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But the deal prompted a quick and fierce backlash among Democrats, many of whom were livid that their colleagues had backed down from the party’s central demand in the shutdown fight: the extension of health insurance subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums soaring for millions of Americans. The compromise measure included a provision that many Democrats had sought to reverse layoffs of federal workers made during the shutdown. It also came with a commitment from Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, to allow a vote in December on extending the expiring health insurance tax credits for a year. Many Democrats have said for weeks that such a pledge would be insufficient to win them over, since such a bill has appeared all but certain to die in the Republican-led Congress. (Edmondson and Gold, 11/10)

President Trump said Saturday that the money that's being spent on Affordable Care Act subsidies now should be sent directly to consumers — a position that's likely to complicate the government shutdown deadlock even more. (Nather, 11/8)

Over the weekend, in the face of the longest federal government shutdown in history, a familiar refrain has arisen from President Trump and other Republicans: Repeal Obamacare. (Wilkerson, 11/9)

The surprisingly tricky question stumped researchers for decades. But they think they finally have an answer. (Frankel, 11/10)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Shutdown Has Highlighted Washington’s Retreat From Big Ideas On Health Care 

In the run-up to the 2020 election, all 20 Democratic presidential candidates promised voters they’d pursue bold changes to health care, such as a government-run insurance plan or expanding Medicare to cover every American. Fast-forward to the congressional stalemate that has closed the federal government for more than a month. Democrats, entrenched on one side of the legislative battle, staked their political future on merely preserving parts of the Affordable Care Act — a far cry from the systemic health policy changes that party members once described as crucial for tackling the high price of care. (Armour, 11/10)

A U.S. appeals court Sunday night denied the Trump administration’s efforts to stop the release of full funding for November’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments as ordered by a lower court judge. ... The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision, prolonging the tug-of-war over the nation’s largest public initiative to combat hunger. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday temporarily blocked the district court order until the 1st Circuit issued its ruling. The Supreme Court’s administrative stay will expire 48 hours after the 1st Circuit’s ruling. (Masih, Grandoni and Berman,11/10)

The Trump administration is telling states not to pay full November food stamp benefits, revising its previous guidance after winning a temporary victory at the Supreme Court on Friday. USDA’s latest memo, sent Saturday to state directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, instructed states to deliver just 65 percent of benefits during the government shutdown and required those who already sent full payments to claw back that money. (Shin, 11/9)

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services says SNAP benefits for November have been paid, even as the long term status of the food assistance program remains in limbo amid a series of court rulings. (Dario and Harris, 11/8)

President Donald Trump’s administration told states over the weekend to reverse any actions they took to provide food aid amid a government shutdown that leaves federal benefits uncertain — though Maryland appears unlikely to change its plan to spend $62 million to help state residents who depend on food stamps. (Swick, 11/9)

“It’s hard to look someone in the face who’s telling you they can’t feed their family, and be able to try to guide them to other avenues to try to get some food for their household. We have community food banks, and we have food pantries, and they’re they’re already maxed out,” said Stacy Smith, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2882, who works as an eligibility technician for assistance programs including Snap in Providence, Rhode Island. (Sainato, 11/10)

Refugees in Iowa are learning they are no longer eligible for SNAP benefits. The federal government has ordered states to start enforcing a part of the One Big Beautiful Bill that cuts off food assistance for refugees and many other types of immigrants with legal status. (Sostaric, 11/7)

Some residents are receiving benefits, but the uncertainty over the past weeks has burdened many in the two states, where the cost of food is the highest in the nation. (Foist, Truesdale, Hippensteel and Morales, 11/9)

Love Dyer doesn’t know what to expect when her federal food benefits — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — refill later this month. Amid a legal battle between the Trump administration and judges trying to restore aid, the Atlanta mom is wary of letting her guard down and trusting that things could soon be back to normal. (Rodriguez, 11/7)

As the government shutdown entered its fourth week in late October, states began to warn residents that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, sometimes known as food stamps, would likely be affected. Nearly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits each month. Over the next several days, calls to 211 from people seeking food pantries doubled to over 2,200 per day. (Kreuter and Garg, 11/8)

President Trump said Sunday that most Americans would receive a $2,000 dividend payment as a result of his administration’s tariffs levied against foreign countries. Trump announced the potential payments on his Truth Social platform, calling opponents of his tariffs “FOOLS” in a post. (Goldberg, 11/9)

President Trump last week hailed his deal with pharma companies to cut the price of blockbuster weight loss drugs as a major win for his administration and for increasing drug affordability. The question is how big of a difference the agreement will make for patients. (Chen, 11/10)

A press conference collapse has sparked days of memes and jokes. Not all are accurate. (Diamond, 11/9)

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte on Saturday said the Trump administration is “working on” a plan to introduce 50-year mortgage terms for home buyers. “Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage  – a complete game changer,” Pulte wrote in a statement on the social platform X. (Fields, 11/8)

James Fishback, the CEO of investment firm Azoria, compared the idea of introducing a 50-year mortgage to "economic genocide." (Carbonaro, 11/10)

