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Democrats will try forcing a campaign-season vote on blocking a Trump administration rule letting insurers sell short-term plans that are cheaper but skimpier than allowed under the Obama health care law, party leaders said Thursday. Though the effort has a chance of passing the narrowly divided Senate, it is certain to die in the Republican-controlled House and would never be signed by President Donald Trump. (Fram, 8/2)

The resolution of disapproval will be introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). During a call with reporters Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he thinks there will be unanimous support among Democrats once the resolution is introduced. The measure will only require 51 votes to pass, which would mean that in Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) absence the backers need to recruit one Republican to their cause. “All it takes is one or two Republicans who claim to support preexisting condition protections,” Schumer said. (Weixel, 8/2)

Kaiser Health News: Watch: What You Should Know About The New Rule On Short-Term Health Plans

Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby explains on “PBS NewsHour” how the Trump administration’s approach to short-terms plans could make this form of health coverage more widely available. But the plans also could cause premium increases for those consumers who opt for more comprehensive insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. (8/2)

The CMS projected that 600,000 people will buy the skinny coverage next year. Of those, 100,000 are currently uninsured, and 200,000 will switch from an Affordable Care Act plan. Outside analysts say that estimate is far too low. Because healthy people are most likely to bolt from the exchanges, expansion of short-term plans will increase federal spending on ACA premium subsidies by $28.2 billion over 10 years, the CMS estimated. (Meyer, 8/2)

Four major U.S. cities filed a lawsuit on Thursday contending that President Donald Trump's administration is unconstitutionally seeking to undermine Obamacare by failing to faithfully execute the healthcare law. The complaint in federal court in Baltimore, filed by the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, alleged that the Republican president is "waging a relentless campaign to sabotage and, ultimately, to nullify the law." (Raymond, 8/2)

Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, joined liberal advocacy groups in the suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Maryland, alleging that President Donald Trump and his administration "are deliberately trying to make the (ACA) fail." They maintain that these efforts will drain city budgets and resources to manage public health as coverage rates are predicted to drop. The cities said the Trump administration actions have led to a greater burden on their community health centers and ambulance systems, plus they're increasing the overall costs of a sicker population. The complaint alleged the moves have led to a "slow trend upward" of the uninsured rate—which dipped to an all-time low of 9.1% in 2015. (Luthi, 8/2)

The lawsuit cites Trump’s own words against ObamaCare. “President Trump and his Administration have been remarkably transparent about their intent and their approach,” it states. It cites Trump statements like “we are getting rid of ObamaCare,” and “essentially, we have gotten rid of it” to argue that Trump has sabotaged the law. The communities could face a difficult task in winning their case, however. (Sullivan, 8/2)

Fresh from victory in the battle over federal funding to sanctuary cities, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday opened yet another legal front in his long-running war against President Donald Trump. Chicago joined Baltimore, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio and the the non-profit known as “Democracy Forward” in filing a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of “intentionally and unlawfully sabotaging” the Affordable Care Act. (Spielman, 8/2)

Score one for D.C. The Senate rejected Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to block the District from requiring that most residents have health insurance, thwarting — for now — Republican efforts to rein in the city’s government. Senators from both parties on Wednesday effectively killed a measure sponsored by Cruz (R-Tex.) that would have eliminated the District’s version of the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. (Portnoy, 8/2)

When Missourians go to healthcare.gov to buy health insurance, they likely won't be shocked by double-digit increases this year, according to data filed Wednesday with the state’s insurance department. Three existing carriers — and one new entry into the market — will offer plans with smaller increases than previous years. (Fentem, 8/2)

In a dramatic change from recent years, the state’s largest health insurer is proposing lowering the premiums on many of the plans it sells through the state’s Obamacare exchange next year. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois wants to lower average rates slightly for many of its plans for individuals, by anywhere from 0.84 percent to about 1.5 percent, according to data released by the federal government Wednesday. It’s the first time Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois has proposed an average rate reduction since the exchange opened, said Blue Cross spokeswoman Colleen Miller. The insurer is proposing one average increase, to its BlueCare Direct plans, but only by 0.25 percent. (Schencker, 8/2)

