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In one Senate office building, some of the leading lights of the Democratic Party gathered Wednesday to embrace what was once a proposal only of the far left: a huge expansion of Medicare, large enough to open the popular, government-run health program to all Americans. In another Senate office building, a smaller but equally adamant group of Republican senators stood together to take one last stab at dismantling the Affordable Care Act. They proposed instead to send each state a lump sum of federal money, along with sweeping new discretion over how to use it. (Pear, 9/13)

A week after Republicans and Democrats held the first bipartisan hearing on ways to fix the 2010 health-care law, the Senate was once more divided on Wednesday, with one side continuing efforts to undo the ACA and the other pushing to expand government-sponsored health coverage. Neither plan holds any appeal to the opposite party, and they lack even full support from their respective caucuses. That leaves the question of how Congress can move ahead on health care amid a widespread perception that the ACA is flawed but that Republicans don’t have a politically viable replacement. (Hackman, 9/13)

Despite broad support from consumer advocates, state officials and healthcare leaders across the country, a bipartisan effort in Congress to stabilize health insurance markets and control rising premiums is being threatened by resurgent political fighting over the Affordable Care Act. With time running out before millions of Americans could be subject to major rate hikes, it is increasingly unclear if Congress will be able to come together to offer relief. (Levey, 9/13)

President Trump was "open" to the idea of a bipartisan ObamaCare stabilization bill but did not make any commitments during a meeting Wednesday with a group of House lawmakers, attendees said. The bipartisan group of lawmakers, known as the Problem Solvers, pitched Trump on their plan to stabilize ObamaCare markets. (Sullivan, 9/13)

During her re-election campaign last fall, Sen. Patty Murray promised repeatedly to work with Republicans to break gridlock in Congress. That promise was quickly put to a stiff test after the presidential election by the partisan chasm on health care. President Trump and the GOP pushed to repeal Obamacare, and Murray’s conciliatory campaign prose turned combative. At times, Murray, who has a record of bipartisan deal-making, sounded like a partisan warrior. (Kelleher, 9/13)

In a busy health week for Congress, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee agreed on a proposal to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program for five more years, while Republicans and Democrats at the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee continued to pursue a joint plan to stabilize the individual health insurance market. (9/13)

In an animated, campaign-style rally, Sen. Bernie Sanders unwrapped his plan to remake the nation's convoluted health care system into federally run health insurance Wednesday — a costly proposal embraced by liberal activists hoping to steer the Democratic Party in upcoming elections. The Vermont independent's plan would hand government a dominant role in insuring Americans, a crucial step, he said, in guaranteeing health care for all. Census Bureau data this week showed the proportion of people lacking policies falling to 8.8 percent last year under "Obamacare," the lowest level ever recorded, but he called it an "international disgrace" that not all Americans have coverage. (Fram, 9/13)

The plan wouldn't completely wipe out private health insurance, but it would drastically shrink a system that currently covers more than 170 million Americans through their employers or on the individual market. Under Sanders' vision, health insurers would likely be relegated to covering elective procedures not covered by the government. "The average American family will be much better off financially than under the current system because you will no longer be writing checks to private insurance companies," Sanders said. (Cancryn, 9/13)

“This is where the country has got to go,” Sanders said in an interview at his Senate office. “Right now, if we want to move away from a dysfunctional, wasteful, bureaucratic system into a rational health-care system that guarantees coverage to everyone in a cost-effective way, the only way to do it is Medicare for All.” Sanders’s bill, the Medicare for All Act of 2017, has no chance of passage in a Republican-run Congress. But after months of behind-the-scenes meetings and a public pressure campaign, the bill is already backed by most of the senators seen as likely 2020 Democratic candidates — if not by most senators facing tough reelection battles in 2018. (Weigel, 9/13)

In the days before Sanders’ announcement, Democrats as ideologically diverse as liberal Sen. Kamala Harris of California and conservative Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia expressed support for his effort. Their statements reflect a significant shift within the Democratic party, driven by multiple developments: a belief that the window has closed on Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare; a surge in support for government-run insurance among younger, more activist Democrats; and looming 2018 and 2020 contests that demand clarity on what Democrats support — not just whom they oppose. (Decker, 9/13)

With California Sen. Kamala Harris and a handful of other liberal senators often viewed as the Democratic Party’s next generation of leaders lined up in support, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a plan Wednesday for a government-run health care system he called Medicare for All. The proposal, which Sanders, independent-Vt., introduced to a packed audience in the Senate’s largest hearing room, comes as several Senate Republicans are attempting to revive their party’s floundering effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with a new plan that would provide states with lump sums of federal money to provide health care. (Lochhead, 9/13)

