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The Trump administration is clearing the way for insurers to sell short-term health plans as a bargain alternative to pricey Obama-law policies for people struggling with high premiums. But the policies don’t have to cover existing medical conditions and offer limited benefits. It’s not certain if that’s going to translate into broad consumer appeal among people who need an individual policy. Officials say the plans can now last up to 12 months and be renewed for up to 36 months. But there’s no federal guarantee of renewability. Plans will carry a disclaimer that they don’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s requirements and safeguards. More details were expected Wednesday. “We make no representation that it’s equivalent coverage,” said Jim Parker, a senior adviser at the Health and Human Services Department. “But what we do know is that there are individuals today who have been priced out of coverage.” (Alonso-Zaldivar, 8/1)

The new plans will provide “much less expensive health care at a much lower price,” Mr. Trump said. The prices may be lower because the benefits will be fewer, and insurers do not have to cover pre-existing conditions or the people who have them. (Pear, 8/1)

Kaiser Health News: Trump Administration Loosens Restrictions On Short-Term Health Plans

The rule will “help increase choices for Americans faced with escalating premiums and dwindling options in the individual market, said James Parker, a senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. But the plans could also raise premiums for those who remain in the Affordable Care Act marketplace — and the short-term coverage is far more limited. (Appleby, 8/1)

The new rules are the second tool the administration has devised lately to foster low-price insurance that circumvents the Affordable Care Act’s coverage requirements and consumer protections. In June, the Labor Department issued rules that will make it easier for small companies to buy a type of insurance known as association health plans and, for the first time, allow them to be sold to people who are self-employed. The pair of new rules carries out an executive order President Trump signed in October, directing agencies to broaden access to these two small niches in the insurance market to promote “a health-care system that provides high-quality care at affordable prices for the American people.” (Goldstein, 8/1)

After the administration issued the proposed rule to expand short-term limited-duration insurance back in February, many insurers, provider groups, and consumer advocates said plans could harm consumers who don't understand the limitations of the coverage they are buying. Critics also argued that premiums in the individual market would rise as young, healthy people leave exchanges that need those young people to balance out the risk pool. The final rule largely ignores their concerns. (Livingston, 8/1)

Health analysts say the short-term plans that would be allowed under the new proposal would likely appeal to healthier customers seeking inexpensive alternatives to ACA plans, while higher-risk consumers would remain in traditional insurance coverage. That could cause their premiums to rise, because healthier consumers are needed on the ACA’s individual market exchanges to offset costs of older and sicker people, analysts say. (Armour, 8/1)

The new rules take effect in 60 days, before the next Obamacare enrollment season opens Nov. 1. CMS, which oversees the ACA insurance marketplaces, expects Obamacare enrollment to shrink by 500,000 next year — and by 1.3 million over a decade — because of the increased availability of short-term plans. (Demko, 8/1)

Enrollment in the individual health insurance market — the market for people who don't get coverage through work — has declined 12 percent in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period last year, according to a new analysis released Tuesday. The analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed enrollment in the individual market grew substantially after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and remained steady in 2016, before dropping by 12 percent in 2017. (Hellmann, 7/31)

North Carolina's largest health insurer said Tuesday it's cutting some individual premiums for the first time in over a quarter century, but next year's savings on subsidized "Obamacare" coverage would have been much larger if Washington had left the law alone. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina said it proposed prices to state insurance regulators that could lower rates for next year's Affordable Care Act policies by 4.1 percent on average. North Carolina has one of the country's highest enrollment levels in ACA policies and Blue Cross has more than 475,000 customers in the plans offered in all 100 counties. (7/31)

Not until the day it was announced did senior officials from three key agencies learn of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to deter migrants from illegally entering the United States by threatening jail sentences and separating children from their parents. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, the officials said they were given few instructions and had no plans for reuniting the families when the policy was announced on April 6. One official, Cmdr. Jonathan D. White of the United States Public Health Service, said he learned of it from watching television. (Nixon, 7/31)

A senior official at the U.S. agency charged with caring for migrant children believed separating them from their parents carried "significant risk" of harm and said on Tuesday concerns had been raised internally before the Trump administration made it official policy. Jonathan White, a senior U.S. Public Health Service official, told Congress that the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where he worked until March 2018, had "raised a number of concerns" about the proposed policy in the year preceding its implementation. (Torbati and Cowan, 7/31)