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells POLITICO President Donald Trump should reconsider quitting the UN’s health arm. (Paun, 11/9)

A top Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ally rallied anti-vaccine activists over the weekend with an exhortation to stay strong in the face of attacks by the government, media and mainstream medical figures. “God is an anti-vaxxer, and he needs you to speak up,” said Del Bigtree, a former top Kennedy political adviser and head of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network. He urged the Health and Human Services secretary’s supporters to press their fight at a weekend-long celebration of their newfound Washington influence. (Weber, 11/10)

Children’s Health Defense, the vaccine-skeptical organization once led by now-health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is playing the long game. The group has more power in Washington than the group’s CEO, Mary Holland, imagined possible in her lifetime. (Payne, 11/8)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: As Health Companies Get Bigger, So Do The Bills. It’s Unclear If Trump’s Team Will Intervene. 

A cancer patient might live in a town with four oncology groups, but only one accepts his insurance — the one owned by his insurer. A young couple could see huge bills after their child is born, because their insurer agreed to the health system’s rates in exchange for a contract with obstetricians across the country. A woman might have to pay a big sum she can’t afford for basic lab tests at a hospital — inflated rates her insurer accepted so its customers have access to the system’s children’s hospital elsewhere in the state. And even well-insured patients receive unaffordable bills in this era of high-deductible health plans, narrow insurance networks, and 20% cost sharing. (Rosenthal, 11/10)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Journalists Shed Light On Opioid Settlement Cash, New Medicaid Work Requirements 

�������ýҕ�l Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed how states are using opioid settlement money on CBS News 24/7’s “The Daily Report” on Nov. 3. �������ýҕ�l Health News Southern correspondent Sam Whitehead discussed government claims that new technologies will help Medicaid recipients comply with new work requirement rules on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on Oct. 31. �������ýҕ�l Health News Southern California correspondent Claudia Boyd-Barrett discussed the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in and around health care facilities such as hospitals and community health centers on Radio Bilingüe’s “Línea Abierta” on Oct. 30. �������ýҕ�l Health News executive editor Alex Wayne discussed the federal government shutdown and rising Affordable Care Act premiums on Sirius XM’s “The Smerconish Podcast” on Oct. 30. (11/8)

A large study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has found that veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan had a 55 percent higher risk of developing asthma from dust and burn pit exposure than veterans who were not deployed to those countries. (Damask, 11/9)

Federal health officials are investigating a multistate outbreak of infant botulism linked to ByHeart baby formula, prompting the company to recall two batches of one of its products. Thirteen babies in 10 states have been hospitalized as a result of the outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. No deaths have been reported. ByHeart recalled two batches — 206VABP/251261P2 and 206VABP/251131P2, both with a “Use by” date of Dec. 1 — of its Whole Nutrition Infant Formula, the FDA said in a statement Saturday. (Hassan, 11/9)

Many woman across America are sharing breast milk informally, suggesting that more support for mothers may be needed. Factors contributing to the practice likely include limited paid parental leave, inadequate breastfeeding support and not enough systems for parents to safely access mother’s own milk alternatives, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the RAND Corporation. (Millington, 11/9)

One of the largest studies ever conducted on the link between the shingles vaccine and brain health offers insight into how the disease increases dementia risk. People who experienced multiple episodes of shingles had a higher risk of dementia for several years after the second outbreak, the study found, compared with those who had it only once. (Johnson, 11/9)

Drinking coffee may protect people against irregular heartbeats, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary, according to a new study. The Does Eliminating Coffee Avoid Fibrillation (Decaf) clinical trial found 200 patients with persistent irregular heartbeats had a “significantly” lower risk of the condition recurring if they belonged to the study group that was allocated coffee consumption rather than the one abstaining from it – 47% to 64%. (Antonio Vargas, 11/10)

People in certain states in America appear to be more likely than others to develop devastating neurological diseases, a new study has indicated. Lou Gehrig's disease—also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) both develop in people across gender, race, wealth and levels of access to healthcare. (O'Connor, 11/9)

Walking for at least 10 or 15 minutes at a time might do more for your health and longevity than spreading your steps out into shorter walks throughout the day, a large-scale new study suggests. The study, published in October, looked at the effects of how people gather their steps each day, as well as how many steps they take and the associations that these patterns of daily activity might have with risks for heart disease and premature death. (Reynolds, 11/10)

Merck, the company that introduced statins to the world nearly 40 years ago, has a new, intensely powerful pill that can slash levels of dangerous LDL cholesterol to levels almost never seen in adults. The new pill, enlicitide, blocks a liver protein, PCSK9, that slows the body’s ability to clear cholesterol. With most PCSK9 blocked, LDL levels plummet and rates of heart attacks and strokes in high risk patients fall by up to 20 percent in just the first year. At least six million adults in the United States are eligible for drugs that block PCSK 9. (Kolata, 11/8)

A cholesterol-lowering injection that’s been on the market for nearly a decade has now shown its power to cut cardiovascular events in people considered at high risk but who haven’t yet suffered a heart attack or stroke. (Cooney, 11/8)

