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The Senate gave final passage on Wednesday to a multibillion-dollar revamp of the veterans health care system, consolidating seven Veterans Affairs Department health programs into one and making it far easier for veterans to take their benefits to private doctors for care. The legislation, which passed 92 to 5, also expands popular stipends to family caregivers of veterans who served during the Vietnam War era or after. And it establishes a nine-member commission to study the department’s current infrastructure to determine where its health system should expand and contract. (Fandos, 5/23)

The sweeping measure would allow veterans to see private doctors when they do not receive the treatment they expected, with the approval of a Department of Veterans Affairs health provider. Veterans could access private care when they have endured lengthy wait times or VA medical centers do not offer the services they need. The bill's approval comes despite concerns from some Democrats that the effort would prove costly and be used too broadly by veterans in search of top-notch care even when the VA is able to provide treatment deemed sufficient for their needs. (Yen, 5/24)

About one-third of veterans in the system now see outside doctors through a program called “Choice,” which Congress hastily approved as a temporary remedy in response to the scandal. But the program — designed to serve the overflow at VA facilities both of aging Vietnam-era veterans and younger service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — is fragmented and unwieldy. Doctors have complained of slow or nonexistent payments, and veterans say there’s insurmountable red tape. (Rein, 5/23)

Senate committee leaders sought to tamp down House Democrats’ concerns over the bill’s funding Tuesday evening by promising a solution to fix congressional spending caps that could limit the bill’s implementation. Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., and ranking member Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said in a written colloquy they would offer an amendment to fix the caps when the fiscal 2019 Military Construction-VA appropriations bill comes to the floor later this summer. The program would run out of funds in May 2019 if nothing is done. “I will not stand in the way of the new policy created in the bill, as I do believe it creates a better Community Care program,” Leahy said, “but Chairman Shelby and I have a proposal that will help us fulfill our promise to our veterans by allowing for an adjustment to the caps to help us pay for this program.” (Clason, 5/23)

House VA Committee Chair Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) said as he is thinking about implementation of Choice he is turning his focus to the roll-out of the new electronic health record system which is slated to happen as the department has to consolidate and streamline the community care programs. The Senate's Wednesday vote meant that Congress met Trump's Memorial Day deadline to get the legislation finalized — which at one point seemed like a heavy lift as negotiations lapsed late last year when Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) voted against the Senate VA Committee's version of the bill and pushed his bill that incorporated designated access standards in statute that the VA would have to adhere to. (Luthi, 5/23)

The Senate easily cleared legislation on Wednesday overhauling medical care options for veterans, sending the bill to President Trump's desk. Senators voted 92-5 on the proposal, called the VA Mission Act, with only a simple majority needed to pass the bill. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) voted against the legislation. (Carney, 5/23)

It will cost the U.S. government almost $700 billion in subsidies this year help provide Americans under age 65 with health insurance through their jobs or in government-sponsored health programs, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The subsidies come from four main categories. About $296 billion is federal spending on programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which help insure low-income people. Almost as big are the tax write-offs that employers take for providing coverage to their workers. Medicare-eligible people, such as the disabled, account for $82 billion. Subsidies for Obamacare and for other individual coverage are the smallest segment, at $55 billion. (Ockerman, 5/23)

ObamaCare premiums are expected to rise an average of 15 percent next year, an increase largely due to the GOP’s repeal of the law's individual mandate, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released Wednesday. The CBO estimates that gutting the requirement that Americans have health insurance or face a tax penalty will contribute to about a 10 percent rise in premiums for 2019, with insurers expected to see healthier people dropping out of the marketplaces, leaving sicker enrollees on the plans. (Roubein, 5/23)

An additional three million people will be uninsured next year largely because the requirement for most Americans to have health insurance coverage was effectively repealed, the Congressional Budget Office projected. A new report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan analysts estimates that premiums for benchmark plans sold on the marketplaces set up by the 2010 health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) will increase an average of 15 percent next year. Still, the analysts expect the individual insurance market to be stable in most parts of the country in 2019. (McIntire, 5/23)

The seven major Democrats running for Maryland governor have all signed a pledge to support a plan to shore up Obamacare if they are elected, health care advocates said Wednesday. Representatives from the campaigns are expected to announce their support for the plan at an 11 a.m. event Wednesday at the Episcopal Diocesan Center in Baltimore, according to Vincent DeMarco, president of Health Care for All. (Cox, 5/23)

