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A federal appeals court will hear arguments Tuesday about whether to continue a pause of a Texas district court’s ruling that struck down an ObamaCare provision requiring insurers to cover preventive services for free. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily paused Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision until a panel could hear oral arguments on whether the pause should be continued during the appeals process. (Weixel, 6/5)

The three-judge panel that will preside over the court hearing is comprised of Judges Edith Brown Clement and Leslie Southwick, two George W. Bush appointees, and Judge Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee. The Justice Department argues the public will be harmed unless the lower court ruling is stayed. Regardless of the outcome, the decision is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court. (Gonzalez, 6/6)

Health insurers responded to the 2015 Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriage with more equitable coverage for LGBTQ couples, including spousal benefits, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. The percentage of all LGBTQ adults with a usual source of health care access increased from 64% to 75% from 2013 to 2019. (Dreher, 6/6)

Thousands of Minnesotans with an undocumented status will soon be able to get coverage through the state's low-income health insurance marketplace, MinnesotaCare. Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation into law at the end of this session and it will take effect in January 2025. (Crann and Bui, 6/5)

After months of negotiations and at the eleventh hour of the 2023 General Assembly session, Gov. Ned Lamont and the Connecticut Hospital Association landed on a final deal Monday aimed at bringing down health care costs for Connecticut residents — one of the governor’s top priorities this year. (Phillips and Carlesso, 6/5)

Citing a shortage of commonly prescribed drugs for U.S. cancer patients, the Food and Drug Administration will temporarily allow overseas drug manufacturers to import some chemotherapy drugs. The FDA will let Qilu Pharmaceutical, a drug manufacturer in China, import the injectable chemotherapy drug cisplatin in 50-milligram vials. Toronto pharmaceutical company Apotex Corp. will distribute the medication in the United States. (Alltucker, 6/5)

Cancer patients and their doctors are grappling with a record-high shortage of effective chemotherapy, putting their treatment — and lives — at risk. “The majority are cheap, generic drugs that have been utilized in cancer medicine for decades,” says Satyajit Kosuri, clinical director of the stem cell transplant and cellular therapy program at the University of Chicago, who has experienced the consequences firsthand. At the end of last year, there were 295 active medication shortages, ranging from antibiotics and anesthetics to cardiac mediations and chemotherapy drugs, according to a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs report, a 30 percent increase since 2021. (Ebersole, 6/5)

Unlike many oncologists, the tears Dr. Thomas Roberts often saw in his office were those of joy. His patients had been told they had less than six months to live. But Roberts, then a fellow specializing in lung cancer care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was able to give many an extra lease on life. Because they had certain genetic mutations in their tumors, he could promise them at least another year and often three, five or more. (Weintraub, 6/6)

It was the kind of moment scientists who develop new medicines wait their entire careers to experience. On Sunday, thousands of oncologists applauded after researchers presented data on AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso. When given after surgery to the right lung cancer patients, selected using genetic tests, it cut the death rate in half. (Herper, 6/6)

As commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Robert Califf has made clear he’d like to do away with the votes that punctuate meetings of expert panels evaluating new drugs for approval. On Sunday, Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, took issue with his boss. (Chen, 6/5)

More than 230 people have retired from the Food and Drug Administration since Oct. 1, Chief of Staff Julie Tierney said Monday. It’s part of a bigger wave of exits: In total, 634 employees have left the agency, which has a staff of about 18,000 people. There are about 2,000 vacancies at the FDA, which is a normal level at an agency that has for a long time struggled to hire and keep employees who can make bigger salaries in the private sector. (Wilkerson, 6/6)

Medicare has chosen a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation official to temporarily lead its implementation of Democrats’ drug pricing law, a document obtained by STAT shows. Christina Ritter is listed on a document dated June 2 as acting director of the Medicare division implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, which enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices and penalize drugmakers for price hikes. (Cohrs, 6/6)

The Medicare Trustees issue an annual report projecting the program’s finances under current law. In addition, the actuaries prepare an alternative scenario that limits the extent to which Medicare payments to hospitals and physicians fall below those made by private insurers.  (Munnell, 6/6)

More states are pushing their own plans to lower drug costs, viewing it as an extension of efforts to set payment rates for utilities, transportation and other essential services. Colorado, among the states to create a state prescription drug affordability board, is rolling out a dashboard this week that will show which drugs are the likeliest to have price caps. (Reed, 6/6)

As states grapple with Medicaid redeterminations and high rates of disenrollments, states are teaming up with technology vendors to facilitate communications and outreach to affected enrollees. (Turner, 6/5)

