�Թϲ�����

President Donald Trump's labeling of a House-passed health care bill as "mean" is aggravating some of the conservatives he pressed to back it, even as Senate attempts to reshape the measure increasingly threaten to spill into July. "In terms of strategery, I hope he's just trying to motivate the Senate," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said Wednesday, employing a mangled word used [in a parody of] former President George W. Bush. "Because he put all sorts of pressure on us to move the bill we passed." (Fram, 6/14)

Here’s one unique, easy-to-grasp way to understand the continued gridlock among Senate Republicans on how to change the health-care industry: Each senator is trying to get the best deal for his or her state. It’s a somewhat obvious observation, because that’s what happens in most congressional debates. But the last six weeks of Senate consideration of the Republican effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act has been somewhat lost in the weeds of Medicare regulations, the size and scope of tax credits and proposals to phase out benefits over a couple years or much longer. (Kane, 6/14)

Congress struggling to finish a huge budget reconciliation bill. A GOP president pushing a major overhaul of federal payments for health insurance that could transform the lives of sick patients. Sound familiar? The year was 1986. I was a rookie health reporter on Capitol Hill and watched a Medicare bill move from introduction, to hearings, to votes in subcommittees, to full committees and then to the entire House — an operation that took months and was replicated in the Senate, before the two chambers got together to iron out their differences for final passage. Everything was published in the official Congressional Record in almost excruciating detail for everyone to see — as long as they could read really tiny type. (Rovner, 6/14)

Senate Republicans may provide higher federal funding to states with low Medicaid costs in their health care bill. The proposal under consideration gets to the heart of a key sticking point in the ongoing GOP discussions to overhaul the U.S. health care system: how to equitably treat states with drastically different Medicaid spending levels. Medicaid, the structure of tax credits and other issues are among the big disputes that Senate Republicans need to resolve, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Wednesday. When asked if the Senate would vote by its self-imposed July Fourth goal, he demurred. (Young and Williams, 6/14)

Liberal activists on Wednesday hit pause on their all-out battle to thwart Republicans trying to fast track an Obamacare repeal-and-replace plan through the Senate. But Democratic lawmakers and outside groups say the mass shooting that wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise can’t slow down the overall effort. (Schor, 6/14)

Not a day goes by without President Trump bashing the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, as he tries to urge the Senate to pass its own version of a repeal-and-replace bill. He’s become a torrent of statistics as he has tried to make the case that the law is “dead,” as he puts it. Increasingly, the president is aided by reports churned out by the Department of Health and Human Services, which under President Barack Obama used to issue dubious reports defending the law but now offers dubious reports to undermine it. (Kessler, 6/15)

Congressional Democrats are requesting an investigation of whether the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President Trump has been violating the law by advocating for the passage of legislation on its Twitter accounts. The Democrats, in a letter to the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, point to messages on the official HHS Twitter feed calling for the passage of the Republican bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, known as the American Health Care Act. (Sullivan, 6/14)

Nearly every health group has taken a stand on the Republican legislation to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, but a split among insurance companies, who are arguably most central to the overhaul, has prevented the industry and its powerful lobby from picking a side in the debate. The divisions, along with a desire to remain involved in the negotiations, have quieted an industry that had a vocal role in shaping the ACA. (Hackman, 6/14)

President Donald Trump promised to make health care more affordable but a government report finds that out-of-pocket costs — deductibles and copayments — would average 61 percent higher under the House Republican bill. And even though the sticker price for premiums would be lower than under Obama-era law, what consumers pay would actually go up on average because government financial assistance would be reduced. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/15)

The American Health Care Act passed by the House of Representatives could be a serious job killer. If the bill were to pass the Senate in its current form (the Senate is working on its version of the bill in secret so it’s hard to say just how different the Senate version is), the economy would lose 924,000 jobs over the next decade, according to a new report from George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund. (Braverman, 6/14)

Just 31 percent of Kansans and 32 percent of Missourians support the House-approved bill to repeal Obamacare, according to new estimates published Wednesday in The New York Times. In fact, not one state has a majority of residents who are for the measure, with support ranging from a low of 22 percent in Massachusetts (Washington, D.C., is even lower at 16 percent) to a high of 38 percent in Oklahoma, according to the estimates. (Margolies, 6/14)

