Lake Cumberland District Health Department using polls in an effort to get school boards to make campuses tobacco-free

Countywide smoking bans are unlikely to pass anytime soon in most of rural Kentucky, but more county school districts are making their campuses tobacco-free. Now a multi-county health department is trying to get rural school boards to do that, with public-opinion polls showing that county residents overwhelmingly favor the move.

Department logo has been altered to
show Clinton County in yellow.

The Lake Cumberland District Health Department conducted the poll in Clinton County, and said it found that 86.55 percent were in favor and 7.16 percent were opposed. The rest had no opinion.

Making a campus tobacco-free means that members of the public are not free to smoke at school athletic events, so the poll also asked, “Would you like to see our school become tobacco-free at all events?” The results were virtually the same: 85.3 percent answered yes and 8.7 percent answered no, even though one-fourth to one-fifth of the county's residents smoke and it has a long history of raising tobacco.

"The results are perhaps surprising to some, considering the rate of tobacco usage in the county," reports the Clinton County News. The poll of 749 residents has an error margin of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

The department also surveyed 100 teachers in the school system and found that 77 percent would "definitely" support making the schools 100 percent tobacco-free.

The health department presented the survey and other findings to the Clinton County Board of Education June 15, but the board took no action. The department noted that a recent survey found that 28 percent of the county's students in eighth through 12th grades had used smokeless tobacco in the previous 30 days. "That level was the highest in the Lake Cumberland District," the Clinton County News reports.

The Casey County Board of Education adopted a smoke-free policy after a poll by the health department showed 70 percent of the county's residents favored it, the Casey County News reported.

Merger mania: Aetna bids for Humana; Cigna may want it too; Anthem has bid for Cigna; UnitedHealth makes a play for Aetna

Aetna Inc. has made a bid to buy Louisville-based Humana Inc.,"one of a number of recent moves by big health insurers to find merger partners," Dana Mattioli and Liz Hoffman report for The Wall Street Journal.

The proposal was made in "the last few days," the Journal reports. "It isn’t clear how much Aetna indicated it would pay. Humana has a market value of $30 billion. The company hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to help it field takeover interest, people familiar with the matter have said."

Meanwhile, Aetna has been approached by another big insurer, UnitedHealth Group. "It isn’t clear what, if any, Aetna’s response was," the Journal reports. "News of the Aetna proposal comes the same day Anthem Inc., another of the five big managed-care companies, said it boosted its takeover offer for Cigna Corp.,"offering $47.5 billion. "Anthem went public with the bid after the two sides failed to reach agreement, and is seeking to put pressure on Cigna through Cigna shareholders."

"Cigna itself is eyeing Humana, people familiar with the matter have said. The five big managed-care companies are jockeying for deals that will enable them to get more efficient and better respond to changes in the health care landscape in the U.S.," the Journal reports.

"Humana, which has an estimated 12,000 employees and roughly 2,000 contractors in Louisville and the immediate region, has been seen as an attractive target in the health-insurance industry because of its well-run business running Medicare Advantage programs," Grace Schneider reports for The Courier-Journal. The company is valued at $30 billion.

"The company's membership rolls have surged to more than 3 million in the last year," Schneider writes. "That growth comes when health care reform has forced providers — hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, among them — to consolidate to increase their leverage and clout in an increasingly competitive health care segment. For the same reason, health insurers are now looking to consolidate."

Biotech firm buys UK professor's anti-overdose nasal spray

Pharmacy Professor Daniel Wermeling at the University of Kentucky invented a nasal spray to fight heroin overdoses, and a biotech firm has bought the product, which may be on the market within six months, pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The device "contains a single dose of a mist form of naloxone and delivers the drug in a way similar to how Flonase is used to treat allergies," Mary Meehan reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The product is on a fast track for approval because of the rising rates of heroin overdoses across the country, said UK Provost Tim Tracy, former dean of UK's pharmacy school. Wermeling doesn't know exactly when his product will be on the market, but he said the FDA approved another fast-track, anti-overdose therapy after only 14 weeks. The fast-track program speeds development of drugs to treat serious or life-threatening conditions. "Last year, 233 people [in Kentucky] died with heroin in their systems, according to the state medical examiner's office," Meehan notes.

Wermeling has been developing the project at UK since 2009 with the help of more than $5 million in federal and state tax dollars. Tracy said Indivior PLC, the spinoff pharmaceutical company that bought the nasal spray, will be able to manufacture, market and distribute the product. Right now, emergency responders and hospitals must draw naloxone, branded as Narcan, in a syringe to provide the correct dose.

Three doctors, nine others in western half of Kentucky are indicted in the largest-ever federal 'takedown' of Medicaid fraud

Former Dr. Fred Gott of Bowling Green was arrested.
(Photo: Miranda Pederson, Bowling Green Daily News)

Twelve people in the western half of Kentucky, including three doctors, have been charged with Medicaid fraud in what the federal government calls its biggest-ever "takedown" of the problem, Andrew Wolfson of The Courier-Journal reports.

The indictments allege "a half-dozen schemes involving nearly $8 million in alleged fraudulent billings," Wolfson writes. "The offenses include $5 million in false billings for muscle-relaxant injections that were never delivered to patients, as well as a staged car wreck in which three people allegedly conspired to get controlled substances and fraudulent reimbursements."

In another case, Wolfson reports, "a medical practice that treated car wreck patients is accused of using the DEA numbers of nurse practitioners to order hydrocodone for herself and falsely billing it to an insurance company. Nationally, the sweep resulted in charges against 243 people, including 46 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals."

John Kuhn, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, told Wolfson that about $1 billion of annual Medicare and Medicaid expenses are fraudulent. Medicare is the federal health-insurance program for people over 65; Medicaid is the federal-state program for the poor and disabled.

Former Dr. Fred Gott of Bowling Green, a 63-year-old cardiologist, was charged with "conspiracy to dispense controlled substances, health care fraud and money laundering," Deborah Highland reports for the Bowling Green Daily News. "The Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force opened an investigation into Gott’s practices after Warren County Coroner Kevin Kirby alerted the task force about drug overdose deaths involving Gott’s patients, task force director Tommy Loving said."

Trimble County parents protest 'humiliating' treatment of students whose school lunchroom accounts are in the red

Parents in Trimble County are demanding that the county schools stop serving cheese sandwiches to students whose lunchroom accounts are in the red, Kayla Vanover of WAVE-TV in Louisville reports.

"Embarrassing, humiliating and 'flat out wrong' is how parents described the school's policy to take a student's lunch right off the lunch table and toss it because the child's parents had not replenished their account to cover the meal," Vanover reports.

On May 20, Lori Ritchie's daughter "sat down to eat, but her hot meal was thrown away and she was given a cheese sandwich with a side," Vanover reports. "Ritchie said she doesn't blame the workers, but she said the policy needed to be changed a long time ago. Wednesday, a special called public meeting with the school board allowed other parents and community members to voice their opinions on the current policy, in hopes an agreement could be made."

Doug Joyce, grandfather of a student, told the board, "It is bullying. We throw kids out of school or reprimand them for bulling, so why should we let grown-ups bully kids like that?" A board member, unidentified in Vanover's story, said "We don't want any child to be embarrassed or receive an alternative meal, so we are really going to beef up the communication."