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In New York, more than half of all children who are considered homeless under federal law are “doubled up," sometimes packed into tiny apartments with three or four other families, The New York Times reported. Other health news from around the U.S. comes from Michigan, Wyoming, Colorado, Iowa, Utah, Arizona, New York, and the District of Columbia. The New York Times: 154,000 New York City Students Were Homeless Last Year, A Record Number A record 154,000 public school students in New York City were homeless during the last school year, according to data released Monday, grim evidence that the city’s worsening housing crisis is wreaking havoc on its youngest and most vulnerable residents. Almost all these children sleep in shelters or in overcrowded apartments shared by other families, where they are considered homeless under federal education law. (Closson, 10/20) More health news from across the U.S. — The Hill: Local Health Leaders Rebuke Federal Vaccine Policy A group of two dozen public health leaders for major U.S. municipalities signed a letter published Monday, stating their united stance on supporting vaccinations and denouncing “repeated false claims” coming from federal officials. Published by the Big Cities Health Coalition, the letter was signed by the public health directors, commissioners and chief public health officers of places including Chicago, Los Angeles County, Boston, Seattle, Baltimore and Cleveland. (Choi, 10/20) Bridge Michigan: Michigan To Limit Medicaid Coverage For Weight Loss Drugs To People With Diabetes, Morbid Obesity Michigan’s new bipartisan state budget will limit Medicaid coverage of a group of weight loss drugs whose use has exploded in popularity in recent years. GLP-1 receptor agonists like Wegovy, Saxenda and Zepbound will be restricted in Michigan “exclusively to individuals classified as morbidly obese” under the new budget, with coverage contingent on the failure of other weight loss interventions to prevent higher-cost bariatric surgery. (Newman, 10/20) Wyoming Public Radio: Wyoming Might Ask Feds For Permission To Ban Candy And Soda From SNAP Purchases Wyoming lawmakers on the interim Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee voted to sponsor a draft bill on Oct. 17 that would ask the feds for permission to ban candy and soda from SNAP purchases, formerly called food stamps. (Clements, 10/20) The Colorado Sun: Two Members Of A Colorado Drug Board Don't Live In The State The home addresses of 40% of the members of a groundbreaking prescription drug price-capping board raise a surprising question: Does it matter if the people serving on boards setting policy for Colorado actually live in Colorado? Two of the five members of Colorado’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board now live outside the state, though they lived in Colorado when first appointed. State regulators say there’s nothing wrong with them continuing to serve on the influential board. (Ingold, 10/21) Iowa Public Radio: Domestic Violence Deaths Are On The Rise In Iowa — And Guns Are Being Used Most Of The Time Domestic violence homicide has gone up in Iowa, according to the latest crime data analyzed by the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The group's study gathered data from all homicides that were a result of domestic violence, which is defined as violence in personal relationships, including romantic and family relationships. (McKinney, 10/20) The New York Times: More Than 100 Cases Of Measles Reported In Utah And Arizona Just as one large measles outbreak peters out in the United States, another outbreak of the virus has taken off along the border of Utah and Arizona. The new outbreak began in August and has sickened more than 100 people, making it the second-largest cluster of cases in the country this year. A majority of the cases are in unvaccinated people. (Rosenbluth, 10/21) The New York Times: A Newborn Girl Is Abandoned At A Penn Station Subway Stop A newborn girl was found abandoned at the bottom of a staircase in a busy subway station in Midtown on Monday morning, according to the police and an internal police document. The police received an anonymous 911 call around 9:30 a.m. about the baby, who was discovered at the base of the staircase in a subway passageway at the 34th Street-Penn Station stop, according to the report and investigators inside the station. Her umbilical cord was still attached, according to a state official with knowledge of the matter. (Marcius and Cohen, 10/20) KFF Health News: ‘Cancer Doesn’t Care’: Citizen Lobbyists Unite To Push Past Washington’s Ugly Politics Mary Catherine Johnson is a retired small-business owner from outside Rochester, New York. She voted for Donald Trump three times. Lexy Mealing, who used to work in a physician’s office, is from Long Island. She’s a Democrat. But the women share a common bond. They both survived breast cancer. And when the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network organized its annual citizen lobby day in Washington last month, Johnson and Mealing were among the more than 500 volunteers pushing Congress to keep cancer research and support for cancer patients at the top of the nation’s health care agenda. (Levey, 10/21) This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