Several Democrats, including some of Sanders’s co-sponsors, made it clear that they see the bill as one of many options toward improving the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment. “The principle that I support is universal, accessible, affordable quality health care for all, and I think the single-payer system is a strong articulation of the principle,” said Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a co-sponsor of the bill. (John, 9/13)

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen threw her support behind an expansive plan for single-payer health insurance set to be introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders – the only member of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation to do so. In a statement Tuesday, Shaheen announced that she would support the proposed bill, known as the Medicare for All Act of 2017, which would expand insurance coverage under the present Medicare plan to all Americans, creating a single government-run plan. New Hampshire’s other senator, Democrat Maggie Hassan, released her own statement declining to support Sanders’s plan, saying she would rather focus on improving the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. (DeWitt, 9/13)

But while support for so-called single-payer insurance has grown significantly since Sanders made the issue a bedrock of his 2016 presidential campaign, the glitzy names of top-level supporters — many of whom are prospective Democratic candidates for president in 2020 — mask a real divide among rank-and-file Democrats nationwide. As the 2018 midterm elections loom, and Democrats aim to reestablish control of Congress by winning tough seats in conservative-leaning districts, many are questioning whether a gargantuan government takeover of the health care system, and the required higher taxes to pay for it, is the right policy for an already wounded Democratic Party. (Herndon, 9/13)

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy were split on Wednesday over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to expand Medicare into a universal health insurance program. Blumenthal was one of nine Democrats with Sanders, I-Vt., when he introduced his “Medicare for All” bill at a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday. (Radelat, 9/13)

Americans are not clamoring for single-payer health care, as Sen. Bernie Sanders suggests they are, in proposing a plan that would have the government foot most medical bills. He's right that support for the idea has grown and in some polls tops 50 percent. But polls suggest that the prevailing sentiment is ambivalence. Saving money on health insurance holds lots of appeal. Seeing taxes rise to cover those costs may dull the appetite. (Woodward and Swanson, 9/14)

The White House on Wednesday slammed the push by Senate Democrats for a single-payer health-care plan at the same time Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced his proposal, calling the plan "horrible." "The president as well as the majority of the country know the single-payer system the Democrats are proposing is a horrible idea," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during the daily briefing. (Kamisar, 9/13)

The main insurer trade group issued a strongly worded statement against “Medicare for all” ahead of the release of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) single-payer health-care plan. “Whether it’s called single-payer or Medicare For All, government-controlled health care cannot work,” David Merritt, executive vice president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement Wednesday. (Roubein, 9/13)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unveiled his single-payer health-care plan in a jam-packed Senate hearing room on Wednesday and to millions more watching online and on cable television, highlighting his newfound status as a Capitol Hill power player. ... In 2013, no one co-sponsored a similar Sanders single-payer bill, and in 2015, when he announced his long-shot presidential bid, a relatively small group of reporters showed up to a park outside the Capitol. At his hourlong announcement on Wednesday, Sanders spoke to a crowd of about 300, and at times shared the stage with other Democratic stars — and potential rivals if he decides to make another White House run in 2020. (Roubein and Hellmann, 9/13)

[Sanders' plan] also provided a welcome talking point for Republicans who have long railed against government-run health care. Several GOP senators used Sanders’ legislation as a tool to warn voters of what could come if Republicans are unable to overhaul the health care system. (Williams, 9/14)

The House GOP's campaign arm is targeting Democrats over their support of a government-run health-care system, commonly referred to as single-payer. In a new digital ad released Wednesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee instructs viewers to tell Democrats that "single-payer is not an option." (Hellmann, 9/13)

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday unveiled his long-anticipated legislation to create a national single-payer health system, which has become a rallying cry for some in the Democratic Party just as Republicans struggle to coalesce around a health plan of their own. (Armour, 9/13)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rolled out his “Medicare for all” health-care bill to much fanfare on Wednesday. While the bill has no chance of passing in the current GOP-led Congress, it is a marker of where the Democratic Party is heading. Here are five things to know about the plan. (Sulivan, 9/13)

In most of the developed world, everybody’s health care is paid for by the government. In the U.S., for years that idea has been relegated to the far-left edge of politics under the name of single payer. Last year, Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont called it “Medicare for All” and put it at the forefront of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now, with liberals revved up by their so-far successful fight to protect Obamacare from President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress, Sanders’s idea is getting some support. The legislation he introduced today would build on Medicare, the hugely popular insurance program for those over 65, to provide coverage to all Americans. (Edney and Tracer, 9/13)

