The Wall Street Journal: White House Report Says Insurers Doing Well, Increasing ACA Subsidy Doubts
Health insurers have largely adjusted to the impact of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the White House will say in an economic report Wednesday, a finding that will likely undercut lawmakers’ efforts to secure federal funds to blunt potential premium increases for the coming year. Republicans, Democrats and the White House are negotiating the provisions of a major spending bill that must pass by Saturday or risk a government shutdown. The insurance payments are part of those discussions. (Radnofsky, 3/21)

The Hill: Dems Aim To Turn ObamaCare Hikes Into Election Weapon
Democrats are gearing up to blame Republicans for ObamaCare premium increases after the likely failure of an effort to stabilize the law in this month’s government funding package. The premium hikes for ObamaCare will likely be announced in October, just a month before a midterm election where Democrats are hoping to win back the House and Senate. (Sullivan, 3/21)

In other health law news —

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Donelon Sees High Risk For Louisiana In Trump Health Insurance Proposal 
State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon cautioned that a proposal by President Donald Trump to allow the purchase of health insurance policies across state lines could be "catastrophic" for some Louisiana residents unless the state has the authority to regulate the carriers. Republican U.S. senators filed a bill Monday (March 19) that would require the federal Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines. (3/20)

Modern Healthcare: CSRs, Reinsurance May Get Another Shot In The Senate, But Chances Are Slim 
The Senate is facing what could be the last chance to pass a market stabilization measure as odds of passage look dim with increasingly politicized discussion over the legislation. GOP leaders in the House scuttled the measure Monday night. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who along with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has championed a bill that would fund cost-sharing reduction payments and a $30 billion reinsurance pool, said Tuesday that she sees Friday at midnight as the last opportunity to get the measure through. That's when Congress must pass an omnibus spending bill to avert a government shutdown. (Luthi, 3/20)

CQ: Senators Weigh Next Steps On Health Insurance Package
Talks between senators about a package meant to lower health insurance premiums next year continued Tuesday, although its inclusion in the fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill appears to be a long shot. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told reporters on Tuesday she is still talking with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, about a health care stabilization package. The spending bill is expected to be filed before the end of the day in the House, where Republicans say a stabilization package will not be part of the bill. The package would include funding for states to set up reinsurance programs or high-risk pools to help with the expenses of high-cost patients and restore funding for cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which President Donald Trump ended. (McIntire, 3/20)

In related news —

Kaiser Health News: Clash Over Abortion Hobbles A Health Bill. Again. Here’s How.
The Affordable Care Act very nearly failed to become law due to an intraparty dispute among Democrats over how to handle the abortion issue. Now a similar argument between Democrats and Republicans is slowing progress on a bill that could help cut soaring premiums and shore up the ACA. At issue is the extent to which the Hyde Amendment — language commonly used by Congress to prohibit most federal abortion funding — should be incorporated into any new legislation affecting the health law. (Rovner, 3/21)

Politico Pro: Omnibus Scramble Could Jeopardize Pharma's Doughnut Hole Change
Lawmakers are considering including a ban on “pay-for-delay“ drug patent settlements in the omnibus spending bill, multiple industry lobbyists told POLITICO. The move, long opposed by both generic and branded drug industries, may be complicating brand-name drugmakers' goal of using the spending package to reduce their share of Medicare Part D coverage gap payments. (Karlin-Smith and Haberkorn, 3/20)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Warily Eyes California Law Involving Abortion And Free Speech
A California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide information about abortion met a skeptical reception at Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday. The centers, which are often affiliated with religious groups, seek to persuade women to carry their pregnancies to term or to offer their offspring for adoption. The law requires centers licensed by the state to post notices that free or low-cost abortion, contraception and prenatal care are available to low-income women through public programs, and to provide the phone number for more information. (Liptak, 3/20)

Politico: Supreme Court Hostile To Part Of California Law Aimed At 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers'
A surprisingly broad array of justices expressed serious concerns that the Reproductive FACT Act intrudes on First Amendment rights, by requiring such centers to include in their ads a state-provided notice in as many as 13 languages offering contact information about abortion services and other options. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a pivotal vote to uphold a constitutional right to abortion, was openly hostile to that provision. And even liberals like Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan raised doubts about that portion of the law. (Gerstein, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Justices Press California Over Law Challenged By Antiabortion Groups
Justice Samuel Alito suggested the law may have been designed to blunt the antiabortion message that such centers seek to deliver. While ostensibly covering hundreds of facilities across the state, the law contains many “crazy exemptions” that all point the same way, he said. If “it turns out that just about the only clinics that are covered by this are pro-life clinics,” couldn’t the court “infer intentional discrimination?” he said. (Bravin, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Supreme Court Justices Cast Doubt On California Abortion-Disclosure Rules
The justices pressed the clinics’ lawyer, Michael Farris, to square his position with a 1992 Supreme Court decision that upheld "informed consent" requirements imposed on doctors who perform abortions. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that abortion-rights states should have the same ability to require disclosure by clinics that oppose the procedure. "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," he said. But other justices signaled they were more skeptical of California’s law. (Stohr, 3/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Supreme Court Questions Parts Of California Law Requiring Abortion Notification
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Californian and moderate conservative who has cast the deciding vote in past abortion cases, criticized a provision of the law that requires clinics offering reproductive care, with no doctor on their staff, to inform clients they are unlicensed by the state. Noting that the disclosure provision applies to advertising, Kennedy said it would require a clinic that has paid for a billboard that simply said “Choose Life” to also include the notification. (Egelko, 3/20)

