�Թϲ�����

It was meant to be part of a social media tribute on Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday afternoon, the United States Army posted a video on Twitter featuring a scout in fatigues who said his service gave him the opportunity to fight for something greater than himself, making him a better man. In its next tweet, the Army opened the floor and asked: “How has serving impacted you?” The post was shared widely and received thousands of responses. But many were probably not what the Army was looking for. (Zaveri, 5/26)

On average, 20 U.S. military veterans daily die by suicide, and suicides among active duty personnel are increasing. A number of treatments for veterans with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder exist, but they have drawbacks. (Cerre, 5/27)

Boastful on the occasion of Memorial Day, President Donald Trump and his Veterans Affairs secretary are claiming full credit for health care improvements that were underway before they took office. Trump said he passed a private-sector health care program, Veterans Choice, after failed attempts by past presidents for the last "45 years." That's not true. The Choice program, which allows veterans to see doctors outside the government-run VA system at taxpayer expense, was first passed in 2014 under President Barack Obama. (Yen, 5/27)

U.S. veterans who use medical marijuana are ensnared between harsh federal drug laws and the state-based push for legalization — and some say it’s blocked them from job training or other benefits. Access to medical marijuana has quickly risen to the top of the veterans advocacy world as groups address chronic pain, depression and suicide rife in the veteran community. Both the American Legion, the country's largest vet organization, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, have made researching the plant’s medicinal value a top legislative goal. (Owermohle, 5/23)

The passage of a number of state laws severely restricting abortion is intensifying a national fight over the issue on Capitol Hill and in the 2020 battle for control of Congress. Abortion-rights supporters are using the state actions, including an Alabama law effectively outlawing abortion, to mobilize Democratic voters. Some Republicans see the issue as playing to their advantage by rallying public support against procedures done later in a pregnancy. (Armour and Peterson, 5/27)

A flood of laws banning abortions in Republican-run states has handed Democrats a political weapon heading into next year's elections, helping them paint the GOP as extreme and court centrist voters who could decide congressional races in swing states, members of both parties say. The Alabama law outlawing virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, is the strictest so far. Besides animating Democrats, the law has prompted President Donald Trump, other Republican leaders and lawmakers seeking reelection next year to distance themselves from the measure. (Fram, 5/24)

Democratic presidential candidates are seizing on the intensifying abortion debate by calling for an end to a 43-year ban on the use of federal funds for abortions. Twenty-one of the 24 Democrats running for president say they support repealing the so-called Hyde amendment, which has prevented public health programs like Medicaid from paying for abortions, in most cases, since 1976. (Hellmann, 5/25)

A bill seeking to preserve abortion protections in state law fails to pass a key committee. Lawmakers cite God, church and faith in proclaiming their opposition to it. Abortion-rights groups protest outside a gathering of lawmakers. What sounds like a legislative fight in a state controlled by anti-abortion Republicans is actually quite different. (McDermott and Lieb, 5/27)

Even as the anti-abortion movement celebrates the sweeping bans passed in several states, it's divided by a widening rift over whether those prohibitions should apply to victims of rape and incest. The debate pits those who believe any abortion is immoral against those who worry that a no-exception stance could be harmful to some Republican candidates in upcoming elections. A Gallup poll last year found that 77% of Americans support exceptions in cases of rape and incest. (Crary, 5/24)

A wave of state abortion bans has set off speculation: What would happen if Roe v. Wade, the ruling establishing abortion rights nationwide, were overturned? Although far from a certainty, even with increased conservative clout on the Supreme Court, a reversal of Roe would mean abortion policy would revert to the states, and many would be eager to impose bans. What would not happen is a full-fledged turning back of the clock to 1973. (Crary and Johnson, 5/26)

Pope Francis said Saturday that abortion can never be condoned, even when the fetus is gravely sick or likely to die, and urged doctors and priests to support families to carry such pregnancies to term. Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored anti-abortion conference, Francis said the opposition to abortion isn’t a religious issue but a human one. “Is it licit to throw away a life to resolve a problem?” he asked. “Is it licit to hire a hitman to resolve a problem?” (Winfield, 5/25)

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. "Here we go again," U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves wrote in his order. "Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability." (Wagster Pettus, 5/24)

The law “threatens immediate harm to women’s rights” and “prevents a woman’s free choice, which is central to personal dignity and autonomy,” Judge Reeves wrote in his ruling. “This injury outweighs any interest the state might have in banning abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.” The Mississippi law, which was to take effect on July 1, would have barred abortions once health care providers were able to detect the pulsing of what would become a fetus’s heart, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The law was just one of the year’s so-called fetal heartbeat bills that, supporters and critics alike said, would effectively ban abortions before many women even knew they were pregnant. (Blinder, 5/24)

The preliminary injunction against Mississippi’s law had been expected. No court has ever allowed a state to enforce such a short gestational limit, and the same judge who ruled against the heartbeat bill on Friday also blocked an earlier enacted Mississippi law banning abortions at 15 weeks. A federal court in March also barred Kentucky from enforcing its heartbeat law. (Gershman and Holland, 5/24)

A federal lawsuit filed Friday asks a judge to block an Alabama law that outlaws almost all abortions, the most far-reaching attempt by a conservative state to seek new restrictions on the procedure. The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood filed the lawsuit on behalf of abortion providers seeking to overturn the Alabama law that would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison for the abortion provider. The only exception would be when the woman's health is at serious risk. (Chandler, 5/24)

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, sets off a chain of events that both sides say is likely to lead to a years-long court battle. State lawmakers have said they passed the law specifically to bring the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which they see as having the most antiabortion bench in decades. The bill was designed to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by arguing that a fetus is a person and is therefore due full rights. (Cha and Wax-Thibodeaux, 5/24)

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Friday signed a bill that bans abortions on or beyond the eighth week of pregnancy without exceptions for cases of rape or incest, making it among the most restrictive abortion policies in the nation. (5/24)

The bill would criminalize any abortion beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of medical emergencies. Doctors who perform abortions after eight weeks face five to 15 years in prison. Now that it has been signed into law, the ban will go into effect Aug. 28 unless it is blocked by a court. It does not include any exemptions for victims of rape or incest, a fact that prompted Joplin businessman and GOP mega donor David Humphreys to publicly denounce the legislation on Thursday and demand Parson veto it. (Hancock, 5/24)

