Los Angeles Times: California Senate, Assembly Advance Their Own Plans On How To Spend Tobacco Tax Revenue
Perhaps the biggest budget skirmish that remains unsolved this year is how California should spend revenue from the tobacco tax voters approved last fall. Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put that money to expand overall spending on Medi-Cal, which provides subsidized healthcare for the poor. But ... some of [the] initiative's backers, namely doctor and dental groups, have cried foul, arguing that money is meant to go to increasing payments for providers. Now, the Senate and Assembly are weighing in. (Mason, 5/25)

In other news from Sacramento —

Los Angeles Times: No One Knows How Many Untested Rape Kits There Are In California. This Bill Aims To Fix That
Tens of thousands of rape kits are sitting on shelves in police and sheriff’s department evidence rooms nationwide. And no one has tested them to see what crimes they could help solve. A bill by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) would help determine how many of those unanalyzed exam kits exist in California, part of a national backlog that federal officials have grappled with for nearly two decades. (Ulloa, 5/26)

Capital Public Radio: Senate Approps Casualties: Drugged Driving Limit, College Free Speech Bill 
A California Senate committee blocked dozens of bills Thursday without even mentioning them – let alone voting on them – during a 45-minute hearing. ... Among the more noteworthy casualties: a bill that sought to protect free speech on college campuses, in response to conservative speakers like Ann Coulter being blocked from speaking at UC Berkeley, and a measure that would have set legal limits for driving under the influence of marijuana, now that voters have legalized its recreational use. (Adler, 5/25)

Stat: Battle Over A Pricey Drug Now Engulfs The University Of California
Dozens of advocacy groups are urging one of the largest American universities not to pursue a patent for a pricey cancer drug in India, opening another front in an ongoing battle over access to the medicine. At issue is the Xtandi prostate cancer treatment, which was originally invented at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has become a flashpoint in a wider debate in the United States over the extent to which Americans should pay high prices for medicines that were developed, at least in part, with taxpayer dollars. (Silverman, 5/25)

Reuters: Activists Call On In-N-Out Burger To Join The Superbug Fight
Nearly three dozen consumer, environmental and public health groups on Thursday pressed privately held In-N-Out Burger to make good on its vow to set time lines for phasing out the use of beef raised with antibiotics vital to human health. Some 70 percent of antibiotics needed to fight infections in humans are sold for use in meat and dairy production. Medical researchers say overuse of the drugs may diminish their effectiveness in fighting disease in humans by contributing to the rise of dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria often referred to as "superbugs." (Baertlein, 5/25)

Los Angeles Times: What The DNA Of The Zika Virus Tells Scientists About Its Rapid Spread
A family tree can reveal a lot, especially if it belongs to a microscopic troublemaker with a knack for genetic shape-shifting. DNA sleuthing can outline the route an emerging pathogen might take once it makes landfall in the Americas and encounters a wholly unprotected population. It’s a modern take on old-fashioned public health surveillance strategies that focused on the exhaustive collection and analysis of samples from the field. Now they’ve been bolstered by rapid genome sequencing — and the result can be a picture of an epidemic rendered in exquisite detail, and in near-real time. (Healy, 5/25)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: For-Profit Hired For Sonoma County Jail Inmates’ Mental Health 
Further expanding the outsourcing of health care services at the county jail, Sonoma County is hiring a for-profit company to replace the county agency that has been caring for mentally ill prisoners since 1983. California Forensic Medical Group, or CFMG, which has provided general medical services at the jail since 2000, will administer an array of psychiatric services, including mental health evaluations, group and individual psychotherapy, crisis management and psychotropic medication services. The move displaces about 13 county mental health workers, who will be transferred to vacant county mental health department positions, said Michael Kennedy, director of the local mental health division. (Espinoza, 5/25)

In other news from across the state —

The Press-Enterprise: How One California County Closed All Its Medical Marijuana Dispensaries - 118 In 10 Years
For some California cities, officials say trying to shut down illegal pot dispensaries can seem like an endless game of Whack-a-Mole — close one down, and another pops up. But in Riverside, officials appear to have whacked every last mole. Deputy City Attorney Neil Okazaki told council members Tuesday, May 9, that city efforts have rid Riverside of all but one pot dispensary. The last facility shut May 12, days before another opened Tuesday, May 16. Then the new one agreed to close after city officials visited the next day. Okazaki said Wednesday, May 24, that officials believe there remain none in the city. (Robinson, 5/24)

Politico: GOP Turns Gloomy Over Obamacare Repeal
A feeling of pessimism is settling over Senate Republicans as they head into a weeklong Memorial Day recess with deeply uncertain prospects for their push to repeal Obamacare. Senators reported that they’ve made little progress on the party’s most intractable problems this week, such as how to scale back Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and overall Medicaid spending. Republicans are near agreement on making tax credits for low-income, elderly Americans more generous, but that might be the simplest matter at hand. (Everett and Haberkorn, 5/25)

