Daily check up: Vermont drug law struck down

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Vermont drug law struck down: Tracy Jan reports on the Supreme Court’s decision that a Vermont law prohibiting the sale of prescription drug records for marketing purposes violates free speech. The state put the law in place in 2007 to ban pharmacies from selling information about prescribing habits to drug manufacturers which would use the the records to tailor drug pitches to doctors. The court’s 6-3 ruling jeopardizes similar measures in Maine and New Hampshire.

Four years for health care fraud: A Massachusetts man who used someone else’s identity to get health care at Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire will serve four years in prison. Christopher Rabbia, who is also known as Christopher Mirabella, was sentenced Thursday in US District Court in Concord, Scott E. Kinney of Foster’s Daily Democrat reports. Rabbia pleaded guilty to charges including health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was ordered to pay $33,374.29 in restitution.

Unfunded public health programs: A report from the American Public Health Association due out today says money still has not been budged for many of the public health provision in the Affordable Care Act. The report says 10 of 18 programs aimed at training new public health workers are unfunded, the Associate Press reports.

McKinsey dust up: McKinsey & Co. released its methodology this week on a study that found 30 percent of employers surveyed were likely to stop offering insurance once the Affordable Care Act is in full effect in 2014. That didn’t silence critics of the report, who said it was biased. Floyd Fowler, a senior research fellow at the Center for Survey Research at University of Massachusetts, told TPM that the study used push poll tactics designed to elicit certain responses. The Wall Street Journal called the report “rigorous.”