The Associated Press: Senate Easily Advances $1.1 Billion In Zika Funding
The Senate voted decisively on Tuesday in favor of a bipartisan $1.1 billion measure to combat the Zika virus this year and next, cutting back President Barack Obama's request but offering significantly more money to fight Zika than would House GOP conservatives. The 68-29 vote propelled the measure over a filibuster and sets the stage to add the Zika funding to an unrelated spending bill. It comes three months after Obama requested $1.9 billion to battle the virus, which can cause severe birth defects. (5/17)

The New York Times: Senate Votes To Advance Emergency Funding To Fight Zika Virus
A number of Senate Republicans, particularly from Southern states that face the most immediate threat from Zika virus, spoke out forcefully for government action, putting added pressure on House Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of using the threat of Zika to demand a “slush fund” from Congress. But Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, said he had recently spent four hours at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looking at models of how the virus could spread. “If anybody in the audience or in this room doesn’t think this is an emergency, you should have been with Senator Collins and I two weeks ago at the C.D.C. in Atlanta,” Mr. Isakson said. (Herszenhorn, 5/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Approves $1.1 Billion In Emergency Zika Funding
“We have trimmed this package back to what really addresses the emergency,” Mr. Blunt told reporters Tuesday. Democrats said they hoped to approve additional funding later, but would support the $1.1 billion now as an interim compromise with Republicans. (Peterson and Armour, 5/17)

USA Today: Senate Advances Compromise Bill To Provide $1.1 Billion To Combat Zika
The Senate compromise provides $800 million less than the $1.9 billion that President Obama has been seeking since February. But it is far more than the House is proposing. Republican House leaders introduced legislation Monday that would provide $622 million in Zika funding, which they would pay for in part by using money allocated to fight Ebola. The House bill could come to a vote as early as this week. (Kelly, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Congress Struggles To Strike Deal On Zika Funds As Concern About The Virus Grows
There is government speed, and then there is virus speed. They’ve been mismatched in this year of Zika. The political apparatus of Washington has been sluggish compared with the epidemic that already has taken hold in Puerto Rico and poses a serious threat to the mainland United States as mosquito season arrives. On the Hill, the Republican-controlled House and Senate have different ideas about how much emergency money should be appropriated to combat the contagion — as well as where that money should come from and whether it has to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. (Achenbach and Snell, 5/17)

Politico: Senate OKs $1.1 Billion To Fight Zika; House Wants Half That
The divide between House and Senate Republicans is coming to a head after months of congressional squabbling over the administration’s funding request as the summer mosquito season approaches. The Zika virus, which has been directly linked to the severe birth defect microcephaly, is already spreading through mosquitoes in Puerto Rico. Local transmission of the virus is expected to take place in the continental United States — particularly the Southern states — this summer. (Haberkorn, 5/17)

The Associated Press: House To Vote On Scaled-Back Zika Bill Despite Veto Threat
Republicans controlling the House are ignoring protests from Democrats and a White House veto threat as they speed legislation funding the battle against the Zika virus to a vote. The $622 million GOP plan would provide one-third of the resources requested three months ago by President Barack Obama to combat the virus, which can cause severe birth defects and other health problems. It is "paid for" with cuts elsewhere in the budget, including unspent funds from the successful fight against Ebola. The White House has issued a veto threat on the House measure, saying it is woefully inadequate and protested that it would only fund the Zika battle through September. (5/18)

Reuters: White House Opposes House Zika Bill, Calls Funding Inadequate
The White House on Tuesday said it strongly opposes a House bill to fight the Zika virus, saying its funding is "woefully inadequate" to support the public health response that is needed. (5/17)

Kaiser Health News: A Primer: How The Fight Against Zika Might Be Funded
The Obama administration says the Zika virus is the nation’s next big public health threat. But there is continuing disagreement on how much money it will take to counter it. The Senate thinks $1.1 billion is the magic number. It voted 68 to 29 Tuesday to allocate that amount toward fighting this mosquito-borne virus — whose rapid spread globally has for months fueled concerns. The funding would be provided through an amendment to a larger appropriations bill, which could gain final passage later this week. The vote follows months of sparring between lawmakers, the White House and public health officials. (Luthra, 5/17)

Morning Consult: Zika Conference On Tap, Which Could Delay Congress’ Response
It could take until well into the summer, or even longer, for Congress to actually pass a final spending bill to combat the Zika virus. Top Senate and House negotiators plan to confine a formal conference committee to hash out their differences that they hope can be sent to President Obama before the July recess. But there are some crucial differences between the two efforts that will need to be reconciled within that time. (Reid, 5/17)

