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President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, David J. Shulkin, vowed at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday to reform — but not privatize — veterans’ health care, potentially putting him at odds with Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to allow all veterans to choose private health care. “V.A. is a unique national resource that is worth saving,” Dr. Shulkin told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He added, “The Department of Veterans Affairs will not be privatized under my watch.” (Philipps, 2/1)

At his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Shulkin said “there should be no doubt” that he will seek “major reform and transformation of the VA.” Shulkin, as the only Obama appointee among Trump’s Cabinet nominees, is walking something of a tightrope, outlining what he will do differently under Trump, while at the same time assuaging the fears of Democrats and some veterans' groups that VA services will be privatized. (Slack, 2/1)

His opposition to turning over vast parts of the system to private doctors and approach seeking gradual changes at an agency still reeling from a 2014 scandal over patient wait times puts Shulkin at odds with Trump advisers and some Republican lawmakers who are pressing for more drastic reform, particularly more private care. But Shulkin, now serving as VA undersecretary in charge of the veterans’ health system, is likely headed for swift confirmation by the Senate, say Republican and Democratic aides. (Rein, 2/1)

Republicans questioned whether Shulkin, who was confirmed as VA under secretary for health during President Barack Obama’s tenure, is committed to the VA shakeup that Trump promised on the campaign trail. “How can you assure veterans . . . that some of the big focuses that President Trump has talked about, of really shaking up the VA, [will occur] on your watch, when to be honest, you’ve been part of the outgoing administration?” asked Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. But Shulkin said that, as both a doctor and a health care executive, he's committed to a drastic overhaul of the agency. (Mejdrich, 2/1)

The hourslong hearing was strikingly civil, in contrast with other confirmation proceedings in recent days in which Democrats have boycotted procedures and lawmakers have slung insults at their colleagues across the aisle. Veterans’ issues are the “one thing that’s kept us bipartisan,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) as he walked from the hearing. (Kesling, 2/1)

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee suspended committee rules and confirmed U.S. Representative Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services and banker Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary Wednesday on a straight party line vote, sending the nominations to the Senate floor. Under pressure from their political base to block President Donald Trump's nominees, Democrats stayed away from the meeting for a second day running. This normally would have stopped action, but Republicans plowed ahead by voting to suspend the rule that required at least one Democrat to be present for business to be conducted. (Cornwell, 2/1)

Senate Democrats aren't making it easy for Republicans to approve President Trump's Cabinet nominees — and now, Republicans are so mad, they're abandoning their own committee rules to push at least two nominees through. Democrats boycotted a Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, meaning the committee couldn't make a quorum. ... Republicans got predictably mad at the stall tactic but set another hearing for Wednesday morning, hoping to hold a vote. But Democrats, again, were no-shows. That's when the GOP senators on the committee got creative and made a move that is sure to infuriate the opposition. (Stevenson, 2/1)

Underscoring Congress’ foul mood, Finance panel Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Democrats should be “ashamed” for staying away from his committee’s meeting. “I don’t feel a bit sorry for them,” he told reporters, adding later, “I don’t care what they want at this point.” (Fram and Lardner, 2/1)

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the committee, said the decision to change the rules was “deeply troubling … in the face of strong evidence of two nominees’ serious ethical problems.” Democrats wrote to Hatch on Wednesday requesting Mnuchin and Price “submit complete, accurate responses to repeated requests for information.” (Puzzanghera, 2/1)

"We have significant concerns that both Mr. Mnuchin and Congressman Price gave inaccurate and misleading testimony and responses to questions to the Committee," the Democrats said. Republicans slammed them as being obstructionists and downplayed their concerns with the nominees. The GOP adopted a similar approach in the environment committee, where chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) vowed to push past the Democratic boycott of EPA nominee Scott Pruitt — though he declined to say exactly how he would do so. (Warmbrodt, Cancryn and Schor, 2/1)

Overall, Trump is making slow progress in stocking his cabinet. ... But the drama at several committees shows rising frustration on both sides about the handling of the confirmation process. (Dopp and Dennis, 2/1)

The Democratic blockade is the most visible example of that party’s renewed efforts to slow the consideration of Trump’s nominees to a crawl, as the party and its base hardens in opposition to the new president. (Schroeder, 2/1)

Price, an orthopedic surgeon from Georgia, sat on the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. During his time in Congress, Price proposed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. During confirmation hearings before the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees, Price mostly dodged questions aimed at pinning him down on maintaining ACA provisions such as not allowing insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and providing free preventive care. He has been outspoken about his desire to give states more control over Medicaid. (Dickson, 2/1)

