�鶹Ů��

Health care fraud sweeps across the country have led to charges against 300 people including doctors, nurses, physical therapists and home health care providers accused of bilking Medicare and Medicaid, the government announced Wednesday. The sweep spread from southern California to southern Florida and Houston to Brooklyn, New York, with arrests being made over three days. (6/22)

Federal agents have arrested roughly 300 suspects in what officials call their largest crackdown on Medicare fraud, with charges ranging from taking illegal payments for marketing medications to false physical-therapy claims. (Barrett, 6/22)

The national sweep resulted in charges against doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physical therapists accused of fraud that cost the government $900 million, the department said. The cases involved an array of charges, including conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering and violations of an anti-kickback law. This year's sweep exceeded last year's record in which 243 defendants faced charges in a combined $712 million in government losses. (6/22)

In some cases, doctors took part in schemes to submit claims to Medicare and Medicaid for treatments that were not necessary and were never provided. In others, health care providers offered kickbacks to “patient recruiters” to help assemble beneficiary information that could be used in phony filings. One of the biggest scams involved phony billings for costly prescription drugs at a time when Medicare’s drug costs are spiking. (Pianin, 6/23)

"They submitted dishonest claims, they charged excessive fees and they prescribed unnecessary drugs," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a news conference. "As this takedown should make clear, health-care fraud is not an abstract violation. It’s not a benign offense. It’s a serious crime." (Johnson and Zapotosky, 6/22)

In Southern California, five physicians were among those arrested in cases involving $125 million in elaborate fraud schemes that targeted Medicare and the military’s medical plan and involved medical billing, unnecessary procedures and high-priced specialized compound medications. The charges in 13 criminals cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles and Santa Ana include conspiracy, money laundering, kickback schemes and identity theft, according to several federal indictments. (Winton, 6/22)

A Hilliard-area couple who operated a home-health-care agency have agreed to plead guilty to federal charges in a scheme that defrauded the Medicaid program and helped them build a million-dollar luxury home. State and federal officials revealed the local case today, as the U.S. Justice and Health and Human Services departments also announced a nationwide sweep that has led to charges against 301 people — including 61 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals — involved in $900 million worth of false billings. (Price, 6/22)

More than 300 people across the nation - including 22 in the Houston area - have been charged with stealing more than $900 million in what federal investigators say is the "largest Medicare fraud takedown in history." The 301 people facing criminal and civil charges of health care fraud include 61 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, according to the Department of Justice. (Banks, 6/22)

Three Garland residents accused of operating a more than $5 million ear care scam are among dozens of people across the country arrested as part of the biggest Medicare fraud bust in history. Nine others in the Dallas area linked to three separate home health care scams also were charged. (Krause, 6/22)

Four St. Louis-area residents are among hundreds across the nation facing charges of federal health care fraud. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the allegations on Wednesday. All told, more than 300 people in 30 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have been accused of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. (Lippmann, 6/22)

A Delaware County podiatrist is one of 301 individuals charged in a nationwide Medicare-fraud bust spanning 36 federal districts and involving approximately $900 million in fraudulent payments. (Chadha, 6/22)

The House has passed a $1.1 billion House-Senate measure to combat the Zika virus, but the GOP-drafted measure is a nonstarter with Senate Democrats and the Obama White House. The measure was unveiled late Wednesday and approved by the House early on Thursday morning by a 239-171 vote that broke along party lines. The vote came after Democrats hijacked the House floor for virtually all of Wednesday and well into Thursday, protesting GOP inaction on gun legislation in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando. GOP leaders called the vote abruptly, permitting no debate, and immediately adjourned the House through July 4. (6/23)

Democrats abandoned negotiations on Wednesday in part because Republicans insisted that the funding be partially paid for by cuts to the Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s signature domestic achievement — and by shifting more than $100 million from the Ebola emergency fund, according to Democratic aides. With lawmakers headed for the exits on Thursday for a week of July 4th recess, the breakdown could mean that Congress will leave town once again without providing funding for Zika during the height of mosquito season. The virus is linked to severe birth defects in babies of some pregnant women who are infected. (Snell, 6/22)