Bernie Sanders' new bill in the Senate calls for an overhaul of American health care. The Medicare for All Act, introduced today by the Vermont Democrat, proposes a single-payer system. (Ryssdal, 9/13)

On Wednesday, liberal and conservative senators proposed “radically different” plans for overhauling American health care. ... One key point the two plans have in common: Neither has much chance at actually becoming the law of the land, at least for now. (Rosenberg and Rainey, 9/13)

With just 17 days left for Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act on a party-line vote, a quartet of GOP senators on Wednesday rolled out a plan to devolve federal health care spending into state-by-state block grants — legislation that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey O. Graham described as conservatives’ last shot at reform. “It should have been our first bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, but it is now our last,” Graham said at a morning news conference. “To those in the Republican Party who feel like we have not fought as hard as we could, you’re right.” (Weigel and Goldstein, 9/13)

Sens. Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy, Dean Heller and Ron Johnson on Wednesday released an Obamacare repeal bill, framing it as the last, best hope to fulfill the GOP's promise to undo the health law. "There's a lot of fight left in the Republican Party" on repeal, Graham said. The bill faces long odds: Even some of its GOP backers say it would be almost impossible to get a massive rewrite of the health care system through the Senate within 17 days, or before the expiration of fast-track procedural powers Republicans hope to use to bypass the threat of a Democratic filibuster. (Haberkorn, 9/13)

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) argued at a press conference that their party should not give up on repealing the health law. But they face extremely long odds in trying to win 51 votes before a fast-approaching procedural deadline on Sept. 30. “This is our last shot,” Johnson said. (Sullivan, 9/13)

Four Republican senators unveiled a radical proposal Wednesday to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act by handing states $1.2 trillion in ACA subsidies through 2026 and letting them design their own coverage systems with few limitations on what they could do. Sens. Lindsay Graham, Bill Cassidy, Dean Heller, and Ron Johnson acknowledged that their bill probably represents Republicans' last chance to undo Obamacare. ... And they warned that if their bill isn't passed, it's likely that the country will get a government single-payer health insurance system. (Meyer, 9/13)

President Donald Trump let Republican senators working on an eleventh-hour effort to repeal Obamacare know he is rooting for them, without explicitly supporting the legislation.GOP senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, introduced a bill Wednesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with block grants to states, who would determine how to help people pay for health care. Their effort comes as Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander is working with Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray to craft a bipartisan, short-term Obamacare fix. (Edney and Litvan, 9/13)

President Trump on Wednesday applauded the Republican senators who introduced a last-ditch effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare, though he stopped short of a full-throated endorsement. “I applaud the Senate for continuing to work toward a solution to relieve the disastrous Obamacare burden on the American people. My Administration has consistently worked to enact legislation that repeals and replaces Obamacare, and that can pass the Senate and make it to my desk,” Trump said in a statement. (Shelbourne, 9/13)

The latest long-shot bid to undo Obamacare got a boost from Alan Greenspan, a former Federal Reserve chairman who served under presidents from both parties. Greenspan, who held office from 1987 until 2006, said in a statement that a measure proposed by four Senate Republicans on Wednesday represents a “giant step forward” because it provides grants to states to provide health coverage. The measure -- sponsored by Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin -- “as best I can judge, will make health care more affordable, more accessible, and I believe it will lead to better outcomes for patients,” Greenspan said in a statement. (Litvan, 9/13)

Senate bargainers have reached agreement to extend financing for the children's health insurance program for five years, and approval of the deal would avert an end-of-month cash crunch for the popular initiative. In a concession to Republicans, the agreement late Tuesday would phase out extra federal dollars that have gone to states since the additional money was mandated as part of former President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law. (9/13)

Sen. Sherrod Brown predicted the Senate will approve a compromise bill that will finance a federal children’s health program for the next five years that provides coverage to nearly 210,000 low-income Ohio children. Both the Senate and House will have to re-authorize the program, which expires at the end of this month, to prevent nine million children across the country from losing their health coverage. (Torry, 9/13)

While Congress tussles over Obamacare, the Trump administration is quietly pressing ahead with plans to gut major Obama-era rules and relax federal oversight of swaths of the health care industry. Top health officials have already signaled their intention to end mandatory programs making hospitals more accountable for their patients’ health, slowed the transition to a system that pays doctors based on quality rather than quantity, and indicated they will reverse a high-profile rule blocking nursing homes from forcing residents to sign away their right to sue. (Cancryn, 9/13)

Congress failed to pass legislation on health care reform this summer. So what effect is that having on insurers and insurance markets? (Miller and Shockmen, 9/13)

