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That didn’t take long. Barely a month into the 2020 Democratic primary, rifts between the party’s liberal and moderate factions burst open this week — pried loose by an intraparty feud over health care and taxes that could define the battle to take on President Donald Trump. It started with Sen. Kamala Harris’ comments at a town hall Monday that she backed eliminating the health insurance industry in order to achieve Medicare for all. Distancing herself from the proposal on CNN the next day, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) cautioned against immediately “changing our entire insurance system where over half of Americans get private insurance.” (Siders and Cadelago, 1/31)

Sen. Kamala D. Harris is raising the possibility of eliminating private health insurance. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats are floating new and far-reaching plans to tax the wealthy. In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam voiced support for state legislation that would reduce restrictions on late-term abortions. Democrats, after two years largely spent simply opposing everything President Trump advocated, are defining themselves lately in ways Republicans are seizing on to portray them as far outside the American mainstream. (Viser, 1/31)

The term “Medicare for all” has been thrown around a lot lately by politicians and pundits. But, as recent polls show, there’s widespread confusion among people about what the term means and what would happen if the United States were to adopt such a program. (Rocheleau, 1/31)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Live From D.C.: A Look Ahead At Health Policy In 2019

The 2020 presidential campaign has begun and health is a big part of it, with Democratic candidates pledging their support for “Medicare-for-all” and many of its variations. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats are both promising to do something about drug prices and “surprise” medical bills. But whether they can translate that agreement on the broad problem to a detailed solution remains to be seen. (1/31)

When New York expanded abortion rights last week for the first time in 49 years, Democrats across the state were exultant. Now, that jubilation has been met with an equal and opposite reaction. Anti-abortion advocates, from grass-roots activists all the way to the White House, are taking aim at New York, Virginia and other states in a bid to halt similar legislative efforts by emboldened Democratic lawmakers and to mobilize supporters ahead of the 2020 presidential race. By Thursday, both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had leaned into the debate, homing in on provisions that would loosen some restrictions on late-term abortions. (Wang, 1/31)

President Donald Trump is telling conservative allies he wants to incorporate firm anti-abortion language into his State of the Union address Tuesday, and potentially include an anti-abortion figure among his list of invitees, according to four sources familiar with his plans. Trump sees an opening to energize his evangelical supporters and capture moderate voters who administration officials believe may be turned off by widespread coverage of New York’s newest abortion law, which allows for termination of some pregnancies after the 24-week mark for health reasons. (Orr and Restuccia, 1/31)

A pitched debate about late-term abortions in Virginia erupted into all-out political warfare Thursday as Republicans — including President Donald Trump — sought to capitalize on Democratic missteps. Republicans accused Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a folksy pediatric neurologist who is personal friends with many GOP lawmakers, of backing infanticide. Republicans said recent statements by Northam and other Democrats have laid bare their support for on-demand abortions at any point of a pregnancy, including up to the moments before birth — or even after. (1/31)

Virginia Republicans doubled down Thursday on their effort to paint Gov. Ralph Northam and other Democrats as radicals who favor infanticide, a sharp shift in political strategy after years of trying to minimize socially divisive issues to win back suburban voters. And Democrats, who helped create the furor through missteps and unclear statements, also dug in on abortion, trying to paint Republicans as extremists looking to meddle in women’s health care. It was Day 2 of partisan warfare over an issue that hadn’t been on the Virginia political agenda for years. (Vozzella and Schneider, 1/31)

Virginia Del. Kathy Tran said Thursday that she “misspoke” during a legislative hearing earlier this week about a bill that would have loosened restrictions on late-term abortions. Her comments sparked death threats, and intense backlash from GOP politicians — including President Trump. “I wish that I was quicker on my feet and I wish that I was able to be more agile in that moment,” Tran, 41, a first-term Democrat from Fairfax County, said in an interview. “And I misspoke, and I really regret that.” (Olivo, 1/31)

Abortion providers in Louisiana have asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of a state law they say would leave only one doctor eligible to perform the procedure, an unexpectedly quick test on the issue for the court’s strengthened conservative majority. The Louisiana law — passed in 2014 but never allowed to go into effect — requires any physician providing abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the procedure. (Barnes, 1/31)

