The Washington Post: Medical Device Tax Repeal Bill Gains Some Ground
Makers of medical devices are gaining some momentum in a vigorous campaign to persuade Congress to scrap a tax imposed on their industry by the 2010 health-care law. A bill to void the tax sponsored by Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) will be marked up in the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday. Republican House leaders say a floor vote could be scheduled as soon as next week (Aizenman, 5/30).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: House To Vote On Whether To Make Abortions Based On Gender Of Fetus Illegal
Legislation coming up for a House vote would make it a federal crime to carry out an abortion based on the gender of the fetus. The measure takes aim at the aborting of female fetuses, a practice more common to countries such India and China, where there is a strong preference for sons, but which is also thought to take place in this country (5/30).

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Politico: Bill Against Sex-Selective Abortion Comes To Vote
A vote Thursday on a bill to outlaw sex-selective abortion is the latest step in an awkward dance between the House Republican leadership and the large faction of passionate abortion opponents in the caucus. Anti-abortion bills percolate constantly in committee, but leadership has not been pushing to get them to the floor as they attempt to stay focused on an economic message, say sources close to anti-abortion Republican members. But for this bill, anti-abortion advocates say sponsor Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) got a vote scheduled as a concession when he agreed not to try to attach the measure to the Violence Against Women Act, which has been bogging down Republicans on a divisive social issue (Feder, 5/30).

The New York Times: Planned Parenthood Ads To Target Romney
In the course of the Republican primary campaign, Mitt Romney took pains to convince socially conservative activists that he believes in them, understands their passions and would be an advocate for their causes in the Oval Office. Now, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund is unveiling one of its biggest-ever political advertising campaigns aimed at using Mr. Romney’s own words to undermine his support among women — a critical voter group among whom he already trails President Obama (Shear, 5/30).

Los Angeles Times: Popular Medicare Drug Program Targeted In Utah GOP Primary Battle
As veteran Republican lawmakers are forced to defend their support for any government program in the face of tea-party-backed primary challenges, even Medicare, the popular insurance program for the elderly and disabled, is becoming campaign fodder in the intra-party GOP war (Levey, 5/30).

Los Angeles Times: Medi-Cal Works For Most Enrollees, Survey Finds
As California gears up for a major expansion of its publicly funded health program for the poor, a statewide survey released Thursday shows that Medi-Cal enrollees have more trouble finding doctors and use the emergency room more frequently than people with other health coverage (Gorman, 5/31).

The New York Times: Rhode Island: Deal May Avert Bankruptcy
A tentative deal between the city of Providence and its workers and retirees will prevent the city from going into bankruptcy, Mayor Angel Taveras said Wednesday. Mr. Taveras announced that retirees, current safety officials and current municipal workers agreed to a 10-year suspension of cost-of-living increases for most pensions — and limitations thereafter — and the migration of their health care plans onto Medicare. He had said the city would run out of money in June if it did not lower its pension obligations and increase voluntary contributions from the city’s tax-exempt institutions; the city has since secured deals on increased payments with universities and hospitals (Bidgood, 5/30).

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: States Crack Down On Prescription-Drug “Doctor Shopping”
State databases such as one used in Kentucky are designed to address the first problem — to alert prescribers that someone may be abusing drugs or diverting them for illegal sale. Forty-three states now have databases to keep track of who is getting prescriptions for powerful pain relievers such as oxycodone, Vicodin and Opana (Wisniewski, 5/30).

Debates over the Obama administration’s decision to implement the health law’s requirement that health plans cover birth control, state and federal disputes over public funding for Planned Parenthood and a temporary decision by the popular Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to end its support for Planned Parenthood have spurred the activities, the poll reported.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s May tracking poll, released Thursday, found that 42 percent of women say they took some sort of action in the past six months on the issue. Some say they attempted to influence a friend or family member (23 percent); others donated money to a nonprofit organization working on reproductive health issues (15 percent) or contacted an elected official (14 percent), according to the poll. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation).

On the issue of the 2010 health law, the survey also found that the public’s support of the measure dropped five percentage points in May, with unfavorable views outnumbering favorable ones by a margin of 44 percent to 37 percent.

The poll found that 31 percent of women believe there is a “wide-scale effort to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services,” and 45 percent say that while some groups would like to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services, it is not a wide-scale effort.

Seven percent of women say that no coordinated effort to weaken women’s reproductive health choices and services exists, while 17 percent declined to offer an opinion.

