The Trump administration plans to finalize a ban on almost all flavored vaping products, with exemptions only for tobacco and menthol flavors, according to sources familiar with the plan. An announcement is expected next week.
Why it matters: Conservatives, including President Trump's 2020 campaign manager, had urged Trump to back away from such a sweeping crackdown, but sources said the president was briefed by senior health officials on the plan at a White House meeting yesterday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's newly released plan to pay for Medicare for All leaves the middle class financially better off than they are today, but it's not true to say that they won't pay for it at all, experts say.
Between the lines: Employers will directly pay for Medicare for All, and economists predict that this will get passed onto workers through reduced wages — just as employers' costs for private health insurance are passed on today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Bloomberg on Friday she isn't a "big fan" of Medicare for All, calling the program "expensive."
Why it matters: The comments came the same day presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveiled her proposal to pay for a Medicare-for-All program. Other candidates, like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Julian Castro also support the principle.
President Trump recently vowed to ban all e-cigarettes as part of a greater strategy to prevent nicotine addiction in adolescents, but some African Americans are questioning why he hasn't done the same with menthol cigarettes, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: Menthol cigarettes have long been a health threat in African American communities but, unlike with vaping, the current presidential administration hasn't come down hard on the cigarette industry.
During the two to three years after a measles infection, a person can have immune system "amnesia," where the system appears to forget the prior illnesses and vaccinations that triggered immunity, making the person vulnerable to sometimes-deadly infections.
Why it matters: A number of people are deliberately not getting vaccinated, with some fighting new restrictions on exemptions. But, two new papers provide more evidence that getting measles appears to have longer-term implications than originally thought.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has released her long-awaited plan to pay for "Medicare for All," which she says will put the $11 trillion that would be spent out-of-pocket on health care over 10 years "back in the pockets of American families."
The bottom line: This will be paid for "with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases," the plan states.
If Express Scripts is any kind of bellwether for drug rebates — pricing discounts that drug manufacturers pay to pharmacy benefit managers so their drugs get put on the drug coverage lists — then those dollars continue to rise.
By the numbers: Cigna, which bought Express Scripts last year, said it is owed almost $4 billion in rebates from pharmaceutical companies as of Sept. 30, according to new investor documents. That's up almost $600 million since the start of this year.
Between the lines: Kemp's proposal — which must be approved by the federal government — would move more control over ACA dollars to the state while attempting to lower premiums in the individual market.
One of the Democratic presidential candidates' leading ideas to lower drug prices would come with intense legal battles and thus an uncertain fate.
Why it matters: Democrats' plans to seize drugmakers' patents could give patients some relief from high drug costs, if they work, but they'd be testing the boundaries of the law in order to get there.
Altria Group is expected to take a $4.5 billion writedown on its original $12.8 billion investment in e-cigarette maker Juul, AP reports.
The big picture: Altria, which owns Marlboro and other nicotine products, acquired a 35% stake in Juul in 2018, which has since dropped in value amid rising health concerns and deaths related to vaping.
A settlement resolving all of the pending lawsuits over the opioid crisis is "unlikely in the near term," according to state attorneys general and attorneys involved in the litigation brought by communities, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: That means that it could be a long time before places still plagued by the opioid epidemic receive substantial new funding to address it.
There's still no settlement in the national opioids case, but plenty of other large health care cases have been laid to rest recently.
The bottom line: Allegations of wrongdoing are rampant in health care. For defendants, it's often easier — and in their interest — to settle and eat the result as a cost of doing business.
The health troubles we're seeing now — especially among young people — will continue to strain the system for years and even decades to come.
The big picture: Rising obesity rates nowwill translate into rising rates of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The costs of the opioid crisis will continue to mount even after the acute crisis ends. And all of this will strain what’s already the most expensive health care system in the world.