The decision by Mr. Parson, a Republican, was not a surprise. It continued a season of legislative success for conservatives who oppose abortion and who see an opening to ultimately press their case to the Supreme Court. “I’m honored to lead a state with so many people committed to standing up for those without a voice, and commend the Legislature for getting this bill to my desk,” Mr. Parson said when lawmakers passed the abortion bill. He called it “a strong message to the nation that here in Missouri, we will always stand for life, protect women’s health and advocate for the unborn.” (Smith, 5/24)

The governor’s office had been making arrangements for a public bill signing, according to communications director Steele Shippy, but severe weather and tornadoes changed those plans. “Our intent to sign the bill never changed, however, we made the decision and believed it was more important to ensure our office remained focused on assisting communities in the wake of disaster and facing widespread flooding,” he said. (Hunzinger and Rosenbaum, 5/24)

If Gov. John Bel Edwards follows through on his pledge to sign a new abortion ban into Louisiana law, he’ll be just the latest executive from a deep red state to endorse such strict antiabortion legislation this year. Except Edwards differs from his Republican predecessors in one fundamental way: He’s a Democrat. Edwards, a Catholic Army veteran and first-term governor, is a high-profile member of a now-obscure class of politician: the “pro-life liberal.” As bills that ban abortions outright or after six weeks of pregnancy churn through statehouses across the country, his cohort has found itself the target of fierce criticism from fellow Democrats. (Thebault, 5/25)

House Democrats in Illinois have advanced a measure to replace the state's abortion law with less restrictive language that gives people "a fundamental right" to make decisions about their reproductive health. The State Journal-Register reports a House committee approved the legislation late Sunday on a party-line vote, sending it to the House floor. All committee Republicans voted no. (5/27)

The legislation would repeal both the state's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Illinois Abortion Act of 1975. Repealing those two laws would lessen restrictions on abortions later in pregnancy and remove criminal penalties for physicians that perform them. (Rodrigo, 5/27)

As abortion becomes increasingly inaccessible in parts of this country, a Dutch physician is defying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s order to quit providing abortion pills using the internet and the mail. The doctor, Rebecca Gomperts, has for years run Women on Web, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that ships mifepristone made in India to women in countries where abortion is illegal. Last summer, she launched Aid Access to provide the same pills to U.S. customers. (McCullough, 5/26)

A bill to ban cities, counties and other local governments from doing business with Planned Parenthood is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott. The Senate voted 20-11 Friday to approve a House-added amendment to Senate Bill 22, but only after the bill’s author changed her mind twice about how to proceed. (Lindell, 5/24)

One of this session’s biggest anti-abortion bills, which would ban state and local governments from partnering with agencies that perform abortions even if they contract for services not related to the procedure, is headed to the governor’s desk. The Senate chamber agreed Friday with a change to Senate Bill 22 made in the House chamber. (Sundaram, 5/24)

U.S. regulators have approved the most expensive medicine ever, for a rare disorder that destroys a baby's muscle control and kills nearly all of those with the most common type of the disease within a couple of years. The treatment is priced at $2.125 million. Out-of-pocket costs for patients will vary based on insurance coverage. (Johnson, 5/24)

The therapy, to be sold as Zolgensma, alters the underlying genetic cause of spinal muscular atrophy and may permanently stop the disease. It is among the first of a host of gene therapies that promise a cure for deadly inherited conditions. “We feel we’re on a path where we hope one day to be able to bring S.M.A. almost to elimination,” said Vas Narasimhan, the Novartis chief executive, in a conference call with reporters. Many drugs for rare diseases have arrived on the market recently costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But few have crossed the $1 million threshold. (Thomas, 5/24)

Critics noted that the bulk of Zolgensma's development was done by AveXis, which Novartis bought last year. “The question in drug pricing isn’t how much is a life worth; it’s what makes a fair return on an investment in R&D and an accessible price,” said David Mitchell, president of Patients for Affordable Drugs, an advocacy group. (Owermohle, 5/24)

Gene therapies promise the chance to cure diseases whose diagnoses were death sentences, but the prices for the first few to be greenlighted raise concerns about whether they can be afforded by governments and health insurers that have been struggling to control health spending. (Roland, 5/24)

Despite high initial costs, gene therapies are expected to save health-care systems money by eliminating the need for lifelong treatment. While manufacturers propose spacing out bills over time, governments and insurers are still trying to figure out how to pay for the treatments and wrestling with uncertainty over their benefits and safety in the long run. (Paton and Cortez, 5/24)

Novartis is likely to face backlash from critics who believe charging millions of dollars for any medicine — no matter how effective — renders it unaffordable for a healthcare system already under financial stress. There’s also competition. Spinraza, approved in late 2016 and sold by Biogen, has already been used to successfully treat thousands of patients with severe and milder forms of SMA. The drug requires regular spinal infusions costing $750,000 in the first year and $375,000 annually thereafter, for life. Sales last year totaled $1.7 billion. Zolgensma may be more convenient than Spinraza, but Roche is developing a daily pill for SMA called risdiplam that could reach the market in 2020. (Feuerstein, 5/24)

[F]or those patients lucky enough to get it, it appears it can save their lives with a one-time treatment.Three-year-old Donovan Weisgarber is one of those patients. When he was born he seemed perfectly healthy. But within weeks, it became clear something was terribly wrong. "It was about when he was about one month old that when we started to notice some symptoms," says his mother, Laura Weisgarber, 32, of Columbus, Ohio. (Stein, 5/24)

The Trump administration moved Friday to revoke newly won health care discrimination protections for transgender people, the latest in a series of actions that aim to reverse gains by LGBTQ Americans in areas ranging from the military to housing and education. The Health and Human Services Department released a proposed regulation that in effect says "gender identity" is not protected under federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination in health care. It would reverse an Obama-era policy that the Trump administration already is not enforcing. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/24)

Without the Obama-era language, health care workers would be free to object to performing procedures like gender reassignment surgery, and insurers would not be bound to cover all services for transgender customers. The new rule would fit into a broader agenda pushed by religious activists and is consistent with administration actions to limit civil rights protections for gay and transgender Americans in a variety of domains, including education, employment and housing. The Obama administration adopted the health care discrimination rule to carry out a civil rights provision of the Affordable Care Act. It prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in “any health program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance. (Goodnough, Green and Sanger-Katz, 5/24)

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights said it was changing the policy to more closely hew to the ACA text, which doesn’t explicitly mention gender identity as a protected category in health care. “When Congress prohibited sex discrimination, it did so according to the plain meaning of the term, and we are making our regulations conform,” said Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights. The rule will likely be finalized after a 60-day public comment period. (Armour and Hackman, 5/24)

