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At his first campaign rally after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump appeared to back away from supporting a possible expansion of background checks in favor of a push for more attention to mental illness. "There is a mental illness problem that has to be dealt with. It's not the gun that pulls the trigger — it's the person holding the gun," Trump said to roars and a standing ovation from the Manchester, N.H., crowd. (Taylor, 8/15)

Trump argued that institutions for people with mental illness — whom “we can’t let … be on the streets” — were necessary to curb gun violence. “We have to start building institutions again because, you know, if you look at the ’60s and ’70s, so many of these institutions were closed, and the people were just allowed to go onto the streets,” Trump said on Thursday. “That was a terrible thing for our country.” (Choi, 8/15)

Many psychiatric institutions were closed beginning in the 1950s amid reports of inhumane treatment, patient-abuse scandals, changing attitudes toward mental health care and the development of drugs to treat mental illness. While Trump on Thursday revived the debate over whether to isolate the mentally ill in long-term care facilities, Democrats have argued in recent weeks that, by repeatedly blaming mental illness for gun violence, Trump is stigmatizing those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression or other serious conditions. (Sonmez, 8/15)

Planned Parenthood and a handful of blue states are in a stare-down with the Trump administration ahead of a Monday deadline for federally funded family planning clinics to show they’re complying with new rules banning abortion referrals or exit the program that provides a big share of reproductive care for low-income women. Some opponents of the Trump policy have stopped using millions of dollars from the federal Title X family planning program while they await a possible federal appeals court ruling that could block it. (Ollstein and Colliver, 8/15)

Thousands of Arizonans who depend on federal funding for help with birth control and reproductive health care could lose access to their regular caregiver on Monday. Planned Parenthood Federation of America warned the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a letter that if the court does not intervene, Planned Parenthood entities will be forced out of the federal Title X grant program by Monday. (Castle, 8/15)

A legal aid organization leading the fight against several Trump administration policies, including health care for LGBTQ and low-income people, is facing its own internal allegations of discrimination. The National Health Law Program, or NHeLP, was founded in 1969 to advocate for health care rights of underserved people. It has grown more prominent in the Trump era, taking on causes like fighting Medicaid work requirements. But some of its employees have described an environment allowing mistreatment of minority and LGBTQ employees, including instances of bullying black women; employees telling “off-color jokes” about women and Jewish people; and a “sense of not belonging among LGBTQ staff,” according to a 2018 assessment on its workplace culture obtained by POLITICO. (Pradhan, 8/16)

A Trump administration plan to cut legal immigration by poor people will likely result in sicker children, more communicable diseases and greater homelessness in the United States, according to immigrant advocates and the federal government’s own analysis. (Trotta, 8/15)

The foster care programs are meant to provide migrant children with care while authorities work to connect them with parents, relatives or other sponsors. But instead the boy told a counselor he was repeatedly sexually molested by other boys in the foster home. A review of 38 legal claims obtained by The Associated Press — some of which have never been made public — shows taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $200 million in damages from parents who said their children were harmed while in government custody. The father and son are among dozens of families — separated at the border as part of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy — who are now preparing to sue the federal government, including several who say their young children were sexually, physically or emotionally abused in federally funded foster care. (Burke, Linderman and Mendoza, 8/16)

A federal appeals court in California ruled that migrant children detained by U.S. immigration authorities must be provided with edible food, clean water, and basic hygiene items such as soap and toothbrushes, in accordance with a decades-old court order. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Trump administration challenge of a lower court decision finding that the government failed to offer detained minors safe and sanitary conditions as required by the 1997 Flores settlement. (Gonzales, 8/15)

The exchange in June between the lawyer and a panel of openly aghast federal judges spread rapidly in the national media. The case grew in significance days later, when a group of lawyers told reporters they had observed distressed migrant children held in cramped, dirty conditions and without sufficient food or clean water at a Border Patrol station in Clint, Tex. The lawyers said they saw infants being cared for by other detainees, some as young as 7 years old. (Dickerson, 8/15)

“Assuring that children eat enough edible food, drink clean water, are housed in hygienic facilities with sanitary bathrooms, have soap and toothpaste, and are not sleep-deprived are without doubt essential to the children’s safety,” wrote Judge Marsha S. Berzon, a Clinton appointee. The case stirred nationwide outrage in June when a video of the 9th Circuit hearing on it went viral. (Dolan, 8/15)

Leecia Welch, senior director of legal advocacy and child welfare at the National Center for Youth Law, said the panel’s ruling wasn’t surprising. “It should shock the conscience of all Americans to know that our government argued children do not need these bare essentials,” she said. A message seeking comment was sent to the Department of Justice. (Taxin, 8/15)

