FBI Background Checks Were Waived For Caregivers, Mental Health Workers At Immigration Detention Camps For Teens

The Associated Press: US Waived FBI Checks On Staff At Growing Teen Migrant Camp
The Trump administration has put the safety of thousands of teens at a migrant detention camp at risk by waiving FBI fingerprint checks for their caregivers and short-staffing mental health workers, according to an Associated Press investigation and a new federal watchdog report. None of the 2,100 staffers at a tent city holding more than 2,300 teens in the remote Texas desert are going through rigorous FBI fingerprint background checks, according to a Health and Human Services inspector general memo published Tuesday. (11/27)

ProPublica: Family Separations Are Still Happening At The Texas Border
The Trump administration has quietly resumed separating immigrant families at the border, in some cases using vague or unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing or minor violations against the parents, including charges of illegally re-entering the country, as justification. Over the last three months, lawyers at Catholic Charities, which provides legal services to immigrant children in government custody in New York, have discovered at least 16 new separation cases. (Thompson, 11/27)

The Associated Press: Texas Detention Camp For Teen Migrants Keeps Growing
The Trump administration announced in June it would open a temporary shelter for up to 360 migrant children in this isolated corner of the Texas desert. Less than six months later, the facility has expanded into a detention camp holding thousands of teenagers — and it shows every sign of becoming more permanent. (11/27)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: At FDA, A New Goal, Then A Push For Speedy Device Reviews
Dr. Jeffrey Shuren was adamant: The United States would never cut corners to fast-track the approval of medical devices. "We don't use our people as guinea pigs in the U.S.," Shuren said, holding firm as the new director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's medical devices division. Again and again in 2011 — four times in all — Shuren was summoned before Congress. Lawmakers accused the agency of being too slow and too demanding in reviewing new devices like heart valves and spinal implants, driving U.S. manufacturers overseas where products faced less rigorous review. Each time, he pushed back. And yet the next year, Shuren and his team adopted an approach that surprised even some of his closest colleagues: The FDA would strive to be "first in the world" to approve devices it considered important to public health. (11/27)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Has A Plan If Federal Judge Strikes Down ACA 
The CMS has a plan to protect pre-existing conditions and Americans' access to care even if a federal judge overturns the Affordable Care Act, CMS Adminstrator Seema Verma said Tuesday. A slew of Republican state attorneys general have challenged the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law, and that lawsuit may be decided any day. (Dickson, 11/27)

Modern Healthcare: ACA Reinsurance Lowers Premiums, But Fails To Attract More Insurers 
Reinsurance programs have successfully stabilized individual insurance premiums and boosted enrollment in Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon, but the programs have been less effective at attracting more insurers to sell individual plans in those states, according to a report released Tuesday. The three states were the first to implement reinsurance programs in 2018 under Section 1332 waivers in hopes of shoring up their individual markets amid rising premiums and dwindling insurer participation. Their efforts have proven mostly successful, illustrating the value of pursuing state solutions when federal policy is uncertain, researchers at Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms concluded. (Livingston, 11/27)

The Hill: Generic EpiPen Not Any Cheaper Than Existing Version
A generic competitor to the EpiPen won’t cost any less than the version already on the market, despite the Trump administration touting it as a cheaper alternative. Teva Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday said its drug is now available in limited quantities in the United States, for a wholesale cost of $300. The drug already on the market from original manufacturer Mylan also costs $300. (Weixel, 11/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Big Tech Expands Footprint In Health
Amazon.com Inc. is starting to sell software that mines patient medical records for information doctors and hospitals could use to improve treatment and cut costs. The move is the latest by a big technology company into health care, an industry where it sees opportunities for growth. The market for storing and analyzing health information is worth more than $7 billion a year, according to research firm Grand View Research, a business in which International Business Machines Corp.’s Watson Health and UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s Optum already compete. (Evans and Stevens, 11/27)

USA Today: Hundreds In The United States Die Each Year From Alcohol Withdrawal
About 16 million people in the United States have alcohol use disorder, which the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism define as "compulsive alcohol use, loss of control over alcohol intake, and a negative emotional state when not using." For those experiencing the most serious symptom of withdrawal – the shaking, shivering, sweating and confusion of delirium tremens, or the DTs – the death rate has been estimated as high as 4 percent, or 1 in 25. Of patients admitted to one hospital in Spain with alcohol withdrawal syndrome from 1987 to 2003, a research team there found, 6.6 percent died. That's roughly 1 in 15. (O'Donnell, 11/27)