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The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give consumers more access to cheaper but skimpier plans. Under the new rule, the short-term plans will be able to last for only 90 days, with an option for a one-month extension. (Weiland, 3/28)

The plans are not subject to consumer protections set by the Affordable Care Act, which includes a requirement for policies to cover individuals with preexisting conditions. Under the final rules, consumers cannot purchase short-term, limited-duration insurance plans issued by the same company within a one-year period. The rules also require an insurer to provide clear disclosures regarding coverage limits in all marketing, application, enrollment and re-enrollment materials. (DeSilva, 3/28)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday it will extend the temporary special enrollment period for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program members who no longer qualify for coverage to enroll with a federal marketplace insurer. Those no longer eligible for Medicaid or CHIP will now have until Nov. 30 to transition to a marketplace plan. The original deadline was July 31. (DeSilva, 3/28)

Nursing homes, hospices and inpatient psychiatric hospitals would get pay bumps in fiscal 2025 under a series of proposed rules issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Thursday. Skilled nursing homes would get a 4.1% increase in Medicare reimbursements under one proposed rule. The proposed regulation also includes revisions that would tighten CMS oversight of those facilities. (Eastabrook, 3/28)

In other insurance news from across the country —

After surviving five surgeries and near organ failure, Kaitlyn Cunningham just wanted to go home. Instead, she would face another trial — fighting her way out of the hospital. Cunningham would spend an entire additional month confined to the second floor of Cedar Park Regional Medical Center, snared in a tangle of insurance denials, care needs and coverage confusion. (Bohra, 3/28)

Mississippi lawmakers will try to negotiate on expanding Medicaid in one of the poorest states in the U.S. after the Senate voted Thursday for a vastly different plan than one proposed by the House. The upper chamber’s proposal would insure fewer people and bring less federal money to the state than the version approved by the House last month. But the Senate’s approach includes a tougher work requirement and measures to prevent a wider expansion of Medicaid benefits in the future. (Goldberg, 3/28)

����ɫ��ƬHealth News: Your Doctor Or Your Insurer? Little-Known Rules May Ease The Choice In Medicare Advantage
Bart Klion, 95, and his wife, Barbara, faced a tough choice in January: The upstate New York couple learned that this year they could keep either their private, Medicare Advantage insurance plan — or their doctors at Saratoga Hospital. The Albany Medical Center system, which includes their hospital, is leaving the Klions’ Humana plan — or, depending on which side is talking, the other way around. The breakup threatened to cut the couple’s lifeline to cope with serious chronic health conditions. (Jaffe, 3/29)

UnitedHealth group is calling on more health insurance companies to utilize the Change Healthcare systems it has already restored and bring the healthcare system closer to normalcy. The company, which operates Change Healthcare through its Optum subsidiary, is processing claims through its restored Assurance software and has reactivated its Relay Exchange clearinghouse, for example. But UnitedHealth Group needs more insurers to reconnect, it said in a notice on its website Wednesday. (Berryman, 3/28)

Hospitals are still struggling to get paid even as the damage from last month’s Change Healthcare cyberattack is slowly remediated — and they are pointing the finger at insurers. Thirty to 40 percent of claims continue to be denied, compared with 5 percent before the attack, according to Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, a trade group. ... “The insurers have not stepped up to the plate,” Kahn said. The insurance industry counters that it’s doing all it can. (King, 3/28)

Change Healthcare issued an update late Wednesday confirming that an analysis of the data accessed in the cyberattack on its systems is underway, and experts say the process of notifying people whose information was exposed could be messy. Change's parent company UnitedHealth Group posted the latest status on that investigation on its running update page, where the healthcare giant confirmed the team is working "as quickly as possible" to complete the full analysis of the data. (Minemyer, 3/28)

Providers and health insurance companies see a long road ahead that stretches past whenever UnitedHealth Group declares Change Healthcare is fixed. Full restoration of claims, billing and other processes won't mark the end of the mess that began with a cyberattack last month, which forced UnitedHealth Group to take Change Healthcare systems offline and plunged the healthcare sector into disarray. Healthcare organizations anticipate operational and financial effects even when Change Healthcare is up and running again. (Berryman, 3/28)

Also —

Washington is cracking down on the technology running behind the scenes in health care following a debilitating cyberattack on a health care payments processing company — and it could have major implications for hospitals and the vendors selling crucial IT. (Ravindranath, 3/29)

