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Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a key vote on President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, said Sunday she would oppose any nominee she believed would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. The White House is focusing on five to seven potential candidates to fill the vacancy of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote on the court. The Maine senator said she would only back a judge who would show respect for settled law such as the 45-year-old Roe decision, which has long been anathema to conservatives. (Yen and Thomas, 7/2)

“Roe v. Wade is a constitutional right that is well-established,” Collins said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “And no less an authority than Chief Justice [John] Roberts said that repeatedly at his confirmation hearing.“ Trump last week said he wouldn’t ask potential Supreme Court nominees about abortion rights — a departure from his stance on the campaign trail, when he said he would nominate to the Supreme Court only people who oppose abortion. (Kullgren, 7/1)

Collins is among small group of U.S. senators whose support is seen as crucial to securing the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice following the retirement announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Maine senator has said previously that she wouldn’t support someone who pledges to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S. It’s settled law, and justices must respect legal precedent, she said. (Niquette and Condon, 7/1)

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is signaling that President Trump should avoid picking a Supreme Court nominee that is openly pushing to overturn Roe v. Wade, instead encouraging him to choose a "centrist." "All of that stuff is red flags for all Americans. And I think he needs to get a jurist basically looking at the law. The Roe v. Wade has been the law for 40-some years," Manchin told a West Virginia radio station on Friday when asked if he wanted a jurist who would overturn the 1973 Supreme Court case that established the right to an abortion. (Carney, 6/29)

Sen. Bob Casey calls himself a pro-life Democrat. But his voting record paints a different picture. After a decade in the Senate, Casey has become an increasingly reliable vote in support of abortion rights — scoring as high as 100 percent on NARAL Pro-Choice America’s vote tally in 2016 and 2017. Anti-abortion groups insist he’s no champion of their cause — and view him as unlikely to support President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, whose confirmation will be a proxy battle on the future of Roe v. Wade. (Haberkorn, 7/2)

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro drew rounds of fierce applause Friday as she wagged her pink rectangular glasses at the people gathered inside a New Haven Planned Parenthood and warned that the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy poses a clear threat to women’s reproductive rights. DeLauro’s visit to New Haven – in which she acted as part cheerleader and part prognosticator – came just two days after Kennedy announced his retirement, a move that gives President Donald Trump a pivotal new pick and the opportunity to choose a justice who will vote to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion. (Radelat, Silber and Phaneuf, 6/29)

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he planned to interview one or two candidates this weekend at his Bedminster, N.J., resort to fill Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat, and plans to announce his final pick on July 9. “I’ve got it narrowed to about five,” he said, including two women. The president also said he wouldn’t specifically ask candidates about Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling making abortion legal. However, a potential nominee’s approach to the issue has been a factor in creating Mr. Trump’s list of 25 conservative candidates. (Radnofsky and Nicholas, 6/29)

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As partisans on both sides of the abortion divide contemplate a Supreme Court with two Trump appointees, one thing is certain: America even without legal abortion would be very different from America before abortion was legal. The moment Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his retirement, speculation swirled that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, would be overturned. Most legal experts say that day is years away, if it arrives at all. A more likely scenario, they predict, is that a rightward-shifting court would uphold efforts to restrict abortion, which would encourage some states to further limit access. (Belluck and Hoffman, 7/1)

The Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory union fees for government workers was not only a blow to unions. It will also hit hard at a vast network of groups dedicated to advancing liberal policies and candidates. Some of these groups work for immigrants and civil rights; others produce economic research; still others turn out voters or run ads in Democratic campaigns. Together, they have benefited from tens of millions of dollars a year from public-sector unions — funding now in jeopardy because of the prospective decline in union revenue. (Scheiber, 7/1)

