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One critical part of Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget-balancing plan is creation of a statewide health insurance pool that Kansas public school teachers would have to join. The governor’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year counts on $80 million a year in health care savings based on an efficiency study by Alvarez & Marsal consulting firm. But some legislators, including Republicans, are skeptical. (Zeff, 2/2)

Iowa legislators vowed Thursday to fix the situation that has allowed them to underpay on their government-provided health insurance by as much $450 a month, potentially violating state law. "Senate Republicans have long felt that we should be paying a larger share of our health insurance,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix told the Register. Dix told the Register on Thursday that he predicted the underpayments legislators are receiving will end during this year’s legislative session. (Clayworth, 2/2)

State lawmakers are considering allowing women 18 or older to get birth control pills without a prescription. Similar legislation is pending in both the Senate and the House. A House committee is recommending a study commission be formed to consider the proposed policy and questions about protocols and implementation. The Senate bill would allow pharmacies, including mail-order pharmacies, to dispense oral contraceptives without a prescription after an initial consultation with a licensed or certified health care provider. (Tuohy, 2/2)

The order seemed straightforward. Lawmakers mandated that by the end of January — seven months after the Legislature approved a wage increase for thousands of low-paid nursing home workers — the Baker administration would produce an analysis of how the money was spent. But the report, released this week, included no such information. Instead, the three-page analysis from MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid office, said the agency “anticipates completing its comprehensive analysis” by Dec. 1. (Lazar, 2/3)

A study by Minnesota Community Measurement found Minnesotans who are white and who live in the Twin Cities area tend to be healthier than residents of rural Minnesota. The third annual health equity study indicates American Indians and African Americans had the worst health outcomes. (Zdechlik, 2/2)

A prominent Republican lawmaker sent letters to colleagues this week saying five bills, most of them related to abortion, would not be taken up in committee, sparking outrage among abortion-rights advocates who said important legislation dealing with women’s health had been buried without a hearing. (Moomaw, 2/2)

The KU Health System joins St. Luke's Hospital — which performed 44 heart transplants last year, the most in this region — as the only Kansas City-area hospitals performing adult heart transplants. Children's Mercy Hospital, which did three transplants in 2016, launched a pediatric program two years ago. Last year, the area shipped about half its donor hearts to other regions. A second local transplant program should help keep some of those here, Abicht said. (McGuire, 2/2)

Fourteen recommendations in the Texas House County Affairs Committee's recent report to lawmakers – including calls for them to increase police officer training for de-escalation and mental health awareness, to back jail-to-treatment diversion programs, and eliminate consent searches during stops – will be the foundation for the Sandra Bland Act. State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, announced last year that he would file the bill to address race, poverty, mental health and accountability in law enforcement and corrections. (Silver, 2/3)

Reports of influenza-like illness are on the rise in Massachusetts and across most of the United States, as what is typically the peak of flu season approaches. Rates of reporting of influenza-like illness — defined as having a fever of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and a cough, sore throat, or both — were highest in a cluster of suburbs west of Boston roughly between the I-95 and I-495 belts and in the western part of the state, as of the week ending Jan. 21, the latest data from the state Department of Public Health. (Rocheleau, 2/2)

With more than 100 deep underground wells, Aliso Canyon is the largest natural gas storage site in the West and is considered crucial to the Los Angeles area for home heating and to power gas-fired electricity plants during energy spikes. However, the Southern California Gas Co. facility has been crippled more than a year since a blowout discovered in October 2015 released tons of methane into the air for four months, drove 8,000 families from their homes in and around the Porter Ranch neighborhood and led to mass complaints of health issues ranging from headaches to cancer. (2/2)

As Ward 86’s patients grow older, and as AIDS no longer looms as an imminent death threat, their medical needs are changing. Instead of worrying primarily about HIV and its related infections, they are now facing heart disease, cognitive decline, bone weakness and hearing and vision problems. They’re struggling with symptoms of aging that no one — not the patients or their caregivers — ever thought they’d live long enough to experience. (Allday, 2/2)

Kroger pharmacies in Virginia have now made Naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, available without a prescription. According to a release, 64 of Kroger's Virginia pharmacies will have the drug available — including Staunton and Waynesboro. (Peters, 2/2)

People who live in Philadelphia Housing Authority apartments — many of them children and the elderly with asthma and other lung conditions — are taking in a lot less secondhand smoke these days, researchers are reporting. Exposure to others' cigarette smoke, connected with a long list of health woes, is about half what it was before the Housing Authority went smoke-free 18 months ago, according to a study that comes as smaller housing agencies prepare their own tobacco bans. (Sapatkin, 2/2)

A new bill filed Wednesday has the potential to completely revamp Florida’s medical marijuana system – and remove caps on the number of growers. St. Petersburg Republican Jeff Brandes filed the bill to implement Amendment 2, the medical marijuana amendment approved overwhelmingly by voters last November. (Aboraya, 2/2)