Bay Area News Group: California Right To Die: Judge Denies Effort To Restore Law
A Riverside Superior Court judge on Wednesday morning rebuffed an effort to restore California’s End of Life Options Act, which gives dying patients the right to end life on their own terms. So the state must try again. The next motion — urging the judge to cancel a ruling last week invalidating the law — is set for June 29, a month from now. (Krieger, 5/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: California’s Right-To-Die Law On Hold For At Least A Month
California’s right-to-die law for terminally ill patients will apparently remain suspended for at least another month after a judge on Wednesday reaffirmed his ruling that the law was illegally considered and passed during a special legislative session on health care. (Egelko, 5/30)

The Associated Press: Judge Blocked California Law On Life-Ending Drugs. Now What?
A judge has thrown out a 2016 California law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives after finding that the Legislature unconstitutionally approved it during a special session. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra asked an appeals court to block and reverse last week’s decision by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia. The court denied the request to immediately block the ruling. But experts say Becerra has other legal options and could ask the state Supreme Court to weigh in to try to restore the law. (Taxin, 5/30)

Modern Healthcare: California Assembly Passes Bill Expanding Medicaid To Immigrants
California's General Assembly has passed a bill to become the first state to extend Medicaid coverage to immigrants, regardless of their status. The bill, known as AB 2965, passed the Democratic-controlled Assembly 33-21 on Wednesday. The proposal would eliminate legal residency requirements in California's Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, and the state has already nixed the requirement for individuals younger than 19. (Dickson, 5/30)

CQ: HHS Official: Reports On Missing Migrant Kids 'Inaccurate'
The Trump administration on Tuesday sought to explain the unknown whereabouts of nearly 1,500 undocumented children previously held in government custody after they entered the United States illegally before last December. The Health and Human Services Department said in April that in a 2017 survey of 7,635 unaccompanied migrant children who arrived at the U.S. border and were placed with a U.S. sponsor, a total of 1,475 could not be reached. The children's whereabouts were the subject of thousands of Twitter posts in recent days, some of which coincided with International Missing Children’s Day. (DeChiaro, 5/29)

California Healthline: Another Cause Of Doctor Burnout: Being Forced To Give Immigrants Unequal Care
There are an estimated 6,500 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. with end-stage kidney disease. Many of them can’t afford private insurance and are barred from Medicare or Medicaid. Treatment of these patients varies widely from state to state, and in many places the only way they can get dialysis is in the emergency room. [Dr. Lilia] Cervantes and her colleagues interviewed 50 health care providers in Denver and Houston and identified common concerns among them. The researchers found that providing undocumented patients with suboptimal care because of their immigration status contributes to professional burnout and moral distress. (Harper, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: Initiative To Regulate Dialysis Industry Qualifies For California's November Ballot
A ballot measure that would clamp down on the profits raked in by companies providing dialysis treatment will go before voters in November. The initiative, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers, would cap revenue for dialysis companies at 115% of the cost of direct patient care and treatment quality efforts, as determined by the initiative. (Mason, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: City Attorney Launches Crackdown On Illegal Pot Shops In Los Angeles
This year, California became the latest state to allow the farming and selling of marijuana for recreational use, opening doors to one of the largest markets in the world and marking a milestone for the cannabis industry. But with every high comes a low. As a limited number of licensed shops have tried to keep up with demand, illegal dispensaries have continued to do business, undercutting those playing by the rules. (Vives, 5/30)

KQED: Oakland City Council Votes To Appeal Judge's Ruling Overturning Coal Ban
The Oakland City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to appeal a federal judge's ruling that overturned the city's ban on shipping coal through a proposed bulk cargo terminal adjacent to the Bay Bridge. ..."The council acted pursuant to the city’s police powers to ban the storage and handling of millions of tons of coal in West Oakland. Those activities pose a clear and demonstrable danger to Oakland residents, especially children whose health will be directly impacted by coal dust and other health and safety hazards related to a massive and inherently unsafe coal export operation." (Clyde, 5/30)

Los Angeles Times: California Is Now Paying For People To Test Their Drugs For Fentanyl
As the death toll from the nation’s opioid crisis swells, California officials have launched an experiment: paying for people to test their drugs for fentanyl. Fentanyl, an opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, is responsible for a growing number of overdose deaths each year. Typically manufactured as a white powder, it can be mixed into other drugs such as heroin and cocaine without the user knowing, but with extreme consequences. (Karlamangla, 5/31)