Senators are debating what to do about retaining anti-abortion language in the House bill, which could violate Senate budget rules. Opponents have raised concerns about new tax credits in the bill, which could not be used to buy insurance that includes abortion coverage. A provision to defund Planned Parenthood is also vulnerable. The parliamentary question is whether these would be considered non-budgetary provisions that violate the Byrd rule, which prohibits the inclusion of extraneous issues that don't have a fiscal impact. Republicans argue it would be a “term and condition" of the tax credit, which is allowed under the Byrd rule. (Raman, 6/14)

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Springs Republican, has penned a letter signed by 70 members of the U.S. House asking GOP leadership in the Senate to ensure “our pro-life priorities” are included in any health care legislation they draft to replace the Affordable Care Act...The request was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, as well as the chairs of the Senate budget, health and finance committees. Colorado’s other House Republicans — U.S. Reps. Mike Coffman, Ken Buck and Scott Tipton — did not sign the letter. (Paul, 6/14)

Some health insurers in Michigan will be seeking record-level rate hikes next year for plans they sell to individuals — potentially as much as 31% — as debate continues to swirl in Washington over overhauling the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. Wednesday was the deadline for insurance companies to submit to Michigan regulators their proposed 2018 premiums for health plans that can be bought on or off the Healthcare.gov exchange, as well as for small groups of 50 or fewer employees. (Reindl and Spangler, 6/14)

Two of the state’s largest health insurers came face to face with hostile customers and dissenting advocates at a hearing Wednesday over another year of requests for double-digit rate hikes. The stakes are even higher this year because the state Insurance Department’s final decision on the rate requests will influence whether the two remaining insurers on Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, return in 2018. (Constable, 6/14)

The Cleveland Clinic will enter the individual insurance market later this year through a joint venture with New York-based Oscar Insurance Corp., a health insurance tech startup. The venture, called Cleveland Clinic | Oscar Health, will offer its new insurance during open enrollment in 2017, and will begin coverage starting Jan. 1, 2018. (Christ, 6/15)

The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that denies premium assistance under the replacement for Obamacare until the applicant's immigration status or citizenship has been determined. Under the current law, immigrants who reside in the U.S. illegally can not buy insurance on the exchanges —or receive tax credits—but coverage can begin while the federal government verifies citizenship or residency.  (Lee, 6/14)

Four Democratic senators have introduced a bill that would make reinsurance a permanent part of the Affordable Care Act's individual exchanges. The bill, introduced Wednesday and led by Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Tom Carper of Delaware, would provide federal funding to cover 80% of claims from $50,000 to $500,000, starting next year, with the same level of support through 2020. (Lee, 6/14)

The Department of Veterans Affairs warned Wednesday it was unexpectedly running out of money for a program that offers veterans private-sector health care, forcing it to hold back on some services that lawmakers worry could cause delays in medical treatment. It is making an urgent request to Congress to allow it to shift money from other programs to fill the sudden budget gap. (6/14)

After it was announced that the CMS potentially made mistaken payments to providers for meaningful use, healthcare policy advisers questioned the agency's oversight capabilities. But some wondered whether the overpayments, which totaled an estimated 12% of incentive payments, may have just been the price of doing business. (Arndt, 6/14)

Five people, including the head of Michigan's health department, were charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter in an investigation of Flint's lead-contaminated water, all blamed in the death of an 85-year-old man who had Legionnaires' disease. Nick Lyon is the highest-ranking member of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's administration to be snagged in a criminal investigation of how the city's water system became poisoned after officials tapped the Flint River in 2014. (6/14)

Six officials were charged in all — five with involuntary manslaughter — according to Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. "We will turn to the prosecution of this investigation," he said in at a morning news conference. "We are confident that the charges that we have filed will be upheld in the courts." (Egan and Anderson, 6/14)

