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The first glimpse of what health-insurance companies plan to charge for Obamacare plans next year suggests there’s no relief ahead for consumers saddled with high premiums. Several insurers in Maryland and Virginia are seeking double-digit percentage increases in monthly costs for individual medical plans in 2019. The largest increases are being sought by CareFirst, which wants to nearly double the amount it charges on average for one coverage option in Maryland, and raise the cost of another in Virginia by 64 percent. (Tozzi, 5/7)

Maryland and Virginia are the first states to announce the rates filed by insurance companies for 2019 plans. The requests, though not final, offer an early look at what other insurers may be planning across the country. In Maryland, the two insurers selling individual insurance plans on the ACA marketplace are asking for an average rate increase of about 30% for 2019 coverage. That would amount to an average monthly premium of about $592 per member, compared with $449 per month in 2018. Nearly 212,000 people are insured in individual plans on and off the exchange in Maryland this year. (Livingston, 5/7)

Insurers are proposing double-digit premium increases in Maryland's individual-health-plan market, a consequence of what the state’s health insurance commissioner called a “death spiral. ”CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield requested an 18.5 percent increase on the HMO plans used by the vast majority of its individual-plan members — and a whopping, 91.4 percent increase on its PPO plans. Kaiser Permanente requested a 37.4 percent increase on its HMO plans. The average rate increase requested, across insurers and plans, was 30 percent. (Johnson, 5/7)

State officials plan to ask the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for permission to establish a reinsurance program that would create a pot of money for insurers to cover the most expensive claims. In a bipartisan effort to preserve the expansion of health insurance in Maryland and rein in rising costs, the General Assembly passed legislation this spring with support from Gov. Larry Hogan opening the door for the effort. (McDaniels, 5/7)

Insurers have said a number of policies being promoted by the Trump administration are to blame for rising premiums and the departure of healthy people from the risk pool, including the repeal of ObamaCare’s individual mandate penalty. The administration also made it easier for insurers to sell cheaper, skimpier plans. (Weixel, 5/7)

Kaiser Health News: How The Farm Bill Could Erode Part Of The ACA

Some Republican lawmakers continue to try to work around the federal health law’s requirements. That strategy can crop up in surprising places. Like the farm bill. Tucked deep in the House version of the massive bill — amid crop subsidies and food assistance programs — is a provision that supporters say could help provide farmers with cheaper, but likely less comprehensive, health insurance than plans offered through the Affordable Care Act. It calls for $65 million in loans and grants administered by the Department of Agriculture to help organizations establish agricultural-related “association” type health plans. (Appleby, 5/8)

President Donald Trump will request a package of $15 billion in spending cuts from Congress on Tuesday, including some $7 billion from the Children's Health Insurance Program championed by Democrats, senior administration officials said on Monday. One official said the targeted cuts would cover "unobligated balances" or money that is not being spent. He said the cuts would not have an effect on the CHIP program itself. (Mason, 5/7)

The White House said it is sending the so-called rescissions package to lawmakers Tuesday. Administration officials, who required anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the package proposes killing $15 billion in unused funds. A senior official said about $7 billion would come from the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which provides health care to kids from low-income families, though that official stressed the cuts won't have a practical impact on the popular program. (Taylor, 5/7)

The plan is a shift from earlier discussions about rescinding funds that had been approved as part of a sweeping, $1.3 trillion spending bill enacted in March. This proposal would instead seek to rescind funds that had been authorized in previous fiscal years, but not spent. The official said Mr. Trump plans to propose rescinding money from the March deal in a future proposal, the official said. Mr. Trump had threatened to veto the March spending measure but decided to sign it and avoid shutting down the government. The senior administration official said Monday the rescissions proposal headed for Capitol Hill Tuesday would be the first in a series of proposals to cut funding. (Peterson, 5/7)

The nation's largest drug distributors spent millions on Washington lobbying last year. Now they're about to find out how much goodwill it has bought them in Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is hauling in the executives of five drug distribution companies Tuesday after spending the last year investigating their role as middlemen between drugmakers and the hospitals and pharmacies that dispensed millions of pills in towns that are now ravaged by the opioid epidemic. (Meyer, 5/8)

