The Associated Press: Trump Angers With Suggestion That Vets With PTSD Are Weak
Donald Trump is drawing scorn from veterans' groups after he suggested that soldiers who suffer from mental health issues might not be as strong as those who don't. Trump was speaking at an event organized by the Retired American Warriors political action committee Monday when he was asked about his commitment to faith-based programs aimed at preventing suicides and helping soldiers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other issues. (10/3)

The Washington Post: Trump Suggests Military Members With Mental Health Issues Aren’t ‘Strong’ And ‘Can’t Handle It’
"When you talk about the mental health problems, when people come back from war and combat, they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over. And you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it," the Republican presidential nominee told an audience of military veterans at an event in Northern Virginia on Monday morning. "And they see horror stories, they see events that you couldn’t see in a movie — nobody would believe it." Mental health advocates have been trying for decades to destigmatize depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other issues in hopes of empowering people to not be afraid to seek medical help. The stigma surrounding mental health has been especially difficult to fight in the military, where many service members think that they should handle these issues on their own and that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Suicide has become an epidemic among veterans, and more than 20 end their lives each day. (Sullivan and Johnson, 10/3)

Politico: Trump Appears To Suggest Veterans With PTSD Are Not 'Strong'
The real estate mogul called for more assistance with veterans’ mental health, noting that “it’s one of the things that I think is least addressed” but also “one of the things that I hear the most about when I go around and talk to the veterans.” “So we’re gonna have a very, very robust — very, very robust — level of performance having to do with mental health. We are losing so many great people that can be taken care of if they had proper care,” Trump continued. (McCaskill, 10/3)

Los Angeles Times: Biden Says Trump 'Completely Uninformed' On Mental Health Of Combat Vets. Veteran Calls Trump 'Thoughtful'
Vice President Joe Biden called Donald Trump “completely uninformed” about war veterans' mental health on Monday after Trump told a military group that they were strong but others “can’t handle” post-combat stress. Biden’s comments came as the Trump campaign said the Republican nominee’s remarks in Virginia on Monday morning were taken out of context by critics. (Finnegan, 10/3)

USA Today: Trump PTSD Comments Spark Emotional Debate
Critics took exception to Trump's portrayal of the victims of PTSD as being people who "can't handle" the things they saw in war, in contrast to the room of veterans he was addressing, who are "strong" and who "can handle it." (Cummings, 10/3)

Morning Consult: When It Comes To A Public Option, It’s A Battle Of Wills
As Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and most Senate Democrats coalesce around a government-run insurance agency as part of the solution to Obamacare cost woes, a large problem remains unaddressed: Insurers hate the public option. Democrats, including the Clinton campaign, are showing little sympathy. ... Clinton has a deep understanding of how important the support of the health care industry is to achieve any kind of comprehensive overhaul after her own failed attempt at passing broad health legislation under her husband’s presidency. But Clinton’s campaign is willing to push a public option anyway, according to an outside health care advisor. The alternative for insurers is to continue participating in Obamacare exchanges. (Owens, 10/3)

In other 2016 election news —

Politico: Not Your Father's GOP: Ayotte Campaign Hands Out Condoms
Forget bumper stickers. Kelly Ayotte’s latest campaign swag is condoms. The New Hampshire Republican’s campaign is distributing free condoms to publicize her plan to get birth control sold over the counter and to push back against Democratic arguments that she opposes Planned Parenthood and contraception. “As part of Kelly’s commitment to making birth control available over the counter, please take a free condom,” said a poster spotted at the University of New Hampshire campaign table over the weekend. “Use Condom Sense!” (Haberkorn, 10/3)

Politico: Obamacare’s Millennial Problem
The 18- to 34-year-olds who helped elect Barack Obama could consign his signature domestic policy achievement to failure. That’s because not enough millennials have signed up for Obamacare to make it work well. Despite repeated outreach — including entreaties from all manner of celebrities, including NBA stars and Obama himself — young people make up less than 30 percent of Obamacare customers. The White House had set a goal of 40 percent in that age bracket to sustain a healthy marketplace because millennials tend to be healthier and, therefore, balance the costs of sicker, older customers. (Pradhan and Demko, 10/4)

