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President Joe Biden on Friday plans to roll out a new set of initiatives to reduce health care costs: a crackdown on scam insurance plans, new guidance to prevent surprise medical bills and an effort to reduce medical debt tied to credit cards. Biden’s remarks would build on previous initiatives to limit health care costs, with the Department of Health and Human Services releasing new estimates showing 18.7 million older adults and other Medicare beneficiaries will save an estimated $400 per year in prescription drug costs in 2025 because of the president placing a cap on out-of-pocket spending as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. (Boak, 7/7)

The proposal would largely reverse former President Donald Trump’s expansion of short-term plans in 2018, which extended the duration of the policies to just under a year and allowed them to be renewed for a total of up to 36 months. The move was one of many actions the prior administration took to chip away at the Affordable Care Act. (Luhby, 7/7)

The home health industry is suing the Biden administration over hundreds of millions of dollars in planned Medicare cuts that it says were improperly calculated and could imperil in-home services nationwide. The National Association of Home Care and Hospice suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, escalates tensions between home health agencies and the administration over the way providers are paid. (Dreher and Goldman, 7/7)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ quality bonus program is ineffective in many cases, overpays Medicare Advantage organizations and needs reform, according to the Urban Institute. The bonus program, established by the Affordable Care Act in 2010, offers 5% bonus payments to Medicare Advantage contracts with ratings of four stars or higher. In 2022, quality bonus program payments totaled $10 billion, up from $3 billion in 2015. The institute's report noted that combined, United Healthcare and Humana received $4.7 billion in bonuses last year. (Devereaux, 7/6)

President Biden’s choice to run the U.S. government’s medical research is at a standstill because of an impasse with Sen. Bernie Sanders over high drug costs. Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and chairs the Senate’s health committee, is refusing to hold a key hearing on Dr. Monica Bertagnolli’s nomination as National Institutes of Health director until the White House has spelled out a plan to cut drug prices, a spokesman said. (Whyte, 7/6)

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday gave full approval to the Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, and Medicare said it would cover much of its high cost, laying the foundation for widespread use of a medication that can modestly slow cognitive decline in the early stages of the disease but also carries significant safety risks. The F.D.A.’s decision marks the first time in two decades that a drug for Alzheimer’s has received full approval, meaning that the agency concluded there is solid evidence of potential benefit. But the agency also added a so-called black-box warning — the most urgent level — on the drug’s label, stating that in rare cases the drug can cause “serious and life-threatening events” and that there have been cases of brain bleeding, “some of which have been fatal.” (Belluck, 7/6)

To be eligible for Leqembi, someone must be in the early stages of the disease, marked by mild cognitive impairment and a buildup of the amyloid protein in the brain – the latter of which can be determined with a PET scan or spinal fluid test. The amyloid protein, along with the tau protein, are found in clumps and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s; Leqembi reduces amyloid buildup. An estimated 6 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s, and Leqembi could be an option for roughly 250,000 to 500,000 of them, said Dr. Gil Rabinovici, director of UCSF Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. (Ho, 7/6)

The FDA recommends on Leqembi's label that doctors conduct testing for a gene called APOE4 that is associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer's as well as brain swelling associated with amyloid-lowering drugs. The FDA included a "boxed warning" that flags the risk of brain swelling on the label. The agency does not require APOE4 genetic testing and doctors and patients will need to weigh the risk of brain swelling against the drug's potential benefits. (Beasley, 7/6)

Leqembi is not a cure for Alzheimer’s, and the drug doesn’t improve patients’ memories or cognitive abilities. It also does not stop the disease from getting worse. What Leqembi can do is modestly slow down cognitive decline in patients who are in the early stages of the disease. Data from a large clinical trial suggested that the drug may slow decline by about five months over a period of 18 months for those patients. How the drug might affect a patient’s daily life is likely to vary widely. (Belluck, 7/6)

The Maine Legislature gave final approval Thursday to a proposal to expand access to abortions later in pregnancy, sending the bill to the governor for her signature. Once signed into law by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, as expected, Maine will have one of the least restrictive abortion laws in the country. (Sharp, 7/6)

