The Associated Press: Trump Considers Ousting His VA Secretary In Cabinet Shuffle
President Donald Trump is considering ousting embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who has faced an insurgency within his department and fresh allegations that he used a member of his security detail to run personal errands. Trump has floated the notion of moving Energy Secretary Rick Perry to the VA to right the ship, believing Shulkin has become a distraction, according to two sources familiar with White House discussions. The sources were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. (Yen and Miller, 3/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Considers Ousting Veterans Affairs Chief
In multiple interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Shulkin has said forces in the administration and the department are conspiring to oust him, using the pretext of the inspector-general report to urge his ouster. Concerned Veterans for America, a veterans organization aligned with the conservative network backed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, has been lobbying publicly against Dr. Shulkin. (Ballhaus, 3/13)

The New York Times: In Replacing Tillerson With Pompeo, Trump Turns To Loyalists Who Reflect ‘America First’ Views
As the White House absorbed the news about Mr. Tillerson, rumors swirled that the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, and the secretary of Veterans Affairs, David J. Shulkin, would soon follow him out the door. The sense of disarray was deepened by the purging of Mr. Tillerson’s inner circle and the sudden dismissal of a personal aide to Mr. Trump. (Landler, Haberman, and Harris, 3/13)

Meanwhile, former HHS Secretary Tom Price repays taxpayers following his own travel scandal —

The Associated Press: Ousted Health Secretary Tom Price Repaid $60K For His Travel
Former health secretary Tom Price repaid the government nearly $60,000 for his costs flying on private charters for official business, House Democrats revealed Tuesday. But White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway flew on some of those same trips, and Democrats want to know how much that cost. "The White House has completely stonewalled our requests for documents," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a letter pressing House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to subpoena travel records for Conway and other White House officials. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/13)

The Hill: Oversight Dem Demands Info On Conway's Private Flights With Tom Price 
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway flew on several of the same private flights as former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price, but has yet to reimburse the federal government for her share of the costs, House Democrats revealed Tuesday. Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, accused the White House of stonewalling the investigation into how much the flights cost and called on the panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), to issue a subpoena. (Weixel, 3/13)

And in other news from the administration —

The New York Times: White House Hails Success Of Disease-Fighting Program, And Plans Deep Cuts
The White House appeared to declare victory this week for an Obama-era initiative to stamp out disease outbreaks around the world even as it moved to scale back the program. The National Security Council released a report on Monday trumpeting the achievements of the multinational Global Health Security Agenda, which helps low-income countries halt epidemics before they cross borders. The report “clearly shows how the investments made by taxpayers to improve global health security are paying dividends,” White House officials said in the announcement. (Baumgaertner, 3/13)

The New York Times: House Rejects Bill To Give Patients A ‘Right To Try’ Experimental Drugs
In a surprising rebuff to President Trump and Republican leaders, the House derailed a bill on Tuesday that would have given patients with terminal illnesses a right to try unproven experimental treatments. The bill was considered under special fast-track procedures that required a two-thirds majority for passage, and it fell short. When the roll was called, 259 House members supported the bill, and 140 opposed it. (Pear, 3/13)

The Associated Press: House Rejects GOP Bill Easing Use Of Unproven Drugs
The vote for the measure was 259-140, but that fell seven votes short of the two-thirds majority the GOP needed to prevail under special procedures. Since the Senate approved similar legislation last August, Republicans could well revisit the legislation under rules that would require only a simple majority for passage, perhaps after reworking the measure. (Fram, 3/13)

Politico: Democrats Sink House Vote On Trump-Backed Drug Bill
“This legislation delivers the false hope to patients and their families that they will receive a cure to their underlying disease or condition,” House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone said. The bill is also “based on false premise that patients are not receiving access to investigational treatments as a result of the Food and Drug Administration." (Karlin-Smith, 3/13)

The Washington Post: House Defeats ‘Right-To-Try’ Legislation To Allow Expanded Use Of Experimental Drugs
The Republicans pushing the legislation, Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Health Subcommittee Chairman Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.), expressed disappointment at the outcome. “For months we sought to strike the right balance by allowing patients greater access to these unapproved treatments and therapies while also ensuring proper patient protections,” they said in a joint statement. “This bill does just that.” The vote capped an emotionally charged debate that kicked into high gear over the weekend after Walden and Burgess released their bill and said they planned a quick floor vote. The Senate passed a similar measure last summer that was pushed by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). (McGinley, 3/13)

Stat: 'Right-To-Try' Bill Rejected By House, In Major Blow To GOP Efforts
The vote was an embarrassing defeat not only for House Republicans but for President Trump, who had called on Congress to quickly pass right-to-try legislation, and Vice President Mike Pence, a longtime supporter of the effort. It was also a rare misstep from Speaker Paul Ryan, who like most congressional leaders almost never schedules votes on legislation without some certainty that the given measure has the support to pass. (Mershon, 3/13)

CQ: 'Right To Try' Bill Falls Short Of Votes In House
House Democratic leaders opposed the bill (HR 5247), mostly over the process Republicans used. Republicans released the so-called “Right to Try” bill at about 12:30 a.m. early Saturday morning, and on Sunday, leaders said it would get a vote on Tuesday under suspension of the rules, which does not allow amendments and requires approval from two-thirds of those present to pass. But only about 32 House Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill, and two GOP lawmakers broke with their party. (Siddons, 3/13)

Modern Healthcare: Right-To-Try Experimental Drug Bill Fails To Pass In House Vote 
On Monday, more than 70 patient advocacy groups signed a letter to the leaders of both parties in the House expressing their concerns that the bill would not improve access to experimental therapies, while making it riskier for patients by eliminating federal oversight from the process. "The FDA has never been the problem in terms of the time for approval nor whether or not to approve unless there is evidence that expanded access would be problematic," said Dr. Barbara Bierer, professor of pediatric medicine at Harvard Medical School and program director of the Regulatory Foundations, Ethics and Law Program at the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center. (Johnson, 3/13)

