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Mississippi's Republican governor signed one of America's strictest abortion bills on Thursday banning women from obtaining an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can often occur before a woman even realizes she is pregnant. Dubbed the 'heartbeat bill,' this is the second legislative attempt in less than a year aimed at restricting abortions in a state with a single abortion clinic. In a tweet earlier this week, Governor Phil Bryant thanked the state's legislature for "protecting the unborn" by passing the bill and sending it to him for his signature. (3/21)

Mississippi’s new restrictions are part of a reinvigorated nationwide effort to limit access to abortion, propelled by Republican-dominated state legislatures and an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. This year alone, 12 states have introduced so-called heartbeat bills, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri — some of the country’s most populous states. (Thebault, 3/21)

Mississippi's governor signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country on Thursday. The bill outlaws abortions after the heartbeat of a fetus can be detected, around roughly the sixth week of a pregnancy. The ban is set to take effect on July 1, but abortion-rights advocates have already pledged to file lawsuits to stop it. Actions taken on abortion by legislatures across the United States. (3/21)

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order late Thursday that partially blocked an Ohio law banning an abortion method called dilation and evacuation — the most common method of second-trimester abortions. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett in Cincinnati listed several portions of the law, which then-Gov. John Kasich signed in December, that he barred from being enforced. He did not fully block the implementation of the law, which is set to go into effect Friday. (Heisig, 3/21)

The start of a new Democratic-led House this year also marked the end of an era, as the House Republican caucus now doesn’t have a single lawmaker considered a supporter of abortion rights. The unanimity on opposing abortion rights followed the retirements of centrist Republican Reps. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. Their ranks could continue to diminish in the Senate, where only GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine remain as supporters of abortion rights. (Peterson, 3/21)

Some Democratic states plan to withdraw from the main federal family planning program if they can’t win a court challenge to stop the Trump administration from steering the money away from health providers who offer abortions or make abortion referrals. Oregon and Washington already have said they would opt out of the Title X program, which steers $286.5 million for birth control and reproductive health services for low-income women, if the new rules take effect in early May. Maryland could soon join them, and other states may follow. They say the new restrictions would undermine medical care for patients, and, in some cases, violate state laws. (Roubein and Ollstein, 3/21)

About 4 percent of women incarcerated in state prisons across the U.S. were pregnant when they were jailed, according to a new study released Thursday that researchers hope will help lawmakers and prisons better consider the health of women behind bars. The number of imprisoned women has risen dramatically over the past decades, growing even as the overall prison rates decline. (3/21)

The correctional system hasn't adapted to the large increase in incarcerated women, according to study author Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB-GYN at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. And there are profound health and social consequences for the children of incarcerated mothers. She says the report provides the first data that could inform policy changes to address the health and well-being of incarcerated women who are pregnant, and the children born to them. (Lambert, 3/21)

Air ambulances can be life-saving for critically ill patients who need to get to a hospital quickly, but they can also put patients in financial risk, according to a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The median price charged by air ambulance providers in 2017 was from $36,400 to $40,600, and those costs aren't always covered by insurance, according to the report. (Hellmann, 3/21)

The findings by the Government Accountability Office show how costs for patients and insurers have continued to jump despite state efforts to control balance billing for emergency flights. Regulation of emergency air transport falls to the Federal Aviation Administration, so the courts have so far largely struck down states' attempts to rein in the cost burden on patients. The median price charged in 2012 was about $22,000 for a helicopter transport and nearly $25,000 for a fixed-wing ride. Now it's more than $36,000 for transporting patients via helicopter and nearly $41,000 for fixed-wing ride, the GAO reported. (Luthi, 3/21)

The cost of treating patients who develop sepsis in the hospital rose by 20% in just three years, with hospitals spending $1.5 billion more last year than in 2015, according to a new analysis. The report, published Thursday by Premier, found that although the number of patients who developed sepsis during their hospital stay declined by 15% from 2015 to 2018, those patients were more likely to get septic shock—the most severe form of sepsis—and therefore cost more to treat. (Castellucci, 3/21)

