RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest pill for hepatitis C sounds like a your-money-or-your-life choice.

Sovaldi cures the liver-wasting illness in 9 of 10 patients, but treatment can cost more than $90,000.

Leading medical societies recommend Sovaldi. Patients clamor for it. But insurance companies and state Medicaid programs are gagging on the price. Officials in one state are proposing to limit how many low-income patients can get Sovaldi.

Yet a new pricing survey indicates that if Sovaldi didn’t exist, insurers would still be paying in the mid-to-high five figures to treat the most common kind of hepatitis C.

And some of the older alternatives they’d be buying expose patients to more side effects, and are less likely to be a cure.

So it’s not that easy to say what a fair price should be.

MANHATTAN- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 9 a.m. on Tuesday in Riley County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Greg A. Harris, 41, Manhattan was westbound on Interstate 70 8 miles east of Manhattan.

For an unknown reason the vehicle drove onto the north shoulder and struck an unattended Ford F 350 and trailer.

The collision caused the Jeep to become airborne and overturn coming to rest in the north ditch.

Harris was transported to Mercy Regional Hospital.

The KHP reported Harris was properly restrained at the time of the accident.

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PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The campaign committee for House Republicans is telling television stations from New Hampshire to California to set aside $30 million in advertising time ahead of November’s elections.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has begun booking its advertising time with the bulk of it — almost $19 million — devoted to seats Democrats currently hold. In all, the GOP committee is buying time for 26 races.

The booking comes weeks after House Democrats booked $44 million in ad time for 36 races.

House Republicans are expected to hold their majority this fall despite Democrats’ heavy spending.

By booking the time so early, both party committees lock in a lower price and a discount of as much as 35 percent. The ad reservations can be modified should individual races become less competitive.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today took aim at weight-loss diet scams that she said represent “a crisis in consumer protection”-using a hearing in the Consumer Protection panel that she leads to pose tough questions to popular TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz on his frequent claims about “miracle” products, explore options for regulators and industry to crack down on deceptive practices, and urge media outlets to strengthen screening of false

“We’ve all heard and seen the ads, promising quick and substantial weight-loss if only you take this pill, drink this shake, use this device, or apply this cream,” said McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance. “All without adjusting diet or increasing physical activity. It seems too good to be true-and of course it is.”

McCaskill questioned Dr. Oz about his role, “intentional or not-in perpetuating these scams,” quoting three specific examples of statements Dr. Oz has previously made on his program:

• “You may think magic is make believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they’ve found the magic weight loss cure for every body type. It’s green coffee extract.”
• “I’ve got the number one miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. It’s raspberry ketone.”
• “Garcinia cambogia: It may be the simple solution you’ve been looking for to bust your body fat for good.”

“I can’t figure this out, Dr. Oz,” McCaskill said. “I get that you do a lot of good on your show. I understand that you give a lot of information that’s great information… you’re very talented and you’re obviously very bright. You’ve been trained in science-based medicine… I don’t get why you need to say this stuff when you know it’s not true. When you have this amazing megaphone, why would you cheapen your show?… With power comes a great deal of responsibility.”

Oz defended his endorsement of green coffee beans-citing a clinical study which McCaskill criticized as being funded by the product’s manufacturer-and also defended the featuring of alternative medicines on his show, including the “power of prayer.”

“Well, but prayer’s free,” McCaskill countered. “You don’t have to buy prayer.”

“Yes, that’s a very good point,” Oz acknowledged, later admitting, “I’ve used flowery language… which was meant to be helpful, but wound up being incendiary and provided fodder for unscrupulous advertisers… I realize that for my colleagues at the [Federal Trade Commission], I have made their job more difficult,” and agreed, “I need to be a part of this [solution]… I want to play a role.”

Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada acknowledged the problem, citing the potential for widespread confusion “when a person they believe has credibility on the issue makes a claim,” and Oz also agreed to a request from former Connecticut Attorney General and Senator Richard Blumenthal to “help drain the swamp” of deceptive advertising of such products.

