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Private insurers involved in the government’s Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer-funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including outright wrong ones, a Wall Street Journal analysis of billions of Medicare records found. The questionable diagnoses included some for potentially deadly illnesses, such as AIDS, for which patients received no subsequent care, and for conditions people couldn’t possibly have, the analysis showed. Often, neither the patients nor their doctors had any idea. (Weaver, McGinty, Mathews and Maremont, 7/8)

The Wall Street Journal set out to examine the system under which Medicare Advantage insurers can collect extra federal money for patients with certain conditions. The Journal reviewed Medicare data under a research agreement with the federal government. The data doesn’t include patients’ names, but covers details of doctor visits, hospital stays, prescriptions and other care. (Weaver and McGinty, 7/7)

The Social Security Administration’s recently departed inspector general abused her authority and undermined the integrity of her office while under investigation for misconduct, a report from a committee of federal watchdogs found. Gail Ennis, who left her post last week, repeatedly refused to steer clear of an inquiry into her leadership of an anti-fraud program that issued extraordinary fines on disabled and elderly people accused of disability benefit fraud, investigators found. The report said she obstructed the probe by refusing to be interviewed, ordering subordinates and witnesses to limit access to information, and at times seeking to mislead investigators. (Rein, 7/5)

More than two dozen Medicare Advantage insurers received higher quality marks for 2024, based on a STAT review of new data released July 2 by the federal government. Ten health insurance companies, including UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthcare and CVS Health’s Aetna, received critical upgrades in some of their offerings that will allow them to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in extra taxpayer-funded bonuses. (Herman, 7/3)

The White House on Wednesday explained what President Biden meant when he misspoke and said “We finally beat Medicare” in last week’s presidential debate. “He meant to say he beat big pharma,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a briefing when asked about the president’s words. “I mean, that’s what he meant to say.” (Suter, 7/3)

Vermont is partnering with the federal government and a few other states in a new effort to contain Medicare costs and improve care. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services earlier this week announced it has accepted Vermont’s application to participate in the States Advancing All-Payer Health Equity Approaches and Development (AHEAD) program. State officials say the aim is to help bring in more federal Medicare dollars to invest in primary care and preventative medicine to keep people healthy instead of resorting to expensive emergency procedures. (Cutler, 7/5)

Donald Trump has begun to review draft language for the 2024 Republican platform that antiabortion leaders expect will abandon the party’s decades-long call to amend the U.S. Constitution to extend personhood protections to the unborn, according to multiple people involved with the discussions. The escalating behind-the-scenes disagreement over the abortion language has become so tense and acrimonious in recent weeks that some social conservative leaders have issued public warnings of a coming split within Trump’s coalition. Others have started to discuss an effort to issue a “minority report” to the platform at the convention, according to the people involved, who like others for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. (Scherer and Dawsey, 7/5)

Prominent anti-abortion, evangelical and social conservative groups are pressuring the Republican National Committee (RNC) not to moderate its stance on abortion, ahead of a meeting to draft a new GOP platform next week.  New efforts from groups including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Students for Life, and a coalition led by the Family Research Council are aimed at ensuring Republicans don’t make former President Trump’s leave-abortion-to-the states approach the official position of the party. (Weixel, 7/7)

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning, Ohio Senator and vice presidential hopeful J.D. Vance said he supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone—echoing what Donald Trump said just over a week ago on the debate stage. ... Previously, Vance has been vehement in his anti-abortion stances. In 2021, after the Texas legislature passed a near-total abortion ban, Vance heralded the move. “My view on this has been very clear,” he said, “it’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term” but “whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to society.” (Herchenroeder, 7/7)

A think-tank with ties to Trump has set out a far-right vision for another term in office. The former president denies any links. (Wendling, 7/7)

The left has spent two years galvanizing voters against state abortion bans by handing a microphone to the women affected by them. Conservatives are now adopting that playbook in an effort to turn public opinion in their favor. Anti-abortion groups’ new campaign features women speaking directly to the camera — sharing stories of eschewing abortion after being raped, receiving a diagnosis of a fetal anomaly or finding out they were too far along to legally terminate their pregnancy. They aim to match the first-person ads that Democrats and abortion-rights groups have used in key races, like the successful abortion-rights ballot measure in Ohio and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection in Kentucky. (Messerly and Ollstein, 7/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Planned Parenthood To Blitz GOP Seats, Betting Abortion Fears Can Sway Voters

