Morning Consult: Time Crunch Among Hurdles For Bipartisan Senate Push To Bolster ACA
The leaders of a key Senate committee say they are cautiously optimistic about reaching a deal to shore up the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplaces, but even with a bipartisan effort, it is far from certain whether they can push out an agreement in time. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee leaders of both parties have set a self-imposed mid-September deadline for a bipartisan agreement. To keep lingering animosity from the Obamacare repeal fight from seeping into negotiations, Chairman Lamar Alexander has made clear that what he’s seeking is far from comprehensive. (Reid, 8/18)

The New York Times: At Senator Menendez’s Trial, Stakes Are High For Democrats
If Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, is convicted and then expelled from the United States Senate by early January, his replacement would be picked by Gov. Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey and an ally of President Trump. That scenario — where Mr. Menendez’s interim replacement would more than likely be a Republican — would have immediate and far-reaching implications: The Republicans would be gifted a crucial extra vote just as the party remains a single vote shy in the Senate of advancing its bill to dismantle President Obama’s signature health care law. (Goldmacher, 8/17)

The Hill: Johnson Wants Details On Congressional ObamaCare 'Exemption' 
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wants information about why members of Congress and their staff receive an employer contribution toward their health coverage, which critics have dubbed an ObamaCare "congressional exemption." Johnson's request asks the Office of Personnel Management to preserve records related to the "exemption." (Roubein, 8/17)

Associated Press: EpiPen Maker Finalizes Settlement For Government Overcharges
EpiPen maker Mylan has finalized a $465 million government agreement settling allegations it overbilled Medicaid for its emergency allergy injectors for a decade — charges brought after rival Sanofi filed a whistleblower lawsuit and tipped off the government. It’s the second settlement with the Department of Justice that Mylan has made since 2009 for allegedly overcharging the government for its medicines. (Johnson, 8/18)

USA Today: Mylan $465M EpiPen Settlement Finalized
The drugmaker raised EpiPen prices by roughly 400% between 2010 and 2016, according to federal investigators. EpiPen is a disposable, pre-filled injector that administers epinephrine to counteract severe allergic reactions. (McCoy, 8/17)

Stat: EpiPen Maker Mylan To Settle On Claims It Overcharged Taxpayers
Lawmakers slammed the federal agencies on Thursday for letting Mylan get off the hook too easily with the settlement. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it “completely insufficient,” and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) cast is as “disappointing” in statements. Mylan, meanwhile, called the settlement, “the right course of action,” and said that the product has been reclassified under Medicaid as of April 1. (Swetlitz, 8/17)

Stat: Lawmakers Push Drug Makers To Explain Soaring Prices For MS Drugs
Two Democratic lawmakers are pressing major pharmaceutical companies to explain their pricing strategies for multiple sclerosis drugs. Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Peter Welch of Vermont wrote to Bayer, Biogen, EMD Serono, Novartis, Sanofi, Teva, and Roche Pharmaceuticals to request documents that reference pricing strategies. They also asked for information about corporate profits, expenses, patient assistance programs, and drug distribution systems. (Mershon, 8/17)

Reuters: U.S. House Democrats Launch Probe Into MS Drug Pricing
U.S. House Democrats said on Thursday they were launching an investigation into why prices for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) treatments have nearly quintupled since 2004, and they sent letters requesting information from seven drugmakers. (Erman, 8/17)

The Associated Press: FDA OKs Pfizer Drug For Rare, Fast-Killing Type Of Leukemia
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new medicine for use against a rare, rapidly progressing blood cancer after other treatments have failed. The agency approved Pfizer Inc.’s Besponsa for patients with a type of advanced acute lymphoblastic leukemia. By then, life expectancy is low. (Johnson, 8/18)

Reuters: FDA Expands Use Of AstraZeneca/Merck Ovarian Cancer Drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday expanded the use of Lynparza, sold by AstraZeneca Plc and Merck & Co Inc, to include ongoing treatment of patients with recurrent ovarian cancer who have responded to platinum-based chemotherapy. The agency also approved a new two-tablet regimen for the drug, regardless of whether patients test positive for BRCA genetic mutations associated with high risk for the cancer. (8/17)