Although hundreds of thousands have been knocked off state Medicaid rolls this spring, worries about dropped coverage for Medicaid-dependent nursing home residents have so far not proven reality in large numbers. McKnight’s Long-Term Care News surveyed a dozen sector associations about the impact the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency and a Medicaid continuous coverage requirement have had on facilities. Several were unable to provide detailed insight, noting that they had not heard from members that they were experiencing widespread disenrollment issues. (Towhey, 6/5)

US regulators revoked emergency authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after the company’s Janssen unit requested its withdrawal. Janssen informed the Food and Drug Administration that shots bought by the government had expired and there was no demand for the product in the US, the regulator said in a statement released last week. (Cattan, 6/5)

Novavax Inc's head of research and development on Monday said an updated COVID-19 vaccine the company is already producing is likely to be protective against other fast-growing coronavirus variants circulating in the U.S. Protein-based vaccines like Novavax's take longer to produce than the messenger RNA-based versions made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. (Erman, 6/5)

Elon Musk on Monday hosted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and long-shot Democratic presidential hopeful, in his second Twitter Spaces event for a 2024 White House candidate. But unlike Republican Ron DeSantis's glitch-plagued campaign launch on Twitter in May, the live audio chat with Kennedy was broadcast without major technological problems. Their 2.5-hour conversation had an audience of over 64,000 at some points. (Bose and Singh, 6/5)

Despite the specifics of his recent illness being kept private, Jamie Foxx has become the figurehead for an anti-vax movement after a rumor went viral online. The actor was suffering from "medical complications," according to his daughter Corinne Foxx, and the family were spotted visiting him in a Chicago physical rehabilitation facility in May. With just that information and an unsubstantiated rumor started by a notable gossip columnist, some people are saying Foxx suffered a stroke brought on by a blood clot caused by a COVID vaccination. (Burton, 6/5)

A new case-control study of Brazilian healthcare workers (HCWs) suggests as many as 27% developed long COVID after infection, and multiple infections raised the risk. The findings were published today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. (Soucheray, 6/5)

Mandy Cohen, the former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and Biden’s expected pick to head the public health agency, would take the helm at a critical time. The agency will spend this summer lobbying Congress to increase its funding and authorities via two must-pass bills: the reauthorization of a pandemic preparedness law which expires on Sept. 30, and fiscal 2024 appropriations legislation. (Cohen, 6/5)

During the first years of the pandemic, Michigan hospitals told the public their situation was dire. Their staffs were overworked. Emergency rooms were bursting with patients. Resources were limited. Many furloughed staff, cut workers’ salaries or trimmed executive pay, at least temporarily. But an examination of tax records, audited financial statements and federal data collected by a nonprofit found that a few hospitals and health systems did great, posting increases in both operating profits and overall net assets as the pandemic raged. (Miller and Salisbury, 6/6)

There’s now a two-party showdown for one of the largest home health companies in the country. UnitedHealth Group and its Optum division on Monday formally proposed to buy Amedisys for $100 per share, or about $3.3 billion. (Herman, 6/5)

One year after the University of Michigan's acquisition of Sparrow Health, the Lansing-based health system will get a new name. As of April 1, 2024, it will be known as the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow. (Jordan Shamus, 6/5)

Mayo Clinic on Monday announced a large redevelopment of its main campus in downtown Rochester, Minnesota, two weeks after the health system's threats to scrap investment in the state led to changes in a nurse staffing bill. Minnesota legislators removed a provision to enforce nurse staffing levels after Mayo Clinic officials said they would pull billions of dollars in investments unless the proposal was thrown out or an exemption was provided for the health system. (Hudson, 6/5)

Saying that Penn Medicine is not prioritizing care for opioid addiction at a time of soaring overdose deaths, several dozen protesters chanted “patients over profits” to protest the closure of a West Philadelphia addiction treatment unit at a rally last week. The protest urged Penn to keep open Wright 4, an 18-bed addiction treatment unit at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. (Whelan, 6/6)

Primary care tech startup Carbon Health is using artificial intelligence to listen in on patient appointments and automatically write up near-complete notes within minutes, directly in its own electronic health record software. (Ravindranath, 6/5)

Mayor Michelle Wu unveiled a plan Monday to plug more Boston workers into the growing biotech industry, launching a workforce initiative aimed at getting 1,000 city residents trained and hired at drug research and production labs and other life sciences operations by the end of 2025. The city government will initially commit $4 million to the program, funded through grants from the city’s Neighborhood Jobs Trust and the federal American Rescue Plan, but the investment is expected to grow. (Weisman, 6/5)