The leaders of the Senate Health Committee are asking the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to analyze possible options for protecting patients from getting hit with massive, unexpected medical bills. Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the panel's top Democrat, sent options for analysis to the CBO, according to Senate aides. (Sullivan, 3/21)

The legislative tug-of-war over surprise medical billing continued Thursday as a House panel approved a new version of a Senate bill that aims to curb these unexpected charges to patients. The vote on Senate Bill 56 came as lawmakers were taking action on several health care proposals over the past couple of days. (Miller, 3/21)

Kaiser Health News: Even With Insurance, She Faced $227K In Medical Bills. What It Took To Get Answers.

The first surprise was the massive heart attack, which struck as Debbie Moehnke waited in a Vancouver, Wash., medical clinic last summer. “She had an appointment because her feet were swollen real bad,” said Larry Moehnke, her husband. “But she got in there and it was like, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!’” Her life suddenly at risk, the 59-year-old was rushed by ambulance, first to a local hospital, where she was stabilized, and then, the next day, to Oregon Health & Science University across the river in Portland for urgent cardiac care. (Aleccia, 3/22)

A growing majority of Americans want greater government spending on health care, and the increase is being driven by both Democrats and Republicans. That's according to new data from the General Social Survey, a widely respected trend survey that has been measuring views of government spending since the 1970s. An analysis by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and General Social Survey staff reveals that Americans want to spend more money on a wide range of government functions. (3/21)

President Trump’s signature policy for veterans — allowing more of them to shift their health care from the government-run system to private doctors and hospitals — is under attack from newly empowered Democrats and their allies on Capitol Hill. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie is moving quickly to roll out new rules by June that would expand access to private care, especially for veterans in rural and congested areas, if they have a 30-minute drive to receive primary care. (Rein, 3/21)

The Trump administration on Thursday announced a plan to force universities that violate free-speech principles to forfeit billions of dollars in biomedical research and other scientific grants. It is unclear, however, whether any universities might actually be impacted — and whether the requirements, unveiled in an executive order, represent a massive disruption for the country’s research infrastructure or a political statement that will leave scientific work untouched. (Facher, 3/21)

After President Donald Trump pledged to eliminate HIV in his State of the Union address in early February, he received support from AIDS activists for his promise to increase funds and resources for HIV research. But now his administration is facing backlash over a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about recent trends of HIV infection. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation says the report, in which the CDC claimed the number of newly reported cases of HIV transmission had recently stalled, is misleading. (Cardenas, 3/25)

On his now-frequent tours of early presidential primary states, Mayor Bill de Blasio has taken to invoking a less-familiar aspect of his tenure: a nearly $1 billion plan to address mental illness in New York City. Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, has done the same, presenting the effort as a national model to audiences from Atlanta to Seattle. The mental health initiative, known as ThriveNYC, is crucial to Ms. McCray’s potential as a future political candidate, and has become increasingly important to Mr. de Blasio as he toys with a possible 2020 presidential bid. He now regularly names Thrive as one of his administration’s core achievements. (Goodman, 3/22)

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved a device that can capture an image of your retina and automatically detect signs of diabetic blindness. This new breed of artificial intelligence technology is rapidly spreading across the medical field, as scientists develop systems that can identify signs of illness and disease in a wide variety of images, from X-rays of the lungs to C.A.T. scans of the brain. These systems promise to help doctors evaluate patients more efficiently, and less expensively, than in the past. (Metz and Smith, 3/21)

On paper, they are health care’s most promising upstarts — companies using data and software to detect the onset of debilitating diseases, deliver medical advice and treatments online, and monitor patients’ steps, sleep, weight, blood sugar, and heart function. In 2018, digital health firms had a record year, raking in $8.1 billion from investors buying into the industry’s efforts to re-engineer the delivery of medical services, according to the venture capital firm Rock Health. That’s a 42 percent increase over the prior year. (Ross, 3/22)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday said cybersecurity vulnerabilities were identified in Medtronic Plc's implantable cardiac devices, clinic programmers, and home monitors. But, the FDA recommended the usage of the devices and said the medical device maker was developing updates to further mitigate those vulnerabilities. The health regulator added it was not aware of any reports of patients being harmed. (3/21)

