The Wall Street Journal: Congress Leery Of Trump’s Cuts To Children’s Health Program
President Donald Trump’s proposal to roll back $7 billion from the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program drew immediate bipartisan concern Tuesday, an indication of the hurdles the effort to cut federal spending will face in the Senate. The proposed cuts to the children’s health program quickly emerged as the most contentious element of Mr. Trump’s request that Congress rescind about $15 billion in funds that had been previously authorized but not spent. “It is a red flag with me,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) said of the proposed CHIP cuts, noting she was reviewing the proposal. “I’ve been a big proponent of CHIP from the beginning. It’s vital to our state.” (Peterson, 5/8)

Kaiser Health News: 4 Takeaways From Trump’s Plan To Rescind CHIP Funding
President Donald Trump wants to employ a rarely used budget maneuver called “rescission” to eliminate $15 billion in federal spending, including $7 billion from the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Administration officials insist the cuts wouldn’t negatively affect any programs — rather, they would merely return money into the Treasury that Congress appropriated but is no longer needed. ... But child health advocates are wary, particularly since the proposal comes a few months after Congress let funding authorization for CHIP lapse, which forced states to request millions in emergency contingency funds to keep children covered. (Galewitz, 5/8)

The Associated Press: CDC Boss Gets $165,300 Pay Cut From Record-Setting Salary
The new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has gotten a big salary reduction. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that Dr. Robert Redfield Jr.'s new salary will be $209,700, down from $375,000. The previous figure was at least $150,000 more than any previous CDC director had received. (5/8)

The Washington Post: CDC Director’s Salary Now Set At $209,700 Instead Of $375,000
“Dr. Redfield did not want his compensation to become a distraction from the important work of the CDC and asked that his salary be reduced,” said Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC. “Dr. Redfield is being paid in accordance with the formula used to pay the prior three CDC directors. Using that formula, his compensation for this year will be $209,700.” (Sun, 5/8)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Director’s Salary Is Reduced To $209,700 From $375,000
The unusually high rate was granted under a provision known as Title 42, which permits the Department of Health and Human Services (and the Environmental Protection Agency) to pay more than the approved government rate if the candidate fills a specific scientific need that cannot otherwise be met. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, questioned the use of the exemption in this case, suggesting last month that it might not have been appropriate. She asked the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, who oversees the C.D.C., to describe the “extensive and exhaustive effort” that was supposed to be made to find a director before hiring Dr. Redfield at the unusually high salary. (Kaplan, 5/8)

The Hill: Schumer: Dems Will Be 'Relentless' In Attacking GOP For Premium Hikes
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that Democrats are going to be “relentless” in attacking Republicans for looming ObamaCare premium hikes as Democrats seek to harness the issue for the midterm elections. Schumer pointed to proposals that have been released in recent days showing double-digit premium increases for next year, with insurers citing the GOP repeal of ObamaCare’s individual mandate among the factors driving up premiums. (Sullivan, 5/8)

Meanwhile —

The Hill: GOP Chairman In Talks With Trump Officials On More ObamaCare Actions 
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) wrote in a recent letter that bipartisan efforts to fix ObamaCare have failed and he is now turning to focus on additional actions the Trump administration can take on its own regarding the health-care law. Alexander worked for months with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on a bipartisan effort to provide funding to bring down ObamaCare premiums, but the effort fell apart in March. Alexander, in a letter to supporters sent Monday and obtained by The Hill, said he does not see any path forward for bipartisanship on the issue. (Sullivan, 5/8)

The Associated Press: House Panel OKs Plan To Grow VA Private Care, A Trump Pledge
A House committee approved a wide-ranging plan Tuesday to give veterans more freedom to see doctors outside the Veterans Affairs health system and fix a budget crisis in its troubled Choice private-sector program, a major step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump's promise to expand private care options. The $51 billion plan includes $5.2 billion to avert a catastrophic shutdown of Choice. The program is slated to run out of money as early as May 31, causing disruptions in medical care to tens of thousands of patients. (Yen, 5/8)

The Hill: House Panel Advances Major VA Reform Bill 
The legislation, called the VA Mission Act, advanced through the House Veterans' Affairs Committee by a 20-2 vote, a key first step to get the bill to President Trump for a signature before the end of the month. The bill would expand the number of veterans who are eligible to see private sector health specialists, as well as entitle veterans enrolled in the VA system to see a private doctor twice a year without a copay. (Weixel, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: VA Choice Bill Clears First Hurdle As May 31 Deadline Approaches
Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota, ranking Democrat on the House VA Committee, and Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) opposed the VA Choice changes, signaling that the long-simmering tension between the Trump administration and Congress over the legislation linger as lawmakers press to get the bill to President Donald Trump's desk by the end of May. Walz blamed the White House for strong-arming key Democratic requests that included a yearly VA review of the agency's decision to send veterans to community providers. Walz also wanted to exempt Choice funding from potential sequester cuts; the funding would move from mandatory to discretionary spending under the legislation. (Luthi, 5/8)