"There is no question that separation of children from parents entails significant potential for traumatic psychological injury to the child," Commander Jonathan White, a Health and Human Services official who led the agency’s family reunification efforts, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at Congress’s first hearing on the separations of thousands of families at the border. Senators of both parties demanded answers from White and other Trump administration officials, and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign to accept responsibility for violating the nation’s "bedrock values" on families. He said that, "incredibly," Nielsen had claimed on Twitter that the U.S. didn’t "have a policy of separating families at the border. Period." (Epstein, 7/31)

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s ruling Monday orders the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to move immigrant children out of the Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas, and into less restrictive housing unless a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist determines that a child “poses a risk of harm to self or others.” The judge’s order, issued in a federal court in California as part of a long-running class-action case, affects about 25 immigrant children held at Shiloh, a collection of small buildings and trailers on rural land south of Houston with a troubled history. (Williams and Smith, 7/31)

Senators escalated a bitter dispute over Brett M. Kavanaugh’s documents — signaling a contentious confirmation fight ahead for the Supreme Court nominee even as senators on Tuesday successfully installed another appellate judge under President Trump. Infuriated with Republicans for requesting only a portion of Kavanaugh’s records from his tenure in the George W. Bush White House, Democratic senators sent a wide-ranging request to the National Archives demanding that his entire paper trail be provided to Congress. (Kim, 7/31)

Republican senators expected to hold key votes on President Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court are showing subtle signs of support for the effort to put Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the bench. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine said Tuesday that they were satisfied with the GOP plan to limit the scope of documents to be released regarding Kavanaugh’s record, despite Democrats’ call for a fuller review of the candidate’s work in Washington, particularly his years as staff secretary in the George W. Bush White House. (Wire, 7/31)

Governors from a growing number of states are fighting back against a proposal by the Trump administration to bar clinics that provide abortion services or referrals from receiving federal family-planning funds. New York's Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and 13 others have threatened to sue. Washington state's Jay Inslee, Oregon's Kate Brown and Hawaii's David Ige, also Democrats, vowed to pull their states from the program if the changes are implemented. On Monday, 13 attorneys general, all Democrats, added their voices to the opposition, arguing that the changes are unconstitutional. (Cha, 7/31)

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and 12 other state attorneys general claim that proposed changes to Title X — the only federal program specifically dedicated to supporting the delivery of family planning care — are unconstitutional and would limit care options for women. The group of attorneys general also say, in their written comments submitted on July 30, that the proposed changes would likely cause the closure of federally-funded family planning clinics. (Rigg, 7/31)

Also in May, the administration proposed changes to a set of programs known as Title X, which governs federal family planning funding. Public comment on these proposed changes ends today. Nationwide, a majority of Americans support abortion access, according to years of nationally representative polls. (Santhanam, 7/31)

A federal judge who previously prevented Arkansas from blocking Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood says she won't issue a new ruling requiring the state to resume sending the money to the organization. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker denied a request Monday by Planned Parenthood for a new preliminary injunction that would again halt Arkansas' decision to cut off Medicaid funding to the organization. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson ended the state's Medicaid contract with the group in 2015. (7/31)

The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation. It will soon spend close to 20% of its GDP on health—significantly more than the percentage spent by major Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations. What is driving costs so high? As this series of charts shows, Americans aren’t buying more health care overall than other countries. But what they are buying is increasingly expensive. Among the reasons is the troubling fact that few people in health care, from consumers to doctors to hospitals to insurers, know the true cost of what they are buying and selling. (Walker, 7/31)

Democrats are laying the groundwork to make a push for “Medicare for all” legislation if they win back the House in November. More than 60 House Democrats launched a Medicare for All Congressional Caucus this month, a sign of the popularity surrounding the concept of a government-run health insurance system for everyone that’s supported by liberal firebrands like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Sullivan, 7/31)

As Google's parent company, Alphabet, continues its push into healthcare, it could spur more traditional healthcare technology companies to race to keep up, pushing the industry overall toward more dramatic change. If traditional companies don't innovate quickly, they will fall behind and might lose business, according to analysts and industry leaders. (Arndt, 7/31)

