The New York Times: Siding With Trump, Judge Clears Way For Trial Over Health Subsidies
A federal judge sided with the Trump administration on Wednesday in a ruling against 18 states that sought to compel the federal government to pay subsidies to health insurance companies for the benefit of millions of low-income people. (Pear, 10/25)

The Associated Press: States Lose Push To Force Trump To Restart Health Subsidies
State attorneys general, all Democrats and led by Xavier Becerra of California, argued that the monthly payments are required under former President Barack Obama's health care law and cutting them off will harm consumers. The payments reimburse insurers for providing lower-income people with discounts on out-of-pocket costs. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee, said the states had devised workarounds to the lost subsidies that would give millions of lower-income people even better health care options. (Thanawala, 10/25)

The Washington Post: Federal Judge Refuses To Order The Trump Administration To Resume ACA Payments
Chhabria pointed out that most states’ insurance regulators had already prepared for a possible end to the money, by allowing companies to charge higher rates for the coming year. “Although you wouldn’t know it from reading the states’ papers in this lawsuit,” he wrote, “the truth is that most state regulators have devised responses.” (Goldstein and Eilperin, 10/25)

Los Angeles Times: Judge Refuses To Block Trump's Order To End Obamacare Subsidies
The judge also appeared to be close to rejecting the states’ contention that Trump violated the law by discontinuing the payments. “Although the case is at an early stage, and although it's a close question, it appears initially that the Trump Administration has the stronger legal argument,” Chhabria wrote. (Dolan, 10/25)

Politico: Judge Denies Request To Force Trump To Pay Obamacare Insurance Subsidies
“The fight for affordable healthcare moves forward,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “The actions by the Trump Administration undermine critical payments that keep costs of healthcare affordable for working families. The judge made clear in his ruling that the ACA is the law of the land. Without an emergency order halting the Trump action, swift action in this litigation becomes even more compelling.” (Colliver and Bettelheim, 10/25)

San Jose Mercury News: Judge: Trump Doesn't Have To Resume ACA Subsidies
Gregory Brown, who represented California at the hearing, said the loss of the subsidies was creating “uncertainty and chaos” that could lead insurance companies to opt out of the health law. The administration had been making the monthly payments even as Trump threatened to cut them off to force Democrats to negotiate over health care. A bipartisan effort in Congress to restore the payments has run into opposition. (Thanawala, 10/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Judge Denies California’s Bid To Reinstate Affordable Care Act Subsidies
A spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Wednesday that the states will continue pressing for a permanent resolution to the lawsuit that they hope will require the administration to resume the payments. (Ho, 10/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Won’t Be Forced To Provide Health-Insurance Subsidies
The government payments reimbursed insurers for providing subsidies to some low-income consumers for out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and copays. Insurers are required by the ACA to provide these cost-sharing subsidies and about seven million people who buy health plans on the ACA’s insurance exchanges get them. President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that he would end the subsidies as of Oct. 18 because Congress never appropriated money for the program. The payments are estimated at $7 billion in 2017. (Kendall and Armour, 10/25)

Ventura County Star: Health Groups Deal With Active Shooter In Massive Drill
Less than a month after a lone gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas, more than 180 area health care agencies faced simulated scenarios involving active shooters and other terrorism Wednesday in one of the largest disaster drills held in Ventura County. Planned months before the Vegas tragedy underscored the need for such preparation, the drill unleashed a series of connected acts. They included a massive explosion at a rock concert attended by 115,000 people, terrorists who gun down students and staff at a community college and explosions and fires in five classrooms at an area high school. (Kisken, 10/25)

In other news —

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Vegas Docs Share Shooting Experiences With Peers At San Diego Surgery Conference 
Speaking to a rapt audience of their peers in a packed room at the San Diego Convention Center, Las Vegas trauma surgeons described what it was like to deal with the aftermath of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting which killed 59 people and injured 550 during a country music festival on Oct. 1. Vegas hospitals, they said, have been planning for such an event alongside the city’s first responders ever since a deadly fire engulfed the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in 1980. (Sisson, 10/25)

Los Angeles Times: The Quiet Crisis Among African Americans: Pregnancy And Childbirth Are Killing Women At Inexplicable Rates
Three weeks after Cassaundra Lynn Perkins gave birth to premature twins, she returned to the hospital, feeling unwell. She phoned her mother from her hospital bed at 3:30 in the morning. “I’m just not feeling good,” she said. Surely it was just another bout of the mysterious illness her daughter had been suffering from for most of her pregnancy, Cheryl Givens-Perkins thought as she rushed over to San Antonio’s North Central Baptist Hospital. (Simmons, 10/26)