Members of Congress, state governors, medical associations and civil rights groups immediately vowed to fight the proposed regulation. “It’s about the right of every American to be treated with dignity when they walk into an emergency room, meet a new doctor or find the right insurance plan. If permitted, this rule will promote ignorance and hate that no American should have to face while seeking care,” said Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality. (Cha, 5/24)

Congressional Democrats slammed the proposed rule as targeting transgender individuals. "This inhumane proposal is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to sabotage the ACA's critical patient protections and turn back the clock on Americans' healthcare rights," Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Robert Scott (D-Va.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said. (King, 5/24)

"They're adding explicit religious exemptions and completely eliminating prior protections for LGBTQ people," said Katie Keith, a Georgetown University law professor. The proposal was opposed by the American Medical Association and 30 other medical groups, which warned the Trump administration that its plan would put LGBTQ patients at risk. "To reduce the cost of health care and achieve our goal of creating a healthier nation, the specific needs of LGBTQ patients must be examined and effectively addressed," the groups wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar. (Diamond and Pradhan, 5/24)

Research from the Williams Institute found that more than 780,000 transgender people live in states that lack legal protections from gender identity discrimination in public accommodations, such as health care facilities. Twenty-eight states lack such protections, according to the Williams Institute. (Kodjak and Wroth, 5/24)

Congressman Joe Kennedy III, a Newton Democrat, on Friday slammed a Trump administration proposal targeting discrimination protections for transgender people in health care. ...In the proposed rule issued Friday, the Health and Human Services Department says laws banning sex discrimination in health care don’t apply to people’s ‘‘gender identity.’’ LGBTQ groups have long warned such a move could lead to denial of needed medical care. (Andersen, 5/24)

Newly released emails show that Environmental Protection Agency scientists raised strong objections to a 2018 decision by Scott Pruitt, who was head of the agency at the time, to exempt most of southeastern Wisconsin from federal limits on smog. The decision by Mr. Pruitt was notable because it came as Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was campaigning for a third term and trying to bring a Foxconn factory, and thousands of new manufacturing jobs, to a part of the state where pollution levels already exceeded federal limits. (Friedman, 5/24)

The United States is for the first time sending illegal border-crossers to other cities for processing, transporting more than 3,000 each week from southern Texas and Arizona to other locations as the government struggles to deal with surging numbers of nearly 100,000 migrants a month crossing the southern border. The Trump administration is flying migrants to San Diego and Del Rio, Texas, and busing them to El Centro, Calif., and Laredo, Texas, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official familiar with the plan. (Kumar, 5/27)

HHS has appointed Jose Arrieta as its new chief information officer effective May 28, a department spokesperson confirmed. As CIO, Arrieta will develop the department's information technology policies and investments, as well as oversee the department's IT systems and security activities. Arrieta's appointment fills a post that has sat empty since Beth Killoran left the role in fall 2018. Killoran, who was appointed permanent CIO at HHS in 2016, has since joined the General Services Administration as deputy CIO. (Cohen, 5/24)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will hold its first public hearing Friday into how it should regulate CBD products, and it may end up limiting how much of the cannabis compound can be included in food and drinks. Cannabidiol, the formal name for CBD, is rapidly becoming a hot wellness trend following the legalization of hemp in the U.S. in December. Mainstream retailers like CVS Health Corp. already sell CBD creams, sprays and lotions but the substance hasn’t yet been approved for use in food and drinks by the FDA. Unlike its cousin THC, CBD doesn’t give users a high. Instead, it’s pitched as a natural way to fight ailments like insomnia, inflammation and anxiety. (Owram, 5/27)

Oklahoma is poised to become the first state to go to trial in a lawsuit against the makers of pharmaceuticals blamed for contributing to the nation's opioid crisis. Although several states have reached settlements with drugmakers, including Oklahoma's agreements this year with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, the trial set to begin Tuesday against consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson and some of its subsidiaries, could bring to light documents and testimony that show what companies knew, when they knew it and how they responded. (5/27)

Oklahoma, a largely rural state whose medical, social welfare and criminal justice systems have been ravaged by opioid addictions and deaths, has “home court advantage,” Ms. Burch said. But the case is hardly a slam-dunk. The challenge in all opioid cases is how to closely tie each defendant to the carnage. In its attempt to frame that narrative, Oklahoma is relying on just one legal theory, which itself has an uneven record. (Hoffman, 5/26)

The case is the first to go to trial of around 2,000 lawsuits brought by states, local municipalities and Native American tribes against pharmaceutical companies over their alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic. The outcome is likely to help shape the sprawling litigation nationwide, as both sides look for a win to use as leverage in broader settlement talks. Cameras televising the action will heighten national attention on the courtroom in the college town of Norman, Okla. (Randazzo, 5/27)

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter stressed that the settlement was the best option because of the threat that Purdue would declare bankruptcy and the state might end up with nothing. But that means Oklahoma’s attorneys will have to make the potentially trickier case that other, less notorious players in the opioid pipeline created a “public nuisance” in the state by pushing misleading medical claims. (Demko, 5/28)

Kaiser Health News: Oklahoma’s ‘Precedent-Setting’ Suit Puts Opioid Drugmakers On Trial

The legal case is complicated. Unlike tobacco, where states won a landmark settlement, Ausness pointed out that opioids serve a medical purpose. “There’s nothing wrong with producing opioids. It’s regulated and approved by the Federal Drug Administration, the sale is overseen by the Drug Enforcement Administration, so there’s a great deal of regulation in the production and distribution and sale of opioid products,” Ausness said. “They are useful products, so this is not a situation where the product is defective in some way.” (Fortier, 5/28)

Gail Box will be following the trial closely, but she won’t be at the courthouse in Norman, the city where she last spent time with her son Austin in May 2011, when he graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Five days later, he was unconscious in a hospital after an overdose, with five different prescription painkillers and an anti-anxiety drug in his bloodstream. He died the same day. He was 22 years old. “I just cannot go there,” she said of the town where her son played middle linebacker for the Sooners. “It is too painful for me to go there.” (Bernstein, 5/27)

As pharmaceutical companies prepare to square off with states and local communities in courts around the U.S., a growing number of state and local officials say the industry should pay to cover the cost of the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. ...A first test case begins this week in Oklahoma, a trial that will test the limits of the drug industry's liability. (Mann, 5/27)

