Overnight Health Care: Trump appointee at center of fight over religious freedom | HHS official placed on leave over Pizzagate comments | Four opioid hearings set for Wednesday | Planned Parenthood targets judicial nominee

View in your browser     Happy Tuesday and welcome to Overnight Health Care from Washington, where Mark Zuckerberg is probably peering from every television. (Four hours in and many more to go...)   In today's health care news...   Trump appointee at center of fight over religious freedom The Hill sat down with Roger Severino, the HHS official at the center of a battle between religious freedom and the rights of LGBT patients. Under his watch, the Office for Civil Rights at HHS is emphasizing the religious and moral rights of health care professionals by making it easier for them to opt out of procedures that may violate their beliefs. Democrats argue that these changes will essentially give health providers a license to discriminate against gay and transgender patients seeking treatment. Severino didn't deny that the changes would let health professionals opt out of procedures like gender reassignment surgery for transgender patients, but noted that his office was still reviewing public comments. "We can't prejudge until we consider all the public comments and come to conclusions," he said. He added: "The proposed regulation mentioned abortion or assisted suicide -- I think it was nearly 200 times. It mentioned LGBT issues a grand total of zero times."   Looking ahead: The comment period on the rule in question ended earlier this month. We're watching to see whether a final rule will clarify what kinds of procedures can be opted out of on moral or religious grounds. The proposed rule only specifically mentions three: abortion, assisted suicide and sterilization.     The bigger picture: The changes at OCR represent the latest attempt from the administration to elevate the issue of religious freedom. Last year, it announced broader exemptions to ObamaCare's contraception mandate for employers with moral or religious objections to provide birth control to their employees. Read more here.     Abstinence education advocate moves up at HHS Valerie Huber, a prominent abstinence education advocate at HHS, has been promoted, an HHS official confirmed Tuesday. Huber will now be the senior policy adviser to the assistant secretary of health, which oversees the 12 core public health offices. She was previously the chief of staff in the office. Huber is also the acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, which oversees the Title X family planning program and will continue in that role until a replacement is named, an HHS official said.   If you're following the opioid epidemic closely, we hope you have the ability to be in many places at once tomorrow. There are four different hearings on the opioid epidemic before four different committees.   Senate Health Committee, 10 a.m.: The panel will convene to talk about a discussion draft of a bipartisan opioid bill its leaders released last week. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 10 a.m.: On the agenda is a discussion covering local responses and resources to curb the opioid epidemic. House Energy and Commerce Committee, 2:15 p.m.: The panel will kick off the first day of a two-day hearing on a slew of bills focused on coverage and payment issues for treatment. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, 2:30 p.m.: Lawmakers will discuss fentanyl's role in the opioid crisis. FYI: Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin and was a major driver of the increase in death rates from 2015 to 2016.   Also tomorrow, Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, will testify in the House on the 2019 budget request. NIH would see a slight funding bump under the proposal, which is welcomed by public health advocates following last year's request for a 22 percent cut. Hearing is with the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, 10 a.m. in Rayburn 2358-C.   An HHS official was placed on administrative leave after comments she made promoting the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory were made public. According to videos and tweets first uncovered by Media Matters, Ximena Barreto, a deputy director of communications at HHS, repeatedly pushed false claims about the nonexistent pedophilia ring run out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, as well as made disparaging comments about African-Americans and Muslims.   Examples: November 2016, on Twitter: She tweeted that efforts by Hillary Clinton supporters to start an election recount were "a hoax so we get distracted from #Pizzagate." Also that month, on Periscope: "Don't listen to the recount and relax. We've got to use all of our efforts into Pizzagate and not let that one die because that's what the mainstream media is trying to get distracted from. So check all the Pizzagate stuff," Barreto said in the video.   Barreto was hired in December and an HHS official confirmed to The Hill that she'd been placed on leave "while the matter is reviewed." Read more here.   Planned Parenthood targets judicial nominee over abortion comments Wendy Vitter, President Trump's judicial nominee for the eastern Louisiana U.S. District Court, is being painted by Planned Parenthood as an anti-abortion extremist who should not be confirmed. In a five-figure digital ad campaign running nationally on Facebook and Twitter, Planned Parenthood is urging supporters to tell their senators to vote against her confirmation. "Wendy Vitter advocates for an extreme, anti-abortion agenda, making her unfit for a lifetime seat on the federal bench. We must stop her nomination!" reads a Facebook ad posted by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Read more here.   What we're reading Bill Gurley, who invested in Uber and other tech giants, sees opportunities to fix health care's broken business model (CNBC) The next naloxone? Companies, academics search for better overdose-reversal drugs (Stat) How a drugmaker turned the abortion pill into a rare-disease profit machine (Kaiser Health News)   State by state Maryland Gov. Hogan signs bills on health care, school safety (Associated Press) The states where people die young (The Atlantic) Pennsylvania's highest court to decide if drug use while pregnant is child abuse (The Associated Press)     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.