Axios

Some Texas hospitals have reportedly been refusing to treat patients with serious pregnancy complications over fears of violating the state's abortion ban, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Driving the news: The Texas Medical Association said in a letter on Wednesday that it had received complaints that some hospitals were blocking physicians from providing care to patients with pregnancy complications, such as ectopic pregnancies, according to the Dallas Morning News.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said Friday that the BA.5 subvariant is the "most contagious, certainly the most immune evasive variant we've seen" in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

Driving the news: "If you were infected earlier this year, you're still at very high risk of reinfection, it means if you have not been vaccinated recently, you have a very high risk of having a breakthrough," Jha said Friday.

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill on Friday to suspend tariffs on imported baby formula.

The big picture: The bill passed 421-2, with two Republicans voting against it, comes amid a continuing baby formula shortage in the United States.

The House on Friday passed a bill to protect people who travel out-of-state to access abortion care in a 223-205 vote, following last month's Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Driving the news: House lawmakers also passed a bill that codifies abortion protections that used to be guaranteed by Roe into federal law. That law had already passed the House in 2021 but failed in the Senate.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it has ordered an additional 2.5 million doses of monkeypox vaccines to respond to the escalating outbreak.

Driving the news: "Our strategy is to secure additional doses for the near-term while also making sure we have a steady supply in the weeks and months to come," HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a statement.

UnitedHealthcare starting next year will stop charging a co-pay to its fully-insured members for several critical medicines including insulin, the company announced during an earnings call Friday.

Why it matters: Out-of-pocket costs have led many patients to ration live-saving drugs and become sicker as a result.

• Insulin also been a flashpoint in the debate over drug price reform in Congress in recent years.

Details: The initiative to offer the point-of-sale discount is supported by UnitedHealthcare's pharmacy benefit manager Optum Rx.

• It includes critical medicines on the company's preferred drug list including insulin, epinephrine for severe allergic reactions and albuterol for acute asthma attacks.

What they're saying: "While this is an important step for vulnerable people’s health, the larger and longer-term cost containment of drugs depends upon manufacturers restraining and lowering the list prices of their products – which is the fundamental driver of costs," UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said.

A new three-digit national suicide prevention and mental health hotline — 988 — debuts Saturday, but it's not clear whether the service will be ready for prime time in many parts of the country.

Why it matters: America is struggling with a mental health crisis and it'll be easier to call or text for help with a 911-style hotline.

Economic growth in China slowed sharply last quarter — with the economy expanding 0.4% from a year ago, the government said — as the country’s "zero COVID" policy spurred lockdowns in major cities that lasted for much of the three-month period.

Why it matters: Aggressive efforts to stamp out COVID-19 infections brought factory production and consumer spending to a crawl in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has closed the door on a climate, energy and tax package, but remains open to a much smaller bill that focuses on deficit reduction, prescription drug reform, and funding for health care subsidies, according to people familiar with the matter.

Why it matters: Manchin’s offer will come as a bitter disappointment to the White House and his colleagues in the Senate.

The federal and state response to the escalating monkeypox outbreak is lacking access to enough vaccines, testing and treatments to keep up with the virus' spread, infectious disease experts are warning.

Why it matters: Public health officials are racing to halt the spread before the disease becomes endemic in more countries. Cases are rising quickly — New York City, for example, has seen a tripling in patients over the past week.

Editor's note: Due to an editing and transcript error, the headline, photos, url and article have been corrected to note that the proposed bill and quotes are from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to Axios' Alayna Treene.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is set to introduce legislation that would create a government website providing access to family planning services, along with information for pregnant women, she told Axios' Alayna Treene at an event Thursday.

Why it matters: The legislation is aimed "especially in places and states that are going to ban abortion" in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Mace said.

Texas state officials on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration to challenge its recent guidance telling health providers that they can perform abortions in emergency cases and be protected under federal law, despite the bans in their states.

Driving the news: While current bans on abortion offer exceptions for certain medical emergencies, health providers have faced questions determining what qualifies as an emergency under a state ban.

New hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19 are on the rise in the U.S., topping 31,000 over a seven-day average ending July 11, CDC data shows.

Why it matters: We don't know how many cases are individuals admitted for COVID versus those hospitalized for other conditions who happen to have COVID. But with many COVID cases being detected through home testing, experts have increasingly pointed to hospitalizations as an important metric for understanding what's happening at a community level, Insider reports.

Nearly 20 Senate Democrats are urging President Biden to "immediately" declare a public health emergency on abortion following the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

Driving the news: "Millions of American women have been endangered by the Supreme Court’s reckless decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion," the senators, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), wrote in the letter.

After weathering the pandemic with federal COVID aid, rural hospitals are facing a convergence of challenges that could leave many facilities deep in the red and at risk of closing as soon as the end of this year.

Why it matters: Hospitals are among the biggest employers in rural communities and the only health providers in large swaths of the country. But they've been operating on the edge for years, tending to older, sicker patients who often can't afford care.

The Biden administration says powers under the Affordable Care Act can clear up any uncertainty about whether states with abortion bans can influence what medicines pharmacists dispense. But it may not be so straightforward.

Driving the news: The Department of Health and Human Services released guidance on Wednesday to clarify that pharmacies that receive federal funding cannot deny people from accessing prescribed medication that could be used to terminate a pregnancy because doing so runs afoul of anti-discrimination provisions in the ACA.

Congressional Democrats see government drug price negotiations as a core part of a reconciliation bill — but one key swing lawmaker suggested Wednesday that piece could wind up being an end in itself.

What happened: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reiterated concern about big spending initiatives worsening inflation on a day the Consumer Price Index hit another four-decade high.

The FDA said it has issued warnings to two manufacturers for marketing synthetic vaping products without authorization and sent 107 other warning letters to retailers for illegally selling such products to underage buyers in recent days.

Driving the news: The Food and Drug Administration has moved to crack down on vaping companies that use non-tobacco nicotine products since a law designed to close a loophole that companies had exploited to avoid oversight of devices like e-cigarettes took effect in April.

The House passed a bill on Wednesday to expand health care access for veterans who became ill after being exposed to toxic burn pits while serving in the military.

Driving the news: The bill, which passed 342 votes to 88, would make it easier for more than 3.5 million veterans exposed to toxic burn pits since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to obtain health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, per a statement from House Veterans' Affairs Chair Mark Takano (D-Calif.).

Our house plants don't just look nice. They make us happier and healthier.

Why it matters: Many of our jobs keep us indoors — away from nature — and the pandemic magnified that problem. But it turns out being around nature is essential to health.