Like many Americans, Stinson Dean has nervously watched this year’s national healthcare debate, but his interest doesn’t stem from a serious health condition. He says the Affordable Care Act made it possible for him to start his business, but now uncertainty about the ACA’s future is affecting his business’s ability to grow.  ...Encouraged by the availability of affordable insurance through the Affordable Care Act, the family took the plunge. Stinson Dean quit his quit and started his company. The move paid off, as new construction here and elsewhere around the country boosted Dean’s business far beyond what he imagined.He’s now ready to expand and bring on 3 or 4 new people, but there’s a problem. (Smith, 9/13)

Anthem and ConnectiCare said on Wednesday they will continue to sell policies on the Access Health CT exchange next year, but charge a lot more for most policies. The Connecticut Insurance Department said it had approved an average 31.7 percent rate increase on the policies Anthem offers individuals next year, both on and off the Access Health CT exchange. (Radelat, 9/13)

The first patient was rushed into the emergency room of Memorial Regional Hospital around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, escaping a nursing home that had lost air-conditioning in the muggy days after Hurricane Irma splintered power lines across the state. Another arrived at 4 a.m. After a third rescue call, around 5 a.m., the hospital’s staff was concerned enough to walk down the street to check the building themselves. What they found was an oven. (Reisner, Fink and Yee, 9/13)

The manager of a Florida nursing home where eight people died following Hurricane Irma has a history of health-care fraud accusations. Federal court records show the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami filed civil charges in 2004 against Dr. Jack Michel and Larkin Health Systems, among others. That company owns The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, which had eight patients pronounced dead Wednesday. (Fischer, 9/13)

"We believe at this time it may be related to the loss of power in the storm," Tomas Sanchez, the Hollywood police chief, said at a news briefing Wednesday. "It's a sad event." Police later said they are working to determine what caused the tragedy, but early indications pointed at the air conditioning in the facility. "The initial investigation has determined that the facility's air conditioning system was not fully functional," Hollywood city officials said in a statement Wednesday evening. "Portable [air-conditioning] units were being used in the facility, but the facility was excessively hot." (Berman, Zezima and Davis, 9/13)

The events prompted Florida Gov. Rick Scott to order a state health agency to issue an immediate moratorium preventing the facility from admitting new patients. The order “is necessary to protect the lives and the safety of frail elders,” the agency said in a statement. A criminal investigation by local police is also under way. (Calvert, Evans and Kamp, 9/13)

The Florida nursing home where overheating may have caused eight deaths and led to a mass evacuation of over 100 residents has a checkered history of safety inspections, including repeated problems with its generator, STAT has found. Around 6 a.m. Wednesday morning local police officers responded to Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, a 152-bed facility located 30 minutes north of Miami, where they found patients in “varying degrees of medical distress,” three of them deceased, according to a police report. (Blau, 9/13)

Like clockwork, stories of suffering by the oldest residents in the line of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters seem to follow. Regulations dictate nursing homes and other facilities must have preparation plans in place, but the realities of how older Americans cope with a storm go beyond any piece of paper. The issue burst to the forefront again Wednesday with news of eight deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Florida, where workers say Hurricane Irma caused the air conditioning to fail, and they struggled to keep residents cool with fans, cold towels and ice. A look at the issues at play in keeping the oldest safe in the line of disaster. (Sedensky, 9/14)

Rain and power outages from Hurricane Irma led to sewage spills across Florida, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. St. Petersburg again reported spills but the wastewater plant that caused the city to release more than 100 million gallons of partially treated sewage into Tampa Bay last year didn’t have any problems. (Ochoa, 9/13)

On the first sunny day in Houston after about 50 inches of rain, residents in the east Houston community of Manchester emerged from their homes and gave thanks that their neighborhood had been spared in the floods. "Mama, yeah, I just feel blessed," said 73-year-old Maria Julia Rodriguez, standing in her driveway in late August and marveling at her luck. "God was looking out for us, I guess." And yet, something was wrong. The air was heavy with the smell of gasoline and other harder-to-place odors. The neighborhood is ringed by industrial sites, the biggest of which is the Valero oil refinery. (Hersher and Schaper, 9/14)

As displaced residents struggle to rebuild their lives and homes, many are facing heightened financial burdens in post-Harvey Houston. Some locals are struggling to afford even basic healthcare. San José Clinic, a 95-year-old institution that offers affordable healthcare for low-income uninsured patients, is seeking support from the public to help those affected by Harvey. (Guillen, 9/13)

