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The health system in the U.S. is failing, a startling new report finds. The U.S. ranks as the worst performer among 10 developed nations in critical areas of health care, including preventing deaths, access (mainly because of high cost) and guaranteeing quality treatment for everyone, regardless of gender, income or geographic location, according to the report, published Thursday by The Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group. (Lovelace Jr., 9/19)

Former independent presidential candidate and antivaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that former President Trump wants him to choose leaders for key public health agencies if he wins the election in November. Kennedy told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that under a second Trump term, he would be responsible for eliminating “corrupt influences” from agencies, Mediaite first reported. (Ventura, 9/18)

Francis Collins’ reputation precedes him: A scientist’s scientist, he obtained a Ph.D. in physical chemistry before going to medical school and subsequently becoming a molecular biologist. He led the Human Genome Project, then directed the National Institutes of Health for 12 years. When he stepped down in 2021, he became President Biden’s science adviser. But Collins is also one of the most outspoken Christians in modern intellectual circles, having become one at age 27 after a two-year journey through the world’s religions convinced him that it was the only thing that could make sense out of both life’s big questions and the Big Bang. (Trang, 9/19)

A House committee on Wednesday passed a bill to renew a program aimed at aiding development of drugs for rare diseases in children, putting it in a better position to be added to government funding legislation. The pediatric rare disease priority review voucher program is set to end on Sept. 30. The legislation would extend the program until Sept. 30, 2029. (Wilkerson and Mast, 9/18)

Bills that would extend expiring telehealth and hospital-at-home authorities and reverse a regulation establishing staffing mandates for nursing homes are ready for final votes in the House after committee consideration Wednesday. The Energy and Commerce Committee met to vote on a number of healthcare bills at the session. Among them was the Telehealth Modernization Act of 2024, which passed unanimously. (McAuliff, 9/18)

House and Senate Democrats are pushing leadership to quickly pass legislation to permanently expand subsidies on the health care exchanges — ideally by the end of the year. Forty-one Senate Democrats, led by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and 154 House Democrats, led by Lauren Underwood of Illinois, sent a letter to leadership Wednesday morning urging their respective chambers to move “as soon as possible.” (Cohen, 9/18)

A diverse group of House Republicans torpedoed Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) proposal to fund the government on Wednesday, dealing an embarrassing blow to the GOP leader and derailing his strategy to avoid a shutdown at the end of the month. Fourteen Republicans joined virtually every Democrat in voting against the spending plan — which paired a six-month stopgap bill with a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote — bringing the final tally to 202-220, with two voting present. Three Democrats crossed the aisle to back the measure. (Schnell, 9/18)

A $3 billion hole in veterans benefits funding is closer to being filled, but the Friday deadline to fix the issue without potentially disrupting payments to veterans is fast approaching, with lingering questions about whether the Senate can act quickly enough. The House on Tuesday easily approved a bill to provide the Department of Veterans Affairs with $3 billion the agency says it needs in order to ensure benefits checks due Oct. 1 can go out on time. But the Senate still needs to approve the bill, and doing so before Friday will require the consent of every senator -- and at least one senator is raising the possibility of objecting. (Kheel, 9/18)

A lawyer for Steward Health Care chief executive Ralph de la Torre on Wednesday blasted congressional efforts to investigate the executive’s role in the crisis that thrust the hospital chain into bankruptcy, arguing that de la Torre’s refusal to testify is protected by the Fifth Amendment. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on civil and criminal referrals for contempt of Congress over de la Torre’s refusal to testify at a hearing last week despite being subpoenaed. (Pressman, 9/18)

The cyberattack that forced Ascension to shut off access to its electronic health records cost the nonprofit hospital system roughly $1.3 billion, according to STAT’s analysis of financial documents the health system released Tuesday evening. (Herman, 9/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Cyberattacks Plague The Health Industry. Critics Call Feds’ Response Feeble And Fractured

Central Oregon Pathology Consultants has been in business for nearly 60 years, offering molecular testing and other diagnostic services east of the Cascade Range. Beginning last winter, it operated for months without being paid, surviving on cash on hand, practice manager Julie Tracewell said. The practice is caught up in the aftermath of one of the most significant digital attacks in American history: the February hack of payments manager Change Healthcare. (Tahir, 9/19)