While much of the attention in Flint has focused on the lead-tainted water that exposed thousands of young children to potential long-term health risks, the crisis also has been linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that contributed to at least a dozen deaths. Those cases ultimately led to the charges Wednesday for Lyon, as well as for the state’s chief medical executive, Eden Wells, who faces charges of obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer but is not accused of manslaughter. (Dennis, 6/14)

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said the latest charges reflected the determination of investigators to hold government officials responsible for Flint’s water crisis. “There are those who assumed this would be swept under the rug,” Mr. Schuette said. “That arrogance that people would want to sweep this away, that there were nameless, faceless bureaucrats that caused this, is outrageous.” (Maher, 6/14)

He also faces up to five years in prison for misconduct for allegedly instructing his staff to stop an analysis that would have helped to determine the cause of the outbreak. (Cama, 6/14)

Robert Skidmore was born in Flint, raised a family there and lived his entire life in and around the blue collar town that — next to Detroit — was synonymous with manufacturing of cars and trucks. But his December 2015 death has been blamed on Legionnaires’ disease and linked to a tainted water crisis that on Wednesday led to involuntary manslaughter and other charges against five officials, including the director of Michigan’s Health and Human Services department. Skidmore, 85, was one of 12 people to die from the disease and nearly 100 cases of people being sickened from it. (Eggert and Wililams, 6/15)

Health department officials released a statement from Gov. Rick Snyder saying he stands behind Lyon and Wells, and that they would remain in their jobs pending trial. (Egan, Anderson and Wisely, 6/14)

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general is jointly investigating the marketing of prescription painkillers and the causes of widespread opioid addiction, according to people familiar with the matter, in another sign of growing pressure on the pharmaceutical industry. The probe, which includes a majority of U.S. states, is expected to be publicly announced in the coming days, the people said. The investigation is focused on manufacturers of prescription painkillers, one of the people said, and, like other opioid investigations launched in recent years, will focus on the allegedly deceptive marketing of the drugs. The full range of targets of the investigation isn’t yet clear and could change. (Randazzo and Whalen, 6/14)

Bringing down the rate of HIV infection in one of the United States’ great public health triumphs of the past quarter-century. Now, thanks to the opioid epidemic, some of those hard-won gains may be reversed. Opioids, as well as being harmful on their own, also increase the risk of HIV outbreaks, as users sometimes inject the drugs using shared, infected syringes. That drove a clustered outbreak in Scott County, Indiana, where then-Governor Mike Pence declared a public health emergency in 2015 because of a spate of new HIV infections. (Humphreys, 6/14)

Doctors may be overprescribing opioids to women who have had cesarean sections. Researchers tracked prescriptions and pill use in 179 women discharged from an academic medical center after cesarean delivery. On average, they left the hospital with a prescription for the equivalent of 30 pills containing 5 milligrams of oxycodone or hydrocodone. Then, using interviews, the scientists tracked how much of the medicine they used during the two weeks after discharge. The study is in Obstetrics & Gynecology. (Bakalar, 6/14)

Massachusetts law allows anyone to distribute syringes without approval by local authorities, the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday in a case involving a Hyannis needle exchange. The ruling was hailed by advocates for the eight-year-old Hyannis program, who said the decision would lead to the expansion statewide of a service that saves lives and prevents the spread of disease among injection-drug users — at time when Massachusetts is battling an opioid-addiction crisis. (Freyer, 6/14)

The consumer group Public Citizen said it has found new, “serious ethical lapses” in a premature-infant study that it contends should lead a federal medical-research watchdog agency to expand an investigation into the research. Public Citizen said it has unearthed documents showing that oxygen-measurement instruments used in the baby study gave inaccurate readings, which could have harmed the babies. The group called for the federal Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) to look into the matter. (Burton, 6/14)

The trial was intended to determine whether premature babies fare better with lower or higher levels of oxygen. It resulted in a clear conclusion: Lower oxygen levels were associated with higher rates of death among babies enrolled in the trial (Ross, 6/14)

For the first time, conjoined twins Abby and Erin Delaney can sleep in separate beds. The 10-month-old girls from North Carolina were born connected at the head, an extremely rare condition. Following months of planning and preparation, the pair underwent a successful 11-hour separation surgery last week at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in southeastern Pennsylvania, according to the hospital. (Bever, 6/14)