The Trump administration has released the language of a proposed rule on federal family planning funding, and abortion rights activists are raising alarm about it. When health officials revealed Friday that they would be filing a change to which clinics would be eligible for funding, they emphasized that it was not a “gag rule.” Instead, they said they were proposing to strip away a current mandate. It requires organizations that receive Title X funding to counsel women about abortion and provide them with referrals to abortion services. Under the new rules, a provider wouldn't have to talk about abortion at all. (Cha, 5/23)

In a rare public statement, Planned Parenthood's board of Republican advisers on Wednesday blasted the new Trump administration proposal to prevent some doctors from referring patients for abortions. The Trump administration this week announced changes to the Title X family planning program that would effectively eliminate funding for abortion providers including Planned Parenthood. (Diamond and Haberkorn, 5/23)

Abortion providers and their advocates in Texas are raising alarm this week about a new proposal by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that would strip federal family planning funding away from clinics affiliated with abortion providers or clinics that refer patients to those providers. (Evans, 5/23)

To understand the potential impact of the Trump administration’s dramatic proposals to transform the federal family planning program, look no further than Texas. After the state made similar cuts there, the number of women served in its family planning program plummeted more than 70 percent. (Rayasam, 5/23)

As the White House moves to block federal funding for family planning clinics unless they stop providing abortions or referring women for abortions, supporters and opponents of abortion rights are gearing up for a familiar and likely protracted fight. ...Yet abortion access is fundamentally different than it was 30 years ago, in at least one significant way: Women today have access to safe, private, do-it-yourself abortion -- if they know where to look. (Conaboy, 5/22)

An American government employee posted in southern China has signs of possible brain injury after reporting disturbing sounds and sensations, the State Department said on Wednesday, in events that seemed to draw parallels with mysterious ailments that struck American diplomats in Cuba. The State Department warning, issued through the United States Consulate in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, advised American citizens in China to seek medical help if they felt similar symptoms. But it said that no other cases had been reported. (Buckley and Harris, 5/23)

“The medical indications are very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba,” Mr. Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said medical teams were heading to Guangzhou to address what he described as one incident. “We are working to figure out what took place, both in Havana and now in China as well,” Mr. Pompeo said. (Harris, 5/23)

The U.S. embassy, which issued a health alert on Wednesday to Americans living in China, said it could not link the case to health problems suffered by U.S. government staff in Cuba dating back to late 2016. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China has always safeguarded the security of foreign organizations and personnel of foreign countries, including the United States, according to the Vienna convention. "China has already conducted an earnest investigation and we have also given initial feedback to the U.S. side," Lu told a daily news briefing in Beijing. (Martina, 5/24)

More than 20 American diplomats and family members in Cuba suffered, starting in late 2016, from dizziness, concussions, hearing loss and other symptoms that U.S. officials attributed to what they called “targeted attacks.” In January, a State Department official told a Senate hearing that U.S. investigators haven’t been able to identify the perpetrator or means of the apparent attacks. The U.S. hasn’t blamed Cuba for the illnesses but took steps last year to hold its leaders responsible for not having prevented them, including by expelling Cuban diplomats from Washington and recalling some staff from the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (Wong, 5/23)

Federal health officials warned parents Wednesday about the dangers of teething remedies that contain a popular numbing ingredient and asked manufacturers to stop selling their products intended for babies and toddlers. The Food and Drug Administration said that various gels and creams containing the drug benzocaine can cause rare but deadly side effects in children, especially those 2 years and younger. (5/23)

More than 400 cases of benzocaine-associated methemoglobinemia have been reported to the FDA or in medical literature since 1971, according to a drug-safety communication the agency posted. The FDA analyzed 119 of the episodes from February 2009 to October 2017, including 11 linked to patients younger than 2 years old. In one of those cases, the patient died. The FDA warned about the potential dangers of benzocaine in 2006 and 2011, and has said parents shouldn’t use the products in children younger than 2. Signs of methemoglobinemia include shortness of breath, fatigue, and pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips and nail beds. (Edney, 5/23)

Three senators are introducing a bill to measure the federal government’s progress in ending the opioid epidemic, as the White House and Congress are grappling with how to solve a crisis contributing to thousands of deaths per year. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said it’s important to create national indicators to determine what efforts to solve the opioid crisis have worked, and what hasn’t. (Roubein, 5/23)