Women who say they are liberals (49 percent) are far more likely than women who say they are conservatives (18 percent) to perceive a major effort to limit services.

Like their male counterparts, female voters continue to focus on the economy as their top election concern, with several other issues – including health care – more important than women’s reproductive health. But to the extent that women’s reproductive health becomes a voting issue, more than half of female registered voters say they trust President Barack Obama more to “look out for the best interest of women,” and to make decisions about women’s reproductive health in particular, while about a quarter pick the presumptive GOP candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The poll was conducted May 8 to May 14. The pollsters surveyed 1,218 adults. The margin of error for the full sample was plus or minus 3 percentage points. For women, it is plus or minus 5 percentage points. For results based on subgroups, the margin of error may be higher.

“Frankly there’s a lot of confusion out there about what types of information can be shared, what parties can share this information and how the information can be used,” said Jane Hyatt Thorpe, co-director of Legal Barriers Project, a collaboration between George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The partnership created a new website called Health Information and the Law  in late April in an effort to guide those seeking state by state information on privacy and security requirements for patient health data, Thorpe said.

Thorpe says that in addition to providing analysis about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) —the federal law that sets rules to protect patient confidentiality and security — the site details state laws and regulations that govern the use and exchange of health information. “What we were finding was a lot of confusion about what was possible and what was not possible [for health information sharing], and we thought it might be helpful if we could—in a centralized location—pull together federal and state laws to address the use and release of health information,” she said.

So far, the website includes information from 14 states, but Thorpe says the goal is to include laws and guidance from all 50. She said the site also plans to publish data from a 50-state survey on topics such as patient care quality and safety, as well as information on the updated HIPAA regulations, which are expected to be released this summer.

HSA membership rose from 11.4 million in January 2011 to 13.5 million in January 2012, with most of the growth occurring in plans offered by large employers, according to an annual census by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobby. Since 2008 HSA membership has more than doubled.

Created by legislation in 2003, HSAs let employers and workers make tax-free contributions to finance out-of-pocket medical costs. They differ from the better-known flexible-spending health accounts because with HSAs unspent money can be rolled over from one year to the next. Leftover money in flex accounts reverts to the plan sponsor.

Also, HSAs always are paired with high deductible insurance coverage — at least $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for families. Deductibles are what patients spend before insurance kicks in. The idea behind HSAs is to contain medical inflation and make patients smarter consumers by giving them a bigger stake in health-care purchases. Critics, however, contend that such “consumer-directed” health plans are simply a way for employers to shift costs to workers.

Today’s AHIP report doesn’t include health reimbursement arrangements, another kind of spending account that’s usually paired with a high deductible plan. Last year 17 percent of U.S. workers with employer-based insurance were enrolled in an HSA or an HRA, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.  (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation)

States with the highest portion of HSA enrollees were Vermont, at 20 percent; Minnesota, with 14 percent; and Montana and Utah, both with 12 percent. Fifty-nine percent of HSA enrollment was in large-group plans, up from 55 percent last year. AHIP surveyed 97 insurance companies for its census.

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Few Takers For Obama’s Small-Business Health Care Tax Credit; Congress Unlikely To Fix Flaws
Time-consuming to apply for and lacking enough financial reward to make it attractive, the credit was claimed by only 170,300 businesses out of a pool of as many as 4 potentially eligible million companies in 2010. That’s put the Obama administration in the awkward position of asking Congress to help fix the problems by allowing more businesses to qualify and making it simpler to apply (5/30).

USA Today: Conservatives Campaign Against Insurance Exchanges
Without state exchanges, the federal government will be unable to implement the 2010 health care law, ALEC, the Cato Institute and other conservatives say. Exchanges are websites where consumers can compare costs and benefits of available insurance plans in the state, as well as buy insurance (Kennedy, 5/30).

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Politico: IT Could End Up Being Health Reform’s Highest Hurdle
If state health care exchanges survive the Supreme Court challenge to health care reform, the election and state tea party activists, health policy experts are worried they could still be brought down by a much more mundane problem: information technology (Feder, 5/29).

The New York Times: Nomination His, Romney Steps Up Attack On Obama
For his part, Mr. Romney is trying to get voters to envision him as president. His debut television advertisements present what a “President Romney” would do on “Day 1,” with an announcer saying: “President Romney issues order to begin replacing Obamacare with common-sense health care reform — that’s what a Romney presidency would be like” (Zeleny and Rutenberg, 5/29).