Morning Consult: Obama: Affordable Care Act Has ‘Real Problems’
President Obama says his signature domestic policy, the Affordable Care Act, needs some fixes. “In my mind the [Affordable Care Act] has been a huge success, but it’s got real problems,” Obama said in an interview with New York Magazine published Sunday. ... In the interview, Obama suggested ways the marketplace could be improved: “They’re eminently fixable problems in terms of strengthening the marketplace, improving the subsidies so more folks can get it, making sure everybody has Medicaid who was qualified under the original legislation, doing more on the cost containment,” he said. (McIntire, 10/3)

Bloomberg: Obama Says Obamacare Has ‘Real Problems’ Congress Refuses to Fix
President Barack Obama said his signature health-care law has “real problems” that have been exacerbated by congressional gridlock and political polarization. (Olorunnipa, 10/3)

In other health law news —

The Washington Post: Maryland’s ACA Health Co-Op Will Switch To For-Profit To Save Itself
Evergreen Health, Maryland’s version of the innovative nonprofit insurers created under the Affordable Care Act, decided Monday to become a for-profit company to avoid the possibility of a shutdown, according to its chief executive. If the switch is approved as expected by federal and state officials, Evergreen’s unprecedented move will leave standing only five of the 23 co-ops, or Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, which started nearly three years ago. (Goldstein, 10/3)

The Baltimore Sun: Evergreen Health To Be Acquired, Convert To For-Profit Insurance Company
Evergreen Health, once considered among the most successful of the health insurance co-ops formed under the federal Affordable Care Act, will be acquired by a consortium of private investors and converted to a for-profit insurance company, its CEO, Dr. Peter Beilenson, said Monday. (Gantz, 10/3)

The Hill: Feds Move To Throw Out ObamaCare Lawsuits
The Obama administration is seeking to toss out a pair of high-profile healthcare lawsuits in which insurers claim they are owed millions of dollars under the Affordable Care Act. The two insurers, Moda Healthcare and BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, have sued the federal government over a combined $338 million in ObamaCare payments they argue are overdue. (Ferris, 10/3)

Kaiser Health News: Health Law Targets Women’s Preventive Services, But It Offers Help To Men, Too
The drafters of the health law paid special attention to women’s preventive health needs, creating additional recommendations targeted specifically at them. This was done in part to address recognized gaps in women’s services, especially in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, said Adam Sonfield, senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organization. (Andrews, 10/4)

The Wall Street Journal: House Committee Taps Mylan For More Information On EpiPen Price Figures
A U.S. House committee sent a letter to Mylan NV demanding a fuller explanation of why the company omitted key information that it used to calculate the profit figure for the lifesaving EpiPen drug that its chief executive provided during a congressional hearing last month. ... House committee leaders, in a letter to Ms. Bresch dated Sept. 30 and released Monday, said her testimony “omitted key tax assumptions that affect the company’s profit per pack.” They said the omission ”raises questions.” (Loftus, 10/3)

In other pharmaceutical news —

Modern Healthcare: CVS Pushed Out Of Tricare Pharmacy Network
In a blow to CVS Health Corp., pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Holding Co. announced it has ousted the provider from the pharmacy network it manages for Tricare, the U.S. Defense Department's health benefits program with 9.4 million beneficiaries. (Livingston, 10/3)

The Washington Post: Despite New Zika Funds, States Might Not Get Any For Months
Newly approved Zika funding isn't likely to reach states and localities for several more months because of the federal goverment's budgeting process, health officials said Monday. After months of partisan feuding, Congress last week approved a budget bill that includes $1.1 billion to fight the Zika crisis. That's just over half the total emergency money that President Obama requested in February. Although local and state health officials have been eagerly awaiting assistance, funds aren't likely to be flowing right away. (Sun, 10/3)

Los Angeles Times: With $1.1 Billion In New Funding, U.S. Health Officials Outline Plan For Fighting Zika
The nation’s top health officials on Monday laid out their plans for spending $1.1 billion in newly appropriated federal funds to combat the threat posed by the Zika virus. At the same time, they vented frustration at Congress for taking so long to make the money available as the virus spread to more than 25,000 people in U.S. states and territories, including 3,600 on the mainland. (Healy, 10/3)