CQ HealthBeat: Congress May Aid Drug Industry By Retreating On Medicare Change
Congress could scale back in the omnibus spending bill a recent change to Medicare drug payments, a key Senate appropriator said Tuesday. If Congress acts, it would be heeding drug company lobbyists' calls to reverse changes lawmakers enacted just last month. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that a provision in the budget deal last month (PL 115-123) that increased how much funding drugmakers provide for drugs in the Medicare Part D prescription program would actually save more than the $8 billion the nonpartisan analysts initially projected, said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. Lawmakers may revise that provision so that new language would result in only $8 billion of savings, Blunt said. (McIntire, 3/13)

Politico Pro: Doughnut Hole Policy Likely To Change In Omnibus
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairman of the Labor-HHS appropriations subcommittee, said CBO “has become convinced” it underestimated the savings the government would see under a policy change in last month's budget caps deal that addressed the Medicare Part D coverage gap. The multi-billion dollar change required manufacturers to pay more of patients' branded drug costs. (Haberkorn, 3/13)

The Hill: US Spends Twice As Much As Other Wealthy Countries On Health Care
The United States spent twice as much on health care than ten other high-income countries in 2016, largely because of the high costs of prescription drugs, administrative overhead and labor, a new study released Tuesday indicates. While Americans don't use more services than people in high-income countries, the U.S.'s overall health spending still topped that of the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Hellmann, 3/13)

The Washington Post: The Real Reason The U.S. Spends Twice As Much On Health Care As Other Wealthy Countries
A sweeping new study of health-care expenditures found that the United States spends almost twice as much on health care as 10 other wealthy countries, a difference driven by high prices — including doctors' and nurses' salaries, hospital charges, pharmaceuticals and administrative overhead. For years, it has been clear that Americans are not getting a good bang for their buck on health care. The United States spends more than any other country and gets much less, at least as measured by life expectancy or infant mortality. Policy fixes have tended to focus on the idea that medicine is being overused. The thinking goes that the American health care system is uniquely set up to incentivize wasteful imaging scans, oodles of unnecessary prescriptions and procedures that could have been prevented. (Johnson, 3/13)

Los Angeles Times: With Healthcare, It's Not What You Spend But How You Spend It
Americans did rank at or near the top in several categories of healthcare utilization. For instance, they ranked first in coronary artery bypass graft surgeries (79 per 100,000 people; the average for all countries was 54 per 100,000) and total knee replacements (226 per 100,000 people; the average for all countries was 163 per 100,000). They also got the most CT scans (245 per 1,000 people; the average was 151 per 1,000) and the second-most MRIs (118 per 1,000 people; the average was 82 per 1,000). But overall healthcare use was “relatively similar to other high-income nations,” the researchers found. Even in the areas where the U.S. was at or near the top, “this utilization did not appear to explain a large part of the higher spending in the U.S.” (Kaplan, 3/13)

Stat: Americans Spend More On Prescription Drugs Than Other Wealthy Countries
As Americans grapple with the rising cost of medicines, a new analysis shows that the U.S. had the highest spending per capita among nearly a dozen other high-income countries. Specifically, U.S. spending per capita on pharmaceuticals was $1,443, despite the fact that generics represented 84 percent of the U.S. market, the largest tally among the 11 countries that were examined. The mean spending per capita was $749, according to the analysis, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Retail spending per capita was also highest in the U.S., at $1,026. (Silverman, 3/13)

Modern Healthcare: CVS, Aetna Shareholders Greenlight Merger 
CVS Health and Aetna shareholders signed off on the proposed $69 billion merger of the two healthcare companies, which still needs the federal government's approval. The CVS-Aetna merger, which shareholders approved by a 97% margin, is one of many proposed combinations that would blend the roles of providers, pharmacy benefit managers and insurers. (Kacik, 3/13)

The Hill: Shareholders Overwhelmingly Approve CVS-Aetna Merger
Shareholders on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved CVS’s proposed $69 billion deal to acquire health insurer Aetna. The agreement was approved by about 97 percent of Aetna’s shareholders and 98 percent of CVS shareholders. The merger is expected to close in the second half of this year, pending regulatory approval by the Department of Justice. If approved, the merger of the nation’s largest pharmacy and third-largest health insurer could have major implications for the industry. (Weixel, 3/13)

The New York Times: Stephen Hawking, Who Examined The Universe And Explained Black Holes, Dies At 76
Stephen W. Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and best-selling author who roamed the cosmos from a wheelchair, pondering the nature of gravity and the origin of the universe and becoming an emblem of human determination and curiosity, died early Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Cambridge University. (Overbye, 3/14)

Reuters: Physicist Stephen Hawking, Who Unlocked The Secrets Of Space And Time, Dies At 76
The power of his intellect contrasted cruelly with the weakness of his body, ravaged by the wasting motor neuron disease he developed at the age of 21. Hawking was confined for most of his life to a wheelchair. As his condition worsened, he had to resort to speaking through a voice synthesizer and communicating by moving his eyebrows. ... In the book he related how he was first diagnosed: "I felt it was very unfair - why should this happen to me," he wrote. "At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realize the potential I felt I had. But now, 50 years later, I can be quietly satisfied with my life." (Addison, 3/14)