A top Trump health administrator on Thursday said that officials are actively “working on” a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, which has remained a priority for President Trump even as many congressional Republicans look to move on. Trump has long promised a superior plan to replace ObamaCare and has drawn pushback from Democrats for never actually revealing a plan of his own. (Sullivan, 8/15)

About 700,000 fewer people were enrolled in health insurance coverage in 2017 compared with the year before, marking the first year that the uninsured rate has increased since the major Affordable Care Act reforms took effect, according to a study published Thursday. The Urban Institute study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that the uninsured rate increased 0.2 percentage points from 2016 to 2017 to 10.2% of people under age 65, despite a strong economy and enrollment gains in the employer-sponsored insurance market. (Livingston, 8/15)

Florida’s low-income population is signing up in greater numbers for health insurance using the Affordable Care Act exchange in the last year, led by South Florida counties. But those who don’t get government subsidies are still fleeing the market, according to a pair of reports released this week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS, raising concerns among healthcare experts. (Conarck, 8/16)

Kaiser Health News: Health Plan’s ‘Cadillac Tax’ May Finally Be Running Out Of Gas

The tax on generous health plans — originally envisioned as a way to help pay for the ACA and change consumers’ behavior — has never been implemented, and Congress is considering repeal. (Rovner, 8/16)

HealthCare.gov and the state Obamacare exchange websites will start publishing quality star ratings for insurance plans, the agency announced Thursday. The Trump administration said the move is part of its drive toward more transparency and better quality in the healthcare system, and will help people choose a valuable insurance plan. (Luthi, 8/15)

The American Medical Association (AMA), the nation’s main group for doctors, announced Thursday that it is leaving a coalition fighting "Medicare for All," a blow to the industry’s efforts to push back on the progressive proposal. The AMA said it is leaving the industry group called the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, which has been running ads against Medicare for All and public option proposals from the leading Democratic candidates for president. (Sullivan, 8/15)

The AMA's logo is no longer visible on the website of the Partnership for America's Health Care Future, and multiple individuals with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO that the physicians' organization decided to drop out after the coalition broadened its opposition last month from "Medicare for All" to more incremental proposals like former Vice President Joe Biden's plan for a government-run public option. The AMA in June agreed at an annual meeting to study the feasibility of a public option after years of opposition to single-payer health care. (Diamond and Cancryn, 8/15)

The AMA still opposes single payer, or Medicare for all, AMA CEO James Madara said in a statement, attributing the reason for the departure to different advocacy priorities. "The AMA decided to leave the Partnership for America's Health Care Future so that we can devote more time to advocating for these policies that will address current coverage gaps and dysfunction in our healthcare system," Madara said. (Luthi, 8/15)

The largest association of independent nuclear pharmacies in the U.S. has filed a lawsuit accusing Jubilant DraxImage, a big supplier of radiology medicines, with a range of anticompetitive practices that have resulted in dramatically higher prices that have allegedly hurt patient care. At issue are a series of actions that Jubilant has taken over the past few years and that also prompted the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation last year. (Silverman, 8/15)

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Roche’s cancer drug Rozlytrek for patients with any kind of tumor that tests positive for one kind of genetic alteration, known as NTRK, and for non-small cell lung cancer that tests positive for another genetic alteration, ROS1. It’s the third time that the FDA has approved a cancer drug not based on where the tumor showed up in the body but on its genetic makeup. It’s part of an emerging picture of the future of cancer treatment — one that has been long imagined. (Herper, 8/15)

Anesthesia Associates of Ann Arbor PLLC, the largest anesthesiology and pain-management medical group in Michigan, has sued Trinity Health Michigan in Washtenaw County Circuit Court over an allegation the 13-hospital health system improperly tried to hire away some of its providers. The lawsuit contends Trinity has "chosen to ignore (Anesthesia Associates') valid non-competes and its own non-solicitation obligations and has recently attempted to recruit our certified registered nurse anesthetists," according to a statement to Crain's from Anesthesia Associates, also known as A4. (Greene, 8/15)

A top Trump administration health official on Thursday indicated that the administration is pushing forward with a controversial proposal to lower drug prices, despite opposition from some fellow Republicans. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma told reporters that the proposal to lower certain drug prices in Medicare by tying them to lower prices in other countries, known as the International Price Index, is a “top priority.” (Sullivan, 8/15)

As Democrats push to let Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with manufacturers in hopes of lower prices, details of how that system would operate in tandem with private Part D plans are far from settled. The issue is gaining steam as the 2020 elections approach, with the party trying to locate middle ground between its progressive faction and the more moderate majority. (Clason, 8/16)