For young life scientists hoping to land a prestigious faculty job in academia, postdoctoral research is practically a requirement. But it’s not a path equally open to everyone. Freshly minted life science Ph.D. graduates who have started families or have big loans, or are Black or female, say they plan to pursue postdoc positions at lower rates than their peers, according to a STAT analysis that includes previously unreported data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (Wosen, 6/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: As Fewer MDs Practice Rural Primary Care, A Different Type Of Doctor Helps Take Up The Slack

For 35 years, this town’s residents have brought all manner of illnesses, aches, and worries to Kevin de Regnier’s storefront clinic on the courthouse square — and he loves them for it. De Regnier is an osteopathic physician who chose to run a family practice in a small community. Many of his patients have been with him for years. Many have chronic health problems, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or mental health struggles, which he helps manage before they become critical. (Leys, 6/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: 'An Arm and a Leg' Podcast: A ‘Payday Loan’ From A Health Care Behemoth

Alex Shteynshlyuger, a urologist with a practice in New York City, feels surrounded by UnitedHealth Group. He has seen the company gobble up private practices and says it’s slow to pay claims. It also started offering cash-flow services that, Shteynshlyuger says, feel a lot like payday loans. UnitedHealth Group is the largest employer of physicians in the United States. And it’s growing. Has the company become too big? (6/6)

The Louisiana Senate voted Monday to pass a controversial bill to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, advancing the measure even after it was defeated by a GOP-controlled state Senate committee last month. The measure, House Bill 648, seeks to bar health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care to patients younger than 18 under the threat of having their professional licenses revoked. (Migdon, 6/5)

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday vetoed two bills, including a measure that would have added restrictions about titles used by medical professionals and required practitioners to wear name tags or display licenses when treating patients. DeSantis did not detail his reasons in two veto letters sent to Secretary of State Cord Byrd. (6/5)

San Francisco Mayor London Breed led two dozen fellow mayors to urge the Biden administration on Monday to step up enforcement against trafficking of fentanyl, start a public awareness campaign against open-air drug markets and increase public health interventions to address an out-of-control epidemic nationwide. (Moench, 6/5)

Texas and an anonymous anti-abortion activist made a joint court filing over the weekend, urging a federal judge to decide a $1.8 billion fraud lawsuit they brought against Planned Parenthood in their favor, saying a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling strengthened the case. ... Texas and the anonymous plaintiff are seeking to force Planned Parenthood to return money it collected from Texas' and Louisiana's state Medicaid programs after the states tried to cut off its funding, plus heavy additional penalties. (Pierson, 6/5)

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey overstepped his authority when he demanded changes to the cost estimate of an abortion-rights initiative petition, state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick argued in a legal brief filed in Cole County Court last week. Fitzpatrick, Bailey and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, all Republicans, were sued last month by the Missouri ACLU over delays in finalizing the ballot summary for an initiative petition seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. (Hancock, 6/5)

Wyoming’s secretary of state and other parties will not be allowed to weigh in on a lawsuit that could decide the future of reproductive rights in the state. Secretary Chuck Gray, two conservative state lawmakers and an anti-abortion advocacy organization tried to intervene, to help defend the state’s near-complete abortion ban. But Teton County Judge Melissa Owens decided the group didn’t qualify as intervenors. (Merzbach, 6/2)

Three Texas residents have died this year as a result of a fungal meningitis outbreak linked to elective surgeries in Mexico, prompting a travel advisory warning of the newfound dangers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Nickerson, 6/5)

State health officials on Monday said there are indications that norovirus is responsible for sickening dozens of swimmers and closing a popular beach in Dakota County. The beach at Schulze Lake, in Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan, was closed over the weekend and remained closed Monday. (6/5)

Minnesota scientists have watched chronic wasting disease (CWD) — a fatal, neurological illness — kill deer and elk. Now, they’re studying its potential to jump to humans. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy has received more than $1.5 million in state money to start prepping for the possibility of CWD spreading to cows, pigs and possibly humans. (Wurzer and Brown, 6/5)

A safe firearm storage campaign launched Monday by the North Carolina governor’s administration aims to counter a recent surge in gun thefts and shooting injuries by making safety features available to more gun owners statewide. The initiative will distribute free gun locks starting this week and equip local law enforcement, doctors and school personnel with resources they can use to teach community members how to prevent children from accessing guns. (Schoenbaum, 6/6)

The Allen Fire Department released a report Monday related to how long it took for emergency medical crews to respond to the May 6 shooting at an outlet mall. Within five minutes of the first call about the Allen Premium Outlets shooting, dispatch notes showed emergency crews receiving information about victims at various stores at the mall. Emergency crews also dealt with unsubstantiated reports of a second possible gunman, the notes state. (Choi, 6/5)