The Trump administration and the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday revealed widely divergent plans on how to reunite hundreds of immigrant children with parents who have been deported since the families were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. President Donald Trump’s administration puts the onus on the ACLU, asking that the organization use its “considerable resources” to find parents in their home countries, predominantly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing that the State Department has begun talks with foreign governments on how the administration may be able to aid the effort. (Spagat, 8/3)

“Plaintiffs’ counsel should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries,” DOJ said. The administration suggested that the ACLU find out whether the deported parents wish to be reconnected with their children, or whether they waive that option. (Hesson, 8/2)

The ACLU pushed back in its part of the filing, asking the judge in the class-action lawsuit to order the government to keep working on its own to locate parents and to provide more information to the civil rights organization so that it can assist in the reunification. “The government must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents,” the ACLU wrote in the filing. “Not only was it the government’s unconstitutional separation practice that led to this crisis, but the United States government has far more resources than any group of NGOs,” or nongovernmental organizations. (Morrissey, 8/2)

“The court filing is remarkable,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. “The government is washing their hands of it, and saying we’ll try and do a little. They’re saying, ‘You all [the ACLU], find the parents.'" (Sepulvado, 8/2)

A youth care worker for Southwest Key has been charged with 11 sex offenses after authorities accused him of molesting at least eight unaccompanied immigrant boys over nearly a year at one of the company’s shelters in Mesa, Arizona, federal court records show. (Sanders and Grabell, 8/2)

Pacheco had worked at Southwest Key’s Casa Kokopelli shelter in Mesa, Ariz., since 2016. The shelter was cited by the Arizona Department of Health Services in 2017 for not completing background checks on employees, according to the site. (Thomsen, 8/2)

This is the third known arrest of a staff member at an Arizona migrant shelter related to allegations of molesting children. (Philip and Heath, 8/2)

The Mesa facilities — one operated by Southwest Key, the other by A New Leaf Inc. — were part of a program to house juveniles who illegally entered the country by themselves and, more recently, children of families that illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The reports of threatened and attempted suicides predate the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy, which led to the family separations. (Philip, 8/2)

The Department of Health and Human Services says 96 organizations will get funding under the federal family planning program this year. Twelve will be new. They include community health centers, state agencies and Planned Parenthood affiliates. (8/2)

The Trump administration will continue funding Planned Parenthood through a national family planning program, despite arguments from Republicans that it should be excluded from the grants. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Thursday the 96 organizations across the U.S. that would receive Title X family planning grants, including 13 Planned Parenthood affiliates. (Hellmann, 8/2)

The U.S. government is urging federal judges to dismiss two lawsuits by Planned Parenthood affiliates over its efforts to impose what they called an "abstinence-only-until-marriage" focus in its Teen Pregnancy Protection Program. In court filings this week, government lawyers representing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Planned Parenthood lacked standing to sue because it chose not to apply for grants from the program. (Stempel, 8/2)

A fast-acting class of fentanyl drugs approved only for cancer patients with high opioid tolerance has been prescribed frequently to patients with back pain and migraines, putting them at high risk of accidental overdose and death, according to documents collected by the Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. established a distribution oversight program in 2011 to curb inappropriate use of the dangerous medications, but entrusted enforcement to a group of pharmaceutical companies that make and sell the drugs. (Baumgaertner, 8/2)

For the second time this year, a major pharmaceutical wholesaler has reached agreement with a coalition of institutional investors to bolster oversight of opioid distribution and board accountability. In this instance, the Cardinal Health (CAH) board agreed to create a committee to monitor the risks of distributing the addictive painkillers and provide investors with reports of two investigations into allegations of failed oversight. In addition, the wholesaler agreed to post detailed information about its policies and efforts on its website. (Silverman, 8/2)

Allergan Plc sued Pfizer Inc. to cover any potential damages that the drugmaker might be forced to pay as a result of the hundreds of lawsuits it faces over its alleged role in the opioid crisis. Allergan claims the allegations in the opioid litigation involve improper marketing and sale of sale of morphine drug Kadian in the years before it acquired the rights to it. Allergan, then known as Actavis Plc, acquired Kadian in December 2008 from a company that was later acquired by Pfizer. (Hopkins, 8/2)

Calls to U.S. poison control centers about an unapproved antidepressant that has opioid-like effects have climbed dramatically since 2015, according to a new analysis published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tianeptine is used as an antidepressant in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. It hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But it’s easy to buy the drug online as a diet supplement or research chemical and is sometimes abused, because it can give users an opioid-like high. (Thielking, 8/2)

