State Highlights: Chicago’s Retiree Health Care Dust-Up Continues; Iowa’s Medicaid Shift Away From Managed Care Shouldn’t Disrupt Services

Chicago Sun Times:
City Retirees Want To Know Why City Kept $2.1M In Health Overcharges

Fresh from a crushing blow in the long-running battle over retiree health care, retired city employees are demanding to know why the city kept for itself $2.1 million in overcharges instead of refunding that money to retirees. An audit and reconciliation process was required annually before Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s now-completed, three-year phaseout of retiree health care coverage and a 55 percent city subsidy for anyone who did not retire by Aug. 23, 1989. (Spielman, 11/30)

Des Moines Register:
Abrupt Medicaid Shift Won’t Cause Loss Of Services, UnitedHealthcare Leader Vows

This week’s departure of Iowa’s largest Medicaid management firm shouldn’t cause poor or disabled Iowans to suddenly lose health-care services, the leader of the main remaining company said. …UnitedHealthcare is taking responsibility for almost all 215,000 Iowans who previously received their Medicaid benefits via AmeriHealth Caritas, which abruptly pulled out of Iowa after a contract dispute with state officials. The change, which took effect Friday, means more than two-thirds of Iowans on Medicaid are now signed on with one private management company. (Leys, 11/30)

Kaiser Health News:
Whistleblower: Medicaid Managed-Care Firm Improperly Denied Care To Thousands

In early October, an executive at one of the nation’s largest physician-practice management firms handed her bosses the equivalent of a live grenade — a 20-page report that blew up the company and shook the world of managed care for poor patients across California. For years, she wrote, SynerMed, a behind-the-scenes administrator of medical groups and managed-care contracts, had improperly denied care to thousands of patients — most of them on Medicaid — and falsified documents to hide it. (Terhune, 12/1)

The Oregonian:
15 Percent Of Residents Could Lose Health Coverage In One Oregon County. See Other Counties’ Rates.

In less than two months, Oregon voters will decide whether to impose hundreds of millions of dollars in health care taxes that lawmakers passed earlier this year. The stakes for the Jan. 23 referendum are huge: If voters reject the $210 million to $320 million in taxes, lawmakers could be forced to make cuts or find other ways to raise money in order to close a hole in the state budget. …But supporters of the health care taxes say lawmakers would likely respond by kicking as many as 300,000 low-income Oregonians off Medicaid and other health insurance programs included in the Oregon Health Plan.  (Borrud, 11/30)

Reuters:
Lawsuit Seeks To Block Illinois Abortion Coverage Expansion

Abortion opponents in Illinois filed a lawsuit on Thursday to block a recently approved law expanding state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income Medicaid recipients and state workers. (Kenning, 11/30)

Boston Globe:
Partners Defends Potential Cost Hikes In Mass. Eye Proposal

Partners HealthCare and Massachusetts Eye and Ear on Thursday challenged the conclusions of a state watchdog agency that said Partners’ acquisition of the specialty hospital would significantly raise costs for consumers. The Health Policy Commission said the transaction would result in higher prices for Mass. Eye and Ear’s services, increasing spending by $20.8 million to $61.2 million a year — costs that would be felt in the form of higher health insurance premiums. (Dayal McCluskey, 12/1)

Denver Post:
Teen Pregnancy And Abortion Rates See Big Drops, Which Colorado Officials Attribute To IUD Program

The steep drop in teen pregnancies and abortions in Colorado since 2009 is mainly due to one thing: free, low-cost access to IUDs. Intrauterine devices — tiny, T-shaped pieces of plastic placed in the uterus — are the main reason Colorado’s teen birth rate fell 54 percent and the teen abortion rate declined 64 percent in the last eight years, state health officials said Thursday. (Brown, 11/30)

The Associated Press:
Possible Link Found Between Some Utah Suicides, Electronics

Researchers studying a spike in teen suicides in Utah found that 18 of the 150 youngsters who took their own lives in a five-year period had recently lost privileges to use their electronic devices such as phones, tablets and gaming systems, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report made public Thursday. (McCombs, 11/30)

Kaiser Health News:
Texans With HIV Cope With Homes And Medicines Ruined By Hurricane Harvey

Many Houstonians with HIV faced similar problems. [Hurricane Harvey] closed pharmacies and clinics for a week — or longer. Floodwaters ruined drugs. People who fled to other states couldn’t get their prescriptions filled for HIV medicine. As the days ticked on, many worried the amount of HIV in their blood would increase and become resistant to treatment. (Varney, 12/1)

Los Angeles Times:
Costa Mesa Paramedic Is On The Front Line In Effort To Prevent First-Responder Suicides

After the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, Orange County fire departments deployed support counselors to help first-responders cope with the trauma they had experienced. Like members of many public safety agencies in Southern California, current and retired employees of the Costa Mesa Fire and Rescue Department attended the country music festival as spectators. Some suffered from survivor’s guilt and trauma from what they saw the night of Oct. 1. (Langhorne, 11/30)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Impact Of Childhood Trauma Reaches Rural Wisconsin

Marquette County also has another epidemic that gives its rural underclass a kindred bond to its urban peers, one that researchers say sticks families in a cycle of dysfunction from one generation to the next. It’s called childhood trauma – growing up in an environment of violence, neglect and abuse that can leave neurological scars that saddle children with the lifelong burden of physical and mental illness. (Schmid and Mollica, 11/30)

Sacramento Bee:
County Where ‘Madman’ Killed Five Has Just Two Psychiatrists

Only two psychiatrists work in the rural county where Kevin Janson Neal shot and killed five people earlier this month, state records show. …Neal suffered from delusions and other mental health issues for years, according to his sister, Sheridan Orr. (Reese, 11/30)

KQED:
High Levels Of Lead Detected In Tap Water At Some San Francisco Schools

New documents obtained by KQED reveal that half of San Francisco schools have lead in their water, though levels vary widely from school to school. Information obtained as a result of a request under the California Public Records Act shows water from one tap measured more than 370 times the allowable concentration of lead. (Hossaini, 11/30)

The Star Tribune:
Autism, Sleep Apnea Added To Minnesota List For Medical Marijuana

Minnesotans with autism and obstructive sleep apnea will be able to use medical marijuana starting next July to manage their conditions, the state Health Department announced Thursday. (Olson, 11/30)