Workers at a Phoenix pharmacy on Thursday told Sen. Martha McSally that patients routinely leave without their medication because they can't afford it. The reason is cost — high insurance co-pays, insurance denials, and the high price of the drugs themselves. (Innes, 8/15)

The hashtag "CVSDeniesCare" began trending on Twitter on Thursday over reports that reimbursement changes for mail-order services could threaten women's access to birth control. The phrase was trending nationally with more than 37,000 tweets after it was reported that CVS Caremark will be cutting reimbursement rates for customers who get birth control delivered straight to their doors. (Gstalter, 8/15)

The New York state attorney general has begun issuing subpoenas to 33 financial institutions and investment advisers with ties to the Sackler family, part of an aggressive effort to track billions of dollars that prosecutors claim the family siphoned out of Purdue Pharma to hide profits gained from the company’s opioid painkillers. (Rabin, 8/15)

A confidential government document containing evidence so critical it had the potential to change the course of an American tragedy was kept in the dark for more than a decade. The document, known as a “prosecution memo,” details how government lawyers believed that Purdue Pharma, the maker of the powerful opioid, OxyContin, knew early on that the drug was fueling a rise in abuse and addiction. They also gathered evidence indicating that the company’s executives had misled the public and Congress.“ The Weekly” shines a light on that 2006 Justice Department memo and its consequences for today’s wave of lawsuits against opioid makers and members of the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma. (8/16)

The maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin has agreed to provide access to proprietary research and other data to researchers at Oklahoma State University to help them find causes and treatments for drug addiction. Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma announced the agreement Thursday in a joint statement with the university. (8/15)

Internal documents from 2016 show company officials discussed diverting online traffic away from a series of stories published by the Los Angeles Times that detailed the company’s marketing of OxyContin and its links to the deadly opioid crisis. ... The documents describing Purdue’s strategy were filed earlier in the day in U.S. District Court in Cleveland by attorneys for Cuyahoga and Stark counties in Ohio. They are among more than 1,500 governments and other entities that have sued key players in the opioid epidemic to recover their costs for services and other damages stemming from the addiction crisis. (Christensen, 8/15)

A man who prosecutors call the second-in-command of a multimillion-dollar online opioid drug ring said Thursday the operation started small, when he needed cash for student loans so he let his roommate sell his prescription Adderall. Drew Crandall, 33, said the dark-web operation run by his roommate Aaron Shamo, 29, grew to include date-rape drugs, ecstasy, Xanax and more. (Whitehurst, 8/15)

Thousands of people go to Baltimore methadone clinics for a daily dose of the addiction treatment drug. Often doors are locked and there are guards and cameras, though there are few government or industry security requirements. Opioid treatment programs across the city are reviewing security measures since a shooting last month at the Man Alive clinic on Maryland Avenue left two dead and two injured. (Cohn, 8/16)

At 8 a.m. Thursday, a team of volunteer garbage men wearing fluorescent orange shirts that read “Operation Baltimore Cleanup” walked down Monroe Street in West Baltimore, picking up trash. They were about three blocks from where Freddie Gray was arrested in 2015 when they noticed two young men struggling to walk down the street. The garbage men, who had just arrived from New York and Florida, had pledged to clean up Baltimore after the city’s garbage issues came under national scrutiny following controversial tweets by President Trump last month. (Rentz and Reed, 8/15)

Kaiser Health News: Among Hurdles For Those With Opioid Addictions: Getting The Drug To Treat It

It can be difficult to get a prescription for buprenorphine, one of the gold standards for treating opioid use disorder. And not all pharmacies stock the drug. (Feldman, 8/16)

In June 2017, Maryland’s deputy secretary of public health issued a statewide standing order for naloxone. That means pharmacies are allowed to sell the medication to anyone, without a need for a paper or electronic prescription. However, not all pharmacies necessarily stock naloxone. The Maryland Department of Health recommends anyone interested in purchasing the medication call a pharmacy first to learn if it’s in stock. (Reed, 8/15)

For years, American smokers have been spared the unpleasant images of gangrene infected feet, swollen tongues overtaken by cancerous tumors and blackened lungs that are often plastered onto packs of cigarettes sold around the world. But that momentary reprieve before lighting up may only last a few more years. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday rolled out a proposed rule to require tobacco companies to include graphic warnings on cigarette packages and tobacco ads with the aim of promoting "greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of smoking," the agency said in a statement. (Romo, 8/15)

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed 13 new warnings that would appear on all cigarettes, including images of cancerous neck tumors, diseased lungs and feet with amputated toes. Other color illustrations would warn smokers that cigarettes can cause heart disease, impotence and diabetes. The labels would take up half of the front of cigarette packages and include text warnings, such as “Smoking causes head and neck cancer.” The labels would also appear on tobacco advertisements. (Perrone, 8/15)

