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Buffalo is the next stop in a series of statewide hearings on a proposal to establish a single-payer health care system in New York. Wednesday's hearing in Buffalo will be the third on Assemblyman Richard Gottfried's proposed New York Health Act. The proposal would replace private health insurance with a publicly funded system. (12/10)

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, introduced a bill Monday requiring that all pharmaceutical companies make their “compassionate use” policies regarding experimental drugs publicly available to patients with serious or life-threatening conditions. The Andrea Sloan CURE Act aims to increase transparency with this program and comes almost one year after Andrea Sloan, an Austin resident, died from a seven-year bout of ovarian cancer after denied access to an experimental drug. (Hagen, 12/9)

After months of talk, legislators continue to disagree over the structure of the state Medicaid program and whether insurance companies should be allowed to manage patient care. The differences reached a pivot point Tuesday when a legislative committee on health and human services voted to strip language from a proposal that envisioned insurance companies and provider-led care networks in regional competition for Medicaid patients. (Bonner, 12/9)

A struggling rural hospital in east-central Georgia hopes to gain firmer financial footing through a new partnership with University Health Care System in Augusta. University Health Care will manage Washington County Regional Medical Center in Sandersville beginning Jan. 1, under an agreement announced Monday. Such rural hospitals and their survival have been a focus for political leaders in Georgia after the closure of four of these facilities in the past two years. (Miller, 12/9)

The plan, which applies only to the current budget year, avoids reducing aid to the state’s public schools, its Medicaid health care program for the needy, prison operations or state universities. (12/9)

Waterbury’s mayor and the state’s hospital industry say that Connecticut regulators are jeopardizing plans by a national for-profit hospital chain to buy the city’s two struggling hospitals and others in Bristol, Manchester and Vernon. (Pazniokas, 12/10)

A new public health laboratory to replace a lab built more than 40 years ago, as well as a vaccine program to assure that all Oklahomans have access to immunization are the Oklahoma Board of Health's top budget priorities for 2015, officials said Tuesday. Officials said they will seek additional funds when the Oklahoma Legislature convenes in February for programs designed to reduce preventable hospitalizations and emergency room visits for the uninsured and to fund a public-private partnership to improve the health of adolescents and children. (Talley, 12/9)

Gov.-elect Larry Hogan pledged to declare a "state of emergency" to combat the spike in heroin-related deaths, state officials said Tuesday that about 140 pharmacies in 22 counties have agreed to stock a powerful overdose antidote. The agreement with CVS Health, Safeway and Walgreens, as well as some smaller businesses, is part of a broader push in Maryland and elsewhere to make the overdose-reversing drug, known as naloxone or narcan, easier to access. (Sherman, 12/10)