Top News

Medicare disruptions seen if health law is struck
The Tulsa World
Tossing out President Barack Obama's health care law would have major unintended consequences for Medicare's payment systems, unseen but vital plumbing that handles 100 million monthly claims from hospitals and other service providers, the administration has quietly informed the courts. Although the law made significant cuts to providers and improved prescription and preventive benefits for seniors, Medicare has been overlooked in a Supreme Court debate focused on the law's controversial requirement that individuals carry health insurance. Yet havoc in Medicare could have repercussions in an election year when both parties are avidly courting seniors.

Obama drug czar says U.S. ‘cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem’
The Houston Chronicle
The Obama administration’s top drug policy official said Tuesday that although the government continues anti-drug efforts on the Southwest border, “we cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem.’’ National Drug Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske — also known as the Drug Czar — said that it’s time to “treat drug addiction as a disease.’’ The administration’s “third way’’ strategy seeks a middle ground between drug legalization and an enforcement-heavy “war on drugs,’’ Kerlikowske said in a speech at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by John Podesta, former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. The new strategy, which emphasizes drug-prevention programs and alternatives to prison for drug users, could become a flashpoint in President Obama’s bid for re-election in November.

Stat of the Week

U.S. health care spending ‘dwarfs’ that of other countries
Politico
The United States spends more on health care than 12 other industrialized countries, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds – but that doesn’t mean this country’s care is any better. The U.S. spent nearly $8,000 per person for health care services in 2009, the study found, confirming that “health care spending in the U.S. dwarfs that found in any other industrialized country.” David Squires, senior research associate at The Commonwealth Fund and the primary author of the study, found Norway and Switzerland were a distant second and third, respectively, on medical spending, at a little more than $5,000 per person. The study is an update of past analyses by The Commonwealth Fund that compare U.S. health spending with trends in other countries.

Health and Human Services

(AL) Enrollment surges in Alabama health plan for pre-existing illnesses
The Birmingham News
Enrollment in Alabama's health insurance plan for people with pre-existing conditions has increased sixfold over the last year as the federal government has lowered prices and made it easier to qualify.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that as of the end of February, 389 people in Alabama were on the special insurance, an option for people with illnesses that make them a high risk, such as cancer or diabetes. Last February, there were 61 enrollees. The Alabama plan, which is run by the federal government, will be in place until 2014, when the federal Affordable Care Act will prevent regular insurance plans from denying coverage to people with serious health issues.

(AL) Initiative to offer free health care in 4 Black Belt counties
The Tuscaloosa News
Residents in four counties in the Black Belt will receive free medical and dental care under an initiative announced by Gov. Robert Bentley on Monday. Military reservists will provide health and dental screenings in Demopolis, Hayneville, and Selma beginning today and continuing over the next two weeks. About 250 military reservists, National Guard and active duty personnel will staff “Operation Alabama Black Belt 2012.” The Delta Regional Authority and the Defense Department expect to provide medical and dental service to about 5,000 Alabama families as part of the effort. The DRA and the Defense Department have partnered to provide medical and dental services to the Delta region of the Southeast in the last three years.

(AR) Lawmakers to review key part of state health care initiative
The Arkansas News Bureau
The state Department of Human Services will ask state legislators this week to review a proposed rule calling for creation of a key component of the state’s planned overhaul of its health care payment system. The rule, scheduled to be reviewed Wednesday by the House and Senate committees on public health, welfare and labor, would direct state officials to set up a website where health care providers would submit information about the care they provide in a handful of treatment areas. The website, or “multi-payor provider portal” as DHS calls it, would launch July 1. DHS officials plan to use the information submitted via the portal to track individual courses of treatment, or “episodes” of health care, and compile reports on their outcomes, which will then be posted to the site.

(FL) Florida health centers receive funding from federal health care law
The Tampa Bay Times
Community health centers across Florida will share $21.4 million in funding made possible by the Affordable Care Act, even as the state government continues its fight to invalidate the health care overhaul. The 15 Florida organizations receiving funding are part of a federal network of community health centers that cater to the poor and those lacking private insurance. The money received this year is expected to help the centers serve 41,190 new patients. In total, $728 million is being allocated nationwide to support renovation and construction projects at community health centers. The federal government has earmarked billions of dollars for thousands of centers to expand services and reach more patients.