The New York Times: U.S. Struggles To Stop Smuggling Of Mail-Order Opioids
Federal agents are struggling to stop opioid smugglers who are reaping vast profits, according to interviews and documents, as the number of Americans dying from drug overdoses continues to rise. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security say the drugs are shipped in such minute amounts that detecting them among cargo in a tractor-trailer is close to impossible. That the drugs increasingly are bought online and shipped directly to buyers — either through the Postal Service or commercial couriers like FedEx and UPS — makes inspections all the more difficult. (Nixon, 5/30)

Stateline: Drugged Driving Deaths Spike With Spread Of Legal Marijuana, Opioid Abuse
As legal marijuana spreads and the opioid epidemic rages on, the number of drugged drivers killed in car crashes is rising dramatically, according to a report released today. Forty-four percent of fatally injured drivers tested for drugs had positive results in 2016, the Governors Highway Safety Association found, up more than 50 percent compared with a decade ago. More than half the drivers tested positive for marijuana, opioids or a combination of the two. (Bergal, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: Former USC Medical School Dean Used Hard Drugs While Employed At University, Attorney Says
An attorney representing former USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito acknowledged at a state medical board hearing Wednesday that the physician used hard drugs while employed by the university, but argued that the doctor has been in recovery for months and should be allowed to practice medicine. The hearing marked the first time Puliafito’s version of events has been aired publicly since The Times detailed his double life of using drugs and partying with criminals, causing upheaval at USC and prompting the medical board to investigate the Harvard-trained ophthalmologist. (Elamahrek and Pringle, 5/30)

Bloomberg: Trump Says Drug Companies To Unveil Price Cuts In Two Weeks
Major pharmaceutical companies will announce “voluntary, massive” cuts in drug prices in two weeks, President Donald Trump said Wednesday, without providing details. “We’re also working very hard at getting the cost of medicine down, and I think people are going to start to see for the first time ever in this country a major drop in the cost of prescription drugs,” Trump said while signing legislation making it easier for terminally ill patients to get access to experimental drugs. (Edney and Sink, 5/30)

Politico: Trump’s Drug Price Comments Appear To Catch Industry Off Guard
A White House spokesperson declined to provide details. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at her daily briefing said, “We do expect some specific policy pieces to come out on that soon,” but wouldn't elaborate. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade group for brand-name drug manufacturers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump this month issued a 44-page plan to lower drug prices that included steps like requiring drugmakers to list prices in their advertisements, as well as government-funded pilot programs exploring new ways to hold the cost of medicines. (Ehley, 5/30)

Stateline: Trump Wants Medicaid To Push For Lower Drug Prices – But Will Patients Be Hurt?
A little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s plan to reduce prescription drug prices could change the way Medicaid has paid for drugs for nearly 30 years. The change might save taxpayer dollars – but it also could make it more difficult for people with certain conditions to get the medicines that work best for them. Under Trump’s new plan, five pilot states will have the power to negotiate directly with drugmakers rather than adhering to the national price formula. And Medicaid programs in those states would be exempt from the requirement that they cover all FDA-approved drugs – an out that could mean huge savings if states refuse to pay for expensive medications. (Ollove, 5/30)

The Associated Press: Trump Signs Bill For Terminal Patients To Try Unproven Drugs
President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at helping people with deadly diseases try experimental treatments, calling it a “fundamental freedom” that will offer hope and save lives. Joined by families dealing with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, and other diseases, Trump signed the so-called Right to Try bill and said he never understood why the issue had lagged for years and Congress hadn’t acted sooner. (Thomas, 5/30)

The Associated Press: Trump Remaking Federal Policy On Women's Reproductive Health
Step by methodical step, the Trump administration is remaking government policy on reproductive health — moving to limit access to birth control and abortion and bolstering abstinence-only sex education. Social and religious conservatives praise the administration for promoting “a culture of life.” But women’s-rights activists and some medical experts view the multi-pronged changes as a dangerous ideological shift that could increase unintended pregnancies and abortions. (Alonso-Zaldivar and Crary, 5/30)

The Washington Post: CHIP, CHIMPs And Trump’s Budget-Rescission Request: A Guide To The Debate
As we often remind readers, the most complicated issues are the most susceptible to manipulation by politicians. If the subject is complex, it’s easier to mislead. So here’s a guide to the rescission debate, which revolves around acronyms like CHIP and CHIMPs. (Kessler, 5/31)

