Kaiser

• IRS Controversy Fuels Republican Health Law Opposition
• Republicans Ask GAO To Probe Sebelius' Fundraising
• CBO: Cadillac Tax's Bark May Be Worse Than Its Bite
• Updated Diagnostic Guidebook For Mental Disorders To Be Unveiled This Weekend
• Patient And Physician Prescribing Information A Powerful Aide In Drug Marketing

The Commonwealth Fund

• Putting Aside Preconceptions—Time for Dialogue Among Primary Care Clinicians
  An editorial by The Commonwealth Fund's David Blumenthal and Melinda Abrams explores one approach to addressing the primary care workforce shortage: using nurse practitioners to provide a wide range of primary care services. […]
• Improving the Medicaid Primary Care Rate Increase
  Since January 2013, Medicaid agencies and health plans have been required to pay for primary care for Medicaid beneficiaries at the generally higher rates paid to providers by Medicare. The Center for Health Care Strategies' David Bricklin-Small and Tricia McGinnis say that to ensure continued access to primary care, the increase should be maintained be […]
• The Value of Strong Primary Care
  The Fund's Jordan Kiszla and Rachel Nuzum discuss a recent policy briefing on the potential of patient-centered medical homes to transform primary care. […]
• Making Sense of the Change in How Medicare Advantage Plans Are Paid
  Under the Affordable Care Act, overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans are gradually being pared back. But will private plans be able to cope with the reduced payments? Using newly available government data, this brief examines average costs among Medicare Advantage plans and variation in costs among plan types. […]
• Medicare Essential: An Option to Promote Better Care and Curb Spending Growth
  Combining Medicare's hospital, physician, and prescription drug coverage with commonly purchased private supplemental coverage into one health plan could produce national savings of $180 billion over a decade while improving care for beneficiaries, a new Health Affairs study finds. […]

RWJF Health Reform News

ACA Litigation Blog

• Update on Coons v. Geithner
  This is the case in the District Court for the District of Arizona, brought by some members of the House of representatives, among others. The plaintiffs made two principal claims in their complaint: (1) that the individual mandate exceeds Congress's enumerated powers, and (2) the Independent Payment Advisory Board (established by the ACA to review Medi […]
• Update on Goudy-Bachman v. HHS
  This is the case in which Judge Conner (M.D. Pennsylvania) declared the minimum coverage provision unconstitutional, and which the United States then appealed to the Third Circuit. The case has been on hold pending the Supreme Court's decisions. Now, the case is clearly done. The only issue raised was whether the mandate exceeded Congress's enumera […]
• The Chief arrives in Malta
  A nice place to avoid any discussion of switches, leaks, fits of pique, or the taxing power. […]
• Update on Physician Hospitals of America v. Sebelius
  This is the case that was argued back on April 3 in the Fifth Circuit, in which there was a brief kerfuffle about whether the administration still respected the federal judiciary's authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. The case actually has nothing to do with the individual mandate. Rather, the plaintiffs challenge ACA §6001, which ext […]
• Update on U.S. Citizens Association v. Sebelius
  This is the case currently pending in the Sixth Circuit which, because it challenges the constitutionality of the minimum coverage provision, was also put on hold pending the Supreme Court's decision. Unlike many other cases, however, this case was not mooted, as the plaintiffs are now challenging the mandate on different grounds. Specifically, the plai […]
• Nothing yet in Kinder v. Geithner
  I just checked the Eighth Circuit's electronic docket through PACER, and there has been no movement on Kinder v. Geithner. This was the case orally argued October 20, and which has been stayed pending the Supreme Court's decision. The district court dismissed the case for lack of standing, but the parties also argued the merits in the court of appe […]
• Cert denied in the four held cases
  As loyal reader Mark Regan has pointed out to me, the Supreme Court quietly on Friday issued an order list denying certiorari in all the ACA cases that were being held for NFIB v. Sebelius, HHS v. Florida, and Florida v. HHS. To refresh your memory, those were:* Thomas More Law Center v. Obama* Virginia v. Sebelius* Liberty University v. Geithner, and* Seven […]
• A second "switch in time"
  By another Justice named Roberts.Jan Crawford, appearing this morning on CBS News's Face the Nation, is reporting this morning what most all of us have suspected. Specifically, two unnamed sources have told her that the Chief Justice switched his vote about a month ago. The basic outlines of this scenario make sense, as they explain a number of the anom […]

