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House Democrats plan quick vote to protect pre-existing condition protections. House Democrats are planning a quick vote early next year to shore up protections for pre-existing conditions, hoping to put Republicans in a bind early in the new Congress, a top Democrat said Thursday.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said that Democrats are likely to pursue legislation that would counter a lawsuit from 20 states seeking to get rid of all of Obamacare, including pre-existing condition protections. Neal is currently the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee and could become the committee chairman when the Democrats take over the House in January.

“We need a vote on pre-existing conditions right away,” Neal told the Washington Post in an interview. Neal said that he wants legislation to affirm that guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions was “settled law.” A federal judge is expected to rule any day now on a preliminary injunction from the 20 states to immediately nix enforcement of the pre-existing condition protections. The Justice Department supports the lawsuit.

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Incoming Democrat wants vote on ending Obamacare alternatives. Newly elected Iowa Democrat Cindy Axne said Thursday that her first priority when her party assumes control of the House next year will be to stop the Trump administration from expanding short-term health plans, which are less-expensive alternatives to Obamacare that don’t cover pre-existing conditions. Axne’s comments, made during a call with the pro-Obamacare group Protect Our Care, offer a preview of the likely Democratic agenda. Democrats ran on healthcare and protecting pre-existing conditions, an issue that helped propel candidates such as Axne to Congress.

“The first thing that we need to do is stop Republican attacks on pre-existing conditions and stop any movement towards extending these short-term plans,” Axne said on the call. “I support legislation to overturn Trump’s expansion of these plans that don’t cover pre-existing conditions.” The administration issued a regulation earlier this year that expands the duration of short-term plans from 90 days to nearly 12 months, making them a viable alternative for more people. The plans are cheaper than plans sold on Obamacare’s insurance exchanges because, unlike Obamacare-compliant plans, they do not have to cover people with pre-existing conditions and they do not have to offer a standard set of benefits.

The Medicare for All Act has a new lead sponsor in the House. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who is also co-chair of the Medicare for All Caucus, will become the lead sponsor on the bill, her office confirmed to the Washington Examiner, replacing Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who was elected attorney general in Minnesota.

HHS to pursue Medicare payment reforms that past Republicans scorned. The Trump administration will pursue more experiments to reshape how it pays for healthcare services through Medicare, even though Republicans in Congress pushed back on making similar experiments mandatory during the Obama era. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said during a speech in Washington Thursday that the department is going to expand some of the experiments that tie Medicare reimbursements to doctors to the value of the care they provide rather than a general fee for services. The statement is the latest sharp break from GOP orthodoxy for HHS. The GOP railed against the Obama administration for making similar experiments mandatory.

Nonpartisan agency asks for pause to Arkansas Medicaid work requirements. A nonpartisan government agency has asked the Trump administration to pause a Medicaid program in Arkansas that requires certain beneficiaries work or train for work as a condition of keeping their medical coverage. The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, or MACPAC, sent a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar saying it was “highly concerned” that more than 8,400 people had been dropped from Medicaid rolls in Arkansas because of the policy. “The commission calls for a pause in disenrollments in order to make program adjustments to promote awareness, reporting, and compliance,” the group wrote. The Arkansas program requires certain people to log their hours online, and if they fail to do so, they are taken out of the program and are not allowed to re-enroll until the following year. +The program, MACPAC said, may not be set up in a way that allows people to successfully log the requirements, and has “high stakes for beneficiaries who fail.” The group noted it would be difficult for someone without access to the Internet or transportation to follow the requirement, and suggested Arkansas may be able to collect data on how many beneficiaries are asking for help with finding a job.

Top Democrat slams Trump for birth control rule. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said that the Trump administration had decided “steamroll right over the will of the people and double down on his harmful policies” with its move this week to allow employers to opt out of providing birth control for religious or moral reasons. “People want us to listen to women, not ignore them, they want us to make it easier for people to get the care they need, not harder, and they want us to hold this Administration’s feet to the fire, not let it run amok,” the Washington senator said.

VA bans medical employees from all union activities at work. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it will no longer allow on-staff medical professionals to engage in taxpayer-funded union activities while at work. The VA’s policy change prevents more than 100,000 VA employees from taking official time. Of that group, about 430 are doing some work during working hours on union activities, including physicians, dentists, podiatrists, chiropractors, and optometrists. The policy change, which takes effect Nov. 15, is a repudiation of Obama-era collective bargaining agreements that the VA reached with its workers. The department is currently in negotiations to change these agreements so that they are “reasonable, necessary and in the public interest.” In fiscal year 2016, taxpayers spent over $49 million in VA salaries to employees for working more than a million hours doing union work instead of their healthcare job. Conservatives have argued for years that this so-called official time needs to be cutback or ended completely to help save taxpayer money. The VA said it changed its policy to “improve VA’s ability to deliver healthcare to veteran patients.”

Cigarette smoking plummets to record low. A record low 14 percent of U.S. adults counted themselves as cigarette smokers in 2017, according to a report released Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest results indicate that the agency is nearing its goal to reduce smoking among adults to 12 percent by 2020. The smoking rate for 2017 amounts to about 34 million people. Smoking rates were even lower among adults ages 18 to 24, down to just 10 percent in 2017. People whose education tops out at a GED are most likely to smoke, at 42.6 percent.

FDA approves Ebola test. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a fingerstick test for Ebola, agency officials announced Friday. The test comes with a battery-operated reader that shows whether someone is infected or not. It comes as healthcare workers are struggling to keep infections under control in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

FDA to survey customers about allergens in cosmetics. The FDA plans to launch a online survey of allergens in makeup, hairspray, perfume, nail polish, and skincare products. They survey will help officials better understand how much people know about what is in their products, how people decide whether to buy certain products or avoid ingredients, went to talk to a doctor about side effects, and when to report them to the FDA. The agency posting a public comment about the possibility of conducting a survey, and will need to get approval from the Office of Management and Budget before proceeding.

RUNDOWN

Washington Post FDA plans to impose severe restrictions on e-cigarettes

NPR Healthcare for the migrant caravan: Flu, blisters but definitely not smallpox

The Hill Doctors take on NRA over tweet warning them to ‘stay in their lane’

Wall Street Journal Google picks geisinger CEO to oversee healthcare initiatives

Texas Tribune Texas may have again illegally reduced special education funding

Sacramento Bee Covered California leaps into open enrollment with multi-city tour featuring dance

STAT News HHS recommended that the DEA make kratom a Schedule I drug, like LSD or heroin

Modern Healthcare Medicaid expansion in Alaska, Montana threatened by midterm results