The Hill: Top Health Officials: Funding Delay Hurt Zika Response
Top Obama administration health officials said Monday that Congress’s months-long delay in providing funds hurt their response to the Zika virus. They added that their work can now accelerate after Congress finally approved $1.1 billion in funding to fight the virus last week. (Sullivan, 10/3)

The Baltimore Sun: Zika Money From Congress To Head To States In Coming Months
The $1.1 billion allocated by Congress last week to fight Zika will mean more money for states and localities to control and monitor for the mosquito-borne virus and for researchers to develop vaccines and diagnostic tests. (Cohn, 10/3)

Miami Herald: Zika Virus: Federal Funding To Arrive Over Next Few Months As Researchers Test Vaccine 
The Florida Department of Health on Monday announced six new Zika infections that occurred in Miami Beach, where mosquitoes are transmitting the virus in a zone that covers two-thirds of the city. Three other local cases were identified as Miami-Dade residents, but the health department is investigating where the exposure occurred. And there were three more cases in which individuals traveled to both Miami-Dade and countries where the transmission of Zika is widespread. The state couldn’t determine where their exposure had occurred. (Flechas, 10/3)

The Associated Press: Survey: Doctors' Political Views May Affect Patient Care
Politics in the exam room? A new study suggests patient care may vary depending on whether the doctor is a Democrat or a Republican — at least when it comes to some hot-button health issues like firearm safety. Health care has long drawn partisan political fights, like state laws surrounding abortion, or Florida's law restricting doctors from discussing guns with patients. But there's been little research on the doctor-patient side of those controversies. Can physicians leave their own political ideology at the door during something as simple as a checkup? (Neergaard, 10/3)

The Washington Post: Democratic And Republican Doctors Treat Patients Differently
Participants were asked to evaluate nine hypothetical scenarios they might face with patients. With each vignette, they were asked to evaluate how concerned they’d be about the issue and how likely they’d be to engage in a list of potential treatment options. The scenarios covered everything from a patient who had regular sexual contact with sex workers to one who commutes to work by motorcycle but doesn’t wear a helmet. The responses showed clear differences between providers identified independently as Democrats or Republicans when it came to politically charged issues. For example, Republicans were most concerned about scenarios that included multiple prior abortions and marijuana use. Democrats were most concerned about firearm access and patients who had sexual relationships with sex workers. (Blakemore, 10/3)

Los Angeles Times: The Care You Get From Your Doctor May Depend On His Or Her Political Views
“Just as a patient may seek out a physician of a certain gender to feel more comfortable, the evidence suggests that a patient may need to make the same calculation regarding political ideology,” political scientist Eitan Hersh and psychiatrist Matthew Goldenberg wrote Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Kaplan, 10/3)

The CT Mirror: Study Asks: Do Doctors’ Political Views Influence Care? 
You might know where your doctor went to medical school, but does it matter if he’s a Republican or a Democrat? A new study by Yale researchers suggests it might – at least when it comes to politically charged issues such as marijuana use, abortion or having a gun at home. (Levin Becker, 10/3)

Boston Globe: Suicide Threats Not Heeded In Nursing Home Death, State Finds 
An 81-year-old resident who killed himself in a Salem nursing home had repeatedly mused about suicide in the days leading to his death, but health workers failed to act on a note about his suicidal thoughts tucked into medical records, state investigators found. Federal regulators are sanctioning the Grosvenor Park Health Center, part of a troubled out-of-state chain, for not taking measures that might have prevented the suicide — a failure of action that resulted in “actual harm” to the resident. The regulators, however, have not disclosed what penalties the nursing home might face. (Lazar, 10/3)

The Chicago Tribune: Nursing Home Operator From Chicago Jailed As Feds Allege $1 Billion Scheme
For years, wealthy nursing home operator Philip Esformes seemed to live in perpetual motion, using private jets to travel between his Water Tower Place condominium and his mansions in Miami and Los Angeles. Now federal authorities are applying extraordinary court pressure to keep Esformes locked in a Florida detention cell where he awaits trial for allegedly orchestrating an unprecedented $1 billion Medicaid and Medicare bribery and kickback scheme. (Jackson and Marx, 10/4)