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed long-delayed graphic health warnings for cigarette packages, taking a step toward fulfilling a requirement of a decade-old smoking prevention law. The new warning label proposal will now be subject to a public comment period, and is under a court-ordered deadline to be finalized by March 15, 2020. (Siddons, 8/15)

Similar health warnings are required on cigarette boxes in other countries but aren’t mandatory in the U.S., where tobacco companies successfully sued to block them. While adult smoking rates have declined in recent decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 480,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking every year. (Maloney, 8/15)

“The new graphic warnings are a dramatic improvement over the current text-only warnings that have become stale and unnoticed,” said a joint statement from leading health organizations, including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. “They are supported by extensive scientific evidence, and they will help the United States catch up to the 120-plus countries that have adopted this best-practice strategy to reduce tobacco use and save lives.” (Bever, 8/15)

A spokesperson for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which sued the FDA over its graphic warnings in 2011, said it is "carefully reviewing" the latest proposal. "We firmly support public awareness of the harms of smoking cigarettes, but the manner in which those messages are delivered to the public cannot run afoul of the First Amendment protections that apply to all speakers, including cigarette manufacturers," the spokesperson said. (Hellmann, 8/15)

A rash of suicides by police officers has shaken the New York Police Department, leading the commissioner to declare a mental health emergency and highlighting the problem of untreated depression among law enforcement officers nationwide. ... The suicides have been a recurring nightmare for the nation’s largest police force and have driven a discussion about the psychological toll of police work, a profession in which discussing mental health was long seen as taboo. (Sisak and Mustian, 8/15)

Mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to stem the spike in suicides among New York Police Department officers this year by speaking openly about his father’s suicide in urging them to seek help. The mayor talked about his family’s experience in a letter he sent to NYPD officers on Wednesday night, shortly before a longtime officer became the ninth member of the department to die by suicide this year. The 56-year-old officer, who had been with the department for 25 years and served in its Strategic Response Group, fatally shot himself at a home in Laurelton, Queens, according to a police official. His suicide came a day after another officer fatally shot himself in Yonkers. (Honan and Blint-Welsh, 8/15)

TSA agent Robert Henry jumped to his death inside the Orlando International Airport in February. Afterward, agents came forward to say Henry was bullied at work and that Transportation Security Administration has a toxic work environment. An investigation from NPR member station WMFE in Orlando found dozens of TSA workers across the country with similar stories of workplace harassment and retaliation. (Aboraya, 8/15)

Just as 911 is universal to Americans during emergencies, a federal agency says the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline should be shortened to three digits: 988. The Federal Communications Commission recommended simplifying the hotline’s current 10-digit number in a sweeping report this week spurred by federal legislation passed last year that called for improvements to the system. (Vigdor, 8/15)

With suicides on the rise , the U.S. government wants to make the national crisis hotline easier to reach. Once implemented, people will just need to dial 988 to seek help. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline uses a 10-digit number, 800-273-TALK (8255). Callers are routed to one of 163 crisis centers, where counselors answered 2.2 million calls last year. (Arbel, 8/15)

Monica Simpson was a high school freshman in North Carolina when the ad [on reproductive freedom for African American women] was published. Today she is executive director of SisterSong, which was formed a few years after and took on the mantle of reproductive justice. Simpson joined the Atlanta-based organization in 2010 as a development coordinator. The organization, whose full name is SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, mostly does advocacy work, training community organizers, doing direct action and hosting regional and national conferences and discussions to give people the tools to advocate for themselves and their communities. Simpson talked to About US about the renewed attention to the reproductive justice movement. (Williams, 8/15)

The “Kidney Stone Belt” is a thing, and it’s coming for Kansas. Climate change is expanding that swath of America, currently in the south and southeast, that suffers much higher rates of this sometimes-excruciating renal complication. By 2050, the belt will include Kansas, according to a new review by the Kansas Health Institute. ...When temps rise, you sweat more and urinate less. That means more kidney stones and chronic kidney damage. Already, the health institute says, research shows more kidney failures happen during heat waves. (Llopis-Jepsen, 8/15)

In Newark, New Jersey, worries and anger over contaminated drinking water are growing by the day. High lead levels have been found at many of Newark’s homes, in a case echoing the 2014 water crisis in Flint, Michigan. City officials have distributed water filters, but now the EPA says they may not be enough. (Flanagan, 8/15)

Former Air Force and Navy fighter pilots are calling on the military to begin cancer screenings for aviators as young as 30 because of an increase in deaths from the disease that they suspect may be tied to radiation emitted in the cockpit. (Copp, 8/15)