In other Zika news —

USA Today: CDC Cut $44 Million In Local Health Funding To Pay For Zika Response
Short on funding to combat a potential Zika outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control shifted $44 million from its fund for local health departments to Zika, a move that public health officials say [weaknens] their ability to plan for and respond to other emergencies. The CDC tapped into the Public Health Emergency Preparedness program, which provides federal money for communities to deal with health emergencies of all kinds, from hurricanes to flu pandemics. (Szabo, 5/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Florida Town Buzzing Over Biotech Mosquito For Zika Defense
A biotech mosquito is kicking up a political storm in the Florida Keys. Oxitec Ltd., a British maker of genetically modified insects, plans to go door to door in coming weeks to pitch Key Haven, Fla., voters on the virtues of a modified mosquito that the company says can help kill off wild populations known to spread maladies like the Zika virus and dengue fever. Critics of Oxitec’s proposed field trial are pushing back with yard signs and social-media campaigns, warning that the biotech mosquitoes aren’t needed to curb diseases and could harm local ecosystems. (Bunge, 5/18)

The Associated Press: Health Officials Say Local Spread Of Zika 'Likely' In Texas
Texas has identified 33 cases of the Zika virus that all have been associated with overseas travel, but the virus is expected to begin spreading locally within the state during the sweaty upcoming summer months, top health officials said Tuesday. (Weissert, 5/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Number Of Uninsured In U.S. Dropped Below 10% For First Time In 2015
About 9.1% of people in the U.S., or around 28.6 million, were uninsured in 2015 according to federal statistics released Tuesday. The Obama administration is celebrating the figures—which largely matched an earlier release by the agency for the first half of last year—as proof of the impact of the Affordable Care Act, which overhauled the insurance system, created new subsidies for people to get private coverage and boosted funding for states to expand the Medicaid program that offers near free-care to the lowest-income Americans. (Radnofsky, 5/17)

CNBC: Obamacare Brings Record Low For US Health Uninsured Rate
It was the first time the percentage of people without some form of health coverage has gone into single digits, and a 2.4 percentage point drop from 2014. The number of people uninsured in 2015 was 28.6 million, which was 7.4 million fewer than 2014, according to the CDC. (Mangan, 5/17)

Meanwhile, Highmark is suing the federal government over risk-corridor money it says it is owed under the Affordable Care Act -

The Wall Street Journal: Highmark Sues U.S. Over Affordable Care Act
Major insurer Highmark Inc. is suing the federal government, arguing it is owed money under the Affordable Care Act, a move that opens yet another front in the continuing legal battles over the 2010 health law. Highmark, the insurance arm of Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Highmark Health, said in the suit that the U.S. failed to live up to obligations to pay the insurer nearly $223 million owed under an ACA program known as “risk corridors,” which aimed to limit the financial risks borne by insurers entering the new health-law markets. The suit claims “violations of the mandatory risk-corridor payment obligations prescribed” in the health law. (Wilde Mathews, 5/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Nonprofit Hospitals Adjust To Attract Investors
Late last year, a hospital operator with $14 billion in annual revenue sent a team of executives to Boston to schmooze with investors during lunch. For most of corporate America, such events aren’t unusual. But this large hospital is a nonprofit. As Trinity Health of Livonia, Mich., shows, more nonprofits are starting to resemble big business. In health care, where nearly 60% of hospital operators are private nonprofits, recent consolidation has created large organizations that span several states, with multibillion-dollar budgets and tens of thousands of employees. (Evans, 5/18)

The Associated Press: South Carolina Passes Bill Banning Abortion After 19 Weeks
The South Carolina Legislature passed a bill Tuesday prohibiting abortion after 19 weeks, becoming the 17th state to pass the restrictive ban. The legislation will now head to Gov. Nikki Haley's desk. The Republican said in March she will almost certainly sign it, but wants to look at the details once it reaches her. Similar laws are in effect in 12 states. They've been blocked by court challenges in three others, and the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule on the ban's constitutionality. A South Dakota law signed in March takes effect this summer. (Adcox, 5/17)

The State: SC Lawmakers Ban Abortions At 20 Weeks
The bill’s passage in the Legislature is a huge victory for abortion opponents. They pushed the 20-week ban asserting that a fetus can feel pain at that age – a point disputed in the medical community. Haley is expected to sign the bill into law. “I can’t imagine any scenario in which I wouldn’t sign it,” the Lexington Republican said in March, adding she wanted to see the details before making a final decision. (Self, 5/17)

The Associated Press: Kansas Won't Cut Off Funds For Planned Parenthood Until July
Kansas will not cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood until July 7 in what marks the third delay in two weeks as the state works to prepare for a lawsuit over its action against the abortion provider. Planned Parenthood sued Kansas earlier this month over the state's decision to end Medicaid funding starting on May 10 — a cutoff date that the state has repeatedly moved back so that attorneys and the judge could prepare for the first hearing in the federal lawsuit. (5/17)