Kaiser Health News: When Pretend Play Is Real For Alzheimer’s Patients
Nursing homes and other senior facilities nationwide are using a controversial technique called doll therapy to ease anxiety among their residents with dementia. Senior care providers and experts say the dolls are an alternative to medication and help draw in elderly people who are no longer able to participate in many activities. ... Caregivers aren’t trying to make their charges believe the dolls are real infants, and they don’t want to infantilize the seniors, Drew said. They are just “trying to meet them where they are and communicate with them in a way that makes sense to them. (Gorman,10/4)

Related News: For more KHN stories related to aging & improving care of older adults, check out our new resource page.

The Associated Press: Could Drug Checking Have Prevented Prince's Overdose Death?
As the investigation into Prince's death homes in on the source of the fatal fentanyl, some observers are suggesting that the United States explore a lifesaving strategy used in Europe: services that check addicts' drug supplies to see if they are safe. In Spain, the Netherlands and a handful of other countries, users voluntarily turn in drug samples for chemical analysis and are alerted if dangerous additives are found. The pragmatic approach saves lives, proponents say. (Johnson, 10/4)

Columbus Dispatch: Lancaster Police Report 3 Fatal Heroin Overdoses 
Lancaster police reported three fatal drug overdoses occurred over the weekend, and warned drug users that a dangerous batch of illegal narcotics apparently is circulating. A 38-year-old man was found dead by his wife in their home on Friday and a 47-year-old mother was found dead by her son on Sunday. Today, a 33-year-old man died after having trouble breathing. It was reported that the man hadn't slept in several days due to using methamphetamine and may have used heroin in an attempt to sleep, Deputy Chief Adam Pillar said in a news release. (Lane, 10/3)

The Pioneer Press: Allina Nurses Reject Contract Proposal, Extending Monthlong Strike
Thousands of striking nurses at five Allina Health facilities in the Twin Cities voted Monday to reject the health system’s latest contract proposal. The vote means that the monthlong strike will continue and nurses will remain on the picket line until their return is negotiated by the Minnesota Nurses Association and Minneapolis-based Allina. (Cooney, 10/3)

The Star Tribune: Allina Nurses Reject Contract, Stay On Strike
Allina Health hospital nurses voted Monday night to reject a contract offer from their employer, increasing the likelihood that their walkout over health benefits, staffing and safety concerns will go down as the longest nursing strike in Minnesota history. While the Minnesota Nurses Association had not recommended a “no” vote, many nurses said they felt Allina’s latest offer was too similar to one they rejected in August, and to the terms their union negotiators rejected during last-ditch negotiations in September to avert a strike. (Olson, 10/4)

Boston Globe: Children’s Hospital Expansion Opposed By Health Insurers
Health insurers are making a late bid to derail a plan by Boston Children’s Hospital to expand, urging state regulators to reject the building project because it would drive up medical spending. The $1 billion proposal by Children’s to add an 11-story tower and 71 beds to its Longwood Medical Area campus would boost the hospital’s market share in the state, the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans said Monday in a letter to Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel. (Dayal McCluskey, 10/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Long Island’s Nassau University Medical Center Opens New Primary-Care Unit
Long Island’s Nassau University Medical Center is ready to open a new $19 million primary-care unit Tuesday as it looks to trim unnecessary visits to its bursting emergency room. The public hospital in the Nassau County community of East Meadow, N.Y., has about 100,000 emergency-room visits every year. Officials say the primary-care center, with its 55 treatment rooms, could cut emergency-room visits by 25%. (de Avila, 10/3)

Health News Florida: Report: Florida's Mental Hospitals Still Violent, Deadly 
The staff and patients inside Florida's mental hospitals remain victims of preventable violence, according to a newspaper investigation. The Tampa Bay Times, following up on a yearlong investigation the newspaper conducted with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2015, reported Sunday that the state’s mental hospitals are still violent and deadly. The newspapers spent more than a year documenting life in Florida’s six largest mental hospitals, showing how $100 million in budget cuts had led to a doubling in violent incidents and at least 15 deaths. (10/3)