Modern Healthcare: Changes To 340B Drug Discount Rule Delayed Until July 2018 
A rule that would set new ceiling prices in the 340B drug discount program has been delayed until July 2018, HHS announced Thursday. The rule, which was supposed to take effect in April would also authorize HHS to levy fines against drug manufacturers that intentionally charge a hospital more than the ceiling price. The 25-year-old program requires drug companies to provide discounts to hospitals and clinics, with the goal of providing low-income patients greater access to medications. (Lee, 8/17)

Stat: A Veteran Biopharma Executive Tries To Fund His Own Product — And Sees Firsthand How Hard It Is
After two decades as an executive at well-known drug companies, he’s used to navigating the ups and downs of raising money on the public market. But Greg Mayes has never faced a fundraising challenge like this before. Galvanized by his teenage son’s epilepsy diagnosis, Mayes started a new company to try to shepherd a promising inhaler technology for epilepsy through a key clinical trial. Now, he’s racing against the clock to convince venture capital firms and private investors to help him move forward. He needs a total of $21 million by the end of this month — and he still has a third of the way to go. (Robbins, 8/17)

Los Angeles Times: Married Alhambra Couple Sues Employer, Saying Insurance Was Revoked Because They're Gay
An Alhambra couple has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against a former employer, alleging the company refused to provide spousal health insurance coverage because of their sexual orientation and rescinded previous coverage, leaving them with tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. (Branson-Potts, 8/17)

Modesto Bee: Local Outbreaks Of Diarrhea Illness Reported. Swimmers Advised Not To Drink The Water
Since early July, San Joaquin County has confirmed 17 people sickened by the microscopic parasite, Cryptosporidiosis, or Crypto. More than 40 other residents have come down with the symptoms. Some residents who became ill said they had been swimming in backyard pools, the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta, Lake Comanche and Tulloch Lake off Highway 108, east of Oakdale. (Carlson, 8/17)

The Bakersfield Californian: 'This Is Who Feeds Our World' Clinica Sierra Vista Provides Meal, Health Screenings To Celebrate National Health Centers Week 
But on Thursday, it was [Salvador] Lopez, and a group of more than 50 other farmworkers in the fields south of Greenfield who were treated to a meal by Clinica Sierra Vista, which was celebrating National Health Center Week. The meal, along with free health screenings provided by resident physicians in a mobile clinic, demonstrated the valley health provider’s commitment to migrant health, said Clinica Sierra Vista Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs Jennifer Self. (Pierce, 8/17)

Orange County Register: How Much Bonding Time You Get With Your Baby Is Determined By How Many Co-Workers You Have. Is That Fair? 
Federal and state law divides babies into two categories. The privileged newborns have parents who work at companies with 50 or more employees, including Crist who manages a Marie Callender outlet in Westminster. But nearly half of California’s mothers and fathers have jobs at smaller businesses–there were just 22 employees where Berreth worked—and their infants often get far less parental bonding. (Roosevelt, 8/18)

Los Angeles Times: State Audit Finds Corrections Officials Are Failing To Ensure Prisons Evaluate And Monitor Inmates At Risk For Suicide 
California corrections officials have failed to ensure prison staff members properly evaluate, treat and monitor inmates at risk of taking their own lives, according to a scathing state audit released Thursday. The California State Auditor report, requested by a joint legislative audit committee, found state prisons failed to follow their own suicide prevention and response policies, while their average suicide rate was substantially higher than the average of U.S. state prisons — 22 per 100,000 inmates versus 15.66 per 100,000 inmates. (Ulloa, 8/17)

Sacramento Bee: Suicide Spike Followed Merger Of CA Women's Prisons
California’s corrections department’s failure to prepare when it moved hundreds of high-security female inmates from a Central Valley prison to one in inland Southern California may have contributed to a recent spike in suicide attempts by women prisoners, according to a new state audit. Between 2013 and 2016, women made up 4 percent of the state’s prison population but accounted for 11 percent of the system’s suicides, according to the audit. (Ashton, 8/17)