The Associated Press: Drug Supply Firm Execs Say They Didn't Cause Opioids Crisis
Top executives of the nation's leading wholesale drug distributors told Congress under oath Tuesday that their companies didn't help cause the nation's deadly opioid epidemic, drawing bipartisan wrath that included one lawmaker suggesting prison terms for some company officials. The confrontation came at a House subcommittee hearing at which legislators asked why huge numbers of potentially addictive prescription opioid pills had been shipped to West Virginia, among the states hardest hit by the drug crisis. Lawmakers are making an election-year push for legislation aimed at curbing a growing epidemic that saw nearly 64,000 people die last year from drug overdoses, two-thirds from opioids. (Fram, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Opioid Crisis: Drug Executives Express Regret To Congress On Tuesday, One Says His Company Contributed To The Epidemic
A major distributor of powerful painkillers apologized Tuesday for the company’s role in facilitating the flow of highly addictive painkillers into U.S. communities, the first time a corporation has expressed regret for involvement in the opioid crisis. George Barrett, executive chairman of Cardinal Health, said he is sorry the company did not act faster to impede the shipping of millions of hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to two small pharmacies in West Virginia. The state has the nation’s highest rate of opioid overdose death; the epidemic now claims tens of thousands of lives each year. (Zezima and Higham, 5/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Opioid Shipments To Small Towns Come Under Spotlight At Hearing
Most company executives told a House hearing that their companies’ actions didn’t fan the opioid epidemic in the state. But some acknowledged the industry shipped too many pills and failed to identify major abuses in overprescribing. “With the benefit of hindsight, I wish we had moved faster and asked a different set of questions. I am deeply sorry we did not,” said George Barrett, executive board chairman of Cardinal Health Inc. Only one executive, Joseph Mastandrea, chairman of Miami-Luken Inc. said that his company had a “shared responsibility” for the opioid crisis.The testimony marked a pivotal juncture in a year-long bipartisan investigation by a House Energy and Commerce oversight panel into alleged pill dumping in West Virginia. (Armour and Burton, 5/8)

Stat: Congressman To Drug Distributors: 'I Just Want You To Feel Shame'
“I just want you to feel shame,” Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) told the executives at one point, suggesting that financial penalties were insufficient and alluding to jail time. “So what’s the proper accountability? What’s the punishment? It’s just a slap on the wrist? Maybe a hundredth of one percent of the revenue? What’s the punishment that fits this crime?” (Facher, 5/9)

The Hill: Distributor Executive Apologizes For Large Opioid Shipments 
From 2007 to 2012, distributors sent more than 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia, about half of which came from AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, according to a memo from the Energy and Commerce Committee’s majority staff. “We have learned much from the investigation but still have many questions,” the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), said in his opening statement. (Roubein, 5/8)

Politico: Opioid Distributors Blame Pharmacies, Docs For Crisis
Lawmakers on Wednesday showed bipartisan interest in trying to force the executives to take responsibility and chastised several of them for not being upfront with details. Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) recounted how one West Virginia town of about 400 people received 9 million opioid pills in two years and how a single pharmacy in a town of 1,800 people got 17 million opioid pills in a decade. Since the 1970s, drug distributors have been responsible for flagging suspicious orders and monitoring sales — something Walden suggested has not been done. (Haberkorn and Ehley, 5/8)

The Wall Street Journal: California Counties Jump Into Opioid Litigation
As lawsuits over the opioid crisis have spread nationwide, the country’s most populous state has largely stayed on the sidelines. Now, 30 counties in California are jumping in, seeking recovery for alleged taxpayer losses from the major makers and distributors of opioid painkillers. The counties, largely centered in the rural northern and central regions of the state, are each filing lawsuits in federal court. The actions will likely be sent to a federal judge in Ohio, who is overseeing hundreds of opioid lawsuits filed across the country. (Randazzo, 5/8)

In other news on the opioid crisis —

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Despite Opioid Crisis, Louisiana May Cut Drug Treatment Options
Louisiana is in the middle of an opioid crisis, but a pervasive state budget shortfall may lead the state to eliminate some drug and alcohol treatment options for people with Medicaid after July 1. The latest state budget proposal, passed by the Louisiana House, scraps $47 million worth of state and federal funding that pays for outpatient drug and alcohol treatment programs for adults enrolled in Medicaid. In January, 4,600 people were using services paid for with this money that would no longer be available, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. (O'Donoghue, 5/8)

CQ: Experts Say Labor Agency Could Learn From States' Opioid Limits
The federal workers' compensation program has fallen behind state programs in taking on the opioid crisis, witnesses told a House subcommittee Tuesday. Opioid prescriptions in worker compensation programs are higher than the national averages and often don’t comply with best prescribing practices, the experts told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. (McIntire, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: New Venture Capital Firm To Focus On Companies Serving Poor, High-Needs Patients 
A new venture capital firm co-led by former CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt will seek to invest in healthcare technology and service companies that deliver innovative care to low-income, high-needs populations. Town Hall Ventures will focus on building companies that provide higher-quality and lower-cost care for poor, underserved communities, particularly involving Medicare, Medicaid, risk-based care, complex care and the social determinants of health. Its leaders see a big opportunity to improve care for the 120 million people in Medicare and Medicaid through innovations such as better models for delivering care at home or in other comfortable and low-cost settings. (5/8)

CNBC: Andy Slavitt Adds Trevor Price And David Whelan To Town Hall Ventures
Slavitt's Town Hall Ventures is officially launching this week at HLTH, a health-care conference in Las Vegas. Joining Slavitt are Trevor Price and David Whelan from Oxeon Partners, a New York-based company with an executive search and investment arm. Town Hall got its name from a series of visits Slavitt made to town halls across the country to answer questions about the Affordable Care Act, as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans aimed to repeal and replace it last year. Slavitt, who ran Medicare under President Barack Obama and helped implement the ACA, was a vocal advocate of upholding the legislation, known as Obamacare. (Farr, 5/8)

The Star Tribune: Former Medicare Chief And UnitedHealth Executive Andy Slavitt Launches Health-Focused Venture-Capital Firm
"We are at the beginning of a wave of innovations serving Medicare and Medicaid populations," Slavitt said in a statement. "Town Hall is being formed to help lead this massive and necessary shift. "While at UnitedHealth Group, Slavitt oversaw the portion of the Optum health services division that rescued the HealthCare.gov website following its disastrous rollout during the fall of 2013. Later, he took a job with the Obama administration, serving as acting administrator of the massive federal agency that runs the Medicare and Medicaid health insurance programs. (Snowbeck, 5/8)