The New York Times: McConnell May Have Been Right: It May Be Too Hard To Replace Obamacare
Shortly after President Trump took office, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, met privately with his colleagues to discuss the Republican agenda. Repealing the Affordable Care Act was at the top, he said. But replacing it would be really hard. Mr. McConnell was right. (Steinhauer and Pear, 5/26)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Senators Will Contemplate Health-Care Overhaul During Weeklong Recess
The Congressional Budget Office’s latest analysis of the health-care overhaul bill passed by House Republicans underscored for their GOP colleagues in the Senate that they need a different version. They just don’t know yet what it will look like. “We’re not going to pass that bill in the Senate,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said of the legislation passed by the House earlier this month dismantling and replacing much of the Affordable Care Act. But the Senate’s bill, he added, is a “work in progress.” (Peterson and Armour, 5/25)

Bloomberg: The Senate Can’t Pass Health Care Without This Man 
Bill Cassidy, the first-term Republican senator from Louisiana, thinks the House’s Obamacare repeal bill failed to consider the impact it will have on one crucial constituency: patients. A medical doctor whose political life was forged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and during decades working in a charity hospital, Cassidy wants a more robust replacement for Obamacare, one that lives up to Donald Trump’s campaign promise to replace it with a law that covers more people at a lower cost. (Dennis, 5/25)

Politico: Senate Republicans Start Their Version Of Obamacare Repeal
Senate Republicans have started writing their Obamacare repeal bill — even though few decisions have been made about how to resolve the biggest policy disagreements. Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi, whose committee oversees the budget process that the GOP is using to fast-track the repeal effort through the Senate, told POLITICO he’s starting to draft the legislation. (Haberkorn, 5/25)

The Hill: Insurers: GOP Should Keep Pre-Existing Condition Protections 
Health insurers are calling on Senate Republicans to maintain ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions as they draft their replacement bill. The Affordable Care Act forced health insurers to adjust to a remade individual market that now prevented them from denying people coverage or charging them more based on pre-existing conditions. Those rules are known as guaranteed issue, and community rating.  (Sullivan, 5/25)

Los Angeles Times: Rep. Darrell Issa Says The Federal Employee Insurance Program Should Be Expanded To All Americans 
Though it wasn't included in the House Republicans' healthcare bill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) still believes Americans should have access to the same insurance plans federal employees pick from, and he's hoping the Senate will embrace the idea. In a letter Thursday, Issa asked the Senate Health Care Working Group to consider opening the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to more, or all, Americans. (Wire, 5/25)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Explaining The CBO’s Vision Of Health-Care Catastrophe In The GOP Plan
The new Congressional Budget Office report on the American Health Care Act, the House GOP replacement for Obamacare, demonstrates how difficult it is to craft a complex law that affects one-sixth of the U.S. economy. There are many variables — and unforeseen outcomes — that can undermine even the most carefully crafted policy initiative. As a service to readers, we are going to explain one surprising element of the CBO report — that in some states, the law’s efforts to protect people with preexisting medical conditions might end up undermining the individual insurance markets so much that effectively there is no protection at all. (Kessler, 5/26)

NPR: Patient And Doctor Groups Say CBO Score Reveals Health Care Bill's Flaws
Health care groups that represent doctors and patients are warning members of Congress that the House Republicans' plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act would hurt people who need insurance most. The groups are responding to the latest assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that the proposed American Health Care Act would leave 23 million more people without health insurance than under current law and would cut the deficit by $119 billion over 10 years. (Kodjak, 5/25)

The Associated Press: GOP Senators Say Tough Report Complicates Health Care Bill
Republicans senators conceded Thursday that a scathing analysis of the House GOP health care bill had complicated their effort to dismantle President Barack Obama's health care law. "It makes everything harder and more difficult," Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said of a Congressional Budget Office analysis projecting that the House bill would cause 23 million Americans to lose coverage by 2026 and create prohibitively expensive costs for many others. (5/25)

Los Angeles Times: Single-Payer Healthcare In California? Time To Take A Cold Shower And Return To The Real World 
state-run universal healthcare system? California only? It’s fantasy... But it’s a rallying cry for many liberal followers of Bernie Sanders. And some Democratic legislators are seriously pursuing the idea, urged on by the politically powerful California Nurses Assn. (George Skelton, 5/25)

The Mercury News: Single Payer Detracts From Pressing California Health Care Issue
Sen. Ricardo Lara’s single-payer legislation was a non-starter in California from day one, even before it was given an eye-popping $400 billion price tag. He knows that, and so does anyone paying attention to Sacramento and Washington politics. Gov. Jerry Brown would almost certainly veto it if it passes the Legislature, and the GOP Congress has zero interest in the cooperation required to make it work even if the governor were to sign it into law. (5/23)

Sacramento Bee: Universal Health Care For California? In Fantasyland, Maybe.
Sen. Ricardo Lara deserves credit for delving into the complex reality of health care. But for now, his prescription, a California-only universal health care system, looks less like a salve for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act than a political rallying cry – and a fiscal fantasy. (5/22)

