is linked with poorer performance on developmental screening tests later in childhood, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, found a direct association between screen time at ages 2 and 3 and development at 3 and 5. Development includes growth in communication, motor skills, problem-solving and personal social skills, based on a screening tool called the Ages and Stages Questionnaire. Signs of such development can be seen in behaviors like being able to stack a small block or toy on top of another one. (Howard, 1/28)

The New York Times: Why It Hurts To Lose Sleep
Veteran insomniacs know in their bones what science has to say about sleep deprivation and pain: that the two travel together, one fueling the other. For instance, people who develop chronic pain often lose the ability to sleep well, and quickly point to a bad back, sciatica or arthritis as the reason. The loss of sleep, in turn, can make a bad back feel worse, and the next night’s slumber even more difficult. (Carey, 1/28)

The New York Times: Seeking Superpowers In The Axolotl Genome
The axolotl, sometimes called the Mexican walking fish, is a cheerful tube sock with four legs, a crown of feathery gills and a long, tapered tail fin. It can be pale pink, golden, gray or black, speckled or not, with a countenance resembling the “slightly smiling face” emoji. Unusual among amphibians for not undergoing metamorphosis, it reaches sexual maturity and spends its life as a giant tadpole baby. (Yin, 1/29)

Los Angeles Times: Waterproof Workout Patch Studies A Surprising Source Of Info: Your Sweat
Elite athletes must listen carefully to their bodies during workouts and competition. Their muscles. Heart rate. And, sometime soon, maybe even their sweat. Scientists have created a soft, bandage-like device that collects and analyzes an athlete’s perspiration as they run, bike and even swim underwater. The sweat sensor, which researchers recently described in the journal Science Advances, could prompt its wearer to replenish fluids and electrolytes lost during a workout. (Greene, 1/28)

Chicago Tribune: Hospitals Across Chicago Brace For Record Cold 
With record cold temperatures predicted for Wednesday, Chicago-area hospital systems are making plans to keep people warm and help those who will inevitably fall victim to the icy weather. Many hospitals are preparing for potential influxes of patients with frostbite and hypothermia. With wind chills expected to drop to as low as 44 degrees below zero Tuesday night, people can quickly get frostbite if their bare skin is exposed for even a short time, said Dr. Adam Black, medical director at the emergency department of Amita Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center. Those at risk include commuters, homeless people and those whose perception of the cold may be altered, for instance, by alcohol, he said. (Schencker, 1/28)

KCUR: Kansas Cost-Cutting Forced Kids Who Need Urgent Psych Care Onto Waitlists 
Residential treatment centers take children for long periods of time — weeks, sometimes months — to do more than talk kids down from crisis. They work to get at the root causes of their distress and help patients develop coping mechanisms to better manage the stressful things that set off a crisis. In 2011, the state decided Kansas was sending too many kids to residential facilities for too long. At $500 a day or more, it cost too much. The state pushed to divert kids from residential care and bring down the length of their stays. That loss of business prompted many treatment facilities to close some or all of their beds, resulting in a sharp drop from nearly 800 spots for care to the current 282. (Fox, 1/28)

Concord Monitor: 46 Years After ‘Roe V. Wade,’ Abortion Rights Activists On High Alert
A series of proposed rule changes have put national organizations like Planned Parenthood on the defensive. And a pair of Supreme Court nominations by President Donald Trump have tilted the high court to its first conservative majority in decades, putting the entire underlying Roe decision to an uncertain fate. ... New Hampshire anti-abortion supporters, meanwhile, are watching Washington, but with their own caveats. (DeWitt, 1/28)

Arizona Republic: An Arizona Law Gave Preference To Hacienda HealthCare
Hacienda HealthCare, which operates the facility where an incapacitated patient was raped and became pregnant, has a history of special protections from the state of Arizona. The not-for-profit company operates the only private facility of its kind in Arizona, and there's a reason for that: a state law that allowed the non-profit to have a monopoly in the privately owned, intermediate-care market. (Innes, 1/28)

