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President Obama warned Thursday that the fight against the Zika virus was reaching a critical stage, with local transmission confirmed in southern Florida, and implored Congress to “do its job” and approve funding to support the effort. In his opening remarks at a Pentagon press conference, Obama reiterated that the administration was running out of the money that it had redirected from an Ebola emergency fund earlier this year. (Scott, 8/4)

President Barack Obama on Thursday blasted Congress for skipping town for August recess without approving emergency funding for Zika response amid a local outbreak in a Miami neighborhood. The president said the news of 15 locally acquired cases of Zika in South Florida was both “predicted and predictable” and blamed members of Congress for not approving the administration’s request of $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito-borne virus. (Ehley, 8/4)

Democrats are turning up the heat on GOP leaders to call off the rest of Congress’s recess to come back and deal with the Zika virus.With the virus now spreading through Florida, more than 40 Senate Democrats wrote to the top two congressional Republicans on Thursday urging them to “immediately cancel” the remaining four weeks of break and approve emergency funding. (Ferris, 8/4)

Senate Democrats are continuing calls for Republican leaders to reconvene Congress early to pass spending legislation to fight the Zika virus. Forty Democratic senators and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Thursday sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) urging them to cut the summer recess short to have Congress consider a “clean” spending bill for Zika. Currently, Congress is not scheduled to reconvene until after Labor Day. (Reid, 8/4)

Republicans and Democrats on Thursday continued bashing each other for a lack of congressional action to combat the Zika virus. Both sides failed to reach an agreement on a spending package before leaving town in July for a seven-week recess. In a letter to Republican leaders, Senate Democrats again suggested cutting their recess short to return to the Capitol to pass new funding for Zika. Also Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan wrote an op-ed column for USA Today defending the House-adopted conference report on Zika spending that was blocked by Senate Democrats in July. (McCrimmon, 8/4)

As the Zika virus spreads in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott has toured the state, talked up his administration’s commitment to fighting the mosquito-borne ailment and frequently criticized Congress and President Obama for not spending enough to help out. But Scott is far less eager to talk about his own record of cutting mosquito-control programs over the years, including the elimination of a state-funded pesticide-testing facility that was once known as “the mosquito lab.” (Caputo and Sexton, 8/5)

As chief operating officer of the CDC, Sherri Berger has been busy in recent years. First Ebola, now Zika, which revived a fierce political fight after officials confirmed the first cases of local transmission of the virus in Florida last week. And of course the government’s premier public health agency also works on much more — from curbing antibiotic resistance and prescription drug overdoses to promoting water fluoridation. (Weyl and Karlin-Smith, 8/4)

Two babies in California were born with microcephaly after their mothers were infected with Zika virus, state health officials said Thursday. The mothers had traveled to countries with outbreaks of the illness before becoming infected. Officials would not release any more information about the women or the babies. (Karlamangla, 8/4)

Two babies that were diagnosed with Zika-related microcephaly were born in California, a state public health official said, according to the Wall Street Journal. The women that gave birth to the babies had contracted Zika while abroad in countries where the virus is endemic. One of the women is from one of those countries and returned there after having her baby in California, said California Department of Public Health director Karen Smith. (Neidig, 8/4)

Two babies have been born with Zika-related birth defects in California to mothers who were infected in other countries, health officials said Thursday. The newborns survived. One of the mothers returned to her home country with her baby while the other remains in the state, according to the California Department of Public Health. (8/4)

As concerns rise about the spread of Zika in the U.S., regulators and blood banks are moving to protect the safety of the blood supply. To guard against accidental transmission of the mosquito-borne virus through blood transfusions, the Food and Drug Administration on July 27 told banks in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties—where officials are investigating the first cases in the continental U.S. of local transmission of the virus—to stop collecting blood until they can screen each donation for Zika. (Beck, 8/4)