The opioid crisis has shown us that prescription painkillers and their illicit counterparts can wreak havoc in American communities. Now researchers have quantified the damage they can do inside hospitals when administered to patients following surgeries and other invasive medical procedures. More than 10% of hospitalized patients who took one or more opioid painkillers experienced a side effect tied to the drug, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Surgery. Fully 93% of these patients suffered at least one episode that was deemed moderate or severe. (Kaplan, 5/23)

Though Americans spend an estimated $80 billion to $100 billion each year in hopes of easing their aching backs, the evidence is mounting that many pricey standard treatments — including surgery and spinal injections — are often ineffective and can even worsen and prolong the problem. A study published Wednesday in the journal Health Services Research suggests trying physical therapy first may at least ease the strain on the patient's wallet in the long term — and also curb reliance on opioid painkillers, which carry their own risks. (Neighmond, 5/23)

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams on Wednesday called for emergency physicians to take a bigger role advocating for evidence-based opioid abuse treatments including harm reduction. Speaking at an American College of Emergency Physicians forum in Washington, D.C., the nation's top doctor supported harm reduction tactics such as needle exchange programs and safe injection sites to help mitigate health concerns associated with drug use. (Johnson, 5/23)

Carbon County recently filed suit against opioid manufacturers and distributors, and Teton County is considering the idea too. But Wyoming’s attorney general would rather the state take the lead on an opioid lawsuit. (Edwards, 5/23)

New rules seek to contain the number of leftover pills available for diversion and reduce the number of pain patients who become dependent or suffer serious side effects. But longtime users with chronic pain contend that these rules are hurting law-abiding people. (Burling, 5/24)

Hamilton County jail is first in Ohio to launch a program with its health-care provider that manages inmates who experience opioid withdrawal with the medication buprenorphine. And during a nationwide opioid epidemic, jails are used to seeing hundreds of people coming in with these symptoms. (DeMio, 5/23)

After an appointment with Dr. George Tyndall in 1995, USC undergraduate Alexis Rodriguez wrote a letter of complaint on a typewriter in the English department. The gynecologist, she recalled writing, had a Playboy magazine on his desk, used a scalpel on a vaginal abscess without anesthetic and, when she objected, marked her chart with the word "difficult." A student health clinic administrator sent back a letter, apologizing and pledging to remove the notation from her chart, Rodriguez said. It would be 21 years before the university forced Tyndall out of the clinic. (Ryan and Hamilton, 5/23)

On Wednesday, the executive committee of the board of trustees announced it was appointing a special committee that would hire outside counsel to investigate the misconduct and reporting failures at USC. “The behavior exhibited by the former physician was reprehensible,” the trustees wrote, “and we will hold people accountable if we find they failed to report or take action to ensure the well-being and safety of patients and students. To those affected, we are deeply sorry.” The chairman of the board expressed strong support for the school’s president Tuesday. The trustees’ executive committee has full confidence in the “leadership, ethics and values” of USC President C.L. Max Nikias, the board’s chairman John Mork said in a statement, “and is certain that he will successfully guide our community forward.” (Svrluga, 5/23)

The Chinese government has expressed "deep concern" over published reports that a University of Southern California gynecologist was allowed for years to treat students, many of them from China, despite accusations of sexual abuse and harassment. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Dr. George Tyndall, 71, resigned from USC last year after an internal investigation at the university found he performed unnecessary or unprofessional physical exams and made inappropriate comments to some of the young women in his care. (Whitcomb, 5/23)

The U.S. death rate rose last year, and 2017 likely will mark the third straight year of decline in American life expectancy, according to preliminary data. Death rates rose for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, and three other leading causes of death, according to numbers posted online Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Full-year data is not yet available for drug overdoses, suicides or firearm deaths. But partial-year statistics in those categories showed continuing increases. (5/23)

Ned Sharpless has been in cancer research for decades, most recently as the director of the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Cancer Center. But when he took the helm of the National Cancer Institute in October, he realized it would take time to get to know the $5.5 billion federal agency. So he embarked on a listening tour that ended up lasting six months, talking to investigators, patients, research advocates, and agency administrators. Nearly a year into his tenure at NCI, Sharpless sat down with STAT on Wednesday to talk about his new role, using artificial intelligence in cancer care, and how the NIH’s “All of Us” precision medicine project could play into the NCI’s big data aspirations. (Facher, 5/24)