Richard Sackler, an owner of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, received an email from a friend in 2002 detailing what the friend called some “items of interest.” The friend, an anesthesiologist, mentioned that his local pharmacy had spent $12,000 on remodeling to increase security because of OxyContin, the powerful opioid painkiller. The friend recounted that he had recently spoken to a student at an exclusive private high school who said someone had tried to sell her the “designer drug” OxyContin in the campus halls. “I hate to say this, but you could become the Pablo Escobar of the new millennium,” the friend wrote, referring to the Colombian drug lord. (Randazzo, 5/25)

The state of Oklahoma settled Sunday with a second drug company over its role in the deadly opioid epidemic, reaching an $85 million agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals just two days before a landmark trial is scheduled to begin. The deal leaves Oklahoma to face off in court Tuesday against Johnson & Johnson, one of the nation’s large pharmaceutical companies, in the first state trial over culpability for the drug crisis. (Bernstein, 5/26)

The agreement, which must still be finalized, was announced on Sunday, just two days before a trial is scheduled to get underway. However, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said the trial will continue as planned against Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which faces the same claims. Several weeks ago, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $270 million to settle allegations by the state. In a statement, Teva maintained that the settlement does not establish any wrongdoing by the company and continued to insist Teva “has not contributed to the abuse of opioids in Oklahoma in any way.” (Silverman, 5/26)

“J&J is probably feeling pretty lonely right now as the Oklahoma case gets ready to go,” Jean Eggen, a law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School who teaches about mass torts. “Being left as the only defendant in one of these high-profile cases is a really ugly position to be in.” (Feeley and Melin, 5/26)

As pharmaceutical companies prepare to square off with states and local communities in courts around the U.S., a growing number of state and local officials say the industry should pay to cover the cost of the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. "I think they are as complicit in this as the dealers that are dealing on the streets and for that I think they should pay a price," says Gerald Craig, executive director of the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board in Summit County, Ohio. That county is involved in a lawsuit against drugmakers that's slated to go to trial later this year. (Mann, 5/27)

More than 130 people in the U.S. die of an opioid overdose every day. One of the most effective ways to save lives is to get those struggling with addiction treated with medication to stop their cravings. But a loophole in federal law might block at least one new opioid-addiction drug from coming to market for years. Many patients have to try several medications before finding one that works for them and that they can stick with. (Kodjak, 5/24)

Democrats who've made "Medicare for All" a top health care priority are running up against their toughest opponent yet: their own neighborhood hospitals. The multibillion-dollar industry has emerged as the most formidable foe of single-payer health care. It’s helped assemble a coalition of health care lobbies that has launched social media campaigns attacking Medicare for All and its most high-profile proponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), while fighting narrower Democratic proposals to expand federal health coverage over concerns any change would slash hospital revenue. (Cancryn and Roubein, 5/25)

The highest pay packages go to CEOs at health care companies. For the third time in four years, chief executives in the health care field led the S&P 500 in terms of total compensation. The typical CEO in the industry made $16.1 million last year, which means half earned more than that, and half made less. A look at the top and bottom-paid CEOs last year, by industry, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm. (5/24)

In our annual ranking, we’re used to seeing paydays so big that they’re difficult to comprehend. But 2018 posed a problem on an entirely new scale. The pay package Tesla promised to Elon Musk was so large, we had to add an extra dimension to the chart below to display it accurately. (Russell and Williams, 5/24)

Health benefits brokers would have to reveal the fees and other enticements they’ve received from the insurance industry under bipartisan legislation proposed Thursday in the U.S. Senate. The brokers are supposed to independently help employers select benefits for their workers. But a ProPublica investigation in February found that the insurance industry often uses undisclosed money and gifts to influence which plans the brokers favor. The payments and perks include healthy commissions, six-figure bonuses and exotic island vacations. Critics call the compensation a “classic conflict of interest” that drives up costs. (Allen, 5/24)

Health insurers Centene Corp. and WellCare Health Plans disclosed Thursday that federal antitrust regulators have asked for more information on their plans to merge. The companies said they each received requests for "additional information and documentary material" on May 22, but didn't go into more detail about what the Justice Department is seeking. Centene and WellCare still expect to close the merger in the first half of 2020, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week. (Livingston, 5/24)

Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC has built a stake in Centene Corp. and wants the health insurer to consider selling itself before spending $15.3 billion on its deal to purchase WellCare Health Plans Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. While it isn’t clear exactly how big Third Point’s stake is, it owns at least $300 million in Centene shares, one of the people said. And with derivatives, the hedge fund could have significantly more exposure to Centene’s stock-price movement. Centene’s market value is roughly $22.8 billion. (Lombardo, 5/24)

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have charged a physician and the owner of a medical consulting firm over a scheme to persuade women to have their pelvic mesh implants surgically removed to bolster the value of lawsuits against the devices’ manufacturers. The scheme alleged in the indictment on Friday is one of the more unsavory sides of the mass tort litigation against a half-dozen manufacturers of pelvic mesh, which has led to nearly $8 billion in settlements for roughly 100,000 women. (Goldstein, 5/24)

Alex Carll was presenting his research about the impact of e-cigarette smoke on mouse hearts at an American Heart Association conference when a man from Juul Labs approached him and started asking questions. “He seemed genuinely concerned about the health implications of Juul,” said Dr. Carll, who recalled meeting the e-cigarette company’s medical liaison, Jeff Vaughan, in November as he stood by a poster of his research findings. “He said they were looking for people to collaborate with and that they could offer up to $200,000.” (Kaplan, 5/27)

A glimpse of student athletes in peak physical condition vaping just moments after competing in a football game led Stamford High School Principal Raymond Manka to reconsider his approach to the epidemic. His school traditionally has emphasized discipline for those caught with e-cigarettes. Punishments become increasingly severe with each offense, from in-school suspensions to out-of-school suspensions and, eventually, notification of law enforcement. (5/26)

E-cigarettes aren't considered as risky as regular cigarettes, but researchers have found a clue that their flavorings may be bad for the heart. Longtime smokers who can't kick the addiction sometimes switch to e-cigarettes, in hopes of avoiding the cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke. (5/27)

California lawmakers are headed toward a confrontation with Gov. Gavin Newsom over whether to keep a tax that can generate nearly $2 billion for low-income health benefits but means approval from the Trump administration amid a feud between state and federal officials. Senate and Assembly budget committees finished their versions of the $214 billion annual budget this week and want to keep a tax on managed care organizations. The companies manage Medicaid plans in California, the joint federal-state program that provides health coverage for the poor and people with disabilities. (5/24)