Olympic athletes may be arming themselves with “Zika-proof” jackets and pants, but on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, locals stroll down the beach in thong bikinis and no bug spray. There just aren’t many mosquitoes. Leading up to tonight’s Olympic opening ceremonies in Rio, the worldwide hype about the Zika virus — including this New Yorker cover showing Olympic runners fleeing a cloud of mosquitoes — has been hard to avoid. (Bailey, 8/5)

Aerial spraying of insecticide began Thursday in the one-mile-square area of Miami where mosquitoes have infected people with the Zika virus, and officials reported some glimmers of progress. “We are very encouraged by the initial results, which showed a large proportion of the mosquitoes killed,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference here. But Dr. Frieden added, “This is going to take an intense effort.” (Alvarez and Belluck, 8/4)

Jessica Ardente waited 36 years to have her first baby. Her parents will visit in two weeks to watch their grandson’s ultrasound. There are cribs and car seats to shop for, a nursery to decorate, and bottles, diapers and clothes to buy. And now, on top of everything else, there is Zika to worry about. Ardente lives in the one-square-mile section of Miami that health officials are urging pregnant women to avoid because of the mosquito-borne illness, which can cause severe birth defects, including stunted heads. (Kennedy and Sladky, 8/4)

Now that the Zika virus is being transmitted on U.S. soil, criminals are hoping to take advantage of Americans’ growing concern about the virus. Here are three scams to watch out for. (Braverman, 8/4)

Late last fall, Dr. Christine Curry was at a faculty meeting with her colleagues when the conversation turned to new reports linking the Zika virus to a surge in microcephaly in infants in Brazil. ... Curry, an obstetrician with a background in virology, volunteered to look into it for the rest of the staff. ... Since raising her hand at that meeting, Curry estimates her practice has seen about half of the 55 pregnant Floridians who have screened positive for Zika infection. For Curry and her colleagues, discussing Zika risks with patients has become a standard part of prenatal care. (Mack, 8/5)

Columbus health officials have confirmed two additional cases of the Zika virus. That brings the total in the city to five. Jose Rodriguez, spokesman for Columbus Public Health, said two women, one in her 30s and one in her 60s, returned from trips to Puerto Rico and Nicaragua and reported symptoms to their physicians. Neither is pregnant. (Somerson, 8/4)

Three experimental Zika vaccines protected monkeys against infection from the virus, an encouraging sign as research moves into studies in people. The success in monkeys, which involved a traditional vaccine and two more cutting-edge ones, “brings us one step closer to a safe and effective Zika vaccine,” said Dr. Dan Barouch of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “But of course, there’s a lot more work to do.” (Ritter, 8/4)

The vaccines assessed by researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Harvard Medical School and elsewhere use three different methods to generate an immune response in patients. The first of them used a purified and inactivated version of the virus, which was too disabled to cause an infection but still caused the monkeys’ immune systems to make antibodies capable of fighting Zika. When deliberately exposed to the virus, none of the eight monkeys that received two doses of the vaccine showed any sign of infection. However, the eight monkeys that got the placebo became sick for about a week. (Kaplan, 8/4)

Three experimental vaccines being developed by researchers at Harvard's Beth Israel Hospital and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research had already shown promise in mice — but monkeys are a much better model of how the medicines will work in humans. All three of the vaccines were found to be safe and protected the monkeys against infection with the virus, according to the report published in Science. (Carroll and Sarmiento, 8/4)

Federal health officials said Thursday they are reconsidering a moratorium on the funding of research in which human tissues are transplanted into early, nonhuman embryos — creating organisms known as chimeras. The proposed rule changes, which the National Institutes of Health announced in a blog post, would allow the agency to pay for experiments that incorporate human tissue into early-stage animal embryos, except for those of primates like monkeys and chimps. (Joseph, 8/4)

The National Institutes of Health announced on Thursday that it was planning to lift its ban on funding some research that injects human stem cells into animal embryos. The N.I.H. announced its proposal in a blog post by Carrie Wolinetz, the associate director for science policy, and in the Federal Register. The purpose is to try to grow human tissues or organs in animals to better understand human diseases and develop therapies to treat them. (Kolata, 8/4)