Abortion opponents may be about to collect their first dividends from the appointment of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The court will decide in the next few days whether to temporarily block a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to get admitting privileges at a local hospital. The measure is almost identical to a Texas law the court struck down in 2016 as imposing an undue burden on women seeking abortions. The question is whether a change in the court’s composition since then -- with Kavanaugh replacing swing Justice Anthony Kennedy -- will lead the justices to let the Louisiana law take effect. (Stohr, 2/1)

An effort to eliminate the use of “buffer zones” outside Planned Parenthood clinics was quashed in the House on Thursday, after lengthy arguments over free speech and privacy. House Bill 124 would have repealed a law allowing reproductive health clinics like Planned Parenthood to push back protesters up to 25 feet outside entrances to their facilities. The bill was killed as legislators voted it inexpedient to legislate on the House floor, 228-141. (DeWitt, 1/31)

A proposed constitutional amendment introduced this week would effectively ban all abortions in Kansas by declaring that life begins at fertilization. Republican Rep. Eric Smith is one of the amendment’s sponsors. To him, the measure gets at the heart of the matter where recent abortion debates haven’t. (Koranda, 1/31)

The Massachusetts attorney general’s office on Thursday made public a full copy of its lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, which it accuses of igniting the opioid epidemic through the deceptive marketing of its painkillers, including OxyContin. The court filing details how the company considered expanding into addiction treatment, how much the Sackler family that controls Purdue and company executives were paid, and how the company was advised by McKinsey & Co. to improve its image in the face of concerns about addiction and overdoses. (Joseph, 1/31)

A member of the Sackler family that owns OxyContin’s maker directed the company to put a premium on selling high dosages of its potentially addicting painkillers, according to new disclosures in a lawsuit. Richard Sackler, a son of a founder of Purdue Pharma and its onetime president, told company officials in 2008 to “measure our performance by Rx’s by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths,” according to an email written by Mr. Sackler, contained in the filing. The lawsuit, which was filed in June by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods increased the risks of serious side effects, including addiction. (Meier, 1/31)

Not content with billions of dollars in profits from the potent painkiller OxyContin, its maker explored expanding into an “attractive market” fueled by the drug’s popularity — treatment of opioid addiction, according to previously secret passages in a court document filed by the state of Massachusetts. In internal correspondence beginning in 2014, Purdue Pharma executives discussed how the sale of opioids and the treatment of opioid addiction are “naturally linked” and that the company should expand across “the pain and addiction spectrum,” according to redacted sections of the lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general. (Armstrong, 1/31)

A Michigan doctor convicted of illegally distributing Insys Therapeutics Inc.’s opioid painkiller Subsys said the company’s beautiful sales reps and “easy money’’ helped persuade him to write unnecessary prescriptions for the highly addictive drug. Gavin Awerbuch told a Boston jury Wednesday he made more than $130,000 over 18 months just for showing up to sham educational sessions. Earlier this week, the jury heard that a former sales manager at Insys had been a stripper who once wooed a Chicago doctor with a lap dance. (Feeley and Lawrence, 1/31)

The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled a strategic planning document two years in the making: the National Drug Control Strategy, traditionally a wide-ranging annual report that outlines the government’s approach to policing illegal drugs, reducing drug demand, and treating addiction. Though President Trump pledged to make the opioid crisis a top priority after assuming office, the Office of National Drug Control Policy did not release an equivalent document after his first year in office, as is customary. (Facher, 1/31)

U.S. border agents have seized 254 pounds (115 kg) of fentanyl that was stashed in a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, marking the largest single bust of the powerful opioid ever made at an American border checkpoint, officials said on Thursday. The 26-year-old Mexican driver of a cucumber-toting tractor trailer was arrested after agents on Saturday at the border station in Nogales discovered the fentanyl in a secret compartment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. (1/31)

A new wrongful-death lawsuit alleges an Ohio hospital patient was given a lethal painkiller overdose weeks after concern was raised about the doctor who ordered the medication. It's the ninth lawsuit against the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System, now-fired Dr. William Husel (HYOO'-suhl), and pharmacists and nurses accused of wrongly approving and administering the drugs. (1/31)

The only needle exchange in Orange County, a mobile unit that was sidelined by a judge in November, is fighting in court to continue offering its services. The Orange County Needle Exchange Program (OCNEP) filed an appeal with a San Diego County Superior Court judge last week, seeking to resume operations. (Wiley, 1/31)

hile ER doctors can help save the lives of people suffering the most painful and deadly withdrawal symptoms, it’s often a short-term fix. The best alternative is treatment in detox-specific programs, designed to manage the most acute and potentially dangerous physical effects of stopping drug use and transition patients into long-term addiction recovery. But there are only 155 medical detox beds  in four facilities in all of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Tammany Parishes, despite a growing number of drug related overdose deaths in recent years in the area. (Clark, 1/31)