The Hill: Top Senate Dem Raises Concerns Over Potential CDC Pick 
A top-ranking Senate Democrat said she was concerned about the Trump administration’s reported choice to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to President Trump, saying she was worried about Robert Redfield’s lack of public health experience, as well as his controversial past as an AIDS researcher. (Weixel, 3/20)

Kaiser Health News: Research Misconduct Allegations Shadow Likely CDC Appointee
President Donald Trump’s likely pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is facing significant criticism because of a 20-year-old controversy over shoddy HIV research. The Army in 1994 acknowledged accuracy issues with HIV vaccine research led by Dr. Robert Redfield, who is expected to head the CDC, but concluded at the time that the data errors did not constitute misconduct. (Taylor, 3/20)

In other administration news —

NPR: Religious Freedom Counts First In This HHS Civil Rights Division
When Roger Severino tells his story, discrimination is at its heart. "I did experience discrimination as a child. And that leaves a lasting impression," he tells me. Severino directs the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When I meet with him at his office in the shadow of the Capitol, he talks about his childhood as the son of Colombian immigrants growing up in Los Angeles. (Kodjak, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: Azar Demands Price Transparency, But How Will He Achieve It? 
Increasing price transparency was part of a "four shifts" agenda Azar laid out for transforming U.S. healthcare into a more competitive, value-based system that costs less. But he faces a hard slog to make prices and out-of-pocket costs public, particularly since many providers and pharmaceutical companies have resisted even while saying they support the concept. They argue it's the job of health plans to tell their members how much they will owe.In addition, experts say the cost-reduction potential of greater price transparency is limited because only a small percentage of total U.S. healthcare spending is on services for which patients truly can comparison shop. (Meyer, 3/19)

Bloomberg: Trump’s Health Chief Wants To Change How Doctors Do Business 
In his short time on the job, [Alex] Azar has embraced many of Obama’s objectives around lowering costs and improving quality, but with a Trumpian impatience to upend the established order. He called recent experiments to bring down costs “lackluster” and declared his intention to “fundamentally reorient how Medicare and Medicaid pay for care." Those programs spent $1.2 trillion in 2016. Add in private health plans, which often follow Medicare’s lead, and the health sector accounts for 18 percent of the U.S. economy. (Tozzi, 3/21)

The New York Times: N.I.H. To Investigate Outreach To Alcohol Companies
The National Institutes of Health will examine whether health officials violated federal policy against soliciting donations when they met with alcohol companies to discuss funding a study of the benefits of moderate drinking, Dr. Francis Collins, the institutes’ director, said on Tuesday. Dr. Collins also will ask outside experts who are part of a standing advisory committee to review the design and scientific methodology of the 10-year government trial, which is already underway, an N.I.H. spokeswoman said. (Rabin, 3/20)

The Washington Post: NIH Will Examine Ethics Of Its Study On The Health Effects Of A Daily Glass Of Wine
The inquiry, announced by NIH Director Francis Collins, responds to a recent New York Times article that said a pair of outside scientists, including one who became the study’s principal investigator, and an NIH official asked liquor companies that stand to benefit from the research to help pay for it. The Times story, relying in part on emails and travel vouchers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, said the scientists “pitched” the idea of the study at meetings in three cities with beverage-industry executives and an industry trade group in 2013 and 2014. (Goldstein, 3/20)

Politico: Trump Can Execute Drug Dealers Already
The state execution of drug smugglers that President Donald Trump has pushed for as part of his plan to combat the opioid crisis is already legal under a 1994 law passed at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. But in 24 years, federal prosecutors have never once used it. They hardly need to, considering the draconian penalties already available for punishing convicted drug smugglers. (Allen, 3/20)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Death Penalty For Drug Dealers? 'Certainly Up For Debate,' Louisiana AG Says 
President Donald Trump's proposal to use the death penalty on some convicted drug dealers as part of his plan to combat opioid addiction and overdose deaths is worth considering, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said. Speaking a press conference Tuesday (March 20) at the New Orleans Police Department's Gentilly station, Landry said the idea "is certainly up for debate." The attorney general joined leaders from the NOPD, St. Bernard Sheriff's Office, New Orleans Health Department and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana at NOPD's 3rd District station to speak to reporters about the placement of new drug drop-off boxes throughout the New Orleans metro area that allow residents to dispose of unused prescription medication. (Lane, 3/20)

In other news on the crisis —

Stat: NIH: Dozens Of Drug Makers Interested In Effort To Address Opioid Epidemic
Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said Tuesday that the agency is nearing a formal announcement of a public-private partnership aimed at funding research to help address the opioid crisis. Despite a preliminary announcement in September, the partnership has not yet been rolled out formally. Its professed aims include developing non-addictive painkiller alternatives to opioids, new forms of medication-assisted therapy for addiction treatment, and in the long term even vaccines that would insulate individuals from the effects of heroin and fentanyl use. (Facher, 3/20)