With a snip of a gene, doctors may one day permanently lower dangerously high cholesterol, possibly removing the need for medication, according to a new pilot study published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (LaMotte, 11/8)

A statin isn’t the only answer anymore to lowering cholesterol. The lipid-reducing medicines, among the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S., have been a mainstay of heart-disease prevention and treatment for decades. But they don’t work for everyone, and can only reduce harmful “bad” cholesterol so much. (McKay, 11/8)

He co-discovered DNA’s structure but later engaged in rank racism and sexism. (Begley, 11/7)

“The laws of inheritance are quite unknown,” Charles Darwin acknowledged in 1859. The discovery of DNA’s shape altered how we conceived of life itself. (Zimmer, 11/7)

Maryland residents may someday be able to legally use certain natural psychedelic drugs if the legislature takes action on a report delivered this week. (Hille, 11/7)

Gov. Jared Polis wants to push a new substance into Colorado’s psychedelic medicine program — some say pushing too hard. And a member of a state psychedelic advisory board has called for an investigation into the governor’s psychedelic adviser, accusing him of “tampering” with the rulemaking process for where to source the medicine, The Colorado Sun has learned. (Capps, 11/7)

As more people experiment with psychedelic drugs, researchers say that without clear dosage guidelines, users can find themselves in dangerous or overwhelming situations. Now, Ohio State is stepping up with a new training program to help first responders and health care workers handle those emergencies. (Bender, 11/6)

UConn Health, Connecticut’s flagship academic medical institution, bid $13 million to purchase Waterbury Hospital from Prospect Medical Holdings, the California-based operator that filed for bankruptcy protection in January. (Golvala, 11/7)

The end of the Healthy Opportunities Pilot in North Carolina is a story of how MAHA might actually be realized — or not — at the state level. (Rab, 11/8)

Trying to get back on one’s feet in the community after leaving prison or jail is rarely easy. People often face steep hurdles finding housing, employment and health care. For those with serious mental illness, the transition can be even more difficult. (Crumpler, 11/10)

Angelica Hernandez felt anxious in the days leading up to Tuesday, Oct. 28. But when she entered that familiar courtroom, the same one she had stepped into every month the past year Hernandez knew she was ready for the next step. Hernandez, 47, became the first person to graduate from El Paso County’s INSPIRE Mental Health Court, spearheaded by Judge Selena Solis in the 243rd District Court. (Totiyapungprasert, 11/7)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the online gaming platform Roblox for allegedly exposing children to sexually explicit content and exploitation, the latest in a flurry of lawsuits from his office aimed at big business. (Klibanoff, 11/7)

Cannabis dispensaries in the Bay Area often recommend specific strains and doses of cannabis to customers for sleep and pain — despite a lack of scientific evidence for most of the recommendations, according to a new UCSF study. Cannabis dispensary sales associates, or budtenders, in San Francisco and Alameda County most frequently recommend topicals for pain and edibles for sleep, often citing personal experience as their reason for their recommendation, the study found. Budtenders also strongly prefer indica strains for sleep. (Ho, 11/9)

By the time Damon Landor arrived at a Louisiana corrections center to serve out a sentence for drug possession in 2020, he had maintained his Rastafarian vow to let his hair grow for nearly two decades. Landor, whose dreadlocks almost reached his knees, revealed his faith to a guard and handed him a copy of a court decision that held that a federal law on religious freedom prevented Louisiana prisons from forcing Rastafarians to cut their hair. The guard threw the ruling in the trash. Despite pleas to the warden, Landor was handcuffed to a chair and held down by two correctional officers as his dreadlocks were forcibly sheared. (Jouvenal, 11/10)

We must change the underlying valuation to reward cognitive health “care” services rather than high-tech “cure” services, doctor writes. (Daniel Plotkin, 11/10)

Let’s start with what this isn’t. Ohio’s move to cut Planned Parenthood from participation in the Medicaid program isn’t about abortion — that’s already off the table for nearly all public funding. It’s about whether more than 27,000 low-income Ohioans will still have a place to turn for birth control, cancer screenings or treatment they couldn’t afford anywhere else. (Leila Atassi, 11/10)

In a landmark deal announced Thursday, President Donald Trump negotiated dramatically lower costs for weight-loss drugs produced by pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which could benefit Medicare and Medicaid patients, as well as Americans paying out of pocket. But here’s the skinny: What the president negotiated should not be reserved for big companies that play his game. (11/9)

The structure of medical education hasn’t fundamentally changed for 115 years. In 1910, medical education reformer Abraham Flexner helped turn a chaotic landscape of short-term proprietary schools, famous for producing “snake oil salesmen,” into today’s standardized, eight-year pipeline: four years of college followed by four years of medical school. At that time, this model made sense. Now it doesn’t. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Emily K. Kim and Vitor B. de Souza, 11/10)

For every man older than 110, there are nine women. Before she died in August at age 117, supercentenarian Maria Branyas — the world’s oldest verified person — credited her bonus years not to any high-tech interventions but to eating lots of plain yogurt. (F.D. Flam, 11/8)