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The White House Thursday promised that President Barack Obama would veto the long-delayed response of the Republican-controlled Congress to the president's request for fighting the Zika virus, saying it provided too little money and contained too many partisan provisions. The $1.1 billion measure had already appeared sure to die in the Senate next at the hands of filibustering Democrats backing Obama's $1.9 billion request and opposing spending cuts that House Republicans added to the measure. (6/23)

White House principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz ... called the $1.1 billion deal “totally inadequate,” saying that Republican lawmakers had turned a public health issue into a partisan political exercise. “We urge Republicans to stop turning this into a political football and actually get to work, come up with a proposal that’s going to serve the American people,” Mr. Schultz said. Mr. Schultz ticked through a list of problems with the measure that passed the House, raising objections to what he said was insufficient funding. The bill also would “steal money” from other public-health priorities, he said, cutting unused funds from the Affordable Care Act, funds to fight Ebola and money from the Health and Human Services Department. (Armour and McCain Nelson, 6/23)

The administration also criticized the bill for limiting contraception access for women seeking to prevent Zika, which can be spread through unprotected sex. (Rampton and Cornwell, 6/23)

Senate Democrats say the bill is all but doomed in the upper chamber, where it will need support from members of their party to pass. Lawmakers and aides say that would be extremely unlikely after Democratic lawmakers were dropped from the previously bipartisan talks. (Ferris, 6/23)

[Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] chided Democrats for having “phony excuses” to oppose the bill. “Democrats should work with us to pass Zika control funding again, not block funding for combatting this virus,” he said in a Senate floor speech. “Phony excuses and made-up objections to the funding we’ve already passed won’t help create a vaccine or eradicate the threat of Zika.” (Scott, 6/23)

The House isn't scheduled to return from recess until July 5. That leaves the House and Senate just a few work days when they’re both scheduled to be in Washington until both chambers depart until Labor Day. (Ehley and Haberkorn, 6/23)

The Obama administration says the Zika virus is the nation’s next big public health threat. But there is continuing disagreement on how much money it will take to counter it and where that money will come from. And delays in reconciling those visions could be forestalling needed intervention to head off the mosquito-borne virus, whose rapid spread globally has for months fueled concerns. (Luthra, updated 6/23)

One thing was clear when Virginia Health Commissioner Dr. Marissa Levine spoke to the state Senate Finance Committee about the Zika virus Thursday: A lot remains unclear about the virus, making prevention all the more important. ... Twenty-seven Virginians have been infected with the virus, the Virginia Department of Health’s website reported Thursday. That marks the fifth consecutive week the number has increased. Last week, the website showed that 26 residents in the state had been infected. (Demeria, 6/23)

The number of Zika cases have been steadily climbing in Florida since the state began reporting them in early February, and they passed the 200 count this week. As of Thursday, there were 213 cases of travel-related Zika in Florida, 40 of which are in pregnant women. (Miller, 6/23)

Ten people in Dallas County have Zika, and 10 pregnant women have "possible infection" with the virus, health officials said Thursday. The latest person to test positive for the virus is a 55-year-old Irving resident who traveled to Guatemala recently, the Dallas County Department Health and Human Services said in a news release. (Rajwani and Yasmin, 6/23)

The Supreme Court decision Thursday effectively blocking President Obama’s immigration programs also comes as a blow to California legislators who have been fighting to offer health insurance to people living in the country illegally. Immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization can’t enroll in Obamacare and make up a large portion of those who remain uninsured in California. But an unusual state policy allows those granted temporary relief from deportation to sign up for Medi-Cal, the state’s low-income health program. (Karlamangla, 6/23)

After issuing a flurry of decisions on Thursday, the Supreme Court will close out its current term with opinions next week in its remaining three cases. The court meets Monday for a final time before the justices disperse on their summer breaks. The last three cases concern regulation of Texas abortion clinics, the public corruption conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and a federal law that seeks to keep guns out of the hands of people convicted of domestic violence. (Sherman, 6/24)

More than 220,000 people have signed up for Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion since enrollment started earlier this month — and ironically, the state’s early enrollment success is largely thanks to the administration of Bobby Jindal, its Obamacare-hating former governor. It was Jindal’s Democratic successor, Gov. John Bel Edwards, who expanded Medicaid through an executive order earlier this year. But two smaller-scale coverage programs created during Jindal’s administration have given the state a huge enrollment head start. (Pradhan, 6/23)