As many as 80,000 Illinois home health care workers will get a second shot at recovering $32 million in union fees, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision earlier this week in a case over payments to unions. The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision last year in a case involving whether the home health care workers, paid with Medicaid dollars, should be able to recoup money the state took out of their paychecks for “fair share” union fees between 2008 and 2014. Those “fair share” fees covered the costs of collective bargaining even though those workers were not union members. (Schencker, 6/29)

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On the final day of the Supreme Court term last week, Justice Elena Kagan sounded an alarm. The court’s five conservative members, citing the First Amendment, had just dealt public unions a devastating blow. The day before, the same majority had used the First Amendment to reject a California law requiring religiously oriented “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide women with information about abortion. Conservatives, said Justice Kagan, who is part of the court’s four-member liberal wing, were “weaponizing the First Amendment.” (Liptak, 6/30)

Yeni González emerged into the warm evening air in Eloy, Ariz., her hair braided by the other women in the detention center. We’re braiding up all your strength, they had told her in Spanish. You can do it. Ms. González, who had been released on a bond, was meeting her lawyer on Thursday and would soon join the volunteers who were driving her to New York City to find her three young children — Lester, Jamelin and Deyuin — who had been taken away from her more than a month before at the southern border. (Correal, 6/30)

The government’s top health official could barely conceal his discomfort. As Health and Human Services secretary, Alex Azar was responsible for caring for migrant children taken from their parents at the border. Now a Democratic senator was asking him at a hearing whether his agency had a role in designing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that caused these separations. The answer was no. (Long and Alonso-Zaldivar, 7/2)

At the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, advocates are faced with explaining legal rights to hundreds of children who have been separated from the adults they were traveling with when they illegally entered the U.S. The group is providing legal services for about 350 children, most of whom are 10 years old or younger and can’t fully comprehend the legal choices in the group’s “Know Your Rights” training. (West and Campo-Flores, 7/1)

The words appear on a scrap of paper, scrawled in pencil by an immigrant mother held at a detention center: “We beg you to help us, return our children. Our children are very desperate. My son asks me to get him out and I’m powerless here.” In another letter, childish print on notebook paper, a mother spoke of her son: “It’s been a month since they snatched him away and there are moments when I can’t go on.… If they are going to deport me, let them do it — but with my child. Without him, I am not going to leave here.” (Hennessy-Fiske, 7/2)

The federal agency that houses migrant children may no longer require its director’s signature before releasing children from secure detention facilities, according to an order recently issued by a federal judge. The ruling involves the same agency that has been responsible for housing thousands of children separated from their parents at the border in recent weeks. (Michels, 7/1)

A new class-action lawsuit filed today on behalf of five immigrant children says the U.S. government is violating their rights by placing them in jail-like detention and forcibly drugging them with powerful psychotropic medication. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in California, argues that the Office of Refugee Resettlement is running afoul of a 1997 court order known as the Flores Settlement Agreement that requires immigrant children to be quickly released from government detention and placed in the least restrictive and appropriate setting as long as they remain in federal custody. (Harris, 6/29)

The National Institutes of Health has hit a series of ethical snags in recent years, with questions about whether work funded by nonprofit groups has come with too many conditions attached or otherwise failed to meet certain ethical standards. Congress has taken notice. In what amounts to a written warning from Capitol Hill, a House committee last week included language in a spending agreement that emphasizes existing requirements on funding from the Foundation for the NIH and the CDC Foundation. (Facher, 7/2)

 In a recent report to Congress, the Food and Drug Administration expressed gratitude for a 2016 law that enabled the agency to pay some staff higher salaries and hire them more quickly. It has also intimated that it would be useful for Congress to expand those powers to more staff in the future. The FDA has long faced challenges hiring staff, due in part to bureaucratic hangups, and in part due to the fact that the agency is competing with the private sector, which can afford to pay employees more. (Swetlitz, 7/2)

And in other news out of the agencies —

The head of the nation's top public health agency once opposed condoms and needle exchange programs as ways to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This week, in one of his first media interviews since taking office, Dr. Robert Redfield Jr. said his views have changed. "I think the data is just clear that these strategies work. When you see evidence that these strategies work, you need to embrace them," said Redfield, director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Stobbe, 6/29)