(KY) Beshear prepares for federal health care reforms
USA Today
Groundwork is being laid to create a statewide health insurance exchange intended to reduce coverage costs, but it would be used only if the federal health care reform law is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Steve Beshear said in a statement Thursday that Kentucky needs to be ready to run such an exchange, which would serve as online marketplace where consumers could compare coverage options and prices of various insurance plans. Insurance exchanges are key to the federal health care overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. They're set to go into operation on Jan. 1, 2014, if the health care law isn't struck down. The Supreme Court could rule by late June on the constitutionality of the health care reform law dubbed the Affordable Care Act.

(NC) Mission Health in Asheville, N.C. Wins 2012 National Environmental Leadership Award
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
As part of Asthma Awareness Month, EPA is honoring Mission Health in Asheville, N.C. with the 2012 National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management. Mission Health was awarded for their efforts to improve the lives of people with asthma in underserved communities across the country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also encouraging Americans to take action against asthma by learning more about the disease and how it affects their families and communities. Nearly 26 million Americans, including more than 7 million children, are affected by this chronic respiratory disease, including low income and minority populations at the highest rates.

(TN) CDC praises TN's work to reduce hospital infections
The Tennessean
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has praised Tennessee and Colorado for going “the extra mile to ensure the accuracy of infection data reported by their hospitals.” Tennessee is also one of 21 states that experienced a significant decrease in central line-associated bloodstream infections. The Tennessee Hospital Association worked closely with the state Department of Health to lower the infections, which typically occur in intensive care units. The legislature passed a law in 2006 that directed the Department of Health to begin collecting data on bloodstream infections and publicly reporting the findings. The THA supported that legislation.

Public Safety

(GA) Deal to sign overhaul of criminal justice system
The Athens Banner-Herald
Gov. Nathan Deal is set to sign legislation that will bring sweeping changes to the state’s criminal justice system, a priority he set early in his administration. Lawmakers spent months hammering out the proposal, which passed in the General Assembly with overwhelming bipartisan support. Some changes will start July 1. Sentencing reform is a large component of the bill, which also sets up alternative courts to address substance abuse and mental health issues. The measure also shifts the approach to drug possession prosecutions to a weight-based system that supporters say will more fairly punish violators. The bill also address mandatory reporting requirements for suspected child abuse, provisions for restrictions on who can access a jobseeker’s criminal record and a shortened period for suspects held in probation detention centers.

(KY) 'Pill mill' law brings some fears
The Bowling Green Daily News
Some 82 people a month die in Kentucky from drug overdoses. On Tuesday, Gov. Steve Beshear signed House Bill 1, also referred to as the “pill mill bill,” into law. The new legislation regulates the ownership and operation of pain clinics, a move that physicians and law enforcement officers applaud. The law also requires that all prescription providers who prescribe Schedule II and Schedule III drugs, such as narcotic painkillers, register and use the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting, or KASPER, system, a prescription monitoring program, by July 19. The law also gives prosecutors engaged in drug investigations authorization to request a KASPER report, and the legislation allows for interstate data sharing. Some fear that doctors will shy away from writing prescriptions for pain medication and that patients will suffer because of it.

(LA) Panel supports leniency for some juvenile criminals
The Advocate
A Louisiana House committee advanced legislation Wednesday that would make offenders sentenced to life in prison as juveniles eligible for parole after a certain number of years. The legislation would only apply to certain crimes. The House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice voted without objection to send Senate Bill 317 to the full House for consideration. SB317 by state Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Metairie, is one of several proposals filed this legislative session to address a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The ruling held that a life sentence without the possibility of parole is too harsh for juveniles who are not serving time for murder.

(LA) House backs ban on phone use while driving
The Advocate
A bill that would make it illegal to drive while using a handheld cellphone breezed through the state House of Representatives on Wednesday. The vote was 59-29. The measure now moves to the Senate, where similar House-passed bills have died in the past. Earlier this month, a House committee approved a separate proposal to ban handheld cellphones while driving but would make it a secondary offense, which means a violator could only be cited if stopped for another offense. The measure approved by the full House on Wednesday would make violations a primary offense, which means drivers could be stopped for using a handheld device.