The Associated Press: US Panel Leaves Prostate Screening Up To Men, Their Doctors
Whether to get screened for prostate cancer is a question that men aged 55 to 69 should decide themselves in consultation with their doctors, according to finalized guidance issued Tuesday by an influential panel of health care experts. New evidence suggests that PSA blood tests can slightly reduce the chances of dying from the disease for some men, so those decisions may be a little easier. Though screening can sometimes lead to drastic, needless treatment, the panel says that can sometimes be avoided with close monitoring when cancer is detected. (5/8)

Los Angeles Times: Experts Have New Advice On Prostate Cancer Screening. Here's Why They Put It Back On The Table
For men 70 and older, the task force stuck with an earlier recommendation against routine prostate cancer screening. The new guidance for men in late middle age is an unusual reversal of advice the panel offered in 2012. At that time, the task force suggested that for most men at any age, getting screened for prostate cancer just wasn't worth the risks — including anxiety, infection, erectile dysfunction and incontinence — of the unnecessary treatment that too often came with it. (Healy, 5/8)

Stat: Can Precision Medicine Do For Depression What It's Done For Cancer?
The idea of precision medicine for depression is quickly gaining ground — just last month, Stanford announced it is establishing a Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness. And depression is one of many diseases targeted by All of Us, the National Institute of Health campaign launched this month to collect DNA and other data from 1 million Americans. Doctors have been treating cancer patients this way for years, but the underlying biology of mental illness is not as well understood. (Thielking, 5/9)

The Associated Press: Duped Patients Crowdfund For Bogus Medical Care, Study Says
They're the tech-age version of donor jars at the diner: crowdfunding websites that aim to link ailing people with strangers willing to help pay for medical treatment. But new research suggests duped patients sometimes crowdfund to pay for bogus stem cell treatments. A study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on for-profit clinics that use direct-to-consumer advertising for costly unproven stem-cell treatments for conditions including chronic lung disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Treatments are often marketed as cures or with a promise for vastly improved health. (Tanner, 5/8)

NPR: Video Game Processors And Artificial Intelligence Take Scientists Inside Living Cells
A new application of artificial intelligence could help researchers solve medical mysteries ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's. It's a 3D model of a living human cell that lets scientists study the interior structures of a cell even when they can only see the exterior and the nucleus — the largest structure in a cell. The model was unveiled to the public Wednesday by the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle. (Hamilton, 5/9)

The New York Times: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?
Exercise changes the brains and sperm of male animals in ways that later affect the brains and thinking skills of their offspring, according to a fascinating new study involving mice. The findings indicate that some of the brain benefits of physical activity may be passed along to children, even if a father does not begin to exercise until adulthood. (Reynolds, 5/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Tiger Woods Takes Ibuprofen To Prevent Back Pain. Should You?
It was as casual as pulling out a driver. As Tiger Woods stood in the 10th tee box on the first day of the Masters, he removed a white bottle from his bag, poured two white pills into his hand and swallowed them. “It’s called ibuprofen,” Woods explained afterward. “My surgeon says to take it all day.” The mid-round medication has become a form of preventive maintenance for Woods, who has said he is feeling better lately than he has in several years. And for him, after four back surgeries, it appears to be working. His comeback continues in this week’s Players Championship. (Costa, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Woman With A Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak — Not Allergies — Has Surgery At Nebraska Medicine
For years, Kendra Jackson battled an incessantly runny nose — sniffling and sneezing, blowing and losing sleep each night. Jackson said she initially thought she was getting a cold, then, as her symptoms persisted, doctors suggested it was likely seasonal allergies, putting her among the more than 50 million Americans who struggle with them each year. But the symptoms never cleared up, and, as the years went by, Jackson started to worry that it might be something worse. (Bever, 5/8)

Los Angeles Times: 'We Are Humans Too': Voices Of UCLA's Striking Custodians, Hospital Aides And Imaging Technicians
This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it won’t meet the workers’ demands. (Resmovits, 5/8)

Los Angeles Times: UC Labor Strike Expands With Show Of Support From More Unions
Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of California's largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. (Watanabe, 5/8)

KQED: UC Nurses, Hospital Staff Join Service Workers' Strike
The California Nurses’ Association and the University Professional and Technical Employees, which are also in contract negotiations with UC, called a sympathy strike for Tuesday and Wednesday. “Our hearts are torn. We want to be inside taking care of patients but we know that we need to be outside supporting our brothers and sisters from AFSCME,” said UCSF recovery nurse Erin Carrera. (Dillon, 5/8)

Sacramento Bee: UC Strike Day 2: Nurses March With Strikers At UC Davis Medical Center
While the unions did provide a 10-day notice prior to striking, UC Davis did not negotiate nurse staffing levels with CNA, said Toby Marsh, chief nursing officer at UC Davis Medical Center. "We didn't know how many nurses would participate," he said. (Sullivan and Anderson, 5/8)

The Associated Press: Bill On Guns And Mental Health Stalls In Colorado Capitol
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock begged state lawmakers to pass legislation making it easier to confiscate firearms from someone considered a danger to themselves or others. People, he said, like the man who shot and killed a young sheriff's deputy in suburban Denver on New Year's Eve. A week later, Republicans in the state Senate refused to send the bill to a floor vote, unconvinced by the prominent GOP district attorneys and sheriffs who argued that it would protect officers dealing with people in the midst of mental health crises. (5/8)