One staffer publicly mocked senators who criticized Donald Trump as “clueless” and “crazy.” Another accused Hillary Clinton of having a campaign aide killed and employing pedophiles. A third wrote the “shameful” press was trying to deny Trump his victories. These are not faceless trolls but midlevel political appointees at the Health and Human Services Department who have helped shape the agency’s communications strategy — even while taking a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook. (Diamond, 6/29)

The first Sunday after his inauguration, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order directing state agencies to report everything they could do to ramp up the visibility of the Affordable Care Act and persuade more people to buy health coverage under the law. Four months later, the Democratic governor signed into law a requirement that makes New Jersey the first state in a dozen years to compel most residents to carry insurance. As bureaucrats in Trenton scramble to set the mandate in motion, New Jersey’s decisions are at the forefront of a nascent movement with states stepping out on their own to counteract Washington’s efforts to erode the ACA. (Goldstein, 7/1)

In other health law news —

Most Oregonians buying health insurance in the individual market will see their rates jump from 5 to 10 percent in 2019. State insurance regulators issued their preliminary rate decisions Friday for the seven companies active in the individual market and nine companies that sell small group policies. Providence Health Plan, one of the biggest insurers in the state, got permission from the state for the heftiest increase: 10.6 percent. (Manning, 6/29)

Landing on [Lisa] French’s doorstep that day was a growing conflict over skyrocketing health care costs pitting employer-based, self-funded insurance plans against hospitals. A growing number of employers are refusing to pay the full amount of the hospital bills of their workers due to alleged price gouging by the hospitals. As justification, they point to data that consultants have unearthed showing wide disparities in hospital billing. Those disputes now are moving into the courts. French’s case appears to be the first of its kind to go to trial in Colorado, her lawyers say. An Adams County jury this month sided with French and found the hospital’s bills weren’t reasonable. St. Anthony has vowed an appeal. (Osher, 6/29)

GoFundMe, the largest online, crowdsourced fundraising platform, says people have raised more than $5 billion from 50 million donations in the eight years since it began. It's become a go-to way for people in need to help pay their doctors. Medical fundraisers now account for 1 in 3 of the website's campaigns, and they bring in more money than any other GoFundMe category, said GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon. (Zdechlik, 7/2)

In other news —

Kaiser Health News: How ER Bills Can Balloon By As Much As $50K For ‘Trauma Response’
On the first morning of Jang Yeo Im’s vacation to San Francisco in 2016, her 8-month-old son, Park Jeong Whan, fell off the bed in the family’s hotel room and hit his head. There was no blood, but the baby was inconsolable. Jang and her husband worried he might have an injury they couldn’t see, so they called 911, and an ambulance took the family — tourists from South Korea — to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). (Gold and Kliff, 7/2)

“Brian has been dead for 136 days,” says his mother, Vicki Bishop. “I watched him die over many years, and it was a long, slow, horrible death.” Her son’s decades-long battle with opioids blotted out the sun in her own life, says Bishop, 65, of Clarksburg, Md. It held her in the clenched fist of shock and anticipation shared by millions of American parents who are traumatized by a child’s substance use. “I spent so many years in stages of anxiety and depression,” Bishop says. “I worried about Brian 24/7. His disease took over my life.” (Fleming, 6/30)

Licensed professional counselor Pat Aussem works with the nonprofit Partnership for Drug-Free Kids to offer guidance to families navigating substance-use disorders. Here are some suggestions she offers parents. (Fleming, 6/30)

Violence is growing in American emergency rooms, fed by patient anger over their inability to get painkillers and rising health care bills, as well as the proliferation of gangs and untreated mental illness. ... Emergency rooms are a door into the underside of American life, and their growing violence speaks to the nation’s unresolved health care ills — from people in the grip of addiction to opioids and powerful new substances like artificial marijuana, to the growing financial burdens on patients for their medical care. (Allen, Colliver and Goldberg, 7/2)