Doctors and lawmakers Thursday touted legislation to train more providers who specialize in hospice and palliative care and improve options for patients with serious chronic illnesses. (Muchmore, 6/23)

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Sylvia Mathews Burwell met with Republican lawmakers on Wednesday to discuss their strong objections to a ruling on an abortion law made by her department, according to Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who was in attendance. (Sullivan, 6/23)

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday they have identified 34 incident reports involving bioterror pathogens mishandled at CDC labs that were “inadvertently” not disclosed in 2014 to congressional investigators who had asked for the information. The reports document inventory issues, specimens in unapproved areas and a few potential exposure incidents that occurred from early 2007 through January 2011, primarily at the CDC’s Fort Collins, Colo., infectious disease laboratory complex, said Steve Monroe, the CDC’s top lab safety official. (Young, 6/23)

Just a week before a Vermont law kicks in requiring labels on food containing genetically modified ingredients, U.S. Senate agriculture leaders announced a deal Thursday that takes the power out of states' hands — and sets a mandatory national system for GM disclosures on food products. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, unveiled the plan that had been negotiated for weeks with U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan. Senate Democrats from farm country called it a win for consumers and families, while Roberts said it would end "denigrating biotechnology and causing confusion in the marketplace" brought on by Vermont's state law. (Lowe, 6/24)

A struggling Illinois health insurance co-op is suing the federal government, claiming it is being shortchanged $72.8 million in promised payments under the Affordable Care Act. Chicago-based Land of Lincoln Health filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. At least four other insurers have filed similar claims over the so-called risk corridor payments, a temporary provision of the health care law meant to help unprofitable insurers and stabilize consumer prices during the first three years of the law's new insurance exchanges. (6/23)

The state’s health insurance marketplace will again have five companies offering plans next year, but the number of small-group options will fall by about one-third and the number of companies offering dental insurance will be down to two. Those numbers, presented at a public session Thursday, are still preliminary and don’t include rates, which are still in flux. It is generally expected that prices will rise sharply next year; insurance companies are citing losses due to factors such as high drug costs and a shortage of healthy patients enrolling in the programs to balance out patients who use a lot of medical services. (Brooks, 6/23)

Minnesota's largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has decided to stop selling health plans to individuals and families in Minnesota starting next year. The insurer explained extraordinary financial losses drove the decision. ... The Blues reported a loss of $265 million on insurance operations from individual market plans in 2015. The insurer said claims for medical care far exceeded premium revenue for those plans. (Zdechlik, 6/24)

Colorado could become the first state in the union to offer its citizens universal, single-payer health care if voters approve an amendment on November's ballot. Supporters hope that if Amendment 69, known as ColoradoCare, passes, other states will follow. (Burke, 6/23)

The official opinion of Dave Jones came just three days after California’s other health insurance regulator, the Department of Managed Care, approved the planned transaction. Just a week ago, Jones urged the federal government to block another mega-merger, Anthem Inc.’s $54 billion offer for Cigna Corp, also on competitive grounds. Jones said an Aetna-Humana tie-up would reduce competition in commercial health insurance markets that are already highly concentrated. “The Aetna and Humana merger has anticompetitive impacts that will likely result in increased prices, decreased availability of health insurance products, and decreased quality and access to healthcare,” Jones said. (Ibarra, 6/23)

California's insurance commissioner on Thursday urged national antitrust regulators to block health insurer Aetna Inc's proposed $34 billion acquisition of Humana Inc. David Jones, whose state Department of Insurance does not have authority to block the deal, said the acquisition would be anti-competitive in California and nationwide and contribute to higher prices for insurance. (Humer, 6/23)

More than 500 home healthcare agencies—about 5% of the total—and 4,500 doctors across the country share characteristics that often point to home healthcare fraud, according to a report released by HHS' Office of Inspector General on Wednesday. (Schencker, 6/23)

Seven years after a U.S. senator cited him as a national example of aberrant practices, the onetime top prescriber of antipsychotic drugs in Florida’s Medicaid program is in federal custody awaiting sentencing on fraud charges. The second-highest prescriber is serving a four-year term in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges in 2012, but he only relinquished his license to practice medicine in Florida last fall. (Ornstein, 6/23)

