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The Trump administration says it is pulling back advertising to promote HealthCare.gov as open enrollment draws to a close for this year. The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement Thursday that the government has withdrawn about $5 million in ads as part of an effort to cut costs. The statement said HHS has already spent more than $60 million to promote sign-ups this year under former President Barack Obama's health care law. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 1/27)

“The federal government has spent more than $60 million promoting the open enrollment period,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday. “We have pulled back roughly $5 million of the final placement in an effort to look for efficiencies where they exist.” (Pear, 1/26)

The directive stunned some staffers within the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a source close to the department who was briefed on the action. Staff members protested to Trump appointees at HHS that the sudden ban on outreach would suppress the enrollment of the most desirable customers — younger, healthier people who tend to buy coverage at the last minute — which in turn could raise insurance prices in the future, the source said. (Goldstein, 1/26)

Kevin Counihan, the former chief executive officer of the federal HealthCare.gov enrollment site, said the move risks lowering enrollment for 2017. That’s because many people sign up right at the deadline, he said in an e-mail. “We know that more young people enroll during the final days of Open Enrollment, but they need to be reminded of the Jan. 31 deadline,” he said. (Tracer, 1/26)

The decision sends the clearest signal yet that President Donald Trump is determined to fulfill his campaign pledge to repeal Obamacare. Hours after being sworn in, Trump issued his first executive order allowing federal officials to start unwinding parts of the law. "President Trump is signaling he's the new sheriff," said Rep. Chris Collins, (R-N.Y.), the president's top congressional ally. "He's been elected with a mandate. He's not going to tolerate his employees contradicting and undermining his mandate to get this country going in another direction." (Demko, 1/26)

Some Democrats reacted with anger, saying the Trump administration was simply trying to sabotage the law. “They're deliberately trying to undermine enrollment which was growing,” Topher Spiro, vice president for Health Policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, wrote on Twitter. “Healthy enrollment would disprove their false claim of a death spiral.” (Sullivan, 1/26)

President Donald Trump to Obamacare ads: Drop Dead! The Trump administration has reportedly killed media ads designed to encourage people to enroll in insurance coverage through the federal Obamacare marketplace before next Tuesday's open-enrollment deadline. (Mangan, 1/26)

President Donald Trump pushed Republican lawmakers on Thursday for swift action on a sweeping agenda including his planned U.S.-Mexican border wall, tax cuts and repealing the Obamacare law, despite tensions over timetables and priorities. Congressional Republicans were in Philadelphia for a three-day retreat to hammer out a legislative agenda, with the party in control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade. (Cowan and Cornwell, 1/26)

Less than a week into the new administration, GOP lawmakers grappled with how to respond to a Republican president capable of signing their policy proposals into law but also of igniting public feuds and showing little deference to Capitol Hill’s traditions. “This is going to be an unconventional presidency,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) told reporters. “That’s something we’re just all going to have to get used to.” But Mr. Ryan also said, “We are on the same page,” referring to the agenda the president and Republican lawmakers are pursuing. (Peterson and Rubin, 1/26)

Even as the lawmakers opened their three-day retreat hoping to build a sense of shared purpose, the new president continued to overshadow them, dominate attention, and at times wrong-foot fellow Republicans with his free-swinging style. The same day Congress' top Republicans spoke about repealing the Affordable Care Act and overhauling the tax code -- perhaps within months -- President Trump grabbed the spotlight by issuing executive orders aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration, and on Twitter announced a "major investigation" to prove his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. (Tamari and Fitzgerald, 1/26)

President Trump on Thursday acknowledged to a roomful of congressional Republicans that there is a political “risk” to gutting ObamaCare, and that he contemplated leaving the healthcare law alone for two years. Trump then said that Republicans must quickly repeal and replace the law to prevent it from imploding, but his doubts were striking given that Hill Republicans, for the past seven years, have made it their top mission to roll back ObamaCare. (Wong, 1/26)

No precise plan has emerged because “we are still developing what this thing is going to look like,” Senator Jim Risch of Idaho told reporters Thursday. Republicans tried to put a happy face on their meetings, but they made little tangible progress. The chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady of Texas, said "We’re just working really productively right now so no timetable’s been set." (House, 1/27)