An overwhelming majority of women were able to end unwanted pregnancies with abortion medications on their own and without additional medical procedures, even if they were well beyond the first trimester, according to a report published on Thursday. The study was based on the experiences of 264 women who were nine to 16 weeks pregnant in Argentina, Nigeria and an unnamed country in Southeast Asia where abortion is illegal. Almost half of the women took only one drug, misoprostol, instead of the standard two-drug regimen, mifepristone and misoprostol. (Rabin, 7/6)

Nearly all of the recent spending bills that have cleared the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee have included measures to restrict access to abortions, setting up a fight with Senate Democrats, who’ve pledged to block such measures during looming negotiations to fund the government. (Barclay, 7/6)

Over the past 10 years, distribution at Doug Adair’s Nashville diaper bank has swelled from a couple of thousand diapers a year to nearly 3 million. Running the bank, Adair has learned and relearned the critical role diaper access plays for families. But it hasn’t always felt like most other people knew that. “I think more about diapers than anybody my age that is not wearing them — yet,” said Adair, a 68-year-old former mortgage banker turned diaper banker who got into this line of work because, in his words, he asked the second most expensive question he has ever asked in his life: “What can I do to help?” (Carrazana, 7/6)

Adults in Arizona can now obtain contraceptive medications over the counter at a pharmacy without a doctor’s prescription under a governor’s order announced Thursday. Gov. Katie Hobbs said the rule will go into effect immediately. It applies to self-administered birth control such as hormonal and oral contraceptives, and patients 18 or older need only complete a screening and a blood pressure test. (7/6)

�Թϲ�����: Idaho Drops Panel Investigating Pregnancy-Related Deaths As US Maternal Mortality Surges 

On July 1, Idaho became the only state without a legal requirement or specialized committee to review maternal deaths related to pregnancy. The change comes after state lawmakers, in the midst of a national upsurge in maternal deaths, decided not to extend a sunset date for the panel set in 2019, when they established the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, or MMRC. (Schachar, 7/7)

The past three days were quite likely the hottest in Earth’s modern history, scientists said on Thursday, as an astonishing surge of heat across the globe continued to shatter temperature records from North America to Antarctica. The spike comes as forecasters warn that the Earth could be entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth driven by two main factors: continued emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by humans burning oil, gas and coal; and the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern. (Plumer and Shao, 7/6)

Our brain works hard to coordinate and regulate our body’s temperature. But rising temperatures and humidity make us increasingly susceptible to heatstroke, especially during exercise. “When you overheat your body, you can basically cook your cells, essentially, and that will cause cell death and cell dysfunction,” said Rebecca Stearns, the chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, a nonprofit housed at the University of Connecticut dedicated to studying and preventing heatstroke in athletes. (Sima, 7/6)

Data show that climate change will continue to raise temperatures in Missouri, and experts and advocates say that people experiencing homelessness are among the most vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. When people are overexposed to heat, they can experience severe dehydration, heat stroke, heat exhaustion — or even die. Among weather-related fatalities, heat consistently accounts for the highest number of deaths. Dr. Chris Sampson, an emergency medicine physician with MU Health Care, said that there are several things people can do to protect themselves from dangerous heat exposure. (Spidel and Smith, 7/6)

More than 100 migrants have died from heat this year along the U.S.-Mexico border as the Southwest continues to swelter through record-breaking heat. There were 13 deaths and 226 rescues for dehydration and other heat-related causes last week alone, U.S. Border Patrol chief Jason Owens said Wednesday on Twitter. (Vinall, 7/7)

The Canada fire season, which normally runs from April to September, is barely half over but the country has already surpassed the modern historical record for area burned, with an estimated 8.8 million hectares scorched so far, an area larger than South Carolina. That’s well above the 10-year average of about 805,000 hectares. The previous record of 7.6 million hectares was set in 1989. (Bochove, 7/6)

In the depths of the Animal Care and Control building in Olivette, an unsung group of health department workers known as vector control pore over data to determine where to lay traps in an effort to prevent disease. In the middle of the office, in the 10000 block of Bauer Boulevard, hangs a fake mosquito the size of a Labrador retriever. Below it is a series of tubes and machines. Their purpose: Testing the bug that everyone loves to hate. (Vargas, 7/6)

