California lawmakers are moving to rein in the pharmaceutical middlemen they say drive up costs and limit consumers' choices. The bill sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom would require pharmacy benefit managers to be licensed in California and would ban some business practices. Newsom vetoed a previous effort three years ago. (Don Thompson, )
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline's coverage. For today's national health news, read KFF Health News' Morning Briefing.
More News From Across The State
Sacramento Watch
San Francisco Chronicle: California Bill Would Label Gas Stoves A Health Risk California could soon become the first state to require new gas stoves and ranges to have health warning labels alerting consumers to the potential respiratory health risks of cooking with the appliance. State lawmakers have passed AB2513, authored by Assembly Member Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, which would require gas stoves and ranges sold in California stores to come with an adhesive warning label starting Jan. 1, 2026. Online sellers would have to post a warning prominently on their website starting Jan. 1, 2025. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of September to sign this bill, and others, into law. (Ho, 9/13)
Health Care Industry
Los Angeles Times: California OB-GYN Barred From Practice After Investigation Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has barred a Beverly Hills obstetrician-gynecologist from practicing at its facilities after an investigation into "concerning complaints from patients," according to a spokesperson. Dr. Barry Brock, a longtime physician who has advertised his low rate of cesarean section births, has had his hospital privileges terminated and the matter reported to the Medical Board of California, according to Cedars-Sinai. (Purtill and Alpert Reyes, 9/14)
VC Star: $1.1 Billion Medi-Cal Plan Undergoes Sweeping Changes The tax-funded Gold Coast Health Plan carries a budget in excess of $1 billion a year and provides insurance for nearly one of every three Ventura County residents. And it is undergoing changes as significant as any in its 13-year existence. (Kisken, 9/15)
CalMatters: CA Hospitals Close Maternity Wards Faster Than U.S. Rate Since CalMatters reported a year ago on the spread of maternity care deserts, Californians have continued to lose access to labor and delivery services. This year, four hospitals have shut down their maternity wards, with another four slated to close by November. That's nearly on par with the 10 maternity ward closures in 2023. In total, according to CalMatters' analysis of state records, 56 hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2012 — that's 16% of all general acute care hospitals in the state. (Hwang, Yee and Ibarra, 9/16)
The Washington Post: George Berci, Innovative Surgeon Who Pioneered Laparoscopy, Dies At 103 George Berci, a surgeon who revolutionized the modern operating room by developing the tools and techniques of laparoscopy, a minimally invasive procedure that has improved the experience of millions of patients under the knife, died Aug. 30 at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 103. His death was announced by Cedars-Sinai, a medical center in Los Angeles where he was recruited in 1967 and where he remained for the rest of his career, reporting for work until he recently became ill with covid-19. He died of complications from the virus, said his daughter, Katherine Berci DeFevere. (Langer, 9/13)
Modern Healthcare: CMS Eyes Cybersecurity Oversight Policies For Vendors The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is planning oversight of third-party healthcare vendors in the wake of the Change Healthcare cyberattack, said Jonathan Blum, the agency's principal deputy administrator. Blum, who also serves as chief operating officer for CMS, said at Modern Healthcare's Leadership Symposium Thursday that the agency is working to determine what levers it can pull to ensure severe disruptions in care like those linked to the cyberattack on the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary aren't repeated. (Early, 9/13)
Becker's Hospital Review: What Could Make Physicians Stay: Survey Physicians surveyed by McKinsey shared insights on the workforce shortage, including changes that could be made to encourage them to remain with their current healthcare organization. The U.S. could see a shortage of up to 64,000 physicians by the end of 2024 and 86,000 by 2036, according to McKinsey's article, published Sept. 10. These projections stem from multiple factors, such as the aging U.S. population and burnout accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Kuchno, 9/13)
San Francisco Chronicle: Why These SF Residents Were Eager To Get The New COVID Vaccine Fall marks the start of the annual respiratory virus season, and health care providers this month began offering this year's newly updated COVID vaccines — the now annual shots tailored to better match the circulating strain of the virus. Nationally, COVID vaccine uptake for 2023 was lower than what health officials had hoped for, especially in the demographic that benefits most from vaccination — adults 65 and older, who account for the majority of COVID hospitalizations and deaths. (Ho, 9/14)
