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The uninsured rate is poised to climb over the coming decade, the Congressional Budget Office predicts in an article published in the journal Health Affairs Tuesday. The uninsured rate is 7.7% this year with 26 million people lacking health coverage, up from an all-time low of 7.2% in 2023, according to the CBO. The nonpartisan legislative branch agency projects the share will rise to 8.9% in 2034. (Early, 6/18)

A recent poll by the market research company Talker Research found that the average American works 84 hours, or just over two work weeks a year, while sick with a cold or other virus. About half the 2,000 adult workers surveyed said they would rather just power through their day than call in. A third worry about looking overly dramatic by staying home to rest and recover. (Levesque, 6/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: A Tale Of Two States: Arizona And Florida Diverge On How To Expand Kids’ Health Insurance

Arizona and Florida — whose rates of uninsured children are among the highest in the nation — set goals last year to widen the safety net that provides health insurance to people 18 and younger. But their plans to expand coverage illustrate key ideological differences on the government’s role in subsidizing health insurance for kids: what to charge low-income families as premiums for public coverage — and what happens if they miss a payment. (Chang, 6/20)

Five people have been charged with bilking Minnesota's Medicaid programs out of more than $10 million by billing the state for phony or exaggerated medical transportation or home care services. State Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday that the charges are related to two ongoing state-federal fraud investigations, and said that in some cases the accused individuals spent ill-gotten gains on lavish cars, clothing and furniture. (Olson, 6/19)

Financially troubled Athena Health Care Systems has sold five of its Connecticut nursing homes to a former competitor that has agreed to pay back taxes and debts owed to vendors and add $2.6 million to cover unpaid employee health insurance costs. (Altimari and Carlesso, 6/19)

Amazon Pharmacy will expand its subscription service to enrollees of Medicare insurance plans, the company announced Tuesday. The expansion will be available to more than 50 million Medicare beneficiaries, who will have access to RxPass, Amazon Pharmacy’s subscription prescription service, the company said. (Nazzaro, 6/18)

If you're interested in RxPass as an option to potentially save money on prescription medications, here's what to know. (Aguilar and Rendall, 6/18)

Medicare Advantage insurers that have earned high quality scores in the past stand to lose up to $19.5 billion over 10 years in bonus payments under a policy proposal on the books at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS first floated this change two years ago and has not issued a regulation to carry it out. But as the agency reacts to court rulings that spurred it to roll back another methodological change to the Medicare Advantage Star Ratings program, health insurance industry experts think the time may be ripe for CMS to revisit its plans. (Tepper, 6/19)

Last year, Scripps Health declared it would pull two medical practices from Medicare Advantage networks, risking losing patients in exchange for ridding itself of insurers tying it up in red tape and paying less than it considered adequate. So far, so good, according to Scripps Health President and CEO Chris Van Gorder. “We don't regret making the decision, that's for sure,” he said. (Berryman, 6/18)

The abrupt failure of Massachusetts’ 911 system on Tuesday was a stark example of the disastrous consequences that can occur when an emergency network that is supposed to be reliable is, without warning, suddenly unreliable. The outage, lasting two hours, prompted a scramble among emergency agencies as they directed the public to reach out directly to the local authorities at less-familiar phone numbers or, as a last resort, go in person to their local firehouse. (Bogel-Burroughs, 6/19)

A firewall designed to prevent cyberattacks and hacking was to blame for the 911 outage that hit Massachusetts this week, state officials said Wednesday. While some calls didn’t go through, the state said the system “allows dispatch centers to identify the phone number of callers and return those calls.” As a result, the Department was not aware of any emergencies being negatively affected by the outage. (Casey, 6/19)

With federal funding for public schools in the balance, Utah lawmakers voted Wednesday to instruct state entities to ignore an expansion of Title IX under President Joe Biden that offers protections for transgender students. Around a hundred protesters — many wrapped in transgender flags — chanted “vote no” outside the doors of the Utah House chamber as representatives convened before voting to adopt the pair of resolutions. (Stern and Nesbitt, 6/20)

Florida has appealed a federal judge's ruling that blocked state restrictions on treatment for people with gender dysphoria and wants the ruling put on hold while the appeal plays out. Lawyers for the state filed a notice Tuesday that is a first step in asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the June 11 ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle. The state also filed a motion in district court seeking a stay of Hinkle's ruling during the appeal. (6/19)

