Weekly Edition: May 15-19, 2017

Secret Sauce In Maine’s Successful High-Risk Pool: Enough Money
By Patty Wight, Maine Public Radio Before the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges began, Maine had an “invisible high-risk pool” in place. Republican lawmakers are pointing to it as a success — but it was better funded by a vast margin than the high-risk pools in the House replacement bill.

Trump Says He Knows About Health Care, But Some Of His Facts Seem Alternative
By Julie Rovner In two interviews, the president reveals some surprising views of health policy.

Preexisting Conditions And Continuous Coverage: Key Elements Of GOP Bill
By Michelle Andrews The Republican health plan would require insurers to offer coverage to people who have preexisting medical conditions. But if states opt to allow insurers to charge sick people more than healthy ones, people who have been more than 63 days without coverage could see significantly higher insurance costs.

Do Best-Selling Drugs That Calm Stomachs Damage Kidneys? The Answer’s Unclear.
By Sydney Lupkin and Pauline Bartolone With flawed systems for tracking the side effects of prescription drugs, a link between proton pump inhibitors and kidney disease suggested by research cannot be proven. Patients who swear by the drugs hope it won’t be. 

Report: Congressional Ethics Office Probing Rep. Chris Collins’ Aussie Investment
By Rachel Bluth and Emily Kopp The Buffalo News reports the Buffalo, N.Y.-area Republican has drawn inquiries from the Office of Congressional Ethics related to his investment in Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics.

Overwrought Marketing? Ads, Not Research, Create Some Pharma Best-Sellers
By Julie Appleby A look at how and why strategic, star-studded advertising brought a drug for a little-known neurological condition into your home.

UnitedHealth Doctored Medicare Records, Overbilled U.S. By $1 Billion, Feds Claim
By Fred Schulte The company, which is the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage operator, denies wrongdoing and argues that the Justice Department “fundamentally misunderstands” how Medicare Advantage works.

Like Hunger Or Thirst, Loneliness In Seniors Can Be Eased
By Judith Graham About a third of older adults feel lonely, but learning better ways to engage with others and improve relationships can help them avoid such feelings.

California Bill Addresses Safety Concerns At Dialysis Clinics
By Anna Gorman Legislation would require minimum staffing levels, longer intervals between patients and more frequent state inspections.

Fearing Deportation, Parents Worry About Undocumented Kids In Medicaid Program
By Ana B. Ibarra A 2016 California law allowed children without papers to sign up for full Medicaid benefits. More than 189,000 children have been covered, but some families now fear renewing coverage or signing up their kids for the first time.

Segregated Living Linked To Higher Blood Pressure Among Blacks
By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez Blood pressure for African-Americans who moved permanently out of segregated areas into medium-segregation locations decreased on average nearly 4 points while those who went to low-segregation locales dropped almost 6 points, a 25-year study finds.

Houston Hospital Checking To See If Patients’ Cupboards Are Bare
By Charlotte Huff Starting in fall 2015, Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System began to examine the food struggles among patients at four medical sites and found that 11 percent to 30 percent said they had run out of food in the prior month or thought that they would.

Quiz: Help Us Take The Pulse Of Our Readers
Even the most exalted among us realize health care policy is complicated. Here's a pop quiz to see what you have learned as a regular reader of Kaiser Health News.