The Washington Post: Stephen Hawking’s Secret To Surviving His Terrible Condition? A Sense Of Humor.
The fact Hawking survived into his 70s is remarkable in its own right. “He is known as one of the longest, if not the longest, surviving patients with ALS in history,” the International Business Times wrote in 2012. “What’s happened to him is just astounding,” Leo McCluskey, the medical director at the University of Pennsylvania’s ALS Center, told Scientific American in that same year. “He’s certainly an outlier.” In a January 2016 question and answer session, Hawking credited “my work and a sense of humour” with keeping him alive. (Swenson, 3/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Stephen Hawking, Who Bridged Science And Popular Culture, Dies At Age 76
“From his wheelchair, he’s led us on a journey to the farthest and strangest reaches of the cosmos,” President Barack Obama said of Dr. Hawking in 2009 during a ceremony in which the cosmologist received the Medal of Freedom. “In so doing, he has stirred our imagination and shown us the power of the human spirit here on Earth.” (Hernandez, 3/14)

The Washington Post: Stephen Hawking, Physicist Who Came To Symbolize The Power Of The Human Mind, Dies At 76
Dr. Hawking eventually became one of the planet’s most renowned science popularizers, and he embraced the attention, traveling the world, meeting with presidents, visiting Antarctica and Easter Island, and flying on a special “zero-gravity” jet whose parabolic flight let Dr. Hawking float through the cabin as if he were in outer space. “My goal is simple,” he once said. “It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” He spent much of his career searching for a way to reconcile Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum physics and produce a “Theory of Everything.” (Achenbach and Rensberger, 3/14)

CNN: What Is ALS, The Disease Physicist Stephen Hawking Lived With For Over Five Decades?
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease. It affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that make the muscles of both the upper and lower body work. Those nerve cells lose their ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which leads to paralysis and death. People with the condition lose control of muscle movement, eventually losing their ability to eat, speak, walk and, ultimately, breathe. (McKirdy, 3/14)

Politico: Hospitals Missing From Gun Control Debate
Hospitals treat gunshot victims, and send the dead to morgues. But in the national debate on guns, they are studiously noncommittal. That’s a contrast from much of the public health world. “Guns kill people,” a prestigious network of medical journals jointly editorialized after last year’s deadly shooting in Las Vegas. Doctors exhorted colleagues to raise gun control with their elected officials: “Now. Don’t wait.” Health insurance giant Aetna announced it will donate $200,000 to an anti-gun rally in Washington. (Pittman, 3/13)

And in other news —

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Gives Away Gun Locks After Fatal Accidental Shooting Of Girl
The city is giving away free gun locks after a 9-year-old Milwaukee girl was killed in an apparent accidental shooting, as her parents face possible charges related to child neglect and leaving the gun in easy reach. Miyanna D. Jelks was fatally shot by her 9-year-old brother Saturday afternoon inside their north side home in what is believed to have been an accidental shooting, police said. (Luthern, 3/12)

San Jose Mercury News: Grenade Launchers, Guns Seized Through California Program
State officials announced Tuesday the recovery of an array of illegally owned weapons — including three grenade launchers — under a one-of-a-kind California program that’s gained more attention in recent months amid a wave of mass shootings across the country. (Salonga, 3/13)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Full-Scale Active Threat Exercises To Be Held At Emory University, CDC
Large-scale “active threat” exercises will be held on the Emory University campus and on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus this week. The joint exercises, which are being held by Emory, the CDC and the Atlanta Urban Area Security Initiative, are being held to test the organizations’ response to an active threat in metro Atlanta. (Godwin, 3/13)

CNN: Deaths From Lead Exposure 10 Times Higher Than Thought, Study Suggests
Lead exposure may be responsible for nearly 10 times more deaths in the United States than previously thought, according to a new study. The researchers concluded that nearly 412,000 deaths every year in the US can be attributed to lead contamination. That figure is 10 times higher than previously reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. (Lieber, 3/12)

The Associated Press: Doctors Hunt For Hidden Cancers With Glowing Dyes
It was an ordinary surgery to remove a tumor — until doctors turned off the lights and the patient's chest started to glow. A spot over his heart shined purplish pink. Another shimmered in a lung. They were hidden cancers revealed by fluorescent dye, an advance that soon may transform how hundreds of thousands of operations are done each year. (Marchione, 3/14)

The New York Times: A Cure For Nausea? Try Sniffing Alcohol
Sniffing an alcohol pad may be a good cure for nausea. Almost five million people go to emergency rooms annually in the United States for severe nausea and vomiting, and it is commonly treated with oral ondansetron (Zofran), a drug used to control the nausea of chemotherapy. (Bakalar, 3/13)

NPR: Medical Students With Disabilities Seek More Help
Being a medical student or resident is hard enough, but what if you have a disability that adds to the challenge? One medical resident with a physical disability was about a year and a half into training when the medical institution finally installed an automatic door he needed. Another student faced frustrations when arranging accommodations for taking tests, with it seeming like the medical school was "making up rules along the way." When another resident with a disability first sought support, the disability representative was allegedly unfamiliar with the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Gordon, 3/13)

The New York Times: What Fertility Patients Should Know About Egg Freezing
The failure of systems used to store frozen eggs and embryos at two fertility clinics has rattled people who count on such clinics to help them realize their hopes of having children. But the breakdowns at clinics in Cleveland and San Francisco, each apparently involving the temperature or level of liquid nitrogen in one storage tank, have damaged at least some eggs and embryos belonging to potentially hundreds of people. (Belluck, 3/13)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Organizations Investigate University Hospitals' Fertility Clinic After Freezer Malfunction
University Hospitals' fertility clinic is under investigation by two accreditation organizations and the Ohio Department of Health after a storage tank malfunction potentially damaged thousands of embryos and eggs. These groups are looking for answers as to what happened at UH's Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood. The eggs and embryos, according to officials, could be unviable for in vitro fertilization procedures. (Christ and Washington, 3/13)