Some Republicans in Congress are starting to talk more about trying to “repair” Obamacare, rather than simply calling for “repeal and replace.” There’s good reason for that. The repair language was discussed by Republicans during their closed-door policy retreat in Philadelphia last week as a better way to brand their strategy. Some of that discussion flowed from views that Republicans may not be headed toward a total replacement, said one conservative House lawmaker who didn’t want to be identified. (Edney, House and Tracer, 2/1)

Not everyone is on board with the new rhetoric. Some Republicans say their party should be focused on repealing the law and replacing it, not repairing it. “I’m hearing a lot of members say that they want ObamaCare-lite,” said Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho). “That’s not what we promised the American people.” (Sullivan, 2/1)

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus met separately with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) this week to discuss the senators’ ObamaCare replacement plans. The Freedom Caucus has been a vocal proponent of having a replacement plan ready to pass at the same time as repeal, with its members searching for a plan by meeting with the two senators, each of whom have put forward bills. (Sullivan, 2/1)

In a delegation packed with chairmen and some of the most bombastic members of Congress, one of the quieter Texas members this week took on one of the most daunting tasks ahead for House Republicans. U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Lewisville Republican, led his first hearings this week to unwind the Affordable Care Act, the Democrats' 2010 health care overhaul. But in an interview with the Tribune on Wednesday, Burgess suggested his aim was not so much to unwind the landmark bill but "to fix" the overall health care system. (Livingston, 2/2)

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling for all of ObamaCare’s taxes to be repealed, a potentially key moment in an internal Republican debate on the issue. “We need to definitively answer the question about what to do with the ObamaCare taxes,” Hatch said in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. “Some have argued that we should keep all or some of them in place and use them to pay for our eventual replacement package.” (Sullivan, 2/1)

The crowd of hundreds was ready to march, winding a circuitous route from a Bakersfield park to the nearby district office of Rep. Kevin McCarthy to rally in support of the Affordable Care Act. But before they hoisted their signs and joined in healthcare-themed chants, there was a quick geographic roll call. “How many of you are from Bakersfield?” asked the emcee. About half the attendees cheered. The rest had come from farther-flung homes: Long Beach, Sacramento, Riverside. They had traveled via chartered bus, largely with labor unions or grass-roots liberal groups, to the heart of the California effort to save Obamacare. (Mason, 2/2)

Amid uncertainty about the future of the national health care law, record numbers of Marylanders signed up for coverage this year, according to figures released by the state Wednesday. In what could be the final enrollment period of the Affordable Care Act, nearly 432,000 Maryland residents signed up for the law's various offerings, up 7.5 percent over last year. All of that growth came from new Medicaid participants. The number of people buying into private plans declined 3 percent. (Cohn and Fritze, 2/1)

The Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges have become too risky for major health insurers, and that's creating further doubt about coverage options consumers might have next year. Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish said Wednesday his company is waiting to see whether the government makes some short-term fixes to the shaky exchanges before it decides how much it will participate next year. The Blue Cross-Blue Shield carrier is the nation's second largest insurer and sells coverage on exchanges in 14 states. (2/1)

Leaders for the health insurance industry, state insurance commissioners and brokers warned Wednesday that more health plans almost certainly will defect from Affordable Care Act marketplaces unless Congress and the Trump administration provide some concrete assurances within the next two months. Unless the government promises to continue subsidies and other features of the law for at least another year, some states probably will not have any insurers selling health plans to individuals buying coverage on their own for 2018, the witnesses warned at a Senate hearing. (Goldstein, 2/1)

“We will make the right decisions to protect the business,” CEO Joseph Swedish told Wall Street analysts in a conference call. “If we can’t see stability going into 2018, with respect to either pricing, product, or the overall rules of engagement, then we will begin making some very conscious decisions with respect to extracting ourselves.” Congressional Republicans face a dilemma, too. They want to paint Obamacare as collapsing to help justify its repeal. Yet they need to keep its markets humming this year, and probably into 2018, or take the blame for millions of people who might lose coverage. That will be the topic of hearings Wednesday in the Senate and Thursday in the House. (Tracer, 2/1)

Health insurers told Congress it needs to move quickly to assure their participation in Obamacare in 2018 while Senate Republicans and Democrats traded charges over the cause of turbulence in health law markets. With important details of a GOP repeal-replace plan still missing, Republicans on the Senate HELP Committee used a two-plus-hour hearing to showcase problems such as the departure of some major insurers and average nationwide premiums hikes of more than 20 percent. They blamed what they described as Obamacare’s heavy-handed approach toward regulating what products can be sold and what benefits must be provided. (Demko, 2/1)