The Associated Press: Ducey OKs Abortion Law Repeals And Bill Targeting Providers
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Tuesday that repeals a pair of laws targeting abortion that state attorneys said appeared to be indefensible in court but signed another bill that opponents say is designed to make it easier to cut off abortion providers from Medicaid funding. (Christie, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Most Mass Shooters Aren’t Mentally Ill. So Why Push Better Treatment As The Answer?
When it comes to mass shootings, President Obama and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan are in rare accord on a leading culprit. Both point fingers at mental illness. And in poll after poll, most Americans agree. But criminologists and forensic psychiatrists say there is a critical flaw in that view: It doesn’t reflect reality. While acknowledging that some of the country’s worst mass shooters were psychotic — the Colorado movie theater shooter, James Holmes, with his orange-dyed hair; the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, whom a judge ordered to get treatment — experts say the vast majority of these killers did not have any classic form of serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia or psychosis. (Rosenwald, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Here’s What Men Need To Know About The Angelina Jolie ‘Breast-Cancer Gene’
Should men worry about the "Angelina Jolie breast-cancer gene?" A few years ago, Jolie had her breasts and ovaries removed after she found out she had a breast-cancer gene mutation that sharply increased her risk of cancer. Her decision encouraged many women to take a closer look at their family medical histories and, in some cases, to undergo genetic testing. Since then, researchers have increasingly found that BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations have important implications for men. (McGinley, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Risky Penis, Face And Hand Transplants Focus On Improving Lives – Not Saving Them
Today, an average of 79 people receive organ transplants — heart, lungs, livers, you name it — every day in the United States. Most of these patients are seriously ill, facing death, or at least suffering dire health consequences because of their malfunctioning organ. But increasingly, a new kind of transplant patient is emerging. They're undergoing some of the newest, riskiest transplant procedures in the world — and their lives don't even depend on them. Charla Nash got a new face. Thomas Manning got a new penis. Zion Harvey got new hands. (Feltman, 5/17)

Los Angeles Times: For Loved Ones Of Critically Ill Patients, Hope Often Trumps Understanding Of A Physician's Prognosis
We have virtually all been there, are there now or will be there someday: A loved one is critically ill, and his or her physician is talking to us about the patient's prognosis. She wants to know how we would like to proceed. She's asking what we think our loved one, hovering in a twilight world, would want. She keeps on talking, though her voice is coming through distant and garbled. The doctor's words are scaring us. For a majority of people gathered at the bedside of a critically ill patient, new research finds that confusion and miscommunication rein, jostling for space alongside hope and fear. (Healy, 5/17)

CBS News: At End Of Life, Doctors And Families Often Differ In Expectations
Discussions around end-of-life care are difficult, wrought with emotion and uncertainty. Ideally, decisions should be made in conjunction with patients, but when they are too ill to speak for themselves, a family member typically steps in as a surrogate. (Welch, 5/17)

Elsewhere, the husband of Brittany Maynard, the California woman who sparked a national conversation about aid-in-dying, speaks about the need for end-of-life cancer care —

The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Dan Diaz, Medical-Aid-In-Dying Advocate, Tells Of Wife's Final Moments At Cleveland Clinic Summit
An advocate of medical-aid-in-dying legislation appeared at a Cleveland Clinic conference Tuesday, calling for expanded options in treating terminally ill patients at the end of their lives. Dan Diaz spoke about the death of his wife Brittany Maynard, a California woman whose struggle to avoid suffering from terminal brain cancer spurred a national debate about the use of medication to hasten death. "Brittany knew what was coming for her, and that included pain that could not be alleviated with morphine," Diaz said during the Clinic's annual Patient Experience summit at the Cleveland Convention Center. (Ross, 5/18)

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Heartbreak, Exhaustion — And Then An End Driven By Despair
On Jan. 1, America's baby boomers began turning 70 at a rate of 10,000 a day, a silver tsunami that is expected to continue, day after day, for the next 19 years. More than 5 million Americans now have Alzheimer's, the most common form of elderly dementia. Alzheimer's destroys memory and other mental functions and, eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. (Stephenson, 5/17)

The Associated Press: Loneliness Hurts: Senior Health About More Than Disease
Grandma's cholesterol is OK, but maybe the doctor should be asking about her social life, too. Think about health during the senior years, and a list of common ailments pops to mind. But that's not the whole story. New research suggests factors such as loneliness and whether they've broken any bones since middle age also play a role in the well-being of older adults. In fact, layering on that extra information better predicts whether a senior's next five years will be fairly robust or whether they're at higher risk for death or disability than just focusing on what chronic diseases they have, researchers reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Neergaard, 5/16)