Gov. Mike DeWine's "red flag" law proposal has near-majority support in the Ohio Senate, but it's received a lukewarm reception in the House, a poll by six Ohio news organizations found. The survey suggests that, in the wake of the Dayton mass shooting earlier this month, the GOP-controlled Ohio legislature could be convinced to pass its first "gun control" bill in years. (Borchardt and Balmert, 8/16)

Growing, too, are clashes between local officials and state lawmakers. Most states prohibit local governments from adopting nearly any gun regulation that would go beyond state law. “They have pre-empted us totally in enforcing any type of regulation, including really simple legislation that would require someone to report a stolen or lost gun,” [Philadelphia Mayor Jim] Kenney, a Democrat, said of the Pennsylvania State Legislature, which is dominated by Republicans. (Davey and Hassan, 8/15)

A health policy expert and residents struggling to find affordable insurance are planned speakers for a hearing before North Carolina General Assembly members pressing for passage of Medicaid expansion this year. ... The legislature is in the middle of a state budget stalemate, and expansion is a key reason for it. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the Republican budget in large part because it lacked coverage through the 2010 federal health care law. Republicans say Cooper’s Medicaid demand is to blame for final budget delays. (8/16)

Surprise bills sent to hospital patients who thought they were fully insured are increasingly rampant. And some of the most expensive bills are going to the most critical patients, those who were put on air ambulance flights. Lawmakers in Georgia and in Washington say they want to stop it. (Hart, 8/15)

As controversies have erupted across the state over how ambulance providers are selected, a committee of top EMS officials is working to rewrite the rules. The committee’s draft proposal, due out next week, is expected to call for a conflict-of-interest policy covering every member of the state’s 10 Emergency Medical Services councils. Members would be required to disclose the company they work for and if they own stock in an EMS company or a private ambulance provider. (Berard, 8/15)

Virginians can soon tell regulators what the state should do to limit surprise medical bills. The State Corporation Commission announced Wednesday that it will hold a public hearing in Richmond on Sept. 12 on high charges insured patients can face when a member of a medical team that treats them is not in their insurer’s network. (8/15)

The Department of Correction could temporarily hire about 30 staff members to start testing its inmates for Hepatitis C sometime over the next month, a spokesperson said Thursday afternoon. In addition to temporarily hiring one, “ideally two” people at each of Connecticut’s 15 jails and prisons to screen the state’s roughly 13,000 inmates for Hepatitis C, the department will need to order kits and establish blood-drawing locations in each of its facilities, said Karen Martucci, a DOC spokeswoman. (Lyons, 8/15)

The remaining patients at the state’s maximum security psychiatric hospital faced no criminal charges and were civilly committed, or were there to be restored to competency so their criminal cases could be resolved. But all, regardless of the reason they were admitted, are prohibited from being in their room when their belongings are searched by staff and police — a restriction they might not have faced had they received psychiatric care at any other behavioral health facility in the state. (Lyons, 8/16)

The outgoing director of Arizona's prison system was "surprisingly uninformed" about broken cell door locks at Lewis Prison, the danger the problem posed and how his administration's efforts to fix the issue may have made matters worse, a new report found. Written by two former state Supreme Court justices, the report paints a grim portrait of dysfunction within the Arizona Department of Corrections in addressing what would seem like an elementary problem for a prison: keeping inmates behind bars. (Oxford, 8/15)

Travis County gave initial approval this week to continue an effort that diverts mentally ill criminal defendants away from jail and into treatment, despite commissioners’ concerns about a lack of hard data to back up the program’s success. The collaboration between the county’s pretrial services and Travis County Integral Care was started in 2016. In three years, the pilot program has gotten 177 inmates with serious mental health issues out of the Travis County Jail on bond and connected them with treatment services, said Stacy Brown, pretrial services division director. (Huber, 8/15)

Recruitment is a life or death issue, not just for patients in those areas, but for the hospitals themselves, says Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. Over the last decade, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed, he says, and over the next decade, another 700 more are at risk. "Keeping access to health care in rural America is simply a challenge no matter how you look at it, but this shortage of rural health care professionals just is an unfortunate driving issue towards more closures," Morgan says. (Noguchi, 8/15)

A new federal rule will go into effect next week prohibiting healthcare organizations from flushing hazardous waste pharmaceuticals into the sewer system, which will cause some providers, distributors and pharmacies to change their protocol and processes. Starting Aug. 21, drugs like nicotine and chemotherapies will need to be disposed through the proper channels rather than down the drain, which will cost healthcare facilities time and money if they need to get up to speed. (Kacik, 8/15)

The trust that owns Valley Forge Medical Center and Hospital in Montgomery County has decided to put the 86-bed addiction-treatment facility up for sale. The owner cited several years of losses and the need to get the facility into the hands of an operator with the wherewithal to invest in it. The trust is also open to a real estate deal. (Brubaker, 8/15)