Congressional investigators say wholesale pharmaceutical distributors shipped hundreds of millions of prescription opioid pills to West Virginia, a state disproportionately ravaged by deaths caused by the addictive drugs. Now, lawmakers want executives of those companies to explain how that happened. Current and former officials from five distributor companies are set to give sworn testimony on the subject Tuesday to a House subcommittee. Their appearances come during an election-year push by Congress to pass largely modest legislation aimed at curbing a growing epidemic that saw nearly 64,000 people die last year from drug overdoses, with two-thirds of those deaths involving opioids. (Fram, 5/8)

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin marking up dozens of bills related to the opioid crisis on Wednesday, a day after four different hearings on the opioid crisis will be held. Energy and Commerce announced Monday that 33 bills will be considered this week with 26 related to the epidemic. The bills include legislation to safely dispose of opioids (HR 5041), a bill that would help physicians find out more easily if a patient has a drug abuse history (HR 5009), and legislation that would increase awareness of synthetic drugs (HR 449). Other bills that the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee approved are scheduled to be addressed at a May 17 markup. (Raman, 5/8)

The crackdown on opioids is having unintended consequences. The push for fewer opioid prescriptions at lower doses and for shorter periods has increased suffering for some pain patients including those near the end of life. The emphasis on opioids has also overshadowed other forms of substance abuse that require attention. (Karlin-Smith and Ehley, 5/8)

Walmart pharmacies will soon limit the supply of first-time opioid prescriptions for acute pain to seven days, an effort aimed at clamping down on an epidemic killing more people per year than car crashes. The initiative will start within 60 days, the company announced Monday, and comes as an increasing number of states and entities in the health-care industry have placed limits on opioid prescriptions. (Roubein, 5/7)

The judge overseeing more than 600 lawsuits targeting opioid makers is demanding local governments’ lawyers turn over information about any litigation-funding agreements and provide assurance that lenders won’t gain control over legal strategy or settlements. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland issued the order Monday saying he wants to ensure the agreements don’t create conflicts of interest by affecting plaintiffs lawyers’ judgments in pursuing cases against opioid makers, such as Purdue Pharma LLP and Johnson & Johnson, and distributors such as McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc. (Feeley and Harris, 5/7)

The dirty needles can be found scattered among the pine and brush, littering the forest floor around Eureka, a town long celebrated as a gateway to the scenic Redwood Empire. They are the debris of a growing heroin scourge that is gripping the remote community in Northern California. While the state as a whole has one of the lowest overall opioid-related death rates in the country, a sharp rise in heroin use across the rural north in recent years has raised alarms. In Humboldt County, the opioid death rate is five times higher than the state average, rivaling the rates of states like Maine and Vermont that have received far more national attention. (Del Real, 5/8)

Earlier this year, in a speech to leading members of Colorado’s medical community, Dr. Donald Stader confronted a blunt truth about the nation’s opioid crisis. The majority of the blame, he said, “rightfully rests with people like me – physicians.” ...But behind the scenes, in conversations with state legislators, Stader and the Colorado Medical Society lobbied against stricter regulations on a doctor’s ability to prescribe opioids – making the case that medical professionals can police themselves. (Frank, 5/7)

A bill that could have brought needle exchanges out of Arizona's shadows quietly died last week in the state Legislature. House Bill 2389 — which sailed through the House with bipartisan support before being watered down in the Senate — stalled out last month and was never scheduled to be heard by a conference committee. (Pohl, 5/7)

With Dublin-based Cardinal and other major drug distributors poised to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, prepared remarks show Cardinal Chairman and former CEO George Barrett expressing regret and offering an apology for Cardinal’s role in supplying a large amount of painkillers to two West Virginia pharmacies that the committee questioned Cardinal about. (Matzer Rose, 5/7)

Athenahealth Inc. surged after activist investor Elliott Management Corp. bid to acquire the medical company for $160 a share, saying executives had “failed to correct a host of operational issues.” Elliott, the New York hedge fund led by billionaire Paul Singer, said Monday that it made an all-cash takeover offer, which would value Athenahealth at $6.46 billion. Athenahealth, which makes an online platform doctors use to manage their practices, said in a statement that its board will “carefully review the proposal.” (Deveau and Ockerman, 5/7)

[Paul] Singer had already owned a large position in athenahealth and pressured the company into cost cuts that resulted in about 500 layoffs last year. But on Monday, Elliott said the company has not done enough, and it criticized in particular the recent decision to appoint former General Electric Co. chief executive Jeff Immelt as its new chairman. “We believe the unfortunate but inescapable reality is that performance at athenahealth is not going to get better,” Elliott said in a letter to athenahealth’s board. (Rosen, 5/7)