Isolated, easily accessible and free from surveillance cameras and security guards, public restrooms have long been a place for illicit activities. And with a relentless opioid epidemic ravaging the nation, they have become a laboratory of sorts for drug users searching for a private space to get high. It presents a problem for business owners concerned not only about the safety of their customers but also of their employees — the ones cleaning up blood splatter, picking up used needles or calling 911 when a user has overdosed in the washroom. It has forced retailers to search for solutions such as placing cameras outside the facilities, securing the doors with lock pads or removing drop ceilings, where users often hide drug paraphernalia. (Bever, 6/29)

Minneapolis on Friday sued a group of opioid manufacturers and distributors, joining a long list of governments in Minnesota and across the country that have recently taken legal action against the companies. The city’s lawsuit takes aim at more than a dozen firms, arguing their actions to promote prescription opioid drugs, such as OxyContin, have caused an addiction crisis straining the city’s resources. The suit comes several months after county attorneys from across Minnesota, including Hennepin County, announced their intentions to sue the firms. (Roper, 6/29)

The State Department has evacuated at least 11 Americans from China after abnormal sounds or sensations were reported by government employees at the United States Consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, officials said, deepening a mystery that has so far confounded investigators. At least eight Americans associated with the consulate in Guangzhou have now been evacuated, according to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. (Myers, 6/30)

U.S. Embassy staff were told in June that the evacuations of the Americans, who were associated with the U.S. consulate in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, weren’t all connected to the mysterious symptoms, a person familiar with the situation said. More than 250 people connected to U.S. missions in China have requested and received medical evaluations, according to an embassy notice sent last week to staff. To date, only one American in China has been confirmed as having symptoms and clinical findings consistent with those experienced by U.S. diplomats in Cuba, according to the embassy notice. (Chen, 7/1)

George Vander Linde tapped a code into the emergency room’s automated medicine cabinet. A drawer slid open and he flipped the lid, but found nothing inside. Mr. Vander Linde, a nurse, tried three other compartments that would normally contain vials of morphine or another painkiller, hydromorphone. Empty. Empty. Empty. The staff was bracing for a busy weekend. Temperatures were forecast for the 90s and summer is a busy time for hospital emergency departments — the time of year when injuries rise from bike accidents, car crashes, broken bottles and gunshots. (Thomas, 7/1)

Under palliative sedation, a doctor gives a terminally ill patient enough sedatives to induce unconsciousness. The goal is to reduce or eliminate suffering, but in many cases the patient dies without regaining consciousness. ...While aid-in-dying, or “death with dignity,” is now legal in seven states and Washington, D.C., medically assisted suicide retains tough opposition. Palliative sedation, though, has been administered since the hospice care movement began in the 1960s and is legal everywhere. (Ollove, 7/2)

Academics and companies all over the world are betting on virtual reality to help patients with conditions like anxiety, depression, PTSD, and ADHD. Huberman believes in the potential of the technology for vision issues, too, but he speaks about it less like an evangelist than someone who’s discovered a useful tool. He’s also harnessing it in pioneering ways. In the case of his glaucoma clinical trial, [Andrew] Huberman is asking patients to gaze at flashing white dots in the hopes that they can trigger the firing of neurons that connect the eye to the brain and coax them to regenerate. (Robbins, 7/2)

Hoppy, a young red panda, was the first patient of the day, carried — and anesthetized — into the exam room so he could get a physical. Then Mildred, a 24-year-old barnacle goose, wobbled painfully across the floor as veterinarians analyzed her gait. They couldn’t see any improvement 10 days after an earlier exam. Replacement of the degenerating joints isn’t an option for a goose. Maybe acupuncture could help? (Weintraub, 6/29)