Rank-and-file Republicans said they are coalescing around a strategy that would not have a single replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Instead they foresee a combination of changes they can make to the law through a budget bill that only requires 51 votes in the Senate, regulatory action and executive orders by the Trump administration, and individual bills addressing smaller aspects of the health system that will follow later. “If you’re waiting for another 2,700-page bill to emerge, you’re going to have to wait until the sun doesn’t come up, because that’s not how we’re going to do it,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters, referring to the length of the Affordable Care Act. “There’s no single fix. There’s no single plan.” (Rovner, 1/26)

As Republicans scramble for a strategy to repeal and replace the healthcare law, they are reckoning with a fundamental question the party has never settled: whether to foot the multi-trillion-dollar bill to ensure millions of Americans retain the coverage they obtained under Obamacare. GOP lawmakers for years ducked that issue as they unified behind cries to roll back the program, but were assured President Obama would block them. Now, the power to actually repeal and replace the law is exposing deep divisions in the party. (Levey, 1/26)

A GOP bill introduced by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) seeks the middle ground to replace ObamaCare — but invited harsh opposition from both sides. Despite a plea for bipartisanship, Democrats have blasted the legislation. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) this week introduced the only other Senate proposal with legislative language — simply called The Obamacare Replacement Act (S. 222) — after calling the Cassidy plan not conservative enough. Cassidy's Patient Freedom Act (S. 191) has been praised by some influential senators like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as a common sense alternative to ObamaCare, and has been gaining momentum with moderate Senate Republicans.  (Weixel, 1/26)

At the heart of the problem is figuring out how to undo the intricate framework of mandates and taxes that form the basis of the Affordable Care Act. If you require insurance companies to cover someone, regardless of preexisting conditions, premiums would skyrocket. To keep premiums at reasonable levels, you have to insist that everyone buy insurance—even healthy people who think they don’t need it. To make sure low-income people can pay the premiums, you have to offer them subsidies. To fund it all without increasing the budget deficit, you need taxes. (Tracer, Edney and Litvan, 1/26)

A Senate panel will hold their first hearing this year tied to Obamacare, as Republicans speed up efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing next Wednesday on “options for stabilizing the individual insurance market to rescue the 11 million Americans currently trapped in a collapsing health care market.” (McIntire, 1/25)

The Republican chairman of a key healthcare committee will introduce a bill next week aimed at protecting people with pre-existing conditions in the event that ObamaCare is repealed...The bill is a sign that some Republicans are trying to protect one of the most popular aspects of ObamaCare, even as they move forward with plans to repeal the law. How to deal with the pre-existing condition protections while repealing ObamaCare is a thorny issue for the GOP. (Sullivan, 1/26)

President Donald Trump made a great sounding promise for future healthcare policy in his first television interview since taking office, but policy experts on all sides of the political spectrum said it's not really possible—or at least more complicated. In interview Wednesday with ABC's David Muir, Trump said the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster and his administration will “come up with a new plan that's going to be better healthcare for more people at a lesser cost.” (Muchmore, 1/26)

A sweeping requirement to post calorie counts on restaurant menus and vending machines looks likely to survive Congress’ effort to repeal Obamacare. After more than six years of fighting over the little-known mandate, which was buried in the more than 2,000-page Affordable Care Act, the FDA rule that will require calorie labeling at all restaurants with 20 or more locations is set to finally kick in May 5. A rule that requires calorie counts on vending machines took effect Dec 1. (Bottemiller Evich, 1/27)

As the ACA’s third open enrollment draws to a close at the end of the month, five exchange leaders – who all report a brisk business despite the political peril — discuss their strategies to stay in business beyond 2017. (1/27)

A leading General Assembly Democrat pressured Republican Gov. Larry Hogan Thursday to forcefully defend parts of the federal Affordable Care Act that insure many Marylanders. Del. Kirill Reznik, who chairs the House of Delegates subcommittee on health, urged Hogan to weigh in directly with Republican President Donald J. Trump and emphasize the state's interest in preserving large parts of the law known as Obamacare. (Dresser, 1/26)

The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think-tank, is pushing Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act as quickly as possible without waiting for a replacement. The GOP’s self-imposed Jan. 27 deadline for legislation to repeal Obamacare is slipping by and plans for repeal are “murkier than ever” and headed in the “wrong direction” wrote James Wallner, the Heritage Foundation’s vice president for research, in the Daily Signal. (McIntire, 1/26)