Some children with autism struggle to understand social interactions, make eye contact or recognize facial expressions. So the Stanford researchers developed facial-recognition software specifically for Glass. The software acts as a coach, helping the kids search for and correctly identify emotions expressed on people’s faces. The technology could impact millions of children. In 2014, one in 68 children was diagnosed with autism, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up about 30 percent from the previous estimate in 2012. (Hoshaw, 6/23)

A small but growing effort is ... aimed at using digital technologies — particularly cellphones — to improve the health of Americans who live on the margins. They may be poor, homeless or have trouble getting or paying for medical care even when they have insurance. The initiatives are gaining traction partly because of the growing use of mobile phones, particularly by lower-income people who may have little other access to the internet. (Feder Ostrov, 6/24)

Now that a federal biosafety and bioethics committee has approved what would be the first use of the trailblazing genome-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 in people, the obvious question arises: Could anything go wrong? The purpose of such a Phase 1 clinical trial is to assess safety, so problems wouldn’t come as a total shock. The fact that the trial in cancer patients (which still needs OKs from the Food and Drug Administration, among others) would be funded by the new cancer institute founded this year by tech mogul Sean Parker adds a wild card. (Begley, 6/23)

Swimsuit season is back. And that’s prompting many Americans to pick up abandoned New Year’s resolutions to cut calories or up their time at the gym. But to be successful, scientists say, you need to focus on short-term rewards. People who included immediate rewards in their pursuit of a long-term goal, such as losing weight or getting in shape, were more likely to stick with the diet or exercise program than those who didn’t, according to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research. (Herron, 6/23)

Researchers have identified a substance in muscles that helps explain the connection between a fit body and a sharp mind. When muscles work, they release a protein that appears to generate new cells and connections in a part of the brain that is critical to memory, a team reports Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism. The finding "provides another piece to the puzzle," says Henriette van Praag, an author of the study and an investigator in brain science at the National Institute on Aging. Previous research, she says, had revealed factors in the brain itself that responded to exercise. (Hamilton, 6/23)

It’s a predictable passage in life: Hit 50, get lots birthday cards with old-age jokes, a mailbox full of AARP solicitations — and a colonoscopy. But millions of Americans — about one-third of those in the recommended age range for colon cancer screening — haven’t been tested. Some avoid it because they are squeamish about the procedure, or worried about the rare, but potentially serious, complications that can occur as a result of it. Now, an influential panel has added some new choices, aiming to get more Americans screened for colorectal cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. (Appleby, 6/24)

Tennessee will be part of a pilot program to change prenatal care for women as UnitedHealth Group and March of Dimes partner on an initiative to tackle high preterm birth rates — a problem that is persistent across the state. The duo want to get health systems and individual practices to implement a group prenatal care group so pregnant women have an opportunity to talk with women in the same stage of pregnancy, facilitated by a health care provider. (Fletcher, 6/23)

Soaring numbers of overdose deaths are adding to woes already plaguing medical examiner and coroner offices, resulting in a shortage of places to store bodies and long delays in autopsies and toxicology testing. The Connecticut medical examiner's office has considered renting a refrigerated truck to store extra bodies because its storage area has neared capacity at times. In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office sometimes has to put bodies on Army-style cots in its refrigerated storage area because it runs out of gurneys. The Hamilton County coroner's office in Cincinnati has a 100-day backlog of DNA testing for police drug investigations, largely because of increased overdose deaths. (Collins, 6/23)

Three weeks before Texas officials plan to slash funding for a program that pays for speech, physical and occupational therapy for children with disabilities, Democrats in the Texas House are asking the Obama administration to intervene. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should take action to ensure that cuts made to Texas Medicaid “do not restrict access to medically necessary therapy services,” all 50 Democrats in the Texas House wrote in a letter to Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the federal agency. (Walters, 6/23)

Three years after Missouri’s legislature first shut down the option to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 173,000 of adults who could have been covered by the law remain uninsured. Many, including Carter, turn to publicly funded health clinics like Affinia for care, where they can see a doctor for a small fee. It’s in these waiting rooms where the effects of Missouri’s “coverage gap” come to the forefront. (Bouscaren, 6/24)