America’s abortion clinics experienced a major upsurge in trespassing, obstruction and blockades by anti-abortion activists in 2017, according to an annual survey by an industry group. The National Abortion Federation report chronicled a litany of actions that ranged from coordinated trespassing efforts by abortion opponents, repeated brick-throwing at windows of a Cleveland clinic and an attempted bombing in Illinois. (Crary, 5/7)

At its latest meeting, the Massachusetts Medical Society took a new stand: Women who attempt to end a pregnancy on their own should not be considered criminals. Self-induced abortion is explicitly banned in seven states, and more have laws on the books that could be used to prosecute women for self-induction, according to a recent report. (Conaboy and Goldberg, 5/7)

Hamstrung by troubles with lethal injection — gruesomely botched attempts, legal battles and growing difficulty obtaining the drugs — states are looking for alternative ways to carry out the death penalty. High on the list for some is a method that has never been used before: inhaling nitrogen gas. Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen for executions and are developing protocols to use it, which represents a leap into the unknown. There is no scientific data on executing people with nitrogen, leading some experts to question whether states, in trying to solve old problems, may create new ones. (Grady and Hoffman, 5/7)

Hours after President Trump took to Twitter on Monday to denigrate the special counsel’s investigation as a “Phony Witch Hunt” and the Iran deal as a “MESS,” Melania Trump stepped into the Rose Garden and said she would focus her official effort as first lady on teaching children to put kindness first in their lives, particularly on social media. In a speech delivered in front of her husband, Vice President Mike Pence, at least five cabinet secretaries and other senior officials, Mrs. Trump unveiled a program called “Be Best,” which she said would tackle opioid abuse, social media pressures and mental health issues among young people. (Rogers, 5/7)

Feeling more anxious these days? You've got plenty of company. A new survey from the American Psychiatric Assn. reveals that 39% of Americans feel more anxious now than they did a year ago. That's more than double the 19% of Americans who feel less anxious now than at this time last year. (Another 39% of survey respondents said their anxiety level is about the same, and 3% weren't sure.) (Kaplan, 5/8)

Rachel Martin talks to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb about the agency's new action to crack down on sales of vape pens, also known as e-cigarettes, to children and teens. (Martin, 5/7)

Every Mother’s Day, Maggie Nelson, her husband Mike, and their three young children head to the cemetery to take a family photo at the grave of their daughter, Emily. She was stillborn in 2010, but her twin, Mikey, now 7, survived. “People say, ‘That’s kind of sad,’ but I can say, ‘I’m a proud mom of four. Here I am with all of them,’” Ms. Nelson, 39, said of the photos of her and the kids gathered on the grass by Emily’s stone plaque. A Bloomington, Ill., kindergarten teacher, she is a member of an unofficial sorority of women who experienced acute grief while postpartum. (Zulkey, 5/8)

Geisinger patients won't have to foot any upfront costs as the health system rolls out DNA sequencing as part of routine care, and the program will ultimately reap cost savings by catching diseases earlier, the system's CEO said Monday. Donors and Geisinger's insurance company will take on the financial burden, and the health system will spend "under $5 million" to sequence a "huge number" of patients' DNA in a new program, Geisinger President and CEO Dr. David Feinberg said. That money will go to the cost of the actual tests, which he estimates will range from $300 to $500 per patient. Under the new program, all Geisinger patients will have the chance to have their DNA sequenced. (Arndt, 5/7)

In nursing, there is a rite of passage that nearly everyone goes through — night shifts. Sometimes, the shifts are clumped together, and sometimes, they are spaced apart, said Daniel Schweitzer, a nurse in Pittsburgh. But they always seem to have the same effect on his body clock. “When you do a few nights, you get this permanent jet lag, where you’re never quite truly awake,” he said. “Your sleep schedule gets truly messed up.” (Satyanarayana, 5/7)

Little did Trump know that his initial tweets came at the moment when the White House was most worried that the Ebola virus would, in fact, spread to the United States. The occasion was the African Leaders Summit, which brought heads of state from fifty African nations to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the State Department and the White House itself. The Obama administration worried that the summit, which included dozens of staff, hangers-on and members of the African media attached to each delegation, would inadvertently serve as the opportunity for Ebola to spread between delegations, or to civilians in the Washington area. (Wilson, 5/8)