Planned Parenthood is preparing a seven-figure campaign blitz to oust GOP incumbents from California congressional seats, part of a larger national effort by the reproductive rights group to prevent a Republican majority from passing abortion restrictions, including a national ban. Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California is targeting eight districts where voters largely backed Republicans in 2022 even as they endorsed a constitutional amendment enshrining access to abortion and contraceptives. (Castle Work, 7/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Abortion And The 2024 Election: A Video Primer

More than a dozen states are weighing abortion-related ballot measures to be decided this fall, most of which would protect abortion rights if passed. �鶹Ů�� Health News’ Julie Rovner and Rachana Pradhan explain what’s at stake in the 2024 election, both at the national and state levels. (Rovner and Pradhan, 7/8)

Kansas' highest court on Friday permanently barred the state from enforcing a law banning the most common second-trimester abortion procedure, saying the ban violated the right to abortion under the state constitution that the court had recognized in 2019. The 5-1 ruling from the Kansas Supreme Court, with one of the seven justices not participating, leaves in place a lower court order blocking the law, which banned a procedure known as dilation and extraction with a narrow exception for medical emergencies. (Pierson, 7/5)

A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion care in the Arkansas state constitution got one step closer to appearing on the November 2024 ballot, after the group behind it submitted the required number of valid signatures on Friday. Arkansans for Limited Government, the group leading the ballot effort, said it had collected the signatures of more than 100,000 registered voters — more than the approximately 90,700 it needed to submit before a July 5 deadline to move forward with the process of getting their proposal on the ballot. (Edelman, 7/5)

With a law taking effect May 1 that prevents abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a new report gives an initial picture of the reduced number of abortions being performed in Florida. The report, posted online by the state Agency for Health Care Administration, is dated July 1 and said 36,221 abortions had been performed in Florida in 2024. That was up from a total of 32,081 abortions included in a monthly report dated June 3. (7/7)

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood now describes itself as one of the leading national providers of transgender medical interventions, but has been criticized by a top Republican for being "opaque" in how it discloses it in its annual reports. In 2023, a Pennsylvania chapter of the nonprofit said, "Providing gender-affirming care services aligns with our mission of enabling all people to make empowered, informed decisions about their bodies and lives. Nationally, Planned Parenthood is the second-largest provider of hormone therapy." (Grossman, Lencki and Cuebas-Fantauzzi, 7/6)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen: How The End Of ‘Roe’ Is Reshaping The Medical Workforce

It’s been two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, triggering a parade of restrictions and bans in conservative-led states. But the impact of those restrictions has bled into the world of medical education, forcing some new doctors to factor state abortion laws into their decisions about where to begin their careers. (Rovner, 7/8)

Rates of COVID-19 have surged in Florida emergency rooms over recent weeks, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and are now near peaks not seen since the worst days of this past winter's wave of the virus. The weekly average of emergency room patients with COVID-19 has reached 2.64% in Florida, according to CDC data updated Friday, and now rank among the highest of any state during this summer's COVID-19 wave. (tin, 7/5)

The KP.3 COVID-19 variant is continuing to lead as the dominant variant, the newest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows. For a two-week period starting on June 23 and ending on July 6, the CDC’s Nowcast data tracker showed the projections of the COVID-19 variants. The KP.3 variant accounted for 36.9% of positive infections followed by KP.2 at 24.4%. (Forbes, 7/6)

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for COVD-19, the vice president’s office announced Sunday. His office said Emhoff had experienced mild symptoms before being tested Saturday, and is now asymptomatic. He is fully vaccinated, the office said. Vice President Harris was also tested for COVD-19 and tested negative, her office said. (Robertson, 7/7)

It seems that no one is taking COVID-19 seriously anymore, said Mollee Loveland, a nursing home aide who lives outside of Pittsburgh. Loveland has seen patients and coworkers at the nursing home die from the virus. Now she has a new worry: bringing COVID home and unwittingly infecting her infant daughter, Maya, born in May. (Boden, 7/3)

In January 2020, a man who would become known as the first documented Covid-19 patient in the United States arrived at an urgent care clinic. Two of his symptoms, a cough and a fever, were among those that would become known as the telltale symptoms of Covid. But the patient had also experienced two days of nausea and vomiting. (Blum, 7/5)

