USA Today (1/15, Zoroya) reports Johns Hopkins scientists “studying the brains of young veterans who died long after war shed light on a growing theory” that the “damage caused by bomb blasts” is “unique enough to be its own disease.” The study “reveal brain lesions different than those that occur in sports, car crashes or drug overdoses.” Co-author Vassilis Koliatsos, said, “We saw a pattern that we had not seen before.”

Related Links:

— “Bomb-induced brain injury may be its own disease,” Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, January 15, 2015.

The Washington Times (1/16, Klimas) reports veterans groups “warned Thursday that the Choice Card program…is not a long-term fix for the VA’s poor services” and “told lawmakers to boost the department’s budget” to allow the hiring of additional staff and acquiring of “a new scheduling system to prevent another waiting list scandal.” Four “of the top veterans service organizations” released a report indicating that the VA needs an additional $2 billion in 2015 to meet demand. Carl Blake, of Paralyzed Veterans of America, said, “We don’t believe sufficient resources have been devoted to the VA health care system.”

Related Links:

— “Veterans advocates push for more funding for VA,” Jacqueline Klimas, Washington Times, January 15, 2015.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1/16, Twedt) reports that the US Supreme Court next week “will hear oral arguments on an Idaho case that could carry implications for” healthcare entities that serve Medicaid beneficiaries. The case centers on whether healthcare entities have a right to sue a state for not adequately reimbursing them. The article explains that five nonprofit health entities filed a lawsuit in 2009 against the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare after the state froze Medicaid payment rates in 2006. In 2011, “a US district judge ordered the state to increase its reimbursement rates, a ruling upheld on appeal last April.”

Related Links:

— “Supreme Court to weigh hospitals’ right to higher Medicaid reimbursement,” Steve Twedt, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 16, 2015.

Congressional Quarterly (1/16, Bettelheim, Subscription Publication) reports that starting this month, many physicians “who were likely to expand basic medical care offered to low-income Americans — a goal of the 2010 health care law — could see Medicaid fees drop an average of almost 43 percent.” The pay cut comes after Congress declined to renew a temporary fee bump in the ACA designed to shrink the “historic gap” between what Medicaid and Medicare pay physicians. According to CQ, the drop in reimbursements puts access to care for millions of patients at stake. Physician lobbies “will try to persuade Congress this spring to retroactively restore the bonuses, but their best hope may be pressing states to step forward and pay the difference with their own money.”

Related Links:

— Congressional Quarterly (requires login and subscription)

The Los Angeles Times (1/15, Zarembo) reports that an analysis to appear in the February issue of the Annals of Epidemiology indicates that “recent veterans have committed suicide at a much higher rate than people who never served in the military.” The data indicated that “the rate was slightly higher among veterans who never deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, suggesting that the causes extend beyond the trauma of war.” The analysis also found that “recent female veterans commit suicide at a rate more than twice as high as other women.”

Epidemiologist Michael Schoenbaum, PhD, of the National Institute of Mental Health, commented on the study’s findings, saying, “People’s natural instinct is to explain military suicide by the war-is-hell theory of the world.” He added, “But it’s more complicated.” Schoenbaum, an expert in military suicides, had no involvement with the study.

Related Links:

— “Detailed study confirms high suicide rate among recent veterans,” Alan Zerembo, Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2015.