In the first study of its kind, Bay Area researchers have found that mild brain injury – a head bang that creates a dazed feeling, but not unconsciousness – more than doubles the risk of dementia. ... This study confirmed that link, finding risk of dementia was 3.77 times higher for those with moderate to severe trauma at any time in life, compared to those who never had a brain injury, according to researchers from UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System. (Krieger, 5/7)

Dizzying knocks to the head trigger dementia later in life in proportion to the severity of the resulting concussion, according to the study by UCSF’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System. The risk is there, though, whether it was a knockout blow or a staggering shot that only left the victim woozy, said the study of military veterans published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Neurology. (Fimrite, 5/7)

Mild traumatic brain injury may sound like an oxymoron, along the lines of "jumbo shrimp" or "random order." But a new study shows that mild TBIs can have serious consequences for military veterans by raising their risk of dementia. Researchers who examined the medical records of more than 350,000 Americans who served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan found that men and women who experienced at least one mild TBI were more than twice as likely as their uninjured peers to develop dementia after they retired from the military. (Kaplan, 5/7)

Seventeen-year-old Aalayah Eastmond hid beneath the lifeless body of a classmate as a gunman opened fire at her Parkland, Florida high school in February. "No student should have to literally dodge bullets to survive," Eastmond recalled Monday, "but I was that student. No student should have to have body matter of her classmate picked out of her hair, but I was that student." (Daly, 5/7)

Several Republican candidates for governor of Oklahoma urged GOP Gov. Mary Fallin Monday to sign legislation allowing adults to carry handguns without a permit amid growing opposition from some of the state's top law enforcement officials. Oklahoma currently requires a license to carry a handgun openly or concealed and charges handgun license applicants a fee of up to $200. But gun rights supporters, including GOP gubernatorial candidates Gary Richardson and Dan Fisher, a former state representative, said they believe the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to carry firearms without government interference. (Talley, 5/7)

Thousands of custodians, security guards, gardeners and other service workers at University of California campuses started a three-day strike Monday to address pay inequalities and demand higher wages. Strikers gathered at sunrise on the 10 campuses throughout the state, wearing green T-shirts and carrying signs that call for “equality, fairness, respect.” The strike was called last week by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents 25,000 service workers, after the union and the university could not agree on a new contract and mediation efforts failed. Another 29,000 nurses, pharmacists, radiologists and other medical workers heeded the service workers’ call for a sympathy strike and will join the walkouts Tuesday and Wednesday, which is expected to disrupt thousands of surgeries and other appointments. (Rodriguez, 5/7)

UC's five medical centers hired contract workers to fill in during the strike and scrambled to reschedule exams and treatments. UC San Francisco rescheduled more than 12,000 appointments for surgeries and treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation. UC Davis rescheduled several hundred appointments, including more than 100 cancer surgeries and 150 radiology exams. But campus spokeswoman Kimberly Hale said 78% of UC Davis health workers showed up for work. UC San Diego directed emergency room patients to other hospitals. (Watanabe and Resmovits, 5/7)

More than 300 hospital workers and members of AFSCME 3299, which represents workers at UC Davis and its medical center, formed a picket line as a three-day strike began at the medical center in Sacramento on Monday, protesting the stagnating contract negotiations with the University of California. They joined the more than 53,000 health care, service, technical and research workers who are striking across all 10 UC campuses. (Sullivan, 5/7)

In a legal case closely watched for its potential implications for universities nationwide, Massachusetts’s highest court ruled Monday that M.I.T. could not be held responsible for the 2009 suicide of one of its students. Broadly, the Supreme Judicial Court said in its 44-page ruling, “there is no duty to prevent another from committing suicide.” (Seelye, 5/7)

More than 100,000 undocumented adult immigrants in California would be eligible for state-subsidized health coverage, under a major budget push announced by Assembly Democrats Monday. Lawmakers are asking Gov. Jerry Brown for $1 billion, a large portion of which would fund a major expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's low-income health care program. (Hart, 5/7)

A court ruling that gave coffee drinkers a jolt earlier this year was finalized Monday when a Los Angeles judge said coffee sold in California must carry cancer warnings. Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said Starbucks Corp. and other roasters and retailers failed to show that benefits from drinking coffee outweighed any risks from a carcinogen that is a byproduct of the roasting process. He had tentatively made the same written decision in March. (Melley, 5/7)