People who have long COVID symptoms—those that linger well after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection—can display signs of abnormal immune-cell activation in many of their organs and tissues, as well as leftover SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the gut, for more than 2 years after infection, according to a small study this week in Science Translational Medicine. University of California, San Francisco researchers analyzed data on 24 people after their initial COVID-19 illness who underwent whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) imaging at time points ranging from 27 to 910 days (about 2 and a half years) after their acute COVID-19 cases. Eighteen of the patients had long COVID. (Wappes, 7/5)

COVID-19 vaccination may help protect children aged 5 and older against symptomatic asthma, according to a Nemours Children's Health–led research team. Average state-level rates of parent-reported asthma symptoms decreased from 7.77% in 2018 to 2019 to 6.93% in 2020 to 2021. (Van Beusekom, 7/5)

The pandemic’s babies, toddlers and preschoolers are now school-age, and the impact on them is becoming increasingly clear: Many are showing signs of being academically and developmentally behind. Interviews with more than two dozen teachers, pediatricians and early childhood experts depicted a generation less likely to have age-appropriate skills — to be able to hold a pencil, communicate their needs, identify shapes and letters, manage their emotions or solve problems with peers. (Miller and Mervosh, 7/1)

A human case of the plague has been confirmed in Pueblo County, Colorado, according to health officials. The Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment (PDPHE) is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to investigate, according to a press release. No specific information was provided about the person who contracted the plague. (Rudy, 7/5)

Plague, one of the deadliest bacterial infections in human history, caused an estimated 50 million deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages when it was known as the Black Death. While extremely rare, the disease is still around today, with a man in New Mexico dying of plague in March after being hospitalized for the disease and a person in Oregon being diagnosed with bubonic plague in February after likely being infected by their pet cat. (Scutti and Hunt, 7/5)

In a statement, officials said the patient was at sites in Bellevue, Seattle, and Woodinville while infectious and that anyone who was at the locations when the person was there from June 27 to July 2 may have been exposed to the virus. In Ohio, the Butler County General Health District yesterday announced the confirmation of a measles case in a child younger than 1 year old who is a resident of the county. Officials said the child contracted measles during international travel, returning to the United States at a Chicago airport and returning to Ohio by car. (Schnirring, 7/5)

These days, most Americans don’t think about measles because vaccination had largely eliminated the scourge from the United States in 2000. Many doctors cannot even diagnose measles because they have not seen it in practice. But measles outbreaks are back. There have been more cases this year than in each of the past two years. The measles virus is one of the most contagious on Earth; it can live for up to two hours in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are not protected will become infected if they breathe the contaminated air or touch a surface that has been infected. Measles is especially deadly for babies and young children who are not vaccinated. (Sun, 7/7)

Appearing in Shot in the Arm, a 2023 documentary about vaccine opposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked about the deadly measles outbreak that occurred in Samoa in 2019 and claimed the lives of 83 people, mostly children. Kennedy, a leading anti-vaxxer who had visited the Pacific island nation a few months before the outbreak, replied, “I’m aware there was a measles outbreak…I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate. I didn’t go there with any reason to do with that.” Kennedy was being disingenuous, sidestepping his connection to that tragedy. (Corn, 7/2)

The case of a Colorado dairy worker is the state's first this year. Health officials identified the first U.S. case of avian influenza in 2022, in an incarcerated person who was exposed to infected chickens at a Colorado poultry farm. The first case in the 2024 outbreak was identified in Texas, and two cases in Michigan followed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Cuevas, 7/3)

Last week, following an unusually udder pun-laden discussion, lawmakers in Delaware voted to become the latest state to legalize the sale of raw milk. Not part of the discussion was the fact that an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle has scientists increasingly concerned that the virus could be transmitted to humans through raw milk. (Molteni, 7/8)

After years of delay, millions of malaria vaccines are being supplied to children in Africa. Tens of thousands died waiting. (Nolen, 7/5)

A proposed rule that would require the nation's most critical industries to more quickly report cyberattacks is raising the ire of the health care industry, which claims the new directives could actually hinder its response in a crisis. Why it matters: Cyberattacks have sent shockwaves across the health care industry, but regulators and providers don't agree on how to get a handle on the problem. (Reed, 7/8)