A top Republican lawmaker indicated Wednesday that Congress might have to provide financial assistance to insurance companies to keep the individual market from collapsing during the transition away from ObamaCare. Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said Republicans might have to step outside of their comfort zone soon to prevent insurers from bailing out of the market and leaving millions without healthcare. (Hellmann, 2/1)

Insurance company officials and their state regulators had a clear message for Republicans Wednesday: Within the next month, we need your plans to repeal and replace the health care law...That timeline gives Republican lawmakers just weeks to draft and pass a repeal bill and outline major elements of their replacement package, even as leaders continue to say they will wait to make major decisions until Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., is confirmed as Department of Health and Human Services secretary. He was approved by only Republicans in a quickly scheduled meeting of the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday and is expected to face a Senate floor vote later this month. (Mershon, 2/1)

Republican lawmakers say that as they consider ways to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, they want to first take measures to stabilize the individual marketplace before focusing on efforts to reform Medicaid and roll back expansion. During a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing Wednesday aimed at assessing the stability of the individual insurance market, Chairman Alexander Lamar (R-Tenn.) suggested the marketplace was in danger. (Dickson, 2/1)

A senior Republican said lawmakers may need to fund Affordable Care Act programs that they haven’t given money to in recent years in order to stabilize the individual insurance market, even as the GOP works to repeal and replace the same health care law. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told reporters Wednesday that Republicans may need to fund the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction or reinsurance programs, even though they don’t support them, so health insurers continue to sell to individuals. (McIntire, 2/1)

As Republicans consider paring back the Affordable Care Act’s federal mandates, they face a difficult question: what does health insurance need to cover? The 2010 health law created a new set of federal requirements for plans sold to individuals and small businesses, including a list of 10 benefits, among them prescription drugs, mental-health services and laboratory tests. It also mandated that plans cover preventive services such as vaccinations at no cost to enrollees. (Wilde Mathews, 2/2)

The Affordable Care Act created new federal requirements for health plans. Some critics of the law want to allow more flexibility in plan design, which they say could help bring down premiums and potentially draw in more healthy enrollees. Here are some of the law’s insurance mandates, and potential trade-offs, if those are relaxed or eliminated. (Wilde Mathews, 2/2)

From a return to higher premiums for women to gaps in coverage for birth control and breast pumps, the Republican push to repeal the Obama-era health care law already is raising concerns that women could be hit hard. The 2010 law ended a common industry practice of charging women more than men for policies purchased directly from an insurer. It made maternity and newborn care a required benefit for individual market health plans. And it set a list of preventive services to be provided at no extra cost to women, including birth control and breast pumps used by nursing mothers. (2/1)

Stay in business for yourself or go back to working for someone else? That's the choice some small business owners and freelancers are worried they may have to make, depending on what changes Congress makes in the health care law. With Republicans working on legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, people who traded a full-time job for entrepreneurship are concerned that new insurance policies may be too expensive or not available at all — and possibly force them to find new jobs that offer cheaper and more comprehensive group plans. (Rosenberg, 2/1)

That’s when thousands of students at medical schools in the United States and around the world find out if and where they’ve “matched” for a residency program, where they will begin to practice as doctors for the first time and further develop their skills. But Trump’s executive order on immigration, issued on national security grounds, has thrown the process into disarray. Some physicians-in-training have been left wondering if they will be allowed into the country to start their programs, while hospitals are weighing whether to risk reserving coveted spots for students who might not be able to fill them. (Joseph and Boodman, 2/2)

President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, which sparked protests abroad and in the U.S., is also raising fears about the impact on international medical students vying for training programs at U.S. hospitals, as well as young doctors in training from affected countries who are already working here. Medical residency assignments will be announced in six weeks. The Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents medical schools and teaching hospitals, has identified 260 applicants who could be affected. (Heredia Rodriguez, 2/2)

In the days since the executive order was announced, more than 4,500 international academics have signed a pledge to boycott US-based conferences, of which there are hundreds every year. “We question the intellectual integrity of these spaces and the dialogues they are designed to encourage while Muslim colleagues are explicitly excluded from them,” the authors of the pledge write. And more than 18,000 academics — most of them from the US — have signed a letter denouncing the ban. (Oransky and Marcus, 2/1)

On Saturday morning, Dr. Kamal Fadlalla traveled more than two hours from his family’s home in Wad Madani, Sudan, to the country’s capital of Khartoum to board a flight back to the United States. For Fadlalla, a second-year resident in internal medicine at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, this was to be an early ending to his first trip back to his home country since he started in his training program 20 months ago. (Charles Ornstein, 1/29)