Among many studies of how different programs help recover addicts, there have few been about whether drug treatment is more successful when paired with a job, said Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Professor August Holtyn. But it makes sense that jobs and housing could be factors in people's successful recovery. (Collins, 2/1)

The call came Jan. 19, just after Quatashia Cuff got back from grocery shopping, a task that had taken several hours because she’d made the trip out of Boston to shop in the suburb of Quincy. It was a long way to haul groceries, especially for someone seven months pregnant, but she’d learned long ago that getting by meant stretching her money as far as possible, and milk was often $2 cheaper out there. A recorded message on the phone confirmed what she’d been bracing for: February’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, had been paid out early because of the government shutdown, so she had a little more money than usual for this time of the month. (Telford, 1/31)

The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma used a GoFundMe page and its own money to feed its many members who were furloughed or worked without pay during the U.S. government shutdown. On their reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Sioux used third-party funds and dipped into tribal funds to provide food assistance. The 35-day partial government shutdown affected 800,000 federal workers, but Native Americans were especially vulnerable because they rely mostly on federal contracts for services and jobs in the Bureau of Indian affairs for incomes. (Keith and Hay, 1/29)

Several state regulators say they don't have the authority and capacity to properly regulate the marketing of short-term insurance plans that offer fewer benefits than plans sold on the Affordable Care Act's exchanges, according to a new study. The study released Thursday from the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms explored how states are overseeing the marketing of short-term plans after a new HHS regulation expanded the plans' duration from three months to nearly 12 months. (King, 1/31)

The word audacious has a double meaning. Depending on whom you talk to, either definition might apply to the way the Kansas Farm Bureau is proposing to rescue farmers and ranchers priced out of the health insurance marketplace set up under the federal Affordable Care Act. It’s either a bold and daring move. Or, it’s presumptuous, bordering on brazen. The powerful ag lobbying organization is petitioning lawmakers for what amounts to carte blanche authority to develop and market health coverage free of state and federal oversight. (McLean, 2/1)

Atul Gawande’s new Boston-based health care venture has yet to design any products, but it could be changing the way some employees of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase receive their health care within the year, the venture’s chief operating officer told a federal judge on Thursday. The venture’s COO, Jack Stoddard, testified for an hour on Thursday at a Boston federal courthouse during a contentious, technical, and unusually long hearing. The hearing was intended to determine the fate of David Smith, a former midlevel executive at Optum. Smith began a new job at Gawande’s venture, referred to in court documents as ABC, earlier in January. Optum is suing to prevent Smith from continuing to work for the new company. (Sheridan, 1/31)

Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc said on Thursday e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc posted more than $1 billion in revenue in 2018, up from about $200 million a year earlier, the first official growth figures for the controversial vaping product. Altria paid $12.8 billion to acquire a 35 percent stake in Juul in December 2018, getting a foothold in a segment that is quickly becoming an attractive alternative for smokers. (Kumar, 1/31)

More than half of hospital and health system executives polled would not have a chief executive lined up if their CEO suddenly left, according to a new survey. Fifty-four percent of 164 executives surveyed said they don't have a ready successor and 43% operate without an effective internal succession plan, according to a new survey from executive search firm Korn Ferry. Nearly a third lack a succession plan entirely. (Kacik, 1/31)

Successful mental health treatments can function like a conversation: The brain hears some kind of message — whether it’s from a drug or another other approach — and the brain responds in a way that alleviates some symptoms. Some scientists are listening in on those conversations — and trying to “back translate” them to figure out how successful treatments actually work. And that effort is about to get a big boost: The nonprofit Wellcome Trust recently announced a $200 million commitment to support more mental health research, including scientists studying the underpinnings of existing treatments. (Thielking, 2/1)

A sudden shortage of one of the safest anti-anxiety drugs on the market has spread alarm among people who rely on the medication, buspirone, to get through the day without debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. Physicians are also expressing concern, because there is no information about when the supply will resume, making it difficult to manage patients. Shelby Vittek, a 27-year-old writer in New Jersey, fruitlessly called dozens of drugstores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in an attempt to locate the medication after her pharmacist told her the drug was on back-order with no end in sight. (Rabin, 2/1)

