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A prominent Senate panel on Wednesday passed a new package of health policy reforms that would rein in certain pharmacy middlemen practices and ensure Medicare patients aren’t paying more than insurers do for medications. The package passed the committee 26-0 with no amendments added. (Cohrs, 11/8)

Congressional pressure on pharmacy benefit managers continued to mount Wednesday as the Senate Finance Committee approved another bipartisan measure to curb the industry's business practices. The panel voted 26 to 0 to refer the Better Mental Health Care, Lower-Cost Drugs, and Extenders Act of 2023 to the full Senate, with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declining to cast a vote. (McAuliff, 11/8)

The Senate Finance Committee approved the Better Mental Health Care, Lower-Cost Drugs, and Extenders Act of 2023, which would delay pending reductions in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital funding for safety-net facilities, scale back a Medicare pay cut for physicians that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized last week, extend expiring healthcare programs, expand Medicare coverage of mental healthcare and impose new limits on pharmacy benefit managers. (McAuliff, 11/8)

A panel of government advisers finally has endorsed ideas for Congress to solve the particularly thorny problem of surprise ambulance bills, including a cap on how much patients would have to pay if they took an ambulance. (Herman and Bannow, 11/9)

Republicans angling for the party’s presidential nomination on Wednesday grappled with the reality that the Medicare program could start running out of money within the next president’s eight-year term. (Cohrs and Owermohle, 11/8)

People with Medicare Advantage tend to have stronger health outcomes than those with fee-for-service Medicare, seeing fewer hospitalizations and readmissions, according to research published by Inovalon. Using its unique data assets and analytics to look at a broad range of quality measures across care settings, the research shows that patients enrolling in MA realize substantially reduced rates of chronic and acute care complications. (Lagasse, 11/8)

Disputes between insurers and Baptist Health — one of the three large provider systems in Louisville — highlight the other side of the Medicare Advantage equation. (Otts, 11/7)

A wave of medical services delivered via software has the potential to expand access to new therapies and help keep people out of the hospital — but the health system is still trying to figure out how to pay for it. Experts advising Medicare are just beginning to wrestle with how the program — the largest payer of health care in the U.S. — should pay for software used as medical devices, which can range from video games prescribed for ADHD to technology that analyzes data from CT scans. (Goldman, 11/9)

Poring over complicated issues like health insurance can feel like drudgery that we want to avoid. More than two out of three employees (67%) spend less than 30 minutes reviewing benefits options during open enrollment season, while almost half spend less than 20 minutes, a new Voya Financial survey shows. Yet the average American spends more than two hours a day on social media. (Taylor, 11/8)

Eli Lilly & Co. won US approval for its diabetes drug to treat obesity, unlocking blockbuster sales potential and sparking a battle for dominance of a market that’s expected to hit $100 billion by 2030. The weight-loss drug, branded Zepbound, contains exactly the same active ingredient as the company’s diabetes drug Mounjaro, and will cost $1,059.87 for a month’s supply. That’s cheaper than Wegovy, a similar weight-loss drug made by Novo Nordisk A/S, which is $1,349 for a month’s supply. (Muller, 11/8)

The FDA’s green light will probably increase the already strong demand for the drug. It will also add to pressure on commercial health plans to cover the weight-loss use, despite the costs. Plans had been holding out, noting the FDA hadn’t granted approval, though some covered its use in people with diabetes. Lilly said it expects Zepbound to become available by the end of the year at a list price of $1,060 a month, or about 20% lower than the list price for Wegovy. (Loftus, 11/8)

The F.D.A. approved Zepbound for people who have a body mass index — a much-criticized metric — of 30 or greater, which technically qualifies them as having obesity, or those with a B.M.I. of 27 who also have certain weight-related conditions, such as high blood pressure. Regulators said the drug should be used in combination with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity. (Blum, 11/8)

With Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic hitting blockbuster sales and a new rival approved this week, everyone in Washington is thinking about how to manage the crashing wave of weight loss drug costs. (Owermohle, 11/9)

Ongoing shortages of life-saving and essential drugs have largely been tied to the fragility of drug supply chain, but the flip side of the economic equation driving the scarcity — demand — is also a growing problem. (Reed, 11/9)

In a recent podcast episode, actor Josh Peck, most known for his role in Nickelodeon’s "Drake & Josh," discussed the pressure of growing up with fame as a “morbidly obese” teenager and the role that played in his past drug and alcohol addiction. Losing weight, Peck assumed, would fix his problems. The realization that it didn’t tipped him over the edge. Drugs and alcohol helped cushion his fall when food no longer could. (Camero, 11/8)

After Ohio voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, advocates on both sides of the issue are looking at how they can get support on 2024 ballots in at least a dozen states. Here’s what’s happening in the states. (Mulvihill, 11/8)

Florida has one of the nation's most difficult processes for getting a state constitutional amendment initiative on the ballot, and some national Democrats believe proponents there began organizing too late. Any ballot initiative requires more than 890,000 signatures with at least half of the state's 28 congressional districts represented — and the conservative state Supreme Court could still throw it off the ballot, as Florida's attorney general is already arguing they should. (Kight and Thompson, 11/8)

Tuesday’s elections confirmed that voters remain concerned about threats to reproductive rights 16 months after the end of Roe v. Wade and the issue is a potent one for Democrats at the ballot box. The 12-point margin of victory of the Ohio ballot measure guaranteeing a right to abortion and other reproductive health care is energizing supporters of similar state referendums planned in 2024. Plus, Democrats’ new legislative majority in Virginia suggests voters are motivated by the issue even when it’s not directly on the ballot, an important indicator ahead of congressional and state races next year. (Panetta and Barclay, 11/8)

Deeply personal and explicit, the ads signaled a new tone in Democrats’ messaging on abortion rights, one that confronts head-on the consequences of strict anti-abortion laws. (O'Brien and Corasaniti, 11/8)

Ohio currently leads the nation in the greatest number of women affected by shortages and lack of access to maternity care in the United States. Post-Dobbs, in 2022, a total of more than 97,000 women in Ohio were affected by these reductions. Limited maternity care widens the gap in racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality, creates more obstacles for women to obtain care, and can ultimately force women to carry their pregnancies to term. And make no mistake, women who need maternal health care—which includes abortion care—are dying in Ohio. (Talukder, Weitz and Estep, 11/8)

A year ago, Michigan Democrats celebrated the same kind of victory Ohio notched this week. Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed Proposal 3, a ballot measure proponents said would "#RestoreRoe" by creating a "new individual right to reproductive freedom" in the state constitution. But last week, Michigan Democrats failed to muster the votes needed from their own members to remove two key restrictions on abortion in that state — despite Democrats having control of the state House, Senate, and governorship for the first time in decades. (Wells, 11/8)

The Missouri legislature’s decision to allocate nothing in Medicaid reimbursements for services done by any facility or affiliate where abortions are performed, including Planned Parenthood, was argued before the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday. The hearing comes three years after the same court ruled 6-1 that the state legislature must pay Planned Parenthood for treating Medicaid patients. Now, the issue is again before the state’s highest court after the legislature put no funding in its 2022 supplemental budget in Medicaid reimbursements for organizations like Planned Parenthood. (Kellogg, 11/8)

More than 5.6 million U.S. tourists head to Cancun every year, drawn to the Mexican port’s white sand beaches, all-inclusive resorts, and raucous nightlife. Soon there’s likely to be another reason to visit: MSI Reproductive Choices, an international reproductive health nonprofit, plans to open an abortion clinic in the city, partly designed to cater to travelers from the U.S. who are unable to get an abortion in their home states. (Goldhill, 11/9)