The FTC’s Mary Koelbel Engle, Associate Director of the Division of Advertising Practices, agreed: “When consumers see products and ingredients marketed in sophisticated ways on respected media outlets and praised by people they trust, it can be difficult for them to listen to their internal voices telling them to beware. That is why we have long sought the partnership of the media to screen deceptive diet ads before they run.”

McCaskill also noted that the problem of deceptive advertising-a problem former prosecutor and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota labeled “seductive” for many consumers-is not new. The FTC filed its first weight-loss case in 1927, when McGowan’s “Reducine” claimed in True Romance magazine that “excess fat is literally dissolved away, leaving the figure slim and properly rounded, giving the lithe grace to the body every man and woman desires.” Since then, the FTC has filed more than 250 cases challenging false and unproven weight-loss claims, including four settlements announced in January and a complaint filed in federal court last month against sellers of a Green Coffee Bean dietary supplement.

Further discussion at the hearing centered on guidance issued earlier this year to publishers and broadcasters on how to spot phony weight-loss claims when screening ads for publication.

Other witnesses at today’s hearing included: C. Lee Peeler, President and CEO of Advertising Self-Regulatory Council; Steven Mister, President and CEP of the Council for Responsible Nutrition; Robert Hatton Haralson IV, Executive Director of TrustInAds.org; and Dr. Daniel Fabricant, Executive Director and CEO of the Natural Products Association.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate for the first time has approved an openly gay black man to become a top-level federal judge.

Senators voted 98-0 on Tuesday to confirm President Barack Obama’s nomination of Darrin Gayles. Gayles will be a district court judge in Florida.

By 52-44, the Senate also approved Obama’s choice of a gay black woman, Staci Yandle, to serve as a district judge in Illinois. While that is not a first, the White House said Yandle’s confirmation meant Obama has now appointed more female judges than any other president.

In a third roll call, the Senate voted 92-4 to make Salvador Mendoza a federal district judge in Washington state. The White House said Obama has appointed the most Hispanics to the federal bench of any president.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A new lawsuit seeks to block the public from voting on a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit tenure protections for public school teachers.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday contends that the proposed ballot initiative is unconstitutional because it effectively would change two parts of the constitution – one dealing with education, the other with collective bargaining.

Two teachers from the Francis Howell School District are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including one who serves as president of the local chapter of the National Education Association.

Supporters of the initiative submitted petition signatures last month to get the measure on the November ballot. Those signatures are still being counted and verified.

The proposal would limit teachers to three-year contracts and require their evaluations to be based on student performance.

INDEPENDENCE (AP) – An Independence woman will serve four years’ probation for her role in the theft of a 1,000-pound statue from the National Trails Frontier Museum in Independence.

Thirty-four-year-old Kelli Summers was sentenced Monday in the June 2013 theft of the Pioneer Woman statue.

Prosecutors believe Summers and two men stole the 6-foot statue and destroyed it in an unsuccessful plan to sell it for scrap.

The Independence Examiner reports Summers received probation because she cooperated with prosecutors. Thirty-seven-year-old Jeremy Ratliff, of Independence, was sentenced last week to three years in prison. In March, 30-year-old Randy Perez, also of Independence, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The statue was valued at $75,000 when it was stolen.

An artist has been commissioned to create a similar statue for the museum.

By Mike Sherry
KHI News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A last-minute deal to expand Medicaid eligibility in Missouri almost materialized in the waning days of this year’s legislative session, briefly breathing life into an issue that had seemed all but doomed.

Missouri State Sen. Ryan Silvey, a Kansas City Republican, provided a behind-the-scenes look at high-level negotiations that occurred just before the session ended without an agreement.
The last-minute talks – which Silvey says included a meeting among himself, GOP leaders from the House and Senate, and Gov. Jay Nixon – appear to have moved the issue of Medicaid expansion closer to the finish line than it has been since the debate began two years ago.

“I was encouraged that there was even a push for last-minute negotiations,” he said. “I think that tells you how close we were.”

Currently, Missouri limits Medicaid eligibility to nonelderly adults earning no more than 19 percent of the federal poverty level. As contemplated under the Affordable Care Act, expansion would mean extending it to those with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level.