Georgia Health News: Patients ‘Frustrated’ As WellStar, Anthem Near End Of Contract
This coming Monday, the day after the Super Bowl is played in Atlanta, thousands of Georgians who signed up for insurance exchange or individual coverage for Anthem will face much higher costs for using WellStar hospitals and physicians. Those providers will be out of network Feb. 4.Consumers say that when they signed up for Anthem coverage, WellStar was listed as part of the insurer’s network. (Miller, 1/28)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Doctor In Trouble After Prescribing Marijuana To 4-Year-Old
A Hollywood physician could lose his medical license after recommending that a father give his 4-year-old son marijuana cookies to control temper tantrums, according to California’s medical board. Dr. William Eidelman, a natural medicine physician, improperly diagnosed the boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder before recommending marijuana as the treatment, the medical board said in a decision announced last month. (Karlamangla, 1/28)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Supreme Court To Hear Case Involving Legality Of Extracts
Medical marijuana patients are keeping their eyes on a case headed to Arizona Supreme Court. The court granted a petition of review earlier this month and will hear arguments in March to weigh in on the hazy issue of marijuana extracts. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in June that medical marijuana extracts, also called hashish, do not fall under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. (Castle, 1/28)

The Star Tribune: Minn. Measure Would Legalize Marijuana By '22 
Minnesotans over 21 would could buy and use marijuana legally by 2022 as part of a proposal that would give the state significant power and oversight of a recreational cannabis program.The state would regulate all aspects of the local marijuana industry, enforcing health and safety regulations and controlling everything from testing to labeling requirements. (Van Oot, 1/28)

The Hill: States Are Moving Forward With 'Medicare For All' — More Power To Them
Some cities and states are trying to fix the Affordable Care Act’s deficiencies all on their own. New York City, for example, has pledged to directly pay the medical bills of the city’s estimated 600,000 uninsured. Massachusetts is looking at some form of “Medicare-for-All,” at least in name, because that name polls very well (when details and costs are left out). And, despite the $400 billion price tag, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a single-payer system that would combine all federal funds (including veterans’ health benefits) into a solitary system that the state would control. I say great! More power to them — and I mean that quite literally. More power to the states. (Robert Henneke, 1/28)

The Washington Post: The Crux Of Republican Policy: Make Public Services Harder To Use
The new Democratic House enjoys a rich array of targets as it sets out to check the Trump administration. In prioritizing, congressional oversight committees should focus on those pockets of government where the Trump administration has effectively deployed a hidden tool of policymaking: using administrative burdens to make it harder for people to access public services. Start with the Trump administration’s obsession with work requirements. Last year, the president issued an executive order calling for deploying “work requirements when legally permissible.” (Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan, 1/28)

The Hill: Even If It Survives The Courts, ObamaCare Needs Help 
As the latest threat to the Affordable Care Act bounces through the federal courts, Congress needs to recognize that the law must be amended to preserve key protections for millions of Americans. With or without a court ruling on its constitutionality, the ACA needs help. Much damage already has been done to the ability of patients to get adequate coverage and to hospitals and other providers that aim to deliver good care. (Thomas M. Priselac and John A. Romley, 1/28)

The Hill: Contracting Out Our VA Health Care Is Not Simple
The proposed shift of billions of dollars to private health-care providers by the Veterans administration is controversial, but opens up opportunities for improvement. The advocates for contracting out services compare the proposal to TRICARE, the Department of Defense (DoD) program. The TRICARE system came into effect many years ago with the drawdown of the military after the First Gulf War. Looking back, it has improved access to primary and general medical health-care, but the DoD has incurred increased costs from the private insurers. (Ret. Brigadier General Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, 1/28)

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Should Lead The Attack On Income-Based Health Disparity
A new national report by the American Cancer Society disclosed recently that people in the poorest counties die of cancer at rates 20 percent greater than those in richer counties, based on data from 1991 to 2016. Similarly, data from the Ohio Department of Health for five years ending in 2015 show that Ohio’s poorest counties had cancer mortality rates 19 percent higher than wealthier counties. Now that we know poverty and cancer risk are linked, there is no reason not to put resources into addressing economic gaps for this preventable disease. (1/29)

The New York Times: Should Scientists Toy With The Secret To Life?
Scientists quickly condemned the Chinese researcher who altered the DNA of at least two embryos to create the world’s first genetically edited babies, defying a broad consensus against hereditary tinkering. But as The Times reported last week, the global scientific community is divided over what to do next. Should researchers agree to a moratorium on any human genome editing that can be passed down to future generations? Or should they simply tighten existing criteria? It’s good that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine are planning a global forum to address these questions. But it will be crucial for biologists to seek substantial input from policymakers, ethicists, social scientists and others. (1/28)