A Facebook algorithm analyzes comments, posts and videos to predict when users might be suicidal. In thousands of cases, Facebook has notified police, who have have arrived to perform wellness checks. Is this a moral good? Or Is Facebook stepping into a health care role and overstepping its bounds? (Zuckoff and Bologna, 1/31)

This, the therapist in your pocket, could be the future of mental health, a way to offer millions of underserved people access to mental health care at a fraction of the usual cost. And it has the potential to vastly expand the reach of cognitive behavioral therapy, a proven alternative to drugs. But cognitive behavioral therapy, like all therapies, can have side effects, some of them quite serious. (Rodriguez McRobbie, 1/31)

Massachusetts still struggles to provide access to mental health care and addiction treatment, according to a new report by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation. The report follows a December survey of more than 2,000 Massachusetts adults, which found that more than half of respondents reported difficulty accessing behavioral health care services last year. (Oakes and Thompson, 1/31)

Los Angeles recorded its highest level of reports of hate crimes in a decade, with a nearly 13% increase in 2018 over the year before. Last year, L.A. tallied 289 hate crimes, compared with 256 in 2017, according to LAPD statistics gathered by researchers at Cal State San Bernardino. Members of the LGBTQ community, African Americans and those of Jewish faith were the most frequently targeted, according to the newly released report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. (Winton, 1/31)

Midwesterners trudged ahead Thursday into a familiar, grim reality: temperatures well below zero, schools and businesses closed, stern warnings to wear extra layers or, better yet, just stay indoors. The polar vortex that arrived earlier this week has for days disrupted life across an entire region. Deaths and injuries were reported. Decades-old records fell. And, for one more day, even stepping outside remained a painful, risky experience. (Smith, Bosman and Davey, 1/31)

On a night when many people in Kansas City hid from the cold inside under blankets, hundreds of people without homes risked their lives outside. Volunteers for the Greater Kansas City Point in Time 2019 homeless survey found 377 people in warming stations, outdoors or in other areas of Jackson and Wyandotte counties on Wednesday night, when temperatures dipped to zero degrees Fahrenheit. (Smith, 1/31)

To start, no. There won’t be “a complete cure for cancer” in a year’s time, as the chairman of a small Israeli biotechnology firm predicted to the Jerusalem Post. The claim, absurd on its face, was particularly frustrating to those who work in medicine and drug development because it seemed so obvious there was not enough evidence to make it. It doesn’t take a lot of complicated biology to understand why. You simply need the information contained in the Jerusalem Post’s article: that the data available so far are from a single study in mice and that they have not been published in a scientific journal. (Herper, 2/1)

A scientist in New York is conducting experiments designed to modify DNA in human embryos as a step toward someday preventing inherited diseases, NPR has learned. For now, the work is confined to a laboratory. But the research, if successful, would mark another step toward turning CRISPR, a powerful form of gene editing, into a tool for medical treatment. (Stein, 2/1)

Our long-held notions of boys as being more stoic and girls as being more expressive may lead Americans to overrate the severity of male physical pain. A recent study by psychologists at Yale University found that adults, when presented with imagery of a child's finger being pricked, considered the child to be in less pain when they thought it was a girl. The study, published in The Journal of Pediatric Psychology, involved showing 264 adult participants a video of a child whose gender appeared ambiguous. (Prior, 1/31)

Too many young kids are using too much toothpaste, increasing their risk of streaky or splotchy teeth when they get older, according to a government survey released Thursday. About 40 percent of kids ages 3 to 6 used a brush that was full or half-full of toothpaste, even though experts recommend no more than a pea-sized amount, the study found. (1/31)

It's cold outside, you're sick and all you want to do is curl up under the covers until you feel better. In fact, the need for sleep can be so strong when we're sick that this may be all we can do. Scientists don't fully understand how this excessive sleepiness is different from your normal, everyday tiredness. (Lambert, 1/31)

Super fans could have more to look forward to during Sunday's Super Bowl than an exciting game of football. For those whose team takes home the trophy, several side effects could make the day even better, including how your food tastes and how you think about yourself. The more you care about a team, the more you could feel these effects. (Thomas, 1/30)

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked for a second time a San Francisco law requiring health warnings on advertisements for soda and other sugary drinks in a victory for beverage and retail groups that sued to block the ordinance. The law violates constitutionally protected commercial speech, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a unanimous ruling. (1/31)