The National Institutes of Health is proposing a new policy to permit scientists to get federal money to make embryos, known as chimeras, under certain carefully monitored conditions. The NIH imposed a moratorium on funding these experiments in September because they could raise ethical concerns. One issue is that scientists might inadvertently create animals that have partly human brains, endowing them with some semblance of human consciousness or human thinking abilities. Another is that they could develop into animals with human sperm and eggs and breed, producing human embryos or fetuses inside animals or hybrid creatures. (Stein, 8/4)

Anthem Inc. said its planned takeover of Cigna Corp. is in danger of collapsing unless there’s a quick trial to resolve a U.S. lawsuit seeking to block the deal. Anthem’s lawyer, Christopher Curran, told U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington on Thursday that the insurer needs a ruling on the $48 billion merger by the end of this year. There is "contentiousness" with Cigna, he said, and its rival won’t extend their agreement past the April 30 termination date. (McLaughlin and Harris, 8/4)

The judge assigned to rule whether the U.S. government can block the mega-mergers of health insurers Aetna Inc and Humana Inc, and Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp said on Thursday it would be difficult for him to decide both cases by the end of the year. ... Aetna and Humana urged Bates this week to hold trials and issue an opinion by the end of 2016. Bates said in a pre-trial hearing on Thursday that was unlikely to happen. "That's my determination: that I can't do both (by the end of the year)," he said. "Unless the schedule is put off, I'm sending one of the cases back." (Bartz, 8/4)

The questionnaire arrives in the mail a few days after a patient’s discharge from the hospital. Did doctors treat you respectfully? Was your bathroom kept clean? Most of the queries seem mundane, but a backlash has been growing against one: Did staff members do everything they could for your pain? (Hoffman and Tavernise, 8/4)

Twice a day, Angela and Nate Turner of Greenwood, Ind., put tiny strips that look like tinted tape under their tongues. "They taste disgusting," Angela says. But the taste is worth it to her. The dissolvable strips are actually a drug called Suboxone, which helps control an opioid user's cravings for the drug. The married couple both got addicted to prescription painkillers following injuries several years ago, and they decided to go into recovery this year. With Suboxone, they don't have to worry about how they'll get drugs, or how sick they'll feel if they don't. (Harper, 8/5)

A Frederick physician who fled to Panama amid allegations he overprescribed addictive painkillers won’t serve prison time for his federal fraud conviction. In a document filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, his lawyer says 81-year-old Nicola Tauraso is receiving hospice care and is medically incompetent to make decisions. Defense attorney Elizabeth Oyer says she and prosecutors have agreed to jointly recommend no prison time. (8/4)

A state appeals court Wednesday rejected the arguments of a Broward County doctor who was convicted on charges including racketeering and trafficking in oxycodone after an undercover investigation of a pill mill. A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal rejected arguments that it should reverse the 2014 conviction of Thomas Rodenberg, 57. (8/4)

One of the largest health systems in the country reached a $5.55 million settlement with the Obama administration over potential HIPAA violations, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday. The settlement between Advocate Health Care Network, Illinois’ largest integrated health system, and HHS’s Office for Civil Rights is the largest to date with a single entity. (Owens, 8/4)

Advocate Health Care Network, which operates 12 hospitals and more than 200 other treatment locations in Illinois, will pay $5.55 million to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department as part of the settlement announced by HHS on Thursday. Advocate Health Care, which remains under investigation for the data breaches at a subsidiary by the Illinois Attorney General's office, also will be required to adopt a corrective action plan for its data security. The breaches, two of which involved thefts of computers, occurred at a physicians' group that is the largest in the Chicago area. (Mangan, 8/4)

The settlement with the federal government follows an investigation that began in 2013 when Advocate reported three separate data breaches involving its physician-led medical group subsidiary, Advocate Medical Group. The breaches involved the electronic health information of 4 million people, including medical information, names, credit card numbers and birthdays, among other things. (Schencker, 8/4)