And in national news about suicide —

The New York Times: Guns Play Oversize Role In Rural Suicides
Suicide rates are higher in rural counties, according to a new study, and the reason is firearm use by men. The report, in the American Journal of Public Health, used data on 6,196 suicides of Maryland residents over age 15. They found that the rate of firearm suicides was 66 percent higher in the most thinly populated counties than in metropolitan areas with populations greater than a million. Non-firearm suicide rates in rural and urban counties were roughly the same. (Bakalar, 8/17)

The New York Times: Preventing Teen Suicide: What The Evidence Shows
There are evidence-based ways to prevent suicide. The World Health Organization has a guide for how media professionals should talk about the subject. They should avoid sensationalizing it or normalizing it. They should be careful not to repeat accounts of suicide or to provide explicit descriptions as to how suicide might be attempted or completed. They should word headlines carefully, and avoid video or photos of suicides or the victims. (Carroll, 8/17)

KPCC also reports on a government analysis of violence involving police —

KPCC: Police Use Force Against Blacks In California At Higher Rate, New Data Shows 
Police in California shot at or used force against black people last year at triple the rate relative to their portion of the population, according to a first ever report on use of force released Thursday afternoon by the state Department of Justice. The statistics begin to fill in the information void that has enveloped police uses of force in California and the rest of the nation, where it is often difficult to garner basic facts. (Gilbertson and Mendelson, 8/17)

Stat: Cleveland Clinic Reverses Course, Moves Fundraiser From Mar-A-Lago
The Cleveland Clinic and the American Cancer Society said they will not hold annual fundraising galas at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida amid intense criticism over the president’s reluctance to denounce white nationalist groups. The announcements come as businesses have faced increasing pressure to distance themselves from Trump, who has been sharply criticized for his equivocal response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. The clinic’s decision, which was announced Thursday, was a reversal from its prior commitment to keep the event. (Ross, 8/17)

KPBS: New Ronald McDonald House Offers Relief For More Families With A Sick Child 
For more than 25 years, right across the street from Rady Children’s Hospital, a sick child's parents and other family members have been able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House. Due to increased demand from families in a medical crisis, a second Ronald McDonald House has opened just a short walk away. (Goldberg, 8/18)

East Bay Times: Kaiser Permanente To Demolish Old Hospital In South Hayward
Nearly three years after it was shuttered and replaced by a new facility in San Leandro, the old Kaiser Permanente hospital in South Hayward and the pedestrian bridge over Tennyson Road will be coming down. Kaiser, which still owns the site, has submitted building demolition plans to Hayward leaders and is working on ways to reduce the project’s impacts to the area. “The largest buildings of the former medical center are almost 60 years old and would need extensive retrofitting and remodeling for any new use,” said Mark J. Tortorich, vice president of Kaiser Permanente’s facility services in Northern California. (Moriki, 8/17)

Sacramento Bee: Sutter Shifting Medi-Cal Enrollees To Community Health Centers
In Sacramento and Placer counties, roughly 10,000 adult Medi-Cal enrollees with Anthem Blue Cross are learning this summer that Sutter’s primary-care doctors will no longer see them. Instead, those patients are being shifted to primary-care doctors at community health centers such as Sacramento’s WellSpace Health or Auburn’s Chapa-De Indian Health, said Dr. Ken Ashley, the medical director for primary care at Sutter Medical Group. He said the change in providers will allow the patients to access more services. (Anderson, 8/17)

Los Angeles Times: Don't Blame The Surgeons: Long-Term Opioid Use Rarely Starts With Surgery, Study Finds
Don’t blame the nation’s surgeons for an opiate-abuse crisis that now claims 142 lives daily in the United States. New research suggests that patients leaving the hospital after surgeries or inpatient procedures are rarely the ones whose long-term opioid use started with a doctor’s prescription. Instead, the patients who most frequently go on to use opioid medications for six months or more got their first prescription for some sort of back pain, or for pain described in medical code as “other ill-defined conditions,” according to a research letter published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Surgery. (Healy, 8/17)

