Fresno Bee: Gavin Newsom Proposes Medi-Cal Funding For Undocumented Seniors 
Some 27,000 undocumented California senior citizens would receive Medi-Cal benefits under a funding proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom. Advocates and lawmakers who have supported universal health care coverage said they were satisfied that Newsom included $80.5 million to expand Medi-Cal benefits to seniors, age 65 and older, regardless of immigration status. If the proposal makes it in the final budget, benefits would begin Jan. 1, 2021. (Amaro, 1/14)

The Mercury News: Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos Case: Feds Claim Patient Harms
Federal prosecutors this week attacked in dramatic fashion a move by fallen Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to quash felony fraud charges related to patients who paid for the company’s blood tests. The bombshell court action by the prosecution came in response to a mid-December motion by Holmes to get a judge to dismiss the four counts in her indictment that concern patients. The other seven counts relate to investors allegedly defrauded of more than $700 million. Holmes is accused of fraud in connection with failed Palo Alto blood-testing startup Theranos, which she founded as a Stanford University dropout in 2003. (Baron, 1/14)

Sacramento Bee: California Congressman Wants Homeless Disaster Declaration
A California congressman wants to allow states to apply for emergency funding for homelessness crises in the same way they’re granted funding for natural disasters like wildfires or hurricanes. Promoting the idea as a way to “bridge the gap between Washington and Sacramento,” Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, announced he was introducing the bill Tuesday. It would allow governors to declare homelessness crises as a state of emergency to receive additional federal funding. (Irby, 1/14)

Modesto Bee: Caltrans Would Have To Help House Homeless Under New Bill 
Caltrans would have to help homeless people find housing before clearing their tents from state property under a new proposal in the California State Legislature. The proposal would create a new classification of workers at Caltrans who would visit the people living in homeless camps and attempt to connect them with housing and supportive services before maintenance crews clear the camps. (Venteicher, 1/14)

LAist: Newsom Pledges $250 Million To Combat Homelessness In LA 
Governor Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that the Los Angeles area will be getting a quarter of a billion dollars from the state to put towards decreasing homelessness. He made the announcement during a stop in L.A. on his statewide homelessness tour, which kicked off earlier this week. (Perry, 1/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin Launches Diversion Program For Parents Facing Criminal Charges 
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Tuesday announced the creation of a diversion program for primary caregiver parents of minor children — his first policy since being sworn in last week, and an issue that’s personal. Boudin is the son of incarcerated parents, who were imprisoned when he was an infant for acting as getaway drivers in an armored car robbery in upstate New York in 1981 that left two police officers and a security guard dead. (Sernoffsky, 1/14)

CalMatters: Trump Hits And Misses As He Campaigns For Re-Election — Against California
The president clearly enjoys needling the nation’s most populous state. Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has taken aim at California for its policies on immigration and environmental protection, its left-leaning cultural institutions, its poverty rate (which, if you factor in the cost of living, is the highest in the nation), its crime rate (which isn’t), its most recent choice of governor and its alleged tolerance of voter fraud (a charge that’s completely unfounded). (Christopher, 1/14)

The Washington Post: Democratic Debate Highlights
For two hours, six Democratic presidential candidates focused on issues of foreign policy, healthcare and the question of electability — particularly the issue of whether a woman could defeat President Trump —in the last primary debate before Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3. On stage were former vice president Joe Biden; former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); investor Tom Steyer; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). (1/15)

The Wall Street Journal: January Democratic Debate In Iowa: The Moments That Mattered
Health care was expected to come up in the debate after Mr. Trump this week tweeted that he had saved pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has backed a lawsuit that would invalidate the Affordable Care Act, which bars insurers from denying people health coverage because of past and current medical issues. ... Candidates sparred over the costs of their proposals, with Mr. Sanders saying the average family would ultimately benefit from Medicare for All whereas Mr. Biden called for reinstating Obamacare with the addition of a public option. Ms. Klobuchar’s point, echoing that of many moderate critics, was that the debate over Medicare for All was largely irrelevant because it is so unlikely to ever pass through Congress. (Siddiqui and Glazer, 1/15)

Los Angeles Times: Candidates Tear Into One Another Over ‘Medicare For All’
Warren tried to make the case that every plan proposed by every candidate on the stage is an improvement over the Trump administration’s policy of dismantling Obamacare. But she aggressively attacked the moderates on the stage when they took aim at her proposal. “The numbers the mayor is offering just don’t add up,” Warren said of Buttigieg’s argument that transformational change can happen in healthcare without spending the tens of trillions Sanders and Warren envision. She said the Buttigieg plan simply would not provide the needed relief to a low-income family struggling with medical bills that average $12,000 per year. “You can’t cover that with the kind of money the mayor is talking about,” Warren said. Buttigieg took exception. “It’s just not true that the plan I am proposing is small,” he said. He complained of a “Washington mentality” that he said judges the bigness of a plan by how many trillions it cost and the boldness is judged by “how many Americans you can alienate.” (Halper, 1/14)