Kaiser Health News: FDA Chief Calls For Stricter Scrutiny Of Electronic Health Records

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Wednesday called for tighter scrutiny of electronic health records systems, which have prompted thousands of reports of patient injuries and other safety problems over the past decade. “What we really need is a much more tailored approach, so that we have appropriate oversight of EHRs when they’re doing things that could create risk for patients,” Gottlieb said in an interview with Kaiser Health News. Gottlieb was responding to “Botched Operation,” a report published this week by KHN and Fortune magazine. (Schulte and Fry, 3/21)

The Oregon agency that runs the state’s foster care and welfare programs announced on Thursday afternoon that the personal information of more than 350 people in those programs might have been comprised, after a Jan. 28 data breach. An unidentified attacker gained access to the state’s records after nine employees at the Department of Human Services opened so-called “phishing” emails and clicked on a link that allowed the outside party to gain access to their state email accounts, according to a state press release. (Borrud, 3/21)

The Oregon Department of Human Services Thursday disclosed that millions of agency emails had been breached in January, potentially exposing the personal medical information of hundreds of thousands. The agency said it discovered the data breach involving 2 million emails on Jan. 8 and by Jan. 28 realized the emails included personal medical information protected under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPAA. (Wieber, 3/21)

Officials at a Vermont hospital say the information of more than 72,000 people may have been exposed during an email hack. Rutland Regional Medical Center says the email accounts had information such as patient names, medical records and contact information, as well as more than 3,500 Social Security numbers. The breach was first discovered in December after an employee noticed a large number of spam emails sent from their account. (3/21)

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is seeking documents from Purdue Pharma related to how the Sackler family aggressively marketed OxyContin, a powerful painkiller that has been blamed for its role in the national opioid crisis. In a letter to Purdue’s president and CEO, Craig Landau, Oversight committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and  Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) asked for a list of all members of the Sackler family who had served on the board of Purdue or worked as company officers. (Weixel, 3/21)

In a letter to Purdue CEO Craig Landau, Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s chairman, and Mark DeSaulnier of California asked for a list of Sacklers who had served on the board of Purdue or worked as company officers. The lawmakers are also seeking documents prepared for the Sackler family about the company’s marketing strategies for its medications and communications between company employees and family members. Purdue is fending off increasing accusations that it misled prescribers and patients about the safety of its drugs and helped ignite the addiction crisis. It is a defendant in hundreds of lawsuits from cities, counties, states, and tribes tied to the opioid epidemic.(Joseph, 3/21)

Arguing that the Food and Drug Administration is “culpable” in creating the opioid crisis, a consumer advocacy group and a leading academic — who also chairs an FDA advisory panel — are calling for the agency to impose a moratorium on approving any new or reformulated opioids. In a Citizen’s Petition filed with the FDA, Public Citizen and Dr. Raeford Brown, a professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics at the University of Kentucky, maintained the agency has displayed “dangerously deficient oversight” and that none of more than two dozen opioids approved between 2009 and 2015 provided benefits that outweighed the risks. Two drugs — Opana ER and Dsuvia — were singled out as examples. (Silverman, 3/21)

Scientists are closing in on a way to help young boys undergoing cancer treatment preserve their future fertility — and the proof is the first monkey born from the experimental technology. More and more people are surviving childhood cancer, but nearly 1 in 3 will be left infertile from the chemotherapy or radiation that helped save their life. (3/21)

Susan Taymans, program director of the fertility and infertility branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and who oversaw the funding of the study, said that while this experiment was small and limited to monkeys, it raises “a good bit of hope” that the technique can be further developed for use in regular medical practice — possibly even in the lifetime of today’s boys. (Cha, 3/21)

