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House Republican leaders are asking government watchdogs to investigate health insurance sign-ups through the Affordable Care Act, citing reports that allege insurance brokers are fraudulently enrolling customers into some ACA health plans and that millions of Americans may be wrongly benefiting from federal insurance subsidies. ... The allegations center on a report from the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank, which concluded that as many as 5 million Americans may be wrongly receiving ACA insurance subsidies. The allegations also are driven by recent �鶹Ů�� Health News reports about unscrupulous brokers falsifying information to enroll customers or wrongly switching customers between plans without their knowledge or consent, a development that has stirred bipartisan anger. (Diamond, 6/29)

On the surface, 1-800-MEDICARE is a government success story: a free, popular service helping tens of millions of older Americans understand their health insurance and options for care. The call line boasts a 95 percent satisfaction rate, according to federal officials. But behind the scenes, the multibillion-dollar job of running the Medicare call line and similar services for the Affordable Care Act — one of the richest service contracts offered by the federal government — has sparked a bitter battle between a powerful labor union, a prominent federal contractor and politicians who are now accusing the White House of delivering an election-year favor for its union allies. (Diamond, 6/28)

A few years ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched a big experiment. The agency wanted to see if financial incentives and penalties would improve care for people with end-stage kidney disease. So far, it hasn’t worked, a new study finds. (Cueto, 6/30)

One group of health insurance stocks appeared to be rallying on the notion that President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance on Thursday night would bring another term for former President Donald Trump. RBC analyst Ben Hendrix chalks up Friday’s rally in Medicare Advantage stocks on the thesis that “a second Trump term would ease regulatory and reimbursement headwinds weighing on the managed care stocks, particularly the Medicare Advantage leaders,” such as UnitedHealth, Humana and CVS Health. These shares have faced pressure because of regulatory changes in reimbursement for Medicare Advantage at a time when medical costs among seniors have seen a resurgence. (Coombs, 6/28)

�鶹Ů�� Health News' 'What The Health?' Podcast: SCOTUS Ruling Strips Power From Federal Health Agencies

In what will certainly be remembered as a landmark decision, the Supreme Court has overruled a 40-year-old precedent that gave federal agencies, rather than judges, the power to interpret ambiguous laws passed by Congress. ... Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Victoria Knight of Axios, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join �鶹Ů�� Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. (Rovner, 6/28)

Nevada residents will vote on whether to protect the right to abortion in the state this November, as abortion rights groups try to continue their winning streak with measures that put the issue directly before voters. The Nevada secretary of state’s office certified on Friday the ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution to include an explicit right to abortion after verifying the signatures required. ... In Nevada, abortion is legal through 24 weeks of pregnancy. But organizers of the ballot initiative are seeking to amend the State Constitution to protect abortion up to the point of fetal viability — also around 24 weeks — because it is harder to change the Constitution than repeal state law. (Taft, 6/30)

The decision is the latest in a string of legal disputes over the status of abortion in Iowa. It comes after the court in 2022 there is no "fundamental right" to abortion, and a 2023 case in which the court split 3-3 on what the correct legal standard should be for judging the constitutionality of abortion laws. The law the court says can take effect bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected – about the sixth week of pregnancy – with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. (Morris, 6/28)

Abortion-rights groups in Florida are locked in a battle with the state over the cost for a ballot measure that would overturn the state’s six-week ban. The fight is over a seemingly obscure fiscal impact statement estimating the cost to the state for passing the proposed constitutional amendment. It highlights how both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion forces are clawing for every inch of ground ahead of a campaign that will see tens of millions of dollars spent across the country’s third-largest state. (Sarkissian, 6/30)

A Kentucky judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by three Jewish mothers who argued that the state's near-total abortion ban violated the religious freedoms of those who believe life begins at birth, not conception. On Friday evening, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Brian Edwards said the group of women lacked standing to bring the case and sided with the state's attorney general, who defended the state's abortion laws. In Kentucky, abortions are banned in almost all circumstances except in cases when a pregnant woman's life is in imminent danger of death or permanent injury. (Kim, 6/29)