California’s leading gubernatorial candidates agree that health care should work better for Golden State residents: Insurance should be more affordable, costs are unreasonably high, and robust competition among hospitals, doctors and other providers could help lower prices, they told California Healthline. What they don’t agree on is how to achieve those goals — not even the Democrats who represent the state’s dominant party. (Bartolone, 5/7)

Massachusetts’ highest court is set to consider whether to toss more convictions linked to a former chemist who authorities say was high almost every day she worked at a state drug lab for eight years. The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in the case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the state’s public defender agency. Prosecutors already have agreed to dismiss thousands of cases tainted by Sonja Farak, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to stealing cocaine from the lab. (5/8)

Trying to avoid a repeat of last year when conservative Democrats defected to support a Republican state budget, Democratic legislative leaders unveiled several proposals Monday aimed at striking a bipartisan compromise. (Phaneuf, 5/7)

Employer-health-plan costs increased at a faster rate in Minnesota last year than across the country, according to a new survey, with employers saying they hope new programs and competition will help put a lid on future cost jumps. The survey from the Bloomington-based Minnesota Health Action Group found that employer-health-plan costs in Minnesota increased by 5.7 percent, a faster rate of increase than the national average of 4.3 percent in 2017. (Snowbeck, 5/7)

Critics of a recent decision by MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center to close its inpatient pediatrics division and its separate children’s emergency room plan to protest at the hospital Tuesday afternoon. The hospital announced April 3 it was eliminating inpatient services for children. Pediatric emergency services will now be provided in the adult emergency room. (McDaniels, 5/7)

The Illinois attorney general said she intends to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for sharply limiting areas that will come under stricter ozone regulations in Wisconsin. (Bergquist, 5/7)

Minutes into her flight, Ashley Spencer popped open a bag of chips and started to munch. For years, Spencer has been suffering from a rare autoimmune disorder, and she hoped new medication might be able to help. So the 28-year-old was traveling from Philadelphia to the renowned Cleveland Clinic on Saturday to see whether she might be a candidate. The aircraft was barely in the air when Spencer started to feel sick, she said. She told her mother she was going to the airplane bathroom to vomit. (Bever, 5/7)

A group of midwives and moms-to-be protested Sunday outside Shawnee Mission Medical Center after the hospital found itself without a doctor willing to enter into the formal partnership the midwives need to practice under Kansas law. An obstretrician/gynecologist in the hospital's network worked with midwives until recently. (Marso, 5/7)

Twenty years ago Tuesday, Minnesota reached a landmark settlement with tobacco companies. Under the deal, the tobacco industry agreed to pay the state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota more than $6.5 billion, among other provisions. (Wurzer and Franz, 5/8)

A bill that would have made California the first state to ban youth tackle football was shelved at the end of April, following major pushback from parents, coaches and football fans. Organizers collected more than 45,000 signatures opposing the ban, according to the Los Angeles Times. (Ahmed, 5/7)

The Jung Center has launched The Mind, Body, Spirit Institute, a place that provides educational programs and experiences toward the goal of reducing stress.Under development since last year, the institute’s programming was created as a response to the toll many individuals feel being taken on their health and happiness due to stress in the workplace, constant interruptions by technology, and the ever-increasingly hectic pace of modern life. ...Dr. Chaoul, originally from Argentina, holds a doctoral degree in religious studies from Rice University. He is currently a faculty member in the Integrative Medicine Program of MD Anderson Cancer Center where he has been teaching mind, body and spirit practices since 1999. (Hazen, 5/9)

Kaiser Health News: Use Of Psychiatric Drugs Soars In California Jails

The number of jail inmates in California taking psychotropic drugs has jumped about 25 percent in five years, and they now account for about a fifth of the county jail population across the state, according to a new analysis of state data. The increase could reflect the growing number of inmates with mental illness, though it also might stem from better identification of people in need of treatment, say researchers from California Health Policy Strategies (CHPS), a Sacramento-based consulting firm. (Gorman, 5/8)

At the beginning of 2017, Republicans promised to release the kraken on Obamacare — to destroy the program with one devastating blow. But a funny thing happened: Voters realized that repealing the Affordable Care Act would mean taking health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans. They didn’t like that prospect — and enough Republicans balked at the backlash that Obamacare repeal fizzled. (Paul Krugman, 5/7)

