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The Trump administration issued a final rule on Wednesday that clears the way for the sale of many more health insurance policies that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act and do not have to cover prescription drugs, maternity care or people with pre-existing medical conditions. President Trump has said that he believes that the new “short-term, limited-duration insurance” could help millions of people who do not want or need comprehensive health insurance providing the full range of benefits required by the health law. (Pear, 8/1)

The short-term plans “may not be the right choice for everybody,” Azar said at an afternoon news briefing. But, he said, “we believe strongly in giving people options here.” Azar and other federal health officials predicted short-term, limited-duration plans will appeal mainly to middle-class people who do not qualify for government subsidies for ACA health plans — especially people who are young or healthy. With the law still in place despite Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ hostility toward it, “we are looking to do everything we can to take incremental steps that will make insurance coverage more affordable,” said Jim Parker, director of HHS’s Office of Health Reform. (Goldstein, 8/1)

The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan research office that estimates the budget effects of policy proposals, gave a larger figure, estimating that about 2 million mostly healthy people will buy short-term plans. This could have the effect of driving premiums slightly higher on the ACA exchanges, because healthier people will leave the market, according to the CBO. (Kodjak, 8/1)

Health insurers could start selling short-term plans that last up to a year in as soon as a couple of months. The final rule goes into effect 60 days after it is posted, though state regulators would still need to approve new plans. While the final rule would allow insurers to sell plans that last up to one year and allow those plans to be renewed for up to three years, it does not require renewability. That will be left up to the insurer to decide whether it will allow consumers to renew their coverage without having to re-apply for a plan. (Livingston, 8/1)

Democrats immediately branded Trump’s approach as “junk insurance,” and a major insurer group warned that consumers could potentially be harmed. Other insurers were more neutral, and companies marketing the plans hailed the development. It’s unclear how much mass-market appeal such limited plans will ultimately have. State insurance regulators also have jurisdiction, and many states may move to impose their own restrictions. Federal officials said they anticipate a slow take-up, not sweeping changes. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 8/1)

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, a health insurer trade group, warned of the effects of the new rules in a statement on Wednesday. Justine Handelman, the association's senior vice president, warned that the new slimmed-down plans have "the potential to harm consumers, both by making comprehensive coverage more expensive and by leaving some consumers unaware of the risks of these policies." (Hellmann, 8/1)

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., noted that states could decide to set more restrictive regulations than the federal standard. Some states already have additional limits on short-term plans and more states could do so in the future. But he agreed with Azar that short-term plans could provide alternative options to people who don’t receive employer-sponsored insurance and don’t qualify for premium tax credits. “Clearly this is a response to the market failure,” he said. “If you’re in the individual market and not getting a subsidy, you can no longer afford insurance." (McIntire, 8/1)

The Trump administration on Wednesday issued final rules that would allow states like Connecticut to allow the sale of cheaper, skimpier health care plans that were originally intended for short-term use but would now be available for 364 days, or nearly 12 months, at a time. It’s up to state officials to allow the sale of these short-term plans, which do not have to cover pre-existing conditions or provide the comprehensive coverage the Affordable Care Act requires. (Radelat, 8/1)

The Trump administration has just completed rules that will allow people to shop for a new kind of health insurance. So-called short-term plans will be offered for relatively long periods — just under a year at a time, with renewals for up to 36 months — and they will be marketed extensively in most states. They will tend to have substantially lower prices than the insurance people can buy in Obamacare markets, and for some people they may look like a better option. But the plans are cheaper for a reason: They tend to cover fewer medical services than comprehensive insurance, and they will charge higher prices to people with pre-existing health problems, if they’ll cover them at all. (Sanger-Katz, 8/1)

Under the short-term plans, an insurance company does not have to accept your application for insurance. If you are accepted but your health status changes (perhaps you receive an unexpected diagnosis or are involved in an accident), an insurance company can charge you a higher premium or drop your coverage. Plans may come with annual or lifetime caps on the amount of coverage an insurer will provide. These plans may be attractive to young, healthy clients, or people who are between jobs. (Santhanam, 8/1)