The Veterans Affairs Department said Tuesday it has partnered with EHR companies Epic and Oracle Health to identify veterans receiving care outside of the VA. Oracle and Epic, the top two companies in total market share among EHR vendors for acute care hospitals, have added the VA's Veteran Confirmation application programming interface to their systems. The API will help providers identify veterans receiving care in their health systems. (Turner, 9/18)

Chicago-based healthcare firm Oak Street Health has agreed to pay $60 million to resolve allegations from the U.S. Department of Justice that it paid kickbacks to third-party insurance agents in exchange for recruiting seniors to Oak Street’s primary care clinics. The DOJ alleged in a statement today that Oak Street’s Client Awareness Program, designed to grow patient membership, had third-party insurance agents contacting seniors eligible for or enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, seeking to recruit them to Oak Street locations. (Davis, 9/18)

Drugmaker Eli Lilly on Wednesday urged a federal appeals court to overturn a $183 million judgment against it in a case accusing it of defrauding Medicaid, arguing that it was being wrongly held liable despite following its reasonable interpretation of the government health insurance program's requirements. (Pierson, 9/18)

CarePoint Health submitted plans with New Jersey authorities to lay off more than 2,600 workers at three of its hospitals in the state. The layoffs would take effect Dec. 12, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice filed with the state. (DeSilva, 9/18)

Hospitals in the Philly area are ranked below the national average by patients when it comes to doctor communication, according to a federal survey. Across the region, hospitals received an average score of three stars for how well doctors communicate with patients, while the national average was a four-star rating. (Mulvey, 9/18)

Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday its experimental implant aimed at restoring vision received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "breakthrough device" designation. The experimental device, known as Blindsight, "will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see," Musk said in a post on X. (9/18)

A long-running race to develop a gene therapy for the most common cause of age-related blindness is heating up. On Wednesday, 4D Molecular Therapeutics announced new data from its program for the disease, known as wet age-related macular degeneration, or wet-AMD. In one 30-person Phase 2 study, patients’ need for standard-of-care injections fell by 89% after receiving gene therapy, and 73% did not need another standard-of-care shot for at least 32 weeks. (Mast, 9/18)

More than 40% of Americans are estimated to have myopia, also known as nearsightedness. While many may consider it a minor inconvenience easily remedied with glasses, authors of a report published Tuesday are calling on health agencies to classify it as a disease. Committee members at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine say nearsightedness has become an “evolving epidemic” that requires more research, standardization of care and early prevention, recommending at least one hour of outdoor time daily for kids. (Rodriguez, 9/19)

U.S. telehealth company Hims & Hers Health on Wednesday said it will sell compounded versions of Novo Nordisk's popular weight-loss drug Wegovy to patients in certain professions for $99 a month. The company said the pricing would be available to eligible U.S. military members, teachers, nurses and first responders, including police and firefighters, as well as veterans. ... Novo and rival Eli Lilly, which makes the weight-loss drug Zepbound, have filed a flurry of lawsuits against medical spas, wellness clinics and compounding pharmacies for allegedly selling products claiming to contain the active ingredients in their drugs. Compounded GLP-1 injections are fulfilled and shipped from Hims & Hers' affiliated pharmacies and are FDA-regulated, the company said. (Niasse, 9/18)

Certain blockbuster weight-loss drugs have been found to protect the heart in significant ways, and new research suggests that the cardiovascular benefits could extend to an even broader set of patients than clinical trial data has shown – helping prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks and strokes each year in the United States. (McPhillips, 9/18)

Nearly two decades ago, European regulators pulled an obesity drug called rimonabant off the market due to concerns it was tied to suicidal ideation. Now, a small handful of companies are developing drugs that use a similar approach to the discarded treatment, which involves inhibiting type 1 cannabinoid receptors, or CB1 receptors. (Chen, 9/19)

