KQED: A New Message For California Hospitals: Shape Up, Or Get Kicked Out Of Obamacare Networks 
While most of the recent debate around health care has been around cost -- especially the predictions about skyrocketing Obamacare premiums -- there are 100 pages in the Affordable Care Act devoted solely to improving the quality of the health care Americans are paying so much for. Covered California, the state’s Obamacare marketplace, is taking that mandate under the law seriously, and is now making a bold move to improve quality in a concrete way, and ultimately, ensure that California consumers get more value for their premium dollars. (Dembosky, 3/26)

Capital Public Radio: Health Care Mergers And Rising Prices Under Scrutiny In California 
Hospital mergers—and the effect of those mergers on medical costs—have caught the eye of California elected officials. A new report from the UC Berkeley Petris Center on Health Care Markets finds a rapid consolidation of health insurance and care providers in the state has raised prices, as it’s decreased consumer options. “It is clear that the market for health care and health insurance is now highly concentrated in California,” the report concludes. “This has likely reduced the level of competition, which has resulted in higher prices and [Affordable Care Act] premiums in California. The significant variation in prices and ACA premiums across the state suggests regulatory and legislative solutions need to be implemented.” (Bradford, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Health Care Costs 30% More In Northern California Than In Rest Of The State
People living in areas where there is greater consolidation among hospitals, physician groups and insurance companies pay more for health care, according to a study released Monday. The study analyzed consolidation in the hospital, insurance and physician markets in California between 2010 and 2016. (Ho, 3/26)

The New York Times: Grindr, Popular Gay Sex App, To Offer H.I.V. Test Reminders
In an effort to shrink the global AIDS epidemic, the world’s largest gay dating app is changing its software this week to urge millions of users to get frequent H.I.V. tests. Grindr, which claims to have 3.3 million daily users from every country in the world, will send men who opt into the service a reminder every three to six months, and simultaneously point them to the nearest testing site. It will also let clinics, gay community centers and other testing sites advertise for free. (McNeil, 3/26)

The Desert Sun: Health-Care Providers Apply Lessons From HIV Survivors To Primary Care
When celebrated author and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra visited Palm Springs in early February, he had an epiphany. Invited to be a featured speaker in the Palm Springs Speaks lecture series, he visited Desert AIDS Project before his event that evening. While touring the campus Chopra realized he was seeing the real-life manifestation of what he’d been advocating for decades. “For 35 years I’ve talked about health and well-being, a holistic approach, integrative approach — this is it,” Chopra said in a video interview with D.A.P. CEO and President David Brinkman and Chief Medical Officer David Morris. In the soft-spoken yet authoritative voice he’s known for, Chopra described an “amazing experience” exploring D.A.P.’s housing complex; sexual health clinic; acupuncture, yoga and meditation services; and more. (Dean, 3/26)

In other public health news —

 KPBS: Opioid Crisis Gripping More Addicts Before Adulthood
According to the last national survey on drug use and health, one in four young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 are using illicit drugs, much of it in the form of painkillers. The crisis stretches across the country. In San Diego County there were 400 overdose deaths last year. (Hindmon, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: By Going Vegan, America Could Feed An Additional 390 Million People, Study Suggests
More than 41 million Americans find themselves at risk of going hungry at some point during the year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.But it doesn't have to be this way. New research suggests the country could feed all 327 million Americans — plus roughly 390 million more — by focusing on plants. If U.S. farmers took all the land currently devoted to raising cattle, pigs and chickens and used it to grow plants instead, they could sustain more than twice as many people as they do now, according to a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Kaplan, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Company Sells Calif. Town It Planned To Make Marijuana Mecca
Could plans to turn an old California ghost town into a marijuana mecca be going up in smoke? Cannabis technology company American Green, which bought Nipton for $5 million last year, has sold it to another company for $7.7 million, acknowledging it struggled to raise the money needed to remake the old desert mining town into a pot paradise. (3/26)

In other news —

Orange County Register: Costa Mesa Set To Allow Manufacturing, Distribution, Testing Businesses For Recreational Marijuana 
Costa Mesa will likely soon become the first Orange County city to allow businesses to manufacture, distribute and test recreational marijuana. ...The City Council on March 20 voted 5-0 to expand the program to include recreational marijuana. It will have to vote a second time on April 3 for the new rules to take effect for that same area of Costa Mesa. (Shimura and Staggs, 3/26)