As many as 1 in 4 students at some elite U.S. colleges are now classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams. Under federal law, students can be considered disabled if they have a note from a doctor. That label requires schools to offer accommodations depending on the student’s needs. A blind student, for example, would have access to specialized software or a reader for an exam. (Belkin, 5/24)

Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, the human brain is way out of whack.Our brains are roughly six times larger than what you would expect for a placental mammal of our stature, scientists say. And no other animal has a brain as large as ours relative to body size.So why did humans evolve to have such large brains when other animals did not? (Netburn, 5/23)

Sometimes 11-year-old B. comes home from school in tears. Maybe she was taunted about her weight that day, called "ugly." Or her so-called friends blocked her on their phones. Some nights she is too anxious to sleep alone and climbs into her mother's bed. It's just the two of them at home, ever since her father was deported back to West Africa when she was a toddler. B.'s mood has improved lately, though, thanks to a new set of skills she is learning at school. (We're using only first initials to protect students' privacy.) Cresthaven Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., is one of growing number of schools offering kids training in how to manage emotions, handle stress and improve interpersonal relationships. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/23)

Every year, Gallup ranks U.S. cities for well-being, based on how residents feel about living in their communities, and their health, finances, social ties and sense of purpose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, places like Naples, Fla., and Boulder, Col., tend to top the list, while Southern and Midwestern towns including Canton, Ohio, and Fort Smith, Ark., often come in last. But what hard data underpin the differences between these communities? (Bate, 5/23)

When more than 300 health care providers showed up in Concord on Wednesday for a conference about antibiotic resistance, they encountered something unexpected: a pop quiz. Standing at the front podium, Dr. Benjamin Chan, the state epidemiologist, described a classic case of a common type of pneumonia and asked people to use the clickers on their tables to choose which of five antibiotics they would prescribe. The top choice of the crowd was erythromycin. That seems reasonable since this is one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics around. (Brooks, 5/24)

If there's a medical emergency on a flight, some planes will make an emergency landing so the passenger can get treatment. But on others, sick passengers are treated on board by flight attendants or medical personnel who happen to be on the same flight and volunteer to help. (Hobson, 5/23)

This is the land of Soylent and productivity hacks, a place so work-obsessed in some quarters that “hustle” is half-seriously described as the dominant religion. Now, a new venture capital firm here is betting that overworked, unhealthy startup founders are bad for the bottom line. (Robbins, 5/23)

A new clinical study is underway at 16 health centers around the country to see if a pill with an ingestible sensor can improve medication adherence rates for Hepatitis C drugs. Proteus Digital Health, the inventor of this so-called digital pill, is part of an emerging field of medicine and one of a handful of companies designing these high-tech pills. (Wise, 5/23)

Kaiser Health News: Now More Of Us Can Count On More Time Dodging The Dementia Bullet

You’ve turned 65 and exited middle age. What are the chances you’ll develop cognitive impairment or dementia in the years ahead? New research about “cognitive life expectancy” — how long older adults live with good versus declining brain health — shows that after age 65 men and women spend more than a dozen years in good cognitive health, on average. And, over the past decade, that time span has been expanding. (Graham, 5/24)

“You want to make sure that you narrate what is going to be happening,” a blond woman in a skintight nurse’s costume said. She had just demonstrated how to safely, and consensually, stick a willing partner with hypodermic needles. The subject of her class was “medical play” and the crowd was standing-room-only. The event was hosted by the Eulenspiegel Society in Manhattan, which describes itself as the “oldest and largest B.D.S.M. support and education group” in the country. (Safronova and Van Syckle, 5/23)

President Donald Trump's top health official said Wednesday that the U.S. and global partners will "take the steps necessary" to try to contain a new Ebola outbreak, asserting that the fight against infectious diseases is one of the administration's top priorities for the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency taking the lead. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar stopped short of predicting whether the outbreak in Congo that's believed to have killed at least 27 people will be contained, but he praised WHO's early response and vowed: "If it spreads, we will take further actions." (5/23)