The World Health Organization last month added “internet gaming disorder” to its manual of psychiatric diagnoses, and the reaction was, shall we say, muted. At a time when millions of grown adults exchange one-liners with Siri or Alexa, the diagnosis seems years overdue, doesn’t it? (Carey, 7/2)

For months, Kayla Rahn had been struggling with abdominal pain, swelling and shortness of breath. She had also been packing on pounds, gaining weight that seemed impossible to lose. People would ask whether she was pregnant — perhaps even with twins? — and when she was due. They would also volunteer to load groceries for her. “I used to tell them I was going to name it Taco Bell,” the 30-year-old told The Washington Post about the jokes she used to make in response to all the awkward pregnancy questions. (Bever, 6/29)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a novel treatment for severe emphysema: one-way air valves that are implanted in the lungs to redirect air. The Zephyr endobronchial valves, made by California-based Pulmonx, were shown to improve lung function, exercise capacity, and breathlessness in an international study led by Temple University. (McCullough, 6/29)

Being married may reduce the risk of heart disease and cardiovascular death, a review of studies has found. Researchers pooled data on more than two million participants in 34 studies carried out in the United States, Britain, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Greece and eight other countries. (Bakalar, 6/29)

As summer temperatures rise again this weekend, residents on certain medications should take extra measures to stay cool. Drugs like anti-depressants and anti-psychotics can have side effects that inhibit a person's ability to sweat, explained Caroline Crehan, coordinator of Community Recovery Services with the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health. (Groves, 6/29)

A record number of California residents were diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases in 2017. Recently released data from the California Department of Public Health show a 45 percent increase in cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia in the state compared with rates five years prior. (Holzer, 7/2)

Iowa women have a fundamental right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday. The landmark 5-2 decision tossed out a 72-hour waiting period requirement, which legislators passed in 2017. Experts said the justices' decision could dim the chances for a 2018 "fetal heartbeat" law, which would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. (Leys and Gruber-Miller, 6/29)

The ruling was a major victory for supporters of abortion access and a blow to abortion opponents, who control the state Capitol and have approved increasingly restrictive abortion laws. Here's what people are saying about the ruling. Suzanna deBaca, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland: "We are elated the Court blocked Gov. Reynolds’ egregious anti-woman agenda of making safe, legal abortion harder to access. No matter what she or her allies in the Legislature throw at us, Planned Parenthood will continue to stand up for Iowa women." (6/29)

Even though the New York City Housing Authority has been under a microscope for flouting lead-paint safety regulations for years, the exact number of children residing in public housing poisoned by lead was never disclosed. Over the weekend, the city department of health offered a number: It said that 820 children younger than 6 were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood between 2012 and 2016. (Ferre-Sadurni, 7/1)

In other news —

Cleveland officials made a pendulum-like swing in June.They went from slowly and reluctantly enforcing state laws designed to warn residents about lingering lead hazards, to cracking down so swiftly that hundreds of families wondered if they'd be forced to leave the homes they owned and rented. (Dissell and Zeltner, 7/1)

State and local leaders say The School District of Philadelphia will get $15.6 million to remove lead, mold and asbestos at 57 school buildings around the city. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf made the funding announcement Friday. He was joined by Mayor Jim Kenney, Superintendent William Hite and other officials. Hite says, "The health and safety of our students is critical." (6/29)

Top Republican lawmakers again are sparring with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy about how the governor cuts spending to achieve legislatively mandated savings targets. In the latest dispute, Republican lawmakers are balking at the governor’s plans to cut $2 million from an elderly nutrition program. Malloy must find $21.5 million in savings in the General Fund once the new fiscal year gets underway on Sunday. (Phaneuf, 6/29)

Dr. Bob Sears, a renowned Dana Point pediatrician who has been sought out by parents who wish to opt out of the state’s mandatory vaccine requirements, has been placed on probation for 35 months by the Medical Board of California. The June 27 order, which will go into effect on July 27, allows Sears to continue his medical practice but requires him to go through 40 hours of educational courses for each year of probation and a professional ethics course. (Bharath, 6/30)