Politico: Inside The Collapse Of A Bipartisan Obamacare Deal
Everybody on Capitol Hill agreed: If anyone could break the deep-rooted partisan logjam over Obamacare in Congress, it was that deal-making duo Patty and Lamar. But in the end, it was Obamacare that broke their alliance. Just seven months after Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) heralded the beginning of a new bipartisan era on health care following the collapse of Obamacare repeal efforts, their lofty ambitions ended in much the same way as every Obamacare-related negotiation over the last eight years — with claims of betrayal, warnings of political fallout and no progress toward bridging the deep divide over the nation’s health care system. When Congress put its finishing touches on a $1.3 trillion spending bill late last week, there was one glaring omission: a proposal to head off huge premium spikes just before the November midterm elections. (Cancryn and Haberkorn, 3/26)

The Hill: Health Care Tops List Of Americans’ Worries: Poll
A majority of Americans say issues surrounding health care is a top concern for them, according to a new Gallup poll. Fifty-five percent of those polled said they worry "a great deal" about the cost and availability of health care in the U.S., while 23 percent said they worry about the issue "a fair amount."  (Manchester, 3/26)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: White House: No Change 'At This Time' To Shulkin's VA Job
With his job status in danger, embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin sought to lower his public profile Monday as a White House spokesman insisted that President Donald Trump still had confidence in his leadership "at this point in time." Shulkin, the lone Obama administration official in Trump's Cabinet, abruptly backed out of a media availability Monday morning that had been scheduled at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Elsmere, Delaware, as part of an annual Veterans Summit hosted by Democratic Sen. Tom Carper. Shulkin told organizers he needed to "get back on the road to Washington." (3/26)

The Hill: Senate Dems Request Health Panel Hearing On School Shootings 
Senate Democrats want the chamber's health committee to hold a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings, including school shootings. Nine Democrats, as well as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), sent a letter last week to Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top members on the panel, requesting they schedule a hearing in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., shooting, in which 17 people were killed.  (Carney, 3/26)

The Hill: Doctors Rip Santorum For Saying Students Should Learn CPR Instead Of Protesting Gun Violence
Doctors and health-care professionals are criticizing former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) after he suggested Sunday that student activists should learn CPR instead of protesting for gun control. The day after thousands of students across the country took to the streets to protest gun violence during the March for Our Lives, Santorum made remarks about CPR while appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (Gstalter, 3/26)

Stat: Prices For Common Medicare Drugs Rose 12 Percent Annually, With A Caveat
The latest report to chronicle the rising cost of prescription medicines comes from a U.S. Senate committee that found prices for the 20 drugs most widely prescribed through Medicare Part D in 2015, on average, increased 12 percent each year between 2012 and 2017. Moreover, a dozen of the medicines saw price hikes of 50 percent of more during that time and six of the drugs experienced price increases of more than 100 percent. In one case, the weighted wholesale cost for one medicine — Nitrostat, which is used to prevent chest pain — rose by 477 percent. (Silverman, 3/26)

The Washington Post: CVS-Aetna Wants To Be In Your Neighborhood Because Zip Codes Powerfully Shape People’s Health
Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini heads one of the biggest health insurers in the country and is on the cusp of a $69 billion megadeal to merge his company with pharmacy giant CVS. He says the future of health care is going to depend, mostly, on the time people spend outside the grasp of the traditional medical system. Health-policy experts increasingly talk about the effect of Zip codes on health — an acknowledgment of a growing body of research showing that where and how people live can have a bigger influence on their health than interactions with the medical system or even genetics. That means health insurance has to evolve, Bertolini said in an interview — away from acting only as a payment system for procedures and drugs when people are ill and toward interventions to help people stay healthy in their everyday lives. (Johnson, 3/26)

The New York Times: They Push. They Protest. And Many Activists, Privately, Suffer As A Result.
She lay curled in bed for days, paralyzed by the stresses of a life that she felt had chosen her as much as she had chosen it. About three years earlier, the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., had spurred Ashley Yates into activism. She would evolve from street protester in her hometown of St. Louis to Black Lives Matter organizer in Oakland. But Ms. Yates would also feel the pressures of a job that seemed unrelenting: responding repeatedly to the deaths of black residents in communities across America, struggling to win policy reforms that would benefit black people and rallying others to support her causes. (Eligon, 3/26)

The New York Times: For Many Strokes, There’s An Effective Treatment. Why Aren’t Some Doctors Offering It?
It was one of those findings that would change medicine, Dr. Christopher Lewandowski thought. For years, doctors had tried — and failed — to find a treatment that would preserve the brains of stroke patients. The task was beginning to seem hopeless: Once a clot blocked a blood vessel supplying the brain, its cells quickly began to die. Patients and their families could only pray that the damage would not be too extensive. (Kolata, 3/26)