In 2016, a foster baby born with severe defects needed constant monitoring from a nurse, to ensure he didn't pull out his breathing tube and choke to death. The insurance company Texas pays to provide that care refused, saving Superior HealthPlan as much as $500 a day. Then the state's appeal system failed D'ashon, deferring to Superior. Months later, as D'ashon's nurses and foster mother warned would happen, the baby tugged out his breathing tube when his nurse wasn't around and suffocated for so long that he's now in a permanent "vegetative state." If bills that passed the Texas Legislature this week had been enacted then, D'ashon might have been saved. (McSwane, 5/27)

North Carolina’s ongoing transition to Medicaid managed care system could screech to a temporary halt if an administrative law judge agrees with rejected managed care groups that the process to select contractors was flawed and unfair. Lawyers for three prepaid health care plans —  Aetna Better Health, a commercial managed care company; Optima, a health care group connected to Virginia’s Sentara health care system; and My Health by Health Providers, a provider-led group formed by a dozen of the state’s hospital systems – appeared in administrative law courtrooms in Raleigh this month. All three tried to make the case that each deserved another shot at consideration for a lucrative Medicaid managed care contract. (Ovaska-Few, 5/28)

The anti-vaccine movement, which swelled with discredited theories that blamed vaccines for autism and other ills, has morphed and grown into a libertarian political rebellion that is drawing in state Republican officials who distrust government medical mandates. Anti-vaccine sentiments are as old as vaccines themselves — and it’s been nearly 300 years since smallpox immunization began in what is now the United States. Liberal enclaves from Boulder, Colo., to Marin County, Calif., have long been pockets of vaccine skepticism. But the current measles epidemic, with more than 880 cases reported across 25 states of a disease declared eradicated in the U.S. 19 years ago, shows it gaining power within the GOP mainstream. (Allen, 5/27)

U.S. officials reported 60 new measles cases last week amid an outbreak of the disease that has reached 26 states. The number of measles cases rose 6.8 percent during the week ending on May 24, Reuters reported on Monday, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  (Frazin, 5/27)

Sunscreen? Check. Swimming goggles? Check. This summer, the most important part of the camp checklist for many New Yorkers is proof of measles immunization. Parents have been warned that their children could be turned away if they don’t have it. Facing pressure from public-health authorities amid the worst measles outbreak in more than two decades, summer-camp directors across the state are tightening vaccination requirements, and some are refusing unvaccinated children. (West, 5/25)

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Friday signed into law a bill that eliminates religious and philosophical exemptions for vaccinations in Maine. Maine has one of the highest rates of non-medical vaccine exemptions in the nation, and health officials say the opt-out rates appear to be rising. (5/24)

Inspired by reports of a second patient apparently freed of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, scientists are pursuing dozens of ways to cure the disease. But now, researchers must reckon with a longstanding obstacle: the lack of women in clinical trials of potential H.I.V. treatments, cures and vaccines. Women make up just over half of the 35 million people living with H.I.V. worldwide, and the virus is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age. In Africa, parts of South America and even in the southern United States, new infections in young women are helping to sustain the epidemic. (Mandavilli, 5/28)

Hospital staff were significantly more likely to report harmful patient safety events for white patients than for black and other minority patients, a new study found. Rates of safety events that hospital workers voluntarily reported varied significantly by the patients' race in a 10-hospital system located in the District of Columbia and Maryland from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2017, according to the study in the Journal of Patient Safety. (Meyer, 5/24)

Having a purpose in life may decrease your risk of dying early, according to a study published Friday. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 American adults between the ages of 51 and 61 who filled out psychological questionnaires on the relationship between mortality and life purpose. What they found shocked them, according to Celeste Leigh Pearce, one of the authors of the study published in JAMA Current Open. (Gordon, 5/25)

When it comes to discussing climate change, older people may have one advantage: They have watched it happen. In the nine Northeastern states, for instance, where average winter temperatures climbed 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit between 1970 and 2000, they have seen fewer snow-covered days, and more shrubs flowering ever earlier. (Span, 5/24)

Although the woman in her 50s had been effectively treated for depression, she remained plagued by symptoms that often accompany it: fatigue, sleepiness and lethargy, even though she thought she was getting enough sleep. With depression no longer causing her persistent symptoms, her psychiatrist advised her to consult a sleep specialist. (Brody, 5/27)

The engineer’s mantra, said Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, is: “Keep it simple, stupid.” But Dr. Arnold, who last year became just the fifth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is the opposite of stupid, and her stories sometimes turn rococo. Take the happy images on her office Wall of Triumph. Here’s a picture of a beaming President Obama, congratulating Dr. Arnold in 2013 for winning the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. (Angier, 5/28)

Enhance your memory. Boost your mood. Lose weight more easily. Learn golf, CrossFit, or the clarinet faster. Or even: Regain more independence, despite a neurodegenerative disease. Or start recognizing family members, despite dementia. ...The claims come from companies in the booming business of direct-to-consumer brain wearables. Some of the devices deliver zaps of electricity to the brain, while others monitor brain activity and relay that information in real time in an app. They often look like high-tech headphones or sleek, stick-on devices. The wearables are touted as ways to curb stress, sleep better, boost creativity or athleticism, or even address serious medical conditions. But a growing number of experts are urging device makers to be more careful about those claims. (Thielking, 5/28)

I was a month shy of turning 16 when a red-faced man in a white coat told me I had been born without a uterus. With a huge dark desk between us, he told me I would never menstruate, and would need plastic surgery to correct the anomaly of my vaginal opening that was a mere dimple, so that one day I would to be able to have sexual intercourse. I have M.R.K.H. These four letters stand for Mayer, Rokitansky, Küster and Hauser, the names of the four doctors who discovered the syndrome over a hundred years ago. (Rudnick, 5/28)

Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is a common disorder that’s commonly misunderstood. A constellation of symptoms, including excess gas, bloating, abdominal pain and irregular bowel movements — sometimes diarrhea, sometimes constipation and sometimes fluctuating between the two — leads to diagnosis. (Adams, 5/27)

When it comes to mental health, it can be hard to be real. Stigma surrounds mood disorders, therapy and drugs. Talking to someone else about a challenge can be exhausting and scary. And all too often, people keep their struggles with depression, bipolar disorder, suicidal feelings and other issues to themselves. That has devastating results: The majority of adults with mental illness in the United States do not receive treatment, and suicide is the 10th leading cause of death overall in the United States. (Blakemore, 5/25)