Palomar Health Medical Group recently told its patients that a wide range of their personal information may have been compromised when an “unauthorized actor” accessed “certain files” on its digital network. But, two months in, the North County medical provider said it still “is not able to identify the specific individuals and information that may have been impacted.” Palomar first detected the breach, said to have spared its hospitals in Escondido and Poway, on May 5, but indicated this week that its ongoing investigation has found that the unauthorized digital intruder first was inside its defenses on April 23 and the infiltration continued until May 5 when the medical group “identified suspicious activity on certain computer systems within its network.” (Sisson, 7/5)

Dozens of big nonprofits like Geisinger, Ascension, and Henry Ford are turning to investor-owned psychiatric hospital operators — particularly the two biggest, Acadia and Universal Health Services — to build new hospitals to manage the surging number of adolescents and adults experiencing mental health emergencies. These joint ventures are appealing because they can piggyback off the nonprofits’ strong local reputations while obscuring their involvement now that their own names have been tarnished by lawsuits and government settlements. (Bannow, 7/8)

Health insurance companies are concerned multimillion-dollar new gene therapies could break the $9.2 billion health insurance exchange risk-adjustment program. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tinkered with the risk-adjustment system in an effort to better account for high costs, but insurers view the modifications as inadequate in the face of costly new treatments and caution that companies may respond by downgrading benefits and provider networks. (Tepper, 7/5)

Many academic hospitals develop in-house blood tests that doctors and patients rely on for the diagnosis of serious conditions, including cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. The FDA has not historically regulated these laboratory-developed tests, or “LDTs,” but this year issued a new rule that will phase in regulation. A trade association seeking to block the new rule has filed suit against the FDA in Texas, where federal judges have generally been hostile to the agency. The case will test whether the FDA has the statutory authority to regulate such tests as medical devices, the classification it’s used to assert jurisdiction over them. (Bogage, 7/5)

A looming anti-China biotechnology bill has spooked U.S. life sciences companies, according to a new report. (Wilkerson, 7/2)

A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. persisted on Sunday, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that caused the death of a motorcyclist in Death Valley and held the East in its hot and humid grip. An excessive heat warning — the National Weather Service’s highest alert — was in effect for about 36 million people, or about 10% of the population, said NWS meteorologist Bryan Jackson. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records. (Beck and Weber, 7/7)

Dozens of people were treated for heat-related illnesses this week at Bay Area hospitals, including several who needed hospitalization, as the region endured a record-breaking heat wave. At least 28 people sought care at hospitals in Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties, according to figures shared by the counties Friday. (Ho, 7/5)

Nine cases of West Nile virus have been confirmed so far this year, as disease experts say the virus appears to be circulating more than usual for this time of summer. As of June 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed human cases in at least seven states: Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee. At least 18 states have detected the virus this year in humans, mosquitoes, birds or other animals. (Bendix and Barakett, 7/5)

Weeks before one of North Carolina’s state-supported behavioral health management agencies merged with another one in eastern North Carolina, there was a flurry of questionable financial activity that led to more than $4 million in payments to two top executives and back pay to the law firm that counseled the organization, according to allegations made in an internal audit conducted by the state Department of Health and Human Services. (Hoban, 7/8)

A group of Baltimore teachers is asking voters to approve a program that would give $1,000 to new parents in the hopes of reducing childhood poverty starting from birth. The “baby bonus” will appear on the ballot for city residents in November. (Skene, 7/8)

Many people with disabilities are familiar with the helplessness and frustration of waiting weeks or months for simple but necessary repairs to their wheelchairs. They’re experiencing similar feelings now, as legislation that addresses those lengthy delays appears stalled in the final weeks of the Massachusetts Legislature’s current session. In order to reach the governor’s desk, the bill needs the committee’s approval, as well as that of the House, before the legislative session ends on July 31. (Laughlin, 7/5)

A family party near Fresno, California, resulted in 10 people being treated for botulism, a rare but serious illness caused by bacteria that affects the nervous system, public officials said Friday. The culprit in the outbreak? Home-canned nopales, or cactus pads. Two sisters are currently recovering in intensive care, a spokesperson for the Fresno County Department of Public Health told NBC News. (Baek, 7/5)