A team led by University of Illinois researchers has developed a test they say can detect SARS-CoV-2 in any species of wild or domesticated animal. Their research, published today in mSphere, details the development and validation of their monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based blocking enzyme-linked immunoassay (bELISA) test, which the study authors say is a useful tool for identifying potential new animal reservoirs to prevent future coronavirus outbreaks. (Van Beusekom, 7/6)

The amount of coronavirus detected in Eastern Massachusetts waste water has dropped to its lowest level in nearly two years, according to data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Waste water data has emerged as an important way to keep tabs on the pandemic as fewer people test themselves for COVID-19 and even fewer results get reported to public health departments. (Obregón Dominguez, 7/6)

In its variant proportion update, the WHO said Omicron XBB.1.5 levels continue to decline steadily, falling from 30.1% to 16.3% of sequences over the past month. Meanwhile, XBB.1.16 levels continue to rise, up from 18.1% to 21.2% over the reporting period. The WHO said proportions vary by region, with XBB.1.5 dominant in the Americas and XBB.1.16 most common in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. Of the other subvariants that the WHO monitors, only three increased: XBB, XBB.1.9.2, and XBB.2.3. (Schnirring, 7/6)

Employers in California are not legally responsible for preventing the spread of COVID-19 from their employees to the employees’ family members, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Workers’ compensation laws in the state do not preclude such claims, the court found. But companies also cannot be held legally responsible for preventing such infections, it said, given the tremendous burden such a requirement would place — not just on the companies, but on the courts and on society as a whole. (Rector, 7/6)

A new report dispels accounts that Americans drank bleach to cure or prevent COVID-19, a practice even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned against during the early months of the pandemic. The report was published yesterday in PLOS One. (Soucheray, 7/6)

Today in JAMA Network Open, researchers show evidence of an increase in psychiatric boarding (delays in admission) among youth during the pandemic. The study was based on mobile crisis teams (MCT) who assessed publicly insured youth in Massachusetts during psychiatric emergency services (PES). (Soucheray, 7/6)

Hospitals ask patients a lot of personal questions. Medical history? Medications? Preexisting conditions? Smoke, drink or do drugs? As of Saturday, you’ll have one more question to answer: What’s your immigration status? Florida hospitals that accept Medicaid will be required to query patients about that, although a person can decline to answer. The measure is just one of many in a new bill, SB 1718, approved by the Florida Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May to crack down on the flow of illegal immigration into the state. (Marchante, 7/1)

The University of Pennsylvania Health System last week closed its urgent care center in South Philadelphia, citing increased use of telemedicine by patients who might otherwise go to an urgent-care center for their ailment. Penn said it will open a cardiology practice in the urgent care’s space at Constitution Health Plaza, at the intersection of South Broad Street and Passyunk Avenue. The building is the site of the former St. Agnes Hospital, which closed in 2004. (Brubaker, 7/6)

Baylor Scott & White Health is adding 41 urgent care locations to its network in Texas through a partnership with NextCare Urgent Care. Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White, which serves 3 million Texans as the state's largest nonprofit health system, said Thursday it will jointly own the urgent care sites and expand into Houston and San Antonio. Other NextCare sites span the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin metro areas, where Baylor Scott & White already has a physical presence. (Hudson, 7/6)

Denver Health is providing treatment for young people with drug addictions through its new adolescent detoxification facility — the first licensed center in the state. The facility was created in response to a spike in opioid use among teenagers, with Dr. Kristina Foreman of Denver Health telling us more people under 21 are seeking treatment. (Hernandez, 7/6)

First, state officials offered $7,000 signing bonuses for nurses willing to work in Colorado’s two state mental hospitals. No one seemed to care. It wasn’t much of a bonus, at least in terms of the competition across the state, which is facing a shortage of an estimated 10,000 nurses. Then the Colorado Department of Human Services bumped its signing bonuses to $14,000, on top of 5% raises this year and temporary 8% raises for next year for nurses at the mental hospitals in Pueblo and at Fort Logan in Denver. Now, the state is making some progress on the severe staffing shortage that has plagued the hospitals since the coronavirus pandemic hit Colorado and huge numbers of nurses quit their jobs. (Brown, 7/6)

The Defense Health Agency has extended a pilot program that covers many now-common laboratory genetic tests and added five more to improve diagnostics and care for patients with breast, blood and prostate cancer and suspicious-looking moles or skin lesions. The Pentagon's health arm announced Thursday that it has extended its pilot program that covers more than 45 laboratory-developed tests, or LDTs, through July 18, 2028. (Kime, 7/6)