The unanimous ruling by a full court of 11 judges on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday affirms a decision by a three-judge panel of the court in 2017, which the city of San Francisco appealed. The court also determined the city’s warning that consumption of sugary drinks can lead to obesity and other diseases wasn’t based on established fact—citing statements by the Food and Drug Administration that sugars are “generally recognized as safe” when not consumed to excess. (Carlton, 1/31)

New York City and U.S. housing officials announced a deal Thursday that will keep the city's massive public housing system out of federal receivership, but require the city to spend $2.2 billion over the next few years fixing chronic problems with lousy living conditions, lead paint and lack of heat. The settlement, announced by U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson and Mayor Bill de Blasio, resolves a lawsuit in which federal authorities filed on behalf of the system's 400,000 tenants. (1/31)

When pregnant Chinese women called You Win USA Vacation Services, they didn’t receive information on visiting Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. Instead, they sought coveted advice on how to make a very different type of trip — one aimed at giving birth on U.S. soil so their children would be American citizens. You Win USA employees allegedly coached the women on the lies they should write on bogus applications for tourist visas and made sure the women traveled before their bellies swelled too much to conceal. (Mejia and Rubin, 1/31)

Advocate Aurora Health is moving forward with its $250 million plan to build a hospital and other facilities in southeastern Wisconsin, despite news that Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans for its first U.S. plant in the same area. Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics giant that supplies Apple, had initially promised a $10 billion investment and up to 13,000 jobs in the area. But on Wednesday, the company said in a statement that a changed global market environment has “necessitated the adjustment of plans for all projects, including Wisconsin.” (Schencker, 1/31)

Tobacco companies owe Texas more than $125 million as compensation for smoking-related health care costs, and the state is demanding they pay up. Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday asked a U.S. District Court to enforce the terms of a 1998 settlement that mandated annual payments in perpetuity from five major cigarette companies. The lapse in payment took place after two companies from the original settlement sold cigarette brands to a separate company in 2015, and none of the entities made the necessary payments in the following years, according to court filings. (Sarder, 1/31)

With full control of the state legislature for the first time since 2014 and a new progressive governor leading the charge, Colorado Democrats are eagerly looking to make the state a testing ground for some of the party’s boldest ideas on health care, from a public option to importing drugs from Canada. Colorado could chart a path for other blue states exploring ways to boost coverage and contain costs after an election cycle in which Democrats campaigned heavily on health care. (Goldberg, 1/31)

Molina Healthcare has abruptly reassigned roughly 19,000 patients to new doctors, effective Friday following a contract dispute with Golden Shore Medical Group, said J. Mario Molina, Golden Shore’s CEO and owner, whose company cared for mostly Medi-Cal patients. Molina said that Golden Shore would complete the sale and transfer of its local clinics Thursday to Sacramento-based WellSpace Health. (Anderson, 1/31)

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing people with intellectual disabilities is cruel and unusual punishment, states were left to come up with their own methods of defining the condition. But the Texas Legislature hasn’t done so, leaving that job to the courts — resulting in a hodgepodge system of deciding the crucial question of whether a person facing a death sentence should be spared from execution. (McCullough, 2/1)

The Orange County district attorney has ordered an examination of all evidence, including numerous videos, in the case of a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend charged with sexually assaulting seven women. Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said that after the review, he will determine how to proceed in the case against Dr. Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, whose high-profile prosecutions were launched by Spitzer’s predecessor, Tony Rackauckas. (Winton, 1/31)

The flu rocked Tampa Bay and the rest of the nation last year with record-breaking outbreaks and deaths. But as we near the peak of the flu season in February, local health officials are encouraged by only moderate reports of activity so far. (Griffin, 2/1)

For decades, the life expectancy in the United States steadily increased as medical breakthroughs helped people live longer. But in the past few years, life expectancy has started to decrease – an unprecedented step backward in the modern age. (Fentem, 1/31)

A confirmed case of mumps was reported at Marquette University on Thursday. The illness was contracted by a student who lives in a campus residence hall and who is no longer contagious, a statement from the university said. (Garza, 1/31)

The American Lung Association’s national report, released Wednesday, called on Georgia to increase its tax on a pack of cigarettes. At 37 cents, the levy is among the lowest in the country. ...The only non-failing grade that Georgia received was for the strength of its smoke-free workplace laws, where the state got a “D.” (Miller, 1/31)