San Jose Mercury News: Abortion Activists Protest Outside Google Over Search Results
As Google kicked off its annual I/O developers conference on Tuesday, women’s advocacy activists protested outside its campus to demand the removal of anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” from search results for abortion services. ...The two groups argue that when someone searches on Google for abortion services or on Google Maps for nearby abortion centers, crisis pregnancy centers often emerge at the top of the results. (Lee, 5/8)

The CT Mirror: Bills Approved Mandating 'Essential Benefits,' Helping Uninsured Pregnant Women
A bill headed to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s desk would give uninsured women the ability to sign up for health insurance after they learn they are pregnant. The bill would make pregnancy a “qualifying life event,” like the birth of a child or a job loss, so expectant mothers could enroll in individual health insurance plans outside of the yearly open enrollment period. (Rigg, 5/8)

Georgia Health News: Governor Vetoes Senate Bill For New Health Policy Chief And Innovation Council
Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed legislation Tuesday that would have created a state health policy director and a council to develop a “strategic vision’’ for Georgia health care. In his veto message, Deal said Senate Bill 357, “while well-intentioned, creates several unnecessary additional levels of government.’’ (Miller, 5/8)

The Associated Press: UMaine Brings Goats To Campus To Help Stressed Students
The University of Maine has deployed a herd of goats to help students get through a stressful finals season at the end of the semester. There was a line of students waiting this week to get close to the goats. WABI-TV reports the goal of the goats is to cheer students up who may be dealing with stress. (5/9)

The CT Mirror: Reforms To Stem Whiting Abuses Head To The Governor
Spurred by urgent demands that horrific abuse at Whiting Forensic never happen again, the state House of Representatives unanimously gave final approval to a series of reforms designed to increase oversight of the facility. ... Among other things, the bill creates an independent task force to oversee Whiting and makes employees there and at other state behavioral health facilities subject to fines or even criminal charges if they fail to report abuse. (Rigg, 5/8)

Boston Globe: Experts Puzzle Over Partners-Harvard Pilgrim Merger Talks
The state’s largest hospital network confirmed last week that it is discussing a range of options with Harvard Pilgrim, including a possible acquisition of the Wellesley-based provider of employer and individual insurance plans. A merger, which would create a formidable new health care company, could result in higher costs for consumers and reduced competition, several industry experts said, ensuring tough scrutiny from state regulators who are focused on containing the growth in medical spending. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/8)

Texas Tribune: How Understaffing Is Hurting Inmates And Officers Alike At Texas' Telford Unit Prison
By many accounts, the Telford prison is in trouble. In recent interviews, inmates claimed they were malnourished from being fed small, sometimes rotting sack meals in their cells and rarely got to go outside. And former correctional officers said they felt unsafe, forced to cut corners and work too much overtime in a unit that holds more than 2,500 men. (McCullough, 5/9)

The Baltimore Sun: Protesters Denounce Reduction In Pediatric Services At Baltimore's MedStar Franklin Square Hospital
About 75 people gathered outside MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center Tuesday to protest the hospital’s decision to cut back pediatric services. They carried signs that said “Greed Kills Babies,” “Children’s Lives Matter” and “Children Over Profit,” and described the hospital’s decision as detrimental to the community. ...The hospital announced last month that it was cutting inpatient children’s services and combining the pediatric and adult emergency rooms, citing declining pediatric admissions amid a statewide effort to reduce hospitalizations to save money in the health care system. (McDaniels, 5/8)

Sacramento Bee: Sutter Health Employees Testify They Were Denied Breaks
At hearings unfolding this week and next week at the California Labor Commissioner's Office, Sutter Health employees testified that they were not able to take meal breaks or rest breaks because of chronic understaffing in their departments at Sutter’s Capitol Pavilion Surgical Center in midtown Sacramento. In total, about 30 employees at the Capitol Pavilion Surgery Center are requesting thousands of dollars in compensation for both meal and rest breaks that they say they were forced to miss. (Anderson, 5/8)

Austin Statesman: Austin-Based Company Settles Lawsuit In Medical Testing Case
An Irish woman who claims an Austin-based medical testing company provided her with erroneous test results has settled her case for almost $3 million, according to published reports. ...In 2014, as part of an audit, it was reportedly determined that the woman, Vicky Phelan, had been given inaccurate results. (Dinges, 5/8)

WBUR: Mass. High Court Considers Fining AG Office In Drug Lab Case
The SJC is reviewing whether to impose monetary sanctions against the attorney general because two former assistant attorneys general did not disclose evidence about the extent of the misconduct by former chemist Sonja Farak. A lower court judge found that the two former AGs committed fraud by withholding evidence about Farak's drug use. (Becker, 5/8)

Georgia Health News: National Activist Hails State’s New Law On Child Sex Abuse Education
[Erin] Merryn was in Georgia on Tuesday at the signing ceremony for Senate Bill 401. This new state law requires that public school students from kindergarten through the ninth grade get annual, age-appropriate education about sexual abuse and assault and how to prevent them. (Miller, 5/8)

The Star Tribune: Lettuce E. Coli Outbreak Reaches Minnesota, With 10 Cases Reported 
Ten Minnesotans have been sickened and three hospitalized after eating romaine lettuce that has been linked to multiple E. coli infections across the country. The 10 are Minnesota’s first cases in a national outbreak of toxic E. coli O157 that has sickened more than 121 people and caused one death. (Olson, 5/8)