NPR: Treating Opioid Addiction With A Drug Raises Hope And Controversy
Scientists and doctors say the case is clear: The best way to tackle the country's opioid epidemic is to get more people on medications that have been proven in studies to reduce relapses and, ultimately, overdoses. Yet, only a fraction of the more than 4 million people believed to abuse prescription painkillers or heroin in the U.S. are being given what's called medication-assisted treatment. One reason is the limited availability of the treatment. But it's also the case that stigma around the addiction drugs has inhibited their use. (Hsu, 5/17)

In other news about the epidemic —

Minnesota Public Radio: Bill To Stop Opioid 'Doctor-Shopping' Moves Ahead In Legislature
A bill that would slightly tighten the state's Prescription Monitoring Program by requiring doctors to sign up for credentials to log into the system has now passed both houses of the state Legislature. (Collins, 5/17)

The Boston Globe: BMC To Offer Gender Reassignment Surgery
Boston Medical Center plans to become the first hospital in Massachusetts — and one of a few in the country —to offer gender reassignment surgery, responding to a growing and unmet demand for treatment in the transgender community. (Kowalcyzk, 5/18)

WBUR: Boston Medical Center Launches First Comprehensive Transgender Medical Center In Northeast
The journey lead to the creation of The Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at BMC, the first such comprehensive service in the Northeast. It brings together services the hospital has been building out for several years: primary care, hormone therapy and mental health support, as well as chest and facial reconstruction procedures. Later this summer, as part of the comprehensive center, the hospital will begin genital surgery for men transitioning to women. (Bebinger, 5/18)

The Associated Press: Court Rejects Blocking Health Warning On Sugary Drinks Ads
A federal court in Northern California has rejected an effort to block a new San Francisco law that requires health warnings on ads for sugary drinks. U.S. District Court Judge Edward M. Chen's decision Tuesday clears the way for the law approved by city lawmakers last year to take effect in July. The ordinance requires the warnings to appear on ads for soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages that appear on billboards, buses, transit shelters, posters and stadiums within the city. The labels would read: "WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay." (5/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Soda Industry Fails To Stop San Francisco Law Targeting Sugar
The American Beverage Association had filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in July, arguing the requirement violates free speech rights under the First Amendment. The California Retailers Association and California State Outdoor Advertising Association joined the complaint. In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen denied a request for a preliminary injunction. He added that plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim or to suffer irreparable harm if the ordinance goes into effect. (Esterl, 5/17)

The Sacramento Bee: Feds Approve California’s Health Plan Tax Swap
The Obama administration has signed off on California’s expansion of a tax on health plans that contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Medi-Cal and other programs, with plans receiving offsetting breaks on other state taxes. (Miller, 5/17)

Kaiser Health News: New York Aims To Become The Next State To Toss The Tampon Tax
Feminine products are having a moment. With some calling for a red wave to take the taboo out of menstruation, politicians across the country are trying to make tampons and sanitary pads as affordable and accessible as possible. Five states have eliminated sales taxes on pads and tampons: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland and Minnesota. In New York, a bill awaits the governor's signature, and other efforts to improve access to sanitary products are underway. (Mogul, 5/18)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn Strikes Deal With Biogen For Gene Therapy
Biogen Inc. announced a research collaboration on gene therapy and gene editing with the University of Pennsylvania that will pay the West Philadelphia institution $20 million upfront, with an additional $62.5 million committed over the next three to five years for research and development costs. (Brubaker, 5/17)

The Connecticut Mirror: Can An Apartment Cut Health Care Costs Of Homeless ‘Super Users’?
Connecticut is one of four sites for a five-year demonstration program designed to identify high-cost, high-need patients – “super users,” as they’re commonly called in health care – who are also homeless, and match them with both a place to live and a team to help with things like making sure they pay rent, get a primary care doctor, and get care. (Levin Becker, 5/18)

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Milwaukee Teen Birth Rate Plummets 54.4%
Milwaukee's teen birthrate dropped 54.4% in the past decade, beating the nation average of 40%. (Stephenson, 5/17)

WBUR: Dartmouth Study Looks At When Doctors And Patients Clash Over ‘Unnecessary’ Care
What happens when you want a test that your doctor thinks won’t help? Has a national campaign against high-cost, low-value care helped physicians have these tough conversations? And what drives doctors to provide care that they don’t think a patient needs? (Poorman, 5/18)