Pro football players may be more likely to die from degenerative brain diseases and heart problems than baseball players but the reasons are unclear, a new study suggests. The differences may seem obvious. Repeated head blows have been linked with a wasting brain disease in football players. Also, girth can contribute to heart problems, and football players are generally bigger and heavier than baseball players. (5/24)

A new study of more than 6,000 former professional athletes found that National Football League players died at a rate that was almost 1.3 times higher than Major League Baseball players. It’s the first to compare mortality rates between two groups of professional athletes; previous studies that compared professional athletes to the general population showed a lower risk of death for football players. The findings, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, come amid growing concern about head trauma among current and former NFL players and their risk of developing the neurodegenerative disease CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. (Chakradhar, 5/24)

The fetal surgery for spina bifida is complex. Because it requires cutting through the mother’s abdomen and uterus, like a C-section, it involves a long recovery, something that would have been difficult for Gilda, who has two other young children. The “open surgery” carries some risk of premature birth and complications during birth. It also means having a cesarean, for this and any future births because of the risk of uterine rupture. (McFarling, 5/28)

As he climbed into an Uber bound for a Washington emergency room, Michael Zelin remembers thinking he’d be home in a few hours, after a doctor checked out his sore arm and prescribed a painkiller. The 39-year-old real estate executive wasn’t sure the midnight ER trip was necessary. “I remember thinking, ‘I have work tomorrow, I have three little kids,’ ” he said. (Boodman, 5/25)

For Sam Calagione, a founder of the craft brewery Dogfish Head, his company’s efforts to get healthier had a selfish origin. “I started to notice that I was getting an everything bagel on my midriff,” said Mr. Calagione, attributing the weight gain to the multiple beers he drinks daily for work. “So I was like, well, I’m not going to slow down drinking, so I better start innovating some lower-calorie but super flavorful beers.” (Sedacca, 5/26)

Kaiser Health News: A Final Comfort: ‘Palliative Transport’ Brings Dying Children Home

Anne Brescia sat beside her only child, Anthony, as he lay unconscious in a hospital bed at age 16. Just a few months before, he was competing in a swim meet; now cancer was destroying his brain. Brescia couldn’t save her son. But she was determined to bring him home. Anthony Gabriel Brescia-Connell was not conscious for his voyage from Boston Children’s Hospital to his home in Medford, Mass., where he died on March 3, 2011, surrounded by his family and beloved stuffed animals. He may not have heard the parting blessings before a doctor turned off his portable ventilator and let him die naturally. (Bailey, 5/28)

Tens of thousands of Illinois residents whose gun licenses have been revoked could still be in possession of firearms, according to an analysis of state records by the Chicago Tribune. The failure of the system was underscored in February when a man killed five former colleagues and wounded five police officers in Aurora, Illinois, using a gun he kept despite the revocation of his Firearm Owner's Identification card in 2014. (5/27)

Julia Macias was 12 when a gunman shot and killed 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The Los Angeles preteen heard the news of the 2012 attack and worried about her own family. “It made me wonder, ‘Well I have a sister who’s four years younger than me, she’s in elementary school, what if that were her? And what if that were me?’ ” said Macias, now 18. (Kohli, 5/27)

Prosecutors are seeking mental health and medical records of the former student charged with last year's Florida school massacre. Prosecutors will ask Judge Elizabeth Scherer on Tuesday to order a psychologist and an orthopedic clinic turn over Nikolas Cruz's records. Psychologist Daniel Mauer treated Cruz before the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead. Prosecutors say they should have access to his records because Cruz told deputies that voices told him to kill people. (5/28)

In a ruling that is causing a stir in Minnesota’s medical and legal communities, the state Supreme Court has said that a doctor can be sued for malpractice even in the absence of a traditional physician-patient relationship. Medical groups say the opinion could subject physicians to more lawsuits, even in cases when they are simply giving informal advice to colleagues. The expansion of liability, they say, could also increase malpractice insurance premiums and have a chilling effect on consultations. (Howatt, 5/27)

Public-sector unions, struck last year by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended their ability to charge non-members fees, suffered another blow this month when the Trump administration blocked hundreds of thousands of Medicaid-funded home health aides from deducting union dues from their paychecks. California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington state and, separately, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sued the Trump administration earlier this month over the new regulation, which they say also will stop the workers from making payroll deductions for health insurance premiums and training costs. (Quinton, 5/28)

University of Southern California records reveal medical experts hired to evaluate a campus gynecologist after years of complaints reported there was evidence he preyed on Asian students and had signs of "psychopathy," the Los Angeles Times reported. The confidential report was among USC records concerning Dr. George Tyndall that were made public Thursday by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson at the newspaper's request. (5/24)

Texas made headlines in 2016 after a study claimed the state had the worst maternal mortality rate in the developed world. The study's numbers turned out to be inflated, but Texas still has one of the most concerning maternal mortality rates in the U.S., particularly among black mothers, who die during childbirth at twice the rate white mothers do. (Johansen, Green and Feliciano, 5/25)

Serious problems persist at Wyoming's largest mental health facility four years after employees left an incapacitated woman on a couch without food, water or bathroom use for over 24 hours, according to two groups that provide legal and advocacy services to patients in need. (5/25)

Florida has an estimated 400,000 children who need behavioral-health services, but 55 percent of them don’t get any treatment, members of a health-care panel were told Thursday. That translates to 220,000 children across the state, or about one child in every classroom, health official Jeffrey Brosco told members of the Florida Healthy Kids Corp. Board of Directors during a meeting in Orlando. (Sexton, 5/24)

A decade ago, so many inmates were crammed into California’s prisons that the sprawling system had reached a breaking point. Prisoners were sleeping in gyms, hallways and dayrooms. Mentally ill prisoners were jammed into tiny holding cells. There were dozens of riots and hundreds of attacks on guards every year. Suicide rates were 80% higher than in the rest of the nation’s prisons. The California prison population peaked at more than 165,000 in 2006 — in a system designed to house just 85,000. That dubious mountaintop came after years of tougher and tougher laws like mandatory sentences, juveniles prosecuted as adults and a “Three Strikes” initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters in 1994. (5/28)

Researchers recently found that inmate self-harm in solitary confinement at Louisiana state prisons increases as the heat index rises, raising concern that high temperatures are affecting inmates' well-being in dorms without air-conditioning, especially those held in some of the most restrictive housing units. Though a years-long lawsuit over extremely hot conditions on Louisiana's death row — a unit that houses about 75 inmates — has neared a settlement that includes accommodations to help keep prisoners there cool, the unofficial start of summer this Memorial Day weekend marks what can be the most grueling, and dangerous, season for the thousands more in prison, including about 1,400 in other solitary confinement units. (Toohey, 5/27)