Arizona Republic: E. Coli Reported At Red Lobster, Panera And Texas Roadhouse
Two women who say they ate salads at an Arizona Red Lobster were hospitalized with the same strain of E. coli that has killed one person and sickened 120 others in 25 states, according to separate federal lawsuits. The women tell nearly identical accounts in their lawsuits, saying days after eating Caesar salads at the Red Lobster in Peoria they began suffering cramps and bloody diarrhea that put them in the hospital for four days. (Anglen, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Hepatitis C: Nurse Accused Of Using Dirty Needles And Exposing Patients To Infection
A Washington state emergency room nurse has resigned and her license has been suspended after accusations that she exposed patients to hepatitis C by stealing narcotics and using her own needle to administer their medication. Officials with the State Department of Health said Monday that Cora Weberg’s nursing license has been suspended “due to alleged diversion of controlled substances.” (Bever, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Company Sold $25,000 ‘Service Dogs’ That Were Really Just Untrained Puppies, Virginia Says
Customers turned to Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers for a potentially lifesaving tool: highly trained dogs that would alert them, with the nudge of a nose or paw, to spikes or dips in blood sugar. What they got, the state of Virginia alleged on Tuesday, were “little more than incredibly expensive pets.” A lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Mark R. Herring in the Madison County Circuit Court, accuses the company of violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act by charging $18,000 to $27,000 for 3-month-old Labrador retriever puppies that were unable to perform their task or even to walk properly on leashes, respond when called, or remain calm around loud noises or new people. Customers were told that they would receive ample “scent training” support; instead, their requests for assistance were regularly ignored, the suit says. (Brulliard, 5/8)

Politico: Trump’s 'America First' Agenda On Drug Pricing Could Backfire Around The World
President Donald Trump wants Americans to get lower prices for medicines — and the rest of the world may pay for it. His "America First" message on drugs at home, coupled with pro-pharmaceutical industry policies abroad, could lead to higher costs for patients around the world — without making drugs more affordable for those in the U.S. Trump on Friday plans to deliver his long-promised speech on how to lower drug costs, addressing an industry he has in the past accused of "getting away with murder." (Karlin-Smith and Wheaton, 5/9)

CNN Money: Just Who Gets Those Big Drug Price Rebates?
Prescription drug manufacturers dole out billions of dollars in rebates every year, but these savings don't usually trickle down directly to consumers. That may change if the Trump administration has its way. Officials are looking to require insurers to pass at least part of these concessions along to Medicare beneficiaries, which could prompt changes in the broader insurance market as well. Drug rebates have become an essential, but opaque part of the pharmaceutical industry. However, they are now in the spotlight as the Trump administration seeks ways to lower drug prices. President Donald Trump is expected to give a speech this week on drug prices, with rebates playing a central role. (Luhby, 5/7)

Stat: With No Insurance, Amish Want Discount On Spark's Pricey Gene Therapy
The meeting could determine whether the two young siblings would keep going blind. The doctor knew that going in, but he was feeling good. He’d negotiated huge discounts before, allowing patients to get complex surgeries or budget-busting drugs they otherwise couldn’t afford. And his last two conversations with Spark Therapeutics had been promising. Then again, at $850,000 a person, Luxturna was more budget-busting than just about any other drug. Spark had proposed a few different ways of helping insurers to cover the gene therapy — but Dr. Kevin Strauss’ patients tend not to have insurance. As the medical director of the Clinic for Special Children, on the outskirts of Strasburg, Pa., he mostly sees members of the Plain community: Old Order Amish and Mennonite families, who believe that caring for the sick and the elderly is a community’s responsibility. (Boodman, 5/7)

CNBC: First US Drug Priced At More Than $1 Million May Be On The Horizon
In the paradoxical world of drug pricing, the first U.S. price tag exceeding $1 million for a medicine is being contemplated as the nation's agita over the cost of prescription drugs climbs ever higher. New gene therapies that aim to cure hemophilia, a disease affecting the blood's ability to clot, may carry prices of $1.5 million or more, analysts at Leerink wrote in a research note Monday. Gene therapies deliver a healthy copy of a gene to make up for a defective one that causes disease, aiming to cure — or at least significantly improve — the malady in just one treatment. Such therapies for hemophilia are in development at drugmakers BioMarin, Spark Therapeutics and UniQure. (Tirrell, 5/7)

Governing: States Want Control Over Drug Prices. Will The Feds Give It To Them?
While Congress remains gridlocked on health-care reforms -- particularly regarding drug prices -- states are increasingly taking matters into their own hands. In September, Massachusetts submitted a waiver to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that asks permission to exclude certain drugs from its Medicaid program, MassHealth. It’s a bold step, says Tom Dehner, Massachusetts' former Medicaid director. The move, he says, is an attemp to "take the next step in managing costs." (Quinn, 5/7)

Stat: John Arnold: 'These Pricing Trends Can't Continue'
Over the last few years, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation has tried to influence the national conversation over rising prescription drug costs by funding pilot projects and academic research. Despite increasing scrutiny of their motives, the couple generally lets their work do the talking. But last Friday, John Arnold made a rare appearance before a select group of mostly drug company employees, as well as a few academics and patient advocates. (Silverman, 5/7)

Stat: In A Message To Pharma, One-Fifth Of AbbVie Shareholders Support Proposal Tying Pricing Risks To Exec Pay 
In yet another rebuke to the pharmaceutical industry, nearly 22 percent of AbbVie (ABBV) shareholders voted in favor of a proposal that requires the drug maker to compile reports about the risks created by high prices and examine the extent to which pricing strategies propel executive compensation. This marks the second time this week that a notable portion of shareholders in a big drug company have signaled that rising prices for medicines are a concern. On Tuesday, 22 percent of Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) stockholders also voted in favor of such a proposal. (Silverman, 5/4)