The latest trial over claims that the discontinued heartburn drug Zantac causes cancer ended with a hung jury on Wednesday, as jurors in Chicago were unable to agree on whether Boehringer Ingelheim must pay damages to an Illinois man who said he developed prostate cancer as a result of taking the drug, according to the man's lawyer. It was the second time a jury failed to reach a verdict at trial during the ongoing wave of litigation over the now-discontinued drug. (Pierson, 9/18)

Biotech companies routinely compete to develop and commercialize products. But these rivalries are seldom as publicly heated as what has played out on social media this week between two firms racing to develop new ways to screen for colon cancer. (Wosen, 9/18)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on Wednesday, classified the recall of certain tubes made by a unit of ICU Medical as the most serious type, which could cause severe injury or death. Specific lots of the tubes sold under the Bivona brand by ICU's unit Smiths Medical for neonatal or pediatric and adult patients are being recalled due to a manufacturing defect, opens new tab that may cause the device's securement flange to tear. (9/18)

Health insurance companies and employers will soon be directing more time, money and resources to comply with mental health parity mandates. But questions remain about what regulators expect of health plans and whether new federal rules effectively tackle the issue. About one in five U.S. adults has at least one behavioral health condition and many struggle to find and afford treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (Berryman, 9/18)

St. Paul is dropping a program that's helped thousands of people in need. Mental health providers will no longer work with police to follow up on 911 calls to connect people in need to resources. The Community Outreach and Stabilization Unit, or COAST, handles about 1,700 cases a year. ... The city's scrapping COAST in hopes of providing those same services more efficiently, without overlapping agencies. (Schuman, 9/18)

Daisy started working as a crisis counselor for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline because she was personally affected by the loss of loved ones who’d taken their own lives, and wanted to help people avoid that outcome. She and other crisis counselors talk to people facing a mental health emergency, and in some cases, in the process of dying by suicide. It is a difficult role, but Daisy said she felt the training at PATH Crisis Center in Bloomington, Ill. prepared her for it. Then, she started getting what she described as “bogus sex calls.” (Ellin, 9/18)

As Texas embarks on a $2.5 billion expansion of its 163-year-old state psychiatric hospital system, the private psychiatric hospital industry, which offers a more accessible entry point for those who are seriously mentally ill, would like a word. How about a raise to the Medicaid rate for inpatient psychiatric care? (Langford, 9/19)

Bruce Brown thought it was an athletic supplement when he first saw it. Delivered in a standard UPS package to his home in late 2022, the yellowish-white powder didn't spark major concern for the Colorado lawyer, whose 17-year-old son Bennett played competitive soccer. Bennett wasn't staying at home that night, so Brown sent his son a text asking him what the substance was. He never got a response. Later, Brown learned the horrifying truth: It wasn't a supplement. It was sodium nitrite − a hazardous chemical compound Bennett ordered to use for ending his own life. Shortly after using the compound the next day, Bennett sought medical attention, but it was too late. He died on the way to the hospital. "They shipped it in two days to him, and it sold for the price of about $13," Brown says. "That was the price of my son's life." (Trepany, 9/18)

Increasingly researchers are raising concerns about what that bad air does to your health. A new CU Boulder study adds to the list of likely problems. It found exposure to air pollution including wildfire smoke increases symptoms of mental illness, things like depression and anxiety, in young people. “It wasn't that annual average exposure that seemed to be driving these effects with mental health symptoms. It was these really extreme, the number of extreme days that seemed to be most important,” said first author Harry Smolker, a research scientist with CU’s Institute of Cognitive Science. (Daley, 9/18)

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) on Wednesday signed an executive order banning “conversion therapy” for minors — skirting the Republican-led state legislature and setting up a likely legal challenge. Beshear said the new policy, which goes into effect immediately, is an overdue step to protect children from a widely discredited medical practice that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. (Paul, 9/18)

A federal whistleblower lawsuit accuses insurance companies and hospitals of defrauding Indiana's Medicaid program of up to $700 million ― money that could have helped prevent a $1 billion shortfall that prompted state officials to cut services. Instead, the lawsuit claims, industry-friendly officials in the state's Medicaid office bowed to political pressure and in 2017 began curtailing efforts to recoup the improper payments, even after they were flagged by the state's fraud detection contractor. (Cook and Dwyer, 9/18)