A woman was arrested in Florida on Wednesday on charges that she threatened to kill a Texas federal judge who earlier this year suspended approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, according to court records. Alice Marie Pence placed a call from Florida to the chambers of a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, federal court around March 12 and threatened to kill him, according to a grand jury indictment. Though he was not named in the indictment, the only federal judge in Amarillo is U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. (Pierson, 11/8)

Amazon is making membership of One Medical, the boutique primary care clinic it purchased for $3.9 billion, cheaper for its Amazon Prime subscribers, a move that further merges the e-commerce behemoth’s health-care offerings with its core business. Previously, One Medical memberships — initially available largely via employer benefits — cost $199 annually. Starting Wednesday, Amazon Prime members can buy One Medical memberships for $99 a year, a price that signals the tech giant is eager to take the next step in its march into mainstream health care. (O'Donovan, 11/8)

After its purchase of One Medical, some analysts have suggested that Amazon’s ultimate ambition could be to eventually build an expansive healthcare offering that could compete with traditional primary care and employee medical plans. Such an “Amazon Prime Health” product has yet to materialize. A One Medical membership provides patients access to some virtual-care services that are included in the annual fee, as well as in-person visits at clinics across the U.S. that require additional payments either through insurance plans or out-of-pocket. Other services including medical testing also are available. Amazon Prime members currently pay $139 annually to access perks including Amazon’s fast shipping service and Prime Video streaming. (Herrera, 11/8)

Labor costs are expected to continue to decline next year, boosting the financial outlook of nonprofit hospitals. Credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded the 2024 nonprofit hospital sector financial outlook to stable, from negative. Moody’s researchers expect patient admissions to rise, especially in outpatient facilities, and reimbursement rates from insurers to improve for some providers. Here are five takeaways from the Moody's report released Wednesday. (Kacik, 11/8)

Best Buy is adding Mass General Brigham to its list of partners as the retailer expands at-home care capabilities. Best Buy Health will help scale and support the health system's Healthcare at Home operations, which includes services for acute-level patients and care for patients recovering from an illness or injury. (Hudson, 11/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: 'An Arm and a Leg': ‘Your Money Or Your Life’: This Doctor Wrote The Book On Medical Debt 

In 2019, emergency medicine physician and historian Luke Messac was working as a medical resident. He had heard about hospitals suing their own patients over unpaid medical bills, so he decided to investigate whether the hospitals where he worked were doing the same. It turns out they were. (11/9)

An active case of tuberculosis has been confirmed at the University of Massachusetts Boston, officials said Monday. In a message to the campus community, Robert Pomales, executive director of the university’s health services, said the person diagnosed with the illness was receiving treatment and “may have been infected with TB many years before developing [the] active TB infection.” (Sweeney, 11/8)

A large proportion of mpox patients in Chicago last year and early this year also had other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as HIV, predisposing them to severe mpox and potentially contributing to spread of the virus, finds a study led by Chicago Department of Public Health researchers. (Van Beusekom, 11/8)

In an analysis of 13 published prospective studies of people of all ages with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who were followed up for at least 12 months, pre-existing allergic conditions were linked to higher risks of experiencing long COVID, according to a study today in Clinical & Experimental Allergy. This is one of the first studies to assess the relationship between long COVID and allergies. (Soucheray, 11/8)

The COVID-19 lockdowns had a widespread impact on children's mental health, many studies have shown — and now new research highlights how those lockdowns impacted ADHD diagnoses in 10-year-old children. A study by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark determined that kids in this age group who already had a genetic risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder saw a "significant increase" in diagnoses after the pandemic. (Rudy, 11/9)

The claim: A video from The People's Voice posted to Facebook on Oct. 26 (direct link, archive link) claims the human population has declined significantly over the last few years. On-screen text included in the video reads, "Global population reduced by 1 billion since 2021 − Media Blackout." Our rating: False. Fewer than 260 million people have died globally from all causes since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in late 2020, according to United Nations data and mortality projections. (Petersen, 11/8)