As the Republican negotiators announced Wednesday evening that they had reached a tentative agreement — which the House approved early Thursday in a 239-171 vote — Democrats lashed out. They said the proposal was layered with numerous unrelated provisions that they would never accept, including an effort to restrict government financing of Planned Parenthood, the women’s health organization. While Democrats did not have any sway over the House-Senate negotiations, Republicans do not have sufficient votes in the Senate to overcome procedural obstacles and approve the agreement on their own. (Herszenhorn, 6/23)

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky said the agreement was “the product of careful and thorough deliberations between the House and the Senate, and reflects a responsible compromise that can and should be signed into law.” But Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that funds health programs, called it “a hyperpartisan proposal that is more about throwing red meat to the Tea Party than actually tackling this crisis.” (Scott, 6/23)

“A narrowly partisan proposal that cuts off women's access to birth control, shortchanges veterans and rescinds Obamacare funds to cover the cost is not a serious response to the threat from the Zika virus,” Reid said in a statement. “In short, Republicans are trying to turn an attempt to protect women's health into an attack on women's health. Their proposal would be comical except this a public health emergency and it deserves urgency.” (Ehley, 6/22)

A Democratic protest demanding votes on gun-control legislation led to pandemonium in the House chamber that did not end until early Thursday, when Speaker Paul D. Ryan and his fellow Republicans reclaimed control long enough to force through a major spending bill. They then abruptly adjourned and left the Capitol. ... Democrats — who do not have enough strength in either the House or Senate to pass legislation on their own — have resorted to spectacle to highlight their anger over the failure by Congress to take any action to tighten the nation’s gun-control laws. (Herszenhorn and Huetteman, 6/22)

American doctors should join the increasingly bitter battle on gun control, the influential New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday. The medical journal's editorial board joined a growing group of medical professionals taking side in the highly politicized gun debate, even as Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of Congress and the Senate voted against four proposed firearms measures. (Fox, 6/22)

As federal lawmakers continue to debate a legislative response to the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, a new study of the two-decade old gun control program in Australia may offer them an instructive example. (Cohn, 6/22)

A federal appeals court in Atlanta heard arguments Tuesday in a case challenging a Florida law that prevents doctors from discussing or recording information about their patients' gun ownership. If the law is upheld, the protections could influence firearms debates in Georgia. The legal battle began with an NRA-backed law meant to stop physicians from harassing patients about the potential dangers of firearms. (Hagen, 6/22)

The House will vote on a long-delayed mental health reform bill in July, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office said Wednesday. The announcement is another major step forward for the legislation, which had been delayed for years but finally was voted out of committee this month. The committee vote came after House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) worked to make major changes to the bill, scaling back many of the more sweeping, costly provisions. The bill ended up passing committee this month by an overwhelming vote of 53-0, smoothing the path to passage by the full House. Democrats have called the bill a good first step but argued that without major new funding, the measure is incomplete. (Sullivan, 6/22)

President Obama's chief spokesman on Wednesday ripped the House Republicans’ long-awaited plan to replace ObamaCare, calling the proposal too little, too late. “For six years now, Republicans have vowed to put an ObamaCare alternative on the floor of the Congress. And for six years now, they have broken that promise,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. (Fabian, 6/22)

House Republicans just gave Donald Trump a viable path to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to the budget expert who wrote Sen. John McCain's health plan in 2008. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was McCain's top economic adviser during the 2008 campaign, told POLITICO's "Pulse Check" podcast that House Speaker Paul Ryan's health care plan released Wednesday is a major milestone for the party and for this fall's elections, too. (Diamond, 6/23)

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin today issued an ultimatum to the federal government, saying that if CMS refuses to accept his plan for Medicaid expansion there will be no expansion at all. Kentucky wants to revamp its Obamacare program by tightening benefits and refusing coverage to those who don’t pay new monthly premiums it plans to charge. Bevin announced the proposal at a news conference. (Pradhan, 6/22)

