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/

Obamacare ally aims to use GOP’s pre-existing condition bill against them. Protect Our Care, an Obamacare advocacy group, is trying to stymie Senate Republicans’ legislative effort to safeguard pre-existing condition protections and thereby provide political cover for GOP changes to one of the most popular aspects of Obamacare.

Protect Our Care is challenging Republicans to join a resolution introduced Wednesday by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., to halt the administration’s move to expand the duration of short-term plans, which experts say could wreak havoc on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges. Protect Our Care is making the case that Baldwin’s resolution is a genuine protection for sick people and that Senate Republicans’ legislation meant to ensure protections for pre-existing conditions is a sham. “If the GOP truly cared about protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions, they would join their colleagues on this resolution,” said campaign director Brad Woodhouse.

Short-term plans do not have to cover pre-existing conditions or offer key essential health benefits, making them far cheaper than plans offered on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges on the individual market. The Trump administration liberalized use of the plans by expanding their duration from 90 days to nearly 12 months. But experts worry the expansion will cause havoc on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges, because younger and healthier people will buy the cheaper plans. In that scenario, only sick people would get care on the exchanges, and accordingly costs would spiral out of control.

Baldwin’s resolution, which has support from 30 Senate Democrats but no Republicans, would overturn the administration’s new regulation on short-term plans. Baldwin is in a tough re-election race this fall and is the latest Democrat to tout support for Obamacare and pre-existing conditions.

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.

Florida raises 2019 Obamacare rates by 5 percent. Florida finalized an average rate hike for Obamacare plans for 2019 of 5.2 percent Wednesday, with insurers blaming the Trump administration as the reason for the spike. The insurance department released the final rates on Wednesday, with some plans getting a hike of as high as nearly 10 percent, and others experiencing a decline of as much as 1.5 percent. Obamacare rates have become political fodder for Democrats, who charge that “sabotage” by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans is to blame. Several insurers, when they proposed rates in June, cited Republicans’ repeal of the individual mandate’s financial penalty in 2019 as a contributor to proposed hikes. Insurers worry that the repeal of the mandate penalty will take away an incentive for younger and healthier people to sign up for Obamacare plans.

Feds crack down on marijuana growers using federal lands. Marijuana growers who flout the law and plant crops on federal land are the subject of stepped-up enforcement operations by federal officials and law enforcement partners in California and Mexico. California officials gathered reporters near Sacramento Tuesday to tout the interim results of their statewide “surge operation” that is cracking down on people- and drug-trafficking organizations that cultivate marijuana on federal land like national parks and forests. The U.S. Forest Service is leading the charge and cooperating with state officials in a bid to kick pot growers off federal land. Almost 80 people have been arrested and charged in federal court for marijuana growing-related crimes so far this harvest season, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott announced at the press conference.

U.S. STD rates reach record high. In 2017, there were nearly 2.3 million diagnoses of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis in the U.S., marking the fourth consecutive year sexually transmitted disease rates have increased. Last year’s numbers top the 2016 rates by more than 200,000 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday at the National STD Prevention Conference in Washington, D.C. “We are sliding backward,” said Jonathan Mermin, the director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. Gonorrhea diagnoses increased by 67 percent, and syphilis by 76 percent. Chlamydia has continued to be the most common STD reported to the CDC, with more than 1.7 million cases in 2017. Although all three forms of STDs are curable with antibiotics, many cases remain undiagnosed and untreated, leading to several health problems like infertility, stillbirth in infants, and an increased vulnerability of contracting HIV.

Bill Nelson warns that Florida faces plague-like conditions from toxic algae bloom. Democratic Florida Sen. Bill Nelson says his state is facing plague-like conditions from a harmful algal bloom that has the Sunshine State coated in a green slime. “Most people have seen the dead fish, the dead mammals, of which has been an additional plague on Florida this year,” Nelson said Tuesday at a Commerce Committee hearing on the toxic bloom crisis. “The harmful algae blooms have suddenly enveloped Florida to a green slime.” Nelson submitted dozens of letters to the committee from Florida residents detailing the devastation that has closed beaches, has made Floridians physically ill, and is harming all segments of the fishing industry and anything ocean-related.

Senate GOP signs off on opioid package, clearing way for possible vote next week. Republican senators have signed off on a legislative package to fight the opioid crisis and now wait for Democrats to weigh in, with GOP Senate leadership hoping for a vote next month. “The ball is in the other court,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a press conference Tuesday. “We are hoping Democrats will be able to clear those as well and this is something we can reach a consent agreement on to have a vote after Labor Day.” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who is shepherding the legislation, said that every Republican has approved the legislation. Now Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., must do the same for the Senate’s Democrats. “As soon as both parties agree, we can have a roll call vote next week,” Alexander said. “When we do that we can get virtually unanimous support.”

California Democrat proposes government-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants. The Democrat running to be California’s next governor said he wants to extend government-funded healthcare to everyone in the state, including those illegally in the United States. “I did universal healthcare when I was mayor — fully implemented, regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, and regardless of your immigration status,” said Gavin Newsom in an interview on Pod Save America released Tuesday. “San Francisco is the only universal healthcare plan for all undocumented residents in America. Very proud of that…I’d like to see that extended to the rest of the state.” About 2.35 million people living in the Golden State in 2014 were illegal immigrants, according to Pew Research. Newsom said the system he implemented as mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011 “proved” the local government could fund healthcare for those who could not afford it, as well as those unlawfully present, without driving the city broke.

Nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico died in Hurricane Maria, study finds. Nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico died as a result of Hurricane Maria last September, many more than the 64 people the U.S. territory’s government initially reported in May, according to an initial report published Tuesday. A study commissioned by Puerto Rico’s government and carried out by George Washington University found 2,975 people perished from September through February. In May, a Harvard study concluded upwards of 4,600 people died in the three months following the hurricane, either from the storm or its after-effects. It estimated that number in part by determining that the mortality rate on the island was 62 percent higher than normal. Puerto Rico’s initial data stated that 64 people lost their lives as an immediate result of the storm. However, Puerto Rico stopped tracking deaths in the days after the disaster because it commissioned George Washington University to track government and hospital data.

Protect Our Care pressuring Collins and Murkowski on Kavanaugh. The group released new TV and radio ads Wednesday urging centrist GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine to oppose Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The ads highlight the chance that Kavanaugh could gut Obamacare and, with it, protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The campaign represents a last-ditch effort to get the centrist senators to oppose the nomination, which would be key to blocking Kavanaugh from getting to the high court. “Sens. Collins and Murkowski have claimed a commitment to health care — this nomination may be the truest test of where they actually stand yet,” said Leslie Dach, chair of Protect Our Care, in a statement. Kavanaugh’s hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee begin next week. Neither Collins nor Murkowski have agreed to support Kavanaugh. Collins has said repeatedly she wants to see what happens in the hearings before making a decision.

RUNDOWN

The Hill Why CBO won’t estimate Sanders’ Medicare-for-All bill

Washington Post Trump administration to pay New York, Minnesota for lost healthcare funds

Omaha World-Herald Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging petition to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot

CNN Gun-related homicides, suicides kill more people than war, study says

Forbes NIH comes out swinging on opioid abuse with anticipated $40.4 million to research chronic pain

Politico Trump administration warns California against ‘safe’ opioid injection sites

Louisville Courier-Journal Thousands plead with CMS to stop Bevin’s Medicaid overhaul