Earlier this summer, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo squared off for a closed-door interview with seven members of a Republican-led congressional subcommittee investigating how New York handled the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Cuomo was asked repeatedly about a State Health Department report that deflected blame for the thousands of people who died of Covid at nursing homes in early 2020. Mr. Cuomo stood by the report and said he certainly did not review it and insisted he had no memory of seeing it before its release. But a review of emails and congressional documents appears to show how Mr. Cuomo not only saw the report, but personally wrote parts of early drafts. (Oreskes, 9/19)

Lexington and Medford are tiptoeing toward considering prohibiting their youngest adults from buying nicotine products in their municipalities throughout their lifetimes, potentially joining a growing list of Massachusetts cities and towns with similar generational bans. At Lexington’s Board of Health meeting Tuesday, leaders heard about both the public health benefits of such a policy — which would ban sales of cigarettes and vaping products to people born after a certain year — and the potential business impacts for convenience stores and other retailers who sell cigarettes and vaping products. (Tannenbaum, 9/18)

Some states and hospital systems have updated their policies on drug testing for pregnant women and newborns, aiming to better support patients’ treatment and recovery from substance use disorder and combat racial disparities in testing and reporting. Under federal law, medical professionals must notify child protective agencies when an infant has been affected by the mother’s substance use, including alcohol use. However, the federal rules ... emphasize that substance use disorder on its own doesn’t constitute child abuse. (Hassanein, 9/18)

Illinois' first hospital-based organ donation center will begin operations on Thursday, and CBS News Chicago got an exclusive sneak peek at the new setup that could save hundreds of lives a year. The beeping inside Rush University Medical Center is about to intensify. In a few weeks, they'll be very busy, according to transplant surgeon Dr. Edie Chan, who is in charge of the new Gift of Hope Organ Donor Care Center at Rush, which uniquely focuses on deceased patients whose lungs, hearts and more will live on in others. (Victory, 9/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: These Alabama Workers Were Swamped By Medical Debt. Then Their Employer Stepped In

Like most medical offices, the small suite of exam rooms at the PhiferCares Clinic fills daily with patients seeking help with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses. But there’s an important difference about this clinic in central Alabama: No one gets a bill, including for prescriptions. That’s because the clinic is owned by a manufacturing company with a specific agenda. “We don’t want you to spend money on health care,” said Russell DuBose, vice president of human resources at Phifer. (Levey, 9/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: California Medicaid Ballot Measure Is Popular, Well Funded — And Perilous, Opponents Warn

The proponents of Proposition 35, a November ballot initiative that would create a dedicated stream of funding to provide health care for California’s low-income residents, have assembled an impressive coalition: doctors, hospitals, community clinics, dentists, ambulance companies, several county governments, numerous advocacy groups, big business, and both major political parties. (Wolfson, 9/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Abortion Clinics — And Patients — Are On The Move, As State Laws Keep Shifting

Soon after a series of state laws left a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri, unable to provide abortions in 2018, it shipped some of its equipment to states where abortion remained accessible. Recovery chairs, surgical equipment, and lighting from the Missouri clinic — all expensive and perfectly good — could still be useful to other health centers run by the same affiliate, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, in its three other states. Much of it went to Oklahoma, where the organization was expanding, CEO Emily Wales said. (Sable-Smith, 9/19)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday reported 22 more imported Oropouche virus cases, raising the national total to 74 in five states. So far, 1 case of the neuroinvasive form of the disease has been reported. Most of the illnesses are in Florida, which has reported 70 cases. The Florida Department of Health (Florida Health) said in its latest weekly arbovirus report that all of the state's cases involve travel to Cuba, one of the newly affected countries in the Americas experiencing an outbreak. Florida has reported cases in 11 counties, but most have been in Miami-Dade County. (Schnirring, 9/18)

Patients who are overweight when they're first diagnosed with cancer may be at higher risk of developing a second cancer. Investigators at the American Cancer Society looked at data on nearly 27,000 people who were diagnosed with cancer. They found that compared to cancer survivors with a normal BMI, those who were overweight were 15% more likely to be diagnosed with a second primary cancer. Those who were obese were 34% more likely. (Marshall, 9/18)