Consumers will soon be able to use short-term health insurance plans longer as an alternative to buying pricier plans on the Obamacare exchange, the Trump administration announced Wednesday. But the plans might not be right for everyone, and they could still be limited in Illinois. Here are five things to know about how the new rule may affect Illinois consumers. (Schencker, 8/1)

President Donald Trump can’t kill Obamacare, no matter how hard he tries. His administration’s latest threat to the law, unveiled Wednesday, expands the availability of short-term health plans that critics deride as “junk” insurance. However, despite the administration’s unrelenting efforts to sideline Obamacare, more insurers are signing up to sell 2019 coverage, and premium increases will be the lowest in years. (Demko and Cancryn, 8/1)

After years of big rate increases on Affordable Care Act plans, insurers in many states are seeking smaller hikes and even some reductions, according to new federal data that provide the broadest view so far of next year’s health-law markets. Major insurers in states including Mississippi and Florida are seeking single-digit increases, according to preliminary rate requests published on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Big marketplace players in states including Texas, Illinois, Arizona and North Carolina have proposed to cut some premiums for 2019. (Wilde Mathews and Walker, 8/1)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing back against health insurers that want to raise premiums after the federal repeal of financial penalties for those who lack insurance, while New Jersey officials said they avoided such hikes by making the coverage mandate state law. On Monday, Mr. Cuomo directed the state Department of Financial Services to reject the portion of insurers’ proposed rate increases that are tied to the federal changes, saying the companies are seeking to “gain windfall profits” from changes to the Affordable Care Act under President Donald Trump. (King, 8/1)

On average, there will be no double-digit rate hikes for consumers who buy individual health insurance online for 2019 despite efforts by the administrationof President Donald Trump to undermine the Affordable Care Act by expanding short-term health plans and scaling back marketing. Rates for Missourians are increasing by an average of 4 percent to 7 percent. Some advocates fear that even this relatively minor uptick in rates will lead some to forgo coverage. (Liss, 8/1)

Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co. requested rate hikes that average out to 7.3 percent across all its individual plans, but are three times higher than that for some, according to documents filed with the Missouri Department of Insurance.Cigna officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. (Marso, 8/1)

A Republican attempt to include a provision in a government funding bill that would block the District of Columbia from using money to implement its own individual health-care mandate failed in the Senate on Wednesday. Senators voted 54-44 to table the amendment from GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas). The vote effectively pigeonholes the proposal with the Senate poised to pass the larger funding bill on Wednesday. (Carney, 8/1)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: Why Red States Challenging ACA Tread Precariously On A Popular Protection

States seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act must do a delicate dance. That’s because most of them have higher-than-average rates of residents with preexisting conditions — a group specifically protected under the ACA. The 2010 health law prohibits insurers from charging more or denying coverage for such conditions, and that provision remains popular across the country and party lines. Twenty GOP state attorneys general and governors filed a challenge to the constitutionality of the ACA in February. Last month, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions sided with them and decided not to defend key portions of the ACA, including the preexisting conditions provision. (8/2)

The drug industry is dishing out millions in grants and donations to organizations in cities, counties and states that have sued the companies over the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic. The efforts could help makers and distributors of prescription painkillers, who face hundreds of lawsuits by communities across the country, reduce their tax bills and build goodwill ahead of a potential multibillion-dollar settlement over their role in a crisis that kills more than 100 Americans a day. (Hopkins, 8/2)

Ten Missouri counties, including Jefferson County, and the city of Joplin sued pharmacies, “pill mills” and the manufacturers and distributors of opioids Wednesday for reimbursement for the cost of fighting an “opioid epidemic.” The lawsuit, filed in St. Louis Circuit Court by lawyers from across the state, including the Clayton law firm Carey Danis & Lowe, says that the pain drugs have been misbranded and that manufacturers and distributors conspired to expand sales of the drug by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convince the public and medical professionals that they should be used for long-term, chronic pain. (Patrick, 8/1)