Enrollment in the Maryland Health Exchange thus far has been climbing at faster rates than in previous years, while President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress have taken their first steps to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As of Monday, more than 465,500 Marylanders had enrolled in the Maryland Health Connection since it opened on Nov. 1, surpassing the 457,862 who had enrolled by the same date last year. The enrollment period ends on Jan. 31. (Schwartz, 1/26)

There are five days left to buy individual health insurance on the federally-run exchange and people who help others enroll are expecting a rush ahead of the deadline. In previous years the days leading up to the deadline — this year on Jan. 31 — have been among the busiest. Navigators, or people certified to help others navigate healthcare.gov, are expecting events to be bustling and people to call a statewide hotline. (Fletcher, 1/26)

The board overseeing Connecticut’s health insurance exchange voted Thursday to tighten the process for people to get coverage after the annual open-enrollment period, a response to concerns among insurers that people have been waiting until they get sick to sign up. The Access Health CT board also voted to require insurance companies to pay commissions to brokers who help customers sign up for 2018 coverage. This year, the two insurers selling health plans through the exchange stopped paying commissions, and the percentage of customers who got help from brokers fell from 50 percent to 25 percent, according to data presented at the meeting Thursday. (Levin Becker, 1/26)

Now as many as 120,000 Minnesotans could start seeing big drops on their health insurance premiums: around $310 million in taxpayer money will be spent throughout 2017 to give 25 percent discounts. The new law comes just a few days before the open enrollment period for 2017 health insurance ends on Tuesday, Jan. 31. State officials and lawmakers urged Minnesotans who had been holding back from buying insurance due to the high premium cost to now reconsider. (Montgomery, 1/26)

Frustrating. Irresponsible. Stressful. Crazy. Devastating. Asinine. The worst. Those are some of the words three Californians used to describe their recent experiences enrolling in — and paying for — health coverage from Covered California. The state insurance exchange is in the final days of its fourth annual open enrollment period, which ends Jan. 31, and it has been a burdensome one for many consumers. (Bazar, 1/27)

On Jan. 12, California Healthline Senior Correspondent Emily Bazar hosted a Twitter chat to discuss Covered California’s Open Enrollment period for 2017. (1/27)

The pressure for exemptions to President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze grew Thursday, led by Republican congressional leaders. The chairmen of the Senate and House veterans committees sent a letter to the White House asking that the president further clarify which jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs are exempt from the order that Mr. Trump signed just days earlier, which suspended hiring throughout the federal government. (Kesling, 1/26)

Three members of New Hampshire's congressional delegation have signed on to a letter to President Trump demanding that he exempt the Department of Veterans Affairs from his executive order freezing federal hiring. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Congresswoman Annie Kuster, all Democrats, say a hiring freeze at the VA will delay veterans’ access to health care and resolution of their disability claims. (Biello, 1/26)

Agencies across the federal government are scrambling to handle a chaotic transition of power between two diametrically different leaders. This has led to confusion over what government websites can display, what employees are allowed to do with publicly funded work and growing social-media activism aimed at rebutting President Donald Trump. ... At the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a team of Trump administration appointees who referred to themselves as the “beachhead” team, visited the agency Tuesday for briefings with small groups of CMS leadership, according to an HHS official familiar with the proceedings. CMS leadership instructed agency directors Tuesday to alert employees of the ban on communications, which includes policy statements and public appearances, social media, blogs and webinars and release of documents, the official said. (Harder and Carlton, 1/27)

The Trump administration on Thursday floated the idea of imposing a 20% tax on imports from Mexico to pay for a wall along the southern border aimed at stopping illegal immigration. Medical distributors and manufacturers source raw materials and finished products from many locations around the world, including Mexico. The U.S. imports more medical, surgical, dental or veterinarian instruments from Mexico than any other country. (Rubenfire, 1/26)

Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected in Washington Friday for an anti-abortion march that’s shaping up as a triumphant affair under President Donald Trump — despite his ambitious projection of crowds as large as 600,000. The March for Life, as it’s known, has kicked off on the National Mall every year since 1974 to mark the Jan. 22 anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights. (Schor and Nussbaum, 1/27)

They helped Donald Trump win in battleground states and now, just days before he’s expected to name his pick for the Supreme Court, tens of thousands of anti-abortion marchers will show up in his backyard on Friday to remind the new president of their expectations. These March for Life activists have a single message: Trump must use this rare opportunity to reshape the high court for a generation, moving it to the right and setting the stage for a reversal of decisions that expanded access to abortion. They are eager for Trump’s appointment to yield a court that will give doctors the latitude to make decisions about what emergency contraception and procedures they’ll provide to pregnant women. (Douglas, 1/26)