Katherine Farris has been an abortion provider for more than 20 years, and she says that this past year has been the hardest of her career — by a long shot. (Crumpler, 7/1)

After news broke that the Supreme Court would allow emergency abortions again in Idaho, a message went out to the entire staff of St. Luke’s Health System on the organization's intranet. If a very sick pregnant patient comes to the emergency room or labor and delivery triage, the message said, staff will no longer have to send them out of state for an abortion, according to Peg Dougherty, deputy general counsel for the health system. Doctors could once again terminate a patient's pregnancy to protect her health, not just to save their life, Dougherty said. (Yancey-Bragg, 6/28)

Nicole Miller had gone to the emergency room in Boise, Idaho, after waking up with heavy bleeding in her 20th week of pregnancy. By afternoon, she was still leaking amniotic fluid and hemorrhaging and, now in a panic, struggling to understand why the doctor was telling her that she needed to leave the state to be treated. “If I need saving, you’re not going to help me?” she recalls asking. She remembers his answer vividly: “He told me he wasn’t willing to risk his 20-year career.” Instead, that evening, hospital workers at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center put Ms. Miller on a small plane to Utah. (Zernike, 6/28)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Idaho’s OB-GYN Exodus Throws Women In Rural Towns Into A Care Void

The ultrasound in February that found a mass growing in her uterus and abnormally thick uterine lining brought Jonell Anderson more than anxiety over diagnosis and treatment. For Anderson and other patients in this rural community who need gynecological care, stress over discovering an illness is compounded by the challenges they face getting to a doctor. (Orozco Rodriguez, 7/1)

At a convention center in Lander, roughly 150 people mingled and chatted at the first-ever Wyoming Reproductive Freedom Summit on June 22. Some sat at round white tables, while others checked out booths from organizations like Wyoming Health Council and Pro-Choice Wyoming. Marci Shaver is from Goshen County. She said the issue of abortion access hits close to home for her. “I had seven pregnancies that had to be terminated and under the law that they tried to put through post-Roe, my second pregnancy would have killed me,” she said. (Habermann, 6/28)

One morning last spring, Hollie Cunningham’s father was drinking coffee and watching Good Morning America on his patio when he saw Austin Dennard, a Dallas-area OB-GYN, on the screen. Through tears, Dennard described the devastation of having learned her pregnancy wasn’t viable. Then, she recounted the struggle of leaving Texas for an abortion the state wouldn’t allow. It sounded all too familiar — it was the same situation Cunningham had faced just months earlier. (Goldenstein, 6/29)

A push to boost the ranks of men fighting for abortion rights picked up a fresh recruit in a driveway here the other day, some four months before Florida voters will decide whether to add abortion rights to their constitution and effectively scrap the state’s six-week ban. The pitch came from Ethan Temple, an earnest 20-year-old promoting the amendment in shirt-soaking humidity. More guys need to get “off the sidelines,” such as by knocking on doors and rallying in support of bodily autonomy, he told Jordan Gulbronson, a web designer returning from a bagel run. (Calvert, 6/30)

Julie Burkhart, co-owner of Hope Clinic, which provides abortions in Granite City, Illinois, said that Biden’s weak showing on the topic sparked a sense of “discouragement, alarm and concern” among her colleagues. ... Supporters of abortion rights say they will stick to their messaging ahead of the election. They’re attempting to steer voters away from Biden’s poor performance by focusing on his administration’s overall goals and decisions about who should be in charge of influential health care agencies. (Edwards, Dunn, Kane, Herzberg and Barakett, 6/29)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: 1st Biden-Trump Debate Of 2024: What They Got Wrong, And Right