President Trump will keep, for the time being, the same White House doctor who had cared for former President Barack Obama since 2013. Dr. Ronny Jackson, a rear admiral in the US Navy, will continue to serve as physician to the president, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told STAT. Jackson was appointed as the lead White House doctor by Obama in July 2013. He had previously served in the White House Medical Unit under Obama and George W. Bush. (Scott, 2/2)

Supporters of a terminally ill person’s right to take his or her own life said Wednesday they are alarmed by President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court and worry that Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation could mean a renewed battle over the legality of laws permitting the practice. Gorsuch, a Denver-based judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote a 2006 book titled “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” that included an extensive discussion of Oregon’s law, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication to patients to have less than six months to live and who request it. (Flaccus, 2/1)

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to appoint a crusading anti-abortion Supreme Court justice who'd work to overturn the Roe v. Wade opinion that legalized it. However, an Associated Press review of decisions and writings by Neil Gorsuch during a decade as a federal appeals court judge in Denver turns up no guarantees on how he might rule on that hot-button issue. (Neumeister, Burke and Weiss, 2/1)

Democratic lawmakers in Rhode Island on Wednesday proposed legislation to strengthen women’s access to abortion, the latest state-level effort to protect those rights. The proposed legislation would bar restrictions on medically recognized methods of contraception or abortion. It would also prevent the state from interfering with a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy as long as that decision is made before a physician determines that a fetus would likely survive outside the womb. (De Avila, 2/1)

Justin Bainbridge is 27 and works two jobs, but he wasn't allowed to start saving money for his future until a few months ago. Bainbridge has Down syndrome, and like other people with disabilities who receive government benefits, he can't have more than $2,000 in savings. If he does, he would start to lose those much-needed benefits. But a new type of savings vehicle is giving Bainbridge, and others, a chance to save more cash. (Pisani, 2/1)

A new type of savings vehicle, known as an ABLE account, is allowing people with disabilities to save more money for the first time. That's because the accounts allow them to save without losing much-needed government benefits, such as Supplemental Security Income monthly payments or Medicaid health care. The accounts are run by states and are similar to 529 college savings plans. Here's more on how ABLE accounts work. (2/1)

A former Tenet Healthcare executive is the first executive of the Dallas-based hospital chain to be charged for an alleged role in defrauding Medicaid through a $400 million kickback scheme. John Holland, 60, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Miami federal court to four counts of fraud. Holland was senior vice president of operations for Tenet's southern states between 2006 and 2013, when federal prosecutors say Tenet paid $12 million in kickbacks to Clinica de la Mama. (2/1)

A former senior executive of Tenet Healthcare Corp has been indicted on charges that he participated in a scheme to pay bribes for patient referrals, enabling the U.S. hospital chain to fraudulently bill state Medicaid programs for $400 million. (Raymond, 2/1)

A former executive with the giant Tenet hospital chain has been charged in Miami with paying bribes to a clinic for patient referrals in a scheme to bill hundreds of millions of dollars to the U.S. government. John Holland, a former senior vice president for Tenet Healthcare Corp., is also accused of misleading federal authorities about the company’s amends for unlawful billing practices dating back more than a decade. (Weaver, 2/1)

A new study on Medicare patients dying soon after emergency department discharges raises questions about staffing and treatment at rural hospitals and other providers who are under pressure to reduce health care costs. More than 10,000 Medicare patients who do not have life-threatening illnesses die each year in the US within seven days of being released from emergency departments, according to the study, published in the BMJ. Those hospitals with the lowest inpatient admission rates, often hospitals in rural areas, had much higher rates of unexpected deaths. (Ross, 2/1)

Massachusetts prides itself on being a medical mecca, but transgender people say they regularly encounter ignorance, discrimination, and even hostility in the doctor’s office. Mason Dunn, a 31-year-old transgender man, painfully recalls being turned away from a specialist’s practice. While he has transitioned to male, he still requires routine pap smears and other gynecological care. (Kolwalczyk, 2/1)

Ohio Gov. John Kasich stood firm Wednesday against charges from lawmakers and others that the state is not doing enough to tackle the nation's leading number of drug-overdose deaths, principally from opioids. Noting that his budget proposal maintains the state's $1 billion-a-year investment to battle drug addiction - mainly pain pills, heroin and other opiates - Kasich said Ohio "is doing more than any state in the country." The state is giving local communities "the tools, but they need to use them," Kasich said during an Associated Press conference. "The drug problem is not going to get fixed from the top down." (Ludlow, Candisky and Siegel, 2/2)

At least 12 drug overdoses - including one fatality - have been reported in the past two days in Chillicothe, police said. Detective Bud Lytle said five overdoses were reported on Tuesday and at least seven more as of early Wednesday night. (Woods, 2/1)