Bloomberg: Takeda Moves To Join Pharma Giants With $62 Billion Shire Deal
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is joining the drug industry’s giants with Japan’s biggest overseas takeover -- a $62 billion deal for much larger rival Shire Plc.Chief Executive Officer Christophe Weber capped a drawn-out pursuit of the U.K.-listed company with an acquisition he described as transformational that will give Takeda wider reach into the world’s biggest drug market and strengthen its global pipeline for lucrative drugs that treat rare diseases. (Du and Takahashi, 5/8)

Stat: Martin Shkreli Was Hardly An Outlier When It Came To Jacking Up Prices On Older Drugs 
Specifically, among 67 older drugs with either one rival generic medicine or no competition at all, 37 were sold since 2000. And of those, the median price rose to $11.05 after the acquisition from $4.69, according to the analysis, which was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. At the same time, the median price of those drugs was higher, though not statistically significant, than the median price of drugs that did not change hands — $22.12 vs. $8.60, to be precise. And the median price of generic versions of brand-name drugs sold was higher than generic versions of brand-name drugs that did not change hands — $9.26 vs. $3.70, but again not statistically significant. (Silverman, 5/2)

Stat: Novartis Paid Shell Company Controlled By Trump's Attorney
In an unexpected twist, Novartis has gotten caught up in the messy investigation into Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney. The drug maker apparently entered into a previously undisclosed agreement with Essential Consultants, which is reportedly a shell company that Cohen used to make payments for various matters. (Silverman, 5/8)

The CT Mirror: Drug-Price Transparency Bill Passes Legislature With No Dissent
A bill designed to help Connecticut officials peer into the black box of drug pricing won final approval from a unanimous state Senate early Wednesday. Proponents of the measure called it a necessary first step toward curbing expensive prescription drug prices. Approval also was unanimous in the House on Friday, and the bill now heads to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s desk. (Rigg, 5/9)

CBS 60 Minutes: The Problem With Prescription Drug Pricing
The Rockford File is the story of how one very expensive prescription drug threatened to financially cripple an entire city. That city is Rockford, Illinois, an old industrial town outside of Chicago. Rather than using a health insurance company, Rockford has, for years, paid its own health care costs for its 1,000 employees and their dependents. When Rockford got hit with the drug bill it was so enormous the mayor at the time set out to understand why. Larry Morrissey: Everybody's asking the question, "Why is health care so expensive?" Because the fix is in. That's the answer. That's the short answer. (Stahl, 5/6)

CNBC: Mallinckrodt Shares Rebound After '60 Minutes' Report On Drug Prices
A "60 Minutes" investigation has put the price of one of Mallinckrodt's drugs under the microscope, but it isn't weighing on the pharmaceutical giant's stock price. The report, which ran on CBS on Sunday, focused on a lawsuit filed by the city of Rockford, Illinois. The lawsuit said the combined cost for two young patients treated with Mallinckrodt's drug, HP Acthar Gel, totaled close to half a million dollars. The drug is used to treat a rare and potentially fatal condition affecting 2,000 babies each year. (Reed, 5/7)

Business Insider: Rockford-Mallinckrodt-Express Scripts Drug-Pricing Lawsuit
The city of Rockford, Illinois runs its own health plan for its hundreds of police, firefighters, and other city workers. And a couple of years ago city officials watching the books noticed something weird about its healthcare spending. Two babies on Rockford's health insurance were eating up 2.5% of the plan's total budget. That money wasn't going for heroic surgeries or cancer treatment. Instead, the infants were being given a drug to stop infantile spasms, which is serious but easy to treat. (Ramsey, 5/7)

Bloomberg: The U.S. Is Facing An EpiPen Shortage
Adults and children with severe allergies are experiencing problems finding EpiPens after issues with manufacturing of the lifesaving devices, according to patients and pharmacists. More than 400 patients in 45 states have reported difficulty filling prescriptions for Mylan NV’s allergy devices and other auto-injectors containing the active ingredient epinephrine since May 2, James Baker, chief executive officer of patient-advocacy group Food Allergy Research & Education, said in an interview. (Edney, 5/8)

KCUR: Locked Up And Untreated: One Missouri Inmate’s Quest For Hepatitis C Treatment 
About one in seven prison inmates in Missouri have hepatitis C, a slow-moving but potentially deadly liver infection that is often spread through drug needles or sexual contact. However, almost none of those inmates gets treated, and, as [Joe] Watson discovered, even the most motivated to get care still face long odds ... Unlike older interferon-based treatment, which is highly toxic and often doesn’t work, direct-acting antiviral drugs, the first of which was approved in the US in 2013, are highly effective at treating hepatitis C with far fewer side effects. (Smith, 5/8)

The CT Mirror: House Unanimously Passes Bill To Shine Light On Drug Industry
The state House of Representatives unanimously approved a comprehensive bill that aims to shed light on the murky prescription drug industry, which state officials say is a necessary first step to lowering expensive drug costs. (Rigg, 5/4)

13 WTHR Indianapolis: Mom Takes On Lilly, High Drug Prices 
A Minneapolis mom is taking on taking on Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company.Nicole Smith Holt says she lost a son to diabetes and the skyrocketing costs of insulin. On Monday, Holt joined a small group protesting outside of Lilly's annual shareholders meeting, demanding answers and changes."My son's life was cut short because insulin cost too much." Holt said. (Van Wyk, 5/7)

Georgia Health News: Corporate Greed Gives Americans A Raw Deal On Drug Prices
Scandalous examples of corporate greed (remember the recent conviction of Martin Shkreli, also known as the “Pharma Bro” CEO, who received a 7-year sentence for fraud) point to the fact that the underlying reasons for higher pricing include ever-increasing corporate executive compensation, lavish corporate spending and unwarranted shareholder earnings. Just as in military expenditures — in which we Americans contribute much more than all our allies combined — the U.S. is permitting itself to be exploited by the rest of the world in the pharmaceutical sector. (Jack Bernard and Doug Skelton, 5/4)