Vice President Pence will join Friday’s March for Life, a move from the White House considered historic by march organizers. President Ronald Reagan made a video for the march in 1988 and President George W. Bush called in to the march in 2008, but no president or vice president has spoken at the march before, according to a march spokeswoman. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, will also speak at the march. (Bailey, 1/26)

Despite Trump having spent most of his adult life favoring abortion rights, abortion opponents believe they have a friend in the White House for the first time in eight years. “He was voted into office, I would say, because he aligned himself with this cause,” Thomas Hoerner, a junior at St. Mary’s High School in St. Louis, said from a bus Thursday on his way to Washington. Many young Trump voters chose him for his opposition to abortion, Hoerner said, “because this is the one cause they care about. … We should definitely remind him of that.” (Aton, 1/27)

Marchers — many of them women — are descending on Washington, D.C., to send a message about abortion to the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress. ... The juxtaposition has opened up a larger debate about how women who consider themselves "pro-life" fit into the feminist movement. The issue became a point of tension surrounding the Women's March after a handful of anti-abortion activists said they were planning to attend. In a statement, organizers apologized for initially including the anti-abortion group as a partner, and stating that the march's "platform is pro-choice and that has been our stance from day one." (McCammon, 1/27)

Sensing a political opportunity they have not had in more than a decade, social conservatives are preparing for a lengthy fight over abortion rights that promises to widen the culture war fissures that Republicans have tried for years to bridge. Two fights now loom in Washington that are galvanizing the right as it solidifies control of two branches of government and moves to dominate the third: an effort in Congress to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s federal funding and President Trump’s forthcoming choice of a Supreme Court nominee. (Peters, 1/26)

Facebook executive and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg broke her silence Thursday, weighing in on President Trump's reinstatement of a Reagan-era policy banning U.S. foreign aid to health providers overseas who offer abortion counseling or advocate for a woman's right to have an abortion. In a Facebook post, Sandberg said the policy could have "terrible consequences for women and families around the world," cutting them off from other health services. She shared an article from the New York Times and said she supports passage of Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act. (Guynn, 1/26)

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed into law on Thursday a bill banning the most common abortion procedure employed in the second trimester of a pregnancy, among the most restrictive abortion legislation in the United States. The law, which takes effect later this year, prohibits dilation and evacuation, a practice that pro-choice advocates say is the safest method of ending a pregnancy but which supporters of the legislation call "barbaric," requiring the "dismemberment" of the fetus. (Barnes, 1/27)

For the first time, biologists have succeeded in growing human stem cells in pig embryos, shifting from science fiction to the realm of the possible the idea of developing human organs in animals for later transplant. (Wade, 1/26)

The human-pig hybrid — dubbed a “chimera” for the mythical creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail — was “highly inefficient,” the researchers cautioned. But it's the most successful human-animal chimera and a significant step toward the development of animal embryos with functioning human organs. (Kaplan, 1/26)

The ethical concerns focused on the possibility the human cells could create animals that had human brain cells or tissues, blurring the line between the species. There are also concerns the cells could form human eggs or sperm in farm animals such as cows, sheep or pigs, and then those animals could mate. (Stein, 1/26)

As the toll of the opioid epidemic grows, scores of doctors have lost their licenses and some have gone to prison. Pharmacies are being sued and shuttered. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are under investigation and face new rules from regulators. But penalties against companies that serve as middlemen between drug companies and pharmacies have been relatively scarce — until recently. In the past month, two major drug distributors, also known as wholesalers, have formally agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle claims that they failed to report suspicious orders for controlled substances to the Drug Enforcement Administration, as required by law. (Ornstein, 1/27)

A major drug company is teaming up with the state of Virginia to help curb “doctor shopping” for narcotics and overprescribing of opioids by physicians. Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the long-acting painkiller OxyContin, said Thursday it will pay $3.1 million to upgrade the state's prescription drug monitoring program, a database that doctors and other prescribers can check before they offer a patient narcotics. The 11-year-old system is designed to curb “doctor shopping,” by showing prescribers if patients are obtaining narcotics from multiple health-care professionals. (Bernstein, 1/26)

