| Welcome to Friday's edition of Overnight Health Care. Today, the Trump administration is saying it's the ACLU's job to find parents who were deported without their children, bipartisan House members are pressing the administration on opioids, and an anti-abortion group wants to push red-state Democrats to vote for Brett Kavanaugh. We'll start with the latest politicking over President Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Anti-abortion group to launch tour pressing red-state Dems to vote for Kavanaugh. Abortion is at the center of the fight over Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, and now a new front is opening up.
Susan B. Anthony List, a leading anti-abortion group, is launching a tour to press red-state Democratic senators to vote to confirm Kavanaugh. The tour, beginning Monday, will feature 26 press conferences across Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, Florida, Alabama, Montana and West Virginia. The events will include local anti-abortion activists alongside SBA List leaders, the group said. "SBA List is mobilizing the pro-life grassroots nationwide and in key Senate battleground states to urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Kavanaugh," the group's president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. "Vulnerable senators up for re-election this year have a choice: stand with the President and their constituents and vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, or cave to pressure from Chuck Schumer and the extreme abortion lobby." Democrats to watch: Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court last year and are now being closely watched to see how they will vote on Kavanaugh. Many Democrats are warning that Kavanaugh could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, making abortion a crucial issue in the confirmation process. Read more here. Trump administration says it's up to the ACLU to find deported parents In a court filing late Thursday night, the Trump administration said the American Civil Liberties Union should be responsible for finding the hundreds of migrant parents who have been deported without their children as a result of the Trump administration's immigration policy. The ACLU is suing the administration, and represents a group of parents who were separated from their children after illegally entering the country at the southern border. Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing that the ACLU should use its "considerable resources," its network of advocacy groups, and information from the government to locate parents removed to foreign countries. The government also said the ACLU should be responsible for ensuring that each deported parent has an opportunity to speak with a lawyer to make sure they really wanted to give up the opportunity to be reunified. The Trump administration said the State Department has made contact with foreign governments to assist in facilitating family reunions. However, the administration has long argued that many parents deported without their children don't want to be reunited. ACLU's response: While eager to help, the ACLU said it should be the government's ultimate responsibility to track down the deported parents. The administration was the one that deported them in the first place. "Not only was it the government's unconstitutional separation practice that led to this crisis, but the United States Government has far more resources than any group of NGOs," ACLU attorneys wrote. Reunified children: Before President Trump reversed his decision, government officials had separated over 2,550 children from their parents and sent them to shelters. According to the filing, 1,535 children were reunited with a parent as of Aug. 1; almost a week after a court-mandated deadline. There are still over 500 kids still in custody; more than 400 of them have parents who were deported. Check out our coverage here. And for more from the ACLU, click here and here. Bipartisan leaders of House panel press drug companies on opioid crisis There's a new step the House Energy and Commerce Committee is taking in its months-long investigation of the opioid crisis. This time the panel is directly targeting the makers of opioids. The panel's leaders sent letters to three companies that make opioids, Insys Therapeutics, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and Purdue Pharma, requesting a briefing with the committee and answers to questions about how the companies marketed opioids and whether they looked the other way when they saw evidence of abuse of their products. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has long been under scrutiny for misleadingly marketing its product as nonaddictive. The company pleaded guilty in 2007 to misrepresenting the drug's addictive qualities. The committee's letter to Purdue questions whether the company actually changed its marketing behavior after 2007. The letter also points to evidence in media reports that the company knew the drug was being abused earlier than 2000, when officials have said they learned about the problem. Read more here. New rule will require hospitals to post prices online. Hospitals will be required to post online a list of their standard charges under a rule finalized Thursday by the Trump administration. While hospitals are already required to make this information public on request, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said the new rule would require the info be posted online to "encourage price transparency" and improve "public accessibility." Starting Jan. 1, hospitals will be required to update the information annually. Why it matters: It's part of the administration's push toward price transparency in health care, but a hospital's listed price often won't be what is paid by a consumer, after other charges are considered, like the cost of a physician tending to a patient, or how much an insurance company will cover. Read more here. Politifact weighs in on anti-Azar campaign. Remember the ad campaign launched against HHS Secretary Alex Azar? The campaign by the liberal reproductive rights group Equity Forward is targeting Azar for his role in enforcing the child separation policy. Well, it's been deemed "mostly false" by Politifact, which said the ad "neglects a striking amount of context." The ad portrays Azar as callously describing the situation with immigrant children at the border as "one of the great acts of American generosity and charity." "The ad contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False," Politifact said. What we're reading Welcome to the new health-care debate (Bloomberg Opinion) With scant record on the topic, Kavanaugh elusive on abortion (Associated Press) Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo sets up another test for experimental treatments (Stat) State by state Alaska governor highlights Medicaid expansion on 3rd anniversary of controversial decision (KTUU) Illinois governor signs laws aimed at nursing-home Medicaid backlog (WQAD) | 
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