A U.S. appeals court panel on Wednesday seemed likely to revive claims that an asthmatic pharmacy clerk in Texas was forced to quit after a pharmacist called him a "stupid little kid" for insisting that he be able to wear a face mask in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. A three-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in New Orleans heard arguments in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) appeal of a lower court's ruling that said the incident was not severe enough to create a hostile work environment and dismissed the agency's lawsuit against U.S. Drug Mart. (Wiessner, 11/8)

With Thanksgiving only two weeks away, now's the time to get protected against potentially deadly fall viruses. In an interview with CBS News, Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this is the best window to get vaccinated to protect yourself and your family for the holiday. "We know we're going to see more flu starting to circulate, and more COVID, so right now is a great time for you to get vaccinated. That way, your body can build up its protection ahead of the holiday season," she said. (George and Moniuszko, 11/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: A New RSV Shot Could Help Protect Babies This Winter — If They Can Get It In Time 

Emily Bendt was in her third trimester of pregnancy when she first heard the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had approved a new shot for infants to protect them from the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. By Oct. 5, Bendt was cuddling with her new baby, Willow, on the couch at home in Vancouver, Washington. She was excited to get Willow the new therapy for infants, called nirsevimab, which had started shipping in September — but Bendt, a pediatric home health nurse, couldn’t find it anywhere. (Templeton, 11/9)

Vaccines work well to prevent cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). So well, in fact, that it may be time to review HPV screening protocols, according to the somewhat provocative conclusion of a new study examining the occurrence of genital HPV types eight years after immunization, published Wednesday in Cell Host & Microbe. (Merelli, 11/8)

The therapy, an infusion of CAR-T cells designed to kill the lymphoma, was going well. Nearly a month after the treatment, the engineered cells had crushed the cancer, and the patient, a 49-year-old woman in the Netherlands, appeared to be cancer-free. But two weeks later, something was wrong. The patient couldn’t remember having been in the hospital or, indeed, ever being treated for lymphoma. When she returned to the hospital, a scan showed parts of her brain were swelling. (Chen, 11/8)

Many lung cancer patients now have access to a potentially life-saving medication. Osimertinib, sold under the brand name Tagrisso, is available to patients with Stage 1B-3A lung cancer who have a certain genetic mutation and have had surgery to remove cancerous tumors. Among those patients, Tagrisso was shown to reduce the five-year risk of recurrent cancer by up to 73% and the risk of death by up to 51%, according to research published in The New England Journal of Medicine over the summer. (Rudy, 11/9)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield denied payment for the proton therapy Robert “Skeeter” Salim’s doctor ordered to fight his throat cancer. But he was no ordinary patient. He was a celebrated litigator. And he was ready to fight. (Miller, 11/7)

It’s easy to get people worked up about cures, but they don’t seem to be bothered by falling life expectancy, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf would like to figure out how to connect the two. The United States has one of the lowest life expectancy rates among wealthy nations. Post-pandemic, the average American life span is down to 76.4 years. The average life expectancy in comparable countries is 80.3 years. (Wilkerson, 11/8)

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally and repeatedly thwarted initiatives meant to improve the well-being of teens on Facebook and Instagram, at times directly overruling some of his most senior lieutenants, according to internal communications made public as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the company. (Fung, 11/8)

Dr. Christopher Lucas shuttled from room to room, checking on the children with mental-health troubles who had streamed into his emergency department over the past 12 hours because they had nowhere else to go. There were eight of them that September day at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y. In one room, staff tended to a 17-year-old girl with chronic depression who had attempted suicide by overdosing on ibuprofen—her fourth trip to the E.R. for mental-health reasons in two years. Nearby was a 14-year-old girl who had started cutting herself after being bullied over social media. (Frosch and Evans, 11/8)