On Friday, Interact for Health, a nonprofit community health advocate and funder, released the results of the 2017 Child Well-Being Survey, taken by more than 2,700 parents and guardians in a 22-county swath of Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana. It found: Nearly 15 percent of children in the area have a parent who has been jailed. That compares to 8 percent nationwide. (DeMio, 8/3)

Twice in the past year, Brett Kavanaugh offered glimpses of his position on abortion that strongly suggest he would vote to support restrictions if confirmed to the Supreme Court. One was in a dissent in the case of a 17-year-old migrant seeking to terminate her pregnancy. The other was a speech before a conservative group in which he spoke admiringly of Justice William Rehnquist's dissent in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that established a woman's right to abortion. (Lavoie and Tarm, 8/3)

Genetic-testing companies that have decoded the DNA of millions just introduced new guidelines to protect data privacy. But those best practices failed to address a major concern: what happens to customers’ data that is shared for research with pharmaceutical giants, academics and others, often for a profit. Just how lucrative the business of genetic testing is came into light last week when British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to buy a $300 million stake in 23andMe Inc., gaining access to anonymized data with the hope of identifying new targets for drugs. (Brown, 8/2)

How much is your DNA worth? As millions of people pay for home tests to check on ancestry or health risks, genetic data is becoming an increasingly valuable resource for drugmakers, triggering a race to create a DNA marketplace. GlaxoSmithKline's decision to invest $300 million in 23andMe and forge an exclusive drug development deal with the Silicon Valley consumer genetics company crystallizes the value locked up in genetic code. (Hirschler, 8/3)

Scientists have found a new piece of the puzzle about how the drug thalidomide caused devastating birth defects in thousands of children whose mothers took the drug while pregnant more than 60 years ago. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers reported this week in eLife that the drug triggers the degradation of a slew of transcription factors — proteins that help flip genes on or off — including one called SALL4. That doesn’t come as a total surprise: SALL4 has long been seen as a likely suspect in the chain of events that led to the birth defects because mutations in the SALL4 gene can cause developmental problems in patients with a disease called Duane-radial ray syndrome. The condition can lead to underdeveloped limbs, eye and ear defects, and heart issues — the hallmark signs of exposure to thalidomide in the womb. (Thielking, 8/3)

In the world of Ebola outbreaks, lucky breaks are few and far between. But it appears the Democratic Republic of the Congo may have caught a small one in its latest go-round with the dangerous disease. And it might also give the world another shot at testing an experimental Ebola vaccine. Officials in the DRC said Thursday that testing has shown that the virus causing disease in North Kivu province in the northeast of the country is Ebola Zaire. That is the virus targeted by Merck’s experimental vaccine, which was tested during the West African outbreak in 2014 and 2015, and used in eastern DRC in an outbreak earlier this year. (Branswell, 8/3)

A hospital conference room is an unlikely place to assess a budding transportation revolution, but a team of San Francisco trauma specialists and researchers who gathered there sees its work as essential to ensuring the safety of residents in a city of high-tech guinea pigs. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” Dr. Catherine Juillard, a trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, said during the meeting in late June. (Berman, 8/2)

It was a solution no parent wants to hear: To get rid of a brain tumor and stop their young son's seizures, surgeons would need to cut out one-sixth of his brain. But for Tanner Collins, it was the best option. A slow-growing tumor was causing sometimes-daily seizures, and medications commonly used to treat them did not seem to be working, his father said. But removing a portion of his brain was no doubt risky. (Bever, 8/2)

Kaiser Health News: Doctors Reckon With High Rate Of Suicide In Their Ranks

Alarms go off so frequently in emergency rooms, doctors barely notice. And then a colleague is wheeled in on a gurney, clinging to life, and that alarm becomes a deafening wake-up call. “It’s devastating,” said Dr. Kip Wenger, recalling a 33-year-old physician and friend who died by suicide in 2015. “This is a young, healthy person who has everything in the world ahead of them.” (Farmer, 8/3)

Pedestrians who are using their phones cross the street at a slower pace than others, a new study has found, a behavior that may increase their risk of being hit by a car. Regardless of whether they’re talking on the phone or texting, distracted pedestrians using phones take smaller steps and walk in a more erratic fashion when crossing the street than those who aren’t on their phones, the study found. (Rabin, 8/2)