Reuters/The Chicago Tribune: Romney Clinches Republican 2012 Nomination In Texas
Romney in weeks ahead will turn to Obama’s 2010 healthcare overhaul. The U.S. Supreme Court is to decide in late June on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance. Romney has vowed to repeal the law if elected, citing it as an example of too much government under Obama. He has faced criticism from Republicans for the healthcare overhaul he developed for Massachusetts that Obama has called a model for revamping the U.S. system (Holland, 5/30).

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire: Romney Economic Adviser: Details Coming Soon On Regulatory and Health Care Proposals
Glenn Hubbard, a top economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said the former Massachusetts governor will soon detail proposals for health care and financial regulation. The remarks, made in a wide-ranging interview with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, could give voters a clearer distinction between President Barack Obama’s health care and financial regulatory laws and the changes Mr. Romney would like to make to them (Paletta, 5/29).

Politico: Medical Device Tax Is Questioned
A controversial health care reform tax due to go into effect next year has become a prominent issue in a number of House and Senate races throughout the country (Haberkorn, 5/30).

The New York Times: Drug Maker Seeks Protection Within Bill Favoring Generics
One of the few bills moving through Congress with bipartisan support this spring would speed government approval of lower-cost generic copies of brand-name drugs. But one company, with help from an influential former congressman, is lobbying to protect its most lucrative brand-name product against generic competition and appears to have had some success in the House, potentially altering the bill to make it more favorable for the company (Pear, 5/29).

The Wall Street Journal: Union Urges Caterpillar Rebuff
The basic pay and benefit elements of the Caterpillar offer are unchanged. The six-year contract would allow Caterpillar to freeze wages for workers hired before May 2005. For those hired since then, the company could adjust wages based on its assessment of the labor market. Workers would pay more for health insurance and transition from a defined-benefit pension plan to a standard 401(k) retirement-savings program. Caterpillar would have more flexibility to require workers to switch to different shifts (Hagerty, 5/29).

NPR: Counterfeiters Exploit Shortage To Market Fake Adderall Pills
A shortage of Adderall began last year, sending millions of people with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy on perpetual wild goose chases to find drugstores with the pills they need to stay alert and focused. So it’s not surprising that Adderall counterfeiters have seized a big marketing opportunity. What is surprising is their clumsiness (Knox, 5/29).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: $1-A-Pack Tax Increase For Cigarettes Passes Illinois Senate Committee Along Party Lines
Democrats argue the increase will help close a hole in the state Medicaid budget and also help prevent smoking. Republicans object to any tax increase. Officials face a $2.7 million budget problem for Medicaid. They’ve already approved spending cuts of roughly $1.6 billion (5/29).

Problem gambling isn’t considered a true addiction in medical circles. But that may change as psychiatrists revise the diagnostic manual that spells out criteria for more than a dozen varieties of mental disorders.

Photo by Doug Wheller via Flickr

The proposed revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, would add “gambling disorder” to alcohol and drug problems as a “substance use and addictive disorder” that insurers and others would use to make decisions about treatment and coverage.

“Research and clinical work [indicate that] the underlying pathology and genetics of addiction involve not only substances but may also involve behavior,” says David J. Kupfer, chair of the DSM-5 task force overseeing revisions to the manual, which is produced by the American Psychiatric Association.

The proposed revisions, which are open for public comment, will be finalized and published in May 2013.

The proposed guidelines would add only problem gambling as an addictive disorder, but the designation would clear a path to add other behavioral problems — such as sex or Internet addiction — in the future.

“We’re being very conservative about this,” Kupfer says.

So what sort of behavior makes for a gambling addict? In the past year, people with this diagnosis would have manifested four or more of nine specific behaviors, including a need to gamble with more money to maintain excitement and lying about how much they gamble. Also, to qualify, the gambling excesses couldn’t be explained by an episode of manic behavior.

Los Angeles Times: Many Hospitals, Doctors Offer Cash Discount For Medical Bills
A Long Beach hospital charged Jo Ann Snyder $6,707 for a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis after colon surgery. But because she had health insurance with Blue Shield of California, her share was much less: $2,336. Then Snyder tripped across one of the little-known secrets of healthcare: If she hadn’t used her insurance, her bill would have been even lower, just $1,054. … Unknown to most consumers, many hospitals and physicians offer steep discounts for cash-paying patients regardless of income. But there’s a catch: Typically you can get the lowest price only if you don’t use your health insurance (Terhune, 5/27).