San Jose Mercury News: Lawsuit Filed Over Lost Eggs At San Francisco Fertility Clinic
In this first suit to be filed after a rare malfunction that remains under investigation, the woman, who remains anonymous for privacy, is seeking compensation for negligence and breach of contract from the Prelude Fertility, where she received treatment in 2016, and Pacific Fertility Center, which stored her eggs. The law firm, Sauder & Schelkopf of Berwyn, PA, is asking the court to certify the case as a class action, saying that at least 400 individuals may have been harmed by the incident. (Krieger, 3/13)

CNN: Devastated Parents In Two Cities Grieve Their Lost Embryos
When Kate and Jeremy Plants were making plans for their 2014 marriage, they had no idea the future they would face. Just months after they tied the knot, Kate was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a deadly form that the American Cancer Society says takes more lives than any other female reproductive cancer. Because treatment could affect Kate's fertility, doctors encouraged the newlyweds to consider banking Kate's embryos so they could have children someday. (LaMotte, 3/13)

The Washington Post: The CDC Says Its Missing Researcher Wasn’t Denied A Promotion. Police Say Otherwise.
The Atlanta Police Department was clear: A researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had disappeared the same day he learned why he was passed over for a promotion. But exactly one month after Timothy Cunningham vanished, abandoning everything he would need to survive and leaving no clues about his whereabouts, the CDC issued an unusual rebuke of that police finding. (Horton, 3/13)

Pioneer Press: Mark Dayton, Lawmakers Propose Overhaul Of Senior Care Oversight After Abuse Complaints Jump 
Gov. Mark Dayton wants to invest $15 million on new protections and oversight to keep Minnesota’s most vulnerable citizens safe. The Democratic governor highlighted a group of proposals with bipartisan support that would streamline reports of abuse, increase licensing requirements for long-term care facilities and strengthen penalties for those who hurt seniors and vulnerable adults. The proposals come after it was revealed last year that the state Department of Health investigated too few allegations of abuse in long-term care homes and those responsible for harming residents were rarely punished. (Magan, 3/13)

The Star Tribune: Dayton Proposes New Measures To Crack Down On Mistreatment In Senior Homes
Gov. Mark Dayton unveiled a series of far-reaching proposals Tuesday to protect vulnerable adults from abuse and fix the state’s deeply flawed system for investigating maltreatment in senior care facilities. Flanked by a bipartisan group of legislators at a morning news conference, Dayton outlined measures that would impose tougher penalties for criminal abuse, regulate certain new and growing branches of the industry and expand consumer protections for the roughly 82,000 Minnesotans who live in senior facilities across the state. (Serres, 3/13)

Kansas City Star: OptumRx Program Hits $20 Million In Donated Medications
On Thursday Reel looked on from the back of a room at the Duchesne Clinic in Kansas City, Kan., while leaders of OptumRx, United Healthcare and Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer celebrated $20 million in prescription drugs donated to tens of thousands of poor Kansans. It all started with that conversation between Reel and his boss, who was a member of the Kansas State Board of Pharmacy, a regulatory group based in Topeka that licenses the state's pharmacies. (Marso, 3/13)

KCUR: First 2018 Measles Cases In Kansas Reported In Three Johnson County Infants
Three infants in Johnson County are among the first reported cases of measles in the United States this year. The Johnson County Health Department said Tuesday that the three infants, all under a year old, had been at the same day care center in Overland Park. Nationwide, there have been just 13 measles cases this year as of late February, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and none in Kansas. Nancy Tausz, Health Service Division Director of the Johnson County Health Department, says the emergence of the virus should serve as a reminder of why the vaccine is so important. (Smith, 3/13)

The Star Tribune: Optum Names Andrew Witty, Former Glaxo Chief, As Its New CEO 
The former chief executive at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, has been named chief executive at Optum, the huge and still fast-growing health care services business of UnitedHealth Group. Witty will step down immediately from the UnitedHealth Group board of directors and succeed Larry Renfro as Optum's leader. Renfro will become managing partner for a series of domestic and international funds called Optum Ventures. (Snowbeck, 3/13)

Kaiser Health News: California’s Tax On Millionaires Yields Big Benefits For People With Mental Illness, Study Finds
A statewide tax on the wealthy has significantly boosted mental health programs in California’s largest county, helping to reduce homelessness, incarceration and hospitalization, according to a report released Tuesday. Revenue from the tax, the result of a statewide initiative passed in 2004, also expanded access to therapy and case management to almost 130,000 people up to age 25 in Los Angeles County, according to the report by the Rand Corp. Many were poor and from minority communities, the researchers said. (Gorman, 3/14)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: University Medical Center Operator Might Leave Hospital Over Louisiana Budget Impasse 
LCMC Health informed Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration Monday (March 12) that it will walk away from running University Medical Center in New Orleans on July 1 if the state doesn't drastically change its budget situation. If LCMC pulls out, it could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and the University Medical Center's billion-dollar facility would suddenly become the state's responsibility to maintain. More than 2,000 people who work for the hospital would have their jobs put in jeopardy, and it would be unclear how 1,000 medical residents and 2,400 other health care students would receive training next year. Both LSU and Tulane's medical schools would be affected. (O'Donoghue, 3/13)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Leaders Urge Outreach, Testing Over HIV, Syphilis Cluster
Behavior that can lead to sexually transmitted infections is one of the most urgent issues parents should talk to their children about as city leaders respond to the dramatic spread of HIV and syphilis here, said Michael Gifford, president and CEO of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin. Gifford was among a dozen health leaders who discussed the HIV and syphilis cluster in Milwaukee that has affected at least 127 individuals, including young teens. (Spicuzza and Causey, 3/13)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: BJC Warns 33,000 Patients About Potential Data Breach
BJC HealthCare, one of the area's largest health care providers, said it had notified more than 33,000 patients that their personal information may have been accessed. Due to a data storage error, the health system said that personal information may have been accessible including date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number, insurance information and treatment-related information.  (Liss, 3/13)