In Missouri, that translates into 300,000 more people on the Medicaid rolls. Federal funding would cover 100 percent of the costs for the first three years and 90 percent afterward.

A late-session deal between Democrats and Republicans on abortion and labor issues opened the door for the talks about Medicaid expansion and entitlement reform, Silvey says.

“We basically found ourselves with most of the week left and all of the major issues dealt with except for this and some of the labor stuff,” he said. “The thought was, now that we’ve got all this time, we might as well see if we can get to a deal on those things, and that is why we began the last-minute push.”

Deal called for labor, abortion concessions

The outline of the deal that emerged, Silvey said, would have given Democrats Medicaid expansion and given Republicans entitlement reform and some additional measures that labor unions opposed. Silvey didn’t provide details on the labor discussions because, he says, he was more focused on entitlement reform.

The meeting broke up, Silvey said, with members of the GOP leadership pledging to run the framework of the plan past rank-and-file members of their party in both chambers.

An hour or two after the meeting, though, House Majority Leader John Diehl, of Town and Country, told Nixon that the outline would not pass muster in the House, Silvey said.

Attempts to reach Diehl and House Speaker Tim Jones, of Eureka, through their legislative offices were unsuccessful.

Expansion would bring in billions of dollars in federal matching funds between 2014 and 2020. In addition, the state estimates it would save millions in state funding by shifting medical costs to Medicaid recipients who would largely be covered by the federal government.

Silvey said his plan would have put those projected savings into a fund providing the state match once the federal government ceases covering the full costs of newly eligible Medicaid recipients.

And, under a key provision of his plan, providers would bear the brunt of the burden if the fund becomes insolvent by seeing their reimbursements reduced. Silvey said his reasoning was that providers such as hospitals and community health clinics would stand to gain a lot financially by having more patients covered through insurance.

That protection for the state has “opened the eyes of a lot of my colleagues,” Silvey said.

Silvey also said his proposal was unique in placing job-search requirements on recipients of entitlement programs that overlap with Medicaid eligibility. That way, he says, Missouri could overcome federal objections to placing work requirements on Medicaid recipients.

He predicts that his plan and a similar House proposal will provide the basis of renewed debate when the General Assembly reconvenes next year.

Hope for 2015

“I did have a few of my Republican colleagues tell me that they thought we needed to do something and they would be willing to help next year,” Silvey said.

The Missouri State Medical Association (MSMA) is among a number of statewide groups supporting Medicaid expansion. The organization’s director of government affairs and general counsel, Jeff Howell, agrees that proponents made strides in this year’s legislative session.

“I think the ball is rolling in the right direction for 2015,” Howell said.

Although the House apparently pulled the plug on any last-minute deal this year, the Senate has been a sticking point for Medicaid expansion proponents.

Howell said the makeup of the Senate might be more favorable next year with the departure of members through term limits or decisions not to seek re-election. But, he said, “Each session is an individual beast. You just never know.”

The MSMA represents physicians, and Howell also said the organization is pressing for Medicaid expansion to include a rate increase. Missouri Medicaid reimburses at about 60 percent of what commercial insurers pay, he says.

Having a lot of newly eligible customers through expansion would not benefit physicians if the dollars and cents don’t add up, he says.

“If it’s not worth their time, they are not going to see (Medicaid patients),” he says. “It is just as plain as that.”

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Misouri based hospital chain plans to cut 125 jobs in the region and another 95 positions elsewhere in the Catholic health care system.

Mercy Health announced the layoffs on Tuesday as part of what it called “a response to economic and environmental changes in health care.” The company says the eliminated jobs represent less than one percent of the company’s 40,000 employees and don’t involve workers who treat patients.

Mercy is the sixth largest Catholic health care system in the U.S. and operates 32 hospitals in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says a Libyan militant accused in a deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is in U.S. custody.

The capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala marks the first time the U.S has apprehended one of the accused perpetrators in the 2012 attack. Khattala is a senior leader of the Benghazi branch of the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia.

His capture was first reported by the Washington Post.