Overnight Health Care: FDA takes first step to cut nicotine levels in cigarettes | Trump's health chief backs official at center of abortion fight | Trump opioid plan will reportedly include death penalty for some drug dealers

View in your browser     The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday took the first step in creating a new rule to reduce the level of nicotine allowed in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels. In an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, FDA asked the public to submit comments over the next 90 days on the impact of a product standard for the maximum nicotine level in cigarettes. "Tobacco use causes a tremendous toll of death and disease every year and these effects are ultimately the result of addiction to the nicotine contained in combustible cigarettes, leading to repeated exposure to toxicants from such cigarettes," the agency said in the notice. "This nicotine addiction causes users to engage in compulsive use, makes quitting less likely and, therefore, repeatedly exposes them and others to thousands of toxicants in combusted tobacco products." Read more here.   Trump's health chief backs HHS official at center of abortion suit Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar indicated Thursday he would not fire Scott Lloyd, the HHS official who has tried to block unaccompanied immigrant minors in U.S. custody from getting abortions. Asked by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) when Azar would fire Lloyd, Azar replied: "This is simply not an issue of Mr. Lloyd. This is the statutory obligation of the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to coordinate and improve the care of placement of these minors, including providing for serious medical services to them." Lloyd has been at the center of a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed against HHS for its policy of denying abortions to unaccompanied immigrants in the care of the ORR. While calls for Lloyd's dismissal among Democrats have intensified, Azar said that would not happen. Read more here.     Trump opioid plan will include death penalty for some drug dealers: report A White House plan to combat the opioid crisis calls for the death penalty to be imposed on certain drug dealers, according to a new report. The report, in Politico, says the Trump plan will call for the death penalty as an option when dealing and trafficking are "directly responsible for death" in cases involving opioids. The plan is still being finalized but could be released as early as Monday. Trump has reportedly been talking privately for weeks about allowing prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in drug cases. At a campaign event last week, Trump praised countries that execute drug lords. "If you go to Singapore, I said, 'Mr. President, what happens with your drugs?' 'We don't have a problem. We have a zero tolerance. We have a different type of people,' " Trump said. Read more here.   Idaho, Trump officials meet on state's controversial ObamaCare plan Idaho officials met with Trump administration officials and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) on Wednesday to try to find a path forward on the state's controversial plan to skirt ObamaCare rules. Idaho insurance commissioner Dean Cameron told The Hill that he met with administration officials in Washington on Wednesday to discuss possible changes to the state's plan. Last week, the Trump administration blocked the plan, saying that it appeared to violate ObamaCare, a significant move politically because it was a Republican administration blocking a GOP governor from loosening the health law's rules. Democrats had been pressuring the Trump administration to step in to enforce the health-care law. But Idaho officials are not backing down from their plan and are now seeking to find a path forward through making adjustments to their proposal, Cameron said. Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who sent the letter last week blocking Idaho's proposal, attended the meeting. Read more here.   Senators target 'gag clauses' that hide potential savings on prescriptions A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill Thursday to ban "gag clauses" for pharmacies, which they say hide potential savings on prescriptions from consumers. The clause, which keeps pharmacies from telling customers they could save money on a prescription if they paid out of pocket instead of through insurance, has sometimes been included in contracts between pharmacies and insurers and companies that manage drug benefits for employers. "Insurance is intended to save consumers money. Gag clauses in contracts that prohibit pharmacists from telling patients about the best prescription drug prices do the opposite," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in a statement Thursday. Read more here.   What we're reading Hospitals are confronting a new opioid crisis: an alarming shortage of pain meds (Stat) Class-action lawsuit filed against Pacific Fertility for loss of up to thousands of embryos and eggs (The Washington Post)   State by state California health care proposals could set the stage for a government-run system (Sacramento Bee) Health care advocates rally at Idaho Capitol (The Associated Press) Long miles, lonely roads: In rural Texas, dying at home means little is easy (Stat)   From The Hill's opinion pages We must invest in new labs for the CDC to prepare for future health threats Texas suit aims to expose ObamaCare's house of cards     Join The Hill on Wednesday, March 21, for Leadership in Action: The Hill's Newsmaker Series featuring Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Reps. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), and Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.). RSVP Here     Send tips and comments to Jessie Hellmann, jhellmann@thehill.com; Peter Sullivan, psullivan@thehill.com; Rachel Roubein, rroubein@thehill.com; and Nathaniel Weixel, nweixel@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @thehill, @jessiehellmann, @PeterSullivan4, @rachel_roubein, and @NateWeixel.         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Healthcare Newsletters     Forward Healthcare Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.