(TX) Juvenile justice reform pays off (opinion)
The Houston Chronicle
Several years ago, Texas' youth corrections system was in a state of disrepair, holding thousands of kids and entangled in a massive sex abuse scandal. Since then, Texas has implemented sweeping reform, shifting the burden of handling juvenile nonviolent offenders from the state to counties. Stepping up to the challenge, Harris County, in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has become one of the nation's leaders in juvenile justice. By detaining fewer juvenile offenders, Harris County has actually reduced juvenile recidivism, improved court appearance rates and saved taxpayer dollars. The county has also implemented new approaches to handling specific groups, rather than painting all offenders with the same brush. Specialized dockets for gang members, the mentally ill or suspected victims of human trafficking, along with deferred prosecution for low-level, first-time offenders, display a dedication to rehabilitation, rather than just punishment. And providing short-term shelter options for youths unable to return home is not only a way to keep at-risk kids off the streets, but also care for some of our most vulnerable.

(WV) McGraw goes after synthetic drug distributor
The Gazette
With a table full of illegal synthetic drugs seized in Putnam County as a backdrop, the state attorney general announced he is suing a "major distributor" of the designer drugs. Darrell McGraw's lawsuit, filed in Putnam Circuit Court on Monday, asks for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop Nutragenomics MFG, LLC of Alpharetta, Ga., and its owner Drew Green from selling the substances to West Virginians via the Internet and otherwise. The suit asks that a list of all sales to West Virginians be provided with their names, addresses and telephone numbers. Commonly sold as incense, bath salts and plant food, the drugs imitate the effects of marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine. They were banned in the state more than a year ago. However, police are still finding the substances.

U.S. & World News

States Where the Most Children Lost Homes
24/7 Wall St.
Some 2.3 million American children, or 3% of them, lost their homes during the recession, according to a recent report. An additional 3 million children are at risk of losing their homes as their families fight foreclosure and delinquency. The consequences are far-reaching as many are pushed into homelessness. Of course, the situation is different between the states, with some having a considerably higher percentage of children affected by the foreclosure crisis. 24/7 Wall St. examined the ten states where the largest percentage of children lost their homes during the recession.

Drop in weekly jobless claims is bright news ahead of April unemployment report
The Washington Post
The number of people applying for jobless benefits declined sharply last week, the government reported Thursday, providing a surprisingly upbeat signal leading into Friday’s jobs report. The drop in applications for unemployment assistance fell by 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 365,000, the largest weekly drop in nearly a year, the Labor Department reported. The four-week average, a less volatile measure of the rate of layoffs around the country, was up slightly to 383,500 last week.

U.S. Lags in Global Measure of Premature Births
The New York Times
Fifteen million babies are born prematurely each year, and the United States fared badly in the first country-by-country global comparison of premature births, which was released Wednesday by the World Health Organization and other agencies. Although American hospitals excel at saving premature infants, the United States is similar to developing countries in the percentage of mothers who give birth before their children are due, the study’s chief author noted. It does worse than any Western European country and considerably worse than Japan or the Scandinavian countries.

HPV vaccine: Fewer girls getting all three doses
The Washington Post
The HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine is an important weapon in the battle against cervical cancer: Girls and young women who receive it dramatically lower their risk of HPV infections and thus of getting the cancers they can cause. But so far the vaccine has been deemed effective only when all three of its recommended doses are delivered. So it comes as bad news that the number of young women completing the three-shot series decreased sharply from 2006 to 2009. Reporting in the American Cancer Society journal Cancer, Abbey Berenson and Jacqueline Hirth of the University of Texas Medical Branch and their co-authors analyzed data for nearly 272,000 privately insured females who had initiated the vaccine series. They found that while the number of girls who got the first shot rose during that time, the percentages of girls who got all three injections dropped from around 50 percent in 2006 to just over 20 percent in 2009.