Bloomberg: Hold On A Second, Valeant Is Still Valeant
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. wants investors to believe that it’s not the same old Valeant — so much so, that it’s even changing its name. The truth is, it won’t be that easy to turn the page. On Tuesday, the drugmaker released first-quarter earnings, beating analysts’ estimates for adjusted Ebitda and raising its full-year Ebitda and revenue guidance. The stock popped more than 14 percent in early trading as investors applauded these signs of incremental progress. Valeant also announced a change on the branding side: As of July, it will go by the name of Bausch Health Cos. (Max Nisen, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: Growth In Prescription Drug Spending Outpaces Inflation And Spending In Other Healthcare Sectors.
When the latest version of the iPhone comes out, customers can judge whether the price is "worth it" to them. In other words, consumers make decisions whether, from their perspective, price and value are aligned. The conditions for an efficiently operating market are met. There's competition, a free flow of information regarding the product, and transparency regarding pricing. Not so with prescription drugs. (Joshua P. Cohen, 5/7)

Springfield News-Leader: Combating Rising Drug Prices For Missourians
During the town halls I’ve held across Missouri in the last year, I’ve heard the concerns of thousands of Missourians. And despite what’s on cable news, I didn’t get inundated with questions about political scandals, Washington gossip or partisan food fights. But what I did hear over and over again from Missourians — young and old, from across the political spectrum — is that they’re getting hit hard by the rising cost of prescription drugs. I heard stories of paychecks and budgets simply not keeping pace with prices that skyrocket year after year. And many of these described increases aren’t on fancy new medicines, they’re for the drugs they’re currently taking. I wanted to get to the bottom of what was happening and how quickly prices were rising for some of the most popular drugs. (Sen. Claire McCaskill, 5/2)

The Hill: Congress Needs To Give CMS The Authority To Conduct Prepayment Reviews
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a final rule (CMS-4182-F) that updates the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicare prescription drug benefit program (Part D). This will provide incentives to encourage fraud reduction activities defined as the prevention, identification and recovery of fraud. CMS notes that reducing fraud can improve patient safety, deter the use of medically unnecessary services and can lead to higher levels of health-care quality. We agree. We also support CMS’ assertion that fraud reduction activities are particularly important given the financial challenges facing the Medicare Trust Funds, which are supported by taxpayer dollars. (Kristin Walter, 5/7)

Forbes: Creating An Affordable Health Care System Requires More Than Rounding Up The Usual Suspects
Health care is becoming less affordable every year. Over the past 10 years, national healthcare expenditures have grown 45 percent, but our economy has grown only 28 percent. This isn't sustainable; and, solving this problem should be a top policy priority. However, “rounding up the usual suspects,” as Captain Renault might suggest, will not make U.S. health care system more affordable.One of the usual suspects is drug costs. Polling shows the American public blames pharmaceutical companies for high healthcare prices, perhaps explaining why politicians continue to float various direct and indirect price controls on drugs. (Wayne Winegarden, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Are Republicans Really Proposing To Cut Funding For Poor Kids’ Health Insurance?
The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve a $7 billion cut to the Children's Health Insurance Program as part of a package to reduce a range of previously agreed upon federal spending. Republicans say none of the money being cut was going toward helping children and that their plan would just strike money that has been approved but is not being spent on a specific program. Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to cut a program that provides health insurance for 9 million children in the United States, many of whom live in poverty. So, which version is right? (Jeff Stein, 5/8)

Los Angeles Times: Just Three Months After Congress Gave Children's Healthcare A 10-Year Lifeline, Trump Reneges
Those of us with long memories — defined in this turbocharged world as memories that date back more than 90 days — will recall that one of the biggest cliffhangers of that bygone season involved the funding of the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. CHIP, which costs the federal government a paltry $14.5 billion a year but covers 9 million children and pregnant mothers, finally got funded by Congress in January, more than three months after the lawmakers allowed it to expire. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/8)

Stat: Transparency On Quality And Price Will Transform Medicine
Transparency is becoming a fashionable buzzword in many walks of life. In health care, it is rearranging the relationships between patients and those who care for them. Looking at health care from different vantage points, we believe that transparent interactions among patients, clinicians, and payers hold considerable promise for improving the quality of health care and containing costs. Here’s our vision for how health care may soon evolve. (Suzanne Delbanco and Tom DelBanco, 5/9)

USA Today: Opioid Distributors Flooded Communities With Painkillers. They Deny It.
Even as overdoses and deaths from prescription painkillers devastated the nation, two of the largest drug distributors in the United States delivered at least 12.3 million opioid painkillers to a single pharmacy in tiny Mount Gay-Shamrock, W.Va. — population 1,779 — over eight years starting in 2006. That’s more than 6,900 pills for every man, woman and child in the small town. Even that accounts for only a fraction of the prescription opioids that distributors pumped into rural towns in West Virginia — a state with the nation’s highest rate of overdose deaths in 2016. Did any of these sophisticated corporations think there was something odd about millions of pills going to independent pharmacies in rural areas? On Tuesday, top executives of five opioid distributors had their chance to answer before a House committee that has been investigating pill dumping in West Virginia. The moment produced a couple of apologies, a bunch of lame excuses and an astonishing assertion by four of the executives that their companies made no contribution to the opioid epidemic that has killed 300,000 people in the USA since 1999. (5/8)