Health News Florida: How Widespread Is Child Food Insecurity In Orange County?
Food insecurity—not having reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food stresses families living in poverty. To get a grasp on child hunger for our series marking Sunshine Week, 90.7’s Crystal Chavez took a look at the need for free and reduced lunch at Orange County Public Schools. (Chavez, 3/13)

Orlando Sentinel: Central Florida Counties Maintain Health Ranking In Annual Report
Seminole County once again ranks among the five healthiest counties in Florida, while the rankings for Lake, Orange and Osceola counties remained comparable to last year’s, according to the 2018 County Health Rankings released on Wednesday. (Miller, 3/14)

Houston Chronicle: Harris County Agrees To Buy Closed Riverside Hospital In Third Ward 
An approximately $5.3 million grant from the nonprofit Houston Endowment Inc. is expected to help finance the purchase of the property at 3204 Ennis Street. The hospital — Houston’s first nonprofit hospital for black patients  — was plagued in its final years with financial and legal troubles before shutting its doors and ending up in bankruptcy proceedings. (Zaveri and George, 3/13)

Bloomberg: Drugmakers Try A Rare Tactic To Boost Sales: Cutting The Price
Drugmakers tried just about every move under the sun to nurture sales of its products -- pharmacy coupons for patients, exclusive deals with insurers, even selling a medicine’s patent to a Native American tribe to shield it from a legal challenge. What’s far rarer is the step two drugmakers announced Saturday: a price cut. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Sanofi said they would deeply discount their $14,000-a-year cholesterol treatment to $4,500 to $8,000 for some patients in order to loosen insurer restriction on the drugs, which so far have sold poorly. (Spalding and Cortez, 3/12)

CNBC: Martin Shkreli's Legacy: Shaping The Drug Pricing Debate
Martin Shkreli gained a number of monikers in his rise to infamy. Pharma Bro. Most hated man in America. Face of corporate greed. Executives in the drug industry call him something else: catalyst. "He was, in the great scheme of things, a drop in the bucket," said Ron Cohen, CEO of biotech company Acorda Therapeutics and past chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization industry group. "But he created such a massive impression and blowback that it forced entire industries, government, patient advocacy groups, the media and political entities all to focus on these issues in a way that I don't know that they would have absent that event." (Tirrell, 3/9)

The Hill: FDA Chief Becomes Point Man On Drug Prices
Scott Gottlieb, head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has emerged as a key figure in the Trump administration’s push to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Gottlieb has moved to the front lines of the drug pricing fight, criticizing brand-name drug manufacturers he says are trying to block competition from getting to market. (Weixel, 3/14)

Stat: Henry Waxman Says Lawmakers 'Derelict' If They Don't Address Drug Prices
Henry Waxman is a household name in pharmaceutical circles — during his three decades on Capitol Hill, he helped write the Affordable Care Act and expand Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He sponsored the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act, which set up the modern infrastructure for bringing generic drugs to market, and chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health-related issues, from 2009 to 2011. Since his retirement from Congress in 2015, Waxman has served as chairman of Waxman Strategies, a lobbying firm that has been active on health issues, especially the 340B drug discount program. (Swetlitz, 3/14)

Axios: The First Target On Drug Prices: Pharmacy Benefit Managers
After months of circular finger-pointing over high drug prices, lawmakers, administration officials and parts of the health care industry seem to have settled on an initial target: pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen that health insurers and employers hire to negotiate with drug companies. Yes, but: There are savings to be wrung out of the highly concentrated PBM industry. That's why insurers are so eager to operate their own PBMs. But analysts say squeezing PBMs won't solve some of the fundamental problems that drive high drug spending. (Herman, 3/12)

Forbes: In The War Against High Drug Prices, Some Patients Are Collateral Damage
Tommy Mann's dad had his first heart attack when he was 29. That's how he found out that he had a genetic disorder, familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), that causes very high cholesterol levels. Tommy and his two sisters have FH, too. Even on the top dose of cholesterol pills, Tommy Mann's low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, is 170 milligrams per deciliter – worse numbers than most people with high cholesterol have before they start medicine.Mann, a 37-year-old lawyer, found an injection, called a PCSK9 inhibitor, that could lower his LDL to just 50 mg/dL. The problem: His insurer, United Healthcare, has been denying his requests for it for more than two years. PCSK9 inhibitors cost $14,000 a year, triple what older cholesterol drugs cost before they went generic, and have become a front line in the war over drug prices. And so Mann's pleas – that his father died after a heart transplant, that his sister had a heart attack, that he has small children – fell on deaf ears. (Herper, 3/12)

Stat: A Costly PBM Trick: Set Lower Copays For Branded Drugs Than For Generics
PBMs use their size to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers, passing on a certain percentage of any rebates downstream to the insurance company and keeping rest of the spread for themselves. What makes this murky is that the deals these companies strike with drug makers are kept secret, so no one besides the PBM knows how much of the rebate is actually passed on to consumers. In some cases, they keep more than what they pay the maker for the drug. Since pharmacy benefit managers profit on the spread, they have no real inventive to push pharmaceutical companies to reduce costs since their profits increase with the list price. (Haider Warraich, 3/12)

Politico Pro: Politico-Harvard Poll: Americans Worry That Government Action On Drug Prices Could Backfire
A new POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll finds that Republicans and Democrats alike overwhelmingly support the idea of drastic government action on drug prices — with 9 out of 10 in favor of handing Medicare the power to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers. But that bipartisan enthusiasm falters when Americans are confronted with the negative trade-offs tied to forcing prices lower, a finding that helps explain why lawmakers may have an easier time railing against skyrocketing drug prices than actually doing anything about them. (Cancryn, 3/12)