Scientists have warned that California should brace for more wildfire as global warming drives longer bouts of hot and dry weather.Now researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have found a positive trend when it comes to Southern California’s battle against destructive blazes. Santa Ana winds — which routinely whip up walls of flame through brush-covered hillsides — are likely to be tempered in coming decades as a result of climate change, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. (Smith, 1/31)

Using state data obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Austin-based environmental group found that 275 companies across the state reported emitting 63 million pounds of hazardous and climate-warming pollutants from their facilities in 2017, including sulfur dioxide, benzene, particulate matter and various volatile organic compounds. That’s a 27-percent jump from 2016 — an increase that can be attributed in part to an unprecedented oil boom in West Texas, where operators are burning off historic amounts of natural gas, and to pollution emitted by Houston-area facilities that shut down during Hurricane Harvey's epic flooding. (Collier, 1/31)

Cuyahoga County, along with the MetroHealth System and seven inmates at the county jail, are engaged in discussions on whether to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit filed over the living conditions for inmates. The revelation came as part of a motion Assistant County Prosecutor Brendan Healy filed Thursday, which said all parties “are engaged in discussions to determine whether a more expeditious resolution of this matter is possible short of costly and protracted litigation.” (Heisig, 1/31)

State higher education officials hope that by providing vulnerable community college and university students a secure place to live, guaranteed meals at the campus dining halls, and more support, such as mental health counseling, they will boost academic success and, ultimately, ensure that these students graduate. Massachusetts initially plans to spend $120,000 to pilot the student housing program at Bridgewater State, Framingham State, and Worcester State universities and at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, with more funding expected in the next budget. (Fernandes, 2/1)

Approximately $29 million in fraudulent Medicare claims was billed by two Houston physicians, who were sentenced Tuesday to prison in the Southern District of Texas for their separate schemes. From December 2011 to August 2015 Dr. John Ramirez,65, along with co-defendants Ann Shepherd, 63, and Yvette Nwoko, 30, defrauded Medicare for unnecessary medical services, according to a Department of Justice news release. (1/31)

Opponents of legalizing recreational marijuana made a pre-emptive strike against a bill that would do just that in New Hampshire. Health advocates joined police chiefs at a news conference Thursday—ahead of the legalization bill’s first public hearing next week—to highlight what they say are dangers for young people and the public at large. (Tuohy, 1/31)

Unless the Supreme Court takes action by Monday, Louisiana may be down to one or two abortion-care doctors for nearly a million women of reproductive age across the state. My organization, the Center for Reproductive Rights, has filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court, asking it to put on hold a medically unnecessary law in Louisiana that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles away. (Nancy Northup, 1/31)

The New York legislators who cheered as Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed the Reproductive Health Act may soon find themselves explaining why they’re letting babies die. So, could politicians in other states who are attempting to follow suit. They will certainly be asked why they felt it was proper to refuse to protect the rights of viable infants, as these bills all legalize abortion into the 40th week of pregnancy. (Grazie Pozo Christie and Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, 1/31)

The new Reproductive Health Act (RHA) goes further, decriminalizing abortion in New York and treating it as a matter of public health. It also brings New York in line with Roe by allowing abortions after 24 weeks to protect the health of the mother, which was never part of the 1970 New York law. In addition to physicians, it permits licensed nurse practitioners, physician assistants and licensed midwives to provide abortion services. The RHA puts New York back in the vanguard of states seeking to protect reproductive rights, even as other states and the federal government attack them, and many fear the U.S Supreme Court will overturn Roe. (Jennie Wetter, 1/31)

Under current law in Virginia, third-trimester abortions are permitted when a woman’s physician and two other doctors certify that continuing a pregnancy would result in a mother’s death, or “substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman.” This week Kathy Tran, a Democrat in Virginia’s House of Delegates, testified in favor of a bill that would end the requirement for two extra doctors to sign off on such abortions, and strike the words “substantially and irremediably” from the existing law. Similar legislation has been introduced in past years. Despite what you might have heard, at no point did Tran try to legalize infanticide. (Michelle Goldberg, 2/1)

If there were plenty of beds in the emergency department, we could attend to patients with acute medical problems and make space for those with social ones. But there aren’t. So making a compassionate decision for Mr. Green means making a risky decision for patients in the waiting room. Crowding and prolonged waits in the ED have been linked to higher inpatient mortality, longer length of stay in the hospital, increased medical errors, more harmful cardiac outcomes, and delayed treatment for pain. (Jay Baruch, 2/1)