Despite some controversy over the firm's performance, New Orleans has decided to renew its contract with the company that provides health care services for inmates at the city's jail, potentially ending a year-long period when the company’s future at the facility was up in the air. Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office said the city recently agreed to a 90-day contract extension with the health care contractor Wellpath, formerly known as Correct Care Solutions, with an eye toward signing a “long-term” deal. (Sledge, 5/26)

Peak Health Alliance, a Colorado collective of businesses and employers seeking to lower healthcare costs, announced Thursday it has chosen health insurance partners. The group will work with Rocky Mountain Health Plans and Bright Health to offer employer group and individual insurance for businesses and residents in Summit County, where Breckenridge is located. In a news release, Peak said the carriers will offer a broad range of benefits with innovative coverage features to improve access and lower the cost of care. (Bannow, 5/24)

Hospitals that have lots of experience performing cancer surgeries have superior outcomes. Because of that well-documented link between cancer surgery volume and patient results, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) on Thursday posted updated online data showing hospital surgical volumes for 2018 for 11 types of cancer: bladder, brain, breast, colon, esophagus, liver, lung, pancreas, prostate, rectum, and stomach. (McCullough, 5/27)

Last year, Missouri's hotline for reports about abuse of elderly adults, as well as abuse of residents with disabilities, answered only half of its calls. More than 17,000 callers heard the message, "All agents are busy, please call back," and the calls were disconnected. Another 10,000 callers hung up or otherwise dropped the call before anyone answered. (5/24)

A Palm Harbor couple is pursuing a class-action lawsuit against Target, accusing the retailer of breaking federal laws that regulate employee benefits. Shawn Rigney, 31, worked for Target until September of 2018. Rigney and his partner, Kyle Adams, 29, were covered by Target's health insurance. The notices Target sent to the men about the option to continue their health care following Rigney's termination lacked critical information that left them unable to retain coverage, according to the lawsuit. (DiNatale, 5/28)

Two faculty members have left Emory after failing to disclose foreign sources of research funding and their work with institutions and universities in China, the university said Thursday. Emory did not identify the two scientists nor the circumstances surrounding their departure. (Miller, 5/23)

The state’s largest health care workers’ union has again called off a threat to strike, following a move by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to increase rates for nursing homes over the next two years. Lamont’s budget director said earlier this week that facilities serving Medicaid patients would receive a 2 percent rate increase in July 2019, a 1 percent hike in October 2020 and a final 1 percent bump in January 2021. (Carlesso, 5/24)

The “poor policing” in Martinez’s case is not unique, according to some experts, who say it is part of a larger pattern of willful blindness, interference and even cover-ups that can occur when law enforcement is called to investigate one of its own for domestic violence. And when police fail to intervene in these cases, they place victims at an even greater risk. (Lewis, 5/27)

Memorial Day marks the opening of many pools and lakes, and water safety advocates are urging Missourians to keep themselves and their children safe from drowning this season. Swim lessons can keep many people safe, but knowing how to swim is only one part of drowning prevention, said aid Karen Cohn, founder of the Zac Foundation, a water safety organization. (Fentem, 5/27)

Oakland, California, could become the second city in the U.S. to decriminalize certain natural hallucinogenics, including "magic mushrooms," the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. A resolution that would instruct law enforcement to stop investigating and prosecuting people using the drugs will have its first public hearing before Oakland City Council’s public safety committee on Tuesday. (Rodrigo, 5/27)

A Mountain View-based health technology company won first place and $20,000 in a UC Davis entrepreneurship competition Thursday evening for its innovations in treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Respira Labs, founded in 2018, won the top prize in the university’s 19th annual Big Bang! Business Competition out of a field of 105 businesses for developing a wearable device meant to predict and prevent COPD attacks using artificial intelligence and other data. (Moleski, 5/24)

Only an estimated one-third of communities allow sales — and most deposit their new tax revenues into a general fund, to be spent on everyday needs, rather than special projects. Two-thirds of California’s communities aren’t getting any direct revenues, at all, because they’ve rejected cannabis businesses. There are a few notable exceptions, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis, where governments are creating success by moving quickly to license businesses, listen to public concerns and target specific needs. (Krieger, 5/25)

The city recently began enforcing the rule, which lets officials clear off the sidewalks during the day. People living on the streets are allowed to set up their camps between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., but must break them down during the day. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín has said the new ordinance was meant to address the accumulation of personal items on walkways without criminalizing homelessness. But Councilmember Cheryl Davila said that the city first needs a robust homelessness response system in place to help before it can expect the unhoused — including seniors and the disabled — to break down their camps each day. (O'Mara and Hossaini, 5/27)

When I walk into a room of a woman whose water has broken at 16 weeks or 18 weeks or 20 weeks of pregnancy, I introduce myself as her high-risk pregnancy doctor. Then I tell her, “You’re the most important one in this room.”I say this because I was taught to say this; I say this because it’s true. But most of all, I say this because it’s so easy to forget. Women forget, so focused on their baby, how important they are; all too often, doctors forget. The eight states — including Missouri, Alabama, Ohio, and Georgia — that have passed abortion bans have also forgotten, though perhaps it would be more precise to say that they just don’t think that it’s true. But the legislation they’ve passed will also make it hard for anyone else to remember. (Chavi Eve Karkowsky, 4/24)

In the wake of the atrocious antiabortion bill signed into law in Georgia earlier this month, there has been no shortage of outrage coming from 2020 presidential candidates and women’s rights advocates. The so-called heartbeat law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020, would ban abortions after cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo, or as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The law is an aggressive assault on the constitutional right to access to a safe and legal abortion. Yet one key industry is struggling to respond to the dangerous law. Hollywood, which has found a benefactor in Georgia thanks to the state’s film tax incentives, is in a mighty position to pull its business out to protest the extreme law. Some actresses, actors, and filmmakers have called for a boycott. But, so far, the industry’s biggest stars and studios have remained strangely muted. (Marcela García, 5/28)

Last week, I attended a local Day of Action rally to support abortion rights. Along with pleas for donations and participation on the ground, the organizers asked those who had benefited from having an abortion to share their stories. The organizers theorized that by speaking about our experiences, we could personalize the act, humanize it. That perhaps, like sexuality or gender, we should define ourselves by our abortions. (Elly Lonon, 5/27)