More than 7 in 10 Americans support access to medication abortion, and even more back the Food and Drug Administration's ability to regulate drugs, a new Axios-Ipsos poll finds. The findings suggest a Supreme Court decision that would overrule the FDA to limit access to the commonly used abortion pill mifepristone would be out of step with public sentiment in the post-Roe world. (Bettelheim, 3/29)

����ɫ��ƬHealth News: The Supreme Court And The Abortion Pill
The Supreme Court this week heard its first abortion case since overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, about an appeals court ruling that would dramatically restrict the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. But while it seems likely that this case could be dismissed on a technicality, abortion opponents have more challenges in the pipeline. (Rovner, 3/28)

Hours after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the first abortion-related case since its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was processing the weight of the day. (Gerson, 3/28)

Also —

Kansas could become the latest state to ban gender-affirming health care for minors after its Republican-dominated Legislature sent a bill prohibiting transgender youth from accessing treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones to the governor’s desk. The bill, which passed both the state House and Senate on Wednesday, is expected to be rejected by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who vetoed a similar measure last year. (Migdon, 3/28)

With Kansas poised to ban gender-affirming care for minors, college students are trying to counter Republican efforts to roll back transgender rights by pushing the state’s largest university to declare itself a haven for trans youth. The GOP-controlled Legislature approved its proposed ban on puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries for minors Wednesday, apparently with the two-thirds majorities in both chambers needed to override an expected veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. (Hanna, 3/28)

Transgender people in Idaho will no longer be able to use Medicaid and other publicly funded programs to help cover the cost of gender-affirming medical care under a new state law set to take effect in July. Republican Gov. Brad Little quietly signed the measure Wednesday, a day after receiving it from Idaho’s GOP-controlled Legislature. Little’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. (Migdon, 3/28)

The Biden administration is one step closer to finalizing landmark nationwide limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water. The White House this week wrapped up its review of EPA's final regulation requiring water providers to reduce concentrations of PFAS, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The rule would be one of the most significant new drinking water regulations in decades. (Willson, 3/28)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate ... Nicole Shanahan has for years denounced IVF — calling it "one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today." At the same time, she has also been a vocal proponent of and financial backer for unconventional research into the possibility of helping women having children into their 50s and exploring no-cost interventions to help women conceive, such as exposure to sunlight. (Gibson, 3/28)

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Wednesday that the high court will see a jump in abortion-related cases in the future. Breyer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the “harmful” decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade — ending the federal right to abortion access — would not reduce the number of abortion-related cases brought before the high court. (Sforza, 3/28)

A U.S. judge dismissed most of a lawsuit accusing Trader Joe's of misleading and endangering consumers by failing to disclose that its dark chocolate bars contained harmful levels of "heavy metals" such as lead and cadmium. In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro in San Diego said consumers in the proposed class action failed to adequately plead that the grocery chain's chocolate posed an unreasonable safety hazard or were unfit to eat. (Stempel, 3/28)

Also —

U.S. intelligence officials in late February told senators working on a biotech security bill that Chinese pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec (603259.SS) had transferred U.S. intellectual property to Beijing without consent, according to two sources. The U.S. government is concerned that certain Chinese biotech companies are contributing technology or research and development for use by China's military, and the proposed legislation would restrict U.S. government funds going to those Chinese companies. (Martina, Erman and Freifeld, 3/28)

In other administration news —

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory on Thursday alerting healthcare providers about an increase in invasive meningococcal disease and urging them to ensure necessary vaccinations against the deadly disease. Meningococcal disease, caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis, is a serious bacterial infection that commonly affects the brain, spinal cord and bloodstream. (3/28)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has extended its review of Applied Therapeutics' (APLT.O) experimental drug to treat galactosemia, a rare genetic metabolic disease, the company said on Thursday. The health regulator will now give its decision by Nov. 28, 2024, compared with its previous action date of Aug. 28. Galactosemia results in an inability to metabolize the simple sugar galactose, causing it to build up to toxic levels in the blood. (3/28)

French diagnostics company bioMerieux announced yesterday that it has received US Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance for a rapid respiratory/sore throat panel that company officials say will help clinicians make more informed decisions about antibiotic prescribing. The panel, Biofire Spotfire, is a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test capable of detecting and identifying nucleic acids from up to 15 of the most common bacteria, viruses, and viral subtypes that cause respiratory or sore throat infections in about 15 minutes. (Dall, 3/28)