Capital Public Radio: Sacramento County Responds To The Opioid Crisis 
Just last week, President Trump announced a state of emergency over the opioid epidemic, which could mean additional funding, resources and law enforcement coming down the pipeline. Sacramento County is not inoculated from the crisis; 48 people overdosed on fentanyl last year alone and more than 330,000 are prescribed opioid drugs. (Remington, 8/17)

Daily Pilot: H.B. And Costa Mesa Account For More Than 1,200 Opioid-Related ER Visits In 4 Years In O.C. Study
Emergency room visits stemming from opioid use increased by 141% in Orange County from 2005 to 2015, with large numbers of patients coming from Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Anaheim and Santa Ana, according to a study released this week by the Orange County Health Care Agency. More recently, between 2011 and 2015, 7,457 Orange County residents went to an emergency room for treatment of opioid addiction or overdose, according to the report. (Fry, 8/17)

Capital Public Radio: Is Telemedicine The Next Tool For Combatting Opioids?
Trump declared the problem a national crisis last week. Dr. David Copenhaver is hoping that the announcement will translate into federal funding for state efforts. He's part of a team at UC Davis trying to educate doctors about opioid prescription via telemedicine. (Caiola, 8/17)

NPR: A First Look: Inside The Lab Where Scientists Are Editing DNA In Human Embryos
Human eggs are the key starting point for the groundbreaking experiments underway in this lab. It's run by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a biologist who's been on the cutting edge of embryonic genetic research for decades. Mitalipov and his international team electrified the world this summer when the group announced it had successfully — and seemingly safely — figured out how to efficiently edit the DNA in human embryos. (Stein, 8/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Big Tobacco Fuels Nicotine Replacement Addiction, UCSF Study Shows
Nicotine replacement therapy products, which have been sold over the counter at drugstores since 1996, are effective only when paired with counseling, according to a UCSF study released Thursday. Without that, relying on such products can actually make it harder to kick tobacco, the study found. (Johnson, 8/17)

Bloomberg: How A Blue Pill Is Stopping The Spread Of HIV
Kyle, a 29-year-old Sydneysider, never knew a time when HIV wasn’t a persistent and pernicious threat — until he began popping a pill to prevent it. The blue, oval-shaped antiviral tablet, known as Truvada, that Kyle takes daily is the subject of a study in Australia’s New South Wales state that, in less than a year, has helped drive new cases of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus among gay and bisexual men to the lowest since 1985. ...Thirty-six years after a rare lung infection in gay men in Los Angeles heralded the start of the AIDS epidemic in North America, the deadly disease is firmly in retreat globally. For the first time, more than half of all people living with HIV are on virus-suppressing treatment that staves off symptoms and prevents transmission. (Gale, 8/17)

Stat: Genetic Tweaks To Tuberculosis Could Speed Up Discovery Of A New Vaccine
These minty bacteria are genetically engineered relatives of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that kills 1.5 million people each year. Thankfully this strain — Mycobacterium smegmatis — is harmless. But it’s a close enough cousin that scientists can use it as a proxy for the real thing. And though a mint-scented bacterium might seem like a silly achievement, it’s part of a serious strategy by a team of Harvard scientists to speed up discovery of a better tuberculosis vaccine. Their goal: to modify the germ so that it can be safely given to people to test a vaccine – and if the vaccine doesn’t work, that the participants can be cured. (Wosen, 8/18)

The Washington Post: Elderly Couple Got ‘Deepest Wish’ — To Die Together — In Rare Euthanasia Case
In recent years, apparent double-suicides and murder-suicides have been capturing worldwide attention amid an emotional right-to-die debate — couples from Florida to Paris reportedly ending their lives together. Assisted suicide has summoned up deep religious and ethical concerns among critics. In the United States, the subject was widely debated in 2014, when a 29-year-old woman who had a fatal brain tumor moved from California to Oregon, where she could legally seek medical aid to end her life. California has since enacted its End of Life Option Act, joining a small number of states where it is legal. (Bever, 8/17)