A class-action lawsuit has been filed with the Ohio Court of Claims against CVS Caremark and the state Health Department over a mailing that might have publicly disclosed the identity of 6,000 HIV patients. The Columbus Dispatch reports the lawsuit filed by a Cleveland-area attorney says the state shared private medical information with CVS last summer without patients' authorization, allowing CVS to make a marketing pitch to non-customers about its pharmacy services. (6/30)

Fear of tick-borne illnesses in eastern Long Island has some residents choosing to spend their summer inside their homes rather than the great outdoors. John Rasweiler, 65, who lives in Southold on the island’s North Fork, said that even just a simple walk across his lawn from his car to the front door of his home could lead to a parasite bite. “And in the 10, 15 seconds that I’m crossing that, I have actually picked up ticks,” he said. (Korte, 7/1)

Roseville leaders are eagerly anticipating the addition of about 1,200 jobs, added growth and economic opportunity stemming from three expansions at Kaiser Permanente, Adventist Health and Sutter Health over the next several years. ...In the third quarter of 2017, more than 25,000 residents of Placer County worked in the fields of health care and social assistance, up 37 percent from 2012, according to California's Employment Development Department. (Browning, 6/30)

Jahi McMath’s tragic saga came to an end last week, but the legal battle between her family and the hospital they claim was responsible for her brain damage grew even more heated after her lawyers announced the Oakland teen had been removed from the machines that kept her breathing for nearly five years. The decision could cost the family millions of dollars in their medical malpractice suit against UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and some doctors, experts say, because the cost of future medical care is a major factor in determining damages. (Gafni, 6/30)

This legal battle spurred a nationwide debate over brain death — and what constitutes death. The Uniform Declaration of Death Act, which has been in place since 1981, defines death as the "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem." (Chow, 6/30)

A federal jury ordered dialysis giant DaVita Inc. to pay the families of three dead patients a combined $385.5 million after hearing testimony that the company did not adequately warn kidney doctors that a product that saved the company money put patients at risk of cardiac arrests. Trial testimony in the wrongful death lawsuit also excoriated DaVita for a “flawed and secretive adverse event reporting system.” (Osher, 6/30)

Medica plans on growing next year into the individual health insurance markets in Missouri and Oklahoma, bringing to eight the tally of states where the Minnetonka-based carrier expects to sell nongroup coverage. While many health insurers over the past two years have fled red ink in the individual market under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medica has grown from its base in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin into Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. (Snowbeck, 6/29)

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is scouring the city for plots of land where three 200-bed homeless structures in large tent-like structures could open. But in a sign of how difficult the process may become, multiple City Council members said they would oppose shelters on city-owned parcels in their districts that meet space requirements - and the council member representing the North Sacramento area said his part of town is off limits until his colleagues do their part first. (Lillis and Hubert, 6/30)

As the number of people facing homelessness in the West Valley rises, cities are scrambling to refine their ordinances, such as for urban camping. They're also working to offer services like the crisis intervention team and misdemeanor repeat offender unit Scott works for in Peoria. (Fifield and Boehm, 7/1)

Owner Miguel Jara, 75, has often spoken to the media about how much he values his workers, several of whom have cooked at La Taqueria for more than a quarter-century. Yet in November, San Francisco’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement and the California Labor Commissioner fined La Taqueria for numerous labor violations, including unpaid overtime, sick pay and health care costs. (Kauffman, 6/30)