The New York City Council is urging Mayor Eric Adams to take action and extend in vitro fertilization (IVF) coverage to gay male employees in the wake of a lawsuit. The council's LGBTQIA+ Caucus sent a letter to Adams last week that said gay men are denied benefits extended to straight couples and single women. The lawmakers argue that an "exclusionary and outdated" statutory definition of "infertility" denies gay men access to IVF. (Pandolfo, 6/19)

The chair of Texas’ maternal mortality review committee expressed concerns Tuesday with recent changes to the body, including the Legislature’s elimination of the community advocate position and the Department of State Health Services commissioner’s recent appointment of an anti-abortion doctor to the committee. (Klibanoff, 6/18)

Addy Lois Dunn’s memory became a concern after she began running red lights and forgetting well-worn routes. She would soon be diagnosed with dementia, and her family, including her son, Randy Dunn, would rally to her care. That was more than 20 years ago. Addy is now gone. She died in February 2012 at 74. Yet, her battle inspired Randy, who is now the mayor of Quitman, a small East Texas town. And he is part of a group on a multi-year quest to establish a new kind of care for Texans living with dementia and Alzheimer’s. (Huff and Simpson, 6/19)

As the COVID-19 summer swell intensifies, many people who have previously recovered from the virus are falling ill again due to new variants known as FLiRT. UCSF infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong noted that this trend is becoming more common with omicron offshoots, as the coronavirus falls into a predictable pattern of surging approximately every six months and evolving to evade protections developed against previous versions. (Vaziri, 6/18)

Inside secret warehouses strategically placed around the state, California is storing a massive cache of vital medical supplies, including masks, gloves and life-saving medicines, seeking to be better-equipped than it was during the COVID crisis. Four years after our lives were upended by the coronavirus, with a new viral threat looming, public health experts are asking: What else have we learned from the pandemic? (Krieger, 6/19)

An outbreak of the gastrointestinal illness Shigella has been identified in encampments of people experiencing homelessness in San Jose since June 3, according to Santa Clara County’s public health department. There have been three confirmed cases of Shigella related to the outbreak, as well as four cases under evaluation and at least 19 suspected cases, said Dr. Monika Roy, assistant health officer and communicable disease controller for Santa Clara County. Two of the cases have resulted in hospitalization, which is how officials learned of the outbreak, she added at a Tuesday news conference. (Pender, 6/18)

A proposed measure to establish a permanent half-cent sales tax in Los Angeles County to fund affordable housing and homeless services has qualified for the November ballot, campaign organizers announced on Tuesday, June 18. (Tat, 6/19)

Tim Icely did everything he was supposed to do to save up for retirement. He worked 27 years in hospitality and hotel management before he was furloughed during the pandemic and forced to retire at 74. Icely is now 76, single with no dependents and no spouse, living on his own in Van Nuys. Half of his Social Security check goes toward rent, and sometimes it feels as though he’s tiptoeing on the edge of disaster. (Deng, 6/19)

Bacteria known to cause sometimes-deadly respiratory infections have been found in a midtown Sacramento state office complex, as more than 200,000 state workers started returning to their offices at least twice a week. Legionella, which could lead to a serious pneumonia named Legionnaires’ disease, have been detected in the water system of the five-building East End Complex, which houses three major state departments.  (Yu, 6/18)

The Los Angeles Unified School District approved an all-day ban on cellphones, saying the devices distract children from learning, erode mental health and stifle personal connections. The 400,000-student district, the nation’s second-biggest school system, said it will study ways to implement the program when it takes effect in January, including whether to force students to store cellphones in locked pouches or special lockers. (Juell, 6/18)

Scientists have discovered differences in the immune response that could explain why some people seem to reliably escape Covid infection. The study, in which healthy adults were intentionally given a small nasal dose of Covid virus, suggested that specialized immune cells in the nose could see off the virus at the earliest stage before full infection takes hold. Those who did not succumb to infection also had high levels of activity in a gene that is thought to help flag the presence of viruses to the immune system. (Devlin, 6/19)

The initial closure of schools was not a mistake, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday on "CBS Mornings," but he questioned the length schools were kept shut. "Shutting down everything immediately — and we didn't shut it down completely — but essentially major social distancing and even schools was the right thing," Fauci said. "How long you kept it was the problem, because there was a disparity throughout the country. If you go back and look at the YouTube, I kept on saying, 'Close the bars, open the schools. Open the schools as quickly and as safely as you possibly can.' But initially to close it down was correct. Keeping it for a year was not a good idea." (Moniuszko, 6/18)