The Connecticut Mirror: Malloy Signs Medical Marijuana For Minors Bill
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Tuesday signed a bill to open the state’s medical marijuana program to minors with certain medical conditions. The measure takes effect Oct. 1 and would apply to minors with one of five conditions: a terminal illness requiring end-of-life care; cystic fibrosis; cerebral palsy; severe epilepsy or uncontrolled intractable seizure disorder; or an irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. (Levin Becker, 5/17)

The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Senate Looks To Change Medical Marijuana Proposal
The Senate is expected to make a handful of changes on Wednesday to a House-passed medical marijuana bill, including who is responsible for crafting the rules and regulations. (Siegel, 5/18)

Forbes: Valeant Pharmaceuticals Hands Out Million Dollar Bonuses As Compensation For 'Challenging Times'
Valeant Pharmaceuticals is planning on paying its top brass multi-million dollar bonuses as a reward for sticking with the embattled drugmaker through an accounting scandal, numerous regulatory investigations, and criticism in the Senate and House of Representatives on its strategy of acquiring off-patent drugs and dramatically increasing their prices. Late on Monday, Valeant disclosed that it will pay chief financial officer Robert L. Rosiello, and executives Dr. Ari Kellen and Anne C. Whitaker $1 million retention bonuses, made in three tranches through the course of 2016. These executives will also receive so-called “special equity awards” of $2.8 million, $3.8 million and $1.25 million, respectively, in the form of restricted stock units that vest over 18-months. (Gara, 5/17)

FiercePharma: Valeant Shells Out $10.8M In Bonuses To Keep Three Top Execs
It’s a good time to be a Valeant Pharmaceuticals executive, provided you can stand the heat. The company’s top leadership will score millions in retention bonuses under new agreements disclosed in securities filings late Monday. And if they leave the company for good reason--or are fired for no good reason--within a year, they’ll collect twice the severance pay they’d have received before. “We know that these continue to be challenging times for our company,” CEO Joseph Papa wrote to his top managers to set forth the terms of their retention deals. “We are appreciative of your continued dedication and commitment to the organization,” the letter continued. (Staton, 5/17)

Stat: Drug Coupons And Fewer Covered Medicines Tell A Story Of Rising Prices
As drug makers issue more coupons to help consumers lower their costs, a new study finds that the companies providing prescription coverage are fighting back by refusing to cover more medicines. And the tactics underscore the jockeying for profits in the lucrative pharmaceutical industry. Consider coupons. Over the past several years, drug makers have used these to entice consumers to fill their prescriptions, since coupons defray or eliminate copay costs. In 2009, coupons were available for fewer than 100 prescription medicines, but the number exceeded 700 by last year, according to the analysis by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. The study was funded by Pfizer. Drug makers contend coupons help consumers who might otherwise have difficulty affording their medicines as insurance requires them to shoulder a greater share of the cost. (Silverman, 5/13)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: Secret Rebates, Coupons And Exclusions: How The Battle Over High Drug Prices Is Really Being Fought
A battle for profits between two arms of the health-care industry has made privately insured patients into pawns, offering them a growing number of discounts on their drug co-pays while ultimately leaving them with fewer drug options overall, according to a new analysis. The research, funded by Pfizer, found that the number of coupons that drug companies offer to help defray the portion that insured patients pay for their drugs has exploded. At the same time, the companies that provide prescription coverage have increased the number of drugs they refuse to cover, in an effort to gain leverage with drug companies in price negotiations. (Johnson, 5/12)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Why Prescription Drug Prices Are So High And What To Do About It
As health care costs overall have continued to rise, medicines are driving a good share of that trend. We'll look at some of the factors at play, including advertising, patents, and government programs and regulations -- also, plans underway on Capitol Hill to address the issue. (5/17)

Politico: Price Spikes For Life-Saving Drug
The price of a life-saving drug that can reverse an opioid overdose is soaring, just as the Obama administration and Congress are pushing to make it more available. The rising price for naloxone is causing some emergency response departments to run out of the drug, while many public health groups are growing short of the cash needed to buy it and must rely on donations. It also means two public health crises are colliding — the politically charged debate about high drug prices and the growing concern about lethal addiction. (Karlin-Smith, 5/16)

Reuters: Drug Company Gifts Linked To Doctors' Prescribing Habits
Doctors who receive payments or gifts from pharmaceutical companies are more likely to prescribe brand name medications, a new study suggests. The rate at which doctors prescribed brand name drugs increased with the amount of money or gifts like dinners they received from drug companies, researchers found. (Seaman, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Vermont To Require Drug Makers To Explain Price Increases
Vermont is poised to become the first state requiring drug companies to explain their price increases, and Bob and Deborah Messing think that's a good idea. The Messings live in Montpelier and are in their early 70s. She's on Orencia, a Bristol-Myers Squibb product, for rheumatoid arthritis. He recently finished a course of Harvoni, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., to treat hepatitis C. (Gram, 5/14)