Leaders can have many different styles — just compare President Donald Trump to Malala Yousafzai to your boss or the coach of your kid's soccer team. But a study published Thursday suggests that people who end up in leadership roles of various sorts all share one key trait: Leaders make decisions for a group in the same way that they make decisions for themselves. They don't change their decision-making behavior, even when other people's welfare is at stake. (Greenfieldboyce, 8/2)

A woman suing a Southern California hospital says she underwent a cesarean section without anesthesia. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune , the lawsuit filed last month claims an anesthesiologist didn’t immediately answer pages at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside last November, so the emergency operation was performed without him. (8/2)

Paul Iheanachor said he was in the hallway outside the operating room where hospital staff had taken his fiancee, Delfina Mota, when he knew something was wrong. “I heard the screams, the horrific screams,” 35-year-old Iheanachor said Thursday. “That’s when I realized they were cutting her without anesthesia.” Details of what the Oceanside couple said happened during the Nov. 16 birth are included in a lawsuit they filed last month naming Tri-City Medical Center, the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. (Figueroa, 8/2)

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed a law requiring public schools to allow parents to administer medical marijuana at school to eligible children. The Republican signed the legislation Wednesday. The new law allows parents or guardians to administer a “cannabis-infused product” to a student on school property or on a school bus if both parent and child have been cleared to use the product by the state’s medical marijuana law. (8/2)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo took another step toward legalizing marijuana in New York, announcing the formation of a 20-person work group to draft legislation allowing for recreational use by adults. Thursday’s announcement came on the heels of a state health-department study that addressed the effects of pot legalization on public health, the economy and the criminal-justice system. The final report, released last month, concluded that the positive effects of a regulated marijuana market would outweigh the potential negatives. (Korte, 8/2)

Two of the first states to broadly legalize marijuana took different approaches to regulation that left Oregon with a vast oversupply and Colorado with a well-balanced market. But in both states prices for bud have plummeted. A new Oregon report by law enforcement found nearly 70 percent of the legal recreational marijuana grown goes unsold, while an unrelated state-commissioned Colorado study found most growers there are planting less than half of their legal allotment — and still meeting demand. (8/2)

This fall, Missouri voters will decide whether to raise the minimum wage, legalize medical marijuana and institute sweeping ethics reforms after a slate of progressive campaigns collected signatures across the state to put the issues on the November ballot. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft on Thursday certified five initiative petitions to appear on November’s general election ballot. (Kite, 8/2)

It’s been almost a year since Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, battering the U.S. territory with heavy rain, flash floods and winds that blew up to 155 mph. Officially, the death toll stands at 64. But a new report estimates that 1,139 people lost their lives as a result of the Category 4 storm. The figure, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., is based on mortality data from Puerto Rico’s vital statistics system that was not previously available. (Kaplan, 8/2)

Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller's sliding positions last year on a long-held GOP promise to repeal Obamacare are providing plenty of fodder for Democrats and activists hoping to stymie his re-election. Heller, considered the most vulnerable incumbent GOP senator, opposed measures to dismantle former President Barack Obama's health care law before backing other versions that failed. The shifting stances drew attacks from the left and the right, and Democrats are not letting him forget it. (8/2)

New York City health commissioner Mary Travis Bassett announced Thursday that she will be leaving her job at the end of the month to take a position at Harvard University. Dr. Bassett, who was appointed to lead the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partly for her focus on community health and disenfranchised neighborhoods, has in recent weeks faced criticism for what responsibility her department might have had in a lead-poisoning scandal that affects children living in the city’s public housing system. (West, 8/2)

Senior researcher Amanda Woodrum found that employers often don’t offer health insurance to part-time or temporary employees, impose waiting periods for coverage, or require workers to contribute as much as 25 percent of their earnings toward insurance costs, making it unaffordable. Perhaps it’s not surprising that low-wage employers — think retail or food service — are least likely to provide coverage, offering health benefits to less than a third of their roughly 1.7 million employees in Ohio. (Candisky, 8/2)

Laura Kasten stood outside her mother’s house in Fullerton, a backpack pulling on her hunched shoulders. She fidgeted. The 51-year-old and her mom, Jan Rockwell, hadn’t spoken since arguing just before Christmas. Laura braced herself. “I’ve got your mail right on the table,” Rockwell, 79, said as they squeezed onto a faded living room couch. “I’d like to hug you if I can hold my nose.” (Do, 8/2)