Minnesota is facing a gap in its mental health system. Pre-teens and teens who have significantly higher levels of needs, often caused by trauma, aren't getting the resources they need and an environment that promotes healing. A new treatment facility will respond to those needs. "This is not a place for judgment or a treatment that's just there for the sake of being there. This really serves a specific need," said Dr. Michelle Murray, president/CEO of Nexus Family Healing. (James, 11/8)

Later this month, a new 54-bed youth psychiatric hospital in Butner will open its doors to help North Carolina’s children and teens struggling with mental health issues. The UNC Hospitals Youth Behavioral Health facility will include specialized units for patients with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, as well as a unit dedicated to serving children with intellectual and developmental disabilities with mental health needs. (Knopf, 11/9)

Getting screened for type 2 diabetes could one day be as simple as speaking into your smartphone. Currently, gauging diabetes risk requires fasting, taking a blood test and waiting days for the results. In an effort to change that, researchers from Klick Applied Sciences in Toronto, Canada, have developed an artificial intelligence model that uses a 10-second voice recording to predict diabetes risk. (Rudy, 11/8)

A study done by Allegheny Health Network's Neurosciences Institute is finding a new, smartphone-controlled technology could be an option for those who suffer from migraines. The 12-month study examined the clinical efficacy and safety of a device called Nerivio. Nerivio is a wearable "remote electrical neuromodulation" (REN) device that is used to reduce migraine symptoms. (Stanish, 11/8)

Establishing healthy bedtime habits for your child early on is vital if at least one parent has chronic sleep difficulties, suggests new research on genetics and children’s sleep disorders. A genetic predisposition for sleep problems such as insomnia has been found repeatedly in studies of adults, leaving scientists wondering whether the same phenomenon occurs among children. (Rogers, 11/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Underdiagnosed And Undertreated, Young Black Males With ADHD Get Left Behind 

As a kid, Wesley Jackson Wade should have been set up to succeed. His father was a novelist and corporate sales director and his mother was a special education teacher. But Wade said he struggled through school even though he was an exceptional writer and communicator. He played the class clown when he wasn’t feeling challenged. He got in trouble for talking back to teachers. And, the now 40-year-old said, he often felt anger that he couldn’t bottle up. As one of the only Black kids in predominantly white schools in upper-middle-class communities — including the university enclaves of Palo Alto, California, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina — he often got detention for chatting with his white friends during class, while they got only warnings. He chalked it up to his being Black. (Sibonney, 11/9)

The Biden administration on Thursday issued a call to action for the nation’s employers to hire, train, and retain people in recovery from addiction. Recovery-Ready Workplace, as the new program is known, includes a new toolkit for employers and promotes a model state law that would create incentives for businesses to hire people in recovery and become certified as “recovery-friendly” workplaces. (Facher, 11/9)

Drugmaker Indivior Plc clinched a US contract worth up to $111 million for its opioid antidote — part of the government’s preparation for a potential bioterrorism attack with drugs such as fentanyl that can be released into the air. The contract will secure US supplies of Opvee, an opioid reversal medication that stays in the body longer than naloxone nasal spray, the standard treatment for opioid overdose which was approved for over-the-counter use earlier this year. (LaPara and Griffin, 11/8)

For years, programs like D.A.R.E. told students to "just say no" to drugs. But research shows that approach alone didn't work. Now experts are backing a new approach that could help save lives. (Gaines, 11/9)

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools teens describe how easy it is to buy fake Percocet or pain pills, often laced or made of pure fentanyl. (Coin, 11/9)

For several years, researchers have understood that the hallucinatory effects of psychedelics can, in theory, be separated from the other ways the drugs affect our mental state and brain structure. ... A new generation of nonhallucinogenic psychedelics, at least one of which is currently being tested in humans, aims to provide all of the mental-health benefits of LSD, psilocybin, or Ecstasy without the trip. ... They might also shed new light on how much psychedelics can alleviate psychic distress—and why they do so at all. (Friedman, 11/8)