The Washington Post: This Mock Pandemic Killed 150 Million People. Next Time It Might Not Be A Drill.
The fictional outbreak kept getting worse. It had a 10 percent fatality rate, about the same as the SARS virus that traveled around the world in 2002-2003. Because the virus in the drill was new, no one had previous immunity to it, and it spread quickly in large cities. As it killed more than 100 million people globally, health-care systems collapsed, panic spread, the U.S. stock market crashed, and the president, members of Congress and the Supreme Court were incapacitated. “We didn’t want to have a Disney ending,” Inglesby said. “We wanted to have a plausible scenario. We did know it would be jarring.” (Sun, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal: New Stroke Technology To Identify Worst Cases Gets FDA Approval
The Food and Drug Administration Wednesday gave marketing clearance for a device that can potentially revamp stroke care by allowing paramedics in the field to diagnose severe strokes requiring specialized treatment. The Lucid Robotic System is aimed at one of the central dilemmas of modern neurology: How to quickly identify patients with the most severe strokes who could benefit from being taken immediately to hospitals that can perform a complex clot-removal procedure, potentially helping to avoid major disability. (Burton, 5/30)

The Washington Post: Trump, Fast Food Lover And Exercise Avoider, Lectures Nation On Importance Of Fitness
It’s Sports and Fitness Day at the White House. That means President Trump — a man who has spoken out on the dangers of exercising and devours McDonald’s, KFC chicken, chocolate cake and double scoops of vanilla ice cream — will be lecturing the nation on the importance of staying fit. (Wan, 5/30)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's New Insurance Rules Are Panned By Nearly Every Healthcare Group That Submitted Formal Comments
More than 95% of healthcare groups that have commented on President Trump’s effort to weaken Obama-era health insurance rules criticized or outright opposed the proposals, according to a Times review of thousands of official comment letters filed with federal agencies. The extraordinary one-sided outpouring came from more than 300 patient and consumer advocates, physician and nurse organizations and trade groups representing hospitals, clinics and health insurers across the country, the review found. (Levey, 5/30)

Politico Pro: Trump Administration Eyes ACO Changes As Providers Push Back
Top Trump health officials have indicated they want ACOs to take on more financial risk for patient care — but if the administration pushes the organizations too hard, it could wind up forcing providers out of the ACO program entirely and potentially undermine efforts to rein in health spending. More than 80 percent of Medicare ACOs are in payment arrangements that shield them from penalties for exceeding pre-determined spending targets — but rewards them for coming in under budget. (Pittman, 5/29)

In other insurance news —

The Wall Street Journal: Clean Bill Of Health For Insurance Deals
Small health insurers have every incentive to get bigger. That is the takeaway from Tuesday’s  announcement that WellCare Health Plans plans to buy privately held insurer Meridian for $2.5 billion. Like WellCare, Meridian specializes in government-sourced business such as Medicaid and Medicare Advantage. (Grant, 5/30)

The New York Times: Cancer Group Calls For Colorectal Cancer Screening Starting At Age 45
A prominent cancer organization is for the first time recommending Americans initiate colorectal cancer screening at age 45 instead of waiting until age 50, a threshold long endorsed by many other medical groups. The new guidelines, from the American Cancer Society, would extend routine colorectal cancer screening to an additional 22 million American adults between the ages of 45 and 49 and send a clear message that colorectal cancer, which has been rising in young adults, is no longer just a disease of older people. (Rabin, 5/30)

NPR: Colorectal Cancer Screening Should Start Earlier, American Cancer Society Says
Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, most frequently diagnosed among adults over 65. To catch those typically slow-growing malignancies early, when they can often be cured, most doctors' groups recommend colorectal cancer screening starting at age 50. But the American Cancer Society this week changed its advice and is recommending that screening start five years earlier. (Neighmond, 5/30)

In other cancer news —

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Blue Cross Data Shows Rise In Melanoma Rates Among The Insured
Melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, is on the rise with rates up about 7 percent in the last four years, and the condition is more prevalent among older men than women, according to data collected on millions of Americans with private health insurance. The findings come from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Index, which gathers medical claims data from 41 million insured members up to age 64. (Schaefer, 5/31)

NPR: Can Artificial Intelligence Diagnose Cancer?
Artificial intelligence, which is bringing us everything from self-driving cars to personalized ads on the web, is also invading the world of medicine. In radiology, this technology is increasingly helping doctors in their jobs. A computer program that assists doctors in diagnosing strokes garnered approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. Another that helps doctors diagnose broken wrists in x-ray images won FDA approval on May 24th. (Harris, 5/31)