The wait for immunizations at the Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department most afternoons this summer has been two, sometimes three hours – and it’s likely to get worse as the first day of school nears. ...The health department and other public health providers will also be immunizing children at Summerfest, the back-to-school bash Kansas City Public Schools is hosting Saturday. Last year, despite torrential rains that drenched the festival grounds, more than 5,000 KCPS families showed up. (Moxley, 8/2)

Frustrated hospital leaders say they will continue pushing for legislation to help struggling community hospitals after Massachusetts lawmakers failed in their last-ditch attempt to find consensus on a sweeping health care bill this week. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/2)

A billing policy change at Rocky Mountain Fire Protection District that went into effect Wednesday will ease the financial burden on residents who receive emergency medical transportation by ambulance. The district — which serves about 30,000 residents spanning a 65-square-mile area south and east of Boulder from Rocky Flats up to the city’s northern edge — is no longer billing district taxpayers for ambulance service costs not covered by their health insurance plans. (Lounsberry, 8/2)

A new treatment with the Zika virus might be able to target tumor cells in one of the deadliest childhood cancers. Kenneth Alexander, a doctor with Nemours Children's Hospital, says it could work as a treatment for neuroblastoma by attacking growing cancer cells, and leaving other more developed cells alone. (Prieur, 8/2)

The Portland area's main 24-hour mental health emergency room will be open to all new patients soon, but is still under a state investigation. On Tuesday, Unity Center for Behavioral Health barred transfers from local hospitals and ambulances, but allowed walk-in patients. Unity's staff and management are under scrutiny after an Oregon Health Authority investigation into complaints about assaults on staff and other patients. (Harbarger, 8/2)

Stanford Medicine hired Dr. Tait Shanafelt as chief wellness officer last year, not so much for the well-being of the patients — but of the physicians. An oncologist and hematologist by training, Shanafelt, 46, has become a national leader in the movement to end physician “burnout” — the cumulative effect of years of stress that can compromise patient care and cause doctors to leave medicine. After 12 years at the Mayo Clinic, Shanafelt now heads up Stanford’s WellMD Center, dedicated to physician health. He also serves as an associate dean of the Stanford University medical school. (Ostrov, 8/3)

A longtime Winterset physician failed to properly treat eight patients since 2013, state regulators say. This is the second time Richard Strickler Jr. has faced incompetence allegations from the Iowa Board of Medicine. Strickler, 62, practices family medicine. The board, which licenses physicians, said Strickler failed to order routine electrocardiogram tests for four patients who complained of chest pain or irregular heartbeats. The board also said Strickler improperly prescribed powerful antibiotics, including for upper respiratory issues, and inadequately addressed patients’ high blood pressure. (Leys, 8/2)

Hamilton County Justice Center inmates are getting vaccinated for hepatitis A after four were diagnosed with the infection that inflames the liver and can cause liver disease. Cincinnati Health, Hamilton County Public Health departments and the jail are working together to get the inmates vaccinated, officials said Thursday. (DeMio and Knight, 8/2)

Rush University Medical Center is working with the real estate firm JLL to manage its facilities, which is expected to net the Chicago-based academic medical center about $40 million in savings. Part of the cost reduction will stem from more energy-efficient assets, JLL said. JLL will use energy usage and cost data from other healthcare systems in the Chicago area and adapt Rush's 5 million square feet across 21 buildings accordingly. (Kacik, 8/2)

Hospitalizations for firearm assaults among urban 15- to 19-year-olds represent the highest injury rate. Notably, hospitalizations are lower for urban versus rural 5- to 9-year-olds and 10- to 14-year-olds, and unintentional firearm injuries are most common among these groups. Preventative public health approaches should address these differences in injury epidemiology. (Herrin et al, 8/1)

Over the past several decades in the United States, more and more health care providers and health insurers have consolidated, increasing their market power. Highly concentrated markets have contributed to the growth in U.S. health care spending because they are associated with higher health care prices and insurance premiums, yet are not typically associated with higher quality of care. (Fulton, Arnold and Scheffler, 7/30)