Universities and professional schools across the West have been reacting to the Supreme Court’s recent decision rejecting affirmative action. For the head of one of the handful of medical schools in the region, the ruling didn’t come as a surprise, but he is preoccupied by some potential implications. “I worry that populations that we very much need in medical school may be scared by the Supreme Court ruling and may not apply,” said Marc Kahn, dean of the relatively new Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “I worry about that.” (Woodhouse, 7/6)

Healthcare organizations are investing millions of dollars into artificial intelligence to achieve a faster and more accurate care delivery model. Many systems nationwide are already employing AI for back-office functions such as revenue cycle management, and interest is growing in determining how AI can directly impact patient care and lead to more efficient operations. (Hudson, 7/6)

Jonathan Studnek knows some people imagine that driving an ambulance at high speed with lights flashing and sirens wailing — racing through messily parted traffic to the scene of a crisis — is the best part of being an emergency medic. For him, that couldn’t be further from the truth. “If you’ve been in the industry for any length, you know innately: When you’re in the front of an ambulance and the lights are on, that’s the most dangerous situation for you,” said Studnek, deputy director of Mecklenburg EMS Agency, which serves the Charlotte, N.C., region. “It’s not fun. It’s risky.” (Renault, 7/7)

�Թϲ�����: ‘It Was A Bloodbath’: Rare Dialysis Complication Can Kill, And More Could Be Done To Stop It 

Nieltje Gedney was half-asleep in her West Virginia home, watching murder mysteries over the hum of a bedside hemodialysis machine, when she felt something warm and wet in her armpit. A needle inserted into her arm had fallen loose, breaking a circuit that the machine used to clean her blood. It was still pumping, drawing and filtering blood as designed, but the blood was now spilling into her bed instead of returning to her body. (Kelman, 7/7)

Amid the growing acceptance and legalization of cannabis use across the country, a concerning reality has emerged: The state-by-state patchwork of safety regulations can leave marijuana consumers wandering through a haze of uncertainty, exposing them to potential risks. Under federal law, marijuana is illegal — period. So, it’s up to individual states to determine their own regulations and safety standards. (Hernández, 7/7)

Each year, Utah sees its share of accidental injuries caused by firearms. When state health officials looked carefully at the hundreds of injuries that required emergency treatment in hospitals, they found most resulted from lapses in the most basic elements of gun safety. (Neuman, 7/7)

Reducing exposure to violence may be one way to disrupt cycles of violence among teenagers, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Michigan. Teenagers who witness violence in various forms are more likely than those who don't to carry a firearm, researchers at U-M's Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention in collaboration with the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens Consortium found. That exposure to violence doesn't necessarily need to involve a gun, the study found. (Dolan, 7/6)

Despite a violent Fourth of July holiday weekend, the number of shootings in New York City decreased in each of the last 13 weeks, according to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). For the first half of 2023, shootings are down 25% compared to the same time period a year ago. So far in 2023, nearly 200 fewer people have been shot in the nation’s largest city compared to the first six months of 2022. (Katersky, 7/7)

Novo Nordisk on Thursday accused three Florida pharmacies of illegally selling products claiming to contain semaglutide, the active ingredient in the Danish drugmaker's weight loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus. In three separate lawsuits in Florida federal court, Novo Nordisk sought orders barring TruLife Pharmacy, Brooksville Pharmaceuticals and WellHealth Inc from selling the products, and seeking unspecified money damages. The three defendants are compounding pharmacies, which make custom drug preparations for customers. (Pierson, 7/6)

The trade group for generic drug companies has filed a lawsuit alleging a Minnesota law that is designed to provide transparency into prescription drug pricing is unconstitutional, the latest effort to push back against states attempting to lower the cost of medicines. (Silverman, 7/6)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) found there is reasonable cause to believe South Carolina violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of adults with serious mental illness. The DOJ said in a report released Thursday that the Palmetto State failed to provide sufficient services to prevent institutionalization and instead subsidized stays in adult care homes. (Shapero, 7/6)