USA Today: Ambien-Maker To Roseanne: Racism Is Not A Side Effect Of Our Drug
Sanofi, who makes Ambien, tweeted a response Wednesday morning: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication." Dr. Rachel Salas, associate professor of Neurology in the Sleep Medicine Division at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said “people could text or tweet while on Ambien and not remember.” She advises people to avoid sleeping near their phone or electronics while taking sleep medication. (May, 5/30)

The Associated Press: Science Says: Ambien's Odd Side Effects Don't Include Racism
Ambien and similar sleep aids are well-known for sometimes causing some weird behavioral side effects, but changing one’s political or cultural views is not one of them. ... But people also have reported making phone calls, eating meals, having sex and doing other things that they don’t remember after taking so-called “sedative-hypnotic” medications. People charged with crimes occasionally even have tried “the Ambien defense.” Doctors call these “complex sleep behaviors.” On its official Ambien labeling, manufacturer Sanofi calls the side effects “abnormal thinking and behavioral changes” — changes that can include decreased inhibition. (5/30)

The New York Times: Roseanne Barr’s ‘Ambien-Tweeting,’ Explained. Sorta.
The scientific research, too, suggests there’s good reason to be skeptical. It’s true that Ambien on occasion produces significant side effects, including hallucinations and memory lapses. But blaming the drug for bilious tweeting is a stretch. (Carey, 5/30)

The Associated Press: Poll: Seniors Ready To Skype Doctors, Care Quality A Concern
The vast majority of older Americans and their caregivers are ready to give virtual health care a try: Nearly 9 in 10 adults ages 40 and over would be comfortable using at least one type of telemedicine for themselves or an aging loved one, says a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (Neergaard and Swanson, 5/31)

NPR: Battling Depression And Suicide Among Female Veterans
The suicide rate for female veterans has soared 85 percent in recent years, leading the military, VA and advocacy groups to try new ways to improve women's mental health care during and after service. One key focus: how to tailor the sometimes tricky jump from the military to the civilian world. Women's experiences in the military are different from men's, so their transition needs to be different, too, said retired Army Col. Ellen Haring, director of research for the advocacy group Service Women's Action Network (SWAN). (Price, 5/29)

The Washington Post: Poor People Die Younger In The U.S. That Skews American Politics.
Meanwhile, because low socioeconomic status leads people to be sicker and to die earlier, poor Americans have far less chance of shaping political life — or of pursuing the policies that would help improve their health and lengthen their lives, such as improvements in health care, education, child care, neighborhood safety, nutrition, working conditions and so forth. (Rodriguez and Capotescu, 5/31)

The Washington Post: White America’s Racial Resentment Is The Real Impetus For Welfare Cuts, Study Says
White Americans are increasingly critical of the country’s social safety net, a new study suggests, thanks in part to a rising tide of racial resentment. The study, conducted by researchers at two California universities and published Wednesday in the journal Social Forces, finds that opposition to welfare programs has grown among white Americans since 2008, even when controlling for political views and socioeconomic status. (Dewey, 5/30)

NPR: Domestic Violence: A Leading Cause Of Women's Brain Injuries
Hundreds of survivors of domestic violence have come through the doors of neurologist Glynnis Zieman's Phoenix clinic in the past three years." The domestic violence patients are the next chapter of brain injury," she says. ... While many patients initially seek out the clinic because of physical symptoms, such as headaches, exhaustion, dizziness or problems sleeping, Zieman says her research shows anxiety, depression and PTSD usually end up being the most severe problems. (Stone, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Did We Say $1.5 Million? We Meant $10.9 Million. Firms Fix CEO Pay Flubs
When Laboratory Corp. of America disclosed pay for its chief executive in March, the company said he made $1.5 million in 2016. A week later, the diagnostic-lab chain filed a new document listing his pay at $10.9 million. Chief Executive David King didn’t get a retroactive raise. His employer just proofread its work. Such a big discrepancy is unusual, but LabCorp isn’t the only big company to make significant adjustments to past pay disclosures. (Francis, 5/30)

Reuters: Allergan To Sell Women's Health, Infectious Disease Units
Drugmaker Allergan Plc said on Wednesday it plans to sell two of its smaller businesses, the women’s health and infectious disease units, as Chief Executive Brent Saunders works to end a steep slide in its share price over the last year. (Erman, 5/30)

The Hill: Allergan Recalls Birth Control Pills Over Packaging Error 
Drugmaker Allergan issued a voluntary recall for nearly 170,000 birth control packs after it was revealed that a packaging error could cause unintended pregnancies. The recall targets sample packs of Taytulla that were distributed to doctors' offices and then given to patients. (Hellmann, 5/30)