A California company that wants to reopen Hahnemann University Hospital, but did not win last week’s auction of the hospital’s residency program, said Wednesday that it would increase its bid to $60 million if bidding for the bankrupt Center City institution were reopened. The move by KPC Global, of Santa Ana, could lead to a twist in the June 30 bankruptcy, which also includes St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and other operations. (Brubaker, 8/15)

Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, Wash., is recovering from a ransomware attack that encrypted files across its network, including electronic health records, earlier this summer. An estimated 85,000 people's data were affected. The hospital and one of its subsidiaries have begun mailing notification letters to people who had data compromised in the attack, Grays Harbor Community Hospital said in a statement posted online Wednesday. (Cohen, 8/15)

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed notice that it may appeal a $12.3 million verdict stemming from a 2015 operating room fire at Madigan Army Medical Center that severely disfigured a 13-month-old child, potentially preventing the family from accessing money needed for the child’s treatment, according to court documents and attorneys. The Army admitted it was negligent and responsible for the fire in court documents. U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton announced the verdict in June following a four-day bench trial in which he determined the surgeon and anesthesiologist treating the child at the hospital at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma were negligent and failed to communicate with one another about the fire risks posed by the operation. (Carter, 8/15)

Hospitals and obstetrics units are shutting down across rural America, creating a shortage of care that may be contributing to the country’s rising maternal mortality rate. The United States’ maternal mortality rate ranks 138th in the world — between Lebanon and Qatar — and the rate in rural areas tends to be much higher than it is in cities and suburbs. Between 2011 and 2015, it was 23.3 deaths per 100,000 births in Tennessee and 19.4 in Kentucky, rates that are comparable to developing countries. (Simpson, 8/16)

A New Jersey judge put a temporary hold on a new law allowing terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs. The order means that New Jersey’s recently enacted measure cannot be enforced by the state attorney general and comes in response to a lawsuit brought by a doctor practicing in the state. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who signed the bill in April, said Thursday that Attorney General Gurbir Grewal would release guidance for residents in light of the order and vowed to oppose the lawsuit in court. (Catalini, 8/15)

Thousands of Minnesotans who are poor, elderly or have disabilities will get more assistance staying in their own homes and avoid becoming homeless under a new program paid for by the state and federal governments. The state Department of Human Services (DHS) announced Thursday that it received federal approval to roll out a new package of services designed to help seniors and people with disabilities — including those struggling with mental illnesses and substance use disorders — to find and maintain their own housing, and avoid costly institutional care. The new support services will start in July 2020 and will be paid for under the state-federal Medicaid insurance program. (Serres and Evans, 8/15)

A gun-rights group sued Thursday to block California from enforcing its assault weapons ban, contending it violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The lawsuit was the latest among gun advocacy and lobbying groups to challenge California’s firearms laws, which are among the strictest in the country, and comes after a recent series of deadly mass shootings nationwide involving military-style rifles. (8/15)

After back-to-back mass shootings killed at least 31 people and injured dozens more in Texas and Ohio, police chiefs in the nation’s largest cities, including Los Angeles, called on the nation’s top lawmakers to enact another ban on assault weapons and other measures to prevent mass killings. (Puente, 8/15)

[Nate] Lanting shared stories of people who were working through addiction and homelessness or recovering from the havoc addiction wreaked on their lives. He showed videos and talked about how climbing to the top of a mountain was in some ways like the difficult journey through recovery. ...Recovery Beyond, which became a nonprofit in 2017, does not collect data on its participants, but executive director Gina Haines estimates 100 to 200 people have gone through the program since 2011, and 39 have summited Mount Rainier. (Paul, 8/15)

The merger of two of Massachusetts’ largest health insurers could have a profound effect on consumers and the health care market. After Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan this week revealed plans to combine into a regional health insurance powerhouse spanning most of New England, the specific impacts remain to be seen, but the deal is certain to be closely scrutinized. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/15)

From 23andMe to Ancestry, home DNA testing has become so popular that a recent survey found that one in seven American adults has tried it. Now, the new clinic is offering what's arguably the opposite of modestly priced, do-it-yourself tests: It's a full-service genomics clinic for patients who want the elite care of an academic medical center and will pay for it out of pocket. (Goldberg, 8/16)

A lawyer for a Bristol couple suing to block the release of Connecticut school-by-school immunization data argues in court papers that distributing the information amounts to an “invasion of privacy” for families with unvaccinated children, even though no students would be identified. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato, a Republican lawmaker who is representing Kristen and Brian Festa in their quest to prevent more school vaccination data from being released, asked a Superior Court judge Wednesday not to dismiss their case. (Carlesso, 8/15)