Louisiana Department of Health officials had enrolled more than 220,000 people into the state's Medicaid expansion as of 9 a.m. Wednesday (June 22), with 9,000 of those people coming from the food stamp rolls. (Litten, 6/22)

Some 14,000 low-income parents will lose their state-sponsored Medicaid health insurance coverage Aug. 1, so Connecticut’s health care insurance exchange held an enrollment fair Wednesday to help them find a replacement plan. Nobody came. "We gotta get the word out there," said Debra Eastman, assistant manager of storefronts and community enrollment partner sites for Access Health CT. (Constable, 6/22)

Seven Democratic U.S. senators—including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut—are urging the U.S. Department of Justice to block the pending health insurance mega-mergers in one of the strongest stances to date against the deals. (Herman, 6/22)

Seven Democratic senators urged the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday to block two mergers of major health insurance companies, saying that the proposed deals would mean higher premiums and lower-quality healthcare for consumers. The department is reviewing Aetna Inc's $33 billion plan to buy Humana Inc and Anthem Inc's $48 billion proposal to buy Cigna Corp. If approved, the deals, both of which were announced last July, would reduce the number of national health insurance carriers from five to three. (Bartz, 6/22)

Sen. Richard Blumenthal and six other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to block two proposed mergers involving Connecticut health insurers, Aetna-Humana and Anthem-Cigna. “We are deeply concerned by the detrimental impact that both of these mergers would have on premium prices, jobs and health care costs for consumers and businesses,” the senators said in a joint statement. The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is reviewing the mergers. (Radelat, 6/22)

As questions mount over whether health insurer Anthem Inc's (ANTM.N) proposed $48 billion purchase of Cigna Corp (CI.N) will win U.S. antitrust approval, an exclusive analysis produced for Reuters suggests the merger could lead to higher costs for large companies offering workplace medical benefits. (Humer and Bartz, 6/23)

Orders for abortion pills by women in seven Latin American countries with Zika outbreaks increased after health officials in those countries warned that the virus might cause severe birth defects, according to a women’s organization supplying such pills. Orders from women in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela roughly doubled, while those from Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras went up by from 36 percent to 76 percent, researchers said in a study published Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine. (McNeil and Belluck, 6/22)

Abortions — legal or otherwise — may be increasing in Latin American countries where the Zika virus is spreading, new research suggests. The data, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide an early glimpse of a hard-to-track phenomenon that may be altering the way this unprecedented Zika outbreak is recorded in the annals of medical history. (Branswell, 6/22)

The epidemic of Zika virus has caused a spike in requests for abortion help in countries that ban or restrict abortions, researchers said Wednesday. Zika virus can causes severe birth defects if a woman is infected during pregnancy, and officials have cautioned women to avoid getting pregnant if they live in Zika-affected zones or to avoid going to affected regions if they are or could become pregnant. (Fox, 6/22)

Fearing the effects of the Zika virus on their unborn children, pregnant women in Latin America increasingly have sought out abortion pills online from a nonprofit aid agency, a new study has found. (Steenhuysen, 6/22)

Based in the Netherlands, Women on Web has a small team of doctors at its headquarters who review the requests and email back and forth with each woman to determine if there are any health issues that would prevent safe use of the drug. If there are none, the doctor then authorizes a partner group in India to ship two drugs designed to induce abortion during early pregnancy. They're mailed to the woman's home. (Aizenman, 6/22)

A growing number of clinics, often in places like Russia or China, but also in Europe and elsewhere, say on websites that they can treat, even cure, diseases like muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injury as well as strokes, by injecting patients with stem cells that, in theory, could develop into a missing nerve, a muscle or other cells and repair damage from an illness or an injury. Reports by injured athletes of seemingly miraculous results have contributed to a growing interest among desperate patients. Estimates are that tens of thousands of patients around the world have had such treatments and that the industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ... Academic researchers say stem cells hold enormous promise, but they are proceeding cautiously with clinical trials because stem cells divide rapidly and can form tumors in laboratory animals. In lab studies, stem cells also can quickly accumulate mutations like those in cancer cells. (Kolata, 6/22)