More than a million acres of Montana forests and rangeland have burned this year, so far, causing unhealthy air across the state since mid-July. In August the Missoula County health department took the unprecedented step of advising the entire town of Seeley Lake to evacuate due to smoke; air there has been classified as "hazardous" levels for 35 days in August 1. (Saks, 9/13)

The rapid growth of Catholic-affiliated hospitals in the U.S. could significantly reduce access to inpatient sterilization procedures, according to a new study that examines the rising influence of religion on reproductive health services. The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, estimates that Catholic hospitals reduce the per-bed annual rates of inpatient abortions by 30 percent, and tubal ligations, or sterilization, by 31 percent. (Ross, 9/14)

Tenet Healthcare Corp., facing shareholder-activist pressure, is exploring strategic options including a possible sale of the hospital company, according to people familiar with the matter. Tenet is working with investment banks Lazard and Barclays on a range of options and has started to arrange meetings with possible buyers, the people said. (Mattioli and Cimilluca, 9/13)

Shares of Tenet Healthcare Corp. rose sharply in after-hours trading Wednesday amid reports that the troubled hospital chain is exploring strategic options, including the possible sale of the company. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday afternoon that Tenet had hired bank advisers to review its strategic options. Tenet spokesman Dan Waldmann said the company does not comment on market speculation. (Barkholz, 9/13)

Sewage that leaks down the walls and on the operating room floors is among the many problems at the go-to hospital for Congress and the White House, according to interviews and documents obtained by USA TODAY. The D.C. health department is now investigating the leaks at MedStar Washington Hospital Center only after the department received a complaint, not because it was alerted by the hospital. The problems included the room in which Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise had his last surgery after being shot at a congressional baseball practice in June. (O'Donnell, 9/13)

As an infectious disease doctor, Nasia Safdar is a detective of sorts at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. She tracks the patterns of infections, from the type of illness to the organism at its root, and in spring 2014, she noticed something odd: A cluster of bloodstream infections caused by an uncommon, and potentially deadly, bacteria. The microbe, Serratia marcescens, can infect the lungs, bladder, blood, and skin, and usually causes a few infections per year at Safdar’s hospital; some studies estimate that about 1 out of 100,000 people fall prey to a blood infection from the bacteria annually. So it was strange that five cases had occurred in just five weeks, and Safdar did a double take. (Bond, 9/14)

The morning a gunman opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Babak Sarani cleared three operating rooms and readied his team. But the shooting victims, which included House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, needed to be airlifted from the open field. That meant they couldn’t be taken to George Washington University Hospital.For Sarani, chief of the hospital’s trauma and acute care surgery, that was frustrating. (Itkowitz, 9/13)

Cleveland State University and the Cleveland Clinic are working together to offer enhanced access to bachelor's degrees for working nurses, while addressing the nursing shortage in Northeast Ohio. (Farkas, 9/13)

The University of Kansas Hospital Authority is facing a lawsuit from a former cafeteria worker who says the hospital’s human resources department took no action to stop sexual harassment by a co-worker. She says his actions began soon after she was hired and happened repeatedly until she quit six weeks later. (Marso, 9/13)

In neighboring Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, officials are taking the opposite approach. They want to create the Narcan capital of America, putting more than 30,000 doses of the opioid-overdose reversal spray in the hands of Ohioans ready to use it. That’s about one for every 27 residents. In addition to police, firefighters, and medics who already carry the drug, Hamilton County plans to distribute Narcan to syringe exchanges, houses of worship—and maybe even employers. People discharged from hospitals or jails after opioid incidents should leave with “Narcan on the belt,” says Tim Ingram, Hamilton County’s health commissioner. (Tozzi and Hopkins, 9/14)

Craig Venter has got a deal for you. For $25,000, he’ll sell you a complete genome sequence, a full-body MRI scan, a cardio CT scan, bone densitometry, cognitive testing and more, all in the hope of discovering a lurking tumor or brain abnormality -- and nipping it in the bud. ... The problem is Venter’s promises are ringing hollow for a growing chorus of critics. Conversations with more than a dozen current and former employees, customers and medical professionals depict a company that may prove unable to keep up with its founder’s ambitions. Some doctors contend that such comprehensive testing isn’t particularly useful, and even those who do think so say rivals may outpace Venter. Competing government-backed efforts in the U.S. and the U.K., for instance, threaten to overtake HLI in the race to collect massive amounts of the population’s genetic and clinical data, a key proposition for the company’s business success. (Chen, 9/13)