The Associated Press: DOJ Shares Painkiller Sales Data Amid Opioid Lawsuit Talks
The U.S. Department of Justice has shared some federal data about prescription painkiller sales to help with settlement talks between local governments and drug companies targeted in hundreds of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic. The department previously agreed to release certain data on the grounds it not be circulated publicly and be returned or destroyed when the litigation is finished. (3/20)

McClatchy: Cities Seek Supervise Intravenous Drug Use Despite DEA
A handful of cities could soon face a legal showdown with the Trump administration over their efforts to open "supervised injection facilities" where drug addicts can shoot up with powerful illegal drugs while trained personnel stand by to prevent fatal overdoses. (Pugh, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: New AHIP Head Eyles Talks Priorities, Short-Term Health Plans And Megamergers
The insurance industry's dominant lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans last week named Matt Eyles as its next president and CEO, taking over from Marilyn Tavenner on June 1. Eyles, who is currently AHIP's chief operating officer, previously held roles at D.C.-based consultancy Avalere Health, Coventry Health Care (now part of Aetna), and drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. Modern Healthcare insurance reporter Shelby Livingston caught up with Eyles to talk about his priorities for the trade group, the federal government's move to expand short-term plans, and the recent wave of proposed megamergers between insurers and nontraditional partners. (Livingston, 3/20)

Stat: Theranos's Mystery Man Revealed: Footage Of Sunny Bawlani Was Hiding In Plain Sight
The day after the story came out, though, an eagle-eyed sleuth on Twitter pointed us to something better: Video footage of Balwani talking up Theranos in front of an Arizona legislative committee in March 2014. (That was around the time Theranos, then at its peak valuation of $9 billion, started opening testing centers in Walgreens pharmacies in Arizona.) Donning a dark suit and tie and a blandly corporate affect, Balwani gave an 11 1/2-minute pitch that is vintage pre-scandal Theranos: He talked about working on “something that we believe is magical.” He cited glowing testimonials from patients whose blood tests, we would later learn, were not being processed the way Theranos had promised. (Robbins, 3/20)

In other Theranos news —

Kaiser Health News: Reporter’s Notebook: The Tale Of Theranos And The Mysterious Fire Alarm 
It was November 2014, and I was working on a feature story about a buzzed-about blood-testing company in Silicon Valley that promised to “disrupt” the lab industry with new technology. The company, Theranos, claimed its revolutionary finger-prick test would be a cheap and less painful way to screen for hundreds of diseases with just a few drops of blood. Old-fashioned venous blood draws, where the patient watches as vial after vial of blood is collected, would quickly become obsolete, Theranos promised. (Gold, 3/21)

Reuters: Mississippi's New Law Restricting Abortion Blocked By Judge For 10 Days
A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that enacted the tightest restrictions on abortion in the United States, in a ruling handed down a day after the governor signed the measure. The Mississippi law would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, with some exceptions. It went into effect immediately after Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed it on Monday. State law previously banned abortion at 20 weeks after conception, in line with limits in 17 other states. (Dobuzinskis, 3/20)

The Hill: Judge Blocks Mississippi Law Banning Abortions After 15 Weeks
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed the bill — the nation's most restrictive abortion ban — into law earlier this week. The law bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, down from a 20-week restriction already on Mississippi's books. The measure took effect immediately. It featured some exceptions, including if a woman's life or a "major bodily function" is threatened or if the fetus has a health problem that would mean it likely wouldn't survive outside the womb. (Savransky, 3/20)

The Associated Press: Idaho Joins Other Red States With 'Abortion Reversal' Law
Idaho will become the latest conservative state to require women seeking abortions to be informed that the drug-induced procedures can be halted halfway, despite opposition from medical groups that say there is little evidence to support that claim. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter quietly signed the proposal into law Tuesday along with nearly 50 other measures. The law, which will go into effect July 1, is the latest move by Republican-dominant states that are testing the government's legal ability to restrict a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. (Kruesi, 3/20)

Des Moines Register: 'Fetal-Heartbeat' Abortion Bill Hearing Draws Scores To Statehouse
A proposal to outlaw almost all abortions in Iowa drew a throng of residents to the Statehouse on Tuesday evening in a hearing that tipped back and forth between the two passionate sides of the argument. Legislators heard from doctors who portrayed abortion as an important health-care option and doctors who portrayed it as murder. They heard from pastors who see abortion as the taking of a sacred life and from pastors who see it as a decision to be made according to a woman’s beliefs. And they heard from women who said abortions ruined their lives and women who said abortions saved their lives. (Leys, 3/20)

Meanwhile, emails reveal what happened behind the scenes when grants were cut for a teen pregnancy prevention program —

The Hill: Political Appointees Led Cancelation Of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
Internal emails and memos reveal that political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) went against career officials' objections by deciding to cut short grants aimed at preventing teen pregnancy. Documents released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request indicate that three political appointees directed the changes to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program: Valerie Huber, who prior to joining HHS headed a national abstinence education advocacy group; Teresa Manning, a former anti-abortion rights lobbyist who has since left HHS; and Steven Valentine, who previously worked for Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.  (Hellmann, 3/20)

And, despite his anti-abortion rights stance this Illinois Democrat won his primary —