As part of its fight against the opioid crisis in New Jersey, Gov. Christie on Tuesday called for the addition of 864 beds in 13 counties for the treatment of individuals with behavioral-health and substance-abuse disorders. The targeted counties now have 678 adult psychiatric beds, according to a call for applications published by the New Jersey Department of Health. In the southern half of the state, Burlington and Camdent Counties have a combined surplus of 297 beds while Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean, and Salem Counties have a deficit of 269 beds, the health department estimated using a methodology that calls for 40 beds per 100,000 adults. (Brubaker, 2/1)

Hennepin County officials and community organizations are launching an effort that they hope will reduce the number of opioid overdose deaths in the county this year. The new campaign follows the release of statistics showing that the state's most populous county saw an increase of more than 30 percent in opioid overdose deaths last year. (Collins, 2/1)

The past year, 2016, will set a record for the number of drug overdose deaths in the St. Louis region. While still collecting data, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse – St. Louis Area is expecting a total of 630-640 deaths from overdoses in the past year, most of them opioid related and most impacting younger St. Louisans. Opiate addiction and overdose are issues wracking cities across the country. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 580 people initiate heroin use each day in the United States and 78 people die each day from an opioid-related overdose. (Moffitt, 2/1)

More than 1,800 former players are currently involved in a class action lawsuit charging that they were systematically encouraged to depend on prescription painkillers by doctors and trainers who failed to warn the players of the long-term consequences of the abuse. An argument can be made that, as adults, the players should have informed themselves about the potential danger of the pills and injections. (Littlefield, 2/1)

Often-emotional testimony at the criminal trial of two pain doctors is shedding new light on the sales tactics of fentanyl-maker Insys Therapeutics Inc., and the toll of opioid addiction in this port city along the Gulf Coast. Prosecutors here allege that Drs. John Couch and Xiulu Ruan made $40 million in illicit profit by overprescribing pain medications and dispensing them to patients from the pharmacy they co-owned and operated from the back of one of their pain clinics. (Walker, 2/1)

Federal health officials may be about to get greatly enhanced powers to quarantine people, as part of an ongoing effort to stop outbreaks of dangerous contagious diseases. The new powers are outlined in a set of regulations the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published late last month to update the agency's quarantine authority for the first time since the 1940s. (Stein, 2/2)

Men whose prostate cancer comes back after surgery are more likely to survive if, along with the usual radiation, they also take drugs to block male hormones. The finding, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, comes from a long-running study that experts say will help clarify treatment for many patients. (Grady, 2/1)

A new research analysis suggests the mortality rate of cervical cancer is higher than we thought, especially among African-American women. Miles O’Brien talks with Dr. Jennifer Caudle of the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine about the findings, as well as the racial disparities in health care. (O'Brien, 2/1)

Hundreds of people have become severely ill and at least five have died after consuming high-concentration hydrogen peroxide that some people take as an additive to their diets, according to a new study. The colorless, caustic liquid quickly releases a bubble of oxygen that can find its way into a blood vessel, blocking blood flow to the heart, the brain, the lungs or other parts of the body, according to the research, which was published this week in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. (Bernstein, 2/1)

Food allergies are on the rise, and we still don't know why. MPR News host Marianne Combs spoke with dietitian Kristi Winkel and Dr. David Stukus about what we know, and what we still have to learn, about food allergies and intolerances. (Combs and Erickson, 2/1)

Researchers have also begun using Quanterix tests to search for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the neurodegenerative disease that’s been found in the brains of at least 90 dead former NFL players...While the NFL is backing Quanterix, a test for the living could present an existential crisis for the league. Discovering, for instance, that half its linemen show signs of CTE could starve the league of talent or force changes that make it unrecognizable to fans. And football isn’t alone: CTE presents similarly dire questions for hockey, soccer, and ultimate fighting, among other contact sports. (Boudway, 2/1)

Heading a soccer ball is both a fundamental skill and a dynamic way to score a goal, but research says it could be causing concussions along with player collisions. Players who headed a lot of balls, an average of 125 over two weeks, were three times more vulnerable to concussion than those who headed less than four in that time period, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology. These header-happy players reported having concussion symptoms like headache, confusion and even unconsciousness. (Boddy, 2/1)

A UC San Francisco study that examined a population of older adults for more than a decade showed that poor performance on a simple odor test was linked to increased risk of developing dementia years later. The study of more than 2,400 older black and white adults, directed by Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a UCSF professor of psychiatry, neurology, epidemiology and biostatistics, was published this week in the journal Neurology. Previous research has shown that olfactory function may be an early marker for cognitive impairment, but the evidence had been mostly restricted to the white population. The new study is the first to look at that association in both black and white older adults. Researchers followed the patients for nearly 12 years. (Seipel, 2/1)

