- California Healthline Original Stories 4
- Uncertainty Over Federal Money Could Spur Covered California Rate Hikes
- If Insurance Market Crashes, Can Lawmakers Put The Pieces Back Together?
- Former Pharma Reps’ New Mission: To School Docs On High Drug Costs
- Daylight On Diabetes Drugs: Nevada Bill Would Track Insulin Makers’ Profits
Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Uncertainty Over Federal Money Could Spur Covered California Rate Hikes
The state exchange will tell insurers to proceed with significantly higher rates on some 2018 health plans if the feds do not commit by mid-August to continue subsidies that lower out-of-pocket expenses for many consumers. (Emily Bazar, )
If Insurance Market Crashes, Can Lawmakers Put The Pieces Back Together?
Actions by the Trump administration are putting pressure on the fragile market for individuals who buy their own coverage, but analysts say it should be able to rebound. (Julie Rovner, )
Former Pharma Reps’ New Mission: To School Docs On High Drug Costs
One insurer is turning the tables on drugmakers with what may be a new job category: a sales force for cost-effective medicine. (Jay Hancock, )
Daylight On Diabetes Drugs: Nevada Bill Would Track Insulin Makers’ Profits
With the cost of medications up 300 percent in the past decade, supporters see this as a first step to rein in prices. (Emily Kopp, )
More News From Across The State
Stigma About Being 'Go-To' Doctor For Aid-In-Dying Prescriptions May Be Impeding Law
Media outlets offer a look at how California's aid-in-dying law is faring a year in.
KQED:
Physician-Assisted Suicide Has Been Legal In California For A Year. How’s It Going?
California’s End of Life Option Act went into effect on June 9, 2016. The law created a process for dying patients to ask their doctors for a lethal prescription that the patients can then ingest privately, at home. Since then, at least 500 Californians have received life-ending prescriptions, according to newly released data collected by Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that promotes aid-in-dying laws nationwide. (O'Neill, 6/7)
Orange County Register:
A Year After It Passed, California’s Right-To-Die Law Still Faces Challenges
According to the national nonprofit Compassion & Choices, since June 9, 2016, at least 504 terminally ill adults in California have received prescriptions for the lethal drugs. But the group does not know how many of them actually ingested the drugs, which range from Seconal, a sedative that costs around $3,500 per prescribed dose, to a combination of a sedative and a drug that stops the heart, for about $600. (Bharath, 6/7)
Even In Liberal California, Odds Are Stacked Against Single-Payer System
The legislation has a lot to overcome, and its hefty price tag is first on that list.
Modern Healthcare:
Single-Payer Bills Bloom In California And New York, But Experts Question Viability
California's Democratic-controlled state Senate advanced a bill that would establish a $400 billion, tax-supported public health plan that would cover all residents, including undocumented immigrants. The bill would eliminate private insurance. There would be no co-pays or deductibles. Observers say the measure is unlikely to be enacted because it would require a big tax increase, and all tax increases require a two-thirds super-majority in both chambers of California's Legislature. (Lee, 6/7)
LA Patrol Deputies To Be Equipped With Anti-Overdose Medication
Commander Judy Gerhardt lost a nephew to an opioid addiction and it drove her to try to make sure that tragedy didn't happen to other families.
KPCC:
LA Sheriff Equips Deputies To Stop Opioid ODs
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is poised to become one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country to equip its patrol deputies with naloxone, a drug that can stop an opioid overdose. The agency is expected to hand out naloxone nasal spray kits to 600 deputies this week, with an eye toward getting the drug to more than 3,000 of its street cops by the end of the year, according to Commander Judy Gerhardt. (Stoltze, 6/7)
In other public health news —
KPBS:
Driving Stoned: San Diego Scientists Try To Find DUI Limit For Marijuana
On Friday and Saturday nights, according to roadside surveys conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one out of five drivers has a drug other than alcohol in their system. The agency says the drug that showed the greatest increase between 2007 and 2014 was marijuana. (Goldberg, 6/7)
The Mercury News:
Uncomfortable Topics For Seniors To Be Discussed At Campbell Event
Seniors in Campbell are invited to a free seminar about topics that some might not feel too comfortable discussing with families or even a spouse. On June 27 the community center will have social worker Vivian Silva address topics like relationships, healthy aging, intimacy, sexuality and protection from sexually transmitted diseases...Silva said the main goal of the seminar is to combat ageism and to let seniors know they can lead a healthy, quality life. “I’ll talk about safe sex, how our bodies change as we age, living alone and relationships,” Silva said. (Leyva, 6/7)
GOP Wooed Conservatives In House, But Senate Compromises Are Favoring Moderates
Leadership has little room for error in their strategy to secure enough votes. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may favor keeping coverage protections for people with preexisting conditions, an aide says.