When Jim Gass suffered a stroke in 2009, it soon was clear that standard rehabilitation would not repair the damage. Unwilling to accept life in a wheelchair, Gass decided his only option was to fly overseas for experimental stem cell treatment. At clinics in Argentina, China, and Mexico, doctors injected Gass with what they described as stem cells from several sources, including fetal tissue, in attempts to reverse his partial paralysis. Clinics tout the treatments online as cutting edge and curative. (Kowalczyk, 6/22)

When stem cells burst on to the public scene 20 years ago, hand-wringing and excitement in equal measure ensued. Scientists had known about these precursors to different types of cells since the 19th century, but it wasn’t until 1998, when researchers developed a method to derive stem cells from human embryos and grow them in the laboratory, that the excitement began to build. After discovering that these cells could transform into any kind of specialized cell in the body (a quality called “pluripotent”), the research team expressed hope stem cells could be used to aid in drug discovery or replace diseased or damaged tissue. (Venton, 6/22)

Cellular Dynamics International Inc., a Madison company at the forefront of making human cells that might someday be used to help cure disease, has hired an executive to lead its cell manufacturing. Derek Hei is CDI's new vice president of clinical manufacture, quality and regulatory activities, the company said. Hei was previously director of Waisman Biomanufacturing, a facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he established biotherapeutics and cell therapy contract manufacturing. (Gallagher, 6/22)

Last spring, Chinese customs agents seized 70 kilograms of the narcotics fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl hidden in a cargo container bound for Mexico. The synthetic opium-like drugs were so potent that six of the agents became ill after handling them. One fell into a coma. The cargo had traveled through five freight forwarders before reaching customs, obscuring its exact origins, according to an internal U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence briefing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. One thing is clear: The shipment and a host of others, detailed in the DEA briefing, court documents and interviews with government officials in multiple countries, are part of a vast drug-distribution network beginning in China that feeds lethal fentanyl to the Americas. (Whalen and Spegele, 6/22)

In recent months, federal agencies and state health officials have urged doctors to first treat pain without using opioids, and some have announced plans to restrict how many pain pills a doctor can prescribe. But getting the millions of people with chronic pain to turn to alternative treatments is a daunting task, one that must overcome inconsistent insurance coverage as well as some resistance from patients and their doctors, who know the ease and effectiveness of pain medications. (Meier and Goodnough, 6/22)

Bridgton, Maine, is the kind of place people like to go to get away. It's got a small main street with shops and restaurants, a pair of scenic lakes, a ski resort and plenty of hiking trails. But about 10 years ago, Bridgton, a town of just 5,000 residents, began showing signs of a serious drug problem. "I had a lot of young people calling the agency to come into treatment," says Catherine Bell, director of Crooked River Counseling, a substance abuse treatment center in Bridgton. "They were using needles. They were shooting heroin and it was like, really bombarded." (Sharon, 6/22)

The path to solving the country's opioid abuse epidemic is an opportunity to recast addiction as an illness rather than a crime in many cases and to find efficient ways to treat pain, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told an auditorium of medical students and doctors Wednesday at Meharry Medical College. (Fletcher, 6/22)

Nearly 12 million Medicare beneficiaries received at least one prescription for an opioid painkiller last year at a cost of $4.1 billion, according to a federal report that shows how common the addictive drugs are in many older Americans' medicine cabinets. With an overdose epidemic worsening, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries received at least one prescription for commonly abused opioids such as OxyContin and fentanyl in 2015. (Johnson, 6/22)

A heroin "epidemic" is gripping the United States, where cheap supply has helped push the number of users to a 20-year high, increasing drug-related deaths, the United Nations said on Thursday. (Nasralla, 6/23)