As the battle over the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called ObamaCare, shifts to the states, there are movements afoot at both the federal and state levels that skeptical conservatives are keeping their eyes on. The first is the growing belief that in the absence of the individual mandate penalty, which was eliminated as part of federal tax reform legislation that passed in December 2017, the entire law is now unconstitutional, because without the mandate’s fine — or “tax,” as Chief Justice John Roberts declared in the 2012 case upholding the ACA — Roberts’ entire justification for defending the legislation has disappeared. President Trump could simply issue an executive order saying as much, and so long ObamaCare. (Sarah Lee and Justin Haskins, 5/8)

When you go to the hospital for a scheduled procedure, you ought to be able to find out the price in advance. Today, the chances of anything that consumer-friendly happening are slim to none, but times could be changing. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar recently told a group of hospital executives that the Trump administration was committed to transparency in health care pricing. And a number of states have already enacted laws requiring providers to post prices of the goods and services they are selling. Price transparency has never been more important. In recent decades, as the cost of American health care has skyrocketed, patients have been paying an increasing share of the burden, often through health plans that have higher out-of-pocket expenses. (5/7)

In contrast, Surgery Center of Oklahoma offers hundreds of procedures and lists the price of each on its website. Patients across the country can compare SCO’s clear prices with guesstimates from elsewhere. That saves patients money and puts pressure on prices, even in other states. Why not require every facility to be as transparent as SCO? (Robert Graboyes, 5/7)

Almost always, when I point out the difficulties of enacting some social program much desired by the left, I am met with some version of the following rejoinder: “Other countries have managed to do this. We passed Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and most recently, Obamacare. It is obviously possible to do these sorts of things, even in America. The obstructionism of people like you is the only reason we can’t have nice things.” (Megan McArdle, 5/7)

After more than eight years of promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Republican-led Congress has yet to pass legislation that would replace Obamacare, which has forced millions of Americans to lose their doctors, caused dramatic increases in health insurance premiums and deductibles, and pushed millions more into Medicaid. However, a relatively small provision included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December 2017, gives President Trump the ability to achieve what his party has failed to accomplish — ending the disastrous Obamacare program — and without the approval of Congress. (Justin Haskins and Sarah Lee, 5/7)

One in seven Kentuckians has food on their table in part thanks to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The program lifts 164,000 Kentuckians, including 73,000 children, out of poverty. It sends nearly $1 billion a year to grocery stores and our state economy, and injects even more into our local communities during hard times when they most need it. For decades, SNAP has been a program with broad-based, bipartisan support because all of us value making sure everyone has enough to eat.But this vital assistance is in jeopardy if Congress agrees to the $17 billion in cuts to SNAP in the proposed Farm Bill. (5/7)

Imagine you’re living with type 2 diabetes. You’ve been trying to manage the condition for years with a typical medication. What if instead of metformin — a drug that works to lower sugar in the blood, — our doctor could simply prescribe meals tailored to your unique diagnosis that help control your blood sugar? A growing body of research indicates that such a shift in treatment, away from Big Pharma and towards common-sense treatment measures, is the future of U.S. health care. (Karen Pearl, 5/7)

What began as a single opioid lawsuit in Ohio is now the only such case that matters. Every significant opioid lawsuit in the U.S. has been lumped together into a giant case before one federal judge in Cleveland who has declared his extraordinary ambition to “solve” the crisis in 2018. Judge Dan Polster is bringing before him all the major companies involved, including drug manufacturers like Purdue Pharma, distributors like McKesson and retailers like CVS. Other parties swept into Cleveland—some of which haven’t even sued yet—include the Justice Department, several Native American tribes, more than 40 states, and hundreds of counties, cities and people. New cases will continue to be added. (Abbe R. Gluck, 5/7)

About a decade ago, the e-cigarette industry began to boom in the United States, largely unregulated. Vaping was much safer than conventional smoking, and the devices helped some longtime smokers to moderate their highly deadly habit, but e-cigarettes also addicted a generation of new nicotine users. Now, finally, the Food and Drug Administration is stepping in more forcefully to encourage the positive effects of e-cigarettes and discourage the drawbacks. (5/7)

I have some unfortunate news: Now that spring is here and we’re forced to do unpleasant things like “go outside,” there’s a good chance we’re all going to be killed by mosquitoes.Well, not just mosquitoes. Ticks and fleas will also take part in the swift consumption of humanity. (Rex Huppke, 5/7)

