Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Nebraska Pioneers AI Program To Remove Medicaid Funding For Residents With Disabilities
After Nebraska adopted interRAI鈥檚 assessment tool, nearly 900 people with developmental disabilities saw Medicaid funding for their daily care slashed. (Hixenbaugh, 9/8)
Healthcare news from California 鈥
Jerry Delgado was drinking himself to death. He discovered this in spring 2024, when he was told that alcohol had damaged his gallbladder; he later found out that his liver was badly injured too. Delgado, who is 41 and lives in Ukiah (Mendocino County), had known he was drinking too much, but he thought it wasn鈥檛 so bad. His drinking hadn鈥檛 affected his job or his relationships. He鈥檇 never driven drunk or had a drinking-related accident of any kind. (Allday, 9/6)
California is set to end child marriage 鈥 years after more than a third of the nation had done so, and long after most other states had established a minimum age to wed. If signed by the governor, the law would make it illegal for anyone younger than 18 to get married as of January 1, 2027.聽(Padilla, 9/2)
吃瓜不打烊: 鈥業t鈥檚 Triage鈥: California鈥檚 Next Governor Will Face Destabilizing Surge In Uninsured聽
By the time Democrat Xavier Becerra left Washington, D.C., more Americans than ever had health insurance, owing partly to his work over the years to pass, defend, and expand the Affordable Care Act. It鈥檚 an achievement the former congressman and former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services often touts as he campaigns for California governor against Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator. (Mai-Duc, 9/8)
More health news from across the U.S. 鈥
An alleged assailant forced his way Sunday toward Democratic candidate Amy Acton at a county fair, officials and witnesses said. Authorities said he was carrying two pistols and a Taser. ... Acton, known statewide for directing the state鈥檚 early response to the covid-19 pandemic alongside Ohio鈥檚 Republican governor Mike DeWine, is locked in a high-profile race with [Vivek] Ramaswamy, the billionaire entrepreneur. (Tumulty, Westfall, Schaffer and Cadell, 9/7)
Before police say Carlton Neal Johnson II opened fire in Minneapolis Wednesday, killing two people and wounding five others, his history with law enforcement included domestic-related cases, allegations that he threatened to kill a woman and her child, and a years-old court order temporarily barring him from possessing firearms. Yet Johnson, 35, was legally permitted to carry the handgun he had purchased, authorities said. (Jacobs and Grinberg, 9/7)
In March 2022, Colorado public health officials started getting startling reports of liver damage tied to a new marijuana-based sleep aid that had quickly become a top seller in the state. But it wasn鈥檛 until June 2023, nearly 15 months later, that the state鈥檚 Marijuana Enforcement Division would warn consumers that the danger had become so serious that the manufacturer had halted production of the sleep pills, called 1906 Midnight Drops, after more reports of 鈥渁cute liver injury.鈥 (Osher and Wyloge, 9/4)
As Georgia plans for its first execution in two years, a trove of records provides us with new information 鈥 and raises new questions 鈥 about the state鈥檚 lethal injection process. (Blau, 9/8)
When a powerful storm tore through Gary, Indiana, knocking out the power for two weeks, Tiffany Harrison, a mother of three, had to throw out all of the food that had spoiled in her fridge and deep freezer. It was a big hit to her family in this majority-Black city where roughly 2 in 5 people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to feed themselves, according to an analysis by the nonprofit news organization Capital B. At the time the power went out, Harrison鈥檚 deep freezer had been stocked with discount meat, like family packs of chicken, which she buys in bulk and breaks down into smaller packages so they can last throughout the month, she said. (Kutz, 9/4)
For six weeks Lindsay Clancy鈥檚 trial gripped the nation, taking over newscasts, podcasts and social media chatter. On Friday, it culminated in a mistrial. But what exactly happens after a mistrial? In the case of Clancy, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three young children, there are several options. Prosecutors could seek a retrial with a fresh jury on the same counts or lesser charges. If prosecutors do settle on lesser charges, the case could turn to a bench trial, at which a judge determines the verdict rather than a jury, or it could result in a plea deal. (Lenthang, 9/7)