New York is limiting opioid drug prescriptions to seven days of painkillers following a patient's initial visit to a doctor. ... The changes also require insurers to cover initial inpatient drug treatment without prior approval; extend from 48 to 72 hours the time someone can be held for emergency treatment; and add 2,500 addiction-treatment slots statewide. (Virtanen, 6/22)

All along the western Canadian coast, mussels are dying. Their blobby bodies are swollen by tumors. The blood-like fluid that fills their interiors is clogged with malignant cells. They're all sick with the same thing: cancer. And it seems to be spreading. For all its harrowing, terrifying damage, the saving grace of cancer has always been that it dies with its host. Its destructive power comes from turning victims' own cells against them and making them run amok. But when molecular biologist Stephen Goff biopsied these mussels, he found something strange. The tumor cells didn't have the same DNA as their host. (Kaplan, 6/22)

With eight contagious cancers now on the books, Dr. Murchison has started to wonder if they are not as peculiar as previously thought. “They might be emerging fairly often,” she said. So should people worry about an outbreak of infectious cancer? “I don’t think we should be starting to panic,” Dr. Murchison said. There have been rare reports of people transmitting cancer. An estimated 0.04 percent of organ transplant recipients contract cancer from the donor organ, for example. But in these cases, the cancer does not spread like a true parasite from host to host. Yet it’s not inconceivable that a human cancer might gain that power. (Zimmer, 6/22)

President Barack Obama signed “Trevor’s Law” on Wednesday, legislation named after a Boise man that will require the federal government to document and track cancer clusters around the nation. ...Trevor’s Law will require the government to document and track childhood and adult cancer clusters in Idaho and around the nation. In 2013, [Trevor] Schaefer joined cancer activist Erin Brockovich and others to testify for the legislation on Capitol Hill. (Hotakainen, 6/22)

Officials from the state Departments of Health and Human Services and Environmental Services, along with lawmakers and area residents met in Portsmouth today for the first meeting of a new task force on the investigation of a cancer cluster on the Seacoast. (Moon, 6/22)

Now 15, Grant (Reed) is a survivor of two tumors. Wednesday, he walked across Capitol Hill, meeting with lawmakers from Ohio, urging them to support giving more federal dollars for cancer research, part of Nationwide Children's Hospital's annual lobbying day in Washington. During his State of the Union address in January, President Barack Obama announced a new cancer “ moonshot” initiative to accelerate cancer research. ... This month, a Senate panel passed a spending bill that gave the National Institutes of Health a $2 billion boost. The House has yet to pass an alternative. But the Reeds are hopeful. (Wehrman, 6/23)

Prominent cancer centers in Baltimore, New York and Pennsylvania -- including the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins -- said Wednesday they would collaborate with the biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. to accelerate research that could produce new, life-saving cancer therapies. (Cohn, 6/22)

Older siblings may be good for something after all. Infants whose mothers have been pregnant previously may have more active immune systems that protect them against asthma and hay fever, according to a paper in the June issue of Allergy. Researchers have noted a positive relationship between older siblings and allergies since at least 1989, when a study following British children for 23 years found that the more older siblings a child has, the less likely she or he will be allergic to airborne particles like dust and pollen. But exactly how older siblings boost younger sibling health has continued to flummox scientists. (Jacewicz, 6/22)

The vast majority of babies who experienced sudden unexpected infant death in Wisconsin during 2013 and 2014 were exposed to multiple risks for unsafe sleep, according to a report released Wednesday by Keeping Kids Alive in Wisconsin. During that two-year period, 119 babies died of SUID, which is the death of an infant less than 12 months old that occurs suddenly and unexpectedly and whose cause is not immediately obvious before an investigation. Though a disproportionate number of African-American babies died, SUID claimed the lives of children of all ethnicities in 33 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, according to the report. (Stephenson, 6/22)

President Barack Obama has signed into law the first overhaul of toxic chemical rules in 40 years. Obama is joined at a White House signing ceremony by lawmakers from both parties who supported the bill. He says for the first time in U.S. history, the country will be able to regulate chemicals effectively. (Lederman, 6/22)