Advocate Health Care has agreed to pay $5.55 million to settle multiple data protection violations over the past three years, marking the largest Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act settlement HHS has ever received. HHS' Office of Civil Rights said the massive settlement was due to the extent and duration of the Downers Grove, Ill.-based health system's noncompliance with data security laws, as well as the number of patients affected by the security violations with its electronic protected health information, or ePHI. (Teichert, 8/4)

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has clashed with Illinois Democrats on big issues like the state budget and the influence of unions, but he recently he bucked the party line on legislation the GOP has fervently opposed: expanding birth control coverage and access to abortions. Not a single Republican voted in favor of either bill. So last week, Rauner surprised some Republican legislators and angered conservative groups when he signed both Democrat-sponsored measures. (Moreno, 8/4)

(Denee) Booker was among dozens who testified on a pending rule change that prohibits hospitals, abortion clinics and other health care facilities from disposing of fetal remains in sanitary landfills, instead allowing only cremation or interment of all remains — regardless of the period of gestation — even in instances of miscarriages. Packed into a conference room at the Texas Department of State Health Services, health care providers, funeral directors and reproductive rights activists testified that the change would do little to improve public health and could be burdensome to women who miscarry and those seeking abortions. A contingent of anti-abortion activists and two Republican lawmakers endorsed the measure, which was quietly proposed in July at the directive of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. (Ura, 8/4)

When a physician at a Dayton-area abortion clinic performed an abortion on a woman seemingly high on drugs before sending her to the hospital for treatment of a possible overdose, doctors decided it was the best option at the time But both the Ohio Department of Health and an anti-abortion group say the abortion doctor broke the law, and they asked the State Medical Board of Ohio to investigate the case from spring 2015. (Candisky, 8/5)

Americans’ strong aversion to late-term abortions drops precipitously if a developing fetus would likely be born with severe damage from the Zika virus, a new STAT-Harvard poll found. It showed that 59 percent of respondents thought women should have the right to end a pregnancy after 24 weeks of gestation if testing showed there was a serious possibility the fetus had microcephaly caused by the mother’s Zika infection. (Branswell, 8/5)

Lawmakers say they have received a flood of phone calls from residents who are fed up with how long it’s taking the state to process applications for Medicaid, the insurance program for people with low incomes or who are disabled. ... Mounting problems with the state’s backlog of Medicaid applications prompted Thursday’s meeting of the KanCare Oversight Committee. State officials told lawmakers Thursday that 3,587 applicants have been waiting 45 days or longer. That’s down from the 10,961 who had been waiting for that amount of time in mid-May. (Dunn, 8/4)

Several lawmakers bemoaned the onerous application process for Medicaid benefits. “It’s a 200-page application process for long-term care services. Two-hundred pages,” said Sen. Jim Denning, R-Overland Park. “So it’s going to be a horrible process no matter how you skin the cat.” Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, said she needed more than a week to complete an application for her daughter. She questioned why the state doesn’t have navigators — similar to those created under the Affordable Care Act — to help people complete their applications. (Wingerter, 8/4)

Legislators grilled a state contractor Thursday about problems with the Medicaid application process and the backlog that has thousands of Kansans waiting for coverage. ... The contractor’s explanations for the backlog were not new: the rocky rollout last summer of a new computer system to process the applications coupled with an ill-timed administrative change that funneled all applications through the Clearinghouse. (Marso, 8/4)

[Brenda Mills, CEO of Family Service and Guidance Center, a Topeka-based community mental health center that serves children,] told committee members that some of the three private insurance companies that run KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, had raised objections to the center’s psychosocial treatment practices. ... The insurance companies, also known as managed care organizations or MCOs, have authority to look for outliers in prescribing patterns, which is appropriate, Mills said. But she said some MCOs flagged a problem when they saw an increase in psychosocial treatment during the summer — which reflects the fact that children aren’t in school and are available for more intensive therapy. (Hart, 8/4)