Congo's Ministry of Health says the number of confirmed Ebola cases has reached 30, including 8 deaths in the 3 affected health zones in the country's Equateur province. The ministry on Thursday gave the toll after surveillance teams in the capital, Kinshasa, were deployed along the Congo River to monitor people coming in there. (Mwanamilongo, 5/24)

Three patients infected with the Ebola virus slipped out of an isolation ward at a hospital in Democratic Republic of Congo, health officials said, as medics raced to stop the deadly disease from spreading in the busy river port of Mbandaka. The cases represent a setback to costly efforts to contain the virus, including the use of an experimental vaccine, and show efforts to stem its spread can be hampered by age-old customs or scepticism about the threat it poses. (Ligodi, 5/23)

A Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill to reauthorize federal programs for health emergencies like large-scale disease outbreaks or major catastrophes. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced the bill (S 2852) 22-1. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the only dissenter. The House has yet to hold a hearing or markup on companion legislation, but the Energy and Commerce Committee may have time to address the issue in June now that it has advanced dozens of bills to address opioid abuse. (Siddons, 5/23)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott sought consensus on firearms in a second round of talks on preventing gun violence on campus on Wednesday and may look at "red flag laws" to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed by a judge to be danger to themselves or others. After last week's fatal shooting of 10 people in a Houston-area high school, Abbott invited the Texas State Rifle Association, affiliated with the National Rifle Association, and Texas Gun Sense, which favors tighter gun laws, to join him in Austin, the state capital. (Herskovitz, 5/23)

After the second day of discussions on school and gun safety in the aftermath of the Santa Fe High School shooting last week, Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday listed several gun-related regulations he said he could support. The Republican governor met with several lawmakers, mental health experts and advocates on both sides of the gun debate to discuss ways to prevent another mass shooting in Texas. (McCullough, 5/23)

In the aftermath of recent school shootings, a familiar pattern has played out in the debate over guns. Gun-control advocates push for tougher laws, including universal background checks to prohibiting the sale and possession of AR-style long guns. The National Rifle Association and many Republican leaders insist the root of the problem is not guns but a range of issues such as mental health, school security, video games and excessive prescriptions of attention-deficit disorder drugs such as Ritalin. (Pane, 5/23)

This often overlooked statistic inspired The Gun Shop Project, an unlikely team of New Hampshire gun owners and public health experts who came together in hopes of curbing gun suicides. Nearly 10 years ago, the group decided the best way to try to do so was to teach employees of gun shops about the signs of suicide and encourage them not to make a sale if they think someone is struggling. (Chooljian, 5/23)

Reversing a historic trend, rates of lung cancer among younger white and Hispanic women have surpassed those of men — and the change cannot be fully explained by gender differences in smoking behavior, researchers said Wednesday. Previous research pointed to shifts in the incidence of lung cancer, with rates creeping up among some groups of women. The new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the largest and most definitive on the topic and one that incorporates smoking patterns and tumor characteristics in its analysis, according to its authors. (McGinley, 5/23)

In addition to rapid and lasting weight loss and a passel of other health benefits, bariatric surgery has now been linked to a 61% reduction in the risk of developing malignant melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer most closely associated with excessive sun exposure. The new research, to be presented Thursday at the European Congress on Obesity in Vienna, Austria, also found that people who underwent weight-loss surgery saw their risk of skin cancer in general decline by 42%. (Healy, 5/23)

Compared to women of normal weight, those with obesity are 24% more likely to develop one of a handful of cancers linked to the condition, and their chances of developing cancers of the kidney or endometrium were around twice as high as those of normal-weight women, new research has found. In a Norwegian study that tracked 137,205 women between 30 and 70 years old, researchers also found that those who gained more than 22 pounds over a period of five to eight years were nearly twice as likely as those who maintained a stable weight to develop pancreatic cancer. (Healy, 5/23)

When it comes to helping smokers quit, financial rewards are much more effective than electronic cigarettes. But the sad truth is that nothing works all that well, according to the results of a large clinical trial that tested five smoking-cessation strategies in real-world conditions. Out of 6,006 smokers who enrolled in the trial, only 80 could provide biochemical evidence that they were smoke-free six months after their quit dates. That's a success rate of just 1.3%. (Kaplan, 5/23)

In a large study of company wellness programs, free electronic cigarettes did not help smokers quit more than usual methods such as nicotine patches. The only thing that really worked was offering them money to kick the habit. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that vaporize nicotine. It's not known whether they can help smokers quit. (5/23)