Millions of Americans regularly take multivitamins, accepting as fact that the dietary supplement can help them stay healthy and live longer. Consumers reliably scoop them up at the drugstore or supermarket. One estimate pegs the annual value of the multivitamin market at more than $21 billion. A new study, however, questions their usefulness. (Levesque, 9/18)

The fragility of the infant formula market is being tested again — this time by legal fights over safety labeling. Two and a half years after supply chain issues and a recall led to a nationwide formula shortage, the only two manufacturers of premature infant formula are threatening to exit amid a flurry of lawsuits from families whose infants got sick or died after taking one of these formulas. (Reed, 9/19)

Following the MIND diet for 10 years produced a small but significant decrease in the risk of developing thinking, concentration and memory problems, a new study found. The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay diet combines elements from the traditional Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH diet, which focuses on reducing blood pressure. (LaMotte, 9/18)

The tiny electronic devices remain a vital means of communication in some areas - such as healthcare and emergency services - thanks to their durability and long battery life. "It's the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate to a large number of people about messages that don't need responses," said a senior surgeon at a major UK hospital, adding that pagers are commonly used by doctors and nurses across the country's National Health Service (NHS). "It's used to tell people where to go, when, and what for." Many pagers can also send out a siren and then broadcast a voice message to groups so that whole medical teams are alerted simultaneously to an emergency, a senior doctor in the NHS said. That is not possible with a mobile phone. (9/19)

A class of drugs for diabetes may be associated with a lower risk of dementia and Parkinson's disease, according to a new study. (American Academy of Neurology, 9/18)

Metformin is the most common type 2 diabetes drug prescribed to millions of American each year, and a new study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in Diabetes Care suggests the drug can lower the risk of developing long COVID, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), in diabetics. (Soucheray, 9/18)

A University of Pittsburgh–led study estimates that psychiatric inpatients—especially those on the geriatric unit—with COVID-infected roommates were at much higher risk of infection than those exposed to contagious patients housed elsewhere in the unit from 2020 to 2023. (Van Beusekom, 9/16)

Consuming moderate amounts of coffee and caffeine regularly may offer a protective effect against developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, according to new research. (The Endocrine Society, 9/17)

You probably know about the surge in childhood peanut allergies. Peanut allergies in American children more than tripled between 1997 and 2008, after doctors told pregnant and lactating women to avoid eating peanuts and parents to avoid feeding them to children under 3. This was based on guidance issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000. (Pamela Paul, 9/19)

Nowadays, men in their 40s like me are constantly being urged to get their testosterone levels checked, as private clinics and online providers tout “testosterone replacement therapy” as the way to improve sexual, physical and mental well-being. It’s a concerning development in TRT’s two-decade journey from being a niche therapy to a lifestyle panacea. (Chris Bryant, 9/19)

In June, a clinical trial showed that a twice-yearly injection was just as effective at preventing HIV as the daily oral medication. The trial was so successful that the Data Monitoring Committee instructed researchers to halt the study and immediately offer the injection to all study participants. (Doug Wirth and Jeffrey S. Crowley, 9/19)

“Obesity is a disease,” Oprah Winfrey declared after disclosing her weight loss with an Ozempic-like drug. “It’s a brain disease,” a prominent obesity doctor explained on a “60 Minutes” episode about the drugs. “Obesity is disease” even has its own discover page on TikTok. (Julia Belluz, 9/19)

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality took an important step: They launched the Core Elements of Hospital Diagnostic Excellence, a new project to help reduce the number of Americans who die or are permanently disabled each year by diagnostic error. In 2023, that happened to nearly 800,000 Americans. My family is one of the many to experience this. I’m sharing our story with the encouragement of CDC. (Vonda Vaden Bates, 9/19)

The idea that Britain is a sick society is no longer an idle metaphor. The British are not only sicker, on average, than the inhabitants of most rich countries; they are also in danger of becoming sicker than their parents: The improvement in life expectancy that began with the industrial revolution 200 years ago is now grinding to a halt. (Adrian Wooldridge, 9/19)