Simply asking patients to get the flu vaccine during emergency department (ED) visits may double vaccination rates—or raise them even higher if the request is combined with helpful video and print messages, according to a study this week in NEJM Evidence. The study, led by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), compared two interventions among 767 non-critically ill adult patients seen in the ED who were not yet vaccinated against influenza. (Soucheray, 3/28)

On other infectious disease news —

The number of U.S. tuberculosis cases in 2023 were the highest in a decade, according to a new government report. Forty states reported an increase in TB, and rates were up among all age groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. More than 9,600 cases were reported, a 16% increase from 2022 and the highest since 2013. Cases declined sharply at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but have been rising since. (Stobbe, 3/28)

Mpox cases in the United States are twice as high as they were at this time last year, and experts are stressing the importance of improving vaccination coverage as transmission risks rise. (McPhillips, 3/28)

Dengue is surging across the Americas early this year from Puerto Rico to Brazil, with 3.5 million cases of the tropical disease reported so far, health officials said Thursday. That tally is three times the number of cases reported at this point last year, said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization, the regional office of the World Health Organization in the Americas. Last year, there were a record 4.5 million cases in the region, and PAHO officials said they expect this year will set a new record. (Coto, 3/28)

A surge of dengue cases in North and South America is on track to make 2024 the worst year yet for the mosquito-borne virus as Puerto Rico scrambles to contain an outbreak. The combination of climate change and El Niño are fueling conditions allowing the disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread earlier than usual and in new areas, according to the World Health Organization. (Millman, 3/28)

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) this week called for the establishment of an international stockpile of Ebola treatments. Though it's been 10 years since West Africa's large outbreak, two treatments are not readily available in countries where Ebola is endemic. "Instead, all Ebola treatments remain under the control of just two US pharmaceutical corporations, Regeneron and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, and are almost exclusively kept in a US stockpile for national security and biodefense purposes," MSF said in a statement. (Schnirring, 3/28)

Also —

Young to middle-aged women who drink more than one alcoholic beverage a day, on average, were more likely to develop coronary heart disease than people who drink less, according to new research by Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Women in the study who reported drinking eight or more alcoholic beverages per week were 33 to 51 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease. (Chesler, 3/28)

Your partner's drinking habits could affect your lifespan, new research suggests. Scientists have long suspected that couples who have similar drinking patterns tend to have better marital outcomes, reporting both better quality and longer lasting marriages. ... To investigate these effects, researchers from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research recruited a cohort of 4,656 married or cohabiting heterosexual couples over the age of 50 in the United States. (Dewan, 3/28)

The human hand is a marvel of nature. No other creature on Earth, not even our closest primate relatives, has hands structured quite like ours, capable of such precise grasping and manipulation. But we’re doing less intricate hands-on work than we used to. A lot of modern life involves simple movements, such as tapping screens and pushing buttons, and some experts believe our shift away from more complex hand activities could have consequences for how we think and feel. (Heid, 3/28)

Every day, police in the U.S. rely on common use-of-force tactics that, unlike guns, are meant to stop people without killing them. But when misused, these tactics can still end in death. Over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other means not intended to be lethal, an investigation led by The Associated Press found. In hundreds of cases, officers weren’t taught or didn’t follow best safety practices for this force, creating a recipe for death. (Dunklin, 3/29)

����ɫ��ƬHealth News: A Physician Travels To South Asia Seeking Enduring Lessons From The Eradication Of Smallpox
Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first learned about the disease’s twisty, storied history in 1996 while interning at the World Health Organization. As a college student in the 1990s, I was fascinated by the sheer magnitude of what it took to wipe a human disease from the earth for the first time. Over the years, I’ve turned to that history over and over, looking for inspiration and direction on how to be more ambitious when confronting public health threats of my day. (Gounder, 3/29)

Agitation, confusion and poor focus can all be strong risk factors for dementia and death in older age, a large new study has found. Over 5 million Americans over the age of 65 live with dementia, according to 2014 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dementia comes in different forms—the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease—and is characterized by an impaired ability to remember, think and make decisions. (Dewan, 3/28)

We all know that secondhand cigarette smoke is a bad thing − the dangers of tobacco smoke exposure to children specifically have long been known to cause ailments from asthma attacks and infections to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. ... A recent study presented this month at the conference of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners found that secondhand "smoke," or vapor from vaping and e-cigarettes may, in fact, impact the children in your life, not unlike traditional cigarettes and tobacco. (Walrath-Holdridge, 3/28)