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NPR: Patients Crusade For Access To Their Medical Device Data
Each year, tens of thousands of Americans are implanted with tiny battery-controlled devices that regulate the beating of their hearts. Those devices transmit streams of medical data directly to doctors. But some patients, like Hugo Campos of San Francisco, fear they’re being kept out of
the loop. … That’s because even though Campos’ ICD can wirelessly transmit data twice a day about his heart and the ICD itself, that information goes only to his doctor. Campos has to make an appointment and ask for a printout. And that, he says, just doesn’t seem fair (Standen, 5/28).

NPR: Patients Find Each Other Online To Jump-Start Medical Research
People with extremely rare diseases are often scattered across the world, and any one hospital has a hard time locating enough individuals to conduct meaningful research. But one woman with an extremely rare heart condition managed to do what many hospitals couldn’t. Katherine Leon connected with enough people online to interest the Mayo Clinic in a research trial (Cuda-Kroen, 5/28).

The Washington Post: State-Based Insurance Marketplaces Hang In Balance Of Supreme Court Health-Care Ruling
While partisan gridlock and logistical disputes have stalled preparations for the 2010 health-care law in about two dozen states, more than a dozen others have moved swiftly to set up the insurance marketplaces at the statute’s core. So what will come of those efforts if the Supreme Court decides to overturn all or part of the law? Interviews with key officials in some of the states that are furthest along suggest the results could vary widely (Aizenman, 5/26).

The Associated Press: Spin Meter: Political Ads Stir Health Care Horror
Republicans and Democrats seem to be converging on a not-so-subtle message for their political ads on health care this election year: The other side is going to throw granny off a cliff! Expect health care ads to feature heavy doses of what each party alleges that the other party plans to do to wreck Medicare (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/28).

Politico: GOP To Target Obamacare, Gas Prices
House Republicans this summer will take more swipes at President Barack Obama’s health care law, try to slash more regulations and take votes to highlight sky-high gas prices during the travel-heavy season. In a memo being sent to House Republican lawmakers Friday morning, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) also makes official a series of votes this summer on the Bush-era tax rates – a political vote meant as a contrast with Democrats, who are seeking to hike rates on high-income earners when they expire at year-end (Sherman, 5/25).

The Hill: Medicare Fight Hits House, Senate Races
The battle over Social Security and Medicare has been resurrected in House and Senate races across the country, with candidates and their allies stretching the truth as they squabble with opponents about who would inflict the most damage on the nation’s seniors. The scrap has worked its way into candidate debates, mailers and television ads — and prompted one senator’s unsuccessful quest to have an attack ad pulled off the air (Lederman, 5/28).

The New York Times: Redistricting Poses New Challenge For Incumbent
(Rep. Kathy Hochul) who rode a wave of anger over a Republican plan to cut Medicare a year ago must convince a primarily Republican electorate that she can represent it and offer an independent voice, regardless of party label. … National Republicans, still smarting over the way she transformed a little-noticed House race into a closely watched referendum on the Medicare plan, have made her a top target this fall (Hernandez, 5/27).

Los Angeles Times: $55 Million For Conservative Campaigns — But Where Did It Come From?
During the 2010 midterm election, the (Center to Protect Patient Rights) sent more than $55 million to 26 GOP-allied groups, tax filings show, funding opaque outfits such as American Future Fund, 60 Plus and Americans for Job Security that were behind a coordinated campaign against Democratic congressional candidates. The money from the center provided a sizable share of the war chest for those attacks, which included mailers in California, robo-calls in Florida and TV ads that inundated a pocket of northeastern Iowa. The organizations it financed poured at least $46 million into election-related communications in the 2010 cycle, among other expenditures (Gold and Tanfani, 5/27).

The Associated Press: Almost Half Of New Vets Seek Disability
America’s newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen. A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press (Marchione, 5/27).

The Wall Street Journal: Joint Effort: Reefer Roadshow Asks Seniors to Support Medical Pot
Selma Yeshion, an 83-year-old retiree here, says she long considered marijuana a menace. … Then she attended a presentation at the local L’Dor Va-Dor synagogue in April put on by a group called the Silver Tour. The group aims to persuade seniors to support legislation to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in Florida. … The group was founded in 2010 by an unlikely activist: Robert Platshorn, who served nearly 30 years in federal prison for his role in what drug-enforcement officials call one of the biggest marijuana-smuggling rings of the 1970s (Campo-Flores, 5/28).