The Washington Post: Rep. Lipinski Of Illinois Narrowly Wins Democratic Primary
Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, narrowly won a primary Tuesday over a progressive newcomer who argued the congressman’s views no longer reflect the Chicago-area district he has represented for seven terms. Marie Newman, who was little-known when she decided to challenge Lipinski for the seat he inherited from his father, had backing from progressive groups as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District by 9 points over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary. ... She campaigned as the “true Democrat,” blasting Lipinski for opposing abortion and voting against same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama’s signature health care overhaul. (Burnett, 3/21)

The Associated Press: US Regulators Renew Scrutiny Of Menthol, Tobacco Flavors
Federal health officials are taking a closer look at flavors in tobacco products that appeal to young people, particularly menthol-flavored cigarettes, which have escaped regulation despite nearly a decade of government scrutiny. The Food and Drug Administration issued a call Tuesday for more information about flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes, which currently have no flavor restrictions. (3/20)

The Hill: FDA Takes First Step In Regulating Flavors In Tobacco Products 
“In the spirit of our commitment to preventing kids from using tobacco, we are taking a closer look at flavors in tobacco products to better understand their level of impact on youth initiation,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a press release. (Roubein, 3/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Federal Regulators Say University Of Maryland Hospital Violated Rules In Patient Dumping Case
Federal regulators have cited the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown for violating patient rights and several patient safety and hospital management regulations related to a January incident in which a woman was discharged from its emergency room in just a hospital gown. The woman, who has been identified only as Rebecca, was found outside the hospital in frigid temperatures by a local psychotherapist who ran into her after leaving work. He called an ambulance and she was taken back to the emergency room and eventually put in a cab to a homeless shelter. (McDaniels, 3/20)

The Washington Post: Baltimore Hospital Faulted By Regulator After Mentally Ill, Half-Naked Woman Pushed Into Cold
In a widely viewed video circulated on social media in January, a mentally ill woman identified by her family only as Rebecca was removed from the University of Maryland Medical Center by security guards. “So wait, y’all just going to leave this lady out here with no clothes on?” Imamu Baraka, who filmed the incident, asked the guards. Rebecca’s face appeared bloody, and she moaned: “Please help me!” (Moyer, 3/20)

KCUR: Legislators Pushing Kansas Child Welfare Agency To Tell More About Fatal Cases 
Kansas Lawmakers moved Tuesday to make a bill to release information about the deaths of children in state custody more transparent. In response to several high-profile cases where a child who had been brought to the attention of the Department for Children and Families and later died, the bill requires the agency to release information about kids who die as a result of abuse or neglect. (Fox, 3/20)

KCUR: Kansas Legislators Weigh Creating Independent Child Welfare Watchdog 
Kansas lawmakers are considering creating a watchdog based outside the state’s child welfare agency, but with access to inside information. A bill to create a child advocate to review the Department for Children and Families comes after years of horror stories of abused children who ended up injured, missing or dead. (Fox, 3/20)

KCUR: Bill Would Let Faith-Based Agencies Apply Beliefs In Child Placement, Even To Exclude LGBT Parents
A bill before Kansas lawmakers says faith-based child agencies should not be required to place children in families if it conflicts with the religious values of the organization. The private groups currently can choose not to serve some people, such as single parents or same-sex couples. (Koranda, 3/20)

Kansas City Star: Kansas Anti-Psychotic Use Informed Consent Bill Gets Hearing
Kansas ranks as one of the worst states for the overuse of anti-psychotic drugs to sedate nursing home residents. But new regulations on the practice faced stiff opposition during a hearing Tuesday in Topeka from groups that represent the state’s doctors, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. (Ryan and Marso, 3/20)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland Kids Still Poisoned By Lead At 4 Times The National Average, State Data Shows
About 12 percent of city children under 6 who were screened for lead in 2016 and 2017 had a level of the toxin in their blood that required action, according to new data released by the Ohio Department of Health. The numbers of children poisoned in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have remained mostly stable for several years following more than a decade of steep decline. (Dissell and Zeltner, 3/21)

Boston Globe: Nurses Union, Hospitals Battle Over Ballot Question Setting Patient Limits
A ballot initiative backed by the Massachusetts Nurses Association would set strict limits on the number of patients assigned to a nurse at one time, for all hospital units in the state. Union nurses say they are often overburdened, leaving them unable to give the best possible care and increasing the risk of patient falls, infections, and other complications. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/20)

Sacramento Bee: 2 Sacramento Hospital Groups Reach Settlements With Labor Unions
Both Dignity Health and Kaiser Permanente announced Monday that they had reached major contract agreements with labor unions representing thousands of employees at the two companies. The roughly 15,000 members of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West concluded voting Friday, ratifying a five-year contract with Dignity that will increase pay by 13 percent over the term of the deal. (Anderson, 3/20)

The CT Mirror: Home-Care Contract Wins Bipartisan Support Ahead Of Vote 
A bipartisan coalition of Connecticut lawmakers and the governor voiced support Tuesday for a proposed contract that will raise wages, provide workers’ compensation and increase training programs for about 8,500 home-care workers. The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on the contract Wednesday, which would increase wages to $16.25 per hour by 2020. (Rigg, 3/20)

