CALmatters: Why A California Lawmaker Wants To Ban Cigarette Filters And Disposable Vapes
We’ve all seen it, the smoker who takes one last drag and flicks the cigarette butt onto the ground. It’s instant litter that California Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson wants to prevent by banning the filters in most cigarettes. The Democrat from Santa Barbara’s bill, SB 424, would ban filtered cigarettes, disposable plastic holders and mouthpieces, and single-use electronic cigarettes. It also calls for manufacturers to take back any non-recyclable parts of reusable e-cigarettes. The bill cleared the Senate in May, but it’s now in the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization—where previous cigarette butt bans have gone to die. (Becker, 6/25)

The Associated Press: Jump In Wildfires Means Smoke's Health Impact Will Spread
Climate change in the Western U.S. means more intense and frequent wildfires churning out waves of smoke that scientists say will sweep across the continent to affect tens of millions of people and cause a spike in premature deaths. That emerging reality is prompting people in cities and rural areas alike to gird themselves for another summer of sooty skies along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains — the regions widely expected to suffer most from blazes tied to dryer, warmer conditions. (6/25)

Ventura County Star: Santa Paula Hospital Birth Unit Gets Reprieve From Clinicas Del Camino Real
A month after announcing plans to shutter the lightly used obstetrics unit at Santa Paula Hospital, county officials said Monday they will reopen the labor and delivery service in August with the promise of new business. Under a verbal agreement reached late last week, the Clinicas del Camino Real medical group committed to deliver 10 babies a month at Santa Paula's obstetrics unit.  That pledge and a strong campaign by community groups led to the reversal, officials said Monday at a news conference in front of the hospital overlooking downtown Santa Paula. (Wilson, 6/24)

The New York Times: A Boy Who Had Spinal Surgery In The Womb Stands On His Own Two Feet
Charley Royer, 17 months old, has such a swift, strong kick that putting a pair of pants on him can turn into a wrestling match. His mother doesn’t mind. Far from it. “Things that might annoy other parents, I’m so thankful for,” Lexi Royer said. This child, who crawls around the house chasing a Yorkie named Bruce and proudly hauls himself upright against the couch, wasn’t expected to do any of this. (Grady, 6/24)

Sacramento Bee: U.S. Surgeon General: States Going ‘Too Fast’ On Marijuana
California and other states are going “way too far too fast” in legalizing the powerful marijuana strains being cultivated today, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday at UC Davis Medical School – even as he enlisted the help of physicians and doctors win his work to normalize addiction as a disease. “There are communities where one in five pregnant women are reporting marijuana use,” Adams said. “We see it in communities where they’ve legalized even medicinal use of marijuana. (Anderson, 6/24)

The Mercury News: After Heroin Addiction Cost Him His Legs, California Snowboarder Finds Purpose Through Sports
Matthew Brewer is running down the straightaway of the track at UCLA’s Drake Stadium. His arms are pumping, his legs flying down lane No. 5, as fast as his prosthetics will let him. Brewer is competing in the 200-meter sprint at the Angel City Games, a four-day adaptive sports festival that took place recently, featuring more than 450 athletes. All of them have overcome adversity to get here. All of them know what their peers have gone through. (He, 6/25)

Sacramento Bee: Construction On Placer County Morgue In Roseville Begins
Construction on a $28.5 million Placer County coroner’s office and morgue in Roseville began Monday, with county officials saying the new facility is a badly needed improvement from its Auburn location. At the old location, using the copy machine with a fresh pot of coffee brewing and a heater running would blow the power out. The county had to buy a portable air conditioning unit because the building’s AC wasn’t strong enough for staffers working in the autopsy room. And it doesn’t have nearly the capacity required for handling a mass casualty event like a bus or plane crash. (Yoon-Hendricks, 6/24)

Sacramento Bee: Bourdain-Inspired Mental Health Effort In Sacramento Expands
As fans around the world Tuesday mark what would have been the 63rd birthday of celebrity chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain, organizers of a grassroots movement in Sacramento restaurants are expanding their efforts to foster a kitchen culture that supports the mental health of its workers. Head chef Patrick Mulvaney of Mulvaney’s B&L in midtown Sacramento said Bourdain’s suicide last June in part inspired “I Got Your Back,” a movement that pushes for open discussion and easy access to professional mental health resources in the service community – through simple measures piloted at B&L. (Wang, 6/25)

The New York Times: A New Trump Order May Make More Health Care Prices Public
The White House released an executive order Monday afternoon intended to require insurance companies, doctors and hospitals to give patients more information about precisely what their care will cost before they get it. President Trump announced the new policy at a signing event, flanked by doctors and patients who had been hit by unexpected medical bills. The event came a week after the official launch of his re-election campaign, and it allows the president to make a claim that he is pursuing a far-reaching health reform plan, his answer to voter concerns about the high costs of care. (Abelson and Sanger-Katz, 6/24)