Wastewater data from the CDC shows that although viral activity levels are still low nationally, levels have more than doubled in the western U.S. over the last month. Additionally, COVID emergency department visits for the week ending June 8 rose 12.6% from the week prior, according to CDC data. Traditionally, the U.S. has seen increases in COVID every summer, typically after the Fourth of July, but public health experts said Americans will likely see a "drift upwards" rather than a surge. (Kekatos, 6/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: ‘We’re Flying Blind’: CDC Has 1M Bird Flu Tests Ready, But Experts See Repeat Of Covid Missteps

It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic, yet the U.S. has tested only about 45 people across the country. “We’re flying blind,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. With so few tests run, she said, it’s impossible to know how many farmworkers have been infected, or how serious the disease is. (Maxmen, 6/20)

A University of Maryland review of scientific literature suggests domestic cats can contract the rapidly evolving bird flu H5N1, potentially putting owners, veterinarians and others at risk if the virus continues to circulate unabated. (Cutlip, 6/17)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen To The Latest '�鶹Ů�� Health News Minute'

“Health Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from the �鶹Ů�� Health News newsroom to the airwaves each week. (6/18)

A panel of experts has updated their recommendations for doctors screening children for obesity. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now recommends intensive behavioral interventions for kids aged 6 and older with a high body mass index. These recommendations were published Tuesday in JAMA.The new advice replaces the task force’s 2017 guidance which recommended that primary care providers should simply screen children for obesity. (Noguchi and Wroth, 6/18)

Children and teenagers who regularly get too few hours of sleep may be at higher risk of developing high blood pressure, new research indicates. The findings may change how doctors talk with kids and their parents about hypertension. An analysis of data from more than 500 children and teens with hypertension revealed an association between shorter-than-recommended sleep times and high blood pressure, according to the study, published Wednesday in Pediatrics. (Carroll, 6/18)

Eli Lilly & Co. broadened its effort to crack down on fake and off-brand versions of hit obesity drug Zepbound, saying it has filed more lawsuits against companies selling compounded versions of the treatment. The drugmaker filed a handful of new lawsuits on Thursday against medical spas, wellness centers and other businesses, claiming they had referred to their products using Lilly’s brand names of Mounjaro and Zepbound. Lilly doesn’t provide its drug ingredients to compounders, the company said in a letter to patients. (Kresge and Muller, 6/20)

Blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy could soon become a lot cheaper — and reach more people — thanks to Chinese and Indian pharmaceutical companies. A long queue of companies is developing copies of the complex biological drugs, and some are racing to create modified or improved versions to compete in the global market. “There is huge potential for companies from India, China, that can help create access to these drugs,” says Abhijit Zutshi, chief commercial officer of the pharmaceutical giant Biocon, headquartered in Bengaluru, India, who oversees its generics business and is based in Woodbridge, New Jersey. (Mallapaty, 6/19)

Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to use the bully pulpit to lower the price of wildly popular anti-obesity drugs the same way he helped push drugmakers to limit inhaler and insulin costs. But this bid could be much more of an uphill climb. (Sullivan, 6/20)

Lesa Walton suffered for years with rheumatoid arthritis. “It was awful,” said Ms. Walton, 57, who lives in Wenatchee, Wash. “I kept getting sicker and sicker.” She also had high blood pressure, and she was obese. Doctors told her to diet and exercise, which she did, to no avail. Then she found a doctor who prescribed Wegovy, one of the new obesity drugs. Not only did she lose more than 50 pounds, she said; her arthritis cleared up, and she no longer needed pills to lower her blood pressure. (Kolata, 6/18)

South Africa’s public health care system has run out of the human insulin pens that it provides to people with diabetes, as the pharmaceutical industry shifts production priorities to blockbuster weight-loss drugs that use a similar device for delivery. Novo Nordisk, the company that has supplied South Africa with human insulin in pens for a decade, opted not to renew its contract, which expired last month. No other company has bid on the contract — to supply 14 million pens for the next three years, at about $2 per pen. (Nolen, 6/19)

Novant Health ended its 16-month pursuit of a $320 million deal to acquire two North Carolina hospitals from Community Health Systems after a federal appellate court on Tuesday dealt it a harsh blow. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit hit Novant's proposed acquisition of Mooresville-based Lake Norman Regional Medical Center when a panel voted 2-1 to grant the Federal Trade Commission's motion to stop that proposal pending appeal. (Hudson, 6/18)

Less than a week before bids were due for eight of its Massachusetts hospitals, bankrupt Steward Health Care has pushed back its planned auction of the facilities by three weeks amid mounting questions about who will take over their operations. The new bid deadline is July 15, with the auction set for July 18, according to a Steward filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston. (Weisman, 6/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Experts: US Hospitals Prone To Cyberattacks Like One That Hurt Patient Care At Ascension