Stat: Feds Outline When They Will Pursue Drug Makers For Off-Label Marketing
Despite impressions to the contrary, federal officials plan to pursue drug makers for illegal marketing, according to one Department of Justice official who recently provided a roadmap for those seeking to identify bad behavior. At issue is off-label marketing, a contentious topic that has resulted in huge fines paid by numerous drug makers over the years and is now at the center of a free speech struggle between the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration. (Silverman, 3/13)

Kaiser Health News: Patients Overpay For Prescriptions 23% Of The Time, Analysis Shows
As a health economist, Karen Van Nuys had heard that it’s sometimes cheaper to pay cash at the pharmacy counter than to put down your insurance card and pay a copay. So one day, she asked her pharmacist how much her prescription would cost if she didn’t use her health coverage and paid cash. “And sure enough, it was [several dollars] below my copay,” Van Nuys said. (Lupkin, 3/13)

Stat: U.S. Per Capita Drug Spending Will Decline Slightly This Year Thanks To Moderating Price Hikes 
The amount of money spent on medicines by each American this year will decline slightly to $800 per person and spending will continue at this level through 2022, thanks to moderating price hikes and the loss of patent protection on many drugs, a new report forecasts. Moreover, 2018 will mark the third consecutive year in which U.S. per capita spending on pharmaceuticals will fall, reflecting discounts and rebates extracted from drug makers and overall slowing spending growth, according to the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. Overall, spending will rise 4 percent to 7 percent through 2022 on a compounded annual growth rate. (Silverman, 3/13)

Bloomberg: Allergan CEO Brent Saunders Got $32.8 Million Pay Package For 2017 
Allergan Plc Chief Executive Officer Brent Saunders received $32.8 million of compensation for 2017, a year when shares of the drugmaker slumped. Saunders was awarded $22.7 million of restricted stock, a biennial grant, about three-quarters of which will vest only if the company meets goals for shareholder return as well as research and development milestones, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. (Melin, 3/13)

Stat: GOP Trying To Relax Law That Would Put Drug Makers On The Hook For More Costs
Republicans in Congress are working to relax a law that would force drug makers to pay a higher percentage of costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Democratic aides, including in House leadership, and a spate of health industry lobbyists confirmed that House Republicans are trying to use an upcoming spending bill to make the change at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry, which has spent the weeks since the law was enacted in February blasting the policy. Whether the industry can agree to the particulars of a “fix” before a March 23 deadline and whether Democrats will accept the policy is still up in the air. (Mershon, 3/8)

Bloomberg: Big Health-Care Players Are Turning Their Partners Into Prey 
Over 20 years, Brian Komoto built a thriving pharmacy in California’s Central Valley. Each day, his nurses would travel the vast agricultural region’s roads to help hepatitis C patients take a grueling regimen of shots. Then, in 2016, 20 percent of Komoto’s business vanished, practically overnight. The insurer Centene Corp. purchased the health plan that covered his patients -- many of them Hispanic farm workers who had developed a level of trust with Komoto’s traveling nurses. Centene had its own mail-order pharmacy, and it told the patients to go there instead, he said. (Langreth, 3/12)

Modern Healthcare: Cigna-Express Scripts Deal Unlikely To Benefit Consumers 
Cigna Corp. and Express Scripts' $67 billion merger takes a page from an old industry playbook that bigger is better, but experts are skeptical that it will fundamentally change an obscure sector of healthcare. Insurer Cigna said early March 8 that it is buying the nation's No. 1 pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts for $52 billion in cash and will assume $15 billion in Express Scripts' debt. The companies' top executives said the deal would make healthcare simpler, more personalized, and better coordinated, while also driving higher quality and affordability for consumers by offering a broad spectrum of products under one roof. (Kacik and Livingston, 3/12)

Stat: Investors Are Pouring Money Into Consumer Genomics. Will It Pay Off?
Helix, the Silicon Valley company that’s styled itself as an app store for DNA tests, made a splash last week when it announced it had raised $200 million — the latest windfall for a company leveraging a boom in consumer genomics. But as money sloshes around the industry, there’s an uneasy and unsettled question gnawing at even the most bullish investors: Are these bets going to pay off? (Robbins, 3/8)

Stat: From App Store To Drug Store, Digital Health Is Redefining Pharma’s Pipeline
Backed by a growing body of evidence, software is itself becoming a prescription for diseases ranging from depression to heart disease, and drug companies are starting to take notice. In the past couple years, many have quickly ramped up their investments in digital startups, infusing software-based therapies into pipelines once dominated by traditional medicines. These products, known broadly as digital therapeutics, deliver treatment to patients through video games, smartphone apps, and sensors buried in pills or attached to medication dispensers. (Ross, 3/13)

Stat: Millions In Fines Are Adding Up As Clinical Trial Information Goes Unreported 
The U.S. government could impose more than $11.2 million in fines on companies and universities for failing to report study results on ClinicalTrials.gov, but has so far failed to do so, according to a recently launched website. Consequently, the folks behind the new site, which is called Trials Tracker, want FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to start levying the $10,000-a-day fines that are permitted under federal law and are adding up each day. Trial sponsors have 13 months from completing a study to posting summary result and side effect information, according to the FDA Amendments Act of 2007. (Silverman, 3/12)