The phenomenon of transgender children "growing out of" their transgender identity by the time they are adolescents or adults is called “desistance” by gender researchers. For decades, follow-up studies of transgender kids have shown that a substantial majority -- anywhere from 65 to 94 percent -- eventually ceased to identify as transgender. (Brooks, 5/23)

Gender clinicians who recommend social transition at such an early age call their model “gender affirmative,” and they believe their approach is now ascendant. Historically, clinicians more commonly treated transgender kids by discouraging cross-gender identity. (Brooks, 5/23)

A group of 127 House Democrats is calling on White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney to reject a proposal that would roll back ObamaCare’s anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients. The proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), currently being reviewed by OMB, is expected to be released later this summer. (Weixel, 5/23)

An appeals court on Wednesday refused to block a court decision that said a California law allowing the terminally ill to end their lives was passed illegally. California's 4th District Court of Appeal refused to grant an immediate stay requested by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. However, the court gave Becerra and other parties time to "show cause" — that is, provide more arguments as to why the court should grant the stay and suspend the lower court ruling. There was no immediate comment from Becerra's office. (5/23)

New drugs can cure up to 95 percent of patients with hepatitis C, a virus that can be debilitating or deadly. And there’s been a 20 percent rise in new infections from 2015 to 2016 due to the opioid epidemic. In Oregon, a state hard-hit by the disease, new medicines combined with the big surge in those looking for treatment has led to a unique care model. (Wise, 5/23)

After months of discussion and market research, the hospitals planning to merge and create a large new Massachusetts health system have settled on a company name: Beth Israel Lahey Health. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Boston and Lahey Health system of Burlington are leading the merger, which is still under review by state and federal regulators. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/23)

How much does a brain scan cost in Houston? Texans can now find out with ease thanks to a recently launched website by the Texas Department of Insurance. The new site, Texashealthcarecosts.org, shows users the average cost of most common medical procedures. The site also lets users compare network, and out-of-network, claims data and see the average cost of care in different regions of Texas. (Ramirez, 5/23)

A jury has ruled that a Boston hospital retaliated against a Haitian-American nurse who stood up for a black colleague and has awarded her $28 million. Gessy Toussaint’s attorney described Wednesday’s verdict against Brigham and Women’s Hospital as “monumental.” The Boston Globe reports that Toussaint also had accused the hospital of racial discrimination, but the jury didn’t find proof of that claim. (5/23)

In a high-stakes legal battle over medical market power, Sutter Health has accused California Attorney General Xavier Becerra of overstepping his powers and acting like a “health-care policy czar.” Becerra filed an antitrust lawsuit against the large Sacramento-based health system in March. The complaint accuses Sutter of illegally quashing competition and for years overcharging consumers and employers. The case has attracted widespread attention amid growing concerns nationally about consolidation among hospitals, insurers and other industry players. (5/23)

After more than a year of sometimes tenuous discussions, Partners HealthCare announced Wednesday that it had finalized a deal to acquire Rhode Island’s second-largest hospital system. ...While the deal must be reviewed by federal regulators and officials in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the announcement marked a key step toward Boston-based Partners’ goal of expanding its reach out of state. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/23)

Florida women are seeing positive advances in health care, including declining mortality rates for heart disease, breast cancer, and AIDS. However, suicide attempts are increasing. Published Tuesday, The Status of Women in Florida by County: Health & Well-Being analyzes data on women’s physical and mental health. (Wright, 5/23)

Central Florida’s first pediatric liver transplant has been successfully performed on a 16-year-old boy by a team of surgeons from Florida Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, the health systems announced on Wednesday. The teen, who didn’t reveal his identity to protect his privacy, was released from the hospital this week. (Miller, 5/23)

The University Medical Center in New Orleans is holding off on sending out layoff notices, though the hospital's funding after June 30 is completely up in the air at this point, officials said Wednesday (May 23). Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a budget proposal the Louisiana Legislature approved last week that included money to operate University Medical Center and a handful of other hospitals around the state that serve the poor and uninsured. (O'Donoghue, 5/23)

MD Medical Group, a Las Colinas-based company that runs primary care clinics largely in D-FW,  is acquiring 13 pediatric clinics from Children’s Health Texas. Three additional Children’s Health clinics will close, though one may be reborn as a telemedicine clinic. The deal significantly reduces the ownership stake of Children’s Health within the business of pediatric primary care. Children’s Health is the nation’s eighth-largest pediatric health care provider. (Rice, 5/23)