Kaiser Health News: How Rival Opioid Makers Sought To Cash In On Alarm Over OxyContin’s Dangers

As Purdue Pharma faced mounting criticism over deaths linked to OxyContin, rival drugmakers saw a chance to boost sales by stepping up marketing of similarly dangerous painkillers, such as fentanyl, morphine and methadone, Purdue internal documents reveal. Purdue’s 1996-2002 marketing plans for OxyContin, which Kaiser Health News made public this year for the first time, offer an unprecedented look at how that company spent millions of dollars to push opioids for growing legions of pain sufferers. A wave of lawsuits demanding reimbursement and accountability for the opioid crisis now ravaging communities has heightened awareness about how and when drug makers realized the potential dangers of their products. (Schulte, 8/2)

The bill on opioids that the Massachusetts Legislature approved late Tuesday contains several provisions that have nothing to do with combating opioid addiction, but instead aim to help people often seen as casualties of that fight — those suffering from chronic pain. Spooked by worries about addiction and poorly trained in pain management, many physicians have reduced or stopped prescribing medications for pain, and some avoid pain patients altogether, advocates say. (Freyer, 8/1)

An addiction-treatment source in Greater Cincinnati that was designed to immediately link people to help has been used more than 10,000 times since it launched three months ago. ...Massachusetts remains one of just 14 states lacking a telehealth parity law for private insurance coverage, a policy that would guarantee remote medical services would be covered as extensively as in-person care. (DeMio, 8/1)

It had been 103 days since Ferrera’s 1-year-old daughter Liah landed in foster care for immigrant children, separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy after crossing the border with her uncle. ... Then the Department of Health and Human Services had to be convinced to give the baby back to Ferrera. (Surana, 8/2)

[Denise] Miley, 41, filed a lawsuit in January 2016 against the drug makers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka, alleging the drug — one of the best-selling in the world — caused compulsive behavior. The suit contends that the companies knew or should have known it could create such urges, and didn’t adequately warn the thousands of people in the U.S. who use the medication each year. Hundreds more people have since sued the companies, claiming that the drug caused them to gamble, eat, or have sex compulsively. And the Food and Drug Administration signaled its own concern in a 2016 safety warning, saying that uncontrollable urges to gamble, binge eat, shop, and have sex had been reported with use of the antipsychotic. (Thielking, 8/2)

Treatment of latent tuberculosis has never been a simple affair. Nine months of a drug known as isoniazid, taken daily, is the standard of care and can help clear the infection. But it also causes liver damage in a fairly significant percentage of cases. Now, researchers say, a pair of studies that were conducted across multiple countries have shown that four months of therapy with another drug, rifampin, is as effective as the standard of care. Furthermore, the shorter course of treatment meant patients were more likely to follow the regimen to the end. (Branswell, 8/2)

If gun rights activist Cody Wilson gets his way in his legal battle, soon anybody – including convicted felons and the mentally ill – with a few raw materials and access to an industrial 3D printer could build a plastic firearm, gun control advocates say. But will people, particularly a criminal or someone else intent on carrying out violence, bother to make the effort? Tech experts and stakeholders in the gun control debate are divided on whether the emergence of 3D-printed plastic guns presents an immediate safety threat to U.S communities. (Madhani and Wolfson, 8/1)

Kristi Lowery was 13 when physicians found a grapefruit-size tumor in her back — a rare cancer called Ewing sarcoma — and treated her with an aggressive regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. Years later, she developed breast and thyroid cancer, as well as heart and lung problems, probably as a result of the radiation. Today, Lowery undergoes a daunting number of regular cancer screenings to detect additional “late effects” — secondary cancers and other health problems caused by the powerful but toxic earlier treatment. (McGinley, 8/1)

The researchers set out to take a census of all the cells that line our airway, a taxonomy of the tissue made possible by new technology. Perhaps, they thought, they would find different subtypes of cells they already knew existed or would come to better understand the cells’ functions. As the data came in, though, they pointed to a more intriguing finding: a previously unknown cell, one that was similar to a cell found in the gills of fish and skin of frogs. (Joseph, 8/1)

