Sacramento Bee: State Orders Mercy General Hospital To Pay $75,000 Penalty
The California Department of Public Health has ordered Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento to pay a $75,000 penalty for failing to ensure a patient’s health and safety. The hospital is one of 13 medical facilities that received a penalty issued by the department, with fines totaling $1,052,505, according to a press release sent by the department Thursday. The penalties were issued “after investigations found the facilities’ noncompliance with licensing requirements caused, or was likely to cause, serious injury or death to patients,” the release states. (Holzer, 8/23)

Capital Public Radio: 20 Pieces Of Legislation Are In Play At The Capitol To Stem California’s Opioid Problem. Here’s A Roundup. 
Two dozen bills on one issue might seem like a lot. But the national opioid epidemic is killing thousands in California, and lawmakers have a wide array of ideas about how to stop it. (Caiola, 8/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Health Director Garcia Forced To Resign Over Conflict-Of-Interest Allegations
San Francisco Public Health Director Barbara Garcia’s abrupt resignation Wednesday came after a months-long conflict-of-interest investigation into allegations that she had failed to disclose her wife’s income from an educational institution that had been awarded a million-dollar, sole-source contract with the health department, multiple sources have confirmed. (Matier and Ross, 8/23)

In other news from across the state —

Ventura County Star: County Says Improvements Made After Audit Finds Fiscal Controls Lacking
An independent auditor has found multiple oversight and documentation problems after reviewing physician contracts in outpatient clinics that are part of Ventura County Medical Center. In the report released Tuesday by county officials, the Moss Adams accounting firm said a lack of regular audits and monitoring of physician contracts meant health care managers were unable to determine “whether internal controls are working effectively.” (Wilson, 8/23)

The Mercury News: Bay Area Air Quality Remains Poor From Wildfire Smoke
Air quality across the Bay Area is expected to be unhealthy again Friday as smoke from wildfires in northern California, eastern Washington and British Columbia lingers in the atmosphere. Late Thursday afternoon, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a “Spare the Air” late through Friday “due to poor air quality conditions developing throughout the region as the result of smoke from wildfires sitting out over the Pacific Ocean and blowing into the region.” (Gomez, 8/24)

The Daily Bulletin: 4 Students In One California City Have Committed Suicide Since Start Of School Year
Three Rancho Cucamonga high school students and an elementary student have committed suicide since returning to school this month, officials have confirmed. In an email to families Tuesday, Aug. 21, Chaffey Joint Union High School District Superintendent Mat Holton said counseling teams of trained therapists have been deployed to three high schools to work with students and counselors. (Yarbough, 8/23)

In other public health news —

The Mercury News: Measles Alert: Disease Confirmed In Contra Costa County
Measles, a disease particularly dangerous for nonvaccinated children, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems, reared its head earlier this month when a Lafayette resident caught the disease, Contra Costa County health officials said. The Contra Costa County Health Services Department issued an advisory about the exposure Wednesday. It’s the first case in the county since 2015. (Hurd, 8/22)

The Associated Press: Senate Backs $854B Bill To Fund Health, Education, Military
The Senate approved an $854 billion measure Thursday that funds much of the government, including $675 billion for the Defense Department. The bill combines military spending with disbursements for Health and Human Services, Education, Labor and other agencies. The bill was approved, 85-7, and now heads to the House. (8/23)

Politico: Senate Passes Giant Spending Package In Hopes Of Averting Shutdown
HHS would see a $2.3 billion boost, including a 5.4 percent increase for the National Institutes of Health. Education programs would get a $541 million boost, while the Labor Department’s budget would remain flat. The two bills represent the eighth and ninth spending measures the Senate has passed this summer, likely the last of 12 to clear the chamber ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. The rest, including the bill that would fund Trump’s border wall, are expected to be funded on autopilot under a continuing resolution through the midterms and into Congress’ lame-duck session. (Ferris, 8/23)

The Washington Post: Senate Easily Defeats Measure To Defund Planned Parenthood
The Senate easily defeated an attempt by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday to strip money from Planned Parenthood, with Democrats holding together unanimously despite the prospect of election-year attacks from Republicans over the issue. Those attacks arrived mere moments after the vote closed, with the National Republican Senate Committee blasting out releases attacking Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) for opposing Paul’s measure. The three are among the most endangered Democrats in the Senate. (Werner, 8/23)

The Associated Press: Education Dept. Proposals On Guns In Schools Sparks Outcry
The Education Department says it is weighing whether to allow states to use federal funds to purchase guns for schools, prompting a storm of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and educators. If approved, the plan would likely generate a lot of controversy at a time when a string of especially deadly school shootings earlier this year led to the rise of a powerful student-led gun control movement. (8/24)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Russian Trolls Used Vaccine Debate To Sow Discord, Study Finds
Don’t get #vaccines. Illuminati are behind it.” “Do you still treat your kids with leaves? No? And why don’t you #vaccinate them? It’s medicine!” With messages like those, Russian internet trolls meddling in the 2016 presidential election also lashed out at Americans debating the safety of vaccines, a new study has found. (McNeil, 8/23)

Stat: HHS Advances Proposal That Could Require Prices Be Included In Drug Ads 
The Department of Health and Human Services is moving forward with a policy that could require drug companies to put the price of their medicine in advertisements. The White House Office of Management and Budget received a draft regulation from HHS this week titled “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Regulation to Require Drug Pricing Transparency.” An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on what the regulation would do, but lobbyists told STAT that it relates to the policy of requiring drug price information in ads. (Swetlitz, 8/23)

