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Trump touts healthcare plans that don’t exist yet. President Trump on Friday touted health insurance plans that will be sold outside of Obamacare, saying they had “just opened” though they won’t be available for over a month. “Through associated health plans we are giving Americans the ability – just opened – millions people are going to be signing up,” he said as part of a speech highlighting the 4.1 growth in GDP and touting his economic policies. “Millions and millions. Much better and more affordable healthcare, including bidding across state lines.” He continued, All of the insurance companies are going wild. They want to get it. You can have great healthcare at a much lower price. It will cost the United States nothing.”  The plans won’t be available for purchase until Sept. 1, and it’s not yet clear how many people will buy them or whether the regulations set by the Trump administration will be too limited to encourage insurers to use them. The Congressional Budget Office projected 6 million would enroll.

The Trump administration announced in June that it would be allowing the sales of the plans, which will allow small businesses and individual workers to band together to provide medical coverage that will be less expensive than Obamacare plans. Conservatives have touted the provision as “allowing people to buy coverage across state lines” because the plans could go to people who live in different states. Critics are concerned that the plans will provide inadequate protections to consumers and will deplete participation in the Obamacare exchanges, causing the price of premiums to continue to rise. Trump has made similar comments about association health plans before. “I hear it’s like record business that they’re doing,” Trump said Thursday in Iowa. “We just opened about two months ago and I’m hearing that the numbers are incredible – the numbers of people getting really, really good healthcare instead of Obamacare, which is a disaster.”

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Massachusetts’ Republican governor signs law to protect abortion rights. Massachusetts’ Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a bill that repeals abortion laws in the state. The move on Friday is an attempt to preempt a rollback of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The law repeals a pre-Roe law that criminalizes abortion. It also repeals other laws including one that blocks doctors from giving birth control to women who are unmarried. Abortion rights groups praised the move by Baker. “What we just saw in Massachusetts is indicative of what’s going on around the country. Not only do people in this country want access to abortion and other reproductive rights secured, but the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court moves people to learn their status in their own states and they most often don’t like what they see,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue, in a statement. Massachusetts is one of several states that have decided to enshrine abortion protections if Kavanaugh gets confirmed and Roe gets overturned. The state is the most supportive in the nation of abortion rights, with 74 percent saying the practice should be legal in most or all cases.

States sue to stop expansion of cheaper insurance plans. A group of 11 states and the District of Columbia are suing the federal government to roll back a regulation to expand access to association health plans, which are cheaper than Obamacare plans but offer fewer benefits.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, seeks to block the regulation finalized earlier this year by the Trump administration. The states charge that the regulation aims to move a “large number of small employers and individuals into the large group market because the [Affordable Care Act’s] core protections do not apply to that market,” the lawsuit says. “Worse yet, health plans created under the final rule would lack basic market incentives and statutory protections under federal law that apply to plans from true large employers,” it continues. States say that the final rule is unlawful because it conflicts with the “clear statutory structure that Congress adopted in the ACA to apply fundamental protections to the individual and small group markets.”

Lawmakers aim to stop use of pill machines used to boost opioid epidemic. House and Senate lawmakers are pursuing legislation to crack down on the use of pill presses to create and distribute powerful opioids like fentanyl illegally. A bipartisan bill in the House and a companion version in the Senate introduced Monday would increase enforcement of machines that are flooding into the U.S. and used to make counterfeit pills. The Substance Tableting and Encapsulating Enforcement and Registration Act would give law enforcement more tools to identify pill press machines being used for illegal purposes. It calls for the Department of Justice to give a report to Congress that details the registration and accounting of any machines used for criminal activity and taken by the Drug Enforcement Administration. It would also boost criminal penalties for people who use pill presses to distribute illicit opioids.

Democrats push massive funding bill to combat opioid epidemic. House and Senate Democrats charged that GOP efforts to fight the opioid crisis are lacking without a massive funding bill that gives $100 billion to states over a decade. “We are facing an urgent public health crisis and we can no longer afford to nibble around the edges,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an opioid roundtable in Baltimore on Friday. Warren and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., have pursued the CARE Act, which provides the $100 billion funding boost that would go directly to states to combat an epidemic that federal data shows killed more than 42,000 people in 2016. Cummings said that, “I believe one day we will enact this bill and we will finally invest the resources to address this crisis.” But so far the CARE Act has not been considered in the GOP-controlled Congress, which did include $4.6 billion in funding in a March spending deal to combat the epidemic. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., criticized the recent major push of opioid  bills that the House passed earlier this year, calling it little more than “window dressing” without the structure and resources provided in the CARE Act.

Energy Department violated law by tweeting Rick Perry’s anti-Obamacare views, GAO finds.  The Energy Department violated federal appropriations law by sharing on social media a column written by Secretary Rick Perry criticizing Obamacare, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Thursday. GAO said a July 2017 tweet from the Energy Department’s media team violated the “purpose statute” because tweeting about Perry’s views on healthcare is not a proper use of money appropriated to the agency by Congress. The account @EnergyPressSec tweeted: “Time to discard the burdens and costs of Obamacare: @SecretaryPerry” and linked to the column. The Energy Department later deleted the tweet that day. GAO said the tweet did not violate other federal laws preventing agencies from political lobbying or issuing propaganda, because it did not make a direct appeal for action. Shaylyn Hynes, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said the agency disagrees with GAO’s finding that the tweet violated the “purpose statute.” She said the Energy Department’s statutory responsibilities include components involving medical research and improving healthcare.

CDC: Gun homicides jumped 31 percent in two years. The number of people shot and killed by guns increased by 31 percent from 2014 to 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency combed through its mortality data to compile information on homicides from 2010 to 2016, finding that for the first four years, gun homicides remained relatively stable, at between 11,008 and 11,622. The number increased gradually after 2014, to 14,415 by 2016. Gun deaths accounted for the highest share of homicides from 2010 to 2016. The second-most common method of killing involved cutting and piercing at just 1,781 deaths. The third-highest number came from suffocation, which accounted for 502 deaths, or a small fraction of the number of homicides committed with guns.

RUNDOWN

Axios Why Medicare is going after hospital outpatient rates

Bloomberg Alzheimer’s study lacks ‘shock and awe’ Biogen investors sought

Kaiser Health News Community frets as buyer for cherished rural hospital slips from view

Tennessean Tennesseans have more health insurance marketplace options, but will they sign up?

Politico Texas anti-abortion group tacks to the right, dividing state Republicans

New York Times Clean and sober and $41,000 deep in out-of-pocket addiction recovery costs

Washington Post Fentanyl-related deaths continue ‘staggering’ rise in Maryland