A Birmingham psychologist has admitted to trying to defraud Medicaid by billing for counseling services that were never provided, state and federal prosecutors announced Thursday. Sharon Waltz has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud Medicaid of at least $1.5 million, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town announced. Waltz also agreed to pay restitution to Medicaid in the amount of $1.5 million, they said. (8/15)

A former Nebraska Medicaid audit administrator who bilked the program and his father out of nearly $300,000 has been sentenced to 16 months in prison. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Craig A. Barnett was also ordered Thursday to pay restitution of nearly $277,000 and serve three years of supervised release. Barnett, of Lincoln, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and two counts of mail fraud in the scheme, which took place when he was an administrator within the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. (8/15)

A father and son from Dallas were sentenced to prison Wednesday after being convicted of fraud and identity theft in a $27 million scheme involving false hearing aid insurance claims submitted on behalf of American Airlines employees. Terry Lynn Anderson, 69, received an eight-year sentence in federal prison and was ordered to pay nearly $13.7 million in restitution to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. (Brumfield, 8/15)

Arizona recognizes that firefighters have a higher risk of getting cancer because of the harmful chemicals they are exposed to when they fight fires. State law lists multiple myeloma, the type of cancer Thompson has, as one of several diseases and cancers that, for firefighters, are presumed to be occupational diseases, "deemed to arise out of employment." That's meant to make it easier for them to get workers' compensation coverage.For Thompson and other firefighters across the state with the types of cancers on that list, getting coverage is proving difficult. (Fifield, 8/15)

The state agency that enforces workplace safety rules says employees of the city of Los Angeles were exposed to unsanitary conditions on the walkways outside City Hall East, according to two citations issued last week. Inspectors with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, found that workers at City Hall East were exposed to “trash and bodily fluids” on the exterior passageways. City Hall East is home to several city agencies, including City Atty. Mike Feuer’s office. Homeless people frequently sleep overnight on the sidewalks outside. (Zahniser, 8/15)

California recently approved a longer paid family leave, allowing workers whose pregnancies fall on the right side of the new law to take up to eight weeks off with partial pay to bond with a new baby. How’s that going to work? We asked the experts and read the fine print to help you figure it out now, before you’re too sleep deprived to think straight. (Rosenhall, 8/15)

Gov. Gavin Newsom is writing a book for children with dyslexia, a project motivated by his personal struggles with the learning disability and experience helping his own dyslexic child to learn to read. “When you’re struggling with your child to read and they’re struggling, and their self-esteem, and they get to an age where they start comparing themselves to their peers, it is deeply emotional and very challenging,” Newsom told reporters Thursday. “That was a trigger to me. If there’s not something, do it.” (Luna, 8/15)

Although surprise medical bills are receiving considerable attention from lawmakers and the news media, to date there has been little systematic study of the incidence and financial consequences of out-of-network billing. ... Out-of-network billing appears to have become common for privately insured patients even when they seek treatment at in-network hospitals. The mean amounts billed appear to be sufficiently large that they may create financial strain for a substantial proportion of patients (Sun, Mello, Moshfegh et al, 8/12)

Provider participation in AIM was associated with a differential reduction in total Medicare spending of $28.21 per beneficiary per month relative to the comparison group, which amounted to an aggregate decrease of $131.0 million. Over the same period, CMS made $76.2 million in prepayments and paid an additional $6.2 million in shared savings to ACOs in which shared savings exceeded the prepayments. After we accounted for this $82.4 million in CMS spending, the aggregate net reduction was $48.6 million, which corresponded to a net reduction of $10.46 per beneficiary per month. Decreases in the number of hospitalizations and use of institutional post-acute care contributed to the observed reduction in overall spending. (Trombley, Fout, Brodsky et. al, 8/8)

More than 9 million veterans are enrolled to receive care from the VA health care system. To serve this population, VA operates the nation's largest health care system providing both inpatient and outpatient services, with 172 VA medical centers and 1,069 outpatient clinics across the country. In 2018, VA delivered mental health care to an estimated 1.7 million veterans. Compared with nonveterans, veterans are disproportionately older, male, and less healthy. (8/13)

A substantial body of research has investigated effects of the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on coverage; access to care and related measures (including utilization, quality of care and health outcomes, provider capacity, and affordability and financial security); and various economic measures. This issue brief summarizes findings from 324 studies of the impact of state Medicaid expansions under the ACA published beginning in January 2014 (when the coverage provisions of the ACA went into effect) and updates earlier versions of this brief with studies through June 2019. (Antonisse, Garfield, Rudowitz and Guth, 8/15)