IBM is modifying its Watson software that recommends cancer treatments so that it reflects geographic differences in how patients are treated around the world, according to a recording of a staff meeting reviewed by STAT. That represents a major shift for IBM on a venture that the company has aggressively promoted as having the potential to revolutionize medicine. It has long marketed Watson for Oncology as being based on the expertise of doctors at the prestigious New York cancer center who trained it. (Swetlitz and Ross, 7/31)

Hand-washing — or the lack of it — is a big issue. ... North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale has been testing an Ecolab hand sanitation monitoring system that tracks about 100 caregivers in an oncology ward to see if they sanitize their hands before treating patients. (Moylan, 8/1)

In her third trimester, [Victoria Worden] started treatment using methadone, and when her daughter, Lili, was born, the newborn was started on morphine to help ease her withdrawal and symptoms such as clenched muscles and high-pitched screaming. Worden was allowed to hold, feed and care for her daughter at the hospital during those first few difficult weeks. About 2 percent of infants are estimated to be born drug dependent, and in areas gripped by the opioid crisis, that number is even higher.And as health experts grapple with the problem, they’re increasingly encouraging hospitals to adopt the low-tech but relatively new treatment approach that Worden was offered. (Smith, 8/1)

One in three Texans knows someone addicted to prescription painkillers, according to a new poll that depicts the reach of the opioid crisis in the Lone Star State. White and wealthier Texans are more likely to know someone who has suffered drug addiction, according to the 2018 Texas Lyceum issue poll released Tuesday. While the opioid crisis has hammered states in the Midwest and Northeast, Texas isn’t immune. More than 1,170 Texans died in 2015 from overdosing on opioids, the highest number in over a decade, according to state data. Bexar and Harris Counties accounted for at least 111 and 239 of the overdose deaths that year, respectively. (Morris, 7/31)

Kaiser Health News: Patients With Chronic Pain Feel Caught In An Opioid-Prescribing Debate

It started with a rolled ankle during a routine Army training exercise. Shannon Hubbard never imagined it was the prologue to one of the most debilitating pain conditions known to exist, called ­­­­­­­complex regional pain syndrome. The condition causes the nervous system to go haywire, creating pain disproportionate to the actual injury. It can also affect how the body regulates temperature and blood flow. (Stone, 8/1)

As its formal session barreled toward a close early Wednesday, the Massachusetts Legislature passed broad changes to how the state targets the opioid epidemic, but it failed to reach deals on major legislation addressing health care and the state’s school funding formula. The success — and death — of several closely watched pieces of legislation buffeted state lawmakers’ dash to wrap any remaining formal business from the past 19 months. (Stout, Freyer and Dayal McCluskey, 7/31)

For years, Cody Wilson, a champion of gun-rights and anarchism from Texas, has waged a battle to post on the internet the blueprints for making plastic guns on 3-D printers, claiming the First Amendment gives him the right to do it. Plastic guns are difficult to detect, and concerned about making it easier to produce them, the Obama administration had used export laws banning the foreign distribution of firearms to prevent publication of the blueprints. But an abrupt reversal by the State Department last month appeared to finally clear the path for Mr. Wilson to usher in what his website calls “the age of the downloadable gun.” (Shear, Hsu and Johnson, 7/31)

The ruling came in response to legal action Monday by eight states seeking to block a pro-gun group, Defense Distributed, from posting the files. “The proliferation of these firearms will have many of the negative impacts on a state level that the federal government once feared on the international stage” if an injunction isn’t issued, U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik wrote in a seven-page ruling. The judge set a hearing for Aug. 10 to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction. (Elinson and Nicholas, 7/31)

Washington state Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson called the ruling "a complete, total victory." "We were asking for a nationwide temporary restraining order putting a halt to this outrageous decision by the federal government to allow these 3-D downloadable guns to be available around our country and around the world. He granted that relief," Ferguson said at a news conference after the hearing. "That is significant." (7/31)

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was “looking into” the availability of plans for the 3D printing of guns, writing on Twitter that he had already been in touch with the NRA on the issue. “I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!” the president wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. (Nelson, 7/31)