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, shared a debate stage June 27 for the first time since 2020, in a confrontation that — because of strict debate rules — managed to avoid the near-constant interruptions that marred their previous encounters. Biden, who spoke in a raspy voice and often struggled to articulate his arguments, said at one point that his administration “finally beat Medicare.” Trump, meanwhile, repeated numerous falsehoods, including that Democrats want doctors to be able to abort babies after birth. (6/28)

The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights. The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors. (Rabin, Rosenbluth and Weiland, 6/28)

The Texas Supreme Court found that parents in the state do not have the constitutional right to seek gender-affirming care for their children. The court on Friday upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in a ruling that pushed the state’s interpretation of parental rights into a more limited scope when it comes to medical decision-making. (Rummler, 6/28)

Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s just outside of Akron, Ohio, Shane Stahl felt it was taboo to talk about being part of the LGBTQ+ community or about LGBTQ+ experiences. Stahl, 40, who identifies as a gay man, said that although he grew up in an accepting and supporting family, he didn't feel like it was possible to openly express himself and feared he would be ostracized from his community if he did so. (Kekatos, 6/29)

"Within Pride Month, we want to make sure that we have our community up to date and aware," said Scott Bertani, with the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health. "As of May, the nation has seen roughly about 150 percent increase in cases of the current disease, which is Clade 2." ... "We are far under the total aggregate case numbers of what we saw in 2022 but we are doubling the case numbers of what we saw in 2023, which suggests there remains an opportunity to have lots of ongoing vigilance," Bertani said. (Darrow, 6/29)

A months-long cyberattack earlier this year on Lurie Children's Hospital that took down its phone lines, patient records and other services leaked the personal data of nearly 800,000 individuals. According to a data breach notice filed yesterday with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, 791,784 people were affected by the cyberattack, which Lurie first identified in January. (Davis, 6/28)

Optum is not moving forward with its bid to purchase Steward Health Care’s physician group, scuttling a key element of Steward’s financial turnaround plan as it restructures through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. ... A spokesperson for the commission said Friday Optum is no longer working to finalize the agreement. (Kacik, 6/28)

A STAT analysis of the hospitals Ascension is offloading found that all but a small handful of them lost money in 2022 and 2023, according to their annual financial filings to Medicare. Some of t he losses were sizable, especially at a few hospitals in eastern Michigan and Birmingham, Ala. STAT used data from HMP Metrics, a tool that aggregates hospitals’ filings with Medicare.(Bannow, 7/1)

July could serve as an important turning point in the saga of HCA and Mission Health. Affiliated Monitors’ series of public meetings concerning HCA’s hospitals across Western North Carolina wrapped up recently. The deadline for Dogwood Health Trust to deliver its opinion to the NC Attorney General’s office about whether HCA breached its Asset Purchase Agreement is fast approaching. Less than a week remains until the contract expiration date of Mission Health’s nurses. (Sartwell, 6/29)

Providers in rural and underserved areas that have come to rely on telehealth are lobbying hard to keep what they see as a must-have for their organizations. COVID-19 pandemic era waivers that extended telehealth reimbursement flexibilities expire Dec. 31 without congressional action. While most policy experts expect another extension to pass by year's end, industry executives are wary of making additional investments until they get more certainty. (Perna, 6/28)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The Concierge Catch: Better Access For A Few Patients Disrupts Care For Many

“You had to pay the fee, or the doctor wasn’t going to see you anymore.” That was the takeaway for Terri Marroquin of Midland, Texas, when her longtime physician began charging a membership fee in 2019. She found out about the change when someone at the physician’s front desk pointed to a posted notice. At first, she stuck with the practice; in her area, she said, it is now tough to find a primary care doctor who doesn’t charge an annual membership fee from $350 to $500. (Rossheim, 7/1)

A pilot program at Allegheny Health Network aims to get more young people, particularly minorities, to become doctors. These incoming eighth graders from Urban Pathways and Manchester Academic Charter School are learning from a dentist how to put sealants in teeth at Allegheny General Hospital. (Sorensen, 6/28)