Sacramento Bee: Low Medi-Cal Payments To Hospitals Hurt Patients
In most areas of California, including Sacramento County, the state has contracted its role of coordinating care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries to health plans. These plans, however, are not receiving adequate funding from the state. As a result, higher-cost providers such as academic medical centers are often eliminated from the insurer’s network. (C. Duane Dauner, 8/14)

Orange County Register: Reining In Predatory Pharmaceutical Drug Prices 
I’ll bet every Orange County Register reader knows someone who relies on prescription medication to stay alive. Whether they’re fighting cancer, controlling high blood pressure or diabetes, treating an auto immune disease or a bout with pneumonia, access to medication is just as critical as food and water for many in our communities. (Jennifer Muir Beuthin, 8/11)

Sacramento Bee: Democrats Must Stand Up For Abortion Rights
As Democratic leaders search for ways to win in 2018, some have recently suggested that women’s rights and reproductive health care are dispensable. ...Such a strategy would not only betray what it means to be a Democrat, it would also be destined to fail. (Amy Everitt, 8/15)

The Washington Post: Trump Needs To Stop Sabotaging Obamacare — Before It’s Too Late
Yet the administration has stoked more uncertainty than it has allayed, leaving the health system in peril. The White House has been deciding month-to-month whether to keep important subsidy payments flowing to insurance companies — payments that were simply assumed during the Obama administration. Without these payments, insurers would have to jack up premiums or leave Obamacare markets next year. The CBO estimated Tuesday that average premiums would jump by 20 percent next year if the Trump administration pulled them. Moreover, because of how the payments interact with other elements of the health-care system, the government would end up losing money — $194 billion over a decade. (8/17)

Los Angeles Times: Vaccination Rates Are Up In California, But Pockets Of Resistance Still Threaten Everyone 
Despite an overall increase in kindergarten vaccination rates to 95.6% since 2015, when the Legislature stopped allowing public school students to skip their shots simply because of their “personal beliefs,” a Los Angeles Times analysis found that at nearly 750 California schools, most of them charter or private schools, 90% or fewer of the kindergartners had their full course of vaccinations against diseases such as measles, polio, and whooping cough. Some gaps are unavoidable over the next few years because the law, SB 277, isn’t retroactive. (8/15)

Los Angeles Times: Hundreds Of Thousands Of Californians Lack Access To Safe Drinking Water. Let's Fix That Once And For All
alifornia’s wet winter eased the immediate water shortages that affected most of the state, giving lawmakers and water agencies a bit of a breather as they craft new policies and design new infrastructure to weather the next big drought (which, for all we know, may already be underway). But neither the rainfall nor the new projects and policies will help hundreds of thousands of Californians whose local water supply is contaminated. These residents must either pay an inordinate amount of their income to truck in drinkable water or suffer the dire health consequences of drinking, cooking with and bathing in poisonous H20. (8/18)

Los Angeles Times: An Obamacare Insurer Flees Another State, Blaming Trump And The GOP For Sabotage
The effort by congressional Republicans and the Trump White House to sabotage the Affordable Care Act reached another milestone Friday when the big insurer Anthem announced it will be pulling out of Virginia’s ACA marketplace next year. Anthem has been the biggest insurer in the Virginia individual market. Its enrollment base of 165,000 in 2017 is nearly three times the size of the No. 2 insurer, Kaiser, which has 60,000. (Michael Hiltzik, 8/14)

NPR: How Doctors Deal With Hate, Racism And Their Own Biases
The events that unfolded in Charlottesville last weekend are a stark reminder of how far we haven't come as a nation. Like so many Americans, I am horrified that white supremacist and neo-Nazi adherents have recently found sanction to put hateful ideologies more overtly on display. ... For doctors, public emergencies bring to mind ethical duties and dilemmas that never go away. Current events compel us to examine our core beliefs and do a gut-check of our own ethical standards and sense of professionalism. (John Henning Schumann, 8/16)