“I’m excited about this work because it truly addresses a need in human clinical care,” says Robert Brannigan, a professor of urology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine who wasn’t involved in the work, noting that the procedure is still experimental. “The proof of principle is one that’s very encouraging.” (Abbott, 3/21)

Precision medicine promises to tailor the diagnosis and treatment of disease to your unique genetic makeup. A doctor may use the presence of certain genetic markers to diagnose a disease, or choose one drug for treatment over another. But the studies that link genetic markers with disease focus largely on white European populations and neglect other races and ethnicities, according to an analysis published in the journal Cell on Thursday. (Lambert, 3/21)

As of last year, 78 percent of the people included in the most prominent form of genomic research — genome-wide association studies (GWAS) — were of European ancestry. But worldwide, Europeans and their descendents make up just 12 percent of the population. (Stein, 3/21)

Teens whose face time with friends is mostly on their phones are the loneliest of all, but even those who mix real-world socializing with social media still are increasingly isolated, a report out Wednesday shows. Loneliness isn't just an age thing; it's generational, says the author of the study, San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge. The percent of high school seniors who said they often felt lonely increased from 26 percent in 2012 to 39 percent in 2017. The number of 12th graders who said they often felt left out also increased, from 30 percent in 2012 to 38 percent in 2017. (O'Donnell, 3/20)

While the most common diagnosis for kids with attention and behavior issues is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, Burke Harris found that many of the kids who might normally receive this label had experienced high levels of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, from extreme poverty and exposure to violence, to neglect or living with a parent who suffered from addiction to drugs or alcohol. (Zeltner, 3/21)

For years, they have been the subject of impassioned academic debate: Trigger warnings, do they protect people from distress or encourage fragility? The warnings, which alert individuals to disturbing material, have been talked about, used and promoted on college campuses and elsewhere for more than a decade, but little was known about how well they work. Now, a pair of recent studies suggest that they may have little effect at all. (Chokshi, 3/22)

Farmers are standing by Bayer AG’s Roundup herbicide despite rulings from two juries that the world’s most widely used weedkiller caused cancer in plaintiffs. The chemical, used on the vast majority of corn, soybean and cotton acres planted in the U.S., remains prized by farmers for its low cost and effectiveness. (Bunge, 3/21)

United Parcel Service Inc wants to get beyond U.S. doorsteps with a new push into healthcare. The world's largest package delivery firm is preparing to test a U.S. service that dispatches nurses to vaccinate adults in their homes, Reuters has learned, as the company and its healthcare clients work to fend off cost pressures and competitive threats from Amazon.com. (Baertlein and Erman, 3/22)

A voluntary “do-not-sell” gun list in Louisiana would block people who fear they’re suicidal from buying a gun, while making it a crime to knowingly sell them a firearm, according to recently drafted legislation posted online Thursday (March 21). The bill, known as “Donna’s Law” after a New Orleans woman who killed herself with a gun last year will be introduced in the legislative session that begins April 8, said author and sponsor Rep. Jimmy Harris, D-New Orleans. (Webster, 3/21)

The unnamed boy was among several children with mental health needs that Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell highlighted Thursday on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives as lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of a children’s mental health bill. If the legislation becomes law, it would create a behavioral health system for children who have been diagnosed with a mental, behavioral or emotional disorder. (Rodriguez, 3/21)

The Greater New York Hospital Association is urging that a state healthcare contingency fund be created amid the threat of federal funding cuts. Because the recently released federal budget proposes healthcare cuts of $4.3 billion in fiscal 2020 and $11.2 billion in fiscal 2022, the association stated Tuesday that New York "should set aside contingency funds in case even a portion of them become a reality." (Henderson, 3/21)

A bill that creates the framework for a children’s mental health system in Iowa passed the Iowa House of Representatives Thursday. It directs the state’s mental health regions, which administer the adult mental health system, to develop and provide services for children. Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed the bill after receiving recommendations from an advisory board. (Sostaric, 3/21)