Denver Post: Prescription Drug Prices Are Soaring. Will A Bill In The Colorado Legislature Help Consumers Save Money? 
Brandt [Wilkins] and other Coloradans could have more information about what prescription drugs cost under a bill that passed its first committee vote Thursday at the state Capitol. The bill seeks to peel back a layer of mystery surrounding rising drug prices, although critics say it won’t provide consumers with useful information. It passed the House Health, Insurance and Environment Committee on a party-line vote — Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed — meaning that its passage in the GOP-controlled Senate is less certain. (Ingold, 3/9)

Bloomberg: Martin Shkreli Prison Sentence Won't End Pharma's Drug Price Woes
One long pharma industry nightmare is over, now that Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors. Another nightmare for which Shkreli was the poster child -- the controversy over U.S. drug-pricing -- goes on. I haven't examined Shkreli's innermost soul, and he claimed at his sentencing hearing to have been changed by his trial and time in jail. But he has done an awfully good impression of a bad person. He defrauded investors. He took a decades-old, life-saving drug needed by vulnerable patients, raised its price by more than 5000 percent and then gloated about it. He harassed and threatened reporters. He once sported a Pepe the Frog pin on Bloomberg television, because wearing a symbol embraced by internet Nazis is hilarious. (Max Nisen, 3/9)

Forbes: Martin Shkreli's Real Crime: Stealing From The Wrong People
What a comedown. Two years ago, the smirking failed hedge fund manager and former pharma CEO Martin Shkreli laughed as he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when testifying before Congress. It was all a jokeToday, his smirk was gone. Shkreli cried — sobbed, in some accounts — as he begged for "your honor's mercy," pleading for leniency from a federal court judge.Shkreli got seven years on Friday. Mercy he had failed to show others was withheld. "Pharma Bro" had committed an unforgivable theft. (Erik Sherman, 3/9)

The Hill: Allegations Of Generic Drug Price Fixing Are Troubling
NPR's recent story about alleged collusion among certain generic drug manufacturers is somewhat surprising given the market’s structure and pricing dynamics. Generic drugs are sold on the basis of intense price competition amongst manufacturers and suppliers. As the number of generic products increases, prices drop precipitously in a matter of months, offering substantial cost savings to wholesalers, pharmacies, hospitals and clinics. It is not uncommon to see the average price of a commonly available generic drug to fall 80 to 90 percent off the previously patented prescription drug’s list price. (Robert Freeman, 3/13)

Deseret News: To Cut Drug Prices, Start With The Facts
Americans are paying too much for prescription medicines. State lawmakers are fed up with Washington's apparent apathy towards high pharmacy bills. So they're taking matters into their own hands and pushing forward with several bills to fix the problem. Their proposals are well-intentioned — but they're doomed to backfire and hurt patients. Why? Well, the bills are based on false assumptions. (Peter Pitts, 3/9)

The Hill: Here's How To Structure Successful Right-To-Try Laws
Thirty eight States have enacted right-to-try (RTT) laws, the intent is to increase the availability of experimental medicines to individuals battling life-threatening conditions A federal version has support at the highest levels of the Trump administration including the president himself. Yet the Goldwater Institute, which created and has strongly championed these laws, cannot provide clear examples of patients who have gained access to potentially life-saving treatments through state RTT laws that they otherwise wouldn't have received under the FDA's current Expanded Access Program (EAP).  Furthermore, federal RTT law will not increase access either. (Kenneth Moch, Andrew McFadyen and Arthur Caplan, 3/11)

The Courier-Journal: Kentucky Can Rein In Medicare Costs In 2018 Thanks To New Federal Policy
Kentucky residents suffering from painful and chronic medical conditions including cancer, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis stand to benefit from a federal rule change in effect as of this year that would offer greater access to treatment for Medicare patients. The new policy could increase patient access to lifesaving care for one of the largest Medicare beneficiary populations in the country by encouraging the development of a type of medication known as biosimilars. (Julian Reed, 3/12)

Bloomberg: Sanofi, Regeneron Praluent Discount Plan: A Worthwhile Gamble
When drug companies talk about the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), an independent organization that gauges the value of prescription drugs, it's usually to push back against it. After all, the ICER often suggests drugs are priced substantially higher than their clinical and economic value. But Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. made a surprising overture of friendship to the ICER on Saturday. The companies announced they would discount their cholesterol drug Praluent to levels the ICER suggested in a recent analysis for some patients. The announcement came alongside new data showing the medicine substantially reduced the risk of cardiovascular events in high-risk patients. (Max Nisen, 3/12)

The Washington Post: Why It’s Not ‘Enabling’ To Make Drug Use Safer
In the face of an unabating overdose crisis that has already killed more than a half-million people, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle have announced plans to do what was once unthinkable: open centers where people can inject illegal drugs under medical supervision. Many other cities are also debating so-called safe infection facilities (SIFs) — but unfortunately, a common misconception about addiction stands in the way. (Maia Szalavitz, 3/13)

The Hill: The Crisis Of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Is Worsening And We Are All At Risk
Antibiotic resistance may be the greatest medical challenge of our time. It threatens major advances of modern medicine including organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy, and routine surgical procedures that would not be possible without these life-saving drugs. We are all at risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that at least 2 million illnesses per year in the United States are caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (David S. Weiss, James M. Hughes and William M. Shaffer, 3/13)

The New York Times: Why Is U.S. Health Care So Expensive? Some Of The Reasons You’ve Heard Turn Out To Be Myths
Maybe the United States health care system isn’t that bizarre after all. Compared with peer nations, the United States sends people to the hospital less often, it has a smaller share of specialist physicians, and it gives people about the same number of hospitalizations and doctors’ visits, according to a new study. The quality of health care looks pretty good, it finds, while its spending on social services outside of health care, like housing and education, looked fairly typical. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 3/13)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Short-Term Health Plans Will Undermine The ACA
Furthermore, lawmakers in Washington should ensure that any market stabilization package does just that: stabilize insurance markets. Including increased usage of short-term plans in the package is unacceptable and would undermine their efforts. (Anoinette Kraus, 3/14)