In the wake of a debilitating cyberattack against one of the nation’s largest health care systems, Marvin Ruckle, a nurse at an Ascension hospital in Wichita, Kansas, said he had a frightening experience: He nearly gave a baby “the wrong dose of narcotic” because of confusing paperwork. Ruckle, who has worked in the neonatal intensive care unit at Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph for two decades, said it was “hard to decipher which was the correct dose” on the medication record. (Pradhan and Wells, 6/20)

The nation’s two largest trade groups representing home health, hospice and palliative care are merging. The National Association for Home Care and Hospice and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization said Tuesday the executive officers of the trade groups signed a letter of intent June 10 to become a single organization. (Eastabrook, 6/18)

University Hospitals is eliminating more than 300 positions amid challenges in the healthcare industry. The health system announced Wednesday, June 19, that it was reducing its leadership structure by more than 10% as part of an organizational reset. (Bennett, 6/19)

A local unit of SEIU has been ordered to pay HCA Healthcare's Riverside Community Hospital $6.2 million for conducting a 10-day strike in 2020. An arbitrator last month ordered the payment after it was found last year that nurse labor union SEIU Local 121RN violated a collective bargaining agreement with the hospital by holding the strike in June 2020. (DeSilva, 6/19)

Digital behavioral health startup Done said it "disagrees" with criminal charges filed against its founder and CEO Ruthia He and clinical president Dr. David Brody. Done, sometimes called Done Global or Done Health, said in a statement posted to its website Tuesday it is continuing normal operations following last week's arrest of He and Brody over allegations including fraud. (Turner, 6/18)

A federal judge on Tuesday questioned what she called an "unusual" provision of an agreement between the U.S. Justice Department and lead-testing device maker Magellan Diagnostics that would compensate victims of lead poisoning without any court supervision. U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston raised her concerns during the first hearing on Magellan's agreement last month to pay $42 million to resolve criminal charges that it concealed a malfunction in its lead-testing devices that led to patients receiving inaccurately low results. (Raymond, 6/18)

Dollar Tree failed to effectively recall lead-tainted applesauce pouches linked to reports of illness in more than 500 children, leaving the products on some store shelves for two months, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday. The FDA sent a warning letter to Dollar Tree this month and placed Negasmart, the Ecuadorean distributor of WanaBana apple cinnamon pouches, under import alerts after the October recall of the products found to be contaminated with “extremely high” levels of lead and chromium. (Aleccia, 6/19)

Scientists have found microplastics in human penises for the first time, as concerns over the tiny particles’ proliferation and potential health effects mount. Seven different kinds of microplastics were found in four out of five samples of penis tissue taken from five different men as part of a study published in IJIR: Your Sexual Medicine Journal on Wednesday. (Guy, 6/19)

For members of a large extended Colombian family, an early Alzheimer’s diagnosis is practically a grim guarantee. But new research further supports the idea that a rare genetic mutation can delay the devastating disease’s onset. (Wosen, 6/19)

Downstairs was a sensory overload: Roulette wheels spun, slot-machine chimes rang, and dealers hurried to scoop up stacks of casino chips resting in front of busted blackjack hands. Many gamblers held a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It was perhaps a strange setting for a conference about substance use treatment. But there may have been no better venue than the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino for the stark warning being offered in a ballroom upstairs: America’s addiction professionals are ignoring gambling. (Facher, 6/19)

Two Colorado researchers looked at 205 pairs of mothers and children from non-white ethnic groups living in Massachusetts, in cooperation with scientists elsewhere. When mothers reported they’d experienced more types of racial discrimination, such as mistreatment at work or when looking for housing, their children appeared to be biologically “younger” than their chronological ages of between 3 and 7. (Wingerter, 6/18)

Most of the public’s attention is focused on skyrocketing outdoor temperatures that can cause serious medical complications such as heat stroke. But for many people, especially those who lack access to air-conditioning, temperatures inside can become dangerous, as well. ... In a recently published article reviewing the research on indoor overheating, Drexel researchers noted that many vulnerable people, including the very old and young, spend most of their time indoors — but may not be able to adequately cool their houses in a heat wave. (Whelan, 6/19)

High temperatures can make us miserable. Research shows they also make us aggressive, impulsive and dull. (Smith, 6/19)

House members from both parties are forming a new group to crack down on China's role in the U.S. fentanyl epidemic as part of a more aggressive push to cut off illicit supply of the lethal drug. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, tearing apart families while fracturing communities and disrupting the labor market. (Saric, 6/20)