About 1,300 nurses at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center are set to begin a four-day strike Thursday. The nurses, members of the California Nurses Assn. and National Nurses United, are seeking a contract to improve staffing levels, wages and patient care. The nurses contend that inadequate staffing levels at the hospital harm patient care and don’t allow for proper rest and meal breaks. (Edelen, 6/23)

The strike by nearly 5,000 nurses against Allina Health in the Twin Cities continued Wednesday with no resolution. The weeklong walkout is centered on health insurance for the nurses, which work in five area hospitals and are represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association. Wednesday was the strike’s fourth day. The striking nurses say they will return to work at 7 a.m., Sunday, June 26. (6/22)

The Massachusetts Nurses Association has threatened a one-day strike at Brigham and Women's Hospital on June 27 if the hospital and the union can't come to an agreement on a new contract. It would be the first strike in 30 years by nurses in a Boston hospital. The nursing union is asking for larger wage raises than the hospital has proposed, better insurance options for new nurses, and a better staff to patient ratio. (Doherty and Bruzek, 6/22)

A bill that would have expanded California’s parental leave law stalled in an Assembly committee Wednesday, and politics may have played a role in its demise. SB1166, from Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), would have required employers with 10 or more employees to allow eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave to bond with a new child. Currently, the law is limited to employers with 50 or more employees. The measure was a priority of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus. (Orr, 6/22)

The metropolitan area is one of 27 geographic "hot spots" identified by an analysis of Medicare claims data by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. The examination found dozens of home health agencies and physicians in the Chicago area whose recent Medicare claims have characteristics similar to those observed in cases of fraud. (Sachdev, 6/22)

Two private medical practices with offices around Maryland will receive grants from the Maryland Health Care Commission totaling more than $115,000 to demonstrate the value of telehealth technology. (Cohn, 6/22)

When it comes to health care in Florida, it pays to shop around. The cost of a common MRI can vary by thousands of dollars depending on where you go to get it. (Ochoa, 6/22)

The Florida Department of Health reports a child in Miami-Dade County has come down with a case of measles. (Mack, 6/22)

After moving to Houston two years ago, Bora Chang finally started receiving overdue medical treatment for injuries incurred during a decade of military service and a rocket attack in Iraq. ... But then, earlier this year, schedulers at the VA Medical Center in Houston began canceling her physical therapy appointments, often haphazardly and without warning, she said. Chang's complaint echoes that of other local veterans, who have previously raised concerns about the problems obtaining timely appointments at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center or its outlying clinics. ... They - and local veterans' advocates - say their concerns were vindicated by a report from the VA's Office of Inspector General released this week that found local VA officials were manipulating scheduling in a way that obscured the long wait times for appointments. (Barned-Smith and Ketterer, 6/22)

A former Iowa Planned Parenthood manager who has become a prominent abortion opponent can push ahead with a fraud lawsuit against her old employer, a federal judge ruled this week. (Leys, 6/22)

The severance agreement for Effingham County Health System CEO Norma Jean Morgan calls for her to continue receiving her salary and health benefits for 28 months after her May 25 retirement, with the salary totaling $725,000. The four-page severance agreement, obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act, calls for Morgan to receive health benefits during the 28 months at the same cost she was paying as an employee. ...The agreement calls for both parties to refrain from making disparaging or defamatory comments about each other. (Rigsby, 6/22)

As health care costs continue to rise, attention has turned to a tiny number of expensive patients like Meade, called super-utilizers. A program that started in Orange County has taken a different approach to treating Meade and other high-cost patients: Over the past two years, it has tracked them, healed them and saved a ton of money along the way. Meade received more than a million dollars worth of care in each of the two years before he entered the program, according to Paul Leon, CEO of the Illumination Foundation, a homeless health services group based in Irvine. Leon’s foundation runs the program, known as Chronic Care Plus, which has stabilized Meade and found him housing. (Gorn, 6/23)