Republicans think they can win on health care in 2020 by running against Medicare for All, and the facts about single payer are a target-rich environment. But the latest data on ObamaCare shows why the GOP needs to come up with its own ideas to sell to the public. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week released a report on trends in the individual health insurance market, and the results are ugly. Of particular note is the continued flight of those who aren’t entitled to the Affordable Care Act’s tax-credit subsidies and thus are exposed to the full pain of high premiums. The tax credits phase out at about $100,000 for a family of four. In other words, the American middle class. (8/15)

Recent gun massacres — meaning this month’s massacres, not the previous month’s — have elicited a flurry of words from the gun lobby’s political spokesmen in Washington. President Trump, elected with the help of an unprecedented outlay by the National Rifle Association, said last week that he now supports “very meaningful” background checks on gun purchases. He didn’t say what “meaningful” means.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose Republican majority has been anchored by tens of millions of additional spending by the NRA, is talking too. He said that after the Senate returns from recess in September he’ll put background checks and red-flag laws “front and center.” (8/15)

The truth hurts. Also, the truth will set you free. Both old sayings receive validation in the The Post’s continuing investigative reporting series on the history of the prescription opioid industry and the addiction epidemic it helped to spawn. It is indeed painful to find out that millions of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills flooded poor communities in Appalachia as pharmaceutical companies and the Drug Enforcement Administration failed to heed signs of large-scale inappropriate prescribing. Yet there is a certain liberation in finally being able to point to specific data, which might help assign responsibility for what may be U.S. health care’s most fateful systemic failure in recent history. (8/15)

Once again, President Trump is being accused of drastically altering U.S. immigration law in order to send the message that if you’re not white and wealthy, you’re not welcome. The only problem with that accusation – just like all of the prior, similar accusations – is that it is utterly false. (Matt O'Brien, 8/15)

The Trump administration announced a vast expansion of an immigration inadmissibility this week known as the “public charge.” The new rule, more than 800 pages long, creates stricter standards for applicants seeking legal permanent residency who use public benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps or housing assistance. In other words, immigration officials will look more thoroughly at the credit scores, wealth, age and educational background of immigration applicants to determine whether they are worthy of being here. Such a policy may sound shocking to some, but in fact, the public-charge provision has long been a weapon of racism and classism in the United States. Far from its expansion, the rule should be abolished as a relic of the bygone era from which it came. (Christopher Richardson, 8/15)

As cannabis researchers, we work in a field whose unknowns could positively or negatively affect the health of millions of Americans. But the U.S. government’s decades-long prohibition of cannabis research forcefully limits what we might learn. Adding to the absurdity, the recent relaxation of this prohibition may promote a public health threat. (Beatriz H. Carlini, Gregory Carter and Nephi Stella, 8/15)

The latest outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic virus Ebola has claimed more than 1,800 lives in Congo and been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization. But how worried should other nations be about its spread?It depends. The danger of Ebola does not lie solely in the disease itself, but in the socioeconomic conditions of the places affected. People who contract Ebola are three to four times less likely to die from it if they are treated in a high-income country such as the United States rather than in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or western Africa, where the 2014 epidemic occurred. (Abraar Karan, 8/16)

The global health community got a few pieces of hopeful news this week. On Monday the World Health Organization announced that two newly developed intravenous drug therapies appear capable of curing Ebola. The medications could help end a continuing epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where nearly 2,800 people have been infected over the past year and more than 1,800 have died. Combined with the recently developed Ebola vaccine, they could even help eradicate a disease that has killed more than 12,000 people over the past four decades. Then, on Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration effectively endorsed a three-drug treatment that appears to cure so-called extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis — the deadliest version of the world’s deadliest infectious disease. (8/16)

Compounded drugs serve a critically important purpose for people with rare diseases or allergies to commercially available drugs. The science of compounding two or more medications to create a custom mix has been vital in treating patients who need to avoid certain ingredients or dyes because of allergies, or who need special strength or dosages. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began regulating the practice in the 1950s, but over the years, unfortunately, we continue to see instances when compounded medicines have caused patient harm, and in some cases death. (Sally Greenberg, 8/15)

Rapid advances in the development of medical devices in the 21st century are contributing to healthier lives, but bring with them a new challenge: teaching clinicians how to use these often-complicated technologies. Teaching them poorly, or failing to do it at all, can negate the potential benefits and put patients at risk of harm from devices that were intended to benefit them. (Justin Barad, 8/16)

llinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a law that would require insurance companies to cover costs for children in need of epinephrine injections for cases of severe allergic reactions. House Bill 3435 will take effect January 1, 2020, and would require companies offering health insurance policies in Illinois to pay for medically necessary epinephrine injectors for minors. (Prokos, 8/14)