Urinary incontinence is a common condition in women. Approximately 25 percent of young women, around half of middle-aged and postmenopausal women, and three-fourths of older women experience some involuntary urine loss, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The group estimates that $19.5 billion a year is spent on treatments, which run the gamut from behavior modification to surgery. Then there’s the O-Shot, meant for the 15 percent of women who have stress incontinence — leakage associated with a strain such as sneezing or lifting. Rush, 6/14)

The 84-year-old man who had suffered a mini-stroke was insistent as he spoke to a social worker about being discharged from the hospital: He didn’t want anyone coming into his home, and he didn’t think he needed any help. So the social worker canceled an order for home health care services. And the patient went back to his apartment without plans for follow-up care in place. (Graham, 6/15)

Getting in to see a doctor takes time. Getting the most out of your doctor’s time takes something more: an inquisitive approach. Armed with the right questions before you sit on the exam table, you, too, can become an empowered patient ready to make informed decisions about your health. (Shah, 6/15)

Erin Smith doesn’t watch a lot of TV. Instead, the 17-year-old spends her evenings perfecting an online tool she created. The tool, called FacePrint, can detect Parkinson’s disease years before current diagnosis methods by recording your facial reactions with a webcam at home. Smith, a senior at Shawnee Mission West High School, has traveled to Twitter and Google headquarters, won a $10,000 prize from the #BuiltByGirls Future Founder competition to continue her research, and has been recognized by the Michael J. Fox Foundation. (Marleah Campbell, 6/14)

Experts say it's hard to know exactly how many transgender teachers there are in the country because they often don't disclose their status, fearing discrimination. Across the country, estimates show less than one percent of the population identifies as transgender. (Emanuel, 6/15)

Two young women in white chamois robes exited the Himalayan salt sauna at Premier57, a spa in Midtown Manhattan, looking rosy and happily spent. The salt sauna, lined with burnt orange and yellow blocks of sodium chloride, is a popular destination at the spa, where a day pass is $75 and the tagline urges guests to “immerse, indulge, intrigue.” Options include an infrared lounge, a meditation room, an igloo room, a gold sauna and a clay sauna, “but we have a lot of guests who just come here for the salt room, especially if they have arthritis,” said the spa’s general manager, Ellis Kim. “It’s very good for arthritis and for regulating blood pressure.” (Kaufman, 6/14)

On the third day of the Missouri legislature’s second special session, abortion rights supporters and opponents gathered to make their voices heard in the Capitol. But the Missouri Senate sat Wednesday. Instead of convening in the morning as scheduled, they negotiated behind closed doors on a smaller-than planned abortion bill that Republicans hope Democrats won’t try to filibuster. (Griffin, 6/14)

A state council that usually rubber-stamps human services changes balked Wednesday at a controversial plan to bar abortion providers from participating in state-financed family planning efforts. Several members of the Council on Human Services criticized the new approach, which was approved by the Legislature in April and signed by then-Gov. Terry Branstad, a staunch abortion opponent. (Leys, 6/14)

The bill calls for changes both to the mental health system and child protection standards. Among other things, it forces the Department of Health and Human Services to come up with a new 10-year plan for reforming the mental health system, focusing on wait times and gaps in the current system. (McDermott, 6/14)

Maryland Insurance Administration on Wednesday approved plans for Evergreen Health to be acquired by investors and convert to a for-profit insurance company. Evergreen was one of 23 so-called consumer oriented and operated health plans created under the federal Affordable Care Act and one of the few still operating. In a bid to stay in busines amid mounting financial pressure, Evergreen sought investors to shore up its finances. (Gantz, 6/14)

State public health officials on Wednesday approved a $30 million renovation project at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester that includes a controversial plan by the hospital to cut about half of its psychiatric beds. Hospital officials want to convert 13 psychiatric beds into space for medical and surgical patients, arguing that they are facing greater demand from those patients than from people with severe mental illness. (Dayal McCluskey, 6/14)