Chicago Tribune: Tempus, Chicago Company Using Data To Help Personalize Cancer Care, Gets $80M In New Funding
Tempus, a Chicago-based technology company that uses data to help personalize cancer care and improve its efficiency, said Tuesday it has received $80 million in funding from a group of new and existing investors. The company, led by Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, has received $210 million in investment since it was founded in 2015. The latest fundraising round puts Tempus’ value at approximately $1.1 billion, according to a source close to the deal. A valuation of more than $1 billion gives the company “unicorn” status, a label few Chicago startups can claim. (Bomkamp, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: St. Joseph Health Creating Regional Board For Northern California Hospitals 
St. Joseph Health will soon institute a regional board to oversee key moves like capital planning, joint ventures and hiring and firing of chief executives for four Northern California hospitals that currently make such decisions in-house. The four hospitals—Santa Rosa (Calif.) Memorial Hospital, Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna—each will continue to operate community boards, but they will not have fiduciary oversight. St. Joseph Health teamed up with Providence Health & Services to form the 50-hospital Providence St. Joseph Health in 2016. (Bannow, 3/20)

Sacramento Bee: Sutter And Insurance Giant Aetna Hire Industry Veteran To Lead Joint Venture
After a nationwide search, Sutter Health and Aetna announced Tuesday that they have selected health industry veteran Steve Wigginton to lead a health plan the two companies founded in June 2017. (Anderson, 3/20)

The Roanoke Times: Report Finds Death Rates Rise For White, Middle-Class Virginians
Life expectancy rates have been dropping for several years in the U.S., a phenomenon not seen in other industrialized nations. Researchers looking at the trends have found that death rates for younger, white Americans are rising nationwide and have been studying contributing factors. (Rife, 3/20)

Georgia Health News: Alzheimer’s Deaths In Georgia Show Major Increase
Georgia’s death toll from Alzheimer’s disease has increased by 201 percent since the year 2000, and now exceeds 3,700 people annually. That jump was included in new statistics on the disease released Tuesday by the Alzheimer’s Association at a state Capitol news conference. (Miller, 3/20)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Akron City Council Hears Health Experts As It Mulls Raising The Legal Age To Buy Tobacco To 21
Ohio has the 8th highest smoking rate in the U.S., and while numbers of smokers in other states are declining, in the Buckeye State they're on the rise. Those statistics were delivered to Akron City Council's Health & Social Service committee on Monday by Cleveland Clinic Akron General's chief cardiologist Robert Schweikert. (Conn, 3/20)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Altria Subsidiary Asks FDA To Review Smokeless Tobacco Brand As A "Modified Risk" Product
Tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. has submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market one of its smokeless tobacco products as potentially less risky to health. Henrico County-based Altria said Tuesday that its U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. subsidiary submitted the “modified risk” application to the FDA for its Copenhagen Snuff Fine Cut moist smokeless tobacco product. (Reid Blackwell, 3/20)

Georgia Health News: Legislative Twists: A Standoff On Nursing Bill, And A Boost For Sports Medicine Center
A wild day in health care at the state Capitol on Tuesday began with a morning legislative hearing on something Democrats have sought for years: Medicaid expansion. No vote was taken on the expansion legislation, which was presented to the House Appropriations subcommittee on health. (Miller, 3/20)

Sacramento Bee: Homeless Patients Bused From Las Vegas Hospital Now Part Of Lawsuit
Mentally ill people who were cast out of a Las Vegas psychiatric hospital and issued Greyhound bus tickets to cities across the country without proper consent, care or planning soon will have their day in court. A Nevada court has ruled that James Flavy Coy Brown, whose 2013 bus trip took him to Sacramento, and potentially hundreds of others who had similar experiences, may as a group pursue damages against Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, which oversees the hospital, and various treatment professionals. (Hubert, 3/21)

Politico: Nonprofit Generic Drug Venture Could Include Third Of Hospital Market
A nonprofit generic drug company led by some well-known U.S. hospital systems and the Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to expand the market for inexpensive medicines — fast. The nonprofit aims to fulfill two needs. It wants to produce generic drugs that are in short supply. And it's trying to create more competition for pricey, older off-patent drugs so that they become more affordable. (Karlin-Smith, 3/19)

Stat: Are Consumers Overpaying At The Pharmacy Counter? 
Americans may be overpaying for their prescription medicines nearly one-quarter of the time, although the average amount was relatively modest — less than $8. And there were more overpayments involving generic drugs than brand-name medicines, according to a new analysis. Of about 9.5 million prescription insurance claims filed from January to June 2013, 2.2 million involved overpayments, and these totaled $135 million, or $10.51 per person, according to the analysis that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And about 17 percent of the claims resulted in an overpayment exceeding $10. (Silverman, 3/16)

Boston Globe: Everyone Wants To Kill Generic Drug Loophole -Except Drug Makers And Some GOP Leaders
In recent years brand-name drug makers realized they could block generic competition by refusing to sell samples of their products to companies that wanted to make the lower-cost copies. All they had to do was cite safety rules that restrict sales of certain drugs with dangerous side effects. (Rowland, 3/19)