The Washington Post: Takeaways From The January Democratic Debate
Klobuchar on health care: Medicare-for-all has come up so much in these debates that bringing it up often elicits groans from people who cover these things. Little of it seems new anymore. But Klobuchar carved out her niche on it Tuesday night. “This debate isn’t real,” she said. “I was in Vegas the other day, and someone said don’t put your chips on a number on the wheel that isn’t even on the wheel. That’s the problem. Over two thirds of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are not on the bill that [Sanders] and Senator Warren are on.” Klobuchar then went a step further, pointing to concrete things she’s done and would do, including on drug importation and a bipartisan bill on lowering drug prices. (Blake, 1/14)

Politico: What We Learned About The Democratic Field From Tuesday's Debate
As in every debate, there was a lengthy domestic policy discussion anchored by health care. The moderators on Tuesday night zeroed in on one of the broad philosophical disagreements between the candidates that rarely gets spelled out: to what extent should the government subsidize healthcare, college, and childcare for all Americans? The use of means testing — requiring those with higher incomes to contribute more for government services — varies across the proposals of the candidates. Sanders is the most consistent, arguing for the largest welfare state across all those categories with the least amount of means testing. His argument is that for government programs to enjoy wide popularity they need to be available to all Americans regardless of income. Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who, for instance, frequently attack free college plans as subsidizing tuition for millionaires, are on the other side of the spectrum. (Lizza, 1/15)

CNN: Fact Check Of The January Democratic Debate
In defending her plan to build on the Affordable Care Act instead of pushing for the more sweeping Medicare for All plans proposed by her rivals, Klobuchar pointed out that more people support Obamacare than approve of President Donald Trump. "I would also note practically, that the Affordable Care Act right now is 10 points more popular than the president of the United States," the Minnesota Democrat said at CNN's debate on Tuesday night. Facts First: While no poll directly compares the two, it's true that Obamacare is better liked. (Luhby, 1/15)

Stat: Democrats Zero In On High Drug Prices In Iowa Debate
Until Tuesday, nearly every single Democratic primary debate has focused on the same health care issue: “Medicare for All.” So when Democrats got the chance to talk about their plans to lower drug prices, they jumped. Candidates uniformly criticized drug companies as examples of corporate irresponsibility and outsize political influence. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in particular, doubled down on a pledge to lower drug prices on her first day as president, using executive action to make it easier for generic drug makers to move in on brand-name drugs that were created using federally-funded research. (Facher, 1/14)

Sacramento Bee: Why Joe Biden Favors Obamacare Over Medicare For All
While his son died and he didn’t end up needing the money, Biden says he came away from the experience with a renewed sense of purpose to preserve the Affordable Care Act and help comfort others who are struggling. (Anderson, 1/14)

The Washington Post: More Than 100 Billion Pain Pills Saturated The Nation Over Nine Years
Newly disclosed federal drug data shows that more than 100 billion doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone were shipped nationwide from 2006 through 2014 — 24 billion more doses of the highly addictive pain pills than previously known to the public. The data, which traces the path of every pain pill shipped in the United States, shows the extent to which opioids flooded the country as deaths from the epidemic continued to climb over nine years. The Washington Post and the company that owns the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia first obtained the data, collected by the Drug Enforcement Administration, from 2006 through 2012 after waging a year-long legal fight. (Rich, Higham and Horwitz, 1/14)

ProPublica: Border Patrol Officials Dodged Congress’ Questions About Migrant Children’s Deaths 
The Trump administration sought to “conceal information” about the death of a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy in Border Patrol custody, a House subcommittee chairwoman said at a hearing Tuesday. Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., said the Department of Homeland Security has “consistently failed to maintain transparency by stymying congressional inquiries. (Moore, 1/14)

NPR: FDA Drug Approvals Are Faster But Rely On Less Evidence Than They Used To
The Food and Drug Administration has gotten faster at approving new prescription drugs over the past four decades, but the evidence it relies on in making those decisions is getting weaker, according to new research published Tuesday. As a result, there are more cures and treatments on the market but less proof that they are safe and effective. (Lupkin, 1/14)

Stat: 'How Long Do I Have?’ A Website On Cancer Survival Rates Seeks To Help
Talking about cancer is hard. Talking about your chances of surviving cancer is even harder. Now one of the entrepreneurs behind the drug-pricing information site GoodRx wants to make conversations about cancer easier with a new site called CancerSurvivalRates.com. Launched this month, its mission is to make information about cancer prognoses more accessible to patients and families. The idea is to improve on what people can find on the internet or even sometimes in their doctors’ offices, co-founder and drug supply chain veteran Stephen Buck said. (Cooney, 1/15)

The Associated Press: US Drinking More Now Than Just Before Prohibition
Americans are drinking more now than when Prohibition was enacted. What’s more, it’s been rising for two decades, and it’s not clear when it will fall again. That’s the picture painted by federal health statistics, which show a rise in per-person consumption and increases in emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths tied to drinking. (1/14)