Modern Healthcare: DOJ Joins Whistle-Blower Lawsuit Against Sutter Health
The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened in a lawsuit alleging Sutter Health submitted unsupported diagnosis codes to inflate its Medicare Advantage payments. A whistle-blower accused Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter and its affiliated medical group, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, of knowingly submitting unsupported diagnosis codes for certain patients that inflated their risk scores, resulting in higher payments to the providers under the Medicare Advantage program. (Bannow, 12/12)

Sacramento Bee: U.S. Attorney General, Whistleblower Allege Sutter Health Overcharged Medicare
The U.S. attorney general announced Tuesday that the Justice Department will take up a whistleblower lawsuit against Sacramento-based Sutter Health, alleging that the nonprofit medical provider manipulated diagnosis codes to get inflated payments from Medicare. “Federal healthcare programs rely on the accuracy of information submitted by healthcare providers to ensure that patients are afforded the appropriate level of care and that managed care plans receive appropriate compensation,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “Today’s action sends a clear message that we will seek to hold healthcare providers responsible if they fail to ensure that the information they submit is truthful.” (Anderson, 12/11)

California Healthline: Feds Join Lawsuit Alleging Sutter Health Padded Revenue With False Patient Data 
At issue is how Sutter Health and its affiliate Palo Alto Medical Foundation diagnosed patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage, which covers about one-third of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide. The program is funded by the government but offers health plans through private insurers. The lawsuit says Sutter, which has about 48,000 Medicare Advantage enrollees, is liable for at least “hundreds of millions of dollars” in restitution, damages and penalties. The complaint alleges that Sutter submitted unsupported diagnoses, which overstated the medical risk of patients and led to inflated payments. (Young, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Californians Want State To Spend Surplus On Health Care For All, Free Community College
Californians are in a spending mood with the state flush with cash, and they’re putting a priority on creating a universal health care system and making community colleges free, a new poll indicates. They’re much less enthusiastic about two priorities of outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown — the troubled high-speed rail project and saving money for the day the economy turns bad, according to a poll released Wednesday night by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. (Byrne, 12/12)

KQED: Poll: Californians Want Universal Health Coverage, Free Community College
In a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, 60 percent of adults said universal health coverage should be a high or very high priority. “The election polls indicated that health care was a major concern for Californians," said Mark Baldassare, president of PPIC. "And that seems to be reflected here." (Orr, 12/12)

Capital Public Radio: Poll Tells Gavin Newsom: Make Universal Health Care Highest Priority 
Termed-out Gov. Jerry Brown will leave office early next month with a 52 percent approval rating. But just 39 percent of likely voters say they’d like to see Newsom continue Brown’s policies, while half of Californians say they’d prefer to see the governor-elect chart a different course. (Adler, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: On Christmas Eve, Santa Delivers Presents ... And A Few Extra Heart Attacks
On Dec. 24, the risk of a heart attack is 37% higher than normal, the researchers found. On Christmas itself, the increase in risk dips to 29%. Even on Boxing Day, it’s still 21% above normal levels. For the sake of comparison, Mondays are known to be a time of increased heart attack risk. But in Sweden, the risk was only about 10% higher on the first day of the workweek. The BMJ study isn’t the first to report an association between the holiday season and myocardial mayhem. A 2004 paper in the journal Circulation, for example, found that deaths due to all kinds of heart disease were higher in the U.S. on both Christmas and New Year’s Day. (Kaplan, 12/13)

In other public health news —

The California Health Report: Report Warns Climate Change Will Affect Health, Especially For Most Vulnerable Populations
Californians are likely to experience more physical and mental health problems, injuries and death in the coming decades as a result climate change, according to a recent state report. More extreme weather patterns, wildfires, air and water pollution, sea-level rise, food and water shortages, and vector-borne diseases are projected in the coming decades as the climate warms, states the report prepared by the California Senate Office of Research at the request of senator Ricardo Lara. The severity of those consequences will depend on how much action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and on how prepared the state is to mitigate the health consequences of climate change, according to the findings. (Boyd-Barrett, 12/12)

Sacramento Bee: New Housing For Homeless Youth Opens In North Sacramento
Ramsey is one of 30 formerly homeless people in program targeting teens and young adults, run by Sacramento nonprofit Hope Cooperative. ...The townhome-style apartments will house people ages 18 to 25 — many of whom are LGBTQ, are “aged out” of the foster system, grew up homeless or became homeless due to substance abuse issues, said Erin Johansen, executive director of Hope Cooperative. (Clift, 12/12)

In other news —

Modesto Bee: Modesto Approves Response To Homeless Crisis; Some Warn About Threat To Tuolumne River 
The Modesto City Council on Tuesday night approved a resolution to declare a shelter crisis, which will bring in state funding to tackle the homeless problem. The city also decided to join a Stanislaus County partnership to contract a nonprofit that offers homeless people work training and jobs. (Ahumada, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: Laguna Beach To Expand Public Safety And Homelessness Efforts 
Beach patrols will increase following a late-night discussion about public safety at the Laguna Beach City Council meeting Tuesday.The council voted unanimously to fund a stronger police presence at Main Beach and Heisler Park. There also will be a new lifeguard tower at the south end of Main Beach, and beach patrol and community outreach officers will be on duty longer hours. (Pinho, 12/12)