Stat: Drug Makers Fuming At ‘Overpriced’ Values Placed On Their Myeloma Drugs
In the latest fracas over pharmaceutical pricing, several large drug makers are objecting to the value assigned to their multiple myeloma treatments by a controversial nonprofit, which is increasingly influencing coverage decisions made by insurers. In a recent report, the value of three medications was determined to be significantly below their list prices, which run from $8,000 to $14,000 a month. And the findings may cause a showdown at a May 26 meeting that the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review is holding to review its analysis. (Silverman, 5/16)

CBS News: 3 Reasons Pharma Stocks Are Still Suffering
If any stock group has the winning market formula, it's the pharmaceuticals. So why have drug companies' stocks, which romped since 2011, done so poorly recently? Drugmakers, especially biotech firms, have ridden so high for so long due to innovations and an aging population -- and neither of those two influences has waned. Over five years through 2015, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey, four of the best-performing large-capitalization stocks were in the pharma industry, with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) at the very top. (Light, 5/17)

Bloomberg: Wal-Mart Pairs With McKesson To Buy Generic Drugs More Cheaply
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, is joining forces with McKesson Corp., the largest U.S. pharmaceutical distributor, to purchase generic drugs, allowing the two companies to use their collective size to get better prices. The move reflects growing consolidation in the pharmaceutical supply chain, as drugstores, drugmakers and the companies that manage pharmacy benefits are collaborating more closely -- in some cases merging -- to wring costs out of the process. (Cortez and Pettypiece, 5/16)

Reuters: Regeneron CEO Says Drug Price Critique By Independent Group Unscientific
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Chief Executive Leonard Schleifer on Thursday took aim at an influential drug pricing watchdog, saying a critique of the company's new cholesterol lowering therapy was non-scientific. The Boston-based Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) last fall reviewed two new potent cholesterol drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors. It concluded that the treatments should cost about 67 percent less than the list prices set by Regeneron with partner Sanofi, and by Amgen Inc. (Humer, 5/12)

Houston Chronicle: Texas' Lloyd Doggett Leads Fight On Drug Prices
With Congress unwilling to act, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett is marshaling Democrats to pressure the Obama administration to stem the soaring costs of prescription drugs. Doggett, D-San Antonio, has stepped up efforts to persuade the National Institutes of Health to take the unprecedented step of breaking patents on high-priced pharmaceuticals developed with taxpayer assistance. Doggett also is pressing a lavishly funded entity created by the Affordable Care Act to spend more of its money on studying which drugs work best and making those findings widely known. (Bill Lambrecht, 5/15)

Politico Pro: Colombia Fears Cancer Drug Will Spoil U.S. Relations
A multibillion-dollar cancer drug may be hampering U.S.-Colombia relations — or at least the Colombian government seems afraid that it is. Colombia is concerned that the United States will cut off funding for the country’s peace negotiations if it allows production of cheaper copies of a best-selling drug from Novartis, cancer medication Gleevec. Novartis reported $4.7 billion in worldwide Gleevec sales in 2015. (Karlin-Smith, 5/12)

The Washington Post: A Simple Way For The Government To Curb Inflated Drug Prices
When the government launches an ambitious public-works project — say, building a railroad or airport — one problem it can face is a “strategic holdout.” People who know that the government needs their land to complete a project may demand a price for their property far beyond its actual value. Today, we face a similar problem with certain high-cost drugs. (Zain Rizvi, Amy Kapczynski and Aaron Kesselheim, 5/12)

Health Affairs Blog: Is High Prescription Drug Spending Becoming Our New Normal?
Lately it seems as if specialty drugs are everywhere. While it used to be that only a small number of patients were treated using these expensive drugs, manufacturers are increasingly developing specialty products to treat conditions that affect much larger populations over a longer period of time. One example is PCSK9 inhibitors, a new type of cholesterol-lowering drug that cost more than $14,000 per year. Although this product is currently indicated for those with familial hypercholesterolemia and certain patients with heart disease, the patient population is expected to eventually expand to as many 15 million people. PCSK9 inhibitors are also used on a chronic basis, meaning patients and payers will feel the costs associated with these products—estimated to be as much as $150 billion annually—for years. (Leigh Purvis and Crystal Kuntz, 5/17)

Fortune: To Fix High Drug Prices, Stop The Merger Madness
Sky-high prescription drug prices have angered both politicians and patients, and for good reason. Medication prices rose by more than six times the rate of inflation between 2006 and 2013. While drug pricing is a complicated issue, the co-occurrence of soaring drug prices and an all-time record year for mergers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry may be more than mere coincidence. 2015 saw the largest number and value of acquisitions ever in pharma and biotech—168 announced deals with 30 transactions exceeding $1 billion. The total value of mergers and acquisitions in 2015 was more than $300 billion, easily surpassing 2014’s record of $250 billion. (Jeffrey Pfeffer, 5/17)