CIDRAP: National Academies: Wastewater Surveillance Could Be Even Better For Detecting Pathogens A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report recommends five actions to transition the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS)—developed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic—to a forward-looking version for both endemic and emerging pathogens. One of the recommendations was to "strategically add more endemic pathogens, namely respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, to SARS-CoV-2 routine surveillance." (Van Beusekom, 9/13)
Gun Violence Epidemic
CNN: Trump Safe After Being Targeted In Second Apparent Assassination Attempt The FBI is investigating what it said is an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his Florida golf club Sunday, the second time in two months there's been an apparent attempt on the former president's life. Trump is safe and was not harmed in the incident, his campaign said. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said during a Sunday news conference that his office was informed at 1:30 p.m. ET of shots fired by the Secret Service, when agents fired at a man who had a rifle in the bushes along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club. Trump had been playing golf at the time, moving between holes five and six, a source briefed on the matter told CNN. (Holmes, Miller, Sullivan, Perez and Herb, 9/16)
The Washington Post: Here's What We Know About The Weapon Recovered At Trump's Golf Course Authorities said they recovered the rifle that a gunman pointed into a Florida golf course where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was playing Sunday. Unlike in the assassination attempt against Trump in July, and in many of the mass shootings that have plagued the country in recent years, authorities believe the suspected gunman did not use an AR-style rifle. The weapon recovered by authorities was identified by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office as an "AK-47-style rifle" equipped with a scope. However, a firearms expert told The Washington Post the gun more closely resembled an SKS-type rifle. (Wu and Kelly, 9/15)
Politico: Harris 'Deeply Disturbed' By Possible Assassination Attempt: 'I Condemn Political Violence' Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday condemned political violence and said she was "deeply disturbed" by the possible assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump. "As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence," Harris said in a statement, issued from the vice president's office. (Ward, 9/15)
Presidential Election
The Hill: Vance Says 'Of Course' Trump Has A Plan 'To Fix American Health Care' Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican nominee for vice president, said "of course" former President Trump has a plan to "fix American health care" in a Sunday interview and also outlined several benchmarks of a health care framework. "He, of course, does have a plan for how to fix American health care, but a lot of it comes down Kristen to deregulating the insurance market so that people can choose a plan that actually makes sense for them," Vance told NBC News's Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press" on Sunday when asked for specifics about the former president's health care plan. (Fortinsky, 9/15)
Military.com: Vance Would 'Consider' Expanding Private Care Options For Veterans If Trump Wins Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance expressed support for expanding veterans' ability to use private doctors in a podcast interview this week. During an appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show released Wednesday, Vance was asked by the host, a former Navy SEAL who said he stopped using the Department of Veterans Affairs after one try, whether he would consider privatizing veterans' health care. "I think I'd consider it," replied Vance, a former enlisted Marine who deployed to Iraq in a public affairs role. (Kheel, 9/13)
Los Angeles Times: Trump Says He Won't Tax Tips, OT, Social Security. Critics See 'Sham' The last time Donald Trump was president, he delivered a massive tax cut, touting the many benefits of the 2017 law. But a slew of nonpartisan reviews found it mostly benefited the wealthy, expanded the federal deficit enormously and didn't deliver promised economic benefits to the middle class. Perhaps recognizing that his previous tax cut lacked populist appeal, the former president has spent the summer reeling off new tax-cut proposals — promising to exempt tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay from federal taxes. Trump used a rally Thursday in Tucson to roll out the latest proposal, to stop taxing overtime pay. (Rainey, 9/15)
Politico: Kamala Harris Led The Crackdown Against A Top Prostitution Website. Some Say She Went Too Far. It was 2016, and California prosecutors were mulling an audacious bid to shut down the internet's most popular clearinghouse for sex-related services. Their boss, Kamala Harris, pressed her deputies to aggressively prosecute the founders of the website, Backpage.com. Her office brought the first-ever criminal charges targeting the site, and the case came to exemplify Harris' tough-on-crime reputation as state attorney general. (Gerstein and Demko, 9/15)