Philip Morris International Inc. said it will spend about $1 billion setting up a foundation to reduce the prevalence of smoking as the maker of Marlboro cigarettes aims to convert smokers into consumers of devices that don’t burn tobacco. Derek Yach, a former World Health Organization official who worked on a global tobacco treaty, will lead the group, according to a statement Wednesday. The cigarette maker said it plans to spend about $80 million annually over 12 years on the project, starting in 2018. (Pfanner and Mulier, 9/13)

The hundreds of thousands of people who rallied on the National Mall and in cities worldwide for the March for Science in April came to be noticed. It was a march meant to demonstrate enthusiasm and political clout, and by those measures, organizers believe they succeeded. But as two dozen of them met in New York the following month for a debrief, they faced an obvious reality: A grass-roots organization that was quickly formed to plan a singular event was not, at least immediately, equipped for far-reaching and long-term science advocacy. (Facher, 9/14)

Sometimes when scientists study things, they come up with results they didn’t expect, can’t explain, and may secretly wish they’d never sought. A new journal article looking at whether getting a flu shot during pregnancy increases a woman’s risk of miscarrying may be one such case. The article reports that at least in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 influenza seasons, pregnant women who were vaccinated against flu may have been at a higher risk of suffering a miscarriage — but only if they had also received a flu shot in the previous year as well. (Branswell, 9/13)

The American Psychological Association says that a controversial research paper that applied computer facial recognition to guess people’s sexual orientation is now under “ethical review.” The paper was set to be published in the association’s peer-reviewed Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (Venton, 9/13)

Mexico has one of the highest cesarean section rates in the world. But as well-trained midwives become more available, natural birth is coming into vogue. (Levinson, 9/13)

San Diego has started sanitizing its streets and sidewalks to try to combat a hepatitis A outbreak spreading among the city’s homeless population. Amid an outbreak across several cities in San Diego County that county health officials say has led to 16 deaths and nearly 300 hospitalizations, workers hosed down areas in San Diego earlier this week with chlorine and bleach, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Mayor Kevin Faulconer (R) recently announced that measures to try to curb the spread of the deadly disease would include giving free vaccinations, installing hand-washing stations and power-washing streets in the Southern California city. (Bever, 9/13)

The infectious disease has largely infected homeless people in the city, and part of the issue is an apparent shortage of public restrooms in areas where the population congregates. Hepatitis A was first identified in the area in early March, according to the county, and was declared a public health emergency earlier this month. (Kennedy, 9/13)

San Diego County’s hepatitis A outbreak shows no signs of slowing, according to the latest update released Tuesday by the county Health and Human Services Agency. The outbreak’s death total rose to 16 — one more than last week’s total. The number of confirmed cases reached 421, up 23 from last week. The number of hospitalizations also pushed higher, rising to 292 from 279 the week before. (Sisson, 9/13)

Massachusetts made progress in controlling health spending last year, according to a state report issued amid a swirling debate over how best to rein in costs. Total spending on health care grew an estimated 2.8 percent in 2016, more quickly than inflation and wages but well below the state’s goal, set in law, of holding spending increases below 3.6 percent a year. (Dayal McCluskey, 9/13)

It's time to announce what happened in the annual health care spending limbo contest in Massachusetts. ... Health care spending grew 2.8 percent last year, to a total of $59 billion. (Bebinger, 9/13)

The House speaker is tapping the brakes on a bill that would largely prohibit hospitals and other employers from requiring workers to get a flu vaccine. The bill passed out of committee Tuesday, despite opposition from every major state health-care association and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. (Siegel, 9/14)

Georgia’s uninsured rate fell to 12.9 percent in 2016 from 13.9 percent the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But the number and percentage of Georgians without health coverage remains among the highest in the nation. (Miller, 9/13)

A Louisiana man convicted in a multi-million dollar health care fraud scheme in 2013 now faces federal charges — along with four other men — in the 2012 slaying of a witness in the case, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Louis Age Jr., 68, his son Louis Age III, 47, and three others face multiple charges that include conspiracy to obstruct justice by murder and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. They were charged by a grand jury last month in an indictment that was unsealed Tuesday. (McGill, 9/13)

About three dozen people accused New Jersey officials of going soft on crime after a program was introduced to allow residents who received unwarranted Medicaid benefits to withdraw without prosecution. Authorities had planned a seminar Tuesday night in Toms River for Ocean County residents who would benefit from the program. (9/13)

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is partnering with Bayer, the life science and pharmaceutical giant, on a five-year project to find two potential treatments for kidney disease, which has few treatment options. Kidney diseases impact more than 30 million Americans, and is more prevalent due to a variety of factors including obesity, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes, said Dr. Ray Harris, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease. Some populations, such as those from Southeast Asia, China and Pacific Islands, are at higher risk. (Fletcher, 9/13)