When scientists first read out the human genome 15 years ago, there were high hopes that we'd soon understand how traits like height are inherited. It hasn't been easy. A huge effort to find height-related genes so far only explains a fraction of this trait. Now scientists say they've made some more headway. And the effort is not just useful for understanding how genes determine height, but how they're involved in driving many other human traits. (Harris, 2/1)

For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking. None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: All had taken a drug called Lupron. Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller. The drug’s pediatric version comes with few warnings about long-term side effects. (Jewett, 2/2)

Business students are used to thinking about how to sell a new shampoo or a new app for a phone. Last week they were asked to put their strategic brains to another use: Figuring out the best way to convince health workers and new parents in Nigeria to apply a potentially life-saving antiseptic to the baby's umbilical cord stump. (Brink, 2/1)

More than 100 Iowa lawmakers appear to be paying hundreds of dollars less than they should for their state-provided health insurance — a potential violation of state law, a Des Moines Register investigation shows. Data analyzed by the Register shows that 92 of 149 Iowa legislators pay as little as $20 a month in health insurance premiums, rather than the $142 to $334 a month that those plans call for. Another 39 lawmakers pay up to $344 a month for coverage plans, rather than as much as $446 called for by their plan. (Clayworth, 2/1)

The flu season hitting the Kansas City area right now is on pace to be “very bad,” according to health officials tracking the spread of the disease over the past two weeks. Kansas and Missouri are among at least 10 states reporting widespread flu outbreaks. Even as the flu season appears to be reaching a crescendo at the beginning of February, doctors say that it isn’t too late to get vaccinated and that everyone should do so if they can. (Cummings, 2/1)

Tens of thousands of California nurses are scrambling to prove that they have to up-to-date credentials after a state licensing board suddenly demanded them. The Board of Vocational Nurses and Psychiatric Technicians in December mailed letters to more than 52,000 medical professionals simultaneously requesting confirmation that they’ve taken mandatory classes. (Ashton, 2/1)

Los Angeles County health officials said Wednesday that at least three heart surgery patients at a hospital have been sickened by a dangerous bacteria linked to an operating room device. Officials are now investigating a fourth patient infection at another hospital that may also be linked to the device, said Benjamin Schwartz, acting director of the county’s acute communicable disease control program. (Petersen, 2/1)

Leaders of a northwest Iowa nursing home that was ordered closed this week have agreed to repay the federal government $100,000 for “worthless care.” Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that leaders of the Abbey nursing home in Le Mars had agreed to repay the money to the Medicaid program. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the repayment was for “when care provided to nursing facility residents was so grossly substandard that the care was worthless and effectively without value.” (Leys, 2/1)

Teenagers no longer could buy tobacco products or e-cigarettes under a proposal at the Arizona Legislature to raise the legal age for such purchases to 21 from 18. Rep. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, said it could have big health benefits by potentially delaying the age at which young people start smoking, or even preventing them from starting. (Pitzi, 2/1)

Austin philanthropists Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long are donating $25 million to the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, whose medical school is being named for them in recognition of a long history of donations. The latest gift — of which $15 million has already been paid, with the balance pledged by the end of the year — brings the Longs’ giving to the health science center to $51 million. When other campuses in the UT System are counted, their donations total more than $70 million, including $10 million for UT-Austin’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, officials said. (Haurwitz, 2/1)

Prompted by the suicide of a former patient last summer, an independent committee has wrapped up an investigation into care at New Hampshire Hospital. Last July, 63-year-old Joy Silva jumped from her third-floor apartment in Nashua shortly after being discharged from the state psychiatric hospital. The obvious question that followed was: Could New Hampshire Hospital have done more to prevent Silva's suicide? (Rodolico, 2/1)

Orlando Health is planning to expand its reach beyond Central Florida by taking a new hospital under its wing in Polk County. The heath system announced today that Lakeland Regional Health could be joining Orlando Health’s cadre of hospitals later this year by forming an affiliation. (Miller, 2/1)

For the past six years, a quaint, 6-room home called the Robison Residence  has been providing hospice care to Central Florida’s low-income and homeless patients. The one-story house is part of Florida Hospital’s Hospice of the Comforter in Altamonte Springs. It’s also one of the very few free-standing hospice residential facilities in Florida. (Miller, 2/1)

The University of Miami has received a $13 million grant from the Florida Department of Health to fund Zika-related research, including rapid testing and assessments of infants with mothers who have the virus, the university announced Wednesday. The health department distributed $25 million in grants to 10 applicants for 34 different research studies. Last fall, Gov. Rick Scott made funds available to research the mosquito-borne disease and help develop a vaccine. (Teproff, 2/1)