Reproductive Health
San Francisco Chronicle: With Abortion On The Ballot, Can A Californian Help Swing This State? Running in a Sacramento County district that has voted blue for more than a decade, Maggy Krell, a deputy attorney general, has decided to take her Democratic campaign for California State Assembly on the road. To Nevada. In October, Krell plans to bring three busloads of staff and volunteers to Reno to knock on doors, phone-bank and deliver letters to female voters in an attempt to swing the battleground's six electoral votes toward her former boss, Vice President Kamala Harris, California's attorney from 2011 to 2017. (Hosseini, 9/15)
Politico: Vance Backtracks On Whether Trump Would Veto National Abortion Ban Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Sunday dodged answering whether former President Donald Trump would veto a national abortion ban if he were president. "I think that I've learned my lesson on speaking for the president before he and I have actually talked about an issue," Vance said on NBC. Trump's "been incredibly clear that he doesn't support a national abortion ban," Vance said in an interview with Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press." "He wants abortion policy to be made by the states, because he thinks, look, Alabama is going to make a different decision from California, and that's OK. We're a big country. We can disagree." (McCarthy, 9/15)
Los Angeles Times: Arizona's 1864 Abortion Ban Is Officially Off The Books Arizona's Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions officially was repealed Saturday. The Western swing state has been whipsawed over recent months, starting with the Arizona Supreme Court deciding in April to let the state enforce the long-dormant 1864 law that criminalized all abortions except when a woman's life was jeopardized. Then state lawmakers voted on a bill to repeal that law once and for all. (Govindarao, 9/14)
Axios: Patients Turn To DIY Drug Recipes For Abortion Pills, Medical Treatments Patients are increasingly joining online communities to learn how to make pirated versions of abortion pills, GLP-1s and other prescription drugs and medical treatments. It's an outgrowth of frustration with high prices and bottlenecks in the health system, combined with a broader medical freedom movement built around patient empowerment and fueled by social media. (Reed, 9/16)
The Washington Post: Tubal Sterilization Less Effective Than Previously Thought More than 5 percent of women who get their tubes tied later become pregnant, a new analysis suggests — and researchers say the failure of tubal sterilization procedures, which are widely considered permanent, "may be considerably more common than many expect." The study, published in NEJM Evidence, used data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which looks at contraception use, pregnancy and birth outcomes among a representative sample of U.S. women aged 15 to 44. The data was assembled during four waves of data collection from about 4,000 women who had tubal ligations between 2002 and 2015. (Blakemore, 9/15)
Housing Crisis
Voice of San Diego: Countywide Momentum Gathers For Homeless Encampment Bans Less than six months after the U.S. Supreme Court gave California cities the green light to ban homeless encampments, homelessness policy across much of San Diego County is rapidly changing direction. Yearslong efforts to reach out to homeless residents and connect them with services suddenly are taking a back seat to encampment bans and stepped-up enforcement. Four of the county's five largest cities now either outlaw public camping or are actively considering a ban. Advocates for the homeless say they have mostly stopped contesting the bans and are recalibrating in the face of hardening public opinion. City officials say residents are forcing their hand by demanding tougher laws. (Hinch, 9/16)
The Mercury News: San Jose Program Housed Homeless Family Whose Son Dreamed Of A Bed On a recent late summer evening, the sounds of children's sneakers clopping against the blacktop echoed across a hotel parking lot near downtown San Jose. "Yeah, touchdown!" cried 7-year-old Dimmi, spiking a leather football to the pavement in celebration. Not too long ago, Dimmi, like many of the other children now staying at the hotel, woke up each morning in a tent pitched along a city sidewalk. (Varian, 9/16)
San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Eyes Major Homeless Crackdown With Proposed RV Ban San Francisco is looking at sweeping new restrictions on overnight parking of recreational vehicles, drawing backlash from homeless advocates. The proposal comes as the number of people living out of their vehicles has soared over the past two years and as Mayor London Breed is locked in a tough re-election fight with homelessness a top concern. (Angst, 9/13)
