Remembering Joan L. Cannon: I write because I can't help it. A better question would be why can't I help it? First, I need to find out what I know; second, I need to discover what I don't know; third, I need to note what I must not forget. I’m an indifferent amateur painter, and the other visual arts are beyond my talents altogether; I can't perform music. I find I can put words on paper. They can do for me what nothing else can.

President Trump's Executive Order threatens the continued existence of comprehensive health insurance coverage. Once Trump's Executive Order is implemented by federal agencies, those who are sick may no longer be provided coverage that meets their health care needs. Health insurers may sell across state lines today, but Trump's Executive Order is intended to allow the sale of products across state lines without requiring compliance with the consumer protection laws of the state in which the product is sold. This change in the long-standing state-based regulatory approach is very harmful to consumers.  

Jo Freeman writes: Constance Baker Motley was the first black woman to be appointed as a federal judge. But it was what she did before becoming a judge that warrants this biography. For twenty years she was on the front line of the legal assault on segregation, arguing dozens of cases as the only female attorney on the staff of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. I knew Pauli Murray and I met CBM, at a conference in 1998. I would love to hear a debate between the two of them on race and gender. Ford does an excellent job of describing CBM's impressive life and work. Maybe he should write his next book on Pauli Murray.

The Trump Administration has issued new regulations that significantly broaden employers’ ability to be exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive coverage requirement. The regulation opens the door for any employer or college/ university with a student health plan with objections to contraceptive coverage based on religious beliefs to qualify for an exemption. Any nonprofit or closely-held for-profit employer with moral objections to contraceptive coverage also qualifies for an exemption. Their female employees, dependents and students will no longer be entitled to coverage for the full range of FDA approved contraceptives at no cost.

This study estimates the impact of Missouri’s 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law on states’ homicide rates and controls for changes in poverty, unemployment, crime, incarceration, policing levels, and other policies that could potentially affect homicides. Using Uniform Crime Reporting data from police through 2012, the law’s repeal was associated with increased annual murders rates of 0.93 per 100,000 (+16%). These estimated effects translate to increases of between 55 and 63 homicides per year in Missouri.

As the US population ages and more people opt for home health care services instead of lengthy hospital and nursing home stays, the number of Americans who rely on the electrical grid to power life-sustaining home devices is soaring. Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast in 2012, caused prolonged power losses for millions of residents in 17 states and sent hundreds of medically fragile people to hospital emergency departments to plug in their devices. At the same time, people with life-threatening injuries were crowding the same hospitals, creating chaos and death. That’s when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided to help states locate and care for electricity-dependent residents during natural disasters. Using Medicare claims data, the agency created a database of people who use home medical equipment paid for by the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Elaine Soloway writes: I figured that the straw hat, with a weave that allows air to flow through, would not create the heat generated by a baseball cap. Perhaps, my disappearing shoots would magically reappear. So although the Fedora was purchased as sort of a prescription, I soon found that it was bringing me other benefits: people were stopping me on the street, or calling out from cars with, "Hey, I like your hat!" I raised [my daughters] without judgment because I wanted to do the opposite of my mother. Their grandmother undoubtedly loved me, but her criticism of my weight, my slouch, and other attributes that reminded her of my father, who she nagged often, wounded me.

During the recent UK broadcast, The Telegraph (London) was delighted to find that "Corfu was still sun-drenched, the titular family of lovable eccentrics remained in perpetual chaos and ... the tone was, as before, one of warm nostalgia and deep, abiding silliness." And The Guardian (London) hailed Season 2 as "sweet, and charming, and pretty, and funny…. [It's] that rather nice thing: Sunday night family drama entertainment."

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health estimates approximately 252,710 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and 40,610 will die of the disease. Approximately 72 percent of patients with breast cancer have tumors that are HR-positive and HER2-negative. The safety and efficacy of Verzenio in combination with fulvestrant were studied in a randomized trial of 669 patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer that had progressed after treatment with endocrine therapy and who had not received chemotherapy once the cancer had metastasized.

Jeanne Hubbell Asher wrote: The thrill of the hunt, beating the system, however one defines it, tag sale fever abounds in the New York suburbs and, for that matter, around the country whether on the scene or over the Internet. By any name, be it tag sale, garage sale, yard sale, they're all means of getting rid of things you no longer want or need. It's like cleaning house and getting paid for it. These are high-energy events: quick decisions, brisk sales, in and out and on to the next sale. For the faithful, sales are not only a part of their vocabulary but, indeed, an essential part of the fabric of their lives.

A bill to provide for activities to increase the awareness and knowledge of health care providers and women with respect to ovarian and cervical cancer; A bill to modify the determination of earned income for purposes of the earned income credit and the child tax credit for individuals in the Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma disaster areas.

The number of people with comprehensive health insurance that covers high-cost medical events would be reduced by millions compared with the baseline projections for each year during the decade, CBO and JCT estimate. That number could vary widely depending on how states implemented the legislation, although the direction of the effect is clear. The reduction in the number of insured people relative to the number under current law would result from three main causes. First, enrollment in Medicaid would be substantially lower because of large reductions in federal funding for that program. Second, enrollment in nongroup coverage would be lower because of reductions in subsidies for it. Third, enrollment in all types of health insurance would be lower because penalties for not having insurance would be repealed.