A body-building doctor.  A cage fighter. A handful of boxers  — and lots of urine samples. Mix 'em up, and you have the makings of a $112-million health care scam that's landed a one-time philanthropic physician behind bars, accused of plotting with fighters of all sorts to steal millions of dollars from Medicare through bogus billings and referrals. The accused is Dr. Frank Patino of Woodhaven, a body-building enthusiast who in 2014 made headlines when he donated 300 hams to the needy.  Now, he's accused of schmoozing and scheming with an Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Famer, a Triple-X cage fighter and a Michigan professional fighter known as Joshua Burns, who was charged Thursday with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in a bribery and kickback scheme. (Baldas, 6/29)

The CEO of a Tennessee company that sold knee, wrist and back braces has been federally indicted for allegedly paying more than $1.2 million in bribes to sales representatives who referred her customers, allowing her to bill Medicare for more than $2.5 million in tainted claims. Brenda Montgomery, 70, of Camden, the owner of CCC Medical, Inc., has been charged with conspiracy and bribery, according to a federal indictment that was unsealed Thursday. The bust was part of a nationwide health care fraud takedown, which led to hundreds of arrests in a host of unconnected cases across the nation. (Kelman, 6/29)

Two Iowa nurses face federal health care fraud charges for using the identities of patients to obtain prescription drugs, prosecutors allege.  The charges are part of a national crackdown announced Thursday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar III.  (Tendall, 6/29)

Health care is fast becoming an unsustainable expense for American families. This year the total cost of insurance for the typical family of four eclipsed $28,000, according to the Milliman Medical Index. ... The solution is simple: The Internal Revenue Service should give all workers the chance to purchase health insurance with pretax dollars—just as employers do—using Health Reimbursement Arrangements. Companies would give employees a fixed amount of money in these HRAs to go out and buy the best plans for their families on the ObamaCare exchanges. The plans there would be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s requirements on essential health benefits and cost-sharing limits. Employees could use this tax-free money only for the purchase of health insurance, but would pocket any leftover savings as taxable income. (Regina Herzlinger and Joel Klein, 7/1)

The Medicaid logjam appears to be breaking. When the Affordable Care Act first invited states to make more low-income people eligible for Medicaid, pretty much all the blue states said yes, but many red ones said no. Now, the Maine Legislature seems poised to overcome Gov. Paul LePage’s opposition to expanding the program. Just weeks ago, Virginia voted to expand Medicaid as well. They would join 32 states that have already expanded the program, and three others actively considering it. (Aaron E. Carroll, 7/2)

This hasn’t been a good week for Democrats and progressives in federal courts. President Trump got his travel ban in the Supreme Court, despite his documented intent to make it a Muslim ban. The Court also dealt a serious blow to labor in Janus v. AFSCME, curtailing the ability of unions to raise funds. And then there was the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose departure will mean an unbreakable arch-conservative majority in that same body. But on Friday, Democrats received a sliver of daylight. A federal district court decided to vacate a plan from the Kentucky government to implement work requirements for able-bodied adults in the state Medicaid program. That decision calls into doubt an initiative strongly favored by the Trump administration and several Republican governors across the country. It also challenges a larger administration plan to refashion all federal welfare and means-tested poverty programs, and should kick off a flurry of court activity on the issue. (Vann R. Newkirk, 6/29)

A rose to the Iowa Hospital Association for offering help to navigate this state out of the chaos of privatized Medicaid. The organization, which represents 118 Iowa hospitals, worked with a consultant to come up with a plan. That is more than our elected officials have done since former Gov. Terry Branstad set the health insurance program on an inevitably disastrous course in 2016. (7/1)

If Amazon’s move to disrupt health care is going to make Americans any healthier, the improvement is most likely to take place in the business of getting prescription drugs to patients more reliably. For one thing, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Failure to take prescription drugs kills about 125,000 Americans a year, according to a recent review in the Annals of Internal Medicine, and this form of noncompliance costs the health care system $100 billion to $289 billion a year. (Faye Flam, 6/29)

PBMs, as they are known, were once hailed as an answer to provide needed cost controls through claims management for insurers and payers including Medicaid. But as their middleman role between prescription-drug manufacturers and payers has grown, they have been revealed as lining their pockets on both ends of the equation. (7/1)