Pat Giorgio anticipated some problems with the transition of state-run Medicaid to three private management companies, but she didn't quite anticipate the breadth and depth of the woes the transition would cause for Evergreen Estates, residential communities she founded to serve the elderly in Cedar Rapids."Because I heard that it might be a difficult transition, I got a line of credit with my bankers of $100,000. I'm billing roughly $40-50,000 a month to Home and Community Based Services, and I've used up that $100,000 in my line of credit." ... Giorgio says before the transition she was paid in eight days or so. Now, she says, 15 percent of her claims from three months ago have not been paid. (Roth and Kieffer, 8/4)

A budget impasse in Alabama is beginning to delay healthcare for children and Medicaid beneficiaries in the state.This past spring, the state's Legislature overrode Gov. Robert Bentley's veto and appropriated $700 million to Alabama's Medicaid program. That was $85 million less than what the Republican governor had requested based on what the agency said it needed to maintain services. (Dickson, 8/4)

A Florida Department of Health study says the state ranked 11th highest in the country in the percentage of third-graders with untreated tooth decay. Some groups in Manatee County got together to take on the problem themselves. Today, the mobile dental unit, called the “dental bus” is parked in the parking lot of Morton Clark Head Start preschool in Bradenton, but it's driven where it's needed. The bus is an extension of MCR Health Services, a federally-supported group of clinics that treat low-income patients in Manatee, DeSoto and Sarasota counties. (Miller, Clark and O'Hara, 8/4)

Ascension Wisconsin, now the state’s second-largest health care system, is remaining silent on the number of jobs that could be eliminated as it begins consolidating Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare’s operations in southeastern Wisconsin with those of Columbia St. Mary’s and Ministry Health Care.Since the transfer of Wheaton Franciscan’s health care operations in the state closed in February, Ascension has organized its operations into northern and southern regions and appointed presidents for each region.Combining the operations of Wheaton and Columbia St. Mary’s in southeastern Wisconsin is almost certain to result in some administrative jobs in areas such as accounting, finance and human resources being eliminated. (Boulton, 8/4)

Despite a wave of criticism from nurses, Brian Kemp remains unapologetic on his decision to replace the head of the state’s nursing board. “I made this decision to move our agency forward,’’ Kemp said. Though he recently postponed the change, it is still on, and he says it will bring good results.The Georgia secretary of state told GHN last week in an interview that he’s not going to reverse his move to replace Jim Cleghorn with the head of the state’s cosmetology board. (Miller, 8/4)

More aspiring physicians will spend their residency years in Middle Georgia thanks to a new program at Coliseum Medical Centers announced Thursday. By 2020, the program — an academic partnership with Mercer University — will have 100 residents, which will be in addition to about 130 existing slots at the Medical Center, Navicent Health. “This comes close to doubling the number of residencies available here in Middle Georgia,” Mercer President Bill Underwood said. (Timmerman, 8/4)

A three-judge panel on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of a law that enabled Cooper University Health Care to provide paramedic and ambulance service in Camden, overturning a lower-court ruling. Cooper's paramedics and emergency medical technicians will continue to serve the city as they have since January, under a law signed by Gov. Christie in July 2015. (Avril, 8/5)

As of Thursday, more than 700 people were signed up on the event's Facebook page to attend, and the information has been shared more than 4,000 times. This is the first of many efforts to start a conversation about mental illness throughout the state, Harper said. The men have been working with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Des Moines chapter to learn about what they can do to help the thousands of Iowans dealing with mental illness. (Gstalter, 8/4)

When neglect or abuse puts an older person in North Carolina in harm’s way, the duty to assess this type of report goes to the staff at each county’s adult protective services division. A home visit can produce results ranging from the provision of a home-health worker to a person being placed under county-appointed guardianship.In an aging North Carolina, the numbers of people in guardianship is on the increase — up 20 percent annually in Wake County. (Goldsmith, 8/4)