CDC report: More teen girls use best birth control
The Tampa Tribune
More teen girls now use the best kinds of birth control, a new government study says. About 60 percent of teen girls who have sex use the most effective kinds of contraception, including the pill and patch. That's up from the mid-90s, when less than half were using the best kinds, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found. The trend in better contraception is helping to drive down the teen birth rate, health officials said.

Ethicist: We need safer drugs for our kids (opinion)
CNN
What if most of the drugs your doctor gave you were untested, forcing him or her to guess at the correct medication and dosage -- making you an unwitting research subject whenever you took a pill? Dr. Florence Bourgeois and her colleagues at Harvard University have just reminded us that today, this very situation confronts the world's children. Four of every five kids hospitalized in the United States are treated with drugs that have never been tested in them, according to Bourgeois' report in this week's Pediatrics journal. They are approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for adults. And outside the hospital, one-third of all children take such medications. Doctors can legally use such drugs, but determining a safe, effective dose -- if there is one -- can be a matter of guesswork, because little ones can metabolize drugs very differently than adults.

Outside the Region

(CA) L.A. program offers healthcare for illegal restaurant workers
The Los Angeles Times
A restaurant workers' group and a Los Angeles community clinic have launched a unique cooperative to provide health coverage to a group of people excluded from federal healthcare reform — illegal immigrants. The pilot program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, offers preventive and primary care to low-wage, uninsured workers in the restaurant industry. Legal immigrants and other restaurant workers who don't meet the criteria or cannot afford coverage under the healthcare law are also eligible. About 75,000 restaurant workers in Los Angeles don't have access to insurance because of their immigration status, Mariana Huerta of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles, or ROC-LA, said Wednesday. Under the program, called ROC-MD, uninsured workers pay $25 a month so they can go to one of several clinics run by St. John's Well Child and Family Center for physicals, basic dental care and treatment for common illnesses.

More News

(AR) Panel endorses portion of health care payment initiative
(FL) Stand Your Ground law: Florida review panel to draw wide scrutiny
(FL) Orlando crime up, while state crime rate hits 41-year low
(FL) Fla. crime rate dipped slightly in 2011
(GA) Georgia Passes Public Safety Bill
(GA) Cuts in state unemployment benefits signed into law
(GA) Pew Applauds Georgia Leaders for Enacting Comprehensive Public Safety Reform
(GA) Deal signs McKillip's abortion bill
(GA) Deal signs ‘fetal pain' abortion bill into law
(GA)_Aim cuts jail for one class of ‘criminals’
(GA) No out-of-state insurers offer plans in Georgia
(GA) W. Virginia sues Alpharetta company over bath salts
(GA) State's health insurance law slow to draw interest
(GA) New motorcycle warning signs going up in Georgia
(KY) Makers of cold medicines set spending record for lobbying in Kentucky
(KY) Ky. offering resource guide on crime victims
(KY) ARH hospital chain seeks emergency injunction against Medicaid contractor
(KY) Contractor must continue paying for services at ARH for 30 days, state official says
(LA) Retirement bill amended
(LA) Budget threatens hospitals’ services
(LA) Committee OKs cuts to college, health
(LA) Bad dog to get new life as La. prison guard
(LA) Gun law revision bill debated
(LA) House approves proposal for pension plan changes
(LA) Baton Rouge program targets violence
(MS) Senate chairman kills fetal heartbeat bill
(MS) Mississippi House roll call on voter ID
(NC) UNC system health insurance costs to rise for students
(NC) Hagan visits Chapel Hill to promote orphan-drugs bill
(OK) Oklahoma Gov. Fallin signs law requiring doctor's presence when abortion drugs used
(TN) Haslam faces veto choices on sex education
(TX) Another twist in battle over women's health program
(TX) Reports underscore safety, security issues at Giddings youth lockup
(TX) Largest Medicare fraud takedown includes 4 EMS, 2 home health care operators
(TX) Judge grants Planned Parenthood injunction
(US) Stand Your Ground law: Florida review panel to draw wide scrutiny
(WV) Inmate charged with threatening president
(WV) State hosts national mock prison riot a 16th time
(WV) W.Va. ranks first in heart attack, diabetes, eight other categories
(WV) State community health centers get federal grants
(WV) State launches crackdown on drivers who pass buses