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) on Wednesday filed civil charges against two engineering firms that he said “botched” their work on Flint’s water supply system, contributing to the city’s ongoing lead-polluted water crisis. The complaint filed Wednesday in a Genesee County Circuit Court targets Veolia North American, part of a global corporation that specializes in operating water and sewer systems for municipalities, which contracted with Flint in early 2015 to help with its drinking water quality. (Dennis, 6/22)

Milwaukee will receive a $1 million state loan this year to begin work on an enormous and costly task of replacing 70,000 lead water pipes throughout the city. And the first priority will be replacing pipes to 385 state-licensed day care centers, public works officials said Thursday. No public school buildings now in use within the Milwaukee Public Schools district receive water through lead pipes, so the city will focus on the licensed day cares with young children. (Behm, 6/23)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is calling on federal regulators to use new powers under the toxic substances reform bill to determine if the industrial chemical PFOA should be restricted or banned. The New York Democrat says in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday that health concerns about the chemical have been heightened by the recent discovery of drinking water contamination in upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. (6/23)

Efforts to rebuild Fulton State Hospital have reached a "milestone," in the words of Gov. Jay Nixon. The first new building in the reconstruction project is complete and expected to become fully operational next month. The Energy Control Center and Services Building will house several functions, including the emergency command post, power supply, computer services, maintenance and food preparation for patients. (Griffin, 6/23)

A San Fernando Valley hospital has agreed to pay $1 million in civil penalties to settle allegations that it put a mentally ill woman in a taxi and lost track of her for three days, Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer announced Thursday. Under the terms of the settlement, Pacifica Hospital of the Valley admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to revamp its protocols for discharging homeless patients. It is the second time in two years that the hospital — a 231-bed facility in Sun Valley — has settled with the city attorney’s office in patient-dumping cases. (Branson-Potts, 6/23)

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health looked at studies on 430 hospitals in 19 low- and middle-income countries. In an article published online in the Journal of Surgical Research, they reported that a third of the hospitals surveyed — a total of 147 — did not have continuous running water. The most startling statistics come from Liberia, where 80 percent of the hospitals did not have running water all the time, and Sierra Leone, where the figure was 81 percent. (Silver, 6/23)

We tested associations between prescription-opioid receipt and state controlled-substances laws [using Medicare administrative data for fee-for-service disabled beneficiaries] .,.. From 2006 through 2012, states added 81 controlled-substance laws. Opioid receipt and potentially hazardous prescription patterns were common. In 2012 alone, 47% of beneficiaries filled opioid prescriptions (25% in one to three calendar quarters and 22% in every calendar quarter); 8% had four or more opioid prescribers; 5% had prescriptions yielding a daily MED of more than 120 mg in any calendar quarter; and 0.3% were treated for a nonfatal prescription-opioid overdose. ... Adoption of controlled-substance laws was not associated with reductions in potentially hazardous use of opioids or overdose among disabled Medicare beneficiaries, a population particularly at risk. (Meara et al., 6/22)

[F]orty-nine states (all but Missouri) created prescription drug monitoring programs to detect high-risk prescribing and patient behaviors. ... In adjusted analyses we found that a state’s implementation of a program was associated with an average reduction of 1.12 opioid-related overdose deaths per 100,000 population in the year after implementation. Additionally, states whose programs had robust characteristics—including monitoring greater numbers of drugs with abuse potential and updating their data at least weekly—had greater reductions in deaths, compared to states whose programs did not have these characteristics. (Patrick et al., 6/22)

This Visualizing Health Policy infographic provides details on cancer spending and outcomes in the United States. The U.S. cancer mortality rate, 203 deaths per 100,000 population, was slightly lower than in comparable countries in 2010. Among cancers, lung cancer is the largest contributor to disease burden for both men and women. The United States spent $124 billion to treat cancer in 2012, which accounted for about 7% of the nation’s disease-based health expenditures. However, growth in cancer spending contributed only 6.3% to the nation’s medical services expenditure growth, while the top 3 diseases contributed 36%. ... Cancer medications were among the top 3 for specialty drug spending in 2015, behind medications for inflammatory conditions and multiple sclerosis. (Gonzalez et al., 6/21)