Los Angeles Times: A Flier Promoting A Homelessness Ballot Measure Leaves Out A Key Fact: It's A Tax Increase A campaign flier arriving in mailboxes around Los Angeles County promotes a ballot measure that would mandate "a new approach to expand programs that are proven to prevent homelessness and increase housing affordability." The measure, which will appear on the November ballot, would "repeal the existing approach," it says. What it doesn't say is that the measure is a tax and that it would double the quarter-cent sales tax that funds the existing approach. (Smith, 9/16)
Addiction Treatment
The New York Times: California Drug Clinic Operator Convicted In $3 Million Kickback Scheme A California man who operated addiction treatment facilities in Orange County was convicted this week of paying nearly $3 million in illegal kickbacks for referrals of patients to his facilities, according to federal prosecutors. From at least October 2018 until December 2020, the man, Casey Mahoney, 48, of Los Angeles, paid about $2.87 million to "so-called 'body brokers'" who gave thousands of dollars to patients to coax them into Healing Path Detox L.L.C. in Huntington Beach and Get Real Recovery Inc. in San Juan Capistrano, two treatment centers Mr. Mahoney operated, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said in a statement on Friday. (Sanders, 9/13)
Environment and Health
Los Angeles Times: Smoke From Line Fire Sent Big Bear's Air Quality To Hazardous Levels Plumes of smoke from Southern California's fires blew across Big Bear on Sept. 11, causing local air quality meters to return off-the-chart readings for particulate pollution. Officials report air quality on a color-coded scale, in which green indicates "good" and maroon denotes "hazardous" conditions. An air quality index above 150 is considered unhealthy for everyone. Above 300 is considered hazardous. On Wednesday, Big Bear's AQI for fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, reached a breathtaking daily average of 593. (Kambhampati and Greene, 9/14)
USA Today: Southern California Wildfires Affect Tens Of Millions From Miles Away With Toxic Air Three wildfires surround Dr. Karen Jakpor's Southern California home and she doesn't know where to go. Even though fire lines are miles away, smoke billows down the mountains into the hills and valleys of the Inland Empire, a mega-region east of Los Angeles. Jakpor, 62, has asthma. Toxic wildfire smoke severely cuts her breathing. Asthma flares, already debilitating with regular pollution in the heavily congested region, are worsening with the Line, Airport and Bridge fires that triangulate on Riverside, where Jakpor lives. Jakpor is looking for a respite outside of the area as the blazes continue to burn with no control. (Cuevas, 9/13)
Los Angeles Times: How AI Can Help Make Esophageal Cancer Less Deadly Approximately 600 times a day, the esophagus ferries whatever is in your mouth down to your stomach. It's usually a one-way route, but sometimes acid escapes the stomach and travels back up. That can damage the cells lining the esophagus, prompting them to grow back with genetic mistakes. About 22,370 times a year in the United States, those mistakes culminate in cancer. (Kaplan, 9/16)
Bloomberg: Bayer Eyes Wider Use For Prostate Cancer Drug Bayer AG's fast-selling prostate cancer drug reduced the risk of the disease progressing in data that could see it receive approval for wider use. Nubeqa alongside androgen deprivation therapy reduced the risk of death or cancer progression by 46% compared with just receiving androgen deprivation therapy, according to full data from a late stage study. If approval is secured it could mean doctors could prescribe the drug for patients both with and without chemotherapy, expanding treatment options. (Furlong, 9/16)
Bloomberg: Pfizer Drug Helped Cancer Patients Regain Weight, Study Shows Pfizer Inc.'s experimental drug for cancer weight loss was shown to help patients regain weight in a mid-stage study, offering fresh promise for treating the dangerous muscle-wasting condition. In cancer patients, a syndrome called cachexia causes changes in metabolism and appetite. It can lead to the loss of critical skeletal muscle and fat that weakens the body and, in some cases, can make cancer treatments less effective. (Muller, 9/14)
Stat: Incyte's Checkpoint Inhibitor Delays Disease Progression In Anal Cancer Trial A widely used immunotherapy approach helped stave off disease progression in patients with a type of anal tumor, researchers reported Saturday, potentially setting up the drug for approval in a cancer that's largely caused by human papillomavirus. (Joseph, 9/14)
Modern Healthcare: American Cancer Society CEO Karen Knudsen To Step Down American Cancer Society CEO Karen Knudsen is stepping down after more than three years at the helm. Knudsen, who also leads the affiliated American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, will serve as a strategic adviser through early 2025 to help with the leadership transition. The organization plans to name an interim CEO by the end of the year and conduct a national search for a permanent CEO, according to a Friday news release. (Hudson, 9/13)
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