The National Institutes of Health received $7.5 billion in funding in 1990 — an amount that was seen as so paltry that Congress decided the country’s biomedical researchers needed help. So lawmakers found a way to aid the NIH in a delicate ethical dance: They created a nonprofit that could turn to pharmaceutical manufacturers and soda companies to fund research into their fields, all while attempting to prevent the science from being compromised by the big-money interests picking up the tab. (Facher, 8/1)

In the United States, suicide rates have spiked in the past two decades — and Minnesota has seen one of the biggest jumps, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health officials are working to figure out why, and how to respond. (Wurzer, 7/31)

Alan Alda has been living with Parkinson’s disease for over three years, the actor revealed Tuesday in an appearance on CBS’s “This Morning.” “The reason I want to talk about it in public is that I was diagnosed three-and-a-half years ago, and I’ve had a full life since,” he said. “I thought it’s probably only a matter of time before somebody does a story about this from a sad point of view,” he added, pointing out that one of his thumbs had been twitching in recent TV appearances. “But that’s not where I am.” (Marshall, 7/31)

At the height of summer, naps at the beach can be alluring, and many of us may find ourselves tempted to take prolonged vacations from exercise. But two new, admonitory studies involving both older and younger adults who temporarily cut back on their physical activity indicate that the metabolic consequences of not moving much for a few weeks can be pervasive and persistent, lingering to some extent even after people start moving around normally again. (Reynolds, 8/1)

With some patients, including Geraldina, the standard antibiotic treatment doesn’t work. Disagreements about treatment are part of a wide-ranging controversy over Lyme disease, which extends to the issues of testing, diagnosis, nomenclature and even the type of tick that’s transmitting the infection. (Morrow and Miller, 7/31)

The first rule of soccer is pretty obvious: don't use your hands. But soccer's signature move, heading the ball, can cause a detectable impact on players' brains. And according to a study published Tuesday in Radiology, female players are more sensitive to the impact than males. The study authors found that female amateur soccer players who frequently head balls showed more white matter brain alterations than their male counterparts. The study included 49 women and 49 men, ages 18 to 50, and examined MRI imaging of players' brains. Each female player was compared to a male player of a similar age and with other similar characteristics including frequency of heading exposure. (Watson, 7/31)

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, along with several other development agencies, has brokered an agreement to make routine HIV tests more accessible. They're aiming to make HIV viral load tests available for $12 a piece, slashing the price in some markets by more than 50 percent. (Beaubien, 7/31)

Women make up just 5% of the active physicians in orthopedic surgery, according to a 2015 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The percentage is likely to rise, but only marginally, with data showing that about 14% of orthopedic residents are women. Those low numbers mean that women have less opportunity to make a big impact on patient care and increase the wage gap between male and female doctors. Women orthopedic surgeons on average made $40,953 less than their male counterparts, according to a 2016 JAMA Internal Medicine study. (Castellucci, 7/28)

A study pioneered by a Sutter Sacramento doctor has determined Ibuprofen is safe for children under 6 months old. Ibuprofen is primarily used on infants to treat fever, but children 6 months old or younger need a prescription to be treated with ibuprofen. (Holzer, 7/31)

When actors in the play "Forget Me Not" take the stage tonight at the Grandel Theatre in St. Louis, they’ll have an important mission. They aim to raise awareness that African-Americans have a higher incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than whites, and to provide tips about how to recognize the symptoms of the brain disease. (Goodwin, 8/1)

The number of former patients suing USC for allegedly failing to protect them from sexual abuse at a campus health clinic increased to more than 300 this week amid a new push by university faculty to speed the departure of the outgoing president, C.L. Max Nikias. The university’s trustees announced in May that Nikias had “agreed to begin an orderly transition” to a new president. At the time, the move appeared to be an attempt to quell outrage by professors and students over the handling of Dr. George Tyndall, the longtime campus gynecologist who was the subject of repeated complaints during his three decades at the student health center. (Ryan and Hamilton, 7/31)

For more than two decades, pregnant New Yorkers who desired a natural birth environment with access to medical interventions have flocked to the only full-service hospital where that type of experience was a cab ride away: Mount Sinai West on Manhattan’s West Side. That option will be gone after December. (West, 7/31)

Virginia has launched a new program connecting all emergency rooms to a new program designed to streamline and speed up doctors’ access to patient information. Officials said the Emergency Department Care Coordination Program is the first of its kind in the country. Gov. Ralph Northam said at a news conference Tuesday that the program is a “huge step in the right direction.” Northam, a pediatric neurologist, said the program will give doctors the tools to improve care while cutting unnecessary costs. (8/1)