Stat: HHS Is Urged To Investigate A Gilead Hepatitis C Patent For Failing To Disclose Federal Funding 
An advocacy group asked the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate whether a key hepatitis C patent held by Gilead Sciences (GILD) failed to disclose federal funding for grants that were used to develop the blockbuster Sovaldi treatment. In making its request, the advocacy group cited a federal database purportedly showing a patent awarded to Pharmasset, which developed Sovaldi, had received funding from the National Institutes of Health for four grants. The grants were provided between 2003 and 2006, and the patent was issued in June 2011, a few months before Gilead bought Pharmasset for $11 billion. (Silverman, 3/15)

Stat: NIH Urged To Probe Aegerion Patents For Failing To Disclose Federal Funding
An advocacy group has asked the National Institutes of Health to investigate whether several patents held by Aegerion Pharmaceuticals failed to disclose federal funding for grants that were used to develop a pricey cholesterol treatment. In its request, the advocacy group cited a federal database showing six patents were awarded to the University of Pennsylvania, where an academic researcher used NIH grants to develop a drug called Juxtapid, which was later licensed to Aegerion Pharmaceuticals. The school has received more than $68 million in grants for research led by Dr. Daniel Rader, who chairs the genetics department at the Perelman School of Medicine, and at least $293,000 pertained to his work on Juxtapid, according to Knowledge Ecology International, the advocacy group. (Silverman, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Drug Distributors Sink On Pricing, Opioid Litigation Concerns
Investors are running for the exit in anticipation of federal action against drug companies blamed for the opioid crisis. Drug distributors including Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson extended losses for a second day as President Donald Trump pledged to lower drug prices "very substantially in the not-so-distant future." He said the Justice Department is considering “major" federal litigation against the companies involved in the crisis. (Darie, 3/20)

Stat: Massachusetts Court Says Merck — And Pharma — May Be Sued Over Generic Warnings, Sometimes 
In a setback to the pharmaceutical industry, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that consumers who claim harm from a generic medicine can sue brand-name drug makers for intentionally failing to update warnings that generic companies are obligated to place on product labeling. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a man who charged that he suffered side effects, notably sexual dysfunction, after taking a generic version of Proscar, a Merck (MRK) drug used to treat enlarged prostates. And he maintained that two years before he took the generic, which was sold by Mylan (MYL), Merck changed Proscar labeling in other countries to warn about persistent erectile dysfunction, but had not done so in the U.S. (Silverman, 3/19)

Stat: Tens Of Millions Of People Continue To Lack Access To Hepatitis C Medicines 
Nearly 71 million people around the world are infected with hepatitis C but access to effective medicines remains elusive and, as a result, only a fraction were able to obtain treatment, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. Globally, the number of people who initiated treatment rose between 2015 and 2016, from approximately 1 million people to 1.5 million people. And so, the WHO issued a rallying cry to find ways to provide medicines to the tens of millions of people who are going untreated. (Silverman, 3/15)

The Wall Street Journal: CVS To Hire Former Eli Lilly CFO To Run Pharmacy Benefit Business
CVS Health Corp. tapped a former Eli Lilly & Co. finance chief to run its pharmacy benefit business as the drugstore giant works to complete an acquisition of insurer Aetna Inc. Derica Rice, a longtime Eli Lilly chief financial officer, is set to take over at CVS Caremark on March 30, according to an internal CVS memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rice will succeed Jonathan Roberts, who was promoted last year to the role of chief operating officer at CVS Health. (Terlep, 3/20)

Stat: Drug Makers Are Paying Fewer And Fewer Fines For Their Bad Behavior
Nearly a decade ago, numerous drug makers paid huge fines for various fraudulent practices, but a falloff that began a few years ago has since accelerated dramatically, according to an analysis by Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group. Pharmaceutical companies paid roughly $2.9 billion to settle 38 cases involving federal and state civil and criminal charges in 2016 and 2017. This was quite comparable to the $2.9 billion paid for 39 settlements covering the previous two-year period, but much less than the 117 settlements totaling $9.8 billion during 2012 and 2013. (Silverman, 3/14)

Stat: The Anxious Launch Of Luxturna, A Gene Therapy With A Record Sticker Price
The treatment, developed after decades of research, is called Luxturna, and it is sometimes referred to as the first “true” gene therapy to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Cancer treatments such as Kymriah and Yescarta are also sometimes described as a kind of gene therapy, but they involve removing a patient’s cells, genetically modifying them, and sending them back into the body to fight the disease. With Luxturna, a doctor injects a virus underneath the retina, where it delivers a healthy, lab-grown copy of the RPE65 gene into the cells. If the therapy works for these patients, it could help restore some of the images they have been missing. (Boodman, 3/21)

Chicago Tribune: Daughter's Epilepsy Controlled By Drug, Then Insurer Stopped Covering It. Bill Would Ban Such Midyear Changes.
It took four years for Joanne Guthrie-Gard to find the right seizure medication for her daughter, whose epilepsy, during the worst of it, caused her to have 20 seizures a week. ...The family’s insurance plan covered the new drug. Until it didn’t. About four months in, Gard was told to go back to the original drug or pay out of pocket for the extended-release version, which at the time cost about $10,000 for a three-month period. (Elejalde-Ruiz, 3/14)