The Associated Press: Trump Signs Order That Aims To Reveal Real Health Care Costs
The idea is to give patients practical information that they can use to save money. For example, if a hospital charges your insurer $3,500 for a type of echocardiogram and the same test costs $550 in a doctor's office, you might go for the lower-price procedure to save on copays. But insurers said the idea could backfire, prompting hospitals that now give deeper discounts to try to raise their own negotiated prices to match what high earners are getting. Hospitals were skeptical of the move. (6/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Signs Executive Order Compelling Disclosure Of Prices In Health Care
While President Trump has pledged repeatedly to take on health costs, the signing of the executive order unleashes coordinated efforts from multiple agencies to pursue the goal. It calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a rule within two months that could require hospitals to publicize information on their negotiated rates with insurers for common procedures. (Armour and Wilde Mathews, 6/24)

Politico: Trump Aims At Health Cost Transparency With Executive Order
The order also calls for a roadmap for consolidating quality metrics across all federal health care programs, expanding access to health care claims data de-identified to preserve privacy and directs the Treasury Department to expand the availability of health savings accounts to pay for more health care services. The administration had hinted it would require hospitals and insurers to disclose their negotiated rates — a prospect that triggered fierce pushback from the both industries. But how specific that information will be is up in the air. Senior administration officials said the executive order will call for a proposed rule to make public information based on negotiated rates, with the level of detail to be hammered out in the rulemaking process. (Roubein, 6/24)

The New York Times: Why Transparency On Medical Prices Could Actually Make Them Go Higher
It makes intuitive sense — publish prices negotiated within the health care industry, and consumers will benefit. That’s the argument behind the executive order issued Monday by President Donald Trump that is intended to give patients more information about what health care will cost before they get it. But the peculiarities of the United States health care system, with its longstanding secrecy around negotiated health care prices, mean there is very little research on the possible effects of the particular thing the Trump administration wants to do. (Sanger-Katz, 6/24)

The New York Times: Supreme Court To Hear Insurers’ Suit On Obamacare
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether the federal government was entitled to break a promise to shield insurance companies from some of the risks they took in participating in the exchanges established by President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act. In their brief seeking Supreme Court review, two insurance companies said they had been the victims of “a bait-and-switch of staggering dimensions in which the government has paid insurers $12 billion less than what was promised.” (Liptak, 6/24)

The Associated Press: Government Moves Migrant Kids After AP Exposes Bad Treatment
The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation. Just 30 children remained at the facility near El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection. (6/24)

The New York Times: Emergency Aid For Migrants Badly Divides Democrats
Congress is trying to rush $4.5 billion in emergency humanitarian aid to the southwestern border while placing new restrictions on President Trump’s immigration crackdown, spurred on by disturbing images of suffering migrant families and of children living in squalor in overcrowded detention facilities. But with a House vote on the package planned for Tuesday, some Democrats are revolting over the measure, fearing that the aid will be used to carry out Mr. Trump’s aggressive tactics, including deportation raids that he has promised will begin within two weeks. (Davis, 6/24)

The New York Times: Dozens Of Nursing Homes With HUD-Backed Mortgages Have ‘Serious Deficiencies’
Dozens of the worst-run nursing homes in the United States have mortgages guaranteed by a federal agency that mostly stopped inspecting such homes several years ago. Seventy-four nursing homes with mortgages insured against default by the agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, are among 478 homes identified this month by two United States senators as having “serious deficiencies.” (Goldstein and Gebeloff, 6/24)

Stat: Planned Parenthood’s President On Roe V. Wade, Title X, And 2020
It’s been a busy time for Dr. Leana Wen, the new president of Planned Parenthood and the first physician at the helm of the organization in 50 years. Since she took office seven months ago, more than 300 proposals to restrict abortion access were introduced in states across the U.S. Many states have passed laws to that prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Missouri almost became the first state to not have a single abortion provider, until a judge stepped in to allow the lone clinic to stay open. (Chakradhar, 6/25)

Politico: Democrats Demand Answers From USDA On Lack Of Climate Science Promotion
Several Democrats criticized Monday the Trump administration after POLITICO reported the Agriculture Department has largely stopped promoting its own climate science. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who's also running for president, sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue expressing "deep concern and alarm" over the report. The Minnesota Democrat asked the department to explain its justification for not publicizing certain studies and to immediately release "any [Agricultural Research Service] study related to climate science that was ignored, downplayed, or its findings held back." (Evich, 6/24)

Stat: How An Alzheimer’s ‘Cabal’ Thwarted Progress Toward A Cure 
The brain, Alzheimer’s researchers patiently explain, is hard — harder than the heart, harder even than cancer. While that may be true, it is increasingly apparent that there is another, more disturbing reason for the tragic lack of progress: The most influential researchers have long believed so dogmatically in one theory of Alzheimer’s that they systematically thwarted alternative approaches. Several scientists described those who controlled the Alzheimer’s agenda as “a cabal.” (Begley, 6/25)