Trump has asserted that a border wall is key to solving America’s drug and overdose problems, a claim that has little basis in fact. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, are the drugs most commonly involved in overdose deaths in the United States and the main source of these drugs is China. When drugs are smuggled from Mexico, it’s usually in cars, trucks and fishing boats at legal ports of entry — something a wall would do nothing to stop. By comparison, harm reduction endeavors in Mexican border towns like Juárez and Tijuana have a long record of stopping deadly consequences of opioids and connecting people to living-saving treatment. (Marc Krupanski, 1/31)

It might come as a surprise that vaccine hesitancy appears on the World Health Organization’s 2019 list of the top health threats, which include HIV, pandemic influenza and antimicrobial resistance, among others. Surely, vaccine hesitancy — a voluntarily chosen human behavior — cannot be in the same category as HIV, a virus that has killed 35 million people. However, if one thinks about the full context of vaccine hesitancy and what it represents, the WHO’s inclusion of this outrageous phenomenon is completely justified. Vaccines are incontrovertibly one of the greatest achievements of mankind; they have quite literally added decades to lifespans and prevented millions of people from acquiring infections and suffering early infection-related deaths. (Amesh A. Adalja, 2/1)

Anti-vaccination propagandists also tend to rely on people’s fears about government intervention, which is why it’s important for them to hear accurate information from people with whom they have something in common, like a religious community. ...Will this be enough to save us from the next disease outbreak? Who knows. (Caille Millner, 1/31)

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), a freshly minted presidential candidate, sketched an appealing picture of Medicare-for-all at a CNN town hall on Monday. Yes, she said, the plan would require doing away with insurance companies. But, she argued, who would miss them? “Who of us has not had that situation where you’ve got to wait for approval and the doctor says, ‘Well, I don’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this’? Let’s eliminate all of that, let’s move on.”

Visit a hospital in rural Alabama and one in suburban Virginia, and you'll likely have two different experiences given differing populations and resource levels. This is one of the problems of our healthcare system: the great promise that all Americans have equal opportunity to succeed doesn't translate when it comes to our health. For older Americans, Medicare Star Ratings System is supposed to help. (Sophia Chang, 1/31)

If the Jerusalem Post and other news outlets that carried the story had looked beyond their quest for hype, the headline would have been “A theory that might lead to a curative therapy for some cancer patients perhaps in the next decade.” But that’s not exciting. Heck, it’s not even news. Promising research is going on in labs all over the world, and little of it makes the news. Which begs the question: Why was the story was written in the first place? Promising research? Maybe. Breaking news? No. A near-term cure for cancer? Not even close. (Dena Battle, 2/1)

I walked into room 3501, my least favorite examination room. The problem—it is too big. It was meant to be a procedure room, so it is twice the size of my cozy rooms down the same hallway. The patient chairs sit some 3 yards from where my computer is tethered to the wall. Invariably, patients are ushered into the chair farthest away. Howard sat alone in that chair. I had seen him a few times in the last 2 years—enough to recognize his face, and remember that I enjoyed those encounters, but no specifics. Howard is a 78-year-old man, heavyset, 5 feet 6 inches tall, with thick hands. He is serious-minded but knows how to laugh. He lost his wife a year or so ago, and it took a lot out of him. (Brent W. Beasley, 1/28)

In June 2016, Texas couple Chad and Jennifer Brackeen took a 10-month-old Native American foster child into their home. The boy, referred to as A.L.M. in court documents, had been the victim of parental neglect and drug abuse from birth. He soon became part of the Brackeens’ family. After caring for him for more than a year, the Brackeens — with the support of A.L.M.’s biological parents and the court-appointed guardian overseeing his welfare — decided to adopt him. Little did they know that, instead of encouraging the adoption, an obscure federal law would force state child-welfare officials to try to tear the boy from the family. (Ken Paxton, 1/31)

Prescription drug prices have become a high-profile issue, with a growing clamor from politicians, including Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, seeking to take action. There are many laudable elements in Baker’s proposal to negotiate prices directly with drug makers, despite its narrow focus, but such efforts are doomed to become little more than window dressing. (Vikas Saini, 1/31)

The idea of taxing food and medicine is so distasteful and so outside the national norm that we hope it is not a real proposal. Sometimes horrible possibilities are only voiced to make some unpleasant alternative seem relatively palatable by comparison. (Janet Stolfi Alfano and Joane Samuel Goldblum, 1/31)