The Washington Post: Safest Level Of Alcohol Consumption Is None, Worldwide Study Shows
To minimize health risks, the optimal amount of alcohol someone should consume is none. That’s the simple, surprising conclusion of a massive study, co-authored by 512 researchers from 243 institutions, published Thursday in the prestigious journal the Lancet. The researchers built a database of more than a thousand alcohol studies and data sources, as well as death and disability records from 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2016. The goal was to estimate how alcohol affects the risk of 23 health problems. The number that jumped out, in the end, was zero. Anything more than that was associated with health risks. (Achenbach, 8/23)

Los Angeles Times: Scientists Blast EPA Effort That Would Discredit Health Research In The Name Of 'Transparency'
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a proposal this week to give states more latitude in regulating pollution from power plants within their borders, it came with a sobering forecast of its likely impact on Americans’ health. By 2030, adoption of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule could lead to 470 to 1,400 additional premature deaths each year because of an increase in tiny airborne particles. Children with asthma could wind up missing 21,000 extra days of school annually, and up to 48,000 more people could experience “exacerbated asthma” as air quality deteriorates. (Healy, 8/24)

Los Angeles Times: Despite A Judge's Disapproval, Trump Administration Is Doubling Down On Medicaid Restrictions
In the real world, it has become clear that placing restrictions such as work and reporting requirements on Medicaid is disastrous. They’re legally dubious, for one thing — as a federal judge stated in late June when he tossed out work requirements imposed in Kentucky. More important, they lead to needy beneficiaries being thrown off the program and locked out of healthcare for lengthy periods, often because of confused regulations and the natural uncertainties of life in a low-income environment. The best evidence for that comes from Arkansas, where thousands of residents may lose their eligibility for Medicaid for no good reason — and may not even know they’ve been barred until they go to a doctor and get turned away. (Michael Hiltzik, 8/20)

Sacramento Bee: Single-Payer Health Care Shows That Democrats Can Be Extreme, Too
This insanity of the Trump Republican Party is obvious. But the irresponsibility of the Democratic left is quite troublesome: Free college, free health care, no fossil fuels, no statewide water system – on and on it goes. (David Townsend, 8/23)

San Jose Mercury News: Reject Prop. 8, Capping Dialysis Firms' Profits
Proposition 8 provides a classic example of a ballot measure that has no business being decided by California voters. The complex initiative designed to regulate the dialysis industry is better suited for the Legislature, where the wording of new laws can be thoroughly vetted and easily altered if problems arise. (8/23)

Los Angeles Times: Besty DeVos Might Let Schools Use Federal Grants To Buy Guns? That's Dangerously Foolish
So far this calendar year, the nation has seen 15 school shootings in which at least one person was killed. Overall, 32 people have died, including 10 people in May at Santa Fe High School near Houston, and 17 people in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., according to a running tally kept by Education Week. Every such act of violence is tragic, and the scope of the mass shootings has shocked the nation. Against the greater backdrop of American gun violence, however — 5,627 non-suicide firearm deaths last year and 9,395 so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive — the risk of gun-wielders attacking schools is low. Yet some states, driven by the National Rifle Assn. mentality that a fully armed America is a safer America (it’s not), have passed laws allowing teachers and staffs at schools to carry or have access to firearms. (8/23)

The Mercury News: California's War On Affordable Health Insurance
“A crisis of affordability.” That’s what is plaguing the individual health insurance market, according to Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. The culprit? Obamacare. The health law’s regulations have steadily driven up the cost of insurance. Between 2013 — the year before most of Obamacare’s provisions took effect — and 2017, premiums for individual plans doubled. They’re expected to jump another 15 percent next year. (Sally C. Pipes, 8/23)

Sacramento Bee: Lack Of Political Power Can Actually Make You Sick
It’s no coincidence that the people who have the least influence over California’s decision-makers also have the worst health outcomes. It’s also no surprise that the elite Californians whose interests are amplified by campaign contributions, high-paid lobbyists and electoral power are shielded from the random and deliberate causes of poor health. (Daniel Zingale, 8/23)

Los Angeles Times: No, Medicaid Expansion Did Not Worsen The Opioid Crisis — But It's Crucial For Fixing The Problem
One of the most popular partisan attacks on Medicaid is the claim that the program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act exacerbated the opioid crisis in America. You’ll find this claim retailed on right-wing websites all across the internet. It’s been energetically marketed by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., who paints a picture of an army of Medicaid patients using their government-provided ID cards to obtain prescription opioids for free, then turning around and selling the drugs at a terrific markup. Johnson’s claim has been widely debunked, as we’ve reported before. But a new paper from a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins emphasizes another aspect of the matter generally overlooked or minimized by Johnson and his acolytes: Medicaid, including Medicaid expansion, is crucial for treating the opioid epidemic. (Michael Hiltzik, 8/20)

Sacramento Bee: California Cannot Wait On Clean Drinking Water Crisis
The disgracefully high number of Californians who don’t have clean drinking water is a full-on crisis that deserves an urgent response. So Gov. Jerry Brown and a bipartisan group of legislators are right to try again with a revised plan to get more money flowing to ease this public health emergency. They faced intense opposition to what critics labeled a “water tax” – a small levy on customer bills – in their original plan, which also included new fees on farms and dairies. (8/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: On Fentanyl: Congress Must Avoid Another Drug War
Just like the crack cocaine epidemic that resulted in overly harsh penalties targeted at African Americans in the 1980s, fentanyl and other synthetic drugs are poised to be the next drugs that politicians use to justify long prison sentences for drug users. (Diana Goldstein, 8/17)

San Jose Mercury News: Why Gig Economy Workers Deserve Basic Protections
The California Supreme Court’s decision in Dynamex v. Lee holds that businesses can no longer misclassify their workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid meeting basic labor standards. Dynamex is a trucking company, but many tech companies rely heavily on this misclassification strategy as well, and they have unleashed their lobbyists to try to reverse the decision. (Maria Noel Fernandez and Ben Field, 8/17)