Los Angeles Times: Black Doulas, Midwives And Reproductive Health Advocates Step Up In Response To Rising Black Maternal Deaths
It wasn’t just the disproportionate number of pregnancy-related deaths among black women in the United States that alarmed Darline Turner when the crisis first hit the headlines. It was the seeming nonchalance surrounding the issue. Why hadn’t the federal government declared this phenomenon a public health emergency, professed it a pressing human rights concern, or ordered a nationwide investigation, wondered Turner, a physician’s assistant and certified doula — a person trained to help women through childbirth and serve as their advocate. (Simmons, 10/26)

In other hospital news —

KQED: Hospice Scrambled During Wildfires To Evacuate Patients Determined To Die At Home
Even when the fires threatened her home in downtown Sonoma, the elderly woman inside refused to leave. Smoke was everywhere. Her caretaker begged her to heed the mandatory evacuation order. Another woman on the outskirts of town said all the young people telling her to get out were just “making hay” over nothing. (Dembosky, 10/25)

In other news from across the state —

San Francisco Chronicle: 3 San Francisco Public Schools Show High Levels Of Lead In Water
Water samples from taps and drinking fountains at three San Francisco public schools contained elevated levels of lead, potentially exposing students to the toxic metal, district officials said Wednesday. District officials immediately shut down the taps and this week notified parents at West Portal and Malcolm X elementary schools and San Francisco International High School that water samples from at least one faucet or fountain at each site were too high - or above the recommended federal threshold of 15 parts per billion. (Tucker, 10/25)

Modesto Bee: Family Of Waterford Woman, 82, Talks About Ordeal When She Went Missing
All Loretta Bowling wanted to do was take a short walk to visit a lifelong friend, Mary. Nearly seven hours later, well after dark, Loretta was found dehydrated, muddy, scraped, cut and bruised, and with a broken arm. What happened? The simplest answer is that Mary lives in Modesto, and Loretta, who suffers dementia, forgot they haven’t been neighbors for many years. She got lost. (Farrow, 10/25)

Los Angeles Times: Activists Occupy City Hall Bathroom Stalls To Protest Skid Row Toilet Shortage
Protesters took graffiti-covered toilets to Los Angeles City Hall and occupied bathroom stalls on Wednesday to highlight what they called a severe hygiene shortage for homeless people on skid row. The activists tried to deliver the toilets, scribbled with slogans, to Mayor Eric Garcetti. But they were stopped at the security checkpoint by Los Angeles police, who cited safety concerns with hauling the ceramic thrones through the gilded Art Deco hallways and elevators of the landmark building. (Holland, 10/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Bipartisan Senate Health Bill Would Reduce Deficit By About $4 Billion Over Decade
A bipartisan Senate health bill would reduce the deficit by almost $4 billion over the next decade without significantly affecting the number of people who have coverage, the Congressional Budget Office found in a report released Wednesday. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D., Wash.), the bill’s co-sponsors, said the findings strongly bolster the case for their legislation. But a standoff between the White House, which wants more provisions to undo the Affordable Care Act, and Democrats, who reject such provisions, has left the measure stalled for now, with no clear path forward. (Armour and Peterson, 10/25)

Modern Healthcare: CBO: Bipartisan Bill To Stabilize Insurance Would Reduce Budget Deficit 
Passing the Alexander-Murray bill actually would reduce the budget deficit because insurers—which have already set their 2018 premiums higher due to uncertainty about CSR funding—would have to rebate excess revenue to the government. Those rebates would total an estimated $3.1 billion from 2018 through 2027, the CBO said. But the bill's fate is in doubt after Trump and some Republican senators insisted that any package that funded the CSRs also include conservative provisions Democrats are almost certain to reject. (Meyer, 10/25)

Bloomberg: Bipartisan Obamacare Bill Saves Little Money On Technicality 
“If CSRs are not paid, premiums in 2018 will go up an average of 20 percent, the federal debt will increase by $194 billion over ten years, due to the extra cost of subsidies to pay the higher premiums, and up to 16 million Americans may live in counties where they are not able to buy any insurance in the individual market,” Alexander and Murray said in a joint statement shortly after the CBO released its report. (Tracer and Wasson, 10/25)