The number of states, including the District of Columbia (DC), with comprehensive smoke-free laws (statutes that prohibit smoking in indoor areas of worksites, restaurants, and bars) increased from zero in 2000 to 26 in 2010 and 27 in 2015. The percentage of the U.S. population that is protected increased from 2.72% in 2000 to 47.8% in 2010 and 49.6% in 2015. Regional disparities remain in the proportions of state populations covered by state or local comprehensive smoke-free policies, as no state in the southeast has a state comprehensive law. In addition, nine of the 24 states that lack state comprehensive smoke-free laws also lack any local comprehensive smoke-free laws. (Tynan et al., 6/24)

On June 17, 2016, CMS began requiring consumers to document eligibility for special enrollment periods (SEPs). Some evidence suggests the need for verification. However, requesting documentation is likely to reduce enrollment by eligible people, given past experience with similar policies. It may be more effective to seek consumer documentation only if the Marketplace cannot quickly verify eligibility with existing data systems or phone calls. Roughly 5% of the SEP-eligible uninsured enrolled in 2015. Vigorous marketing by carriers and brokers might greatly increase SEP participation. However, such marketing will not happen if insurers continue seeing SEP members as financially untenable. (Dorn, 6/23)

Barriers to getting tested or treated for sexually transmitted disease (STD) need to be lowered, a U.S. study concludes. In 2013, before the Affordable Care Act -- better known as Obamacare -- was fully implemented, researchers found that half of patients at STD clinics were unwilling to use their health insurance for their visits, mainly because they worried about privacy or cost. (Doyle, 6/17)

When too many surgery patients come back to a hospital after being sent home, the hospital can be fined by the federal government. But a new study suggests many of those so-called readmissions are not the hospital's fault. Many readmissions were due to issues like drug abuse or homelessness, the researchers found. (Seaman, 6/20)

More than a third of patients with a heart rhythm problem that can cause a stroke are incorrectly given aspirin instead of the blood-thinning medications they need to make this complication less likely, a U.S. study suggests. (Rapaport, 6/20)

Would the Republican plan work? Define “work.” If this plan passed, could it operate roughly as described? Probably, yes. I would have some worries about adverse selection with the mandate gone -- but given that being able to obtain cheap coverage in the future relies on obtaining it now, not that many worries. Of course, the numbers are not very specific, so we don’t know how much it would cost. (Megan McArdle, 6/23)

Paul Ryan has gotten his often fractious House Republicans to endorse an outline of a plan to replace Obamacare, although not yet an actual piece of legislation. While the outline contains many of the health policies conservatives sought even before Obamacare, those policies may have particular appeal against the backdrop of the health-care system Obamacare has created. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 6/23)

This is yet another example of the lack of transparency in medical pricing, and the fact that hospital charges for routine tests and procedures can be orders of magnitude more expensive than those of specialized clinics – although patients typically will find that out only after they’ve paid their bill and realize they’ve been fleeced. (David Lazarus, 6/24)

Two things happened this week that could heighten Medicare’s visibility in the coming election cycle. So far Medicare has not been one of the major health-care issues in the presidential campaign. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has talked about it much. The former secretary of state has discussed the idea of a Medicare buy-in for the near-elderly, but that’s been mentioned more as a way of strengthening the Affordable Care Act, not reforming Medicare. Meanwhile, Medicare faces serious long-term challenges, including how to finance care for an aging population, ensure its solvency in the future, fill gaps in coverage, and address cost-sharing burdens that can be onerous for its mostly lower- and moderate-income beneficiaries. But more attention may be coming, thanks to this week’s events. (Drew Altman, 6/24)

In the very early morning hours Thursday, Republicans who control the House pushed through a bill to combat the Zika virus that is a totem to their favored causes and a poke in the eye of Democrats. More than four months after President Obama requested nearly $1.9 billion in emergency funding to deal with a public-health emergency, the House voted for $1.1 billion but saddled it with unnecessary partisan baubles. This may further delay action against the mosquito-borne virus that can cause severe fetal birth defects. (6/23)

Though they have never met my son David and have no information about his specific diagnosis or care, bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration are endangering his life by proposing to stop the one treatment that has allowed him to lead a happy life that includes learning, socializing and having loving relationships with his family. (Paul E. Peterson, 6/23)

State policymakers and elected officials have long acknowledged that when it comes to mental health services, Iowa fails almost every conceivable test. A 2015 report estimates there are 120,000 people in Iowa with a serious mental illness, but only about 300 psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who can prescribe medication. Iowa now ranks last among the states in terms of the available state psychiatric beds. (6/23)