The Olmstead Plan — named after a landmark 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case Olmstead vs. L.C. — is the state’s current plan to ensure Minnesotans with disabilities are living and working in the most integrated setting possible. The settlement terms of a 2011 lawsuit against DHS required the state to formulate the plan, which was released in 2013, approved in 2015 and updated in June of this year...The lawsuit says that the Olmstead Plan is inadequate. (Cooney, 8/4)

Harris County, which includes Houston, has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because many of its polling places are inaccessible to voters with disabilities, a new lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice alleges. Many polling places in Harris County, which were surveyed by the justice department during elections in 2013 and 2016, have architectural barriers — such as steep ramps and narrow doors — that make them inaccessible to voters who use wheelchairs, according to the lawsuit. The county also failed to accommodate the needs of voters who are blind or have vision impairments, the federal government argues. (Walters, 8/4)

The use of electronic cigarettes among Texas middle and high school students is growing at an alarming rate, and vaping now outpaces their use of traditional cigarettes, according to data from a state survey of secondary students. About 1 in 4 students have used e-cigarettes, the survey shows. Alcohol remains the substance most used among Texas teens, with 67 percent reporting they have consumed alcohol, and in 2013, more than one-third reported they had at least one drink in the last 30 days. (Taboada, 8/4)

In the midst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, a group of friends in St. Louis started cooking meals in the kitchen of a church. These meals were distributed to seven people they knew who were living with the disease. That small group of friends quickly grew into a non-profit organization called Food Outreach. Today, 28 years after it was founded, Food Outreach provides nutritional counseling and meals to low-income individuals with HIV/AIDS or cancer. (Oswalt, 8/4)

James Clark had digestive and breathing problems that required repeated hospitalizations and had frequent panic attacks that sometimes lasted for hours. In 2014, he moved out of an assisted living facility and into an apartment under a state program that helps people with mental illnesses live independently – despite indications from a psychological exam that he was not a good candidate. (Bonner, 8/4)

Pennsylvania has hired a public administrator with a private-sector background as the first director of its fledgling Office of Medical Marijuana, health secretary Karen Murphy said Thursday. John J. Collins, an assistant administrator in the state Division of HIV Disease, will be paid $76,519 a year to steer the implementation of Pennsylvania's medical marijuana program. That process is slated to be complete by early 2018, about two years after Gov. Wolf signed a law to legalize some forms of the therapy. (Smeltz, 8/4)

A New Jersey-based rehabilitation and healthcare company has purchased Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing. CareRite Centers LLC purchased the business formerly known as Gallatin Health Care from the family of previous owner Dixie Taylor-Huff on July 1. The 207-bed skilled and intermediate care and nursing facility at 438 N. Water Ave. has approximately 300 employees and specializes in short and long-term rehabilitation. Taylor-Huff died in 2012. (Cross, 8/4)

Many medical studies involving children never end up being put to use because scientists frequently don't publish the results of their work, according to an analysis published online Thursday. The findings raise both scientific and ethical issues regarding research on this vulnerable population. (Harris, 8/4)

Even though various federal laws were designed to promote clinical trials for testing products in children, a notable number of research is either not published or not completed, according to a new study. And the study authors say this is a problem because unpublished results violate ethical imperatives and cause medical literature to be incomplete. (Silverman, 8/4)

In the past decade, only three scientists in the United States have gone to prison for crimes relating to research misconduct. But if public sentiment guides public policy, scofflaw scientists and other jailbirds might soon find themselves cellmates. Turns out Americans appear to favor stiff penalties, including prison terms, for researchers who get caught fabricating their data. (Oransky, 8/4)

Should researchers make public all the data they collect when testing drugs and medical devices on patients? That’s been a hot question in the scientific community for years — and as debate intensified this week, an unlikely voice weighed in on the side of opening data to all: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. (Keshavan, 8/4)