On the same day the D.C. Public Library announced it found excessive lead contamination in four libraries, city officials said they will lower the maximum acceptable level of lead in public drinking water, making the District’s standards far stricter than those required by the Environmental Protection Agency. Six water fountains and one sink in the city’s public libraries were found to exceed the EPA’s maximum lead contamination level of 15 parts per billion, library officials announced Tuesday. (Schmelzer, 6/22)

...Though today’s youth smoke far fewer cigarettes than their counterparts did 20 years ago, an emerging market for electronic cigarettes is providing a new outlet for nicotine use among young people. Despite a state law prohibiting the sale of these products to people younger than 18, a study by UNC-Chapel Hill researchers found that North Carolina minors can easily obtain electronic cigarettes over the internet. (Allf, 6/22)

With an initiative to legalize marijuana in California likely heading to the November ballot, medical providers, health care experts and industry groups are sharply divided over the controversial measure. It is already legal in California to use cannabis with a doctor’s prescription. The Adult Use of Marijuana Act would allow adults 21 years and older to possess up to one ounce of it and grow up to six plants for non-medical use. The initiative also would impose a 15 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales. (Ibarra, 6/23)

Almost every day, a patient comes into Dr. Arthur Sorrell’s San Francisco emergency room still wearing a wristband from another hospital nearby. “There are folks who have a life of going from emergency department to emergency department, and that’s how their day is spent,” said Sorrell, an emergency physician and administrator at Sutter Health. "It’s sad and tragic, but that’s what happens.” The wristband is at least a hint. Without it, emergency room staff often have no idea they are sharing patients with other hospitals just a mile away. So they treat those patients completely independently, often repeating tests unnecessarily, assigning them multiple case managers when only one is needed and offering contradictory advice. (Gold, 6/22)

Buried in the Medicare trustees report released Wednesday are a few lines that could cause political controversy. “In 2017 there may be a substantial increase in the Part B premium rate for some beneficiaries,” the actuaries write—which means seniors will find out about increases shortly before Election Day. Higher-than-expected Medicare spending in 2014 and 2015 set the stage for a large premium adjustment in 2016. But, notably, the absence of inflation thanks to the drop in energy prices last year meant that seniors receiving Social Security benefits did not receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment. (Chris Jacobs, 6/22)

There’s a largely unknown paradox at work. Companies that try to provide roughly equal health insurance plans for their workers — as many do — end up making wage and salary inequality worse ... Paying for expensive health insurance squeezes what’s left for wage and salary raises. (Robert J. Samuelson, 6/22)

Donald Trump has already squandered six weeks by insulting a “Mexican” judge born in Indiana, offering conspiracy theories, and needlessly attacking defeated rivals. His fundraising is dismal and his staffing inadequate. All this comes at the expense of focused attention on his Democratic opponent. ... Meanwhile, the Republican House is methodically laying out a comprehensive agenda to spread prosperity, protect the nation, uphold the Constitution, reform health care. ... Last week, the House GOP also released a detailed proposal to replace ObamaCare with a package of reforms centered on the patient and doctor. These include making health insurance portable so workers can take it from job to job, increasing the use of health savings accounts, permitting insurance sales across state lines, allowing small businesses and individuals to band together to get lower prices, expanding wellness programs and reforming medical liability. (Karl Rove, 6/22)

The new House Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare lacks specifics because it would have to broadly tax employer health plans to raise enough money to adequately fund insurance subsidies, a prominent Republican health economist says. On Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and key House Republican committee chairman presented a 35-page white paper laying out their vision for how to control U.S. healthcare spending and help Americans access and afford health insurance. After fully repealing the Affordable Care Act, the GOP leaders said they would offer everyone who doesn't have Medicare, Medicaid, or employer coverage a refundable tax credit in an unspecified amount, adjusted only by age. (Harris Meyer, 6/22)