USA Today: Don’t Blame Opioid Crisis On Pharmaceutical Distributors
America’s pharmaceutical distributors understand that the opioid epidemic is a public health emergency, requiring the urgent attention of everyone involved in health care. We have invested heavily in our diversion-prevention capabilities and in our communities to help fight this epidemic. In addition, we support aggressive policy measures that would significantly reduce the overprescribing of opioids. Distributors are logistics experts. We neither prescribe, manufacture, promote nor dispense medicines. Thus, attempting to blame us for a problem that developed because of widespread medical practice and federal policy is a serious distortion of reality. (John M. Gray, 5/8)

The Washington Post: The Creepy, Dark Side Of DNA Databases
When DNA evidence led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo in the Golden State Killer case last month, there was considerable relief and celebration among investigators, survivors and the public at-large. But as the public learned the details of the investigation — that investigators had uploaded a detailed genetic profile created from crime-scene DNA to a public genealogical database to find matches to relatives — companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com were quick to announce that they hadn’t been involved. (Vera Eidelman, 5/8)

The Hill: HIV's Ancient 'Cousin' Is Ravaging Australia And Could Spread Worldwide
Central Australia is being ravaged by an epidemic of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1, or HTLV-1. A staggering 40 percent of adults in rural Australia are infected. This epidemic is in addition to the estimated 10-20 million people infected with HTLV-1 globally.Ten percent of people infected with HTLV-1 will develop certain kinds of cancer, lung disease and chronic degenerative diseases such as adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, bronchiectasis and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. Further, the HTLV-1 virus weakens the immune system, increasing the chances that those infected will develop other illnesses, including HIV. (Noelle Sullivan, 5/8)

Bloomberg: What We Know About Gun Violence - Bloomberg
If Americans were 25 times as likely to die of cancer as citizens of other wealthy nations, the federal government would be pouring billions into research to find the causes. Yet there is much less interest in examining why the U.S. gun homicide rate is 25 times as high as in peer countries. For Americans ages 15 to 24, the rate is 49 times as high. Among two dozen wealthy nations combined, nine of every 10 youths murdered with a gun are Americans, as are nine of 10 women. No other successful nation tolerates a tide of roughly 100 shooting deaths per day. The U.S. government has spent just 1.6 percent as much on gun policy research in recent decades as it has on other leading causes of mortality, such as traffic crashes or sepsis, the RAND Corporation has found. (5/4)

The Washington Post: Here’s What Trump Doesn’t Know About Knives, Guns And Murder
Many in Britain took great exception to President Trump’s comments about the rash of knife attacks and murders that have plagued London in recent months. Speaking to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention last week, Trump called back to an old NRA talking point when, after noting Britain’s “unbelievably tough gun laws,” he added, “they don’t have guns, they have knives and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say it’s as bad as a military war zone hospital.” (Robert J. Spitzer, 5/9)

Chicago Tribune: ER Workers On Chicago Gang Violence: 'We’re In A War Zone Too'
When two women were shot standing outside Chicago’s Mount Sinai Hospital the other night — waiting for news of a relative who’d himself been shot earlier — a witness asked a Tribune reporter:“What kind of city do we live in?” The next day the hospital was locked down because of a virtual riot in the lobby. Chicago is heading toward a mayoral election year so City Hall insists that crime is down. But ER workers — the nurses and doctors who deal with threats and angry families and friends of gang members — know different. (John Kass, 5/8)

Des Moines Register: Hold Reynolds Accountable For Fetal Heartbeat Law
Imagine the world if men could get pregnant: Birth control would likely be available without a prescription. Abortion might not even be controversial. Men would never tolerate government forcing them to carry a fetus in their bodies for nine months, give birth and change the entire trajectory of their lives. But it is women, not men, who get pregnant. So it was generations of women who fought to secure access to contraception and the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. It was women who were so desperate not to have a child, they underwent botched abortions or self-induced them and sometimes died. And it's women more often then men who raise children without help from a partner. Now Iowa’s female governor has betrayed Iowa women. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who grew up during a period of history when women were allowed to make their own personal health decisions, signed into law a bill that strips other women of those decisions, their freedom and their rights.  (5/8)

The New York Times: Michigan’s Discriminatory Work Requirements
For those who are too poor to afford health insurance, Medicaid is a lifeline. This joint federal and state program doesn’t care whether you’re white or black, Christian or Muslim, Republican or Democrat, a city dweller or a rural resident. In states that expanded their Medicaid programs under Obamacare, all you have to be is poor enough to qualify. But maybe not in Michigan. Last month, the State Senate passed a bill that would require Medicaid beneficiaries to find work or else lose their coverage. (Nicholas Bagley and Eli Savit, 5/8)

The Baltimore Sun: What Would Happen If Maryland's ACA Marketplace Collapsed And What We Can Do About It
Maryland’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange is, in the estimate of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell, in the “advanced stages of a death spiral.” That may understate the case a bit. It’s not just the Obamacare exchange that could collapse if the Trump administration doesn’t promptly approve a bipartisan plan to stabilize premiums; Maryland’s entire health insurance system could be at risk. (5/8)

Los Angeles Times: California’s Air Quality Chief: If Trump’s EPA Gets Its Way, We’ll Be 'Fumigated' Again By Pollution
Remember that ’80s shampoo commercial, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”? California is beautiful, and it’s big, and it’s going economic gangbusters — the fifth largest economy in the world now, hardly the “out of control” failing state that President Trump has called it. But part of the reason it’s beautiful is that, with the long-ago blessing of the federal government, the state took serious measures to clear away the gross, choking smog that messed up that beauty, not to mention our lungs. (Patt Morrison, 5/9)