The Maine Legislature on Thursday approved a budget addendum that includes a program allowing workers up to 12 weeks of paid leave to deal with illness, to care for a relative or for the birth of a child. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has said she would sign the budget which includes startup costs for the paid family and medical leave program. It also includes an income tax cut for retirees and other provisions. (7/6)

�Թϲ�����: California Promises Better Care For Thousands Of Inmates As They Leave Prison 

California has agreed to improve health care for newly released prison inmates who are disabled, including through a series of measures that advocates say will help almost everyone trying to make the transition from incarceration. Attorneys representing inmates say proper care during the transition from prison has long been lacking and can lead to homelessness. A recent study found that 1 in 5 Californians experiencing homelessness came from an institution such as prison or jail. (Thompson, 7/7)

�Թϲ�����: Medi-Cal’s Fragmented System Can Make Moving A Nightmare 

When Lloyd Tennison moved from Walnut Creek to Stockton last year, he assumed his coverage under Medi-Cal, California’s safety-net health insurance program, would be transferred seamlessly. About three weeks before his May move, Tennison called the agency that administers Medi-Cal in Contra Costa County, where Walnut Creek is located, to inform them he’d be moving to San Joaquin County. (Wolfson, 7/7)

The Intas Pharmaceuticals plant churned out medicine in a sprawling industrial park in western India, far from the minds of American cancer patients until its problems became theirs. The factory accounted for about 50 percent of the U.S. supply of a widely used generic chemotherapy drug called cisplatin, a reality that few understood until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspected the site in November. (Gilbert, 6/27)

Doctors sometimes describe their patients negatively. How does that affect their treatment down the line? (Novak, 6/28)

Researchers using modern gene-editing tools have discovered that the intuition of scientists from more than a century ago was right: Cells with unusual numbers of chromosomes are drivers of cancer. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, renews scientific attention on an old-fashioned idea, one that could point toward new ways to target cancer cells with drugs. (Johnson, 7/6)

More people are aware of adult ADHD, often thanks to videos and posts about it that they see on TikTok and Instagram. Doctors say that’s helped more people get treatment, but not everyone who feels distracted has ADHD. At St. Charles Psychiatric Associates in St. Louis, roughly half of the adults who come in seeking help for what they believe is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, come in because of something they’ve seen on social media. (Reddy, 7/6)

As an intersex person, Alicia Roth Weigel knows that biological sex is more complicated than two boxes on a birth certificate. "Intersex people are born with physical traits that don't fit neatly into a 'male' or 'female' box," Weigel says. "We have combinations of hormones, chromosomes, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia that just doesn't fit neatly on one of those two binary options that you were taught in elementary biology class are the only options." (Gross, 7/5)

There were good reasons to avoid products with the artificial sweetener aspartame even before the World Health Organization classified it as a “possible carcinogen” last week. But now diet soda drinkers might really want to put down the can. (F.D. Flam, 7/6)

The recent FDA approval of Leqembi, the latest anti-amyloid drug, is undoubtedly a breakthrough for the field, providing a new way to slow the advancement of mild cognitive impairment or early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. As a practicing geriatrician who has treated Alzheimer’s patients for more than 40 years and the co-founder and chief science officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, I have never been more optimistic about our potential to transform how we treat and diagnose patients. (Howard M. Fillit, 7/7)

The summer of 1993 was an eventful time: Prince changed his name to a symbol, “Jurassic Park” was released and Congress passed the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act requiring the inclusion of women in clinical research. (Nicole Woitowich, 7/7)

As a trauma surgeon, I have worked at some of the most stressful and difficult hospitals in the country: Tampa, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago. Working to save patients from life-threatening acts of violence brings me tremendous job satisfaction. (Brian H. Williams, 7/7)

After I was diagnosed with breast cancer in my early 40s, Dr. Susan Love came with me to every medical appointment. Which was fortunate, since her 700-page, here’s-the-deal “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book,“ first released in 1990, had already told me things that none of the guys in golfing ties ever did. (Melinda Henneberger, 7/6)

Lawmakers in California may finally offer a raise to the state’s woefully underpaid health care workforce. The legislature is debating a bill introduced by state Sen. María Elena Durazo that would raise the minimum wage for a wide range of health care workers to $25 per hour by June 1, 2025. (Andrea Flynn and Yvonne Yen Liu, 7/7)