The Washington Times: Assessing Blame For High Drug Prices
Americans’ spending on prescription drugs has soared over the past few years. Hillary Clinton has blamed “price gouging” by drug companies and called for more Washington control. A far more likely culprit is actually Obamacare. Obamacare was sold on the false promise that costs would come down if Americans gave Washington more control over their health care. Instead, costs have soared in every aspect of health care, including prescription drugs. According to an April study by IMS Health, net spending on medicines has risen 21 percent since the health care law passed in 2010. (John Barrasso, 5/16)

The New England Journal Of Medicine: Drug Regulation And Pricing — Can Regulators Influence Affordability?
Public debate in the 1990s over drugs’ clinical toxicity has given way to concerns about their financial toxicity. Although drug regulators aren’t supposed to be concerned with pricing, they’ve been drawn into an acrimonious debate over the cost of medicines. At the European Medicines Agency (EMA), we often hear conflicting arguments: high and inflexible regulatory standards drive up the cost of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), thereby increasing drug prices; regulators license products even when the data are insufficient for assessing their value and allow drug makers to overcharge; more generics, biosimilars, and me-too drugs are needed to create a dynamic market that will keep prices down; me-too drugs should be discouraged, since they offer no added benefit to patients and lead to overutilization and higher spending; and regulators shouldn’t allow drugs on the market that no one can afford. (Hans-Georg Eichler, Hugo Hurts, Karl Broich and Guido Rasi, 5/12)

The Buffalo News: Congress Must Act To Help Restrain Soaring Drug Prices
Drug prices continue to rise at an alarming and seemingly irrational rate. As anyone with a chronic health condition well knows, paying for prescription medications is an increasingly difficult challenge demanding immediate and sustainable solutions. Fortunately, Congress has begun holding hearings designed to rein in costs. The topic will no doubt heat up as a campaign issue leading up to the November election, and a number of key stakeholders in the health care industry are joining forces to help find remedies. (Martin Burruano, 5/16)

The Hill: The Wrong Way To Reduce Drug Prices
Recent reports of pharmaceutical companies sharply increasing their prices for existing drugs highlight the issue of drug pricing. Unsurprisingly, public outrage over price hikes led to increasing calls for European-style price controls. Less-stringent proposals would require pharmaceutical companies to disclose and justify price hikes. While attractive, these measures are misguided, as they do not address the underlying causes of high drug prices: the high cost of drug development. ... Exorbitant drug prices are clearly a problem; however, price controls are unlikely to solve it. While price controls may provide immediate financial relief to some patients, they will also reduce future research and development spending and lead to fewer drugs being developed. They will also make investment in drugs that treat less common diseases unprofitable. Thus, the policy may provide some short-term benefit, but it would impose substantial future costs. (Sherzod Abdukadirov, 5/11)

Commonwealth Fund: Drug Price Control: How Some Government Programs Do It
Drug pricing is having its moment. Thousand-dollar pills to treat Hepatitis C, eye-popping price hikes for common generics, and surging overall spending on pharmaceuticals have rung alarm bells from coast to coast. ... Proposed treatments for the drug pricing epidemic are varied, but some call for government to do more. While others resist the idea of government involvement, the federal government, in fact, already employs a number of effective tools for reducing the prices of drug purchased by certain public programs. These fall into two broad categories: Price controls, usually in the form of required discounts off of the average price paid by other purchasers. Negotiated pricing, in which the government wields its market power to bargain for favorable rates from pharmaceutical suppliers. ... it’s worth reviewing the nature and track record of the government’s existing drug price reduction efforts. (David Blumenthal and David Squires, 5/10)

The Wall Street Journal: How To Make Hospitals Less Deadly
Few things are deadlier than doctors’ screw-ups. NASA’s chief toxicologist calculated in 2013 that medical error kills between 210,000 and 440,000 Americans each year. Only heart disease and cancer have a higher body count. Some progress has been made: The number of hospital-acquired conditions dropped 17% from 2010-14, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But that report excluded diagnostic errors that occur in outpatient settings—such as missing a cancerous lesion—and cause some 100,000 deaths per year. (James B. Lieber, 5/17)

