Trump Administration Opened Door To Step Therapy And Insurance Giant Plans To Rush In

Stat: Insurance Giant Will Require Medicare Beneficiaries To Try ‘Step Therapy’ 
One of the nation’s largest health insurers will use “step therapy” in some of its private Medicare plans next year, requiring patients to try cheaper drugs before pricey biologics and other costly medicines. The decision by UnitedHealthcare is among the first signs that insurers plan to take advantage of a Trump administration initiative that policymakers argue will bring down drug costs for consumers. (Swetlitz, 10/12)

In other national health care news —

Stat: Even As They Scold Drug Distributors, Lawmakers Take Their Campaign Cash 
In this election season, lawmakers are taking on drug distributors with abandon, and many seem to relish the role. “I just want you to feel shame,” one member of Congress said in May to five executives of major drug wholesalers, which are accused of worsening the opioid crisis by dumping thousands of addictive painkillers into small towns. ...In the run-up to next month’s midterm elections, the country’s three largest distributors alone have given nearly $3 million to congressional campaigns. Key lawmakers from both parties — including many of the ones who publicly shamed the companies for their role in the crisis — have accepted the contributions eagerly. (Facher, 10/12)

The New York Times: Most White Americans’ DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases
The genetic genealogy industry is booming. In recent years, more than 15 million people have offered up their DNA — a cheek swab, some saliva in a test-tube — to services such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com in pursuit of answers about their heritage. In exchange for a genetic fingerprint, individuals may find a birth parent, long-lost cousins, perhaps even a link to Oprah or Alexander the Great. But as these registries of genetic identity grow, it’s becoming harder for individuals to retain any anonymity. (Murphy, 10/11)

The Washington Post: Percentage Of Young U.S. Children Who Don’t Receive Any Vaccines Has Quadrupled Since 2001
A small but increasing number of children in the United States are not getting some or all of their recommended vaccinations. The percentage of children under 2 years old who haven’t received any vaccinations has quadrupled in the last 17 years, according to federal health data released Thursday. Overall, immunization rates remain high and haven’t changed much at the national level. But a pair of reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about immunizations for preschoolers and kindergartners highlights a growing concern among health officials and clinicians about children who aren’t getting the necessary protection against vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, whooping cough and other pediatric infectious diseases. (Sun, 10/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Can Typos Give Insight Into Your Mental Health?
The latest wearable technology can reliably track heart beats and notify users of any irregularities. Up next? Reliably tracking your brain and mental health. A team of researchers at the Center on Depression and Resilience at the University of Illinois at Chicago is working on technology that could monitor users’ mood and cognition—important indicators of mental-health stress—by tracking their typing patterns with an iPhone app called BiAffect. Initial research has found it is possible to predict episodes of mania and depression among users with bipolar and major depressive disorder based on changes in their typing habits. (Higgins, 10/11)

The Washington Post: Scientists Grow Tiny Human Retinas In A Dish
Kiara Eldred sometimes compares her nine-month-long scientific experiments, growing tiny human retinas in a laboratory dish, to raising children. Eldred, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, starts by growing thousands of stem cells and feeding them nutrients and chemicals that will steer them to develop into the retina, the part of the eye that translates light into the signals that lead to vision. After two weeks of painstaking cultivation, those cells typically generate 20 to 60 tiny balls of cells, called retinal organoids. As they mature, these nascent retinas get dirty and slough off lots of cells, so they also need to be washed off when they’re fed every other day — at least for the first month and a half. (Johnson, 10/11)