Most Texans disapprove of how Congress and the federal government are handling the country’s health care issues despite supporting the Medicaid and Medicare programs, according to a poll by the Texas Lyceum released Tuesday. Of the 1,178 adult Texans polled, 71 percent said they had little or no trust in the federal government to do what’s best for Texans when it comes to health care. (Chang, 7/31)

Most Massachusetts hospitals — 49 out of 62 — were profitable last year, according to a new analysis from the state Center for Health Information and Analysis. ...The median operating margin for acute-care hospitals last year in Massachusetts was 1.6 percent. That’s down from 2.8 percent in 2016 and 3.2 percent in 2015. In 2014, the median operating margin was 2.4 percent. (Dayal McCluskey, 8/1)

While a growing number of Texas parents opt out of having their children vaccinated, a new poll shows that 86 percent of Texas Republican voters want children to receive vaccines before starting school. The poll found the vast majority of Republican primary voters want schoolchildren immunized, an increasingly contentious issue in the Legislature. In recent sessions, some GOP members have sponsored bills to make opting out of vaccinations easier and opposed bills to make each school report its opt-out numbers. (Ackerman, 7/31)

A Massachusetts state prison is expanding the graveyard where it buries inmates who die in custody, one consequence of the state's huge increase in aging prisoners. And as more inmates age and die behind bars, the cost of their care is skyrocketing, fueling new efforts to release prisoners who are too old or sick to pose a threat. (Burrell and McKim, 8/1)

UnitedHealthcare is paying a $2.5 million fine in New Jersey after regulators alleged various insurance violations ranging from a failure to promptly comply with outside appeals of coverage decisions to wrongly telling people they couldn't buy individual insurance policies due to medical conditions. The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance said last week the fine was the largest issued by the agency against a licensee in nine years. (Snowbeck, 7/31)

Greg Manteufel’s symptoms began with fever and vomiting, as if he had the flu. But by the following morning, he was delirious, and his temperature had soared. His wife rushed him to the hospital, a quick drive from their Wisconsin home. Once they arrived, Dawn Manteufel said she noticed bruises — several of them, all over his body — that weren’t there when they left their house just five minutes earlier. To Dawn, it was as if her husband had just been beaten with a baseball bat. (Phillips, 7/31)

The Monterey County agricultural commissioner plans to issue a single fine of up to $5,000 against a Salinas produce company that employed 17 celery workers sickened in a pesticide drift incident last year. The commissioner's decision has angered farmworker advocates and re-energized their push for stronger pesticide enforcement laws. (Goldberg, 7/31)

Johnson County’s proposed $1.1 billion budget for 2019 includes a $3 million increase in spending on mental health services. The money would fund six additional workers at the Johnson County Mental Health Center, including three new case managers who would work with both children and adults. (Okeson-Haberman, 7/31)

Walgreens has bought DaVita prescription-drug unit, which will lead DaVita to lay off 869 employees in Coppell. Coppell-based DaVita Rx employees will be given the opportunity to interview for open positions at Walgreens retail stores and central facility locations, Walgreens said in a statement. ... The employees who do not move to Walgreens will be able to move to a different unit at DaVita, said Skip Thurman, a spokesman for DaVita. The company notified the state of the layoffs this week. (Quigley, 7/31)

Drugmakers will likely get rid of secret discounts to middlemen that have become a focus of the U.S. drug-cost debate, Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ian Read predicted Tuesday. “We’re going to go to a marketplace where we don’t have rebates,” Read told analysts while discussing the company’s second-quarter financial results (Hopkins, 7/31)

"I believe the administration does want to remove rebates, and they consider it a priority," he said in an interview, following similar comments made on Pfizer's conference call to discuss second quarter earnings. The administration has already proposed a rule that would scale back protections currently in place that allow rebates between drug manufacturers and insurers and pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs). Read said he believes the administration wants to get rid of them entirely. (Mathias and Erman, 7/31)