As the (anti-abortion) bill in Ohio was moving its way through the legislature and to the Governor’s desk, I was reminded of a patient who recently visited my office seeking birth control. After her examination, she was shocked to learn she was pregnant, and already past six weeks of pregnancy. It breaks my heart to think of seeing a young patient who learns she is pregnant and has no option to access abortion care here in Ohio. Because girls often have irregular menstrual cycles, it is not uncommon for teenagers to be unaware of an early pregnancy. Banning abortion care ties the hands of medical providers, like myself, who want to ensure our patients have access to the best care to meet their needs. (Elise Berlan, 5/25)

Yet even a short visit provides an abundance of evidence that Alabama is moving simultaneously in two directions. Many of its people and institutions are embracing social change, while others continue to idealize a mythical past. To tour the capital city is to be subject to an emotional and ideological whipsaw. (Andrew Grainger, 5/24)

When you go to a grocery store, you don’t put a loaf of bread or a cut of meat into your basket without looking at the price tag. But when Americans go to a doctor or a hospital, they typically have no idea what their healthcare provider will charge for the services they’re going to receive. Instead, they stick with the providers in their network, trust their doctors’ treatment recommendations and hope that their insurer will cover most of the cost. That’s fine until you’re in a car wreck and an ambulance takes you to an out-of-network hospital for emergency care. Or until you go to an in-network emergency room, only to discover later that the specialists assigned to your case were out-of-network. (5/28)

Health care is at the center of the national policy conversation, and with the 2020 presidential election now in full swing, that is where it will probably remain. But for all the talk about how to increase access and reduce costs, we’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle: the inverse relationship between health care costs and spending on social programs. One reason the United States spends more on health care than any other nation — more than 17 percent of gross domestic product, compared with an average of 9 percent for other advanced economies — is that we spend far less on social services like food stamps, free school lunches and public housing. (Robert E. Rubin and Kenneth L. Davis, 5/27)

Those reaping the excessive profits from our illnesses and injuries are in a panic. They’re laying all their chips on the table to make sure Medicare for All never becomes reality. It would mean the end of private insurance companies that profit mightily off the most costly and least effective health-care system in the industrialized world.So, to continue to rake in their profits, they’ve created the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a partnership of corporate hospitals, insurance and drug companies. They must have a lot to lose: last year alone, the group spent $143 million developing attack ads and launching fear campaigns to kill Medicare for All. (George Goehl, 5/26)

Milton Friedman once said you can’t have open borders and a welfare state. He may have found an ally in California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is in a standoff with the Democratic Legislature over expanding Medicaid to undocumented immigrants. Mr. Newsom earlier this year proposed expanding Medicaid to unauthorized immigrants under age 26. Undocumented children under age 19 and pregnant women are already eligible in California, and the Governor calculated it would cost the state a mere $100 million to extend eligibility to age 25—an ostensibly modest down payment on his promise of “universal coverage.” (5/27)

Twenty-five years ago, the Carnegie Corporation released “Starting Points,” a report that described the lack of child care for infants and toddlers as a “quiet crisis.” It painted a bleak picture of overwhelmed families, persistent poverty, inadequate health care and child care of such poor quality that it threatened young children’s intellectual and emotional development. (Shael Polakow-Suransky, 5/24)

The deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody raise grave humanitarian concerns and set off alarms. Medical experts, human rights groups and children’s advocates long have decried unsanitary and crowded conditions at the facilities where children and families are detained for days before they are transferred to shelters or released with notices to appear before a judge. These experts have warned that the living conditions, coupled with the physical and traumatic effects of migrants’ grueling journeys here, exact a punishing toll that endangers the children’s lives. (5/25)

At a time when 20 or more veterans commit suicide each day, when close to 20 percent of all warfighters who served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from significant post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), the difficulty of transitioning back to civilian life has perhaps never been more difficult. One effective approach to helping veterans transition is extreme sports, which combines the positive impact of exercise with re-bonding and teamwork. (Marc Siegel, 5/27)

Melanoma is a potentially deadly form of skin cancer linked to overexposure to ultraviolet, or UV, rays from the sun. Sunscreen can block UV rays and therefore reduce the risk of sun burns, which ultimately reduces the risk of developing melanoma. Thus, the promotion of sunscreen as an effective melanoma prevention strategy is a reasonable public health message. While this may be true for light-skinned people, such as those of European descent, this is not the case for darker skinned people, or those of African descent. (Adewole S. Adamson, 5/26)

In my 40-year career helping companies navigate crises, including stints as vice chairman of a near-bankrupt Chrysler in the 1980s and chairman of AIG after the federal bailout a decade ago, I’d never encountered a situation as challenging or important to society than the one I now face as chairman of Purdue Pharma.At issue is the opioid crisis. States, cities and towns have turned to the courts and are suing Purdue and other manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains, claiming they are responsible for damage to communities across the country. (Steve Miller, 5/27)

“We have to start talking about solutions,” Kellyanne Conway, ostensibly the White House opioids policy coordinator, said this week. Start? Really? We can’t blame our opioid crisis on President Trump. The epidemic pre-dates not only his administration but his entire jaunt into Republican politics. (Robert Gebelhoff, 5/24)

The drinks are being targeted because of the health problems that they can create, and there is no question that sugar-filled, nutrition-free soda pop is not good for you. It increases obesity rates, decreases bone health, and can lead to diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay. It was enough for me when I noticed that it could clean the rust off my tools. That does not mean, however, that The People Who Know Best should feel free to inflict their ideas of good health on the rest of us, even under cover of educating kids or removing lead from houses. (Ted Diadiun, 5/23)

For many of Arizona’s 14,500 foster youth – and more than 440,000 foster youth nationwide – life after leaving foster care can offer few guarantees. Childhoods filled with challenge – constant movement, chronic health problems, poor education, even neglect and abuse – typically yield difficult prospects in adulthood, with a potentially lifelong impact. With May marking National Foster Care Month, let’s recognize that we can do better by these young people. Indeed, in Arizona, we are making meaningful progress. (Scott Cummings and Edmundo Hidalgo, 5/24)

D.C. lawmakers have finally decided to do something about the wasteful spending at the troubled public hospital in Southeast. We wish we could applaud the move to cap spending and eventually close the hospital, but it is long overdue and — even more troubling — hinges on plans to replace it with a costly new hospital built at taxpayer expense. When will the city realize it doesn’t belong in the hospital business? When will it consider other, more effective ways to meet the urgent and critical health needs of people who live east of the Anacostia River? (5/26)