[Tamara] Rubin has made it her mission to point out how widespread a poison lead can be and how easily it can be found. Two of her four boys were lead-poisoned when a contractor used an unsafe way to remove lead paint on the outside of their house. (Goodman and Miller, 9/13)

Procter & Gamble is cutting jobs in its health care division based in Greater Cincinnati. The consumer products giant is "adjusting" jobs in its North American health care business based at the Mason Business Center. (Coolidge, 9/13)

Brian Haile, a former TennCare official, will be the CEO of Neighborhood Health starting Oct. 1. He succeeds longtime leader Mary Bufwack, who is retiring. Neighborhood Health treats about 30,000, 17,000 of whom have no insurance, and is a leading source of primary care for Nashville's homeless residents. The private, non-profit clinic system has expanded into counties surrounding Davidson County in the last few years as the population has shifted and grown. (Fletcher, 9/13)

Bernie Sanders is releasing his latest single payer health care plan today, and while there are some small differences between this one and what he has proposed in the past, the biggest difference is that this time, he’s got lots of company. Fifteen Democratic senators are co-sponsoring his bill, including most of those considering running for president in 2020. Support for some kind of universal coverage is now the consensus position among Democrats. And Sanders’ single payer plan is the one that has gotten the most attention, so it’s going to be the one against which other plans are measured. (Paul Waldman, 9/13)

In his big new single-payer health care bill, Senator Bernie Sanders says he wants to turn the country’s health system into “Medicare for all.” But his bill actually outlines a system very different from the current Medicare program. The Sanders plan envisions changing Medicare in two important ways. First, it would make it more generous than it has ever been, expanding it to cover new types of benefits and to erase most direct health care costs for consumers. Those changes would tend to make it more expensive. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 9/13)

Since the collapse of the GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, single payer has gained new life on the left. Sen. Bernie Sanders released his “Medicare for all" plan yesterday, and a majority of House Democrats have signed on to another version proposed by Rep. John Conyers. (Drew Altman, 9/14)

Apparently, the thinking in Democratic Party circles goes something like this: Since Obamacare has been such a smashing success, let’s inject even more government into health care. ... Several leading contenders for the party’s presidential nomination have come out in favor of single-payer health care, and some Democratic skeptics are now coming around. (9/13)

Senate Democrats, including nearly all of the party's potential 2020 presidential candidates, haven't so much been jumping on Bernie Sanders' single payer, "Medicare for all" health care bandwagon as they have been elbowing past each other to snatch a prominent political seat on it. But the increasingly popular idea, unveiled by Sanders and at least 16 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate Wednesday, is already brushing up against scrutiny from the medical industry and some health care analysts who question how the proposal would be paid for and implemented in practicality. (Sy Mukherjee, 9/13)

Hillary Clinton’s memoir of her presidential campaign is getting most of the media attention this week, but that’s the politics of progressive nostalgia. If you want to know where the Democratic Party is going, Bernie Sanders showed the way Wednesday with his proposal for a complete government takeover of health care. (9/13)

Health-care reform is like one of those ill people in a Victorian novel. They are pronounced close to death, with no possibility of a cure … and then they linger on for hundreds of pages of breathless plotting, while the reader wonders: “Is this it? Could they possibly live after all that suffering?” The latest bedside miracle is the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal, which would cut spending, cap spending, and shift spending away from states that expanded Medicaid to those that haven’t. (Megan McArdle, 9/13)

We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg of public health disasters stemming from the Trump administration’s aggressive detention and deportation policies. Lower birth weights have been reported in Latina mothers affected by immigration raids, and a spike in adverse mental health symptoms has been reported in many immigrant communities. (Dr. Sondra S. Crosby, Gilbert E. Benavidez and J. Astrian Horsburgh, 9/14)  

It’s that time of year when we all have to start thinking about health insurance plans and options. Not only do I need to figure out if my current plan will be offered again next year, and with what changes, but my husband is over 65, so I also have to research the latest Medicare plans as well. As a columnist, research is my thing, but this insurance stuff makes my head spin. (Barbara Venezia, 9/13)

The Food and Drug Administration approved a new treatment last month for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive disorder of the blood and bone marrow that is the most common childhood cancer in the United States. On its face, this may not seem like big news. The government is approving it for use only on young people, only 3,100 of whom are diagnosed with the disease every year. So a relatively small number of Americans stands to benefit. (9/14)