And The Washington Post reports —

The Washington Post: Transgender Boy’s Mom Sues Hospital, Saying He ‘Went Into Spiral’ After Staff Called Him A Girl
Just shy of his 15th birthday and the promise of testosterone treatments to help make him a man, Kyler Prescott was dead. Overcome with anxiety and depression, the Southern California teen committed suicide in May 2015, his mother said. In the weeks before his death, Kyler had been treated for “suicidal ideation,” Katharine Prescott said: She had taken him to the emergency room at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, which has a Gender Management Clinic to treat children with gender dysphoria and other related issues. (Bever, 10/3)

Asbury Park Press: NJ Employers Stick Health Costs On Workers
New Jersey employers shifted more of the cost of health insurance to their employees in 2016, helping them slow down the rise in insurance premiums, a survey released Monday by the state's biggest business lobby group found. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association, however, said increase in health care costs still far outpaced inflation. It prompted the organization to call on Trenton to take steps to protect consumers from steep charges when they use a provider out of their insurance company's network. (Diamond, 10/3)

Georgia Health News: Atlanta Lags In Black Women’s Survival Of Breast Cancer 
The disparity between breast cancer death rates for black and white women in Atlanta is greater than in any other major U.S. city, a new study has found. Among black women in Atlanta, 44 per 100,000 died of breast cancer in the period 2010 to 2014. Meanwhile, 20 white women per 100,000 died of breast cancer in Atlanta. The differential is the largest in the nation – and the gap is growing. Atlanta also had the largest increase in the black/white disparity on breast cancer mortality. (Miller, 10/3)

Wyoming Public Radio: Suicide Prevention Advocates Set Up A New Text Line In Wyoming
Wyoming has the fourth highest suicide rate in the nation, but last week, the state joined the National Crisis Text Line to make it easier for people at risk of suicide to reach out for help. People can text "WYO" to 741-741 and hear back from a crisis counselor within five minutes. The counselors can help them talk through their problems, and then help them find services in their communities. (Elder, 10/3)

ProPublica: Red Cross ‘Failed For 12 Days’ After Historic Louisiana Floods 
Hundreds of Louisiana government documents and emails between officials obtained by ProPublica through freedom of information requests show widespread mismanagement and understaffing at Red Cross-run shelters. Some evacuees went hungry, thirsty and without medical attention as a result. People at one shelter had “no food or water for 24 hours over the weekend,” wrote the head of a local nonprofit eight days after the flooding began. “A woman gave birth with no medical assistance.” Another day, the shelter served only 195 meals out of 500 because Red Cross workers showed up late. (Kravitz, 10/3)

The Tennessean: Bill Frist's Aspire Health Gets Google Venture Funding
Aspire Health, a Nashville-based palliative care provider, inked $32 million in venture capital in a deal led by an investment arm of Google. Aspire is trying to make care for people in the end stages of terminal disease more comfortable by employing providers who support the specialty care teams to make visits to the person's home as a way to eliminate unnecessary hospitalizations. (Fletcher, 10/3)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Exact Sciences Test Gets Boost
Exact Sciences Corp., a Madison maker of molecular diagnostic tests, said Monday its flagship test for colon cancer has been added to a data set that is widely used to measure the quality of health plans. The test, called Cologuard, is now included in the 2017 Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set quality measures for colorectal cancer screening. More than 90% of all U.S. health plans use the HEDIS information to measure performance on care and service. (Gallagher, 10/3)

Sacramento Bee: What’s ALD? A New Genetic Test Will Identify California Newborns With Debilitating Disease 
Starting last month, a rare but devastating genetic disease is now part of the routine blood screening given to all California babies shortly after birth. Adrenoleukodystrophy – commonly called ALD – is a tongue-twisty name for a brain disease that primarily strikes boys, often in the prime of childhood. Until now, it’s usually been detected too late to save children from deteriorating into a vegetative state, if not early death. (Buck, 10/3)

The Tennessean: Health, Education, Traffic Woes Threaten Progress In Booming Nashville
In a city full of doctors, hospitals and health care businesses, residents face higher chronic disease rates than the national average. Meanwhile, the percentage of those with academic credentials beyond a high school degree is lower than Nashville’s peer metropolitan cities, and the region's traffic woes are expected to double by 2040. (McGee, 10/4)