Teenage pregnancy and birth rates are continuing to tumble in Minnesota, according to a report released Wednesday by University of Minnesota researchers. But they tend to be higher in rural counties than elsewhere. Overall, teen pregnancy rates dropped almost 70 percent from 1990 to 2015 in Minnesota, according to the report. Just between 2014 and 2015 — the last year for which data are available — the decline was a little more than 11 percent. (Lundy, 6/14)

Fewer teens than ever are getting pregnant, according to report author and director of adolescent sexual health Jill Farris... On the other hand, teen rates of gonorrhea are up 40 percent and chlamydia is up 15 percent. (Enger, 6/14)

The Florida Department of Health is investigating two gyms in the Orlando area for a possible outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Four people have caught the bacterial lung infection in Orange County. (Aboraya, 6/14)

Philanthropists Melanie and Richard Lundquist have donated $32 million to Torrance Memorial Medical Center to improve neurological, orthopedic and spinal care at the hospital. The gift announced this week brings the couple’s total contributions to the hospital to $100 million over the last 11 years. The sum is the most a single donor has given to a hospital that isn’t a research or teaching facility since the Chronicle of Philanthropy began tracking donations over $1 million in 2005. (Karlamangla, 6/14)

Cancer-causing compounds in East Bay drinking water have increased sharply over the past several years, and water in some areas is close to violating a federal public health standard, the East Bay Municipal Utility District reported Tuesday. Water-quality managers said the drought is at least partly to blame for the increase in contaminants called trihalomethanes or THMs,  a byproduct of chlorine used to kill germs reacting with natural organic matter in water. (Cuff, 6/13)

San Francisco officials are looking at a ban on flavored tobacco products, ranging from cherry cigarillos and blueberry blunt wraps to menthol cigarettes, e-cigarettes, hookahs and smokeless tobacco. Berkeley recently passed a similar law. The proposed ban is the latest in a string of restrictions on tobacco products, including a $2-per-pack tax that went into effect in the state in April. (Johnson, 6/14)

A surprise witness testified Tuesday that he had seen pesticides regularly sprayed close to strawberry harvesters at a farm near Oxnard, completely supporting the plaintiff's version of events in a birth defect trial. Jose Antonio Madrigal, a former supervisor for Well-Pict Berries, said he had seen tractors spraying two or three times a week in fields at Anacapa Berry Farms while workers were present in 2007. The tractors were applying the chemicals well under 100 feet from the workers, he said. (Wilson, 6/13)

Three digital health startups — one to help detect concussions, another to streamline emergency medicine, and a third to improve the mental health of seniors — were awarded a total of $200,000 Tuesday as part of an innovative accelerator program aimed at boosting such ventures across the state... The top winners of PULSE's cash prizes were selected based on their ability to demonstrate impact and meet milestones while working over the past six months with established corporate partners, including leading health care companies and big-name medical institutions. (Zimmerman, 6/14)

Florida is the second worst state in the nation at providing home- and community-based health care options for seniors and the disabled, a new report says. The AARP's scorecard says the result is that too many seniors are pushed into nursing homes. (Ochoa, 6/14)

Baylor Scott & White Health officials and Thomas Ranch Development Interests announced a partnership this week that could bring a clinic or other health-care facility to Thomas Ranch, a proposed 2,200-acre master-planned community to be built off Texas 71 and Paleface Ranch Road. The proposed development, which straddles western Travis County and eastern Burnet County, is one of the largest master-planned communities announced in recent years for Central Texas. (Novak, 6/14)

A new sexual health curriculum will be tested next spring for seventh- and eighth-grade students in the Cupertino Union School District.The move comes a few months after the school board, in a 2-2 vote, failed to adopt sex education curriculum that conforms to new state standards. Parents in March told school officials the proposed curriculum was “too graphic” and “not age-appropriate,” while others suggested it did not align with their cultural values, and some complained that it explicitly described different types of sex. (Myllenbeck, 5/14)

Kentucky's criminal ban against medical marijuana was challenged Wednesday in a lawsuit touting cannabis as a viable alternative to ease addiction woes from opioid painkillers. The plaintiffs have used medical marijuana to ease health problems, the suit said. The three plaintiffs include Dan Seum Jr., the son of a longtime Republican state senator. (6/14)