For more than a decade, we’ve known that prostate cancer is over-diagnosed and over-treated, putting men at risk of incontinence and sexual dysfunction to remove what might have been a slow-growing, non-lethal cancer. When active surveillance of prostate cancer was first proposed over a decade ago, men weren’t racing to be the first to try it. Active surveillance is the careful monitoring of cancer for signs of progression. Unlike lung, breast and colon cancer, there are indolent forms of prostate cancer that do not require surgery or radiation. (Jeffrey Yoshida, 9/13)

President Trump and the US Congress have promised to reduce federal spending, through tactics that include cutting Medicaid and Medicare. What they fail to take into account is that sometimes investing in programs that work well can reduce spending while improving the health and well-being of people. A case in point: programs that help older adults and those who are disabled remain in their homes and out of long-term care facilities. (Diana Mason, 9/13)

We say that we should provide a safety net for our seniors. But our policies don’t match up with those platitudes. (9/13)

Did you know the majority of urban ambulance services are paid, while rural ambulance services are mostly volunteers? Sixty-seven percent of all ambulance services in Iowa are staffed by volunteers who receive no compensation. The majority of our higher level care hospitals are in urban areas served by paid ambulance services, most of which are at a paramedic level. In contrast, Iowa’s rural areas have community hospitals, accounting for 79 percent of the hospitals in our state. These hospitals can only stabilize and transfer critical patients to higher level care hospitals, typically located a significant distance away. Nine counties in Iowa have no hospital. (Sandy Heick, 9/12)

If there is a doctor on board, would you please make yourself known to a member of the cabin crew?” Reflexively, my hand shoots up to press the button. Seven times I have responded to such requests. Mostly it has worked out well. Twice I thought the passenger had had too much alcohol. Once I comforted an anxious woman. Another time a young army recruit heading for basic training had unexplained arm pain. Sometimes it was more serious. A man with abdominal pain told me he had cancer and he needed my attention and reassurances. A woman had a cardiac emergency, and I had to request an unscheduled landing. Another emergency on a trans-Pacific flight required the extended care of several physicians. (Gregory L. Eastwood, 9/12)

Several colleagues and I had proposed a project to study the legal rights of people with severe brain injury. Their plight is terrible: They are often dispatched from the hospitals where their lives had been saved to nursing homes where they receive what is euphemistically called custodial care rather than skilled medical care. (Joseph J. Fins, 9/13)

September is Suicide Prevention Month and well-meaning suicide advocates are out in force calling for a greater effort to reduce it. But can we reduce suicide? While researching, “Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill,” I learned that mortality from strokes, AIDS, heart disease, and leukemia have decreased dramatically since the 1960s, but in spite of all we’ve spent on suicide, suicide mortality has remained the same. (DJ Jaffe, 9/14)

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is scheduled to speak Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley, and school officials are prepared. A campuswide announcement promised “support and counseling services for students, staff and faculty” who feel Mr. Shapiro’s presence threatens their “sense of safety and belonging.” (Clay Routledge, 9/13)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Svaty got the question of the night, and of the year, from a man in suspenders in the third row: “For a lot of Democrats, particularly Democratic women, choice is a threshold issue. Can you say why, as a pro-choice Democrat, I should get enthusiastic about you?” Svaty, a 37-year-old farmer, former EPA official and ag secretary who successfully ran for the Kansas statehouse out of his college dorm room, voted with his heavily Republican, rural district on the abortion issue. He began the answer that will matter most to his candidacy this way: “That was part of being responsive to constituents. (Melinda Henneberger, 9/13)

Many high-school-agechildren across the United States now find themselves waking up much earlier than they’d prefer as they return to school. They set their alarms, and their parents force them out of bed in the morning, convinced that this is a necessary part of youth and good preparation for the rest of their lives. It’s not. It’s arbitrary, forced on them against their nature, and a poor economic decision as well. (Aaron E. Carroll, 9/13)

[T]here is a scientific reason to think that the new findings may be a true signal we need to take seriously. While multiple studies in the past have found that women who received flu vaccine during pregnancy did not have a higher rate of miscarriage than women not vaccinated, this is the first study to focus on three important variables: 1) vaccines that contained the 2009 H1N1 flu virus strain, the virus that caused the 2009 influenza pandemic; 2) the 28 days after vaccination; and 3) the impact of repeat flu vaccination over two flu seasons. (Michael T. Osterholm, 9/13)

Philadelphia needs a better way to reach people who are at risk of overdosing, one that doesn’t leave them on the streets or in inhumane conditions. There is a solution: a supervised consumption site, where people who use drugs can do so in a clean and safe space, with medical oversight and access to social services. (Sarah Evans, 9/13)