Health News Florida: Pro-Marijuana Group Gets $1M Boost
Supporters of a constitutional amendment that would broadly legalize medical marijuana in Florida received a $1 million boost this week from a political committee focused on similar initiatives in other states. The committee, New Approach, is tied to the family of the late philanthropist Peter Lewis, the former head of Progressive Insurance who died in 2013 and who financed medical-marijuana proposals in Washington and Massachusetts. New Approach also was a major contributor to an Oregon initiative that legalized recreational marijuana in 2014. (10/3)

Tampa Bay Times: Bankrolled By Big Donors, Florida Ballot Battle Over Medical Marijuana Heats Up
Come Nov. 8, Florida could be the 26th state to legalize full-strength medical marijuana for patients with cancer, epilepsy and a host of other conditions. That gives supporters and opponents of Amendment 2 just five weeks to persuade voters. And they've started in earnest, pumping millions of dollars from wealthy donors into TV ads, mailings and recruiting big-name endorsers. Pro-medical marijuana group United for Care has logged $5.2 million since 2015, most of it from large donors, including a $1 million contribution last week from pot activist group New Approach. (Auslen, 10/3)

Stat: It’s Time For Politicians To Acknowledge Americans’ Health Care Concerns
With voters increasingly tuning into the final phase of the 2016 election, it’s time for Republicans and Democrats to start thinking critically about health care and its importance to every American, regardless of party. (Douglas E. Schoen, 10/4)

Forbes: How To Boost Competition In Obamacare
When the Medicare Modernization Act created a new drug benefit and the Medicare Advantage programs, there were literally thousands of new health plans that were formed to offer these benefits. Many were brand-new insurance carriers started by investors. No such outcome met the start of Obamacare. The initial launch of the exchanges was marked by a relatively cautious response from the big, existing carriers. (Scott Gottlieb, 10/3)

The Houston Chronicle/The Conversation: Why Insurance Companies Control Your Medical Care
It’s that time of year again. Insurance companies that participate in the Affordable Care Act’s state health exchanges are signaling that prices will rise dramatically this fall. And if insurance costs aren’t enough of a crisis, researchers are highlighting deficiencies in health care quality, such as unnecessary tests and procedures that cause patient harm, medical errors bred by disjointed or fragmented care and disparities in service distribution. (Christy Ford Chapin, 10/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Meet Planned Parenthood’s Tim Kaine
Ah, but Mr. Kaine protests! He is not pro-choice; he is “personally opposed.” But what can this mean? For Mr. Kaine, it meant a giant evolution once he reached the Senate. There he opposed limits he once supported as governor, fighting efforts to cut off tax dollars for Planned Parenthood, voting against a 20-week abortion ban, and co-sponsoring legislation aimed at nullifying state laws limiting abortion. Now he is running on a ticket committed to overturning the Hyde amendment’s restrictions on federal funding. Small wonder both Planned Parenthood and Naral Pro-Choice America now deem his voting record 100% pro-choice. (William McGurn, 10/3)

Stat: More Doctors Need To Vote And Get Politically Involved
Doctors don’t vote — at least not enough. We’re less likely to vote than lawyers, other professionals, farmers, and the general population. In some recent elections, less than one-third of doctors voted. It’s not clear why. Some doctors may simply be too busy and, without protected time from work, can’t get to the voting booth. Some may feel that caring for patients fulfills their sense of social purpose, making other forms of civic participation, like voting, seem less important. ... But an important disconnect should be highlighted: Physicians as a group are growing more liberal while those representing the profession in Congress are almost exclusively conservative. (Dhruv Khullar, 10/3)

The Washington Post: This Is The Kind Of Sexism Women Who Want To Be Doctors Deal With In Med School
While sexist banter during surgery may seem mostly harmless, the extent and frequency of it, and the aggression towards women it communicates, is a real problem. There are also insidious, subtle signals that female physicians contend with daily. My young female colleagues and I are constantly mistaken for nurses by patients and visitors, only because we’re women. We are referred to as “girls” by patients and medical colleagues alike, while our male counterparts are “young men” or just “men.” The most disheartening sexist assumptions are the ones I make, though — I find myself unthinkingly asking patients, “Who is your primary care doctor, and do you have his phone number?” Even as a physician myself, I have somehow internalized the idea that the profession still belongs to men. (Allyson Herbst, 10/4)