Legislation introduced in the state House and Senate would create an employee assistance program to help Minnesota firefighters facing mental health issues related to their occupation. In addition, any firefighter diagnosed with cancer or heart disease would be eligible for a $30,000 lump sum payment, administered by the nonprofit Minnesota Firefighter Initiative. (Wurzer, 3/21)

The legislature’s Human Services Committee approved a measure Thursday that would expand state-sponsored health coverage to undocumented youth. Though legislative staff haven’t developed specific estimates on the numbers of children that might be served, advocates have suggested the total would be in the thousands. (Phaneuf, 3/21)

Elizabeth Brandt lives modestly on the income she receives from Social Security, drives a 16-year-old car and has to tap savings for unexpected costs, such as the hearing aids she needs to fully participate in conversations. But Gov. Ned Lamont says people like Brandt have saved too much money to benefit from a health program for low-income seniors. (Radelat, 3/21)

House lawmakers voted largely on party lines Thursday to fully repeal certificate of need requirements, setting up a showdown with the more reluctant Senate over the state’s longstanding approval system for expanding or adding healthcare facilities. HB 21, which passed 77-33, would fully repeal the process hospitals, nursing homes and hospices must currently undergo with the state Agency for Health Care Administration to determine whether healthcare facilities can build or add beds. (Koh, 3/21)

A week after issuing an executive order imposing a blanket moratorium on the execution of California death row inmates, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he is considering a plan to prohibit any new death sentences in local criminal cases. Newsom’s pronouncement could create conflict with another top Democratic leader, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, who has supported capital punishment, even though the governor said he wants to work collaboratively with the attorney general. (Willon and McGreevy, 3/21)

Before 10 a.m. on another cold Thursday, Monica Diaz stirred in her tent, filled with dread. It had been two weeks since the last cleanup, and city workers would again be here soon, with their dumpster truck and police cars, to clear out the encampment. Every morning was awful, but these were the worst of all, when Monica, who’d otherwise be resting before work, was forced to confront publicly what she did her best to hide: that she’s homeless. That she lives in a tent. That she just turned 40, and that this is somehow her life. “You ready?” Monica asked her husband, after a sleepless night at the base of Union Station, near CNN’s Washington bureau, where the noise never stopped and they’d huddled together with their dog, Sassy, against the cold. (McCoy, 3/22)

Residents near a petrochemical storage terminal in the Houston suburb of Deer Park were warned to shelter in place for several hours on Thursday after elevated levels of benzene were detected in the air. The warning was lifted around noon after air-quality readings improved, but health officials said air monitoring will continue as firefighters and company officials work to stop any risk of a flare-up and to clean up the site. (3/21)

As Rhode Island lawmakers consider ways to improve the state’s 911 emergency system, the head of the state police on Thursday pledged to conduct a thorough review of procedures and training provided to 911 call takers. The moves follow a report by The Public’s Radio and ProPublica on Wednesday about a 6-month-old baby in Warwick who was the subject of an emergency 911 call last year. (Arditi, 3/21)

National and independent primary care provider One Medical has signed a partnership with Mount Sinai Health System. The deal makes Mount Sinai the preferred healthcare system partner of One Medical in the local market. Between the agreement and a $350 million investment from the Carlyle Group late last year, One Medical plans to double its presence in New York City. (Henderson, 3/21)

Researchers and citizens have become concerned in recent years about the health effects because fracking, and the frac sand mining that helps drive it, appeared on the national stage only in the last 30 years. Silica-rich sand is a key ingredient in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, acting as a structural support for water and chemicals pumped into natural shale reservoirs to stimulate the production of natural gas. (Highnam, 3/21)

Medicare payments to 15 Arizona hospitals will be cut this year due to poor ratings in a patient safety scoring system that considers bed sores, hospital-acquired infections and in-hospital falls, among other factors. Three of those hospitals — Banner-University Medical Center Tucson, Maricopa Medical Center and Sells Hospital on the Tohono O'odham reservation — are among 110 in the country that have been penalized every year of the program, which is now in its fifth year. (Innes and Philip, 3/21)