Millions of people struggle to get enough sleep — and to stay alert the next day. Lots of apps, fitness trackers, smartwatches and even mattress motion sensors claim they can diagnose or treat sleep problems. But sleep disorder doctors say there’s little evidence consumer gadgets actually improve sleep. (Johnson, 8/1)

The nation’s federal workplace safety regulator violated the law when it suspended a requirement that companies submit their employee injury logs, according to a new lawsuit by three advocacy groups. In their suit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the organizations contend the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration failed to follow proper procedures by extending the deadline without allowing the public to weigh in, and then announcing it would not accept the data from the roughly 450,000 companies subject to the rule. (Gollan, 8/1)

Humans aren’t the only commuters making use of the metro. A new study that examined the microbiome of the Hong Kong subway system found distinct bacterial “fingerprints” in each line during the morning – distinctions that blurred over the course of the afternoon. The findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, are part of a growing body of work that could have implications for a host of efforts, from managing the spread of disease to designing city infrastructure. (Khan, 8/1)

Four people have tested positive for Ebola in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo just days after another outbreak that killed 33 people in the northwest was declared over, the health ministry said on Wednesday. Twenty people have already died from haemorrhagic fevers in and around Mangina, a densely populated town about 30 km (18 miles) southwest of the city of Beni and 100 km from the Ugandan border, the ministry said in its statement, without saying when the deaths occurred. (8/1)

At least 20 people are dead amid a new outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just days after the country's Ministry of Health declared the last outbreak officially over. The Health Ministry said Wednesday that local officials in North Kivu Province had sounded warnings over the weekend when they discovered 26 cases of what appeared to be a hemorrhagic fever. (Wilson, 8/1)

A federal judge on Wednesday removed Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a former mayor of Flint, along with the state government from a list of defendants in a class-action lawsuit over the Flint water crisis. The lawsuit, brought by a dozen residents of Flint and three local businesses, involves 13 claims related to a decision in 2014 to pipe water from the Flint River, instead of water provided by Detroit Water and Sewerage. (Kvetenadze, 8/1)

Democrat Gavin Newsom emerged from California’s gubernatorial primary with a prodigious financial advantage over Republican rival John Cox, banking more than seven times as much money for the general election. As of June 30, California’s two-term lieutenant governor and the front-runner in the race, has more than $11 million in the bank, while Cox has $1.5 million, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state Tuesday. (Mehta and Willon, 8/2)

The day's group therapy session for the young detainees at the county jail started with their behavioral health specialist testing them with a hypothetical scenario: They’ve cheated on a girlfriend and the other woman is pregnant. The participants – all facing serious charges and picked for the jail's intensive therapy program because they're deemed a high risk of getting caught in Chicago’s intractable gun violence once they leave custody – bristled at a push for honest talk. (Madhani, 8/2)

A recent federal study says the Granite State had the nation's highest pediatric cancer rate from 2003 to 2014. Senator Jeanne Shaheen and others have called on federal health officials to do more to study the causes of that problem. Now, Shaheen has tied the issue to the Senate's spending bill. (Ropeik, 8/1)

A Massachusetts man was convicted on Wednesday of carrying out a cyber attack on a Boston hospital's network on behalf of the hacking activist group Anonymous in protest of its treatment of a teenager at the center of a high-profile custody dispute. A federal jury in Boston found Martin Gottesfeld, 32, guilty of one count of conspiracy to damage protected computers and one count of damaging protected computers, prosecutors said. (Raymond, 8/1)

The Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection committee has received more than $4.5 million in contributions and loans this year from the Service Employees International Union and an affiliated union in California, according to a campaign finance report covering the first six months of the year. The committee spent nearly $3.7 million to companies to print and circulate petitions to collect signatures of registered Ohio voters. It reported having $433,847 on hand as of June 30. (Borchardt, 8/1)