’Tis the season for “state of the state” speeches, and governors are using their platforms to take on the opioid crisis, promise improvements in mental health care — and push back against President Trump’s plans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Here’s a look at some of the most notable health care themes raised by governors around the country. (Thielking, 1/27)

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Thursday announced a series of legislative proposals intended to prevent opioid addiction and overdoses, including requiring physicians to prescribe opioids electronically rather than on paper; allowing visiting nurses to destroy unused medication; and allowing patients to add directives to their medical files indicating that they don’t want to be prescribed an opioid medication. The proposals, which Malloy announced at an event for families of people who died from drug use, also include requiring doctors to provide information about the risk of addiction when prescribing opioids, and removing legal restrictions that can prevent state agencies from sharing information that could help track trends and how resources are being used. (Levin Becker, 1/26)

Federal health officials are reporting a recent rare cluster of amnesia cases in Massachusetts in which patients also had significant brain changes that may be related to substance use. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says between 2012 and 2016, 14 patients were seen at Massachusetts hospitals with an uncommon amnesia that is like severe short-term memory loss. Thirteen of the 14 also had a history of drug use and their MRIs showed a significant loss of the blood to the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory. (Becker ,1/26)

A state-operated drug treatment center in Fergus Falls has been sanctioned for providing false information to state regulators and allowing unqualified staff to provide treatment, among other violations of state rules. In an order issued this week, state officials said they found 28 rule violations at the 16-bed Community Addiction Recovery Enterprise (CARE) facility, which treats adolescents and adults with chemical dependency or substance abuse problems. The facility’s license has been placed on “conditional status” for two years as it operates under increased regulatory scrutiny. (Serres, 1/26)

Hospitals try to control Clostridium difficile, a bacterium that can cause deadly infections, by careful cleaning and meticulous washing of the hands. But limiting the use of antibiotics may be even more effective, a British study suggests. (Bakalar, 1/25)

Bills to help prevent wandering, a characteristic of some individuals with autism and adults with Alzheimer’s who impulsively leave their caregivers, gained support from members as diverse as GOP Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey and Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, but never reached the president’s desk. Both the House and Senate advanced versions of Kevin and Avonte’s law, named for 9-year-old Kevin Curtis Wills, who wandered from home and drowned in Iowa’s Raccoon River in 2008, and 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo, who left his school and drowned in New York City’s East River in 2013.  (Ferguson, 1/30)

Dr. Jed A. Barash, a neurologist, was the first to notice something puzzling was going on. Four patients over the course of three years came to Lahey Hospital & Medical Center with mysterious cases of short-term memory loss. They were all relatively young, and none of them had disorders that can lead to memory loss. But all four shared this: They had used opioids. (Freyer, 1/27)

A licensed chiropractor, Anthony Lefteris got federally certified in 2014 to conduct the medical exams that truckers must pass to get their commercial driver’s license. Lefteris, who worked alone, proved prolific. He could complete nearly as many exams in an hour as a typical federally certified examiner did in a month. In less than three years, he issued more than 6,500 certificates of good health to truckers from 43 states. There was just one problem, prosecutors say: He didn’t actually do the full medical exam that is required by federal law. (Blau, 1/27)

African-American women are more likely to be infected with HIV than other women, and many don’t know it. So public health officials and advocates are trying to get the word out about PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis. It’s a daily medication that helps prevent HIV infection. “This is all about empowering women, especially black women, by giving them sexual health options and also embarking on a path of research,” says Linda Blout, president of Black Women’s Health Imperative, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. The organization is helping to launch the capital’s first citywide program to promote use of PrEP among women. (Soto, 1/27)

A tax on hospitals that supports Georgia’s Medicaid program would be extended until 2020 under legislation introduced in the state Senate Thursday. The so-called “bed” tax, which is due to expire this year, is a 1.45 percent levy on hospitals’ net revenues. Hospital officials support it because, without the additional revenue, the state would suffer a shortfall Medicaid funding with no alternative for filling the gap. (Williams, 1/26)

A surprise bill can be the result of “balance billing.” This occurs when the patient is pursued for the balance after his or her health insurer pays its share to the medical provider. The problem is that the balance often turns out to be much more than the patient anticipated. Two state lawmakers have introduced separate bills in the General Assembly to prevent these surprise bills. Other states, including Florida, recently have passed legislation to address the problem. (Miller, 1/26)