In this 10-year cohort study of 445 unsheltered homeless adults, the age-standardized all-cause mortality rate was almost 3-fold larger than that for a cohort of homeless adults primarily sleeping in shelters and nearly 10-fold larger than that for the adult population of Massachusetts; both represented significant differences. Common causes of death were cancer and heart disease. (Roncarati et al, 7/30)

Children without severe conditions enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid frequently filled outpatient opioid prescriptions for acute, self-limited conditions. One of every 2611 study opioid prescriptions was followed by an opioid-related adverse event (71.2% of which were related to therapeutic use of the prescribed opioid). (Chung et al, 8/1)

Community health centers play an important role in efforts to address the opioid epidemic. In many communities, they are on the front lines of the epidemic and have become an important source of treatment for those with opioid use disorder (OUD). (Zur et al, 7/30)

During his presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific.” For a long time, that “something terrific” was left unspecified. Now, more than a year and a half into Trump’s presidency, we have finally learned his grand plan for reducing Americans’ health-care costs. It is: Don’t get sick. Ever. (Catherine Rampell, 8/2)

With the unemployment rate around 4% and people flooding back into the workforce, the question facing economic policy makers has changed: Once the cyclical recovery has fully run its course, what can be done to help into employment Americans still left behind? The answer offered by many Republicans is to increase work requirements on low-income benefits. The House farm bill would tighten eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. States are doing the same for Medicaid under federal waivers. But such steps would jeopardize the health and nutrition of millions of Americans, while doing little to increase work. (Jason Furman, 8/2)

American health care has been under assault for the past 18 months, and the health care of millions threatened, as the Trump administration makes cut after cut to inflict harm on the Affordable Care Act. The effort to fight back began Thursday with a lawsuit against the administration that includes a stunning, nearly 60-page account of President Donald Trump’s attempts to sabotage the ACA. This lawsuit is not a screed about political differences. The challenge from the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, as well as two residents of Charlottesville, Virginia, is far more fundamental: It takes Trump to task for his own words and deeds, contending that they are in direct violation of the Take Care Clause of the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. (Andy Slavitt, 8/2)

As the Trump administration, Congress and insurance companies debate various future health-care plans for the American people, it’s important to remember that comprehensive coverage must include mental health and substance abuse treatment. Perhaps if we increased public awareness of mental health issues and the effective preventions and interventions out there, they would be demanding such coverage too. The estimated past-year prevalence of mental illness, excluding substance use disorders, is 18.3 percent of individuals aged 18 and older. If you add in the number of persons with alcohol or illicit drug use disorders, the number grows substantially.  With the occurrence so high, we all likely know, and possibly love, someone with a mental illness or substance abuse disorder. (Joan Cook, 8/2)

Every year, 1 in 3 of the 2 million people with opioid use disorder in the United States is arrested. It follows that correctional facilities, that is, detention centers, jails, and prisons, have important roles in engaging people with opioid use disorder in effective treatment. Opioid agonist therapy with methadone hydrochloride, a full opioid agonist, or buprenorphine hydrochloride, a partial agonist, effectively treats opioid use disorder and reduces mortality. There is no comparable evidence for reduced mortality with naltrexone hydrochloride, an extended-release, full opioid antagonist also approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of opioid use disorder. Yet opioid agonist treatment is used infrequently in correctional facilities. What steps must be taken to change the situation? (Kevin Fiscella, Sarah E. Wakeman and Leo Beletsky, 7/30)

Our economy is growing and businesses are expanding and looking for workers. Go on Ohiomeansjobs.com today and you will see more than 140,000 jobs advertised. Businesses say pro-growth federal policies -- tax reform especially -- are helping them grow and increasing optimism about the future. Since the first of the year, I've visited 21 businesses across Ohio that have raised wages, delivered bonuses, bought new equipment, increased workers' benefits and more as a direct result of tax reform. At another dozen small-business roundtable discussions, I have heard the same story. Despite all these job openings in Ohio, we still have a historically high number of people out of the workforce altogether. I believe it is because the opioid epidemic gripping our state has depleted the pool of workers and stunted our full economic potential. (Sen. Rob Portman, 8/2)