Columbus is lending its support to a lawsuit filed by women’s health advocates in an effort to preserve funding for reproductive health care. The city filed a brief Wednesday in support of Planned Parenthood and other groups behind a lawsuit challenging a federal policy that the organization says prioritizes methods of birth control not supported by the medical community. (Cooley, 8/1)

While Massachusetts leads the country in health care access, it remains "one of the worst in the nation" for coverage of telemedicine services, says Kate Audette, director of state government relations at Boston Children’s Hospital. ... Massachusetts remains one of just 14 states lacking a telehealth parity law for private insurance coverage, a policy that would guarantee remote medical services would be covered as extensively as in-person care. (Kaplan, 8/1)

Oklahoma health officials on Wednesday adopted new guidelines for the use of medical marijuana in the state after earlier rules hastily adopted last month came under harsh criticism from the attorney general and medical marijuana advocates. The state Board of Health voted unanimously to adopt new rules that amend or entirely revoke the previous guidelines, including eliminating a ban on the sale of smokable pot and requirements that a pharmacist be in every dispensary and that women of "childbearing age" undergo a pregnancy test. (8/1)

Siding with a preliminary decision by state regulators, an administrative law judge Tuesday recommended denial of plans by Nemours Children’s Hospital to offer pediatric heart transplants and heart and lung transplants. Judge W. David Watkins, in a 68-page ruling, said the Orlando hospital had not shown that it should receive certificates of need for the proposed programs. (Hokrein, 8/1)

More than three years have passed since Asale Chandler’s teenage son was murdered in San Francisco. But Chandler said it feels as though it has been only three days. The anguish doesn’t get better, said Chandler, a 55-year-old community activist from San Francisco at a rally here Tuesday. “It gets worse.” Chandler’s 19-year-old son, Yalani Chinyamurindi, was one of four young black men who were shot and killed in January 2015 while sitting in a Honda Civic in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood. One man has been arrested in connection with the shooting. (Matthews, 8/1)

She’s a licensed clinical social worker with a bullet-resistant vest. Amber Ruth was recently embedded into the St. Paul Police Department’s mental health unit. She follows up on crisis calls, working to connect people with mental health resources. And she’s also been out with officers on in-progress calls. Five minutes into Ruth’s second day of working at the police department, her skills were called into action. The mental health unit received a request to go out to talk with a man who is mentally ill and who’s had numerous interactions with law enforcement, said Sgt. Jamie Sipes, who heads the mental health unit. (Gottfried, 8/1)

During an editorial board meeting at The Arizona Republic on Monday, Ward and her GOP rival Martha McSally laid out their views on abortion rights and how that would factor into their views of judicial nominations. It was at least one issue where Ward, a physician and former state senator, sketched out a more nuanced view of the issue than McSally, the congresswoman who has often added a measure of pragmatism to her conservative preferences. (Hansen, 8/1)

Even though African-Americans had made significant contributions not only in medicine, but in technology, science, engineering, and the Industrial Revolution, those were often missing from school textbooks and classrooms. In many cases, that’s still true. (Bonds Staples, 8/2)

Starting today, Wisconsin residents can access prescription birth control and HIV prevention without setting foot in a doctor’s office.Nurx (pronounced Nur-ex) is a platform that already offers these services in 17 other states. (Groves, 8/1)

City of Tampa water customers may notice a slight difference in the taste and odor of their drinking water this month, as the Tampa Water Department temporarily converts its water disinfection from chloramine to chlorine disinfection. (Fanning, 8/1)

As the data is beginning to show, sales are not only climbing but California’s journey is just beginning as it steps into its role as the cannabis capital of the world. Even while brands and retailers are still scrambling to navigate these new rules, the sales statistics signal the maturation and eagerness of the legal market to adapt to these new regulations. (Smith, 8/1)

We see the value of the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) almost every day. It allows some of our patients to meet a basic human need: to eat. In our medical practices, we are intimately aware of the inextricable link between poor diet and health: arteries hardened, nerves numbed, and cancers caused. This is why we are concerned about farm bills working their way through Congress that threaten the SNAP program. (Andrew Goldstein and Akash Goel, 8/2)

