The New York Times (6/10, Subscription Publication), in an editorial, praises the Obama Administration for “recently…reversing a 1981 policy that excluded gender reassignment surgery from coverage under Medicare.” The Times notes that an HHS appeals board “concluded in May that the exclusion was ‘no longer reasonable’ because the surgery is safe and effective for individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria – the medical term applied to those whose identities differ from their gender at birth – and can no longer be considered experimental.”

The Times adds that “since very few people choose to have the surgery, and even fewer after age 65, the budget consequences will be negligible.”

Related Links:

— “Progress on Transgender Rights and Health,” New York Times, June 9, 2014.

Congressional Quarterly (6/10, Attias, Subscription Publication) reports that legislators have arrived at “a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a five-year reauthorization of federal autism programs, boosting the package’s chances of clearing Congress before central provisions of the Combating Autism Act sunset at the end of September.” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) “plan to introduce the compromise legislation in the Senate on Monday, according to a Senate source involved in the negotiations, while the House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected” to “amend the current bill (HR 4631) to report out the new language at a Tuesday markup.”

In addition, “the legislation would change the name of the legislation from the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2014, which references the name of the original 2006 law (PL 109-416), to the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act of 2014, or the Autism CARES Act of 2014.”

Related Links:

Related Links:

— Congressional Quarterly (requires login and subscription)

USA Today (6/10, Weintraub) reports that according to a study published online June 9 in JAMA Pediatrics, autism is “one of the costliest disabilities – adding $2.4 million across the lifespan if the person has intellectual disabilities and $1.4 million if they don’t.”

The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog points out that the “money spent caring for Americans with autism each year exceeds interest paid on the national debt.” In the case of adults, “the biggest costs were tied to living expenses, especially in facilities that require lots of staff.” Other costs include “medical expenses and the lost productivity of people on the autism spectrum.” For children, costs include early-intervention treatments and lost parental productivity.

The Boston Globe (6/9, Salahi) reports that people with autism often “require specialized schooling and other services that are not covered by insurance, which contribute to the increased costs.” In fact, “the annual cost of autism therapies and treatments can exceed $40,000 to $60,000 per year, according to the Autism Action Partnership.”

Bloomberg News (6/10, Ostrow) reports that after reviewing “US and UK studies on patients with autism and their families to examine costs,” researchers discovered that “the national cost of supporting children with autism is estimated to be $61 billion to $66 billion a year in the US and $4.5 billion to $5 billion a year in the UK.” The study received funding from the New York-based advocacy group Autism Speaks.

The Huffington Post (6/10, Pearson) points out that an accompanying editorial observed that “an autism diagnosis means ‘a lifetime of absorbing many of the financial and caregiving burdens associated with the disorder, especially in adulthood when the availability of societal supports diminishes.’”

Also covering the story are Reuters (6/10, Seaman), TIME (6/10, Park), the Kaiser Health News(6/10, Gold) “Capsules” blog, CNBC (6/10, Boyle), Congressional Quarterly (6/10, Young, Subscription Publication), and HealthDay (6/10, Thompson).

Related Links:

— “Caring for those with autism runs $2M-plus for life,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, June 9, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Kaplan) reports that according to the results of a Gallup poll (6/10) released June 9, “the longer a person has been out of work, the greater the chances that he or she will develop a clinical case of depression.” The poll revealed that “overall, unemployed Americans were nearly twice as likely as working Americans to be depressed – 12.4% versus 6.4%.” The poll data “are based on interviews with 356,599 Americans who were surveyed in 2013 for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.”

The Washington Times (6/10, Klimas) reports that approximately one in every five individuals “who have been unemployed for 52 weeks or more report that they are either depressed or being treated for depression,” a figure nearly double that of those “who have been unemployed for just three to five weeks.” The poll also indicated that long-term unemployment “could lead to a higher rate of health problems like depression or anxiety.”

The Kansas City (MO) Star (6/10, Stafford) reports, “The long-term unemployed also may have financial worries that keep them from seeking professional help or filling prescriptions for medication that could help them.”

The National Journal (6/10, Berman, Subscription Publication) points out that “a 2003 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that depression costs the US economy tens of billions of dollars annually, in part because of ‘direct treatment costs, lost earnings due to depression-related suicides, and indirect workplace costs.’” Also covering the story are the Huffington Post (6/9, Chan) and Forbes(6/9, Adams).

Related Links:

— “Risk of depression is nearly twice as high for unemployed Americans,” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2014.

In “The Blog” for the Huffington Post (6/7), psychologist Nicholas Covino, president of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, wrote in wake of the Santa Barbara rampage, “Despite what is sensationalized in the media, the majority of violent episodes in this country are not triggered by mental illness.” In fact, “a recent study by the American Psychiatric Association found no predictable patterns linking criminal conduct and mental illness symptoms; of the 429 crimes studied, 7.5 percent were directly related to symptoms of mental illness.” People with mental illnesses “are more likely to commit suicide with a gun than homicide.”

Related Links:

— “Lessons from Santa Barbara: Why We Need a Long-Term Approach to Ending Violence,” Nicholas Covino, The Huffington Post, June 6, 2014.