LAist: One Person Actually Can Help The Homeless. Here's What You Can Do
Ending homelessness in Southern California will ultimately require a lot more than what we have right now. Though voters have approved significant funding measures for city and county relief efforts, and the number of people counted in the 2018 homeless census reflected a 4 percent decline from 2017, the rate at which Angelenos are falling into homelessness continues to tick up. (Tinoco, 12/12)

Ventura County Star: Community Memorial Hospital To Open Seven Years Into Construction
A new Community Memorial Hospital conceived when George W. Bush was president is set to open in midtown Ventura at 6 a.m. Sunday, officials said at a Tuesday ribbon cutting.Once projected to open in 2015, the new six-story hospital’s emergency room sign will be activated nearly an hour before sunrise, signifying the beginning of care. Patients will be transferred from the adjacent old hospital starting at about 9 a.m. with estimates that about half of the new facility’s 250 beds could be filled. (Kisken, 12/12)

In other hospital news —

Los Angeles Times: Hospital Chain Dignity Health Buys Naming Rights To Carson's StubHub Center 
Hospital operator Dignity Health will take over naming rights of the StubHub Center in a 10-year deal announced Thursday with stadium owner AEG. The stadium will now be called the Dignity Health Sports Park.The Carson complex, which opened in 2003, was called the Home Depot Center until 2013, when a deal with the home-improvement chain expired. (Koren, 12/13)

The Associated Press: Health Law Sign-Ups Lagging As Saturday Deadline Is Looming
With just days left to enroll, fewer people are signing up for the Affordable Care Act , even though premiums are stable, more plans are available and millions of uninsured people can still get financial help. Barring an enrollment surge, the nation's uninsured rate could edge up again after a yearslong coverage expansion that has seen about 20 million people obtain health insurance. (12/12)

The Hill: ObamaCare Sign-Ups Surge In Final Weeks But Lag Last Year's Numbers
More people are signing up for ObamaCare plans as the open enrollment period comes to a close, but the overall numbers are down compared to last year. From Dec. 2 to 8, the sixth week of open enrollment, 934,269 people signed up for coverage via healthcare.gov, the most in any one-week period this year. That compares with the 1,073,921 sign-ups from the same period in 2017. (Hellmann, 12/12)

In other health law news —

The Hill: Dems Aim To Punt Vote On ObamaCare Taxes 
Health-care companies are making a last-minute push to delay ObamaCare taxes as part of a year-end government funding deal, but they face resistance from Democrats who want to punt the issue until next year when they control the House. Powerful health-care lobbies are pushing lawmakers to delay the implementation of the taxes, worried about taking a financial hit. Lawmakers have voted to push off the health law’s medical device tax, health insurance tax, and tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health plans in the past with bipartisan support. (Sullivan, 12/13)

The New York Times: Fetal Tissue Research Is Curtailed By Trump Administration
Should the government pay for medical research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses? This debate, ever smoldering, has erupted again, pitting anti-abortion forces in the Trump administration against scientists who say the tissue is essential for studies that benefit millions of patients. In a letter last week that read like a shot across the bow, the National Institutes of Health warned the University California, San Francisco, that its $2 million contract for research involving the tissue, previously renewed for a year at a time, would be extended for only 90 days and might then be canceled. (Grady, 12/12)

In other national health care news —

CNN: Fentanyl Is The Deadliest Drug In America, CDC Confirms
Fentanyl is now the most commonly used drug involved in drug overdoses, according to a new government report. The latest numbers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics say that the rate of drug overdoses involving the synthetic opioid skyrocketed by about 113% each year from 2013 through 2016. The number of total drug overdoses jumped 54% each year between 2011 and 2016. In 2016, there were 63,632 drug overdose deaths. (Kounang, 12/12)

The New York Times: U.S. Diplomats With Mysterious Illness In Cuba Had Inner-Ear Damage, Doctors Say
The American government employees in Cuba who suffered mystifying symptoms — dizziness, insomnia, difficulty concentrating — after hearing a strange high-pitched sound all had one thing in common: damage to the part of the inner ear responsible for balance, according to the first doctors to examine them after the episodes. Two years after Americans posted at the United States Embassy in Havana began experiencing the peculiar phenomenon, doctors at the University of Miami on Wednesday published a scientific paper that confirms what these patients have said all along: Their condition is real, not the result of mass hysteria, a response to intense news media coverage or a stress reaction to being evacuated, as doctors in Cuba had suggested. (Robles, 12/12)

The Washington Post: How Many Years Do We Lose To The Air We Breathe?
The average person on Earth would live 2.6 years longer if their air contained none of the deadliest type of pollution, according to researchers at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. Your number depends on where you live. (12/12)

CNN: People With Eczema At Higher Risk Of Suicidal Thoughts And Attempts, Study Says
Eczema is a common skin condition that can pack a profound psychological punch: People with eczema are more likely to have suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts than others without the condition, according to new research published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Dermatology. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is a skin disease that's chronic and inflammatory -- meaning it involves an immune system reaction. It affects 18 million adults (more than 7%) and 9.6 million children (13%) in the United States, according to the researchers from University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. (Scutti, 12/12)