Northeast Ohio is the third-largest region in the Midwest for total healthcare investment. Nearly $294 million was invested in 71 companies last year, according to the 2018 Midwest Healthcare Growth Capital Report, which tracks capital investments made in biomedical companies across in Midwestern states in medical device, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and health IT sectors. (Washington, 3/21)

Citing financial pressures and operating losses, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital and Jackson Health System — among Miami-Dade’s largest employers — are expected to announce layoffs and other cutbacks in the coming weeks. In a memo to staff obtained by the Miami Herald, Nicklaus Children’s executives said they will eliminate pay raises this year for all employees, reduce pension contributions and limit new hires to workers who provide direct service to patients. (Chang, 3/21)

Rebates to employer groups from Minnetonka-based UnitedHealthcare increased by about 40 percent in 2017, according to a new report, and fit with a broader trend of slightly improved profitability for carriers compared with the previous year. The report this month from Mark Farrah Associates shows UnitedHealthcare for 2017 paid rebates to large and small employers worth $146.2 million — up from $104.3 million in 2016, according to the Pennsylvania-based market research firm. (Snowbeck, 3/21)

In the lawsuit filed in Humboldt County Superior Court on Thursday, Oliver Knight says he was told just minutes before his scheduled hysterectomy that the hospital would not allow the procedure to happen. He says hospital staff told him that the surgery was called off because he was transgender. (Allday, 3/21)

Oliver Knight says he didn’t find out a Northern California hospital had canceled his hysterectomy until minutes before the surgeon was set to start operating. By that time, Knight had been at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka for three hours and had already put on the pink gown a nurse made him wear instead of the blue gown Knight requested, telling him pink was required for “female” surgeries, according to a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed Thursday against the hospital on Knight’s behalf. (Gilmour, 3/21)

The Environmental Protection Agency notified Missouri environmental regulators this month that the state’s plan for overseeing the disposal of toxic waste from coal-fired power plants is not strong enough to protect human health and the environment. In a recent letter to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, EPA officials noted several provisions in the state’s plan that are weaker than the 2015 federal coal ash rule. (Chen, 3/22)

After a botched colonoscopy led to a woman’s death, a Kansas City-area hospital has passed a follow-up inspection and is no longer in danger of losing Medicare payments. But inspectors said they found several new infractions for poor hygiene and cleanliness that the hospital had to address. (marso, 3/21)

Children’s Hospital of New Orleans recently added 120 new pediatric health professionals as part of a new affiliation with Tulane University Medical School. Tulane Medical School’s pediatric faculty, residents and medical students started seeing pediatric patients in the critical care units at Children’s Hospital’s Uptown campus and its specialty clinics on March 1. As a result, inpatient pediatric intensive care services at Tulane Lakeside Hospital, shifted over to Children’s Hospital this month. (Clark, 3/21)

“Vivan los inmigrantes!” echoed through the halls of the state Capitol on Wednesday as immigrants and activists gathered to push for legislation that would extend full Medicaid coverage to adults in the country illegally. Sons and daughters clutched photos of their late parents. If they had had health insurance, maybe they would still be alive, they said. Others held “Health for All” signs and practiced the testimony they planned to give inside the fourth-floor hearing room. (Ibarra and Rowan, 3/20)

Ascension CEO Anthony Tersigni will retire at the end of the year, the Catholic health system announced Thursday. Tersigni, who will have led Ascension for more than 15 years when he retires, will continue to serve on the executive committee of Ascension's healthcare investment fund and help guide the 151-hospital system on a consulting basis. The board has begun a formal process to find his successor. (Kacik, 3/21)

The president and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical System is taking a temporary leave of absence after reports that about a third of the system’s board has received compensation for their businesses through the network’s contracts, the chairman of the board announced Thursday. Board Chairman Stephen Burch said Robert Chrencik’s leave of absence will begin Monday. (Witte, 3/21)