Maryland has just issued its latest report on the opioid epidemic in the state; let’s start by recounting the good news, because, unfortunately, it won’t take long. Overdose deaths related to heroin declined from 1,212 in 2016 to 1,078 in 2017; deaths in which prescription opioids were involved also fell slightly, from 418 to 413. Data from other sources indicate that opioid prescribing is waning. Such statistics suggest the state is finally making headway against those two killers. Nevertheless, overall deaths due to drug and alcohol intoxication rose by 9 percent, to a record 2,282. This was the seventh straight annual increase and probably means that Maryland still has one of the top five death rates among the states for opioid-related overdoses, as it did in 2016, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. (8/2)

Nearly 30 years ago, the author William Styron outed himself in these pages as mentally ill. “My days were pervaded by a gray drizzle of unrelenting horror,” he wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article, describing the deep depression that had landed him in the psych ward. He compared the agony of mental illness to that of a heart attack. Pain is pain, whether it’s in the mind or the body. So why, he asked, were depressed people treated as pariahs? (Pagan Kennedy, 8/3)

In early 2018, a United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing made headlines during an unofficial visit to San Francisco and Oakland, California, by comparing the living conditions for those people residing on the streets of these cities with what she had observed in Mumbai, India, and by calling this state of affairs a violation of international human rights law. Indeed, it is hard to explain how, in one of the wealthiest regions of the world at a time of human history when the overall standard of living has never been higher, we have encampments of people living without toilets, sinks, showers, refrigerators, or cooking facilities. (Michael Incze and Mitchell H. Katz, 7/30)

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau may not seem political or imminently relevant to your life, but I can assure it is both. The census helps dictate how federal tax dollars are spent, based on how many people live in given communities. And it determines long term representation at the federal, state and local levels. Now anti-immigrant policy makers are trying to make changes to the census that will endanger everyone’s access to health care services; and immigrant communities will be hurt most. (Bridgette Gomez, 8/2)

I’d written about health care for seven years. Worked on the business side of a clinic for two years. Was raised by a nurse. So I thought I had a pretty good understanding of health care in the U.S. Then I got pregnant. Navigating the system for nine months was a refresher course in how convoluted, secretive and occasionally magical American health care can be. (Audrey Dutton, 8/2)

China, with its huge population and its position as the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, should be poised to become a world leader in clinical trials for new drugs and devices. But it isn’t quite ready for that. Problems with protecting clinical trial participants, inadequate clinical trial infrastructure, and poor transparency make China an unreliable country in which to conduct a clinical trial. As a clinical research professional with more than a decade of global industry experience, I’ve seen clinical trials conducted in many countries but have yet to work with a U.S. company that has opted to conduct a clinical trial in China. (Anne Poli, 8/3)

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, President Barack Obama suggested that the relationship between firearm ownership and gun injuries might be as strong as the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The full extent of the burden of firearm injuries is incompletely understood because of historical restrictions on federal funding for research on firearm violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But recent increases in the frequency and lethality of mass shootings in the United States — and the approximately 90 gun deaths that occur each day — argue for efforts to reframe the national debate about firearms as a public health issue. (John Maa and Ara Darzi, 8/2)

Anyone with a computer or smartphone can share their opinions online about any product, facility or professional. Someone happy with a restaurant might post a positive review on yelp.com. Someone not happy with a car repair might post negative comments about a mechanic on Facebook. Medical professionals are not immune to such public rants and raves. Yet doctors are fighting back, according to a recent USA TODAY Network investigation. (8/2)

The capture of the suspected Golden State Killer illustrated that DNA information may derive from testing that an implicated person doesn’t know has occurred. Realizing DNA testing’s great potential as a public health tool will require managing its potential for misuse. (Thomas May, 8/2)

Healthy Youth is not a radical bill. It simply ensures that any sex education taught in our public schools be grounded in fact and science, teach about consent and healthy relationships, and be LGBTQ affirming. ...This means, some of our students may learn that they shouldn’t bother with birth control because it doesn’t work (that’s false), or that queer students are damaged and wrong, or that girls who have sex with more than one partner are as valuable as used chewing gum. (Jaclyn Friedman, 8/3)

Senate Bill 8, which the Legislature passed last year, requires abortion facilities specifically to bury or cremate any cells or other fetal tissue after a procedure, regardless of the faith beliefs or wishes of the woman. ...But too often I see political leaders impose their own faith beliefs on those who don’t share them, particularly regarding the treatment of women. (Amy Cohen, 8/2)