NPR: Family Matters: Pitching In To Take Care Of Grandma
On a recent evening, the Martin family of Harrisburg, Pa., had too many places it needed to be. AnnaBelle Bowers, the 87-year-old matriarch of the family who is also known as “Snootzie,” was at home — watching television and getting ready for bed. Someone needed to care for her. That fell to Chris Martin, her 14-year-old great-grandson. His willingness to stay at home meant his sister, Lauren, could play in a softball game. It also meant her parents, David and LaDonna Martin, could watch. … More and more, multigenerational families like the Martins are living under the same roof in order to care for a loved one — and also get by (Greene, 5/29).

Chicago Tribune: Medicaid Cuts Threaten Nursing Home Reforms, Advocates Say
The $1.6 billion in Medicaid cuts passed by (Illinois) state lawmakers angered a key legislator and some advocates who contend the legislation will undercut nursing home reforms enacted two years ago and delay improved care in the facilities. But state officials said the 2010 reforms remain intact and added that they are pressing forward on measures to reduce violence and lift the quality of care for indigent patients (Jackson and Marx, 5/28).

Los Angeles Times: Target Of Maryland Abortion Protesters Turns Tables On Them
(Todd) Stave, 44, son of a doctor who performed abortions and whose office was once firebombed, decided to fight back. Targeted because he rents an office to one of the nation’s best-known abortion practitioners, he turned the tables, gathering volunteers to call abortion protesters at home (Knezevich, 5/27).

The Wall Street Journal: Heart Patients May Face a New Drug Dilemma
The newly low cost of Plavix, one of the biggest-selling drugs, is intensifying debate among cardiologists over how to make sure patients get optimal benefit from any blood-thinning medication. A generic version of Plavix became available this month so there is an incentive to switch patients to it. But, nearly a third of patients prescribed a blood thinner to prevent heart attack or stroke have a genetic variation that limits their response to Plavix. For these patients, some doctors prescribe Effient or Brilinta, two rival drugs used by far fewer patients (Winslow, 5/28).

Los Angeles Times: New Study Sounds Warning On Hormone Replacement Therapy
Women who are past menopause and healthy should not use hormone replacement therapy in hopes of warding off dementia, bone fractures or heart disease, says a new analysis by the government task force that weighs the risks and benefits of screening and other therapies aimed at preventing illness. The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force does not necessarily apply to women who use hormone replacement therapy to reduce menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. … The recommendation … comes a decade after the study first linked hormone replacement therapy with higher rates of invasive breast cancer. Those initial findings prompted droves of women to abandon or avoid hormone therapy (Healy, 5/29).

The New York Times: Waking Up To Major Colonoscopy Bills
Patients who undergo colonoscopy usually receive anesthesia of some sort in order to “sleep” through the procedure. But as one Long Island couple discovered recently, it can be a very expensive nap. Both husband and wife selected gastroenterologists who participated in their insurance plan to perform their cancer screenings. … And in both cases, the gastroenterologists were assisted in the procedure by anesthesiologists who were not covered by the couple’s insurance. They billed the couple’s insurance at rates far higher than any plan would reimburse — two to four times as high, experts say (Rabin, 5/28).

The New York Times: Logistics Hang Over A Ruling On 9/11 Cancer
(Patricia) Workman and others who believe their cancers were caused by toxic substances released by the fall of the World Trade Center are due to learn this week whether they may be treated and compensated from a $4.3 billion fund set aside by Congress. An advisory committee in March found justification for covering 14 broad categories of cancer, raising expectations that the fund would cover at least some of them. But such a decision would create a logistical quagmire, advocates for patients and government officials conceded, and could strain the fund’s resources (Hartocollis, 5/28).

New York Magazine: A Life Worth Ending
I will tell you, what I feel most intensely when I sit by my mother’s bed is a crushing sense of guilt for keeping her alive. Who can accept such suffering—who can so conscientiously facilitate it? … In 1990, there were slightly more than 3 million Americans over the age of 85. Now there are almost 6 million. By 2050 there will be 19 million—approaching 5 percent of the population. … By promoting longevity and technologically inhibiting death, we have created a new biological status held by an ever-growing part of the nation, a no-exit state that persists longer and longer, one that is nearly as remote from life as death, but which, unlike death, requires vast service, indentured servitude really, and resources. … The longer you live the longer it will take to die (Michael Wolff, 5/20).