In late 2022, a baby born to an active-duty U.S. military family on Guam needed immediate, advanced medical care for a life-threatening pulmonary condition. With no neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, on the island that meets U.S. standards, a specialty neonatal team was dispatched from U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, Japan, to provide care. The team arrived 24 hours later, but the newborn was too ill to move. (Kime, 6/18)

A record number of cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) in Japan this year has focused attention on the rare and potentially deadly bacterial infection. There have been 1,019 cases of STSS in the first six months of 2024, surpassing the total number recorded last year in the country. Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases warned of a rise in cases in March, after 77 deaths from the illness were recorded. The majority of the cases at that time were of people above the age of 50. (Masih and Vinall, 6/19)

The global vaccine organization Gavi is likely to seek around $11.9 billion from governments and foundations on Thursday to fund immunization efforts in the world’s poorest countries over five years, board documents reviewed by Reuters showed. The amount will be finalized at a meeting on Thursday in Paris, where donors will make pledges for the organization’s plan for 2026-2030. A separately funded $1 billion scheme to boost vaccine production in Africa, the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, will also launch on Thursday. (Rigby, 6/20)

Less than 20% of reused filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) collected from nurses amid the COVID-19 pandemic were in good enough condition to undergo sterilization, after which none retained at least 94% filtration of aerosol particles, finds a laboratory study comparing two sterilization methods after up to 15 to 30 days of use. (Van Beusekom, 6/18)

A study yesterday in the Journal of Infection shows that hybrid immunity from both a fourth vaccination dose and previous COVID-19 illnesses may offer protection against developing long COVID, or post-COVID condition (PCC). (Soucheray, 6/18)

Women and adults with preexisting conditions such as cardiovascular disease are less likely to recover from COVID-19 within 3 months, while vaccination and Omicron-variant infection were linked to a quicker recovery, reveals a study posted yesterday in JAMA Network Open. It also showed that more than one in five adults had protracted recoveries. (Van Beusekom, 6/18)

A study in JAMA Network Open shows a 70% increase in the number of children requiring advanced respiratory support when hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the 2022-23 season. Advanced respiratory support includes high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC), noninvasive ventilation (NIV), or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). (Soucheray, 6/14)

An analysis of Staphylococcus aureus samples from US outpatient settings reveals a shift in antibiotic-resistance trends, researchers reported late last week in JAMA Network Open. The study of S aureus isolates from more than 268,000 US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients found that the proportion of methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA) declined significantly from 2010 through 2019. But significant increases in resistance to non–beta-lactam antibiotics like tetracyclines and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) were observed, particularly in southern US states. (Dall, 6/18)

The Longitude Prize on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was awarded to Sysmex Astrego AB yesterday for the development of a rapid antimicrobial susceptibility test for urinary tract infections (UTIs). The PA-100 AST System, developed at Sweden's Uppsala University, uses nanofluidic technology to detect bacteria in a urine sample in 15 minutes and identify the right antibiotic in as little as 45 minutes, and requires no specialized laboratory testing expertise. Sysmex Astrego was among more than 250 teams vying for the £8 million (US $10.2 million) prize, which aims to incentivize the development of transformative point-of-care tests that will improve antibiotic treatment decisions. (Dall, 6/13)

How worried you should be about H5N1, the bird flu virus spreading on dairy farms in the United States, depends on who you are. (Jennifer B. Nuzzo, 6/19)

The anecdotes are increasingly impossible to ignore: Many people taking the new obesity drugs, whether Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy or Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound, aren’t just eating less, they’re drinking and smoking less, too. (Lisa Jarvis, 6/20)

“Zofran girlies rise up.” Seeing that phrase on my screen as I idly scrolled TikTok made me stop and watch the whole video, but probably not for the reasons its creator wanted. (Jessica Grose, 6/19)

Here’s why a pandemic treaty would be a win for people everywhere, in the Global North and South. Think of a pandemic treaty as a grand social bargain to protect future generations from the devastating and inequitable impacts of pandemics. (Lawrence O. Gostin and Alexandra Finch, 6/19)

While it’s great that more people are taking to heart public health messages that reducing alcohol consumption can improve well-being and extend life, an important lesson from vaping as a replacement for cigarettes is being overlooked: What may be good for adults may be harmful to kids. Without any meaningful restrictions on the sale of non-alcoholic beverages to youths, the country is just one JUUL-like marketing push away from a potential public health crisis. (Molly Bowdring, Aaron S.B. Weiner and Judith Prochaska, 6/20)