In Georgia, the state apparently has not taken any action against the North Fulton County water utility, though the system has received repeated written warnings — five since 2004 — for failing to tell consumers about their water quality quickly enough. State officials did not respond to our inquiry about the situation. (Goodman and Miller, 6/14)

The city of Boca Raton is prohibiting swimming at all its beaches after results from testing at two sites showed high bacterial levels in the water. The beaches will remain open to the public, with red flags and signs at its entrances enforcing no swimming. (Hall, 6/14)

County officials this summer are giving away "mosquito fish,” a guppy-like, native freshwater fish - for free - to residents. The two-and-a-half-inch long fish can eat about 100 mosquito eggs and larvae a day. (Miller, 6/14)

Taxes on recreational marijuana products could be as high as 28 percent under a bill about to be taken up by the Massachusetts House on Thursday, according to a draft copy of the legislation obtained by WBUR late Tuesday. The bill, drafted by the House chairman of the Legislature's Marijuana Policy Committee, makes some major changes to the way legal pot would be regulated when compared to how the law was written in a voter-approved referendum last November that legalized recreational marijuana in the state. (Brown, 6/14)

A domestic cat contracted plague in rural northwest Weld County in early June but is receiving treatment and is expected to recover. Although plague is rare, it occurs naturally in Colorado and can be found in wildlife such as rodents and rabbits, according to the Weld County Health Department. People most commonly contract the disease from infected fleas but can also contract it from direct contact with an infected animal. (Worthington, 6/14)

President Trump’s budget proposal and the recent House health legislation included substantial reductions in Medicaid. Understandably, those cuts have focused attention on the potential effect on coverage for lower-income individuals. But there’s another important and related conversation that needs attention: how much flexibility should states have in redesigning the federal-state Medicaid program? (Butler, 6/14)

Nearly one in five adult children at some point provide care for at least one elderly parent, according to a new study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The burden is particularly demanding for daughters, who spend as much time on such care as spouses of older adults, and as much time as sons, in-laws, grandchildren and other relatives combined. (6/15)

Senate Republicans continue to negotiate the details of their health-care reform, and one measure of progress is that their opponents are more manic and disingenuous. Progressives who used to deride the GOP for incompetence are now panicked that they may really succeed, and thus the faux tantrums. The distortion du jour is that the GOP is operating “in secret.” This week Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of working “behind closed doors, writing a bill they won’t let the public read. . . . Today, no Member of Congress can read the bill because we don’t know what it is.” (6/14)

House Republicans are angry with President Trump for blurting out an inconveniently candid view of their health-care bill, Politico reports today. Trump reportedly told a closed-door gathering of GOP senators that the House repeal-and-replace bill is “mean” and called on them to make it “more generous.” This promptly leaked, and a lot of people are noting that Trump undercut House Republicans politically and provided Democrats with ammo for a thousand attack ads. (Greg Sargent, 6/14)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell once had passionate views about how carefully Congress should consider sweeping changes to the health-care system. “Fast-tracking a major legislative overhaul such as health care reform or a new national energy tax without the benefit of a full and transparent debate does a disservice to the American people,” McConnell said in 2009, referring to the two big issues of the moment. Democrats using such means, he added, “would make it absolutely clear they intend to carry out their plans on a purely partisan basis.” Republican hypocrisy is now so rampant that it’s typically ignored or, worse, granted the political class’s all-purpose form of absolution: “Everybody does it.” (E.J. Dionne, 6/14)

A new health care system affecting millions of families is being designed right now in closed-door meetings attended by a small group of Republican senators and their aides. Access to insurance, needed treatments and affordable premiums are being bargained away in exchange for the few votes needed to drag the American Health Care Act over the finish line. Given the narrowest of margins in the Senate, the fate of the AHCA is likely to be decided by one of several senators you might have never heard of, and by a handful of raw deals that are being dangled in front of them. (Andy Slavitt, 6/15)