The wisdom of work requirements in safety-net programs for low-income Americans is being hotly debated in the U.S. Congress, state capitols and policy circles. In the coming weeks, Congress might expand work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. With the authorization of the federal government, some states are currently attempting to impose work obligations on recipients of Medicaid, a program that provides health coverage to low-income households. ...It’s one thing to encourage work. It’s something quite different to tell a hungry person you won’t give him food, or a sick person you won’t give him medical care. But if work requirements are going to have teeth, then that will be necessary. Sending away a hungry person may be reasonable if you think he has the capacity to work. This requires adequate opportunity to use that capacity. (Michael R. Strain, 8/1)

Something interesting is happening in the age of Trump: 63 percent of Americans support a national health insurance plan, or Medicare for All, in which the federal government would guarantee health insurance for everyone in the country. Mounting support for Medicare for All has left conservatives hyperventilating. Commercial insurers and their Republican allies are working overtime to convince Congress and the electorate that we simply can’t “afford” Medicare for All. A report by the Mercatus Center’s Charles Blahous, who spearheaded President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security, is the latest entry in this fuzzy math sweepstakes. (Diane Archer, 8/1)

The idea of “Medicare for All” has energized progressives ahead of November’s midterm elections. Across the country, candidates like New York congressional hopeful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have rallied to the slogan. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Medicare for All Act last year and has so far rounded up 16 co-sponsors. Last month, 70 House members formed a Medicare for All Caucus. But there is an enormous gulf between the appealing idea of Medicare for All and the incredibly expensive reality. According to my calculations, paying for every American’s health-care expenses would increase federal spending by $32.6 trillion over the first decade of Medicare for All. Even if Congress were to double what it collects in individual and corporate income taxes, there still wouldn’t be enough money added to the federal coffers to finance the costs of this plan. (Charles Blahous, 8/1)

When it comes to the nation’s long-term spending on social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Republican leaders are selling the people of the United States either a terrible lie or a terrible truth. They promise to cut the programs, in their proposed budgets and tax-cut legislation, but they seem to do so knowing the cuts cannot be enacted. Yet the finances of our big social programs are increasingly challenged, and something really does need to change. And the danger is that when the money runs short enough, the only option other than benefit cuts will be huge tax increases that would face tremendous opposition. At that point, the benefit cuts the Republicans keep promising in their draconian budgets that seem so unlikely now could come to fruition. (8/1)

A single-payer system will cause the health care sector to implode, with profound implications for the United States and the world's economy. Health care is the largest component of the American economy, 17.9 percent of gross domestic product. (Jonathan Yates, 7/31)

Democrats are making an election issue of rising health-care costs, so it’s strange that they are now criticizing a new Trump Administration rule that would make cheaper insurance available to more Americans. Maybe they fear people will like it. Health and Human Services on Wednesday finished a rule to expand short-term, limited-duration health insurance. This product has been around for decades for people between jobs or otherwise in need of coverage against the risk of a catastrophic illness. The plans must comply with state laws but aren’t subject to ObamaCare rules on benefits or pricing. Traditionally plans could last a year, but the Obama Administration cut that to three months. The Obama regulators said that 12-month plans might “adversely” affect the Affordable Care Act exchanges. In other words, they wanted to limit alternatives to force everyone into the exchanges. (8/1)

Since Congress ultimately decided to keep Obamacare intact last year, President Trump been trying to dismantle the law himself. In recent weeks, his administration slashed funding to help people sign up for health insurance this fall and halted billions of dollars of payments that help make insuring sicker people viable for insurance companies. On Wednesday, the Trump administration opened up skimpy health plans that don't meet the Affordable Care Act's coverage standards to more Americans. And those are the actions he's taken just this summer. (Amber Phillips, 8/1)