Minnesota Public Radio: Bill Could Help Reduce Cases Of Minnesotans Overpaying For Prescription Drugs
Insurance companies negotiate discounts for their members with pharmacy chains, just as they do with health care providers. Sometimes, though, a pharmacy's standard price is less than the insurer's negotiated rate. ... A bill up for a hearing in front of a Minnesota Senate committee would ban disclosure prohibitions that can stand in the way of pharmacists laying out best price options for their customers. (Zdechlik, 3/19)

Kansas City Star: Low-Income Seniors Struggle For Prescriptions Without MORx
Prunty is one of about 63,000 Missouri seniors who lost their MORx coverage, which helped people who made too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford their medication. Without that coverage, some seniors may end up stopping their medications or spreading out the dosage, said James Stowe, director of aging and adult services for the Mid-America Regional Council. (Kite, 3/18)

Stat: It’s Time To Empower Generic Drug Makers To Bring Down Prices
In Vermont, Iowa, and every other state across the country, people are fed up with the high cost of prescription drugs. Prices continue to skyrocket as companies making brand-name drugs restrict competition by refusing to share samples of their drugs with companies aiming to make generic versions or refusing to negotiate a shared safety protocol. This is an abuse of government regulations that are intended to protect patients and ensure drug safety. (Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley, 3/16)

The Hill: Be Wary Of Canada’s Drug Price Controls And Lack Of IP Protections
There is an ill-thought out war underway on brand-name drug prices and pharmaceutical intellectual property (IP). Washington can learn from Canada’s mistakes. President Trump has asked CEOs of research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers to lower U.S. drug prices and increase jobs in America. Given the fact more is already spent on pharmaceutical R&D in the U.S. than anywhere else, this presents a serious challenge for U.S. and other global pharmaceutical companies. (Robert A. Freeman, 3/19)

Forbes: Strike The Right Regulatory Balance To Promote Generic Medicines And Future Innovation
Striking the right regulatory balance for pharmaceuticals is no easy task. On the one hand, policy should promote drug affordability by encouraging robust competition. On the other hand, policy should encourage future innovations by granting these drugs temporary market exclusivity. While these goals appear contradictory, the federal government’s drug approval process has reasonably balanced these competing interests for many years. This approval process is based on legislation passed in 1984 colloquially known as the Hatch-Waxman Act. (Wayne Winegarden, 3/14)

The Wall Street Journal: A GOP Right-To-Try Fumble
President Trump has never been accused of being a policy wonk, but now and then he fixates on a good idea, and one has been the “right to try” experimental drug therapies still seeking approval by the Food and Drug Administration. The question is why a GOP Congress is bungling this ostensible White House priority. (3/20)

Bloomberg: Alzheon IPO S-1: Beware Biotechs Bearing Alzheimer's Retreads
Perseverance can be admirable. But in biotechnology, it's often a mistake. Massachusetts biotech Alzheon Inc. filed an S-1 with the SEC on Friday ahead of a planned IPO. It should arguably come with a warning label. The company plans to run a a new final-stage trial for a previously failed Alzheimer's drug, saying it benefited a subset of patients in an earlier trial. (Max Nisen, 3/19)

Forbes: Physicians And Patients Finally Avoiding Horizon's Expensive, Low-Value Pain Drugs Duexis And Vimovo
Nary a day goes by without a story on the cost of drugs. The discussion tends to blur a variety of different issues: the cost of breakthrough cures of diseases like childhood leukemia or hepatitis C, unconscionable price increases of generic drugs, and multiple price increases of patented branded drugs in a given year. These issues and others merit discussion as people try to rein in healthcare costs. (John LaMattina, 3/15)

The Washington Post: Obamacare’s Fate Hinges On A Bipartisan Vote That May Never Come
Congress mus vote by the end of the week to fund the government, passing a massive “omnibus” spending bill that may (believe it or not) represent the last time this year lawmakers make significant policy changes. In other words, once the omnibus bill clears Congress, there is little chance lawmakers will approve fixes to Obamacare before the 2019 enrollment season begins. (3/20)

Bloomberg: Trump Talks Tough On Opioids
When it comes to the opioid crisis, President Donald Trump likes to sound tough, including multiple uses of the word itself. "If we don't get tough on the drug dealers, we're wasting our time," he said Monday. "And that toughness includes the death penalty. "Trump's speech in New Hampshire, part of the administration's rollout of its strategy for fighting the crisis, elevated talk over action. By emphasizing capital punishment, Trump has squandered another opportunity to lead a concerted, effective fight against opioid addiction and overdose. (3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Abortion Over ObamaCare
One reality of 2018 is that both parties are in a contest for who can isolate more voters with radical positions that don’t represent most Americans. The Democrats may be winning this one. Congress this week is debating a deal that would prop up ObamaCare for three years with tens of billions of dollars. Yet Democrats have revolted because the deal includes the 1970s Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from subsidizing abortion. (3/20)

The New York Times: Trump’s Bluster On The Opioid Epidemic
President Trump has declared that his administration is getting serious about the opioid epidemic several times since taking office. But he has repeatedly failed to offer a substantive plan — and he has floated at least a few truly absurd ideas. He did it again this week. Mr. Trump gave a rambling speech on opioids on Monday in which he offered few details about how he would increase access to substance abuse treatment and prevention to help the millions of Americans suffering from this disease. Some 64,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses in 2016, including 481 in New Hampshire, one of the hardest hit states in the country, where Mr. Trump gave his speech. (3/20)