Dr. Mildred Thornton Stahlman, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician whose research on fatal lung disease in newborns led to lifesaving treatments and to the creation, in 1961, of one of the first neonatal intensive care units, died on Saturday at her home in Brentwood, Tenn. She was 101. On Oct. 31, 1961, Dr. Stahlman fitted a premature baby who was gasping for breath into a miniature iron lung machine, also known as a negative pressure ventilator, the kind used for children with polio. The machine worked by pulling the baby’s frail chest muscles open to help draw in air. The baby survived. (Epstein, 6/30)

The new algorithm was supposed to help distribute lungs more fairly to people who desperately needed life-saving transplants. But a flaw in the process for awarding the organs to sick and dying patients meant some people didn’t receive the care they were entitled to, the Tribune has learned. (Pratt, 6/30)

A neuroscientist whose work helped pave the way for an Alzheimer’s drug candidate was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday on charges of fraud. The indictment, announced Friday by the Justice Department, brings additional scrutiny to the work of Hoau-Yan Wang, who has had multiple studies retracted and faced an investigation by the City University of New York, his employer, that was later halted. (Bush, 6/29)

A federal judge on Friday rejected a bid by a group of cancer victims to block Johnson & Johnson from pursuing a proposed bankruptcy settlement of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging the company's baby powder and other talc products contain cancer-causing asbestos. The cancer victims sought a preliminary order in New Jersey on June 11 to preventing J&J from filing for bankruptcy outside the state, which would have effectively foiled the $6.48 billion settlement plan. The motion was part of a class action lawsuit brought by plaintiffs' lawyers opposed to the plan. (Pierson, 7/1)

Neuralink Corp., the brain-implant company founded by Elon Musk, was set to implant its device in a second patient last Monday, but the surgery was halted due to the patient’s medical condition, said Michael Lawton, chief executive officer of the Barrow Neurological Institute. The patient had health issues that made the person an unsuitable candidate for current participation in Neuralink’s study of its experimental device, Lawton said during a phone call. (McBride, 6/28)

Rocket Pharmaceuticals said Friday that the Food and Drug Administration rejected its gene therapy for an ultra-rare, sometimes fatal immuno-deficiency syndrome, saying the company needed to submit more information to prove it can safely manufacture the product. (Mast, 6/28)

A few years back, Matt Kaeberlein was diagnosed with a frozen shoulder. “It was really bad,” he recalls. ... Feeling frustrated, he decided to try rapamycin. In recent years, some high-profile longevity scientists have started taking the drug in hopes of fending off age-related health problems. So far, it’s untested in people taking it for anti-aging, but rapamycin has been shown to extend the lifespan of mice. (Aubrey, 7/1)

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. is investigating whether 76 people have died after ingesting its health supplements containing red yeast, a higher toll than initially reported. Shares in the company fell 7% on Friday after the Nikkei newspaper reported concerns from Japan’s health minister. The company later confirmed the news, saying that the deaths were still under investigation after receiving 1,656 inquiries from consumers who were seen at medical facilities after falling ill. (Horie, 6/28)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Journalists Break Down SCOTUS Decision On Purdue Pharma And California's New Heat Rules

�鶹Ů�� Health News and California Healthline staff hit the airwaves in the last couple of weeks to discuss stories in the headlines. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (6/29)

Ever since scientists discovered influenza infecting American cows earlier this year, they have been puzzling over how it spreads from one animal to another. An experiment carried out in Kansas and Germany has shed some light on the mystery. Scientists failed to find evidence that the virus can spread as a respiratory infection. Juergen Richt, a virologist at Kansas State University who helped lead the research, said that the results suggested that the virus is mainly infectious via contaminated milking machines. The findings have yet to be posted online or published in a peer-reviewed science journal. (Zimmer, 6/29)

New test results released by the US Food and Drug Administration on Friday found that bird flu virus is making its way from dairy farms and into milk processing plants but also confirmed that the commonly used flash pasteurization method fully neutralizes the virus. (Goodman, 6/28)