An anesthesiologist whose license was suspended by the state over accusations he diverted a powerful painkiller from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for his own use has agreed not to practice medicine and other restrictions. Dr. Christopher S. Manfred signed an agreement Tuesday with the State Board of Medicine, which issued an order Monday temporarily suspending Manfred’s license to practice over allegations involving the painkiller hydromorphone — an opioid that goes by the brand name Dilaudid. The suspension followed a notification to the state Board of Pharmacy reporting losses of controlled drugs at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. (Alden, 2/1)

A Pennsylvania couple who told police their faith forbids any kind of medical treatment were charged Wednesday in the pneumonia death of their 2-year-old daughter, becoming the latest members of their sect to be prosecuted for failing to take a dying child to a doctor. Jonathan and Grace Foster attributed the Nov. 8 death of their daughter, Ella Grace Foster, to "God's will," according to a police affidavit. (2/1)

Summa Health System has settled a lawsuit over its Summa Wadsworth-Rittman Medical Center. The deal with the Wadsworth-Rittman Area Joint Township Hospital District, Wayne and Medina County, states that Summa will maintain the following services as long as it occupies the campus. (Johnston, 2/1)

Invisible toxic chemicals similar to those contaminating groundwater south of Colorado Springs also are showing up in fast-food wrappers, according to a scientific study done with help from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Environmental Working Group study, peer-reviewed and published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, found the perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in grease-resistant wrappers -– including pizza box liners, sandwich and pastry packaging — from chains including Starbucks, Jimmy Johns, Taco Time, Chipotle and Quiznos. The chemicals can leach into food, potentially reaching consumers, the study authors said, urging companies to find safe alternative packaging. (Finley, 2/1)

Public health advocates pushing for Kansas to increase taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products are running into the same opposing arguments they did two years ago. University of Kansas Cancer Center Director Roy Jensen and others pushed for a $1.50-per-pack tax hike in 2015 and were disappointed when the Legislature ultimately settled on a 50-cent increase. Kansas has another budget crisis this year and health advocates are again urging legislators to fill some of it with a tax increase large enough to make Kansans think twice about smoking. (Marso, 2/1)

Public health officials on Wednesday reported more than 1,300 patients have qualified for Georgia’s medical marijuana registry, with nearly 300 doctors actively monitoring their use of the cannabis oil that is now allowed here. The update came as an effort to expand the law, House Bill 65, was heard by the newly formed House Medical Cannabis Working Group. The group will meet again next week. (Torres, 2/1)

There’s a lot of confusion in Florida when it comes to medical marijuana. There are existing laws, Amendment 2 that was passed by voters but still needs to go through the legislature, and somewhere in between, the Florida Department of Health is issuing rules. And meanwhile, patients and doctors are figuring it out as they go along. (Aboraya, 2/1)

When the Affordable Care Act passed Congress in 2010, more Americans disliked it than liked it. And that was the pattern in public opinion for the next six years. But since Donald J. Trump, who promised to repeal the law, was elected president, that long-held pattern has begun to shift. In a variety of recent polls, with questions asked in different ways, more Americans are now saying they favor Obamacare than oppose it. (Margot Sanger-Katz and Haeyoun Park, 2/1)

Everywhere you turn, health markets are nearing collapse. It’s an unfortunate and catastrophic reality of too much federal intervention in our health care. From soaring deductibles and skyrocketing premiums to fleeing insurers, it’s no wonder patients are paying more out of pocket each year under the so-called “Affordable Care Act.” Today, the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee will examine four legislative solutions to help deliver relief. Together, the bills will play an important role in being among the first bricks placed in the rebuilding of our health care system. Collectively, they will give patients relief from the law’s soaring costs, tighten enrollment gaps, and protect taxpayers. (Reps. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., Marsha Blackburn. R-Tenn., Bill Flores, R-Texas, and Greg Walden, R-Ore., 2/2)

President Trump and Republican members of Congress charge full speed ahead with repealing and replacing Obamacare, [a reader] asks: “What is the current state of congressional reps’ coverage?” Another way of phrasing that might be: Aren’t these guys shooting themselves in the foot? (David Lazarus, 2/1)

this era in which the Orwellian manipulation of language by politicians to say the opposite of what they mean has reached a fever pitch, we should be especially wary when conservatives hide their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits behind a smokescreen of euphemism. Jared Bernstein, a fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, has put in a plea to journalists to call out policy makers when they pull this stunt—and not to empower politicians by doing the same thing. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/1)

