Administration Rejects Idaho’s Attempt To Skirt Health Law Rules, But Offers Another Path Forward
Idaho invited insurers to submit coverage plans that don't measure up to the health law's requirements. While CMS Administrator Seema Verma said the government has a duty to enforce and uphold the law, she also suggested that with slight modifications the coverage could be legally offered as a short-term plan.
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Blocks Idaho’s Plan To Circumvent Health Law
The Trump administration rejected on Thursday Idaho’s plan to allow the sale of stripped-down, low-cost health insurance that violates the Affordable Care Act. The 2010 statute “remains the law, and we have a duty to enforce and uphold the law,” Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a letter to the governor of Idaho, C. L. Otter. (Pear, 3/8)
In other national health care news —
The New York Times:
Trump Draws ‘Lively’ Opinions On Video Game Violence But Shrouds His Own
President Trump on Thursday began the next leg of a listening tour he promised after last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., eliciting heated opinions at the White House from critics of violent video games and from game makers who reject any connection to mass shootings, but offering no concrete views of his own. In broaching the subject after a mass school shooting, Mr. Trump was traveling a path well worn by his predecessors going back for decades. But his approach was all his own. (Rogers, 3/8)
The New York Times:
How One Child’s Sickle Cell Mutation Helped Protect The World From Malaria
Thousands of years ago, a special child was born in the Sahara. At the time, this was not a desert; it was a green belt of savannas, woodlands, lakes and rivers. Bands of hunter-gatherers thrived there, catching fish and spearing hippos. A genetic mutation had altered the child’s hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that ferries oxygen through the body. It was not harmful; there are two copies of every gene, and the child’s other hemoglobin gene was normal. The child survived, had a family and passed down the mutation to future generations. (Zimmer, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
After Addiction Comes Families’ Second Blow: The Crushing Cost Of Rehab
Michelle and Darin Vandecar have spent nearly all their time and energy in recent years trying to help their drug-addicted sons stay clean. They’ve spent nearly all their money, too. The Salt Lake City-area couple amassed $120,000 of credit-card debt, took out a home-equity loan and cleaned out part of their 401(k) to pay for multiple rounds of addiction treatment for their three sons, aged 18, 20 and 23. Their insurance covered some of the costs, but because their out-of-pocket expenses were so steep, they sold motorcycles and other belongings to raise cash. (Whalen, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
Police Have A New Tool In Their Arsenal: Mental-Health Professionals
Police departments nationwide have started teaming up officers with therapists in situations involving the mentally ill, largely in the hope of avoiding the type of incident that recently landed a New York Police Department sergeant on trial for murder. The move to create what some departments call “co-response teams” of officers and clinicians has been adopted or expanded in recent years in Salt Lake City, Houston, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Officials in these cities say clinicians can bring meaningful insight to delicate situations, and can help prevent mentally ill people from harming themselves or others. (Kanno-Youngs, 3/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Abortion Provisions Lead To Tensions Over Spending Bill
A push from the White House and congressional Republicans to add new antiabortion provisions into a sweeping spending bill has divided lawmakers as they work to reach a deal that will fund the government beyond mid-March. Republican lawmakers want to expand restrictions that already prevent federal funding from going to abortions, and they also want to fully cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has long been a target of conservatives. (Peterson and Armour, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
FDA Approval Of 23andMe Kit Is Latest Example Of Agency’s Course Reversal
Federal health officials this week allowed a genetic testing firm to sell kits to consumers to test whether they carry gene mutations that put them at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The action, part of a broader regulatory shift, is the first time the Food and Drug Administration has allowed a company—in this case 23andMe Inc.—to market such a cancer-risk test directly to the public. (Burton, 3/9)