The Gandara Center is one of the only mental health clinics in Springfield, Massachusetts, that offers treatment for problem gambling. But even there, about a mile from the MGM Springfield casino, there’s only one clinician certified in gambling treatment. And she’s only treating five patients. “There's definitely many, many more people with problem gambling,” said Enrique Vargas, a clinical supervisor at Gandara. (Brown, 11/9)

Scientists have discovered how mitochondria sense and control their glutathione levels, an antioxidant produced throughout the body. The first nutrient-sensing mechanism identified for an organelle, the finding has great translational potential. (Rockefeller University, 11/8)

A mathematical modeling study today from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) suggests that the risk of hospital death from respiratory illness is higher in warmer, summer months, which may have implications for how hospitals will need to adjust to climate change. The study is published in The Lancet Regional Health - Europe and is based on data on ambient temperature and in-hospital mortality from respiratory diseases in Madrid and Barcelona from 2006 through 2019. (Soucheray, 11/7)

Data from a small randomized clinical trial indicate that fecal microbiota transplantation can reduce multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) colonization in kidney transplant recipients, researchers reported this week in Science Translational Medicine. (Dall, 11/3)

Maybe probiotics would have saved my son’s life. I’ll never know because when I asked Micah’s care team to consider probiotics to counter the deluge of antibiotics, I was dismissed as senseless. My son Micah was born at 27 weeks gestation, weighing just over 2 pounds, with a head full of thick, wavy hair. By 6 weeks old, Micah weighed 5 pounds, was beginning to nurse, and was progressing toward discharge. Our lives changed forever one quiet Sunday afternoon when Micah’s health rapidly deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a disease I had never heard of and knew nothing about. (Jennifer Canvasser, 11/9)

Abortion foes thought Roe v. Wade’s reversal would usher in a more pro-life America by finally clearing the legal obstacles to the eventual abolition of abortion. But that’s not how things are panning out, even in red states. Yesterday in Ohio—which Donald Trump won in 2020—voters approved a state constitutional amendment to make abortion a fundamental right, effectively restoring the reproductive freedom they once enjoyed under Roe. (Jon A. Sheilds, 11/8)

Ohio voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Issue 1 at the ballot, making it the sixth state to either pass a constitutional amendment protecting abortion access or reject a measure that would have specified the state constitution does not protect abortion rights. (11/8)

From head to toe, our bodies are adapting to accommodate our devices. A majority of U.S. workers spend most of each weekday seated and looking at screens. We’ve thereby put ourselves in the midst of a slow-moving health crisis marked by alarming rates of early-onset diabetes and hypertension. Plus, by the end of most days — though it’s not the preferred medical terminology — we just feel like crap. (Manoush Zomorodi and Keith Diaz, 11/7)

I have long had back pain, like millions of other Americans. My super supportive staff ensured a chair in the hotel bathroom and, more important, a stool behind the speaking podium when standing for long periods became a challenge. Like so many others, I pushed through the pain to do my work. (Wendy R. Sherman, 11/9)

The book “The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic” argues that students who become school shooters are often the victims of extreme bullying, rejection from peers, isolation and self-loathing. It ends when their hate turns outward toward classmates, religious groups, immigrants or anyone else they can blame. The authors have a $50 billion solution: hiring 500,000 psychologists. (Gilbert Simon, 11/7)

Methadone is one of three medications approved to treat opioid use disorder, and for some patients it is the only effective option. Yet methadone is the only federally approved drug dispensed outside the traditional medical system. (11/9)

As the opioid epidemic continues to grip our nation, claiming lives, destroying families, and burdening communities, it is imperative that we explore every viable solution. Among these potential solutions is a powerful, natural, non-addictive substance known as ibogaine. (Rick Perry, Marcus Luttrell, Morgan Luttrell and Dakota Meyer, 11/8)