For babies who are breastfed, their first source of sustenance is filled with proteins, sugars, hormones, vitamins, and minerals — just the right amount of nutrients for an infant. That milk could also lower the risk of asthma, diabetes, and allergies. And it could make low-birth-weight, preterm babies up to 10 times less likely to develop necrotizing enterocolitis, a common intestinal disorder. Researchers who study human milk understand how the molecules affect everything from the gut microbiome to curbing chronic disease risk factors in babies. (Balthazar, 3/29)

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY.N) said on Thursday its experimental drug to treat Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel condition, did not help patients achieve disease remission in a late-stage study. Crohn's is a chronic bowel disease that causes inflammation in the digestive tract, and can lead to diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue and weight loss. It affects about 12.6 million people worldwide, according to the company. (3/28)

In covid research news —

One dose of the updated, single-strain COVID-19 vaccine introduced last fall is 38% effective against hospitalization in the 7 to 59 days after receipt and 34% effective at 60 to 119 days in adults with weakened immune systems, yet uptake in this group is low, estimates a study published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers led the study, which was based on data from the Virtual SARS-CoV-2, Influenza, and Other respiratory viruses Network (VISION) collected from September 2023 to February 2024. (Van Beusekom, 3/28)

COVID-19 can damage your heart, even when the virus doesn’t directly infect cardiac tissue. That’s the latest from a recent study supported by the National Institutes of Health. Published in the journal Circulation, the study observed the damaged hearts of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome associated with the virus and determined that COVID-19 patients suffering from severe lung infections were at risk of heart damage. The findings may prove to be relevant to organs other than the heart and to viruses other than COVID-19, as well. (Boyce, 3/28)

Moderna today announced promising interim phase 3 clinical trial  findings for its next-generation COVID vaccine, which offers the potential for a longer shelf life and paves the way for a combination mRNA vaccine against flu and COVID. Diverse Stock Photos / Flickr ccThe mRNA-1283 vaccine showed a higher immune response—including in seniors—than its currently licensed vaccine, called mRNA-1273.222. Response was higher against Omicron BA.4/BA.5 as well as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Schnirring, 3/28)

Walgreens is painting a much broader picture of the scale of VillageMD's footprint reduction, six months after announcing clinic closures. Walgreens-backed VillageMD has closed 140 clinics this year across several states and is planning to close another 20, Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Tim Wentworth told analysts on Thursday's second-quarter earnings call. The closings represent roughly 50% of the original footprint. (Hudson, 3/28)

Walgreens lost nearly $6 billion in its second quarter mainly due to a drop in value for the VillageMD clinic business it controls. Excluding that charge, the drugstore chain reported results Thursday that topped Wall Street expectations. Walgreens spent more than $5 billion a few years ago to acquire a majority stake in VillageMD and launch a plan to add hundreds of clinics to its stores and grow its ability to provide care. (Murphy, 3/28)

UnitedHealth Group has named John Rex as its next president, succeeding Dirk McMahon, who is retiring. Rex will retain his role as chief financial officer and will take on the additional role of president April 1, according to a Thursday Securities and Exchange Commission filing. (Berryman, 3/28)

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum is poised to solidify its position as the largest physician employer, but its proposal to acquire Steward Health Care’s physician group will likely meet stiff regulatory scrutiny. Optum Care, a subsidiary of Optum, plans to buy Stewardship Health, the physician arm of the ailing for-profit Steward health system, according to regulatory filings with the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. (Kacik, 3/28)

The first major U.S. health insurers have agreed to start paying for the popular anti-obesity drug Wegovy for certain people on Medicare with heart-related conditions. CVS Health CVS 0.42% Elevance Health ELV -0.27% and Kaiser Permanente said they would cover Novo Nordisk’s NOVO.B -0.79% Wegovy for the use of reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people who have cardiovascular disease, meet body-weight criteria and are covered by a Medicare drug-benefit plan. (Loftus and Wilde Mathews, 3/28)

The financial ties between drug and device makers and some physicians remains pervasive, despite concerns such relationships may influence medical practice, according to a new analysis of payments made over a recent 10-year span. (Silverman, 3/28)

Meanwhile —

The United Kingdom has released comprehensive data showing which institutions have failed to register their clinical trials, a move that was hailed by transparency advocates who say this marks the first time that a country has taken such a step. (Silverman, 3/28)

The Rev. Michael Marsh stood before his congregation at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Uvalde, knowing his grieving community needed more from him than prayer. It had only been a few days since a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in 2022, and with very few mental health resources in the city of 16,000, Marsh knew he had to find a long-term solution to heal his community not just spiritually, but mentally as well. (Simpson, 3/28)

