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It is not surprising that long-term care can be expensive, but the cost differences based on location, level of care and comfort are staggering, according to recent reports. The 2015 GenWorth Cost of Care Survey explored the price of long-term care, breaking it out by private or semi-private room in a nursing home, home health aide, homemaker services, assisted living facility and adult day health care. The data further drilled down into differences by state. (Santhanam and Hickey, 7/15)

Opponents of a new state law requiring more children to be vaccinated are moving to stop it from taking effect next year as scheduled. The California secretary of state announced Tuesday that the opponents have been cleared to begin collecting petition signatures for a referendum on the law. Their measure would appear on the November 2016 state ballot. A majority of voters would have to say yes to the referendum, in favor of the new vaccination law, or it would not go into effect. (McGreevy,7/15)

The parent company of New London’s Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and Rhode Island’s Westerly Hospital has reached an agreement to join the Yale New Haven Health System, the two corporations announced Wednesday. The deal, which is subject to approval by federal, Connecticut and Rhode Island regulatory agencies, would make Lawrence + Memorial and Westerly hospitals part of a network that includes Bridgeport, Greenwich and Yale-New Haven hospitals and is already the largest network of Connecticut hospitals. It comes at a time when many independent hospitals are looking to partner with larger organizations, and as consolidation within health care draws increased scrutiny from some state officials. (Levin Becker, 7/15)

North Carolina is one of only 11 states where cancer patients who get their treatment in pill form pay much more than those who get chemotherapy by infusion or injection. That difference has come under attack by patient advocates who are pushing for a state law to require insurers to apply the same out-of-pocket requirements for patients no matter which way they get treatment. By taking pills, patients can avoid hours of sitting in clinics getting intravenous drugs, but they may also be charged thousands of dollars more. (Garloch, 7/15)

California lawmakers and activists, frustrated by stalled immigration reform efforts in Washington, are spearheading a first-in-the-nation plan to let undocumented immigrants buy Obamacare health insurance. Supporters say the California proposal, which would need federal approval and couldn’t start until 2017, is the next logical step in expanding health insurance to a population that was intentionally excluded from the president’s health care law. But uniting the two highly combustible issues of Obamacare and immigration could reignite a fierce health care reform controversy. (Pradhan, 7/15)

Each of New Hampshire's 10 community mental health centers will have a staff member devoted to helping veterans, military service members and their families connect with other community resources under a first-of-its-kind initiative being launched by the state's Department of Health and Human Services. Commissioner Nick Toumpas was joined by state military officials, the directors of VA health centers in New Hampshire and Vermont, and numerous civilian sector partners on Wednesday to describe several initiatives aimed at improving health care and other services for veterans, active military and their families. He said the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recently confirmed that no other state has created military liaison positions within its entire community mental health system. (Ramer, 7/15)

Citing deplorable conditions, some that endangered the health and lives of residents, federal officials are cutting off Medicaid and Medicare funds for a Louisville nursing home, a move that could force it to close. The action against the Hurstbourne Care Center at Stony Brook follows an investigation by officials with the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services who cited filthy, unsanitary and dangerous conditions at the facility of 125 residents. (Yetter, 7/15)

The first thing the middle-aged and frail man in front of me tells me is that he has a tick; he rocks back and forth. The second is that a month ago he thought his life was over. The third is he needs to take a call. He takes his ringing cellphone out of his pocket, gives me the apologetic "one-second" hand gesture, and says hello. I wait. This is a good thing. I know this because Holly Sandefer tells me it is. She’s sitting there with us at the Hennepin Health Access Clinic in downtown Minneapolis. She’s the one who gave Jimmie Jo his phone. (Wahlberg, 7/15)

The Colorado Board of Health voted 6-2 — amid shouts, hisses and boos from a packed house — not to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the medical conditions that can be treated under the state's medical marijuana program. The board voted Wednesday against the recommendation of the state's chief medical officer. A dozen of the veterans who testified said cannabis has saved their lives. Many said drugs legally prescribed to them for PTSD at veterans clinics or by other doctors — antidepressants, antipsychotics, opioids and others — nearly killed them or robbed them of quality of life. (Draper, 7/15)

Aetna is ending its relationship with a Charlotte insurance agent who used the Affordable Care Act to sell premium-free policies to hundreds of homeless people while the N.C. Department of Insurance continues its review of the arrangement. The state has scheduled a Sept. 3 “informal administrative conference” on the sales, which sparked questions and criticism from Charlotte advocates for the homeless and national experts on the health care act. That session will be closed to the public, spokeswoman Kerry Hall said this week. (Helms, 7/15)

It's hard to teach empathy in the classroom, yet it's one of the foundations of the doctor-patient relationship. How well physicians can put themselves in their patients' shoes is directly linked with patient satisfaction. "When I was in med school, no one told me how to do that," said Dennis Novack, professor of medicine and associate dean of medical education at Drexel University College of Medicine. "You could watch your mentors, if you were lucky. Or make mistakes." (Faherty, 7/15)

By the time city inspectors show up to check for brain-damaging lead hazards at a home in Chicago, children already are poisoned. For years health advocates have stressed the need for a different approach — one that saves children from the devastating effects of lead poisoning with more preventive strategies. But even as the studies pile up and the toxic legacy of lead proves stubbornly persistent, political leaders in Chicago and beyond have been slow to embrace attempts to prevent kids from being harmed in the first place. (Hawthorne, 7/16)

Bradstreet offered thousands of autism patients around the globe controversial treatments. He claimed he could effectively cure kids of their autism, cancer and other maladies simply by injecting them with protein shots. When Bradstreet’s body was found last month in the Rocky Broad River in mountainous North Carolina with a bullet wound to the chest, therefore, friends, family members and patients pointed fingers at drug corporations. The FDA. Anyone but Bradstreet. (Miller, 7/16)