In the future, medicine will be tailored to your individual “genome” or genetic code, lifestyle and community. Rather than a one-size-fits-most treatment, doctors will use data to determine what therapies you should receive based on genetic traits you’ve inherited from family, your daily habits, and where you live. But how do we get there? (Arielle Kane, 5/8)

Where does sanity end and mental illness begin? It’s a shifting boundary, one based as much on culture as it is on our understanding of the brain and mental health. The American public harbors deep collective anxieties about mental health that are continually being stirred up. Take Steven Soderbergh’s most recent film, “Unsane,” which tells the story of a woman who is committed against her will to a mental institution and becomes trapped, unable to convince anyone that she doesn’t belong there. Released in March, the trailer has garnered nearly 17 million views. Or look at the public response to recent revelations by NBA star Kevin Love about his panic attacks, Mariah Carey about her bipolar disorder, and Chrissy Teigen about her struggle with postpartum depression. Along with a spate of new documentary and fictional films about mental illness, including “Unsane,” these reflect the cultural significance of mental illnesses. (Rebecca A. Seligman, 5/8)

Thankfully, several organizations and the people who work for them are making strides to change the mental health stigma. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) -- a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide -- launched an ad campaign in January called Seize The Awkward. The goal is to empower teens and young adults to start a conversation with or offer help to a friend who is struggling with mental illness. LifeAct is a Cleveland-based organization committed to informing teens about depression and suicide prevention. Last year, its instructors educated more than 25,000 middle and high school students in Northeast Ohio at no cost to schools. As a result, 2,130 teens sought additional help. (Katie Khoury, 5/6)

In 2012 California enacted a law that bars licensed mental health providers from engaging in therapy designed to change the sexual orientation of patients under the age of 18. Now the state Senate is considering a sequel of sorts. But this new legislation is broader in its application — so broad that some critics are claiming that it could be used to interfere with the sale of religious books, even the Bible. Such fears may be farfetched. But AB 2943, which was passed by the Assembly last month, contains ambiguities that need to be cleared up if the legislation is to become law. (5/7)

After a stressed-out mother called me several times recently to help deal with her 11-year-old son, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and accused of acting out at school, I set up a wrestling-as-therapy session.In mentoring school-age boys, it helps to channel emotion and let it dissipate so clear thinking can take over. This particular 20-minute session at the Baltimore Police Academy seemed like forever. This boy had a lot of pent up rage, and as I pinned him down during our session, it broke my heart to see him hold back tears and refuse with every twitching muscle to allow himself to be vulnerable.And yet, I whispered in his ear that it was OK to feel. I refused to let him go.As founder of Project Pneuma — where we teach young men the art of forgiveness, self-control and discipline — I see what our kids are going through on daily basis. What’s being diagnosed as an attention deficit disorder is very likely to be a symptom of trauma, especially in the homes and communities of black children. (Damion J. Cooper,5/3)

All around us are reminders of how important happiness is in people’s lives: in TED talks, in the practice of meditation, in the annual World Happiness Report, and in advice on how to embrace positivity. Though the concept has been addressed at least since Aristotle explored the meaning of “eudaimonia” (commonly translated as human happiness or welfare), the study of the nature of happiness — known as positive psychology — did not emerge as an academic field until the 1990s. Today, positive psychology informs everything from marketing to sports management to the most popular class at Yale, a course nicknamed “Happiness 101.”Ironically, positive psychology was born in misery and war — long before the current version, with its emphasis on scientific study of positive human functioning and resilience, emerged with self-consciousness and institutional heft in the 1990s. (Daniel Horowitz, 5/6)  

A perfect example of the important role of the courts in our daily lives is playing out right now in the U.S. Supreme Court with National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. This case will determine if the First Amendment’s free speech clause allows anti-abortion counseling centers in Florida, and across the nation, to deceive women. (Amy Weintraub, 5/5)

Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist, has spent his life treating contagious diseases: cholera, tuberculosis, H.I.V. — and for the last 23 years, violence. Yes, violence. A disease is a condition with identifiable symptoms that causes sickness or death. That describes violence. And we know it spreads itself. There is overwhelming evidence that hurt people hurt other people. Children who grow up in poverty and misery do not commit violence — unless they experienced it. If they were chronically exposed to violence as a child, they are more than 31 times more likely than other people to behave violently themselves. (Tina Rosenberg, 5/8)