CNN: Cost Of Children’s Health Care Hitting Families Harder
[Heather Bixler] was leaving her New York apartment with her 4-year-old daughter and infant son, who was in a baby carriage. … The doorman, perhaps just to play around, picked up the stroller and held it almost vertical. Sean, the baby, fell out. His head bashed against the marble stair. … Two years ago, the seizures started. So did the never-ending medical expenses. The Bixler family is just one example of how a child’s chronic illness can strain a family emotionally and financially — and children represent the fastest growing health care spending group in America, according to a new report (Elizabeth Landau, 5/21).

Time Magazine: Why Some Medical Students Are Learning Their Cadavers’ Names
At Indiana University Northwest, an IU branch campus located in Gary, Ind., anatomy professor Ernest Talarico instructs his medical students to probe beyond the nerves and muscles of the bodies lying on their examination tables and think of the cadavers as their “first patients.” … His students also typically exchange letters with family members to glean more information about their patients’ medical histories, hobbies and interests. … While Talarico has won praise from many of the individuals involved in the program, he’s also raised concerns among critics who question the ethics of his teaching technique (Dina Fine Maron, 5/17).

PBS NewsHour: Baby’s Tumor Means Surgery Before Birth
Before Cami was born, a huge tumor began growing from her lower body and injured her hips and internal organs. To save her life, doctors had to operate on Cami en utero, half her body still inside a special incision in her mother Tami Dobrinski’s womb. … Cami’s tumor, called a sacrococcygeal teratoma, is just one example of an uncommon category of tumors and cancerous growths that can occur in unborn children — a teratoma like hers occurs in only one in 35,000 infants. … hospitals that don’t specialize in fetal care are not always familiar with all the possible treatments for rare conditions (Monty Tayloe, 5/18).

ABC News: Truvada Helps Couple Cope With Reality of Love and HIV
Nick Literski, 45, and Wes Tibbett, 39, have been together for six years, and their bond is strong. But when Tibbett was diagnosed with HIV in 2009, it was a major blow to the Seattle couple. Tibbett became terrified of giving the virus to Literski. … According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, correct and consistent condom use greatly reduces the risk of HIV transmission. So does being in a monogamous, long-term relationship. But Tibbett and Literski still worried. Then both men started taking a daily pill, Truvada (Carrie Gainn, 5/21).

Politico: FDA User Fee Bill Passed By Senate
With little bickering and no effort to repeal the Obama administration’s health reform law, the Senate passed the massive Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act on Thursday well ahead of schedule. … The $6.4 billion, five-year reauthorization of FDA-industry user fee agreements partially funds the agency’s review of drugs and medical devices, which would have expired at the end of September without action. Previous user fee authorizations have been contentious affairs. But notwithstanding the election-year and health care politics that dominate Congress, the bill sailed through with hardly a complaint (Norman, 5/24).

The New York Times: Senate Backs Bipartisan Bill To Speed Drugs And Avert Shortages
The Senate passed a major bipartisan bill on Thursday to prevent drug shortages and to speed federal approval of lifesaving medicines, including lower-cost generic versions of biotechnology products. A similar bill is on a fast track to approval in the House, perhaps as early as next week. President Obama, consumer groups and pharmaceutical companies strongly support the legislation (Pear, 5/24).

For more headlines …

Politico: Baucus Faces The Biggest Campaigns Of His Career
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is about to launch two of the most daunting campaigns of his political career at once: first, to rewrite the U.S. Tax Code, then to win reelection in 2014 after having shepherded the controversial Democratic health care law to passage. … The 70-year-old Baucus appears to be taking little for granted. … Baucus sidestepped a fight over health care by punting on a confirmation hearing for Marilyn Tavenner, a nominee to head the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which he said was unnecessary because of her lack of support (Raju and Bresnahan, 5/24).

The New York Times: Battle Brewing Over Labeling Of Genetically Modified Food
For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated (Harmon and Pollack, 5/24).