The Pennsylvania Department of Health two more variant H1N2 (H1N2v) infections, both of them adults who had attended a livestock auction that had pigs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly influenza update. (Schnirring, 6/28)

Signs of H5N1 bird flu virus have been detected at three wastewater sites in California’s Bay Area, according to sampling data. While positive wastewater samples have been found in seven other states, California is the only one that has yet to report a bird flu outbreak in a herd of dairy cows. (Rust, 6/29)

Personal protective equipment will be distributed to dairy and poultry farmworkers in San Mateo County to protect against the H5N1 virus, county health officials said Wednesday. Due to a rising concern of H5N1, or bird flu, spreading among dairy cows nationally, the county health department will be participating in a program through the California Department of Public Health to provide a one-time supply of personal protective equipment to businesses and organizations that employ or serve dairy and poultry farmworkers. (6/28)

When pathologist Thijs Kuiken looks at what’s happening in the U.S. response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows, he’s reminded of a difficult period in the Netherlands, where he lives, back in the late aughts. (Branswell, 7/1)

Starting Monday, the Food and Drug Administration will wield new regulatory powers over makers of lipsticks, shampoos, baby wipes and other cosmetic products that account for more than $40 billion in sales annually. It's part of the phase-in of a 2022 law that calls for more oversight of adverse events and requires companies to clearly label allergens, register their facilities and disclose every product they sell. (Reed, 7/1)

People over 50 with anxiety may be up to twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease as their peers without anxiety, a new analysis suggests. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, looked at primary care data from the United Kingdom. Researchers compared a group of 109,435 people 50 and older who were diagnosed with a first episode of anxiety between 2008 and 2018 with a control group of 987,691 people without anxiety. (Blakemore, 6/30)

David Metcalf’s last act in life was an attempt to send a message — that years as a Navy SEAL had left his brain so damaged that he could barely recognize himself. He died by suicide in his garage in North Carolina in 2019, after nearly 20 years in the Navy. But just before he died, he arranged a stack of books about brain injury by his side, and taped a note to the door that read, in part, “Gaps in memory, failing recognition, mood swings, headaches, impulsiveness, fatigue, anxiety, and paranoia were not who I was, but have become who I am. Each is worsening.” Then he shot himself in the heart, preserving his brain to be analyzed by a state-of-the-art Defense Department laboratory in Maryland. (Philipps, 6/30)

Anecdotal reports about a global rise in head lice cases have prompted warnings from some experts about a popular and universal activity among children and teenagers: taking selfies. Head lice, itchy parasites that live on the scalp, are typically spread through direct head-to-head contact, mostly among children. And getting close for group selfies — which often means pressing two or more heads together to fit into a cellphone frame — could give head lice an opportunity to crawl from one head to another, as they cannot jump or fly. (Bever, 6/28)

Not having secure housing is a huge stress for anyone. But when children experience this, especially in early childhood, it can affect their health years down the line. That’s the finding of a new study in the journal Pediatrics, which says that teens who experienced housing insecurity earlier in life were more likely to report worse health. “Pediatricians, for a long time, have suspected that housing insecurity is associated with negative health outcomes,” says Dr. Hemen Muleta, a pediatrician at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. (Chatterjee, 7/1)

Dengue fever, a potentially fatal, tropical mosquito-borne disease, has been diagnosed more than 50 times in Massachusetts this year, on pace to break local records, according to numbers released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week. But experts say the disease, caused by a virus that infects about 100 million to 400 million people globally each year, remains rare in the Northeast. Those 50 cases were likely in individuals who had contracted it elsewhere. (Piore, 6/29)

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is warning residents of possible measles exposure after an international traveler was diagnosed. The Department of Public Health said the visitor traveled through Boston to Amsterdam while infectious on June 22. ... Measles symptoms begin to occur 10 days to two weeks after exposure. Symptoms include a fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. A rash also appears on the skin two to four days after symptoms develop. (D., 6/30)