A statewide grand jury probing issues related to COVID-19 vaccines has asked the Florida Supreme Court to extend its term for six months. Gov. Ron DeSantis initially requested the Supreme Court impanel the grand jury. It was impaneled June 26 in Hillsborough County for a year, according to a petition filed Monday seeking an extension. (3/28)

Orlando Health is expanding its acute Hospital Care at Home program, which uses remote monitoring of patients by health professionals, to Lake and Osceola counties. The Central Florida hospital group began last year offering patients at-home care, which was made possible through a program by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as a way to free bed space during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Pedersen, 3/28)

As many states struggle with workforce shortages across the health care industry, there’s a national effort to give dentists and dental hygienists more authority to work in multiple states without going through a time-consuming licensure process in each one. Two licensing compacts are being floated, one by the Council of State Governments — a nonprofit that helps states collaborate on complex policy issues — and the other by the American Association of Dental Boards, or AADB. (Blythe, 3/29)

Top Massachusetts officials joined with NCAA President and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday to announce a new initiative aimed at tackling the public health harms associated with sports gambling among young people. Baker said those harms extend not just to young people making bets, but to student athletes coming under enormous pressure from bettors hoping to cash in on their individual performances. (LeBlanc, 3/28)

A drug treatment clinic and community pharmacy are the newest tenants to open at R&R Marketplace, an economic and community hub that is living up to the name of the nonprofit behind its redevelopment, Refuge and Restoration. (Munz, 3/28)

A bipartisan bill aimed at expanding access to paid family leave won final passage Thursday as Kentucky’s legislature shifted into overdrive before a two-week break. The Senate voted 36-0 to send the family leave legislation to Gov. Andy Beshear.Supporters said House Bill 179 would amend state law to allow voluntary paid family medical leave to be offered as an insurance product. (Schreiner and Lovan, 3/28)

Georgia could join other states in requiring children younger than 16 to have their parents’ explicit permission to create social media accounts. Lawmakers on Friday gave final approval to Senate Bill 351, which also would ban social media use on school devices and internet services, require porn sites to verify users are 18 or over and mandate additional education by schools on social media and internet use. The House passed the measure 120-45 and the Senate approved it 48-7. (Amy, 3/29)

Senior citizens in Delaware will be able to get medical marijuana without a prescription or referral from a doctor under a bill heading to Democratic Gov. John Carney. Legislation approved by the state Senate on Thursday also eliminates a requirement that a person must have a “debilitating medical condition” to qualify for a medical marijuana card. Instead, according to chief Senate sponsor Kyra Hoffner, doctors will be able to prescribe medical marijuana “as they feel fit.” (Chase, 3/28)

As Florida lawmakers learned in December, their state is expected to have a severe physician shortage in the 2030s. Even now, it can take up to three weeks to get an appointment with a primary care clinician. Many rural Floridians live in primary care deserts. (Marc Joffe and Jeffrey A. Singer, 3/28)

Early detection and early intervention have been medicine’s mantra for the past several decades. Medical societies recommend colonoscopy and mammograms, for example, to individuals who are at minimal risk. This is based on the presumption that the biological processes that lead to the disease begin years, if not decades, before the disease becomes manifest. Detecting the disease in its “preclinical” state will result in early treatment that will prolong and improve the quality of life. (Anand Kumar, 3/28)

Abortion is back at the Supreme Court. The case contests decisions by the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug mifepristone available by mail and via telemedicine. But at oral argument on Monday, the court that overturned Roe v. Wade seemed poised to reject the arguments of the pro-life Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. (Noah Feldman, 3/28)

First, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Then came last month’s attack by the Alabama Supreme Court with its ruling on embryos, which momentarily halted in vitro fertilization in the state. The latest attack, which was before the high court this week, was lobbed by anti-abortion doctors and organizations that claim they are morally harmed by people using the abortion drug mifepristone. (3/28)

President Biden’s efforts to revitalize the nation’s technology-based industries, which began with semiconductors and electric vehicles, should encompass the life sciences. Biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, digital therapeutics, diagnostics, genomics, and AI-based clinical decision support compete in a global market where other nations are doubling down in support for their domestic champions. The benefits of investing in the life sciences cannot be measured solely in terms of improved health — they also include high-wage jobs, exports, and tax revenues; pandemic and military preparedness; and spillovers to other sectors. (James C. Robinson, 3/29)