The Washington Post: Killing Drug Dealers Won’t Stop The Opioid Epidemic
Whenever some crime becomes prominent in the public eye, some politician inevitably promises to fix it by getting really tough on criminals. No more of this namby-pamby mollycoddling! This time, we’re going to make it so miserable to be a criminal that no one will dare. (Megan McArdle, 3/20)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Wants A New War On Drugs
President Trump's opioid response plan might have multiple prongs, but when he unveiled it Monday, he clearly was most interested in the prong that gets "very tough" on drug dealers. We know this because he said so approximately 5,000 times during a speech announcing the new plan in New Hampshire, a state chosen as the backdrop because it is one of those hardest hit by opioid addiction and overdose deaths. (3/20)

Axios: Why Health Care Probably Didn't Decide The Pennsylvania Election
The buzz is that health care played a leading role in Conor Lamb’s upset win in last week's special House election in Pennsylvania. But in reality, we can’t say that health care was a decisive factor in Lamb’s win, at least not based on the one poll that is being used as a basis for that claim. (Drew Altman, 3/21)

Bloomberg: Gun Confiscation: NRA Feels It Must Voice Support For 'Red Flag' Laws
Students and activists are preparing what will almost certainly be the nation’s largest mass demonstration against gun violence -- and the shoddy laws that fuel it -- on March 24. The March for Our Lives is the bitter fruit of one school massacre too many, the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Waves of outrage follow every gun massacre. But this wave has been effectively channeled, with teen survivors proving canny leaders in shaping what could become a generational cause.The NRA is acutely aware of the precariousness of the moment. (Francis Wilkinson, 3/20)

The New York Times: Fighting Death By Gunshot
Kenji Inaba is a trauma surgeon at Los Angeles County General Hospital and director of the surgical intensive care unit. He’s also a sworn reserve police officer, part of a two-man patrol in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Between policing and doing emergency surgery, he gets a lot of exposure to gunshot wounds, both entry and exit — how people get shot, and how they get better. (Tina Rosenberg, 3/20)

Charlotte Observer: Adults Trying To Ignore Students' Message After School Shootings
Boomers knock the kids to cover for themselves because the kids, in their call for action and the attention it’s getting, are knocking them. It’s Baby Boomers and other like-sounding adults, typically of a particular political persuasion, who can vote, can choose school officials, and can change laws — but have failed miserably on the school shootings front. They knock not merely the points the students are making but the kids themselves, in sweeping, demeaning ways. If they can invalidate the students, the adults don’t even have to consider what the kids are saying. (Keith Larson, 3/20)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Grown-Ups Have Failed Our Kids On Gun Legislation
How did my legislative colleagues react to the school shooting? Rep. Chuck Basye, Second Amendment Preservation Committee chair, invited the Missouri House on a tour next week of CMMG Inc., a leading manufacturer of AR-15 rifles, conversion kits and accessories, in Boonville, Mo. The gun of choice in mass shootings? An AR-15. As Emma Gonzalez, a Stoneman Douglas High School senior and survivor, said in her national rally speech that went viral, I say BS. (Stacey Newman, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Stephen Hawking Is Dead, Not ‘Free’
Does my wheelchair feel like a prison? Do I ever wish I weren’t disabled? Would I choose to become able-bodied if I could? Those are a few of the things people have asked upon meeting me. My answer is always the same: a strong and unequivocal “no.” I’ve never fully understood the mentality behind the questions, much less the shocked reactions to my replies. And then I saw the response to Stephen Hawking’s death last week, when people sighed with relief that one of the most brilliant minds of our generation was finally “free of any physical constraints,” as the actress Gal Gadot tweeted. One meme depicted an empty wheelchair in the foreground, with a silhouette of Hawking standing amid the stars. (Melissa Blake, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Your Doctor’s Computer Is So Clunky
The Trump administration this month announced its own effort to update the Electronic Health Record systems, which disrupt the doctor-patient relationship. The government could do even more good by deregulating EHRs, establishing a free market for user-friendly products. Perhaps Amazon, through its partnership with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway , could eventually do for medicine what it’s done for retail. (Marion Mass and Kenneth A. Fisher, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Stanford Diet Study Casts Doubt On Calorie Counting
The problem is that we’re not in charge of running our bodies. Even with modern food labeling and calorie-counting apps, forces beyond our conscious control keep fiddling with how many calories we burn each day, and how hungry we feel. The longstanding illusion of control has implications for America’s health care policy, since obesity is tied to the major killers -- heart disease; diabetes; and, to a lesser extent, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Many Americans wrongly think that the two-thirds of their fellow citizens who are overweight or obese are to blame for eating too many calories. (Faye Flam, 3/20)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Child Death Another Reminder Of Need For Medical Error Reporting
On a summer morning in 2016, Scott and Sandy Van Veldhuizen of Oskaloosa woke up early to drive their son Reuben to West Lakes Surgery Center in Clive. The 12-year-old was to undergo a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, relatively routine procedures performed on thousands of children each year. “Go get ‘em, bud,” were the last words Scott said to his son before he was wheeled away. (3/20)