General Mental Health
- In this cohort study, a large-scale, employer-sponsored behavioral health program with fast access to psychotherapy and medication management was associated with a substantial relative increase in behavioral health care use and notable net decreases in total health care cost. These findings suggest that providing subsidized access to high-quality, measurement-based behavioral health care may be an effective cost containment strategy, particularly in populations with high-cost medical conditions. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis
- Canada's newly appointed fentanyl czar says his goal is to bring the already low percentage of the deadly opioid smuggled south into the United States down to zero. "Getting the number to zero is in fact our goal and should be our goal," Kevin Brosseau told reporters on his first full day in the position. Read more here.
Suicide Prevention
- A proposal making its way through the state legislature would let Coloradans place a voluntary freeze on gun sales to themselves. The measure, Senate Bill 34, would make Colorado the fifth state to set up a so-called do not sell registry. If approved, Coloradans could add their names to the registry through an online portal. Read more here.
Medicaid Redetermination and Medicaid Expansion
- By one vote, the Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee advanced a bill critics said would repeal Medicaid expansion. House Bill 138, by Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, requires Idaho to enact 11 Medicaid policy changes or repeal Medicaid expansion — a policy that lets more low-income Idahoans be eligible for the health insurance assistance program. Idaho needs approval from the federal government to implement many of the policy changes — like work requirements, capping expansion enrollment, and kicking people off Medicaid expansion after three years — that Redman’s bill would require. Read more here.
Transgender Issues
- President Trump’s Justice Department abandoned the Biden administration’s Supreme Court challenge to gender-affirming care bans for minors, but the new administration urged the justices to still resolve the issue this term. The Supreme Court has not yet issued a decision after hearing arguments late last year in the challenge against Tennessee’s ban, SB1. The Biden administration claimed the legislation amounts to unconstitutional sex discrimination. Read more here.
- Kansas’s Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed a proposal to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth for the third consecutive year, setting up another battle with the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature that has previously failed to overrule her on the issue. Read more here.
Federal and State Policy
- The National Institutes of Health is capping an important kind of funding for medical research at universities, medical schools, research hospitals, and other scientific institutions. In the latest step by the Trump administration affecting scientific research, the NIH says the agency is limiting funding for "indirect costs" to 15% of grants. That's far below what many institutions have been getting to maintain buildings and equipment and pay support staff and other overhead expenses. Read more here.
- The Trump administration has tasked two top political appointees with monitoring the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to key systems inside the health agency responsible for managing Medicare and Medicaid, according to internal emails obtained by POLITICO. The appointees, Kim Brandt and John Brooks, are leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ “collaboration” with the unofficial cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, including “ensuring appropriate access to CMS systems and technology.” Read more here.
- A federal judge has ordered federal health agencies to restore websites and datasets that were abruptly pulled down beginning in late January, prompting an outcry from medical and public health communities. The temporary restraining order was granted in response to a lawsuit filed against the federal government by Doctors for America (DFA), a progressive advocacy group representing physicians, and the nonprofit Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. Read more here.
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