Public health officials throughout Southern California are grappling with alarming increases in syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia that are part of a national epidemic. In 2015, total combined cases of the three sexually transmitted diseases reached an all-time high, according to a late 2016 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report noted that gonorrhea rates were at historic lows and syphilis was close to elimination earlier in the 2000s but now the STDs pose “a substantial health challenge.” (Perkes, 1/26)

A statewide safe-sleeping campaign featuring free cardboard "Baby Boxes" rolled out Thursday at Cooper University Hospital, part of the newest effort to reduce the number of infants dying from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome (or SUIDS). (Mulford, 1/26)

The chaotic scene was a drill, part of a daylong training about how to respond to an improvised explosive device blast, offered at the Wisconsin EMS Association's annual conference. The conference, which ends Saturday, brought hundreds of first-responders from around the state to the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee. This year was the first time the event offered specific training to address an IED situation, such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. (Luthern, 1/26)

The [Delaware] state Senate has approved a bill that allows people who are HIV positive to donate organs for research or transplantation. The legislation was approved unanimously Thursday with no debate and now goes to the House. (Chase, 1/26)

California officials have fined health care giant Kaiser Permanente $2.5 million for failing to turn over required data on patient care to the state’s Medicaid program. The California Department of Health Care Services said this was the first fine imposed against one of its Medicaid managed care plans since at least 2000. The state relies on the data to help set rates, ensure adequate care is available and monitor how taxpayer dollars are being spent in the program, known as Medi-Cal in California. (Terhune, 1/26)

Milwaukee Area Technical College will double enrollment in the college's registered nursing program over the next three years and address the nursing shortage in Wisconsin under a $2.3 million grant from United Health Foundation, the organizations announced Thursday. The three-year grant will help MATC increase the enrollment of the nursing program by 100 students beginning in fall 2017. The program currently enrolls 350 students. (Carloni, 1/26)

As an emergency room doctor, Hawaii Sen. Josh Green sees homeless patients suffering from diabetes, mental health problems and an array of medical issues that are more difficult to manage when they are homeless or do not have permanent housing. That's why Green says he wants homelessness classified under Hawaii state law as a medical condition. If homelessness is a disease, he reasons, then doctors should be able to write prescriptions for the cure: Housing. (1/26)

Up to 30 Colorado hospitals are opting out of the state’s new medical aid-in-dying law, either fully or in part, but whether that means the doctors they employ are banned from writing life-ending prescriptions is a controversy that could wind up in court. At this point, terminally ill Coloradans who want to end their lives under the law will need to find out whether their physicians are allowed to participate. (Brown, 1/26)

A group of parents, residents, and volunteer experts in law, health and housing met for the first time Wednesday night to discuss ways to prevent Cleveland area children from being poisoned by lead in rental homes. The Cleveland Lead Safe Network's primary goal is to help pass and implement laws that can prevent children from being exposed to the harmful heavy metal, which can be found in deteriorated paint or in the soil around homes built prior to 1978. That means making sure as many rental units in the area as possible are "lead safe"-- meaning they've been tested for lead and don't pose an immediate threat to the health of children. (Dissell, 1/26)

Akron Children's Hospital has finished construction of its $4.5 million, 24-bed inpatient pediatric behavioral health unit. An expansion of the existing unit, the new inpatient pediatric behavioral health unit features 10 additional beds and 14 upgraded rooms. The completed unit is designed to help Akron Children's Hospital better meet the demands of area children and adolescents in need of behavioral health services. (Becka, 1/26)

For many Arizonans, sunscreen is as much a part of the daily ritual as cranking up the air-conditioner and refilling the water bottle. But while parents may slather it on their kids before sending them to school or summer camp, many schools forbid children from carrying it in their backpacks and re-applying it themselves. Sunscreen, like ibuprofen or cough medicine, is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an over-the-counter drug. As such, many school policies ban it without a doctor's note. (Beard Rau, 1/26)

Hospitalization for influenza have surpassed 1,000, trampling the previous record set in 2014-15, when 810 people were hospitalized in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. A type of influenza A - H2N3 - circulated in 2014-15 and is the dominant strain this season too. For an unknown reason, it hits older people the hardest. So far this season, those 51 and older account for 85 percent of those hospitalized, a number that's similar to the 2014-15 season. In comparison, about 70 percent of those 51 and older were hospitalized with the flu in last year's season. (Terry, 1/26)