The Associated Press/New York Times: Senate Stalls On Legislation For Student Loan Relief
The Senate rejected dueling Democratic and Republican plans on Thursday for averting a July 1 doubling of interest rates on federal college loans for 7.4 million students, pushing back efforts to resolve the problem until next month. … Both measures rejected Thursday would have delayed the interest rate increase for a year at a cost of $6 billion, but each side’s bill was paid for in a way the other could not tolerate. Democrats proposed raising Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes on high-earning owners of some privately held companies and professional practices, while Republicans proposed abolishing an Obama administration preventive health program (5/24).

The Washington Post: Senate Fails To Agree On Student-Loan-Rate Freeze
Republicans said the Democrats’ proposal amounted to a tax increase on those best positioned create jobs in the sluggish economy. They also argued that payroll taxes are earmarked to fund Medicare, and any new revenue should go to the retiree-health program. … The Republican proposal would have paid for the loan-rate freeze by eliminating the preventative health-care fund created in the 2010 health-care act. Republicans call it a slush fund and have pointed to what they say are misuses in its spending (Helderman, 5/24).

Wall Street Journal: Hospital CEO Will Depart
A Minnesota health system that has come under scrutiny for its hiring of hospital contractor Accretive Health Inc. to handle billing and collections functions said its chief executive will leave at the end of July. The board of Fairview Health Services said Thursday that it decided in a special meeting not to renew the contract of CEO Mark Eustis, and that he will retire on July 31, when the contract expires. The Minneapolis-based nonprofit system, which includes seven hospitals and 42 primary-care clinics, didn’t give a reason for the move (Wilde Mathews, 5/24).

Wall Street Journal: School Districts Cut More Nurses
School nurses, a fixture in many American schools for more than a century, are being cut from Philadelphia to San Diego, as public schools struggle to provide basic services while continuing to slash budgets. … The cutbacks come as nurses are increasingly being pressed to serve a student body with a growing number of complex, chronic health problems—from diabetes and life-threatening allergies to asthma and obesity, according to school officials, parents and nurses (Audi, 5/24).

NPR: Need A Nurse? You May Have To Wait
Nurses are the backbone of the hospital — just ask pretty much any doctor or patient. But a new poll conducted NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health finds 34 percent of patients hospitalized for at least one night in the past year said “nurses weren’t available when needed or didn’t respond quickly to requests for help” (Neighmond, 5/25).

NPR: What’s Up, Doc? When Your Doctor Rushes Like The Road Runner
To physician Larry Shore of My Health Medical Group in San Francisco, it’s no surprise that patients give doctors low marks for time and attention. “There’s some data to suggest that the average patient gets to speak for between 12 and 15 seconds before the physician interrupts them,” Shore says. “And that makes you feel like the person is not listening.” A doctor’s impatience, though, is often driven more by economics than ego. Reimbursement rates for a primary care visit are notoriously low, and Shore laments the need to hustle patients in and out (Varney, 5/24).

Chicago Tribune: Illinois Legislature Passes Deep Health Care Cuts
Hundreds of thousands of poor Illinoisans would lose health coverage, prescription drug discounts for seniors would be dropped and dental care for adults would be greatly curtailed as part of $1.6 billion in budget cuts lawmakers approved Thursday. The major Medicaid reductions ignited anger in some lawmakers who say the cutbacks will jeopardize the lives of the state’s most vulnerable residents (Long, 5/24).

The study, released Thursday, said about 630,000 uninsured veterans would likely qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, which would be expanded under the law. In addition, 520,000 uninsured vets could qualify for subsidized health coverage in new marketplaces, or insurance exchanges.

“It is striking how many of the uninsured veterans would qualify for Medicaid under the ACA,” said co-author Genevieve Kenney, senior fellow for the non-partisan Urban Institute.

One in 10 of the nation’s 12.5 million non-elderly veterans report not having health insurance coverage and not using the Veterans Affairs health system, the study reported.

There are about 1.3 million uninsured veterans nationwide. Another 900,000 veterans use VA care, but have no other health insurance coverage. An additional 900,000 adults and children in veterans’ families are uninsured.

Uninsured rates among veterans vary around the country. Four states have uninsured rates below 6 percent—Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, and North Dakota. Meanwhile, four states—Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana—have uninsured rates above 14 percent.

The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the uninsurance rate of veterans is lower than among the nonelderly population as a whole (10.5 percent compared with 17.9 percent).  Nonetheless, 41 percent of uninsured veterans report having unmet medical needs, while nearly 34 percent say they have delayed care due to cost.