Stat: Peer Review Could Help Smoke Out The Next Theranos 
Today, there are 309 unicorns with an aggregate valuation above $1 trillion. The median venture capital fundraise is $165 million, the highest on record. The dataset in our analysis, published Monday in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, backdates to November 2017, when there were 18 current and 29 former (leaving the herd by acquisition or public offering) health care unicorns. We found that most unicorns published very little in the peer-reviewed literature. One-quarter published nothing. Of papers that were published, 1 in 10 were considered high-impact (garnering more than 50 citations by subsequent papers). The majority of current unicorns and 40 percent of exited unicorns had zero high-impact papers. In addition, of eight high-impact current unicorn papers, two were unrelated to the company’s product. Only one of the 34 high-impact papers involved any human subjects, and that was a retrospective observational study. (Eli Cahan, Ioana A. Cristea and John P.A. Ioannidis, 1/29)

The Wall Street Journal: The Government Opioid Raid
Opiate addiction has ruined tens of thousands of lives, and no surprise politicians in cahoots with their trial-lawyer friends are trying to cash in on the scourge. Credit to a Connecticut judge for calling out a local raid. More than 600 government lawsuits have been filed against companies that make, distribute and sell opioids. Trial attorneys are abetting governments in return for a share of the potential payoff. While most suits are being heard by federal judge Dan Polster in Ohio, some cities have sued in home courts in hopes of receiving a more sympathetic audience and bigger reward. (1/28)

Stat: Real-World Evidence Is Changing The Way We Study Drug Safety And Effectiveness
Randomized controlled clinical trials are a great way to test the safety and effectiveness of a new drug. But when the trial is over and the drug approved, it’s used by patients and health care practitioners in settings that are quite different from the rarified clinical trial setting. Interesting, important, and sometimes surprising findings can emerge when the narrow constraints of clinical trial eligibility and intent-to-treat analyses are set aside. That’s why it’s time for biotech and pharmaceutical companies to pay more attention to understanding, and undertaking, real-world studies, an approach backed by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a talk Monday on using new data sources as evidence for both regulatory evaluation and value-based payment programs. (Nancy A. Dreyer, 1/29)

Boston Globe: Safe Injection Sites Aren’t Safe Or Legal
Promoters of supervised injection sites need to understand that, short of legislative reform, any effort to open an injection site in Massachusetts will be met with federal enforcement. Following marijuana legalization, some in the Commonwealth have come to view federal drug laws as a mere inconvenience, stubbornly antiquated rules that surely must yield to those with superior insight and the best of intentions. (Andrew Lelling, 1/28)

The Oregonian: Reversing Oregon’s Backward Slide On Immunizations
The Clark County outbreak, like past outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in Oregon and elsewhere, drives home the point that forgoing immunizations isn’t just a matter of personal choice. The long list of places where people may have been exposed to the virus – churches, schools, stores, high school basketball games, Portland International Airport – speaks to the broad reach of a family’s choice not to immunize a child. Refusing to vaccinate children puts not only them at risk but also the health of medically fragile individuals or those too young to be immunized. Oregonians and legislators must start treating our declining immunization rate as the serious threat to public health that it is and stem this backward slide. (1/25)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland Anti-Lead-Poisoning Coalition Is A Laudable Step Forward But It Needs A Clear Plan Of Action
Bottom line: The lead poisoning of Cleveland children has become a citywide emergency that requires tough, focused and urgent measures aimed at making the city's housing safer for families. The bad news is that the new coalition hasn't yet finalized what those measures will be. Despite their laudably strong statements of an intention to act with urgency, the 19-member coalition and its community partners still lack a timeline, overall plan of action with clear metrics and cost estimates, and identified sources of funding. (1/27)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Should Take Guns From Domestic Abusers. Anyone Disagree?
Getting a law passed that actually has a chance to protect segments of the public from gun violence has never been easy. The gun lobby in many states (including ours) has been strong enough to either have such proposals killed or watered down to the extent that they’re little more than fancy titles on do-nothing laws. (EJ Montini, 1/28)

The Oregonian: Costly, Ineffective, Cruel: How Oregon Ensnares Mentally Ill People Charged With Low-Level Crimes
The process, known as “aid and assist,” stems from the constitutional right of people charged with crimes to be able to help in their own defense. Through it, however, the state metes out extremely high cost care that takes defendants’ liberties away for prolonged periods. And it fails in almost every case to deliver lasting benefits to defendants or to society. In Oregon, taxpayers spend as much as $35 million a year to provide institutionalized care to mentally ill people charged with misdemeanors, many of whom are homeless, a first-of-its-kind analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive found. Nearly all those patients eventually find themselves dumped back out on the street with little to no support. Almost one in five are readmitted to the mental hospital within a year under new charges. (Gordon R. Friedman, 1/27)