A package of bills making its way through the California legislature could change the career outlook for people like [Amika] Mota, who have gone through job training programs in prison but been denied access to higher paying jobs because their records prevent them from getting licensed. The bills would prohibit many state licensing boards — including those that oversee barbers, building contractors, paramedics and social workers — from using arrest or conviction records as the sole basis to deny professional licenses to applicants with nonviolent criminal arrests or convictions. (Sciacca, 5/23)

Patients with heart failure who are discharged from the hospital are more likely to have other health problems and complications if they live in Missouri's largest cities, according to a study by the health research company Dexur. Complications are usually seen as a way to gauge a population's overall well-being. (Fentem, 5/23)

Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, has devised what could be a powerful new way to hold hospitals accountable for the quality of their care. Starting in less than two years, if the hospitals haven’t met targets for safety and quality, they’ll risk being excluded from the “in-network” designation of health plans sold on the state’s insurance exchange. (Dembosky, 5/24)

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has chosen an internal candidate as its next CEO. Brian D. Pieninck, the insurer’s chief operating officer since April 2017, will take the helm when Chet Burrell retires June 30 after more than a decade as CEO. The state’s largest insurer announced the appointment Wednesday. As CareFirst’s chief operating officer, Pieninck has been responsible for more than 4,000 employees and overseeing business functions for CareFirst’s technology division and four business units. (McDaniels, 5/23)

The hospice at Boutwells Landing senior housing complex in Oak Park Heights closed Monday due to a compliance issue. Minnesota Department of Health officials recently identified that the hospice, called The Gathering, did not have the correct license to be a residential hospice, said Scott Smith, a spokesman for the department. The Gathering had a housing-with-services license, which covers assisted-living and home care patients. (Divine, 5/23)

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state can't criminally charge public college students for having and using marijuana on campus if they have a medical marijuana card. The high court said a 2012 law banning medical marijuana on college campuses violated the Arizona Constitution's protections for voter-approved laws. (Leingang, 5/23)

President Trump’s critics were apoplectic last week when the president referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Of course, no one should be dehumanized. Yet many of the same people expressing outrage that Trump would dehumanize vicious gang members have no problem dehumanizing innocent, unborn children. Trump has stood up for the humanity of the unborn child like no president in recent memory. And this is why so many Christian conservatives stick with him. (Marc A. Thiessen, 5/23)

If it seems as if the noose is tightening around women’s access to abortion, that’s because it is. Iowa just enacted a flagrantly unconstitutional law to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected — at about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they’re pregnant. Mississippi recently banned abortion at 15 weeks, a point well before fetal viability and thus also clearly unconstitutional. A similar bill in Louisiana cleared the legislature and is on the governor’s desk. (Linda Greenhouse, 5/24)

When President Trump signed an executive order this year directing federal agencies to review adding work requirements to federal assistance programs, he said such requirements would “increase self-sufficiency, well-being and economic mobility.” Paul Ryan reportedly cast requirements as an attempt at “getting people the skills and opportunity to get into the work force.” Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said they would improve “health and well-being through incentivizing work and community engagement.” Ignore the platitudes. Work requirements have never been about helping the poor or unemployed. They’ve always been about punishing black people. (Bryce Covert, 5/23)

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is often given credit for straying from the Trump administration script by being public health and evidence-focused. But there’s one respect in which he, at times, takes his cues from the top — making policy by tweeting. Take the controversy over “right to try” bills, which have sought to cut Food and Drug Administration (FDA) out of the process through which severely ill patients obtain access to drugs in development that have not been approved by FDA. That debate reached a climax on Tuesday when the House passed such a bill. (Peter Lurie, 5/23)

If high-deductible plans continue to gain traction in the marketplace, we will all pay the price. There is no doubt that these plans can be a source of poor medical decisions when more people are forced to make hard decisions about whether some care is worth it. (Rosemarie Day, 5/23)

Earlier this month, President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar unveiled the administration’s American Patients First plan to lower costs and increase access to medicines. Importantly, this blueprint rejects the misguided approach of moving toward a socialized system of health care, which would inevitably lead to the rationing of medicines and services. Instead, Trump recognizes the underlying problems that are leading to higher prices and reducing access. (Alex Hendrie, 5/23)