The University of Maryland Medical System has put CEO Robert Chrencik on temporary leave of absence following reports that nine of the system's 30 board members, including elected public officials, have substantial business deals with the system. Board Chairman Stephen Burch announced that the board, at an emergency meeting Thursday, also voted to hire an independent firm to review board members' contractual relationships with the system. (Meyer, 3/21)

Massachusetts is not the only state struggling to limit the dominance of large marijuana companies. Maryland bars companies from owning more than one store, but several companies have publicly said they have multiple outlets there. (Wallack, 3/21)

In a state where no firm is legally permitted to own — or control — more than three stores that sell recreational pot, Sea Hunter is poised to test that limit. It has boasted to investors that it operates or has significant power over a dozen or more marijuana retail licenses. But you won’t see the name “Sea Hunter” on the shops; instead, they will carry names like Herbology, Verdant, and Ermont. (Healy, Adams, Dungca et. al., 3/21)

Even before the Affordable Care Act became law, about 90 percent of the conversation and criticism of it was about coverage. Little has been said about its ability to control costs. March 23, the ninth anniversary of the ACA’s passage, presents a good opportunity to examine its legacy on cost control — a legacy that deserves to be in the foreground, not relegated to the background behind the exchanges, Medicaid expansion, and work requirements. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, 3/22)

A few years ago, personal finance writer Ester Bloom, faced with a four-figure health-insurance deductible and a narrow network of doctors to choose from, attempted to price out how much giving birth to her younger child would cost her. It turned out to be an all but impossible task. I thought about Bloom on Wednesday, when reviewing a Twitter dispute between Bernie Sanders and former Trump administration official Nikki Haley over the high cost of giving birth in the United States. (Helaine Olen, 3/21)

A doctor concludes that an elderly patient has less than six months to live. A second doctor disagrees. One of the predictions will be wrong. But was it false? For two years, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has wrestled with this question. The decision could ratify a trend of criminalizing medical judgments and jailing doctors based on disagreements with other doctors. (Kyle Clark and Andrew George, 3/21)

We’re now in the silly season of the Democratic primary — a season that, I worry, may last all the way to the nomination. There are many honorable exceptions, but an awful lot of reporting seems to be third order — not about the candidates, let alone their policy proposals, but about pundits’ views about voters’ views of candidates’ electability. It’s a discussion in which essentially nobody has any idea what he or she is talking about. Meanwhile, however, there are some real continuing policy debates. (Paul Krugman, 3/21)

Rules proposed by the Trump administration depend on physicians performing “exams” to spot immigrants who are sick enough to become reliant on the government for living costs. The impact would be devastating for immigrants who are denied visas. (Khameer Kidia, 3/20)

The future health of those “real people” now rests in the hands of the Kansas Senate and Senate President Susan Wagle, a Republican. Wagle is an opponent of Medicaid expansion. Surely, though, the vote in the Kansas House is enough to convince her and other senators that expansion should at least get a vote in their chamber. (3/21)

Patients in pain have become collateral damage in the war on opioids. That’s the message of a letter from more than 300 medical professionals, including three former White House drug czars, to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2016, the CDC issued guidelines to discourage doctors from overprescribing opioids. The signatories believe that those guidelines are being misapplied in a way that keeps many patients in agony. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 3/21)

In the politically-charged climate of 2019, there are very few things that our society can universally agree on. Some of the few things we can agree on, however, is that smoking cigarettes is bad for one’s health, and that even when we don’t support a war, we will support the troops. Therefore, it should logically follow that anything that aids active duty service members and military veterans to quit smoking in order to live longer, happier lives, should be encouraged.  Unfortunately, this is where our politically charged climate returns. Despite scientific evidence that the use of electronic cigarettes, commonly known as “vaping,” are “significantly more effective than nicotine replacement treatments” such as patches, gum or other forms of oral nicotine in getting people to quit smoking, the FDA recently proposed a rule prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes to places where children under the age of 18 can enter. (Rory E. Riley-Topping, 3/21)