The Fiscal Times: Little-Known State Laws Are Hurting Patients And Making Hospitals Worse 
More than five decades have passed since New York state first enacted something called a certificate-of-need law (CON) in an effort to curb rising health care costs. Such laws, now enforced in 35 states and the District of Columbia, require providers to first seek permission from their state’s government before opening a new practice, expanding services and making certain investments in devices and medical technology. ... Because these programs were well-intentioned and are rather innocuous-looking, however, health care reformers have a tendency to focus their efforts on other issues, and certificate-of-need laws have been given little attention. (Christopher Koopman and Thomas Stratmann, 10/3)

The New York Times: The Two Mysteries Of Medicare
A growing proportion of Medicare beneficiaries are opting out of the government-run insurance program. They are instead choosing a private plan alternative, one of the Medicare Advantage plans. The strength of this trend defies predictions from the Congressional Budget Office, and nobody can fully explain it. Here’s another mystery. Traditional Medicare spending growth has slowed, bucking historical trends and expectations. Though there are theories, we don’t fully know what’s causing that either. (Austin Frakt, 10/3)

RealClear Health: Competitive Bidding Is Killing Medicare Beneficiaries
The goal of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ competitive bidding program for home medical equipment was to reduce beneficiary out-of-pocket expenses and reduce Medicare costs while ensuring beneficiary access to quality items and services. Since the program’s January 2011 pilot launch in nine test markets, Medicare continues to report that the program has saved millions of dollars with no disruption of beneficiary access to needed products and supplies and no harm to patients. This is a lie. (Christopher Parkin, 10/3)

The Des Moines Register: Obama Protects Seniors' Right To Seek Justice
Arbitration clauses are virtually inescapable in today's society. You frequently give up your right to sue when you sign the paperwork to rent a car, secure cell phone service, open a bank account or buy a home. Some companies require them as a condition of employment. But such agreements have no place in senior living facilities. Vulnerable people should not leave their constitutional rights at the nursing home door. And because arbitration is a secretive process, it allows homes to keep embarrassing wrongdoing under wraps, which has troubling implications for public safety. ... Fortunately, the Obama administration knows facilities entrusted with the care of frail, disabled people should be held accountable if residents are harmed. (10/3)

The Baltimore Sun: Md.'s CARE Act Helps Caregivers And Patients
Recovery from illnesses following hospital care varies in duration, but one thing is certain: Making sure that patients receive the right care after they leave the hospital has a dramatic impact on a patient's well-being, prognosis and outcome, and it is a major ingredient in Maryland's transformation of health care. (Carmela Coyle and Hank Greenberg, 10/3)

Los Angeles Times: Proposition 61 Is The Wrong Solution To The Problem Of High Drug Prices
Blatant price-gouging by EpiPen-maker Mylan and other pharmaceutical companies has stoked public outrage about the high cost of prescription drugs. Meanwhile, the emergence of a new class of exceptionally expensive specialty drugs has caused budget nightmares for state governments. But in California, even modest efforts to require drugmakers to reveal more about how they set their prices have been stymied by lawmakers sympathetic to the industry. (10/4)

The Washington Post: D.C. Is About To Vote On Physician-Assisted Death. Here’s Why It’s Dangerous.
Politicians in the nation’s capital will vote this week on a physician-assisted death bill, a measure that cuts to the core of human nature, dignity and civilization. If it passes, the bill would allow a competent adult patient who has been diagnosed with an illness that will be fatal within six months (who is not under readily identifiable coercion and is not clinically depressed) to request and receive a prescription from a licensed D.C. physician and D.C. pharmacist to end the patient’s life. (Allen Roberts and Scott Redd, 10/4)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania's Opioid Addiction Crisis Can't Be Fought Like A War
Fighting opioid abuse seems to be an issue both sides can agree on. The current state budget includes increased funding to treat 11,000 more addicts. It is gratifying to see Pennsylvania and other states turn from the "crack wars" mentality of the past, which too often put jailing addicts above helping them. (10/3)