Mitch McConnell has never let concerns about hypocrisy get in the way of advancing his legislative agenda. Now, while the media and American citizens are fixated on each daily warp of the soap operatic presidency of Donald Trump, McConnell has huddled behind locked doors with his Republican loyalists and favored lobbyists to assemble a healthcare scheme that will disassemble Obamacare. (David Horsey, 6/14)

The Trump administration recently petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington for a three-month delay in a federal case that will have a significant effect on the future of the Affordable Care Act. It could undermine the stability of individual health insurance markets nationwide. (Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris and Diana Dooley, 6/14)

When the U.S. House finally sent the Republicans’ American Health Care Act to the Senate on May 4, consensus was that it was dead on arrival. One reason, as even President Donald Trump this week acknowledged — six weeks after holding a Rose Garden ceremony to celebrate it — is that the House bill is “mean.” It turns out the bill wasn’t DOA; it was only sleeping. (6/14)

Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas met with 500 constituents at a town hall meeting Monday in Lenexa, the biggest such assembly of his career. Voters are paying attention — not only to what Moran and his colleagues say, but to what they do. Sen. Jerry Moran walked into a town hall buzz saw Monday morning, one with about 500 razor-sharp sets of teeth ready to slice him to ribbons. (Dave Helling, 6/15)

Everyone agrees prescription drugs are too expensive, but what to do about it? One popular idea—supported in the past by President Trump, and by 80% of the public in some polls—is for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices directly. But such negotiation would work only if there were some limitations on the drugs available to patients, raising many questions about the feasibility of creating a national formulary. Would beneficiaries accept that? (Walid F. Gellad, 6/14)

Reading glasses can be purchased just about anywhere, including some grocery stores and gas stations. You do not need a medical exam or a prescription to obtain what are essentially small magnifying glasses. For only a few dollars, you can buy spectacles in a variety of strengths to help you see better. (6/14)

Former HHS General Counsel and Deputy FDA Commissioner Bill Schultz recently expressed his belief that FDA policies developed 50 years ago remain sufficient to govern life in the 21st century. He’s wrong. Time marches on and regulatory practices must evolve to better serve the public health. Nowhere is this more urgent than in making sure physicians and patients have unencumbered access to accurate information about FDA-approved medicines. (Peter Pitts, 6/15)

Physicians are faced with the challenge of lifelong learning in a field so vast and complex that no physician can ever hope to master all medical knowledge. Nonetheless, physicians have a duty and responsibility to patients to continuously hone their knowledge, skills, and judgment while appreciating their limits. Striking this balance requires that physicians remain current with the literature, engage with colleagues, identify and address gaps in knowledge, and maintain relevant professional certifications. (Adam B. Schwartz and J. Sanford Schwartz, 6/13)

At first glance, you would never suspect that I am a brain cancer survivor. I am young, energetic and, seemingly, the picture of health. I have competed in a total of 554 endurance sport events including marathons, Ironman events, 10Ks and 5Ks and everything in between over the last 23 years. As an endurance athlete, I spend many hours a week training, so it’s easy to see how a person might be surprised by my diagnosis. But looks can be deceiving. (Brad Eastman, 6/15)

When I was young, I had a painfully simple philosophy that could be summarized like this: there are good guys and there are bad guys. Bad guys get locked up and good guys roam free. It was straightforward and couched in the comforting illusion of a just, safe world. As a result, I believed that everyone who wound up in prison deserved to be there, and that every sentence was fair. I believed in “an eye for an eye” and enthusiastically supported capital punishment. Incidentally, I also believed that the US criminal justice system was too nice and was alarmed to learn that bad guys in prison got free food, shelter, and health care while so many good guys suffered. (Alia Moore, 6/13)

In the face of endless, pointless violence, we are all cowards unless we raise our voices against violence and the root of violence: the proliferation of guns in America. We are all cowards if we draw false conclusions about the motives and backgrounds of shooting suspects and use this misinformation to smear people whose political views we oppose. (Marcos Breton, 6/14)

The evidence is overwhelming: Climate change is the greatest health threat of the century, and health care is on its front line. That’s particularly true in Boston, which studies show is one of the nation’s most climate-vulnerable cities. (Kate Walsh and David Torchiana, 6/15)