The New York Times:
Senate Health Bill May Alienate G.O.P. Conservatives
Senate Republicans are closing in on a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, diverging from the House on pre-existing medical conditions and maintaining federal subsidies that proponents see as essential to stabilizing insurance markets around the country. The changes appear largely designed to appeal to Republican senators who hail from states where the Affordable Care Act is popular and who were critical of the House bill, which would eliminate insurance for millions of Americans covered under the current law, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the revisions may well alienate the Senate’s most conservative members, who are eager to rein in the growth of Medicaid and are unlikely to support a bill that does not roll back large components of the current law. (Steinhauer and Pear, 6/7)
Bloomberg:
McConnell Backs Obamacare Pre-Existing Condition Protection, Source Says
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to keep in place Obamacare’s protection against higher health-insurance premiums for people with pre-existing conditions when they buy individual coverage, said a Republican aide familiar with the recommendation. The idea was discussed in a closed-door Senate GOP meeting Tuesday, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Republicans in the chamber are working to craft a more modest health-care bill than a House measure that nonpartisan analysts said would cause premiums to skyrocket for many older, poorer and sicker Americans and result in 23 million fewer people with coverage over a decade. (Litvan, 6/7)
Politico:
Senate GOP May Keep Obamacare Taxes To Pay For Their Repeal
Senate Republicans are considering keeping some Obamacare taxes for a few more years to pay for their own repeal bill. Many want to make their repeal plan more generous than the House’s effort but are struggling to come up with ways to pay for it. The dilemma is how to balance the expensive effort to drive down premiums with a desire to scrap taxes that would raise money. (Haberkorn, Everett and Cancryn, 6/7)
In related news —
The Washington Post:
White House Touts The ACA’s Demise Even As Insurers Seek Help In Stabilizing Its Marketplace
The event Wednesday on an airport tarmac in Cincinnati was just the latest opportunity for the White House to disparage and undercut a law it officially must carry out. Standing in front of Air Force One along with two small-business owners, President Trump recounted how they “have had their lives completely upended by the disaster known as Obamacare.” One saw her choice of doctors shrink while her premiums and out-of-pocket costs rose, he said. The other has curtailed new investments in his company to maintain employees’ health benefits. “The coverage is horrendous,” the president declared, ticking off insurers’ recent decisions to pull out of federal marketplaces in Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere. “Obamacare is in a total death spiral. The problems will only get worse if Congress fails to act.” (Eilperin and Phillip, 6/7)
Politico:
GOP Uncertainty Over Obamacare Drives Out Insurers
Obamacare markets are undergoing a slow-motion meltdown as Republicans stoke a climate of uncertainty while struggling to agree on their own plan for overhauling American health care. The steady march of insurers that have announced plans to exit marketplaces in recent weeks leaves Obamacare customers in wide swaths of the country with potentially no options for purchasing subsidized coverage in 2018. In the latest and most significant blow, Anthem this week announced it will pull out of Ohio next year, leaving at least 18 counties without an insurer selling Obamacare plans. (Demko, 6/8)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
Trump's Dodgy Data On Health Care, Stimulus
President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to give new life to a Republican health-care bill that's facing uncertain prospects in Congress, using a speech about infrastructure in Cincinnati to go after "Obamacare," too. He mangled some facts and repeated familiar exaggerations. A look at a few of them. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/7)
HHS Chief Of Staff Last Year Lobbied Very Agency He Now Helps Run, Ethics Waivers Reveal
Lance Leggitt helped collect $400,000 in fees last year while working as a lobbyist to try to influence Medicare policy at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Wall Street Journal:
Ethics Office Releases Nearly A Dozen Trump Waivers
The Office of Government Ethics on Wednesday released copies of nearly a dozen ethics waivers for officials working at federal agencies, showing which members of President Donald Trump’s administration are allowed to work on issues they handled before joining the government. (Ballhaus, 6/7)
The New York Times:
Lobbyists, Industry Lawyers Were Granted Ethics Waivers To Work In Trump Administration
Lance Leggitt helped collect $400,000 in fees last year while working as a lobbyist to try to influence Medicare policy at the Department of Health and Human Services — an agency where he now serves as chief of staff. Under an executive order signed by President Trump in January, lobbyists were banned from that kind of government work. But Mr. Leggitt is among a half dozen officials across the federal government who have been granted special waivers to disregard ethics rules, according to a new set of documents released Wednesday. (Lipton and Ivory, 6/7)
The Hill:
Exclusive: GOP Lawmaker Talked Stocks With Colleagues
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has boasted about how much money he’s made for other members of Congress by tipping them off to an Australia-based pharmaceutical company in which he is the largest stockholder, two GOP lawmakers told The Hill. Collins, President Trump’s chief defender and unofficial spokesman on Capitol Hill, told a group of House GOP colleagues over dinner earlier this year that he had urged colleagues to invest in Innate Immunotherapeutics and made them plenty of money in the process, said one GOP lawmaker who was present for the conversation. (Wong, 6/8)
In other national health care news —
The Associated Press:
House To Act On VA Accountability; Dems Wary On Private Care
The House will vote next week on Senate-passed legislation to make firing employees easier for the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs, as the department sought to speed forward on initiatives urged by President Donald Trump to expand private care and boost accountability. Testifying before a Senate panel, VA Secretary David Shulkin urged Congress to act by this fall on additional legislation to give veterans broader access to private doctors. The plan to eliminate administrative restrictions and give the program more money immediately prompted Senate Democrats to criticize aspects of it as unacceptable "privatization." (6/7)
Stat:
In Congress, Former Scientist Wants To Change How The NIH Does Business
[Rep. Andy] Harris is without question uniquely knowledgeable on NIH issues. He is a former Johns Hopkins research physician whose work the agency funded for a decade. One study, on the “cerebrovascular effects of intravenous dopamine infusions in fetal sheep,” is published in the Journal of Applied Physiology. He has also kept a close eye on the federal government’s research arm. But in the months following President Trump’s inauguration, he has pursued what is perhaps an unexpected mission given his background: changing the way the NIH spends its money. (Facher, 6/8)
Stat:
George Church Ascribes His Visionary Ideas To Narcolepsy
It’s no secret that he has narcolepsy, the condition defined by sudden bouts of sleep. He lists it as part of his personal history, intriguing his fans enough that “How does George Church manage his narcolepsy?” is a question on Quora, a question-and-answer website. But because he has never discussed it in depth, the question has gone unanswered. STAT is happy to step into the breach: He doesn’t eat from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and stands whenever possible. “I have to constantly shift my weight and balance,” stimulating the nervous system in a way that prevents nodding off, the 6-foot-5 Church said. (Begley, 6/8)