On July 1, a new Connecticut law will take effect preventing health care providers from reporting medical debt to credit agencies, shielding residents’ credit scores from the potential adverse financial impacts of seeking care. (Golvala, 6/28)

Starting July 1, the Maryland Department of Health will temporarily stop enrolling certain kinds of behavioral health providers into the Maryland Medicaid Program in an effort to address potential fraud, waste and abuse, the department said in a news release Friday. (Roberts, 7/28)

By about this time last year, Southwest Baltimore’s Penrose/Fayette Street Outreach neighborhood had seen 15 shootings, six of which were fatal. This year, as of June 24, the community of aging two-story rowhouses and vacant lots stretching from Grace Medical Center to the westside MARC station saw two gun homicides and one nonfatal shooting. (Costello, 7/1)

Cancer reclaimed the top spot as Colorado’s No.1 killer last year, according to finalized numbers released last month by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. In 2023, 8,411 Coloradans died from what are known in vital statistics records as “malignant neoplasms.” Heart disease, the second-leading cause, claimed 8,071 lives. (Ingold, 7/1)

Alfred Handley leaned back in his wheelchair alongside a major Phoenix freeway as a street medicine team helped him get rehydrated with an intravenous saline solution dripping from a bag hanging on a pole. Cars whooshed by under the blazing 96-degree morning sun as the 59-year-old homeless man with a nearly toothless smile got the help he needed through a new program run by the nonprofit Circle the City. (Snow, 7/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Supreme Court OKs Local Crackdowns On Homelessness, As Advocates Warn Of Chaos

The U.S. Supreme Court’s watershed decision on homelessness Friday will make it easier for elected officials and law enforcement authorities nationwide to fine and arrest people who live on streets and sidewalks, in broken-down vehicles, or within city parks — which could have far-reaching health consequences for homeless Americans and their communities. In a 6-to-3 ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the justices in the majority said allowing the targeting of homeless people occupying public spaces. (Hart, 6/28)

“Homelessness is complex.” So wrote Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch even as he and the majority of the court upheld a law that does nothing to recognize the complexity of homelessness. In a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the justices sided with a law passed by Grants Pass, Ore., that criminalizes homeless people for sleeping outside on public property. On a day of bleak Supreme Court decisions, the ruling in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson raises the grim question of whether cities and counties will rely more on anti-camping ordinances to deal with homeless people and encampments rather than doing the hard work of creating interim housing, such as motel and hotel rooms, and permanent affordable housing, often with services. (6/29)

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a congressionally mandated report on how to make amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a brutal, always fatal condition — a “livable” disease in the next 10 years. Essentially, the committee was tasked with delivering a plan for a moonshot. As a health care innovation expert and someone living with ALS, I have to say that the report barely gets off the ground. (Bernard Zipprich, 6/30)

There has been much handwringing about how difficult it is for Americans with mental health issues to see a psychiatrist. Failures in the health insurance market are often blamed for the problem. As a new class of psychiatry residents begins work in hospitals across the country this week, I see an additional cause: the lack of commitment to honor the subsidies that made it possible for psychiatrists to enter the profession. (Richard G. Frank, 7/1)

I believe the law should protect the lives and health of both unborn children and their mothers. As the Idaho case progresses, the anti-abortion movement will have to make a choice: Will it love mothers as much as it loves children, or will it violate the fundamental moral principle that undergirds this American republic — that all people are created equal? (David French, 6/30)

Chile and many other countries with front-of-package labels have a constitutional right to health. This helps give authorities the ability not just to implement warning labels but also to ban certain health claims and codify advertising restrictions. (Mexico’s Supreme Court recently upheld its front-of-package labeling regulations in part because of the right to health.) In the United States, new labeling laws will be much more challenging to enact. (Kat Morgan and Mark Bittman, 6/30)