Given this situation, it is refreshing and eye-opening to find out that there is a bill advancing in Congress that is bipartisan, supported in the House by a total of 57 Republicans and 90 Democrats. It does not involve new taxes and can help save lives. In Ohio, it is co-sponsored by three Republicans (U.S. Reps. Steve Chabot, Dave Joyce and Steve Stivers), and three Democrats (U.S. Reps. Joyce Beatty, Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan). What is this bill? It is the "Reach Every Mother and Child Act" (H.R. 3706 and S. 1911). Many members of Congress have decided to come together and support an issue related to the health of mothers and children worldwide. The goal of the Reach Act is simple: to end preventable maternal, newborn and early childhood deaths. (John Hosek, 6/22)

The Affordable Care Act was designed to provide access to affordable health care to all. While millions of individuals have received care under the ACA, we still have millions more who have no affordable insurance coverage simply because they live in Wisconsin or the other 18 states that have chosen not to fully implement the ACA. Unfortunately, when the Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion optional in the states, many states, including Wisconsin, refused to expand and strengthen their Medicaid programs because of political ideology. (Sara Finger, 6/22)

In what sounds like a bad summer action movie, members of Congress are being called upon to defend injured U.S. soldiers against a small but fierce coalition of religious extremists. Sadly, this battle is actually happening this week in our nation’s capital, and the extremists, though outnumbered, appear to be getting the upper hand. The fight is over whether veterans hurt in Iraq and Afghanistan should receive medical help they need to have children. (6/21)

For more than 50 years, the medical community has recognized that people with alcoholism and substance-use disorders are suffering from diseases, not from failures of will or character. Today, there’s more frank and open discussion about drugs and alcohol than at any point in history. Movie stars, athletes, and politicians talk openly and unapologetically about their struggles and their pasts. Nevertheless, a stigma remains attached to these fatal, often misunderstood conditions. (Seth Mnookin, 6/23)

Newly appointed Western State Hospital CEO Cheryl Strange was facing possible jail time for refusing to comply with a court order to admit a patient currently being held at a Pierce County community hospital. Western State is full, and Strange said she wouldn’t override the hospital’s waiting list, where other patients who are sicker have priority. The problem at Western State is capacity to house patients, not the decision-making of its leaders. The decisions Strange, as CEO, is making are the same ones hospital leaders and clinicians make daily. Our ethical obligation, always, is to treat the sickest patient first. Treating a patient with a broken leg before a patient with a heart attack would be ethically untenable. Mental illnesses have the same variations in urgency that physical illnesses do. (Cassie Sauer, 6/22)

A decade ago, the world of medical research celebrated the introduction of the first vaccine proven to protect people from an identified cancer-causing agent. Studies over subsequent years affirmed the effectiveness and safety of the HPV vaccine and its potential to spare tens of thousands of people from having to suffer horrible cancers. Yet, inexcusably, pediatricians and family doctors remain reluctant to recommend the vaccine. A new campaign targeting these doctors aims to boost use of this lifesaving vaccine. (6/22)

...For more than a decade, we have had a safe, efficient, cost-effective vaccine to prevent HPV. Yet vaccination rates remain stubbornly low — a frustrating circumstance arising from misinformation and woefully ham-fisted politics. (6/22)

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a hereditary blood disorder that causes an abnormality of the red blood cells. It is most prominent in the African-American community with 1out of every 365 African-Americans being born with SCD. While Hispanics are the second most impacted group with 1 of every 16,000 suffering with the disease. (Jo Ann Orr, 6/22)

Seattle faces a dilemma common to nearly every U.S. city: How will it tackle the growing inequity between the wealthiest and poorest residents? Against a backdrop of prosperity, housing costs have skyrocketed. Homelessness is in a state of emergency and food insecurity is spreading ... Most people think the best way to improve health is through health care, but that’s not the full story. Research shows that up to 90 percent of what determines our life expectancy is where and how we live, work and play. (Leana S. Wen, 6/21)

On June 30, City Council members will have an opportunity to ban harmful, carcinogenic chemicals from seeping into our drinking water. Coal tar-based sealcoat products — which are commonly used in the paving of driveways, parking lots and roadways, and contain high concentrations of chemical compounds known to be toxic — have no place in our city. (Ron Nirenberg, Vincent R. Nathan and Doug McMurry, 6/22)