Let’s start with the obvious. Our nation is suffering from the scourge of an opioid epidemic—in the form of addiction to opioid-based painkillers and heroin — that is creating anxiety, fear, and hopelessness among families and communities, while representing the leading cause of natural death in our country. Now, let’s discuss what is less obvious. Although 1 in 4 individuals with chronic pain who are prescribed an opioid by their family health-care provider will develop an addiction, the path of substance use disorders (SUDs) typically begins at an earlier point in their lives —  in adolescence. Ninety percent of adults currently suffering from an SUD started using substances as children and teenagers. (Melissa Tasse, 5/23)

Our nation is in the midst of the deadliest drug crisis in history — a crisis fueled by opioids. More than 630,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses since the turn of the century. That means almost as many people have died from drugs in less than two decades as those who died in the Civil War. More than half of the deaths in 2016 involved opioids.This death toll is staggering, but the consequences of drugs are not limited just to the more than two million Americans who are addicted to them. (Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 5/23)

I watched the recent “60 Minutes” report on the rise and fall of Theranos, the test-everything-with-a-fingerstick company that recently flamed out, costing numerous high-profile investors north of $700 million. The report laid out the standard narrative about Theranos, including healthy doses of deception and greed, an absence of various sorts of oversight, and too much Silicon Valley mythology.To get some perspective on what happened, I looked back at what was said about the company just a few years ago. I re-read a December 2014 article in the New Yorker on Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. What struck me as I compared the “60 Minutes” and New Yorker pieces, which were separated by only a little more than three years, is one simple question that seems to have been missed in the ashes: Why was the Theranos pitch so believable in the first place? (Michael J. Joyner, 5/24)

One size fits all never worked as a strategy for the fashion industry. Or the auto, furniture, and most other industries. It shouldn’t be the strategy for medicine either, but unfortunately more often than not it is. And it may stay that way if the focus on cost rather than value precludes the improved health care strategies made possible by personalized medicine. According to the World Health Organization, an effective health system requires “reliable information on which to base decisions and policies.” The evolving field of personalized medicine delivers just that kind of information in the form of data about the unique biological characteristics of each patient. Doctors can often use that information to make medical decisions based on an understanding of how a patient will respond at a molecular level to a specific therapy. This helps ensure that therapies are prescribed only to those who will benefit from them, sparing side effects and expenses to those who will not. (Edward Abrahams, 5/23)

From the National Center for Health Statistics came some disturbing news last week: The US birthrate, which has been on the skids for a decade, hit another record low. ...When nations retreat from marriage and children, their outlook tends to become bleaker and less prosperous. (Jeff Jacoby, 5/23)

Arresting and incarcerating youth does nothing to get to the root of their behavior and can have consequences that last a lifetime. It is time for a new approach, grounded in community-based support and healing. (Jessica Nowlan, 5/23)

In the wake of another mass shooting at a public school, a colleague and I floated the idea of a parent boycott of schools to drive action by Congress. The idea is gaining traction — parents across the country understand that a national crisis deserves a national response. And our voices, and votes, are the most powerful tools we possess. The concept is straightforward. School parents are a massive voting block — maybe 100 million strong — and live in every Congressional district in the country. After the Labor Day holiday in September, if they kept their kids out of school for a day or a week or even two weeks, maybe Congress would do something about gun safety. (Arne Duncan, 5/23)

I am a neurosurgeon who has treated many patients with gunshot wounds to the brain. Most died. Indeed, about 97 percent of such victims die. Medical professionals treating them are profoundly frustrated because their efforts are usually fruitless and they must inform victims’ families of the situation and try to support them. They also frequently need to explain brain death and introduce the subject of organ donation. (Howard H. Kaufman, 5/23)

With the dust settling after the familiar uproar immediately following another mass shooting, let’s assess where these tragedies, and subsequent discussions, leave the gun debate in America. The daily threat of gun violence is unique in our society. As the violence pervades our public spaces, the need for a public-health approach is often pondered, but rarely discussed carefully — and even when it does receive deeper discussion, it’s never fully explicit as to what this approach might mean for an epidemic already framed within a criminal justice and mental-health paradigm. (Roderick King and Katelyn McGlynn, 5/23)