Health insurance plans with limited networks of providers are common on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) health insurance Marketplaces. ... Limited network plans might offer value to consumers. Coverage that pairs a low premium with a network that provides meaningful access to health care might meet the needs of many enrollees .... But these plans also pose risks. A network can be too narrow, jeopardizing the ability of consumers to obtain needed services in a timely manner. This can happen if the network contains an inadequate mix of provider types. ... This brief offers an overview of state and federal actions that address ... network standards and provider directories -- with a focus on rules that govern plans sold on the ACA's health insurance Marketplaces. (Giovannelli, Lucia and Corlette, 7/28)

Premium increases in the health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will likely be higher in 2017 than in recent years. While premiums generally go up every year as the underlying cost of care rises, there are a number of reasons to expect faster growth this coming year, including the expiration of the ACA’s temporary reinsurance program at the end of 2016 and miscalculations by many insurers about how much health care enrollees would use. Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of proposed rates in states that make the information publicly-available shows an average premium increase in the benchmark second-lowest-cost Silver plan in 17 major cities of 9% in 2017, compared to an average increase of 2% in these cities in 2016. (Levitt, Cox and Claxton, 8/1)

In the debate over the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), proposals have emerged that would repeal or weaken rules prohibiting health insurance discrimination based on health status, instead offering high-risk pools as a source of coverage for people who would be uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions. ... Nearly four decades of experience with high-risk pools suggests they have the potential to provide health coverage to a substantial number of people with pre-existing conditions. State high-risk pools that existed prior to passage of the ACA covered over 200,000 people at their peak, and the temporary PCIP pool created as part of the ACA covered over 100,000 individuals. ... the government subsidies required to cover losses in these high-risk pools were substantial – over $1 billion per year in the state pools and about $2 billion in the final year of PCIP. A high-risk pool that had minimal barriers to enrollment could cost substantially more. (Pollitz, 8/1)

[I]t is time for reforms that will not only improve Medicare to secure value for patients, but also enhance the program’s solvency and reduce its growing burden on current and future taxpayers. Left unreformed, Medicare will continue to put intense pressure on the federal budget, contribute to coming deficits, and generate massive future debt. But there are grounds for optimism. Medicare has used new systems of defined contribution for payment of comprehensive private health plans and prescription drug coverage, and both programs have demonstrated the benefits of consumer choice and genuine competition. Congress should now take the final step and subject hospital and physician benefits to the same intense market forces of personal choice and provider competition that today govern private plans and prescription drugs. (Moffit, 8/2)

Despite a lot of progress in getting Americans to stop smoking, some groups still have high smoking rates, a U.S. government study shows. ... Between 2002-2005 and 2010-2013, smoking rates fell from 28 percent to 25 percent for whites and blacks. Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders in the United States saw a significant drop in their smoking rates -- from 31 percent to 23 percent, the report said. But American Indians and Alaska Natives didn't fare as well. Their smoking rates actually went from 37 percent to 39 percent, the research found. The overall smoking rate for Asian-Americans fell from 14.5 percent to 11 percent. But within that group many had lower smoking rates, including Asian Indians, Chinese and Japanese. Filipinos, Vietnamese and Koreans all had higher smoking rates. (Preidt, 8/4)

Uptake of long-acting reversible contraception remains low among women in states facing the risk of active Zika virus transmission, a comprehensive review of data from several CDC surveys found. Overall, long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods, including implants, were used by fewer than one-fourth of non-pregnant women, one-third of women who delivered a live birth and fewer than one-tenth of sexually active high school students, reported Sheree L. Boulet, DrPH, of the CDC, and colleagues. (Walker, 8/3)

So long as obstinate members of Congress are willing to prioritize political showboating over the lives of actual, living people, Texas women and families will remain particularly vulnerable to the largely unknown health consequences of the Zika virus. With at least 80 confirmed cases so far, the Lone Star State ranks among the top four most widely infected states in the nation. (Sarah Nesbitt, 8/4)