As someone who’s spent over a decade addressing challenges faced by people with a substance use disorder, I’ve heard many stories of triumph and heartbreak that occur within the long path to recovery. This summer, my concerns have focused on a question that too few are asking: What will happen to kids deeply impacted by this epidemic? That was the main point of discussion at a panel I moderated in June, “Caring for the Youngest Victims of our Nation’s Opioid Crisis.” One panelist, Lincoln, New Hampshire Police Chief Ted Smith, recounted what it’s like to go into a home to find children neglected and endangered as their parents struggled with drug abuse. (Former Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.), 8/1)

Concerns about the current epidemic of opioid- related deaths have focused attention on physician prescribing patterns and deficiencies in the training of the clinical workforce. Corresponding attention to the lack of access to medications for addiction treatment, primarily buprenorphine and methadone, has generated increased funding for both treatment and post-graduate clinician education and a broad range of new legislative proposals. ...The goal to increase access to evidenced-based treatment is critical. ...However, some of the solutions proposed are ill-considered and risk serious unintended consequences. (John A. Renner, 8/1)

It’s sobering to take in the magnitude: Over 63,600 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016 — more than died in car crashes or of breast cancer; more than were killed in the entire Vietnam War. And deaths specifically from opioids trafficked from overseas more than doubled from 2015 to 2016. Experts predict that nearly 500,000 Americans could lose their lives to opioids over the next decade. (Liz Schrayer, 8/2)

Americans must never forget the mass cruelty inflicted on refugee children by the U.S. government, no matter how fast and fraudulently President Donald Trump tweets out distractions. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and others who decreed and then lamely tried to justify government-sanctioned child abuse will move on with barely a ripple of conscience, if that. Their young victims, on the other hand, will be burdened, perhaps for life, by the trauma of being ripped, in some cases literally, from the arms of their parents. (8/1)

Our country has been consumed with reports about the separation of children from their families at the nation’s border. Children, as young as toddlers —and even babies, were separated from their parents because of the so-called “zero tolerance” illegal immigration policy enacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. ...It appeared that our country had failed to adhere to its paramount standards of decency and morality. This is an especially sensitive matter for the Cuban-American community, which had so many of its sons and daughters emigrate to the United States as unaccompanied minors on the Pedro Pan freedom flights. Our community knows firsthand the lasting emotional scars that can result from even a temporary separation from one’s family. We lived it — and still do. (Jorge Piedra, 8/1)

From conception through birth, the first nine months of existence predict an astonishing percentage of the rest of a person’s life — both male and female. By better understanding the many factors associated with both normal and complicated pregnancies, we can anticipate a wide range of conditions that impact human health: heart disease; genetic or metabolic disorders; physical, mental and emotional development. Better understanding can lead to early interventions that are, quite literally, life-changing. So again, what does it take to get there? It’s no secret that women’s health care traditionally attracts less funding. We think of it as specialized, a political movement, a feminist cause. But to view women’s health care in these terms is to miss the bigger picture. When we fail to invest here, it’s humanity that suffers, not just women. (Carrie Coghill, 8/1)

Omar Paisley, 17, died in juvenile detention from a burst appendix. Elord Revolte, also 17, died in juvenile detention, too — from internal bleeding. What really killed them, however, was the entrenched neglect and cruelty of Florida’s juvenile justice system. Wednesday, a Miami-Dade grand jury credited the Miami Herald for its stomach-churning series “Fight Club” for throwing a spotlight on the system. The gripping stories “detailed a pattern of conduct wherein guards within the juvenile detention facility created intolerable conditions and behavior by bribing certain juveniles with fast food, including pastry ‘honeybuns’, in order for those teens to discipline other juveniles within the facility,” grand jurors wrote. (8/2)

Nothing has more to do with how well nursing homes treat their residents than staffing. Preventing falls and bedsores, properly administering medication, helping patients eat and maintain their dignity — all depend on having enough nurses and aides. State and federal governments have resisted setting minimum staffing levels, but the public recently gained more accurate information about patient-staff ratios, thanks to a provision of the Affordable Care Act. The news is not good. (7/31)