Los Angeles Times: For Democrats In California, A Generational Shift Pulls The Party Left, With Danger And Opportunity Ahead 
The generational and ideological fight that split the party over the weekend centered on the party chairmanship and an extended tussle over whether the party and its leaders were sufficiently supportive of a state Medicare-for-all plan. That healthcare arose as the most prominent issue reflected the party’s changed circumstances. (Cathleen Decker, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Trumpcare Will Make It Even Harder For Millions Of California'S Kids To Graduate And Get Jobs
The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office once again exposes the sharp and bitter truth about the House Republican efforts to “repeal and replace” President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The American Health Care Act — now in the hands of the Senate — represents a glaring transfer of wealth, security and opportunity from low-income to high-income individuals. (Walter Zelman and Tom Epstein, 5/24)

Sacramento Bee: House Republicans' Health Care Bill Is Sick
President Donald Trump and House Republicans gathered in the Rose Garden on May 4 to crow about their achievement, willfully ignorant of the pain they were prepared to inflict on poor and frail Americans. How proud they were that they played to their base by passing a bill, HR 1628, that would eviscerate Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act. (5/23)

Los Angeles Times: If You Plan On Having A Baby Under Trumpcare, You Better Start Saving Now 
Under a compromise struck by moderate Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) and conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus, states would be permitted to waive the 10 “essential health benefits” that Obamacare required insurers to cover, and replace them with their own list... Maternity coverage would be squarely in the targets of states that did not previously require it, simply because it’s so expensive to provide — the average cost is about $17,000 a year, or more than $1,400 a month, for women with private insurance coverage, the CBO said. (Jon Healey, 5/25)

Los Angeles Times: Die Hard: Republican Healthcare Bill Has No Problem Throwing You Off A Building
The horror show that is the GOP healthcare bill became even gorier this week as the Congressional Budget Office released its highly anticipated analysis of the legislation. As if those numbers alone weren’t sufficient to made this one of the most consumer-unfriendly bills ever, the Republican legislation also would make it possible for states to opt out of requirements under the Affordable Care Act and for insurers once again to turn the screws on sick people. (David Lazarus, 5/26)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's Budget Plan Continues His Deceitful Attack On The Disabled — And Violates A Campaign Pledge
We pointed out back in March that Trump budget direct Mick Mulvaney displayed an alarming ignorance about Social Security disability benefits during an appearance on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” Now it turns out that there was method to his muttering. In effect, Mulvaney was telegraphing that the Trump White House was planning to cut disability benefits sharply. Axios reported Sunday that the Trump budget due out Tuesday will include $1.7 trillion in cuts to major social insurance and assistance programs, including food stamps, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Social Security disability. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's Team Issues A Stunningly Dishonest Study Of Obamacare Rate Increases
The Department of Health and Human Services seemed mightily pleased with a statistic it issued Tuesday. The agency’s figures showed that premiums on the Affordable Care Act exchanges “doubled” from 2013 through this year. This might not sound like good news for the people buying their coverage on those exchanges, but to HHS it was vindication. “This report is a sobering reminder of why reforming our healthcare system remains a top priority of the Trump administration,” agency spokesperson Alleigh Marré said. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/24)

San Jose Mercury News: Mentally Ill Kids Shouldn’t Languish In Juvenile Halls
California’s mentally ill children need clearer laws when going through the juvenile court system... While competency laws exist for juveniles suffering from mental illness, there are no clear, prescriptive guidelines for juveniles on the delivery and duration of services like those that exist in the adult system. Because of this gap in the law, these very vulnerable children languish in juvenile halls, unable to receive the mental health treatment they desperately need. (Mark Stone and Laura Garnette, 5/25)

Los Angeles Times: Parents Are Getting The Message On Vaccinations, But What About School Start Times? 
Recently released data show that California's vaccination rate of kindergartners, at nearly 96%, represents a three-point increase from the 2015-16 school year. The rate is now at its highest level since the current set of immunization requirements took effect in 2001. The rate has improved since a state law was passed after the measles outbreak at Disneyland in late 2014 and early 2015 -- an outbreak that was attributed largely to transmission by un-vaccinated individuals. (Patrice Apodaca, 5/23)

Sacramento Bee: Holding Onto Life's Memories With Dementia
Writing this monthly column about my life with dementia has been somewhat therapeutic. And it also has been a learning experience. Every poignant reader response allows me to measure my location on the dementia highway. I am not as far along as many, but I am riding side by side with others. (Kent Pollock, 5/22)

Sacramento Bee: California Must Resist Jeff Sessions, War On Drugs
This week, as Congress and the Trump administration were finding new ways to strip people of their health care, the American Psychiatric Association released a poll showing that a quarter of all Americans know someone who is addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers. That speaks to the devastation of an epidemic that has hooked everyone from suburban soccer moms popping Percocet for back pain to homeless men shooting up under highway bridges. More than 33,000 Americans overdosed in 2015, and new research suggests the real number is probably higher because autopsy reports aren’t always accurate. (Erika D. Smith, 5/23)