An United Kingdom university has received a fine after a decimal point miscalculation caused students to consume the equivalent of 300 cups of coffee, resulting in medical treatment. In March 2015, two sports science students at Northumbria University were admitted to intensive care for dialysis after consuming 30g of caffeine, the BBC reported. The prosecutor told the court that the test performed by the sports science department caused the two volunteer students to suffer and “could easily have been fatal”. (Baca, 1/26)

The owner of Community Angels Ambulance will serve two years in prison after being convicted of money laundering and health care fraud. Terry Johnson, 43, of Hamilton, was sentenced in U.S. District Court after admitting to submitting more than $1.4 million in fraudulent bills to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a news release from United States Attorney of the Southern District of Ohio's office. Over about seven years, court documents say Johnson fraudulently billed the federal health insurance programs for transportation services when patients were not transported in an ambulance or other vehicle. (Brookbank, 1/26)

The purchase of a young Columbus health-care technology company for $1.1 billion is being seen by central Ohio'a tech community as the kind of pivotal event that can take local startup efforts to a higher level. CoverMyMeds, which produces software used by doctors and pharmacists to obtain quick drug approval for patients, was bought by San Francisco-based wholesale drug distributor McKesson in a deal announced this week. (Williams, Rose and Feran, 1/26)

A pregnant Bexar County resident has been diagnosed with the Zika virus after traveling to Brownsville in November, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced Wednesday. She is the first pregnant woman in Texas to be infected without traveling outside of the state. The Department of State Health Services said she was in Brownsville around the time mosquitoes there infected six people. The local transmissions were reported between Nov. 28 and Dec. 22. (Martin, 1/26)

Two new health clinics treated their first patients on the campuses of north metro community colleges in recent weeks, improving access for a group of young people that research shows is in urgent need of such care. North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park and Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids debuted health clinics this semester. The two colleges join a small but growing number of two-year schools in the state to offer clinic-style services. (Covington, 1/26)

Trulieve, one of seven companies in Florida authorized to grow marijuana and produce and sell cannabis pills and oil, opened in a former fitness gym at 8701 N Dale Mabry Highway. It's Trulieve's third location in Florida — the others are in Clearwater and Tallahassee — and the latest in a plan to expand to all of the state's major markets, said chief executive officer Kim Rivers. A St. Petersburg location is expected to open later this year. The goal is to improve access for patients, Rivers said. Trulieve, which has a growing and production facility near Tallahassee, already delivers anywhere in the state, but patients can avoid a delivery fee by picking up their medication in person. (Marrero, 1/26)

Milpitas has expanded its smoking ban to include outdoor dining areas around the city beginning on Feb. 2. The City Council on Jan. 3 held a second reading to adopt the expanded smoking ban to include marijuana, e-cigarettes and hookahs. (Mohammed, 1/26)

Virginia’s Senate voted Thursday to expand the use of marijuana oil for medical purposes after a spirited debate that veered into presidential drug usage, 1960s hippie culture and the comically long list of potential side effects recited on some TV pharmaceutical ads. (Vozzella, 1/26)

The recent election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has created substantial uncertainty about the future of U.S. health policy. The incoming administration has sent mixed signals about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — embracing some aspects of the law while campaigning against it and pledging to repeal it. The provisions that may be repealed or modified and the new policies that may be enacted are still unknown. The perspectives of primary care physicians (PCPs) on the potential repeal of the ACA are important for informing the public debate, given PCPs’ central role in the health care system. (Craig Evan Pollack, Katrina Armstrong and David Grande, 1/25)

With a single memorandum, President Trump may well have made it harder for health workers around the world to fight cancer, H.I.V., Zika and Ebola. The memorandum, signed on Monday, reinstates and expands a policy barring health organizations abroad, many of which provide an array of services, from receiving federal funds if they even talk to women about abortion as a method of family planning. (1/26)

Reinstating the “gag rule” is largely a politically symbolic maneuver in terms of directly blocking abortions, because U.S. foreign aid has not been used to perform abortions since the 1970s. But reinstatement will have real impacts, including on the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which estimated it will lose about $100 million over a two- to three-year period for services in 20 poor countries. (John Welch, 1/26)