What would happen if every newborn's genes were sequenced at birth? That's the question the BabySeq study has been trying to answer for a decade. Its newest results suggest the genetic information could be used to save lives. And not just the baby's. (Weintraub, 6/5)

Whether children were breastfed as infants and for how long may have an impact on their test scores when they are adolescents, according to new research. The report, published Monday in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, followed about 5,000 British children from their infancy in the early 2000s to their last year of high school, according to lead study author Dr. Reneé Pereyra-Elías, a doctoral student and researcher in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. (Holcombe, 6/5)

Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that the tech company illegally collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, the FTC said on Monday. The company had been charged with violating the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining their parents' consent, and by retaining children's personal information, the FTC said in a statement. ... "This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids' avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA," said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. (Singh, 6/5)

People who use estrogen-only pills during menopause were more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure than those using patches or creams, a new study found. However, doctors who treat menopause say estrogen-only pills are rarely prescribed for high-risk patients, and the overall benefits of hormone replacement therapy far outweigh the risks for many patients. (LaMotte, 6/5)

Osteoporosis — a disease that thins and weakens bones, making them more likely to break — afflicts about 10 million people in the United States age 50 and older, and four times more women than men, according to the Osteoporosis Workgroup, a panel of experts in the Department of Health and Human Services that focuses on improving screenings and treatment to reduce the prevalence of the ailment. ... A bone density scan, a type of low-dose X-ray that measures the minerals in a person’s bones, can help evaluate bones’ strength and thickness. (Searing, 6/5)

A fall may be minor, leading to only a bit of bruising. But some can cause traumatic brain injuries, broken bones, even death. In fact, falls are a leading cause of death for adults over 65. Each year, 3 million older people are treated in emergency rooms because they’ve had a serious fall. Following a recovery plan can help you heal. (Loria, 6/5)

Ilyse Streim views massage for people in hospice care as "whispering to the body through touch." "It's much lighter work. It's nurturing. It's slow," said Streim, a licensed massage therapist. Massage therapy for someone near the end of life looks and feels different from a spa treatment. Some people stay clothed or lie in bed. Others sit up in their wheelchairs. Streim avoids touching bedsores and fresh surgery wounds and describes her work as "meditating and moving at the same time." She recalled massaging the shoulders, hands, and feet of one client as he sat in his favorite recliner and watched baseball on TV in the final weeks of his life. (Ruder, 6/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Recovery From Addiction Is A Journey. There’s No One-And-Done Solution

The atmosphere inside the Allen House is easygoing as residents circulate freely through the hallways, meet in group sessions, or gather on a large outdoor patio that features a dirt volleyball court with an oversize net. The 60-bed safety-net residential treatment center in Santa Fe Springs, run by Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse, has a dedicated detox room, on-site physicians and nurses, substance abuse counselors, licensed therapists, and other practitioners. It offers group counseling as well as individual and family therapy, and it endorses the use of medications for addiction treatment, such as buprenorphine and naltrexone, which are increasingly considered the gold standard. (Wolfson, 6/6)

If the U.S. health-care system were a country, it would rank 13th in the world for greenhouse gas emissions. You read that right: Our nation’s health-care system by itself contributes more to the climate crisis than the entirety of most other countries. (Leana S. Wen, 6/6)

Every state early-intervention program that responded to a 2022 survey from the IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association said it was short providers, especially speech-language pathologists, physical and occupational therapists, and special educators. Programs struggle to hire in these areas because of their low reimbursement rates relative to the fees available in private practice. (Alyssa Rosenberg, 6/6)

We are inundated with stories about how tech firms and teenagers have found novel uses for AI to improve our lives. Thousands of healthcare AI applications are available for drug discovery, clinical practice, supply chain, provider productivity, employee engagement and customer service, to name a few. (Christy Harris Lemak, 6/5)

Now that the Covid-19 public health emergency has ended, it’s awfully tempting to put the pandemic firmly behind us. But now is the time to look at what we have learned so that our public health communication can be more clear, consistent, and effective from now on. One thing that we haven’t talked about enough is the victories. (Estelle Willie, 6/6)

Is the pandemic over? On the one hand, Covid-19 is clearly still with us. In the U.S., over the past month there was a weekly average of 557 deaths, though the numbers are dropping sharply, from 849 four weeks ago to 208 last week. On the other, for those who are not vulnerable or immune compromised, most facets of life have returned to normal, thanks to high levels of immunity from vaccines, boosters, and past infections. One of the last vestiges of the pandemic seems to be mask mandates in hospitals, which are now being lifted in the U.S. and Canada to much controversy. (Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and Gavin Yamey, 6/6)