The Chicago Tribune: We Need Unbiased Medical Exams For Presidential Candidates
As unusual as the 2016 presidential election has been, one obvious aspect has gone largely unnoticed: By the time the next president of the United States is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, he or she will have reached or come close to reaching 70 years old. That all the remaining major candidates are among the "young old" at this stage of the election process is unprecedented. Yet, in spite of the stakes for the American people, there is no independent source that can provide an adequate accounting of the medical condition of the next president. (Art Caplan and Jonathan D. Moreno, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Obamacare Has Brought The Uninsured Rate Down Into Single Digits. Trump Would Repeal It.
We keep hearing that Donald Trump is vastly different ideologically from Congressional Republicans, but the reality is considerably less dramatic. Whatever Trump actually believes in his, er, heart, he is running on a range of conventional GOP positions: Tax cuts for the rich; hostility to Democratic efforts to solve the immigration problem; and, of course, repeal of Obamacare. And on that latter front, here’s another data point: On the very same day that we learned that the Affordable Care Act has brought the uninsured rate down into single digits, it emerged that Trump thinks advocating for the repeal of the ACA will be a big political winner for him in the presidential campaign. (Greg Sargent, 5/17)

Miami Herald: The Court Offers A Lesson In Compromise
The case involves the politically sensitive Affordable Care Act and one of the most polarizing aspects of the law — the provision that employers’ healthcare plans cover the cost of birth control. When the law was first proposed, religious groups complained that it would violate their moral principles to offer insurance coverage for contraception to female employees. So the Obama administration devised a half-way provision: By informing insurers of their objections, they could avoid fines, and the insurance companies or the government would pay for the coverage. Still, the religious groups demurred. They said forcing them to provide the required notice would make them complicit in what they considered morally objectionable behavior. The government thought that was a stretch and refused to give them a pass that would result in denying contraception coverage for employees who wanted it. (5/17)

Bloomberg: Hillary Clinton's Modestly Radical Idea For Medicare
Hillary Clinton wants Americans to have access to Medicare starting at age 50. It's an idea well worth considering, not least because so many Americans aged 50 to 64 who don't have job-based health insurance struggle to afford the relatively high premiums they're charged for private plans. And Medicare is a popular, battle-tested and relatively inexpensive insurance system, costing less per person than private insurance. (5/17)

Boston Globe: How To Provide Medicare For All
Medicare as it now stands is not perfect. Although it is a single-payer system within our larger market-based system, it uses the same profit-seeking providers, and its out-of-pocket costs are also growing. And it doesn’t cover everything – for example, long-term care. If the United States extended Medicare to the entire population, it would make sense also to convert to a largely nonprofit provider system. Reducing the perverse role of profit-seeking among providers, with the propensity to over-diagnosis and over-treatment, would yield much greater savings. We could then expand the Medicare benefit package and get rid of out-of-pocket costs altogether. (Marcia Angell, 5/17)

Stat: Want To Really Speed Up Cancer Research? Start Sharing More Data
One revolutionary aspect of this consortium is that the participating researchers have agreed to share not just data but also revenues from intellectual property rights derived from their discoveries. This is a crucial step — progress slows when researchers, cancer centers, and others keep information to themselves in the quest for more funding, licensing deals, and top billing in prestigious journals. (Tom Coburn and Daniel P. Petrylak, 5/17)

Bloomberg: Will The Doctor Virtually See You Now?
Google and Apple have some bright ideas about the future of health care. Not so long ago, AT&T and Verizon Communications had similar ideas: a networked world of devices and services that would revolutionize how medicine is practiced in the U.S. and, in the process, tap into a huge new vein of business. So far, it hasn't worked out that way for the telecom companies. (Scott Mortiz and Gerrit De Vynck, 5/17)

The Des Moines Register: State-Supplied Hearing Aids Help Students Succeed
In 2007, I introduced a bill to provide hearing aid coverage for kids. The idea for the bill came from an Iowa mom, Amy Pettit, who told a group of friends that her preschooler didn’t pass his hearing screening. She was surprised and frustrated to learn her health insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of his hearing aids. She worried how this impacted other children if their families couldn’t afford hearing aids. My bill was simple — to make audiological and hearing aid coverage for Iowa’s children an essential health benefit — but getting it past the insurance lobby was not. (State Sen. Janet Petersen, 5/17)

The Columbus Dispatch: Treatment Can Save Lives
Here’s a distinction Franklin County would rather not have: It is one of 15 Ohio counties chosen for an education campaign to keep people from overdosing on fentanyl. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic narcotic used to treat severe pain, caused more than 500 overdose deaths in Ohio in 2014. That’s a sixfold increase from the previous year. The drug is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and abusers often lace heroin with fentanyl. (5/18)

The Arizona Republic: Why Our Health Care System Is Seriously Flawed
After 46 years entrenched in the daily intricacies of medical practice, I have come to the stark realization that our health care system is seriously flawed, and in desperate need of reform. Here’s why. (Joel Mascaro, 5/17)