SIGN UP! If you’d like to continue receiving Washington Examiner’s Daily on Healthcare newsletter, SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://newsletters.washingtonexaminer.com/newsletter/daily-on-healthcare/

House expected to finish opioid bills this week, with eye towards Senate. The House expects to finish passage this week on nearly 20 bills aimed at fighting the opioid epidemic, with an eye toward a conference with the Senate over the summer. The House passed about 30 bills last week that range from boosting treatment options to stemming the tide of shipments of illegal opioids from overseas. This week, the House will consider more than 20 bills and a legislative vehicle that would combine all of the legislation into one package. “Altogether, this will be the most significant congressional effort against a single drug crisis in history,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wrote in an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. A bipartisan group of committee leaders last week released the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act. The bill will serve as a legislative vehicle to wrap in all of the opioid legislation that the House passes. Democrats, however, say the bills won’t make a dent in the epidemic without more funding. About 42,000 people died from an opioid overdose in 2016, with about half of those deaths from the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he hopes the bills get through the Senate by August, but immediately cautioned that may be “a bit of a stretch.” The Senate is working on its own opioid bills, with several committees advancing legislation over the past few weeks. “Ideally we would like to go to conference with the Senate and work on what they enacted there,” the aide said, noting that it is “not clear when the Senate is ready to act on the floor.” The goal is to hold a conference in July, the aide added. “I feel this is going to be a productive conference if we are able to do that.”

Welcome to Philip Klein’s Daily on Healthcare, compiled by Washington Examiner Managing Editor Philip Klein (@philipaklein), Senior Healthcare Writer Kimberly Leonard (@LeonardKL) and Healthcare Reporter Robert King (@rking_19).  Email [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list.

HHS defends treatment of unaccompanied immigrants amid family separation policy. The Department of Health and Human Services pushed back on criticism from Democratic lawmakers about the conditions of temporary shelters for illegal immigrant youths, who are being separated from their families as a deterrent to illegal immigration. “It is our hope that as members tour the facilities they will see the facilities for what they are intended to provide: safe and healthy environments for children and teenagers to reside until such time as they can be released to an appropriate sponsor, while their immigration cases are adjudicated,” said HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan Sunday. The statement came ahead of several lawmakers’ visits to the detention centers. Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., tweeted Sunday that he tried to visit a “tent city” for children separated from their parents at the border but was rebuffed by HHS officials. Hargan said that the need for the detention facilities has grown over the last decade “in part because of flaws in our immigration system that draw many immigrants to try to cross the border illegally. It is unfortunate that there are still some who fail to understand the role of HHS in caring for these children and teenagers,” Hargan said. “We need fewer media stunts and more real solutions.”

Video game addiction a mental health disorder, WHO says. The World Health Organization officially classified video game addiction as a mental health disorder. The health body said that the addiction is severe enough to be included in International Classification of Diseases released Monday. The WHO characterizes two forms of video game addiction: online and offline. It said addiction occurs by putting gaming ahead of “other life interests and daily activities.” Another sign is when a person continues to play video games despite knowing of the negative consequences.

Minnesota Obamacare insurers seek drop in Obamacare premiums. Minnesota’s insurers on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges proposed to reduce rates by up to about 12 percent. Insurers in Minnesota can take advantage of a reinsurance program in which the state helps subsidize the biggest insurance claims on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges. Efforts to create a federal reinsurance program ran aground in the Senate because of disagreements over abortion funding. In Minnesota, all of the state’s five Obamacare insurers are asking for proposed rate reductions of 3 to 12 percent for certain plans. That is a major difference from the final rates for the 2018 coverage year, which ranged from a 16 to 32 percent hike.

But rates in D.C. insurers seek a double-digit rate hike in 2019. D.C.’s three Obamacare insurers are seeking rate increases of an average 14.9 percent. CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield is seeking an increase of nearly 10 percent, while Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic is seeking a 20 percent hike. The insurer Group Hospitalization and Medical Services sought an increase of 16.7 percent. Kaiser blamed its 20 percent increase on higher-than-expected expenses for next year. Group Hospitalization blamed a deteriorating risk pool. If a risk pool does not have enough younger or healthier people to offset claims for sicker people, it can cause medical claims for insurers to spike, which drives an increase in premiums. That has been a persistent issue for Obamacare insurers as a sicker-than-expected enrollee population signed up for insurance on the exchanges.

Lamar Alexander urges Trump administration to be more flexible on Obamacare for states. A provision in Obamacare that gives states some power to change portions of the law needs to become more flexible to lower healthcare costs, a top Republican told the Trump administration Friday. In a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., urged the administration to make changes to a program known as “innovation waivers.” The waivers allow states to make certain changes such as setting up a reinsurance fund that pays for the medical costs of sicker enrollees. Alexander specifically asked the administration to rescind its guidance for the waivers so that states can design their plans more freely, to approve the waivers faster and to allow states that are replicating others to be approved even more swiftly.

Embattled West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin goes on offense on Obamacare lawsuit. Sen. Joe Manchin, R-W.Va., bashed the Trump administration’s decision to support a lawsuit that would gut pre-existing condition protections in Obamacare. Currently 20 U.S. attorneys general, including West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, are suing to allow insurance companies to once again deny coverage to West Virginians with pre-existing conditions,” Manchin wrote in an op-ed Sunday in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “This impacts every family in West Virginia. More than 800,000 West Virginians have a pre-existing condition, including 90,600 children.” Manchin is running for re-election in November against the Republican Morrisey, in a state that President Trump won by more than 20 percentage points. He has at times sided with the Trump administration, including supporting key White House nominees such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA Director Gina Haspel. But Democrats believe healthcare is a winning issue ahead of the 2018 midterms. Manchin also voted against Obamacare repeal last year. “What’s happening today is an unfortunate political move,” Manchin wrote.

RUNDOWN

Axios More lawmakers see marijuana as alternative to opioids

Reuters FDA declines to approve Valeant’s plaque psoriasis lotion

Kaiser Health News Unwieldy health costs often stand between teachers and fatter paychecks

Boston Globe Secret VA nursing-home ratings hid poor quality care from public

STAT News Donation of $4,500 of overdose antidote kits were good PR, but some kits were close to expiring

NPR Home DNA testing for health has both pros and cons

Associated Press California moves to clear coffee of its cancer-related stigma