Rebates are essentially a type of discount that drug makers provide pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, off the wholesale, or list price, for their medicines in order to receive favorable placement on formularies, which are lists of insured medicines. But drug makers claim PBMs, which keep a percentage of rebates, demand higher amounts to bolster profits and in turn, they must respond by raising list prices. PBMs counter that rebates blunt price hikes that drug makers regularly take in order to boost their own profits. (Silverman, 7/31)

Pfizer Inc. increased its full-year earnings outlook, a sign of relative confidence in profitability amid weaker revenue and pressure on drug prices from the Trump administration. The New-York-based drugmaker now sees earnings of $2.95 to $3.05 a share, excluding some items, after its second-quarter profit beat Wall Street estimates. Analysts anticipated $2.95 for the full year, on average. (Hopkins, 7/31)

Eli Lilly (LLY) was admonished by a California lawmaker for promoting a diabetes help center for patients who cannot afford their insulin while at the same time failing to lower prices or comply with a new state law that requires drug makers to disclose pricing details. In a harshly worded letter sent on Monday, state Sen. Ed Hernandez, who sponsored the transparency law, criticized the company for touting its Diabetes Solution Center at the same time that prices for insulin, made by several companies, has risen dramatically in recent years. An analysis published two years ago found that the cost of insulin, on average, more than tripled — from $231 to $736 a year per patient — between 2002 and 2013. (Silverman, 7/31)

Kaiser Health News: To Tame Prescription Prices, HHS Dips A Toe Into Drug Importation Stream

It came as something of a surprise when Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced that the administration was exploring the importation of prescription drugs to fight high domestic prices. Azar and Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who also endorsed the new proposal, had previously opposed the idea. But drug prices in the U.S. have continued to rise and more than 80 percent of Americans say the government should take action. President Donald Trump has said drugmakers are “getting away with murder” and has angrily tweeted at companies about individual price hikes. (Bluth, 8/1)

As pharmacy benefit managers come under greater scrutiny for their role in rising drug costs, Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate past mergers that led three companies to dominate the behind-the-scenes middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain. In a July 27 letter, the lawmakers cite ongoing debate over the extent to which pharmacy benefit managers may dampen or accelerate the prices that insured consumers pay for their medicines. Also known as PBMs, these companies negotiate with drug makers for favorable placement on lists of insured medicines, or formularies, which are used by health plans and employers. (Sherman, 7/30)

Aformer Biogen sales rep claims she was fired after complaining the company improperly sought to benefit from a prescription that was written for an unapproved use. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle, Danita Erickson claimed that she suffered retaliation after repeatedly voicing concerns that another sales rep last year sought to receive credit for the improper prescription and submitted paperwork to Medicare with false diagnostic codes. The Zinbryta multiple sclerosis drug was allegedly prescribed by a hematologist for aplastic anemia, according to the lawsuit. (Silverman, 7/30)

Perhaps other countries should be paying more for America's innovative prescription drugs, former pharmaceutical exec Fred Hassan told CNBC. "A lot of wealthy countries, including our neighbor to the north, a lot of the countries in Western Europe, Japan, they should be paying more," Hassan, former chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough, which was acquired by Merck in 2009, said Friday on "Power Lunch." (Ell, 7/27)

It’s been quite a year for Akcea Therapeutics (AKCA). After going public in July 2017, the Cambridge, Mass., company almost immediately filed for FDA approval on two drugs for rare diseases. Volanesorsen, also known as Waylivra, is intended to treat familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS), a condition that leads to a buildup of fat in organs. Inotersen, which has the brand name Tegsedi, treats hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, known as hATTR for short. The condition leads to a buildup of proteins that can cause issues in the nerves and heart. European authorities have already approved inotersen, and the FDA is set to decide on both those drugs before the end of the year. (Sheridan, 8/1)

Spinraza’s sales were a bright spot in Biogen’s second-quarter earning call this month — and that’s very good news for the University of Massachusetts. A university spokesperson could not confirm the exact amounts and Biogen (BIIB) did not respond to a request for comment. However, based on figures provided by one of the inventors, STAT estimated that the university has received about $10.5 million since the FDA approved the drug for spinal muscular atrophy in December 2016. (Sheridan, 7/30)

The Justice Department is investigating claims that major drug and medical device companies doing business in Iraq knew that the free medicines and supplies they gave the government to win business there would be used to underwrite terrorist attacks on American troops. In a regulatory filing last week, AstraZeneca, a drugmaker based in Britain, disclosed that it had “received an inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with an anti-corruption investigation relating to activities in Iraq.” (Harris, 7/31)