NY Times Health Policy

• The Texas Tribune: With Consensus and Money, State Takes on Mental Health Care
  As Republicans and Democrats in Texas House and Senate hash out the details of the state’s 2014-15 budget, one issue they are not arguing about is support for mental health.     […]
• Marijuana Bill Advances in Illinois
  The Illinois Senate has voted to approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes, which if signed into law would make it the second-most-populous state after California to do so.     […]
• Shinseki Faces Mounting Criticism Over Backlog of Benefit Claims
  The secretary, Eric Shinseki, is being held accountable for his overwhelmed agency’s problems dealing with claims for disability compensation.     […]
• Abortion Law in Arkansas Is Blocked by U.S. Judge
  A ban on abortion at the 12th week of pregnancy is likely to be declared unconstitutional, a federal district judge said.     […]
• Well: Focaccia Recipes for Health
  This week, the Recipes for Health columnist Martha Rose Shulman experiments with focaccia, an alternative to pizza that makes a great lunch, snack or sandwich.     […]

WaPo Health

Fierce Healthcare

• AbbVie, Galapagos extend JAK1 pact into Crohn's disease with $50M carrot
  The North Chicago, IL-based drug giant and Belgium's Galapagos have agreed to expand their collaboration on an oral JAK1 inhibitor to include Crohn's disease. […]
• Third Rock Ventures adds biotech veterans to team
  […]
• Novo Nordisk completes PhIII hemophilia trial with positive results
  In a Friday announcement, Novo Nordisk said it completed the first phase III trial of its drug N9-GP for hemophilia B patients. […]
• Sanofi balks on jobs promises at R&D site in Toulouse
  Sanofi can't shake the underproductive R&D site in Toulouse, France, without a fight from workers and French government officials. In the latest chapter of the ongoing feud, the Paris-based drug giant and a familiar critic in France's government show how far apart they stand on the fate of the research operation that brought the world the blood […]
• Evotec, Harvard partner up to develop new antibacterials
  More biotech companies are forging academic partnerships as they downsize their internal R&D efforts, and another outfit to ride that wave is Germany's Evotec AG. Evotec will collaborate with Harvard University to hunt for and develop new anti-bacterial agents and advance them toward the clinic. […]
• UPDATED: PTC, Esperion, bluebird join the IPO frenzy in biotech with genetic therapies
  Two more biotech outfits emerged this week as contenders to complete initial public offerings, highlighting the open season for the deals this year. Bluebird bio and PTC Therapeutics has mounted campaigns to go public with pipelines that target the molecular causes of rare genetic diseases. […]
• Sanofi highlights positive PhIII study for myelofibrosis contender
  The pivotal study for SAR302503 nailed the primary endpoint for the proportion of patients with a greater than 35% reduction in the volume of their spleens, which become enlarged as a result of abnormal blood cell production. […]
• Merck KGaA gives corporate venture fund a €60M boost
  Merck KGaA signaled Thursday that it will make a bigger commitment to investing in emerging biotech companies. […]
• Bristol-Myers edges ahead in race to develop first blockbuster PD-1 cancer drug
  Bristol-Myers Squibb has emerged, at least temporarily, as the leader in a race to develop the first new PD-1 drug to fight cancer. […]
• Ambit forced to offer a deep discount on IPO shares
  The biotech sold a bit more than 8 million shares at the reduced price, rather than the 4.6 million shares it had intended. […]