Reuters: U.S. Lawmakers Will Not Tackle Healthcare This Year, Ryan Says
Republican lawmakers will not take up a bipartisan plan to stabilize Obamacare insurance markets or try again to repeal and replace the law this year, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday, signaling his party was shelving the matter until the 2018 U.S. congressional election year. ... "I think that is something we should do next year," Ryan said in an interview with Reuters when asked about prospects of the House passing a bipartisan bill that would reinstate federal subsidies to private insurers to help lower-income people buy medical coverage through the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare. (Chiacu, Cowan, Brice and Abutaleb, 10/25)

The Associated Press: Premiums Rising 34 Percent For Most Popular Health Plan
Premiums for the most popular "Obamacare" plans are going up an average of 34 percent, according to a study Wednesday that confirms dire predictions about the impact of political turmoil on consumers. Window-shopping on HealthCare.gov went live Wednesday, so across the country consumers going online can see the consequences themselves ahead of the Nov. 1 start of sign-up season for 2018. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Some Affordable Care Act Premiums Set To Jump For 2018
Some consumers who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges next year will face sharp premium increases and have fewer insurer options, though federal premium subsidies mean that others will be able to get cheaper coverage. The federal HealthCare.gov website posted new details Wednesday about what plans will be available for 2018 under the health law. Open enrollment starts on Nov. 1. (Wilde Mathews, 10/25)

The Hill: Democrats Introduce Public Option Health Care Bill 
Congressional Democrats are introducing legislation to allow states to set up a public option for health-care insurance. The legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M), is the latest idea from Democrats as the party tries to plot its next steps after blocking the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare. (Carney, 10/25)

The Associated Press: ACLU: Teen At Center Of Abortion Case Has Had Procedure
An immigrant teen in federal custody who was seeking an abortion over the Trump administration's objections had the procedure Wednesday after a U.S. appeals court ruled in her favor, her lawyers said. (Gresko and Merchant, 10/25)

The New York Times: Undocumented Teenager Obtains Abortion After Court Victory
The teenager, who is 17 and is identified in court documents as Jane Doe, illegally crossed the border in Texas in early September and was apprehended. Her pregnancy was discovered during a physical exam, and since then she had been fighting in court to have an abortion. In a statement released by her lawyers and her court-appointed guardian, Jane Doe, who had been nearly 16 weeks pregnant, wrote of coming to the United States with dreams of one day becoming a nurse, and of not being ready to be a parent. (Fernandez, 10/25)

The Washington Post: Jane Doe, Undocumented Teen In U.S. Custody, Aborts Her Unwanted Pregnancy
The abortion ended the girl’s individual court challenge in a case that drew widespread attention and evoked the incendiary issues of abortion rights and illegal immigration. But the broader legal battle over whether the federal government may continue to dissuade, and even block, undocumented teens in its custody from having abortions is still pending in U.S. District Court in Washington. (Sacchetti and Marimow, 10/25)

The Washington Post: FDA’s Gottlieb Calls For Greater Use Of Medication-Assisted Treatment To Fight Opioid Epidemic
Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, called Wednesday for the expanded use of medication-assisted treatments for opioid addiction, saying they could reduce overdoses and deaths. During a House hearing on the federal response to the opioid epidemic, Gottlieb said the agency will issue new guidance to manufacturers to promote the development of novel therapies, including ones that treat a wider range of symptoms. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) combines drugs and counseling to combat addiction. (McGinley, 10/25)

Bloomberg: FDA Aims To Destigmatize Drugs As Treatment For Opioid Addiction
Some in the medical community, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, have looked down on using drugs to treat addiction to other drugs, instead favoring an approach that emphasizes changing behavior. Insurance companies have also been reluctant to cover drug-assisted therapy. (Edney, 10/25)

Stat: Gottlieb Makes Push To Fight Opioids With Medication-Assisted Treatment
“To tackle the treatment gap, FDA is planning to convene experts and stakeholders to discuss the evidence of treatment benefits at the population level — such as studies that show community-wide reductions in overdose following expansion of access to therapy,” Gottlieb said. (Facher, 10/25)

The Washington Post: Lawmakers To DEA: Use More Legal Muscle Against Opioids
Lawmakers urged the Drug Enforcement Administration to seek more legal authority if it is needed to battle the nation’s opioid epidemic, telling an official they are awaiting suggestions on how they can help stem the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. “Give us suggestions. Talk to us. We want to do the right thing,” Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Fla.) implored at a hearing held Wednesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We need to know the tools that you need to handle this. We’re on the same team with regard to this.” (Bernstein and Higham, 10/25)