That other march happens Friday — the one held every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade — and though the March for Life usually gets the kind of cursory, condescending coverage otherwise reserved for an astrologers convention, I’m confident my colleagues will see that this year is different. ... The official position of the pro-life lobby is that President Donald Trump is about to give them everything they ever wanted. But like any group that’s almost half of the population, pro-lifers are not a monolith on what it is they want, and some activists have argued even after Trump’s election that he’s so clearly the antithesis of all they hold dear that he’ll be the movement’s undoing: “This was an absolutely terrible election for the pro-life movement,” wrote Fordham theologian Charles Camosy. (Melinda Henneberger, 1/26)

As his first act in office, Donald Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to dismantle Obamacare. But whatever the Affordable Care Act’s shortcomings are, there’s no plan to replace it. Repeal will have a catastrophic impact on health care. Millions of uninsured people will wait until they get sick and then use emergency rooms as their primary care providers. (Carl Hammerschlag, 1/26)

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), at the request of Senate Democrats, recently released a report estimating the effects of a reconciliation bill passed in 2015 but vetoed by President Obama (HR 3762). The bill would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual and employer mandates and, after a two-year delay, repeal the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and subsidies for insurance purchased on the ACA exchanges. The predicted results are dire but no one should pay too much attention. No one is proposing re-passing HR 3762 without other measures and CBO’s predictions are simply not believable. (Joel Zinberg, 1/26)

As the debate over repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes center stage in U.S. politics, it’s important to keep in mind that the law is not a single policy. Though popularly derided by its opponents as the monolithic “Obamacare,” the ACA is a multifaceted law with several distinct components — subsidized health insurance exchanges, individual and employer mandates, regulations of the individual insurance market including a defined package of essential benefits, and Medicaid expansion. While opposition to several of these elements remains nearly unanimous among conservatives — in particular, the mandates and an approach to federal regulation perceived as one-size-fits-all — the picture is more nuanced when it comes to the underlying expansion of insurance, particularly through Medicaid. (Benjamin D. Sommers and Arnold M. Epstein, 1/25)

You won’t find anyone else more determined than this physician to repeal ObamaCare right away. We should not slow down repeal but rather speed up replacement. That’s why I have introduced legislation this week to replace it with a plan that relies on freedom to deliver more options, better care and lower costs. There is absolutely no excuse for not voting on a replacement plan the same day as we repeal ObamaCare. (Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., 1/26)

While I doubt Price did anything illegal, he clearly acted unethically, ignoring the kind of conflicts of interest that would get most of us fired. The one stock I didn't dwell on was the one that's gotten the most attention: Innate Immunotherapeutics, a tiny Australian penny stock. ... When I asked around about Innate Immunotherapeutics, I found several skeptics who thought the company was, let's just say, a little fishy. They pointed to the fact that a key research report was commissioned by the company, that [CEO Simon] Wilkinson has no previous biotech experience and that the company seems more focused on its stock price than its drug development. The company has made it clear to investors that it hopes to sell itself to a bigger pharma company if the clinical trial proves successful. (Joe Nocera, 1/26)

In these first days of the Trump Administration, there is a great deal of uncertainty, but it’s clear that healthcare will remain in the spotlight. Repealing and replacing “Obamacare” is still at the top of the Republican party’s—and President Trump’s—agenda. (Lygeia Ricciardi, 1/26)

Should patients’ cognitive function be weighed in the allocation of scarce organs? This question has been raised by several highly publicized cases that, on October 12, 2016, culminated in 30 members of the U.S. Congress petitioning the Department of Health and Human Services to “issue guidance on organ transplant discrimination with regards to persons with disabilities.” In one such case, Amelia Rivera, a 3-year-old with Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome, was denied a kidney transplant in 2012 because of her severe cognitive impairment. She later received a kidney after her mother successfully coordinated an online campaign. That same year, Paul Corby, a 23-year-old with autism, was permanently denied heart transplantation. (Scott D. Halpern and David Goldberg, 1/25)

In 1997, a few hundred people who responded to a job posting in a Pittsburgh newspaper agreed to let researchers spray their nostrils with a rhinovirus known to cause the common cold. The people would then be quarantined in hotel rooms for five days and monitored for symptoms. In return they’d get $800. “Hey, it’s a job,” some presumably said. Compensation may also have come from the knowledge that, as they sat alone piling up tissues, they were contributing to scientific understanding of our social-microbial ecosystem. The researchers wanted to investigate a seemingly basic question: Why do some people get more colds than others? (James Hamblin, 1/27)