The reports have unearthed an unsettling fact: While homelessness in Harris County has gone down dramatically, the number of deaths has risen. In 2011, about 50 people died in homelessness — roughly in line with the two years before and after. Since then, the homeless population has fallen by over two-thirds. But the number of people dying in homelessness has surged. In 2022, nearly 250 people died without a home. (Schuetz, 7/5)

Amy Drum has a new grandbaby she’s eager to get home to see. Drum, who lives in the town of Lincolnton, in North Carolina’s Piedmont region, had been free of heroin and methamphetamine for a good while before relapsing. It was pretty rough going for a time. She eventually got into treatment. (Sisk, 7/6)

Blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs may lower patients’ risk of developing some common types of cancer that are closely linked to obesity, new evidence suggests. Patients with Type 2 diabetes who were prescribed drugs known as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1, developed fewer obesity-related cancers than patients who were treated with insulin, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. But the newer drugs didn’t perform better than metformin, an older diabetes drug with known cancer risk reduction properties. (Muller and Kresge, 7/5)

Being exposed to light during a certain time of day can increase a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. According to the science, it all comes down to how you sleep. Published in the Lancet Regional Health — Europe earlier this month, a study helmed by Flinders University researchers in Australia discovered sleep disruption can play a significant role in diabetes development. (Boyce, 7/5)

Researchers found more than a dozen metals, including lead and arsenic, in widely available tampons in the US and Europe used by potentially millions of people. Lead was found in all 30 tampons tested from 14 different brands, according to the study published this week in the journal Environmental International. Lead exposure can cause neurological damage. This is the first paper to measure the concentration of metals in tampons, said Jenni Shearston, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. (Edney, 7/5)

Having a mother with Alzheimer’s could lead to a higher risk of inherited disease than a paternal history. That’s according to a recent study from Mass General Brigham. Researchers analyzed 4,400 adults between ages 65 and 85 who did not have any signs of cognitive decline, but did have amyloid show up in brain-imaging scans. The people with the higher amounts of amyloid were more likely to have mothers with symptoms of Alzheimer’s — primarily memory loss, the researchers found. (Rudy, 7/6)

A spinal cord injury can be life-altering – and the potential for infertility is often a devastating blow as well. Among men who experience spinal cord injuries (SCIs) in the U.S., nearly eight in 10 have fertility and reproduction issues due to erectile dysfunction or poor sperm quality. But one clinic in Miami, Florida, is on a mission to help men with SCIs start a family. (Stabile, 7/6)

Many Americans plan to donate their organs for transplants or their bodies for medical science. Few realize that there’s a growing need for their brains, too. (Span, 7/6)

"We’re doing an NRP recovery," says Sellers, referring to normothermic regional perfusion, a new kind of organ retrieval procedure Sellers calls "revolutionary." ... NRP is generating excitement as an important innovation that produces more, high-quality livers, kidneys, and hearts that could help alleviate the chronic shortage of organs. More than 100,000 people are on waiting lists for organs, most for kidneys, and 17 are estimated to die every day because the number of available organs hasn’t been able to keep pace with the demand. (Stein, 7/8)

The threat of Covid-19 may have subsided, but myriad public-health challenges have emerged in its wake. So far, none poses as serious a risk. Yet the US public-health system is woefully underprepared for another pandemic. (7/5)

Texas was among the first states to pass a heartbeat bill, prohibiting abortions as early as five weeks’ gestation, the time when the electrical impulses that we associate with heart formation begin. We found that, in Texas, infant mortality—including deaths in the first year of life—increased by 13 percent between 2021 and 2022 following the passage of this bill, while infant mortality increased by only 2 percent in all other U.S. states. (Alison Gemmill and Suzanne O. Bell, 7/3)

What if a preposterous failed treatment for Covid-19 — the arthritis drug hydroxychloroquine — could successfully treat another dreaded disease, Alzheimer’s? (Charles Piller, 7/7)

Nearly 5 million Texans lack health insurance — more than 16% of the total population. While this is lower than in recent years, it remains the largest of any state. (Charles Miller, 7/8)

For years, the price of an operation at my hospital has been radically different depending on the floor where it’s performed. Why? One spot was designated a hospital space; the other a non-hospital space. Patients were sometimes ushered to the location that generated the biggest profit based on their insurance type. (Marty Makary, 7/8)