This month, Eli Lilly and Company announced with some fanfare that it was manufacturing a generic version of its own best-selling insulin brand, Humalog, which it would sell for half off — $137.35 versus about $275. David Ricks, the chief executive of Lilly, said the company was making this seemingly beneficent gesture because “many patients are struggling to afford their insulin.” But they’re struggling, in large part, because since 2001 Lilly has raised the price of a vial of Humalog to about $275, from $35. Other insulin makers have raised prices similarly. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 3/21)

New Zealand banned semi-automatic rifles this week, and made the ban effective immediately to prevent “stockpiling of weapons while the legislation is being drafted.” The Kiwis are apparently not big on the “hopes and prayers” mantra that the U.S. Congress adopts after each gun massacre. (Francis Wilkinson, 3/21)

Over the past two presidential administrations, political fury has swirled around the nation’s health-care system. Health care is almost always at the top of the list of America’s domestic policy concerns. As well, it should be. But without addressing the nation’s growing housing crisis, an efficient and humane health system will stay out of reach. Health-care delivery systems recognize this. In a few cases, large hospitals, health plans and even insurance companies now are putting resources into housing for patients. It is time for public policy makers to recognize the absurdity of ignoring the most critical social determinant for good health outcomes: safe housing. (Robert M. Hayes, 3/21)

I’ve been sharing my cellphone number since I started my practice in 2009. Most of my paid clinical time is spent rushing through 15-minute visits and slogging through electronic paperwork. With texting, the rush disappears. Patients can text me when they want and there are no boxes to tick. (Clement Bottino, 3/22)

Technically, the voice is a baritone. Some say it’s definitely fake — another part of the same old scam. Others say there’s no way of knowing. But the impossibility of an answer rarely stops the truly curious from trying to find one. And Elizabeth Holmes’s voice has become an obsession.No one has been able to crack Holmes so far. Not in a book, not in a podcast and not in two documentaries, the second of which came out this week. The accused Silicon Valley con woman, who lost investors hundreds of millions of dollars as she allegedly propelled a colossal lie to a $9 billion valuation, is a riddle wrapped in a blank-faced, unblinking enigma. Those who want to understand the woman have to start somewhere, and why not her most distinctive feature? (Molly Robert, 3/21)

Scientists can’t, for the most part, prove that a given product caused a particular person to get cancer — not the way you can prove, say, that a car with faulty brakes caused a fatal crash. And so when a federal jury in San Francisco District Court decided that the weed killer Roundup was a “substantial factor” in causing someone to get a type of cancer called non-Hodgkins lymphoma, they didn’t actually have proof for the individual case. What they had was evidence that the product was a probable factor in the man’s cancer, based on studies that follow large populations.Of course science should be the deciding factor in such cases, but there’s no sense in implying that scientists can do the impossible. What scientists and society at large have come to agree upon is that it’s reasonable to award people compensation if it’s more likely than not that they would have avoided the cancer if they’d been able to avoid the product in question. (Faye Flam, 3/21)

When Canada legalized cannabis last fall, the country began blazing a trail that the U.S. should one day follow. There’s much to emulate about the Canadian government’s approach to legalization, and a few things to avoid, but having marijuana legalized on such a large scale so close to home will no doubt have a profound effect on America’s future treatment of the issue. Medical or recreational marijuana is now legal in 33 U.S. states, even though its possession or use is illegal under federal law. (Lyle Hauser, 3/22)

A train wreck that everyone sees coming still hurts. Biogen Inc. announced Thursday that it was discontinuing late-stage studies of its Alzheimer’s medicine aducanumab. That shouldn’t be a huge surprise: Every other drug attempting to treat Alzheimer’s the same way — by targeting the buildup of amyloid beta plaques in the brain — has failed. (Max Nisen, 3/21)