The Louisiana Department of Health is working on a new strategy to expand access to a hepatitis C cure, one that involves the state agreeing to pay a drug company for medication for several years in exchange for unlimited access to treatment initially. If a deal is worked out, Louisiana's Health Secretary Rebekah Gee said the state would be able to make substantial progress toward eliminating hepatitis C from Louisiana. The arrangement between the state and drug companies would also likely be the first of its kind in the country, she said during an interview Thursday (July 18). (O'Donoghue, 7/25)

French pharmaceuticals company Sanofi SA SNY 1.00% has been making drug-shortage contingency plans for more than a year to prepare for the U.K. failing to reach a deal with the European Union on Brexit, according to a person familiar with the matter. The move is the latest sign large European companies are worried about the prospects of a hard Brexit, where the U.K. doesn’t reach a deal over its future relationship with the European Union, despite repeated attempts at reassurance from British government officials. (Mancini, 7/31)

Many of the 20 best-selling drugs in the U.S. have seen price increases that far outpace inflation in the past few years. Pharmaceutical companies headquartered in New Jersey produce eight of the medicines on that list. Common drugs used to treat conditions such as arthritis, nerve and muscle pain, and autoimmune diseases increased anywhere from about 8 percent to 19 percent, according to an analysis published by Pharmacy Benefits Consultants, a consulting company based in New Jersey. (Banco, 7/29)

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand promoted the “Stop Price Gouging Act” for prescription medication during a Monday visit to an independent living community. “No matter where I am in our state, one thing I keep hearing over and over again is that New York’s seniors are extremely worried about the high cost of prescription drugs,” Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at Ferris Hills at West Lake. “We must solve this crisis, and one of the most effective ways we can do that is by finally holding drug companies accountable with tough penalties when they spike the price of prescription drugs that New Yorkers need to treat their illnesses.” (7/31)

In May, the President gave his first major speech on lowering drug prices, making good on his campaign promise to go after drug makers to get lower prices for consumers. Following the speech, the White House released the Administration’s blueprint for lowering drug prices. Two months later, some of the details of the plan are now starting to come into focus and we are seeing results. (Michael Steele, 7/26)

During an earnings conference call, the AstraZeneca chief executive disclosed the company would not raise prices in the U.S. for the rest of year. Other drug makers have taken the same step in response to pressure from the Trump administration, but he insisted this was “our plan … all along.” Given the timing, this is questionable. But then Soriot made an even more curious remark. He maintained AstraZeneca was sensitive to the problem by raising wholesale prices earlier this year by “very, very modest” amounts, “between 1 and 3 percent” which, he said, was “in line with inflation.” (Ed Silverman, 7/26)

In today’s polarized political environment, it’s hard to find any issue that an Illinois Democrat and a Florida Republican can agree on. Here’s one: the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs are a scourge that must be dealt with as soon as possible. Drug companies are making record profits and at the same time raising the prices of life-saving prescription drugs more and more every day. What’s worse, drug companies have no legal obligation to justify or explain the massive spikes in drug prices. (Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Francis Rooney, 7/30)

I come to praise Donald Trump, not to bury him. Shocking as it sounds, the president actually had a good idea recently. He may let Americans get cheaper, foreign-made pharmaceuticals in certain circumstances. Trump being Trump, I must qualify my praise. The administration also shot down Massachusetts’ request for authority to lower drug prices, a worthy experiment that should have been given a try. (Rich Barlow, 7/26)

One hardly expects, in the course of normal politics, to see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) thanking the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. And yet here we are. "Thank you, Koch brothers," his Monday night tweet began, "for accidentally making the case for Medicare for All!" You see, the market-oriented Mercatus Center, which takes funding from the Kochs, has a new report out on the costs of the senator's pet project. Under certain assumptions, the report found, Medicare for All would reduce total U.S. health expenditures by about $2 trillion over a 10-year period. (Megan McArdle, 7/31)