The New York Times: America Has Failed Its Kids On Guns. It’s Time To Let Them Lead.
As Stoneman Douglas junior Florence Yared said in front of the Florida State Capitol late last month, “You adults have failed us by not creating a safer place for your children to go to school. So we, the next generation, will not fail our own kids. We will make this change happen. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, next year. Take it from us. You created a mess for us, but we will make this world safer for our children. ”With Wednesday’s demonstration, and their March for Our Lives movement on March 24 in Washington, young voices are being heard. How will the nation’s adults respond? Hopefully, by amplifying their demand: Never again. (3/13)

USA Today: GOP's False Talking Points Against Gun Control Are Dangerous
We’ve heard passionate pleas in recent weeks from students who survived a massacre and lost their friends and teachers. Through their pain, with Wednesday’s National School Walkout and in many other ways, this generation of students growing up with active-shooter drills is demanding that lawmakers take action to reform gun laws. (Dianne Feinstein, 3/14)

Bloomberg: Why The NRA Stumbled In Gun-Crazed Florida
President Donald Trump made his predictable retreat from conflict with the National Rifle Association this week. He had promised to take on the gun lobby amid loose talk of better background checks and an increase in the age limit for purchasing firearms. But, to no one's surprise, he quickly backed down, after a White House visit from the NRA. Yes, once again, the familiar cycle of gun violence and promises of action yielded to capitulation. Yet this time something was different. Not in Washington, but in Florida, where last week gun-safety activists proved that they could out-muscle the NRA not just in blue states, or on the most extreme proposals in red states, but on central issues on the NRA’s home court. (3/13)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Surrender
Once again, President Trump has made a cowardly, cynical and monumentally stupid retreat on the issue of guns. No one should have expected otherwise. ...The president — I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s true — wants to arm “highly trained expert teachers” with concealed weapons. Anyone who thinks this is not one of the worst ideas in history should conduct a brief thought experiment. Imagine any one of your elementary school, middle school or high school classrooms. Imagine a loaded gun in there somewhere. Now imagine what could go tragically wrong. (Eugene Robinson, 3/12)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: A Confusing Weekend Winds Up With President Safely Back In NRA's Pocket.
Even for a man who changes his policy views as often as most people change their socks, President Donald Trump’s weekend roundabout on the guns and schools was head-spinning. (3/13)

Chicago Tribune: After Gov. Rauner's Veto Of Gun Sellers Bill, What Comes Next?
With gun violence dominating headlines in Chicago and around the country, Gov. Bruce Rauner on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have placed new restrictions on firearms sellers in Illinois. The reaction from gun control advocates came fast and furious. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Rauner’s veto was “cruel, it was cold and it was calculated to benefit his own politics at the expense of public safety.” Senate sponsor Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, who worked on the bill for more than a year, called Rauner’s veto “cowardly.” State Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, who is running for governor, said Rauner’s action lacked “moral conviction.” (3/13)

The Courier-Journal: Don't Blame Florida School Deaths On Shooter's Autism, Teen Says
Like everyone else, I was devastated when I learned about yet another high school shooting. Probably unlike most everyone else, I also became really upset when I learned that the shooter was believed to be autistic and to have ADHD. Why? Because I am autistic, and I have ADHD. (Jack Bradley, 3/14)

Sacramento Bee: Supreme Court Should Uphold Free Speech Of California's Crisis Pregnancy Centers
AB 775 is very different from reasonable regulations requiring disclaimers for commercial enterprises as food and drugs. Such regulations are constitutional and not at issue here. The core of this case is that the government is forcing non-profit pro-life pregnancy centers – which provide their services for free – to engage in speech contrary to their very reason for existence. (Elissa Graves, 3/13)

San Antonio Press-Express: An Effective Alternative To Opioids For Many
As the opioid epidemic spreads, Texas is taking important steps, from improved monitoring of prescription painkillers to expanded programs to treat addiction. But as a doctor who regularly sees patients suffering from chronic pain, I don’t believe this crisis can be solved until we educate more physicians and the public about real alternatives to these addictive pills. (Carl Noe, 3/13)

Columbus Dispatch: Employers Can Help Fight Drug Problem
Ohio employers must stop burying their heads in the sand. Employers must expand efforts to protect themselves, and the single antidote for harmful use of substances affecting workplaces is a comprehensive drug-free-workplace program. To be comprehensive, the program must focus on preventing the harmful use in the first place and protecting the workplace with legally sound intervention measures, including a second-chance policy for the first time an employee tests positive for substance use. (Dee Mason, 3/13)

Kansas City Star: How Missouri Can Shake Its Reputation As A Haven For 15-Year-Old Brides
That Missouri has become nationally known as a destination wedding spot for child brides is a source of concern and outright embarrassment. As Star reporter Eric Adler pointed out in his eye-opening series this week, Missouri is the easiest place in the nation for 15-year-olds to wed. That means that some young girls not even old enough to drive are faced with the most wrenching of decisions: Marry the oftentimes older men who impregnated them or see those men wind up behind bars for statutory rape no matter how “in love” the young girls believe they are. (3/13)

Lexington Herald Leader: Kentucky Legisalture Should Defeat Protectionist Bill For Optometrists That Would Deny Consumers Access To Cheaper Online Prescriptions For Glasses, Contacts 
House Bill 191, the Optometrist Protection Act of 2018, packs a double-barreled punch: It’s bad health policy and bad economic policy. If this protectionist bill becomes law, Kentuckians will be deprived of renewing prescriptions for eyeglasses and contact lenses online for one reason and one reason only: Optometrists give lawmakers a lot of money for their campaigns. (3/13)