What’s the right way to pay for hospital care? Believe it or not, even in 2016, we don’t really know. In many advanced economies, hospital care is paid with a yearly budget for a given population. In other countries with advanced health care systems, hospital care is paid piecemeal; every inpatient day generates new bills for the room, the nursing staff, and the procedures. (Ashish K. Jha, 8/4)

Health care costs affect the economy, the federal budget, and virtually every American family’s financial well-being. Health insurance enables children to excel at school, adults to work more productively, and Americans of all ages to live longer, healthier lives. When I took office, health care costs had risen rapidly for decades, and tens of millions of Americans were uninsured. Regardless of the political difficulties, I concluded comprehensive reform was necessary. The result of that effort, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has made substantial progress in addressing these challenges. Americans can now count on access to health coverage throughout their lives, and the federal government has an array of tools to bring the rise of health care costs under control. However, the work toward a high-quality, affordable, accessible health care system is not over. (President Barack Obama, 8/2)

Last year a grim record was set in the Cleveland area, with someone dying of a heroin or prescription drug overdose every day on average. This year, it's worse; nearly twice as bad, with two people losing their lives to opioid overdoses every day. We've already lost more than 230 Greater Clevelanders in 2016. Even deadlier drugs, like fentanyl, a synthetic form of heroin, are increasingly involved. (Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, 8/5)

As you approach the ripe old age of 65, your mailbox begins filling up with a daily dose of Medicare plans from insurance companies you may have heard of and many you have not. It truly can be overwhelming. As you contemplate your next move and begin the task of sorting out and trying to make sense of it all, there is help. And it's free. (Deb McMahon, 8/4)

Imagine you got a nasty cut that needed stitches while you were vacationing in Florida this summer. Apart from putting a damper on your trip, would you be concerned that you wouldn’t be able to see a Missouri-licensed doctor? Probably not. After all, a doctor based in Orlando is trained the same way as a doctor based in Kansas City .... To make health care in this country better, we need to make the supply of doctors a priority — doctors who are physically present in a state, but also doctors who can reach patients through telemedicine. (8/5)

The Associated Press investigated the claims for floss and found: The evidence for flossing is "weak, very unreliable," of "very low" quality and carries "a moderate to large potential for bias." Our favorite moment in this floss beatdown: The federal government has recommended flossing since 1979, lately in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But that recommendation must be based on scientific evidence. After AP inquiries, the feds removed the flossing recommendation from the guidelines this year . . . and admitted to the AP that "the effectiveness of flossing had never been researched, as required." (8/4)

The House of Representatives recently passed a number of bills designed to combat the epidemic of dangerous drugs sweeping across the United States. No congressional district has been spared from this problem, and people are dying at an alarming rate from the use of fentanyl, bath salts, flakka, K2, Spice and other synthetic drugs. But lawmakers failed to act to close a major entry point for these terrible drugs into the United States: the global postal system. (Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, 8/4)

Data sharing has incredible potential to strengthen academic research, the practice of medicine, and the integrity of the clinical trial system. Some benefits are obvious: when researchers have access to complete data, they can answer new questions, explore different lines of analysis, and more efficiently conduct large-scale analyses across trials. Other advantages, such as providing a guardrail against conflicts of interest in a clinical trial system in which external sponsorship of research is common and necessary, are less visible yet just as critical. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., 8/4)

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has proposed a plan for sharing data from randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) that will require, as a condition of acceptance of trial results for publication, that authors make publicly available the deidentified individual patient data underlying the analyses reported in an article. Before any data-sharing policy is enacted, we believe there is a need for the ICMJE, trialists, and other stakeholders to discuss the potential benefits, risks, and opportunity costs, as well as whether the same goals can be achieved by simpler means. Although we believe there are potential benefits to sharing data (e.g., occasional new discoveries), we believe there are also risks (e.g., misleading or inaccurate analyses and analyses aimed at unfairly discrediting or undermining the original publication) and opportunity costs (e.g., the ICMJE proposal would have enormous direct costs and would probably divert resources, both financial and human, from the actual conduct of trials). (8/4)