A single-payer system will cause the health care sector to implode, with profound implications for the United States and the world's economy. Health care is the largest component of the American economy, 17.9 percentof gross domestic product. Forcing the health care system in the U.S., the best in the history of the world, to be socialized will have profound implications. The government will immediately be put in a position of having higher expenses and less revenues. With health insurance companies gone, so will the tens of billions in tax dollars paid to local, state and federal government from these entities. (Jonathan Yates, 7/31)

In June, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri asked voters at a big political dinner to stand up if they had a pre-existing health condition. She’d been hearing from voters at town hall meetings that they were worried about health care. “I just thought of it frankly at the podium,” she said. “I was just betting this is not that different from my town halls. ”The room was suddenly filled with standing voters. “Even I was stunned just how few people kept their seats,” she said. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 8/1)

Women are essential stakeholders in health care, serving as workers, caregivers, and consumers — yet we do not have an equal voice in its leadership. The facts are overwhelmingly dismal. The percentage of women on Fortune 500 health care executive teams and boards has been nearly flat since 2015, hovering around 22 percent. Another number that hasn’t budged: Only one-third of hospital executives are women. There’s also been little change in the startup world, with women accounting for less than 12 percent of digital health CEOs and venture capital partners. Things just aren’t moving fast enough. (Halle Tecco, 8/1)

There is no question that we can, and should, do more to improve care for new and expectant mothers. Hospitals, physicians and nurses will continue to play a key role in that effort. While our members across the country offer cutting-edge care delivered by highly trained individuals and teams, heartbreaking incidents still occur. These tragedies are being reduced with education offered by professional associations and the government. One preventable complication is one too many. That is why hospitals across the country have led national improvement projects — to test new ideas and disseminate practices that improve care for all. (Jay Bhatt, 7/31)

You read that correctly. About 700 mothers in America die each year in childbirth, many of them needlessly — a maternal death rate far higher than that of other developed nations, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. And 50,000 mothers are severely injured each year in childbirth, USA TODAY found in an investigation published last week.About half of these deaths could be prevented, and half the injuries reduced or eliminated, through simple changes in care that doctors, hospitals and medical experts have known about for years. Yet too many “hospitals and medical workers skip safety practices known to head off disaster,” USA TODAY’s Alison Young wrote. (7/31)

Talk about weaponizing the First Amendment. On Wednesday, a Texas company called Defense Distributed planned to publish blueprints for plastic guns, until last-minute lawsuits aimed at stopping them succeeded late Tuesday. With those plans, which were already posted online and downloaded by thousands, anyone could theoretically make their own undetectable, untraceable firearm with a 3-D printer. The company argued that it had a free-speech right to publish the designs. It may be right: It’s legal to publish guides on how to build homemade bombs. Make-your-own designs for conventional guns have also been published for hobbyists. And Defense Distributed’s weapons are apparently not sophisticated enough to be covered by restrictions on sharing military technology; the State Department told CNN that the designs do not “offer a critical military or intelligence advantage to the United States.” (7/31)

A recent Star Tribune special report on sexual assault (“When rape is reported and nothing happens,” July 22) demonstrates that there is a significant amount of work yet to do to protect victims of sexual assault and violence. It will take all of us — lawmakers, law enforcement and advocates — to ensure that victims are listened to and that our justice system works for them. (Marion O'Neill, 7/31)

Cyberattacks have become a top threat to the United States. Nation-states are frequently targeting and launching attacks against our top corporations, stealing sensitive data, and — politics aside — impacting our national elections. It is only a matter of time until citizens are personally affected by much more than identity theft. (Michael Brown and Edward F. Davis III, 7/31)

The devastating story of Virginia Olthoff's death in a nursing home came to light as my sister and I were looking for a residential rehab care center for our mother. A fall-induced hip fracture had Rasil Basu hospitalized and, as we learned is customary in such cases, she was to be released to a facility for physical and occupational therapy before going home. This was an area we'd had little first-hand knowledge of, since among our extended family in India, older people in need of care tend to get it at home while living with their children. But Olthoff was a resident of the Timely Mission Nursing Home in Buffalo Center. At the time of her death there, she was severely dehydrated and state officials reported that she may not have been given adequate, if any, water for up to two weeks.  Even after the staff couldn’t find her pulse or blood pressure, it took them nearly three hours to call an ambulance. Also, staff later told inspectors Olthoff was often in pain and screaming, but a nurse just "blew it off." (Rekha Basu, 7/31)