Many believe there's no fix without healthcare price legislation, and recently we have seen some regulations passed and additional measures discussed by our political leaders. But Americans already get consumer-based pricing models in nearly every other industry, and shopping comes naturally to most of us. (Mark Galvin, 7/1)

With the implementation of STEP-VA, an acronym for mental health system transformation, we are expanding the services that community services boards (CSBs) must provide to the public, and supporting that effort with additional resources. We have made progress on issues such as alternative transportation and telemental health. We continue to explore the confounding nexus between the criminal justice and mental health systems to get more people into treatment. (Creigh Deeds, 6/30)

At the California State Capitol last Thursday, teenage health advocates from Stockton urged lawmakers to stand with communities like theirs and put people’s health over corporate profits. After more than a year of knocking on doors, talking with people at farmers markets, and attending community events to build support for a soda tax in their city, these young activists were up against an unexpected challenge — a state law that would render their efforts meaningless by banning cities from adopting soda taxes until 2030. These young people talked emotionally about how chronic health problems affect their families in a city where 36 percent of youth suffer from diabetes or pre-diabetes — and shared how the beverage industry misleads consumers about the safety of their products. As the youth spoke out against the bill, the other side was conspicuously quiet. That's because the American Beverage Association — representing the soda industry — wasn’t even in the room. It didn’t need to be — its fingerprints were already all over the legislation that ended up being signed by Gov. Jerry Brown later in the day. (Larry Cohen, 7/1)

How did opioids become America’s most severe public health crisis in decades? The answer is complex, but how frequently doctors overprescribe addictive prescriptions is alarming. (Ken Blackwell, 6/30)

If you have type 1 diabetes and wind up behind bars, you’ll get the insulin injections needed to control your blood sugar. If you don’t, there will be public outrage over this violation of your human rights. But if you have an opioid addiction — like type 1 diabetes, a disease that could rob you of your life — and are taking an opioid agonist medication like buprenorphine or methadone to stay sober, it’s virtually guaranteed it will be stopped the day you step foot inside your cell. Over the next few days you’ll go through a brutal withdrawal and your risk of relapsing will soar. Once you’re released, there’s a good chance you’ll use opioids almost immediately, along with the possibility that you’ll accidentally overdose and die. This barbaric practice happens across the country every day. (Brian Barnett, 7/2)

The World Health Organization declared last week that “gaming disorder,” or video game addiction, is a “mental health disorder” similar to an addiction to gambling. Less than 24 hours later, at a standing-room-only session at the Cannes Lions festival, two prominent executives, Tristan Harris of Google and Scott Hagedorn of Omnicom, issued a dire warning that we are on the verge of a global public health crisis, particularly among teenagers, because of an “addiction to likes.”  And data from the analytics firm Flurry shows that we spend five hours a day interacting with about 88 apps, including those connected to video games, on our smartphones.  Is it any wonder, then, that Cam Adair, the founder of the online support community Game Quitters, stressed recently in an interview that, “There’s a massive tsunami coming that we’re not prepared for.” (Pete Ingram-Cauchi, 6/30)

This column is a plea to all current and future college students and their families to deal openly and constructively with emotional, social and academic turmoil that can sometimes have heartbreaking — and usually preventable — consequences. Suicide is the second leading cause of death, after traffic accidents, among college students. For most, it’s their first time living away from home, away from the support and comfort usually provided by good friends and family members. The adjustment can be overwhelming for some students, especially those who don’t make friends easily or who have difficulty meeting the demands of challenging college courses. (Jane E. Brody, 7/2)

The Human Rights Campaign – the leading LGBTQ rights and advocacy organization in the nation – notes that an estimated 2 million LGBTQ adults are interested in adoption in the U.S. But the organization reports the community is often overlooked when it comes to finding families for youth in foster care. (Lane Baker, 6/29)