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Vermont has received tentative approval from the Obama administration to establish an all-payer reimbursement system for healthcare providers in the state starting in January. Maryland long has had an all-payer system, but it covers only hospitals. Vermont plans to use an accountable care organization-type structure that would cover all providers. (Dickson, 9/28)

The rate of pregnancy-related deaths among Texas women has nearly doubled in recent years, a national study found this month, while a separate state-commissioned study found that black women are especially vulnerable. (McSwane and Langford, 9/28)

The national fight over sugary soda is bubbling up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where voters in November will consider a tax on the drinks that many health experts say contribute to diabetes, obesity and tooth decay. Backers of the campaign say a penny-per-ounce tax is needed in San Francisco, Oakland and tiny Albany to curb consumption of sweetened cola, sports drinks and canned teas that people gulp without thinking, adding empty calories. (9/28)

In this industrial northwest Indiana city, hundreds of families who live in a gated public housing community with prim lawns and a new elementary school next door are searching for new homes. Their own places have been marked for demolition.The school, temporarily closed, has been taken over by the Environmental Protection Agency and health officials who offer free blood tests to check residents for lead poisoning. (Schneyer, Pell 9/28)

Just about every time City Council meets to discuss lead poisoning, the names of large area paint companies headquartered here are on their lips. City administrators, too, say they'd like to have corporate partners like Sherwin-Williams or RPM or PPG helping to tackle the "legacy" problem – one the city says it can't afford to address on its own. (Dissell and Zeltner, 9/28)

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration said on Wednesday that the state’s deficit is $2.4 billion less than what a bipartisan legislative commission projected in a July report.The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability — the Illinois General Assembly’s independent budget analysts – estimated total state spending for the 2017 fiscal year that began on July 1 at $39.5 billion, compared with revenues of $31.8 billion — leaving nearly a $7.8 billion deficit. ... Illinois Budget Director Tim Nuding said the commission didn’t factor in several key levels of revenue, including federal reimbursements to the state for Medicaid spending. The commission used Medicaid spending numbers from February, $8.2 billion, which Nuding called outdated. (Sfondeles, 9/28)

A Bay Area federal judge is suggesting she intends to rule that a transgender employee can sue his employer under sex-discrimination law for denying insurance coverage for sex-reassignment surgery. “This is a sex-based procedure. It couldn’t be more sex-based,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of Oakland said Tuesday to a lawyer defending the refusal of Dignity Health of San Francisco and one of its out-of-state hospitals to cover the employee’s operation. The lawyer, Barry Landsberg, replied that the hospital’s policy was gender-neutral because “it applies equally to men and women.” Federal law, he argued, prohibits discrimination against males or females, “but there is not a third sex.” (Egelko, 9/28)

A 32-year-old Vancouver, Wash., woman who struggled with heart failure for more than a decade received a lifesaving transplant this summer — only to contract Legionnaires’ disease during a deadly outbreak at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC). Victoria Martin planned to file a claim Tuesday notifying UW Medicine that she intends to sue the hospital for failing to prevent the infection that also has sickened four other people, including two who died. (Aleccia, 9/27)

Integrated Health Network of Wisconsin gave itself the ambitious goal of clinically integrating eight health systems throughout the state to prepare for the expected changes in the way hospitals and doctors are paid. The network would require the health systems to work toward lessening the variation in how care was provided. It would track their performance on an array of quality and cost measures. And it would build the complex computer systems to collect and analyze information from medical claims and electronic health records. Its plans may have proven too ambitious. (Boulton, 9/28)

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that ends a statute of limitations on prosecuting rape cases. The bill is widely believed to be inspired by allegations against comedian Bill Cosby, after some of his accusers came forward long after the alleged sexual assaults took place. (Kennedy, 9/28)

Maine is one of 25 states, plus the District of Columbia, that permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes. It is a competitive market with thousands of growers, known as caregivers under state law. But Ms. Haywood now claims a distinction that sets her apart. She is among the first five farmers whose weed is labeled Certified Clean Cannabis by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Branded MC3, the marijuana is grown following organic standards, but it cannot be labeled “organic” under federal guidelines. (Carpenter, 9/28)

South Florida seniors may help prove that a walk in the park is just what the doctor ordered. Patients at Humana's MetCare clinic in Plantation are testing a new initiative aimed at encouraging older adults to exercise outdoors.Called Park Rx, the program is part of the growing nationwide "park prescription" movement. Its mission: to harness nature's potential medical and mental health benefits by steering people of all ages to public parks and green spaces for their exercise. (Lade, 9/28)