Today, the Senate Finance Committee advanced President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price (R-Ga), to a full Senate vote. Not a single Democrat was present. We as medical students at Price’s alma mater, University of Michigan Medical School, share many of the concerns that prompted the boycott, which Democrats implemented following a report from the Wall Street Journal that Price had falsely denied purchasing “privileged” stock options during his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. As Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out during the hearing, Price’s broader decision to “actively trade in health stocks while writing policy that could affect them raises serious questions about potential conflicts of interest and about [his] judgment.” (Ilana Fischer, Kathryn Brown and Nithya Vijayakumar, 2/1)

Healthcare experts have been warning that Republican dithering on a replacement for the Affordable Care Act would be a further discouragement for participating insurance companies. Now, the first shoe has dropped: Aetna, which sharply reduced its ACA footprint this year, is signaling that it will be entirely out of the market in 2018. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/1)

The entire health-insurance industry is in limbo. But Anthem Inc. seems happy there. As its peers run screaming from the Affordable Care Act -- over which Republicans are looming with a knife and a tax-cutting gleam in their eyes -- Anthem is sticking around in the ACA's individual exchange market. Anthem, which reported earnings on Wednesday that topped Wall Street forecasts, still thinks it can break even or profit on ACA plans in 2017. And it's holding out hope for fixes that will let it stay into 2018. Neither of those things is likely to be true. (Max Nisen, 2/1)

President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are considering proposals to convert funding for Medicaid into a block-grant program. While this could produce expenditure predictability and lower costs for the federal government, such an approach raises questions for states and the program's core mission, as well as concerns over efficiency, accountability and equity. (Dr. Patricia Gabow, 2/1)

Is Medicaid’s long-term care benefit a zero-sum game where limited resources are shifted from one beneficiary to another? For instance, could the government significantly increase long-term care benefits for some by barring people from using spousal annuities to qualify for Medicaid? Or should resources be expanded to provide all eligible seniors and younger people with disabilities the care they need? Those contrasting views, divided along partisan political lines, were on full display today at the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Howard Gleckman, 2/1)

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama invested his political capital in a push to reform the health insurance system. Universal coverage was a long-held liberal priority. It was not, however, the priority of most Americans during the Great Recession. Although Obama succeeded in passing the Affordable Care Act, he paid an immense political price. His choice to focus on healthcare — and therefore sideline economic initiatives — led to his party’s historic losses in Congress and undercut Democrats’ appeal to many working-class voters who went on to support Donald Trump. (David Paul Kuhn, 2/2)

These are difficult days for those of us who have advocated for pay-for-performance (P4P) as a policy tool to improve health care quality. The idea behind P4P has always been simple: physicians and hospitals should be financially rewarded for providing high-quality care and financially penalized for providing low-quality care. Although this idea has been around for some time, it gained national traction over the past decade, as policy makers pushed toward paying for “value” and not just volume. ... Six years after the ACA’s passage, the evidence on P4P in general is largely mixed, and the evidence on Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP), the national hospital P4P program, is discouraging. (Ashish K. Jha, 2/1)

Surprise medical bills occur when patients cannot avoid being treated by providers outside their health plan’s contracted network — either because the provider is not chosen by the patient, for example the emergency department physician or the anesthesiologist assisting a surgery, or because patients are not even aware that the provider is involved in their care, such as a pathologist examining a biopsy. (Loren Adler, Mark Hall, Caitlin Brandt, Paul B. Ginsburg and Steven Lieberman, 2/1)

The new year is already underway and we expect both a new Republican-dominated Congress and President Donald Trump to bring ambitious policy changes to health care. With significant pent up energy among the Republicans and a limited 18-month window for legislation, lawmakers will be in an immediate all-out policy-making mode. This is particularly true for health care, which many in Congress consider a top issue on the docket. With an eagerness for change, health care is in flux, and difficult decisions will need to be made that will directly affect Americans both socially and economically. In this world, many are left wondering what to expect in 2017. Here are the top five health care trends to watch in the New Year. (Susan DeVore, 2/1)

Liza Bernstein survived breast cancer three times. But it took all she had. She lost her home and savings to the costs of tests and treatments. She's not technically bankrupt -- but that's only because she "couldn't afford the fees" to file the claim. Liza recently told her story to journalists at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and explained why her medical bills proved ruinous. Insurers "kept increasing my out-of-pocket costs and my deductible and they kept reducing how much they would reimburse and the network so there was more chance I'd be out of network," she said. (Kenneth Thorpe and Patricia Goldsmith, 2/1)

While Suboxone is meant to help addicts, it’s spawning a new drug trade in correctional facilities. It’s time for government leaders to consider finding a new “preferred” burprenorphine treatment that is less concealable and will not find its way into our correctional facilities so easily. (Richard Jones, 2/1)