There are stunning pieces of gold jewelry, gold applique to adorn clothes, wooden drinking bowls that are over 2,000 years old. Many objects show evidence of cultural interaction, from Scythian wine-drinking learnt from the ancient Greeks and Persians, through ancient Greek craftsmen who depicted archers in Scythian dress, and the gold objects in the Achaemenid Oxus Treasure in the British Museum’s collection influenced by Scythian art.

The bill would establish a new block grant program for states, but overall the funding levels for the coverage expansion and Medicaid would be substantially lower than under current law, and states that have expanded Medicaid would be disproportionately affected by the cut and reallocation of funding. Because of the dramatic changes that the bill could make in health care financing and insurance coverage, it would have a direct impact on the availability and scope of coverage for millions of women with private insurance and Medicaid.

The Graham-Cassidy proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is reviving the federal health reform debate and could come up for a vote in the Senate in the next two weeks before the budget reconciliation authority expires on September 30. The Graham-Cassidy proposal goes beyond the American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed by the House in May and the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) that failed in the Senate in July. The Graham-Cassidy proposal revamps and cuts Medicaid, redistributes federal funds across states, and eliminates coverage for millions of poor Americans. 

H.R. 1701 would prohibit the use of federal funds to pay for official painted portraits of any officer or employee of the federal government, including the President, Vice President, Cabinet members, and Members of Congress. The legislation would not apply to the judicial branch. Appropriation laws have prohibited the use of federal funds for such portraits since fiscal year 2014. CBO is unaware of any comprehensive information on spending for official portraits before 2014, but we expect that most portraits of federal officials are for those in the line of succession to the presidency, members of the legislative branch, and military service personnel. The cost of such portraits appears to be about $25,000 per portrait, based on contract awards for a few federal portraits.

From her home in Texas, Laura Wilson set out across the state to photograph cattle ranches, the US - Mexico border region, and rural communities. She frequented rodeo arenas, witnessed parades and preachers’ sermons, and stood sideline at six-man football games. She traveled to remote corners of the West — to a naval air station in Nevada, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and Hutterite colonies in Montana. Camera in hand, Wilson sought images of daily life beyond the suburban and urban sprawl and composed a broader and unique vision of the modern West.

"Today, the FDA issued a Drug Safety Communication alerting health care providers and patients of the increased risk of serious side effects when combining these particular MAT drugs with benzodiazepines – often prescribed to treat anxiety, insomnia, or other conditions – and how to address these risks while continuing to maintain patients on MAT. In addition, the FDA also recently strengthened labeling for the MAT drug buprenorphine to emphasize that patients may require treatment indefinitely and should continue treatment for as long as they benefit and as long as the use of MAT contributes to their intended treatment goals."

Introduced: A bill to prioritize efforts to end human trafficking ... another to require mandatory restitution for victims of commercial sexual exploitation and continue efforts to combat sex tourism; a bill to modify the earned income tax credit to account for the amount by which economic growth has outpaced income growth; A bill to require institutions of higher education to have an independent advocate for campus sexual assault prevention and response.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: I must admit, though, that whenever I pass the bedroom door to go into the bathroom or to access my laundry, my spirits (and any drive I may have had) plummet when a glance reveals that crumpled bed. And I can’t erase that vision for the rest of the day. It remains emblazoned on my brain when I sit at my computer and try to finish that essay I started a week ago (the last time I made my bed) or go into the kitchen to cook dinner (which I hadn’t done since that day last week when I last made my bed).      

The 2016 real median earnings of men ($51,640) and women ($41,554) who worked full- time, year-round were not statistically different from their respective 2015 medians. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.805, an increase of 1.1 percent from the 2015 ratio of 0.796. This is the first time the female-to-male earnings ratio has experienced an annual increase since 2007.Between 2015 and 2016, the total number of people with earnings increased by about 1.2 million. In addition, the total number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 2.2 million between 2015 and 2016, suggesting a shift from part-year, part-time work status to full-time, year-round work status.

Casting is complete, filming has begun, and Downton Abbey's writer and creator Julian Fellowes is taking us back to 1922… but this time it's set in America, in his adaptation of Laura Moriarty’s best-selling novel, The Chaperone! Downton Abbey'‘s Elizabeth McGovern is Norma Carlisle, a Midwestern housewife whose life is forever changed when she chaperones a young and soon-to-be famous Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson, Columbus, The Edge of Seventeen) to the 1920s in New York. Returning series include Poldark, Victoria, The Durrels in Corfu while the new entries include The Collection, Little Women and The Man in the Orange Shirt.

"If we can better tailor the amount of opioids prescribed to the needs of patients, we can ensure patients receive appropriate pain control after surgery yet reduce the number of extra oxycodone and other opioid tablets in many homes that are just waiting to be lost, sold, taken by error, or accidentally discovered by a child," says Mark Bicket, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the paper's first author. Analysis of two studies — which focused on opioid storage and safety — shows that up to 77 percent of patients reported that their opioids were not stored in locked containers.