Boston Globe Health Blog

• Prostate cancer screening: too early to say goodbye
  First they try to take away our mammograms, and now this? Last week, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) followed up their October 2011 draft guidelines to recommend, definitively, that doctors not offer routine Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) screening for... […]
• MIT professor wins prestigious chemistry prize
  By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff Robert Langer, a biomedical engineer at MIT best known for his contributions in the fields of tissue engineering and drug delivery, has been named the winner of the 2012 Priestley Medal, a prestigious prize... […]
• Daily check up: New York Times points to Mass. public opinion on health care mandate as a model
  In an editorial today, the Times says support for the national mandate could follow the recent trend in Mass. and grow […]
• Brigham and Women's performs face transplant on woman mauled by chimp
  Jonathan Wiggs / Globe Staff Photo Steve Nash, brother of Charla Nash, who received a full face transplant at Brigham and Women's Hospital late last month, appeared at a press conference today with his wife, Kate. Charla Nash did not... […]
• Poll: Public supports mandatory physical education
  In a survey of 501 Mass. residents, 87 percent said the state should require 30 min. of physical activity each school day […]

LA Times Health Blog

• FDA approves a drug to reverse anticoagulation
  Ever since the drug warfarin was discovered to be a highly effective anti-clotting agent as well as a good rat poison in the early 1950s, it has been the frontline weapon in preventing stroke among those with atrial fibrillation. But its growing use has always raised the specter of dangerously hard-to-stanch bleeding if someone taking it is wounded or bleeds […]
• Alice Waters, school officials talk teaching with food
  Fast food begets a fast-food culture that has seeped into pretty much everything going on in the world today, the chef Alice Waters told a crowd gathered at UCLA for a presentation about edible education. […]
• Government shuts down HIV/AIDS vaccine trial
  In another major setback for efforts to develop a vaccine to boost immunity to the human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV, a key clinical trial was ordered shut down this week after an independent panel of safety experts found that participants getting the vaccine appeared to be slightly more likely to contract the virus and no better at suppressing its […]

Health Affairs Blog

• Narrative Matters: Navigating The Coverage Maze In Pennsylvania
  In the May Health Affairs Narrative Matters essay, two graduate students describe their fight with the bureaucracy to gain coverage for their son under the Children's Health Insurance Program, and they express the hope that provisions of the Affordable Care Act will cut the red tape. The article, "To Cover Their Child, One Couple Navigates A Health […]
• Saving Money While Providing Benefit In Medicare: A Standard Applied Only To Hospice
  Medicare is caught between two countervailing impulses: the desire of beneficiaries (and providers and the adult children of beneficiaries) to have a benefit package that covers more, rather than less, and the desire to restrain program spending due to its impact on the federal budget. This tension is heightened by the transition of the Baby Boomers from pay […]
• Hospital Charges And The Need For A Maximum Price Obligation Rule For Emergency Department & Out-Of-Network Care
  The release of average charges for common procedures in more than 3,000 U. S. hospitals last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) elicited divergent reactions – not surprisingly. On one hand, it was front-page news for most of the major newspapers: “Hospital Billing Varies Wildly, Government Billing Data Shows,” was the headline in th […]
• In One State, Cancer Patients Were 2.65 Times Likelier to File for Bankruptcy
  A new study, released today as a Web First by Health Affairs, reports that cancer patients in Washington state were 2.65 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than people without cancer. Of 197,840 cancer patients age 18 or older in the western district of Washington between 1995 and 2009, 4,408 (2.2 percent) filed for bankruptcy protection after being di […]
• Post On Exchange Navigators Leads Health Affairs Blog April Top-Ten List
  The list of most-read Health Affairs Blog posts for April includes four posts in Tim Jost's ongoing series on implementing the Affordable Care Act; number one on the top-ten list is Tim's post about proposed regulations on health insurance exchange navigators. The list also includes posts on accountable care organizations, patient-centered care, co […]