The New York Times: Biden Budget Will Propose Tax Increase To Boost Medicare
President Biden, as part of his budget set for release on Thursday, will propose raising a tax on Americans earning more than $400,000 as part of a series of efforts to extend the solvency of Medicare by a quarter-century. The president will also propose expanding that tax, which helps fund health care programs, to cover a wider swath of income, including some earnings by business owners that currently are not subject to it, White House officials said in a fact sheet released on Tuesday morning. Mr. Biden will also seek to broaden a measure, passed last year entirely with Democratic votes, that allows Medicare to negotiate the price of certain prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies, which is projected to save the government money. (Tankersley and Sanger-Katz, 3/7)

The New York Times: Opinion: Joe Biden: My Plan To Extend Medicare For Another Generation
The budget I am releasing this week will make the Medicare trust fund solvent beyond 2050 without cutting a penny in benefits. In fact, we can get better value, making sure Americans receive better care for the money they pay into Medicare. (President Joseph R. Biden Jr., 3/7)

The Hill: Biden Releases Plan To Keep Medicare Solvent For Another 25 Years
The proposal, unveiled Tuesday morning, would fund the program into the 2050s by increasing the Medicare tax rate from 3.8 to 5 percent for households making more than $400,000 a year. ... The White House’s tax increase would apply to both “earned and unearned income” above $400,000. ... The plan also beefs up a requirement that pharmaceutical companies pay into Medicare when they increase prices faster than inflation. By making this rule apply to commercial health insurance, the White House aims to dedicate around $200 billion to Medicare’s hospital trust fund over the next ten years. (Burns, 3/7)

Reuters: Biden Plans Tax High-Earners In Bid To Save Medicare
His proposal also seeks to close loopholes that allow high earners to shield some of their income from the tax, the White House said. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by Democrats last year, authorizes Medicare to negotiate prices for high-cost drugs. The budget proposal would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for more drugs and to do so sooner after they launch, saving $200 billion over 10 years, the White House said. (Renshaw, 3/7)

The Washington Post: Biden To Unveil Plan Averting Medicare Funding Crisis, Challenging GOP
Additionally, the plan calls for expanding new rules reducing Medicare prescription drug payments beyond the measures approved last year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The plan would give the administration authority to negotiate what price the federal government pays for more drugs than the limited number approved as part of Democrats’ legislative package last year, while also speeding up the process for negotiations. The prescription drug changes would bring in an additional $200 billion for the Medicare trust fund, the plan states. The proposal would also cap co-pays for some generic drugs, such as those used to treat hypertension and high cholesterol, to $2 per prescription per month.(Stein, 3/7)

AP: Biden Will Seek Medicare Changes, Up Tax Rate In New Budget 
More changes would be made to Medicare benefits. Biden wants to limit cost sharing for some generic drugs to only $2. The idea would lower out-of-pocket costs for treating hypertension, high cholesterol and other ailments. In addition, the budget would end cost sharing for up to three mental health or behavioral health visits per year. (Megerian, 3/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Survey Finds 1 In 4 Parents Lied About Children Being Infected
About a quarter of parents have lied to others about their child’s COVID-19 positivity status, according to a study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Network Open. The national, online, noprobability survey in December 2021 asked parents if they had ever engaged in seven types of misrepresentation and nonadherence behaviors regarding COVID-19 public health measures for their children: Yes, they'd been dishonest about their child’s health or vaccination status, roughly 1 in 4 told the researchers. And 1 in 5 allowed their child to break quarantine rules at the height of the pandemic. (Vaziri and Beamish, 3/6)

CIDRAP: Survey: 26% Of Parents Lied About Child's COVID Status, Flouted Public Health Rules
The most common untruth was not telling someone who was going to spend time with their child that they knew or suspected the child had COVID-19 (63 of 263 [24.0%]), and the most common adherence failure was allowing their child to break quarantine rules (67 of 318 [21.1%]). A total of 19.4% of parents didn't have their child tested for COVID-19 when they suspected infection. Just over half of parents who lied (52.4%) said they exposed others to their ill child because they wanted to exercise their parental autonomy, while others said their child didn't feel very sick (47.6%), they didn't want to miss a fun event to stay home (44.4%), or they didn't want their child to miss school (42.9%). (Van Beusekom, 3/6)

The New York Times: Long Covid Patients More Likely To Have Gastrointestinal Problems, Study Finds
Stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, bloating — these are symptoms frequently reported by people with long Covid. Now, a large new study reports that Covid patients were significantly more likely to experience gastrointestinal problems a year after infection than people who were not infected. (Belluck, 3/7)

Bloomberg: Bivalent Booster Covid Protection Fades After 2 Months In Elderly
Covid-19 bivalent boosters’ protection against death and hospitalization in elderly people began waning as soon as two months after vaccination, according to a preprint study. (Muller, 3/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Moderna CEO Defends Pricing Plans For Covid-19 Shot 
Moderna Inc. Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel pushed back against criticism of the company’s pricing plans for its Covid-19 vaccine at Monday’s Wall Street Journal Health Forum. ... The chief executive said the company’s mRNA platform was funded by investors, not the government, and the public funding accelerated development of the vaccine. (Hopkins, 3/6)

Bay Area News Group: Gov. Newsom Is Blasting CEQA. What Is It And Why Does It Matter?
As far as obscure-sounding government acronyms go, perhaps none carry more weight in California than CEQA. Short for the California Environmental Quality Act, the state’s landmark environmental protection law affects a wide range of land-use decisions, from which low-income apartments win approval to where oil well permits are issued. Environmentalists and neighborhood groups champion the law as fundamental to preserving natural habitats and protecting public health. But developers and housing advocates have long maintained it is weaponized to kill or delay new home construction — exacerbating the state’s chronic housing shortage. (Varian, 3/6)

Stat: How One Medical School Became Remarkably Diverse
There’s good reason for concern: In the nine states where affirmative action is already banned at public universities, medical school classes are notably less diverse. But one school in California — the state with the country’s longest-standing ban on using race in admissions — has defied the odds. The University of California, Davis runs the country’s most diverse medical school after Howard, a historically Black university, and Florida International, a Hispanic-serving research university. (McFarling, 3/7)

Los Angeles Times: USC Oncologist David Agus' New Book Is Rife With Plagiarism
The publication of a new book by Dr. David Agus, the media-friendly USC oncologist who leads the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, was shaping up to be a high-profile event. Agus promoted “The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy Life” with appearances on CBS News, where he serves as a medical contributor, and “The Howard Stern Show,” where he is a frequent guest. Entrepreneur Arianna Huffington hosted a dinner party at her home in his honor. The title hit No. 1 on Amazon’s list of top-selling books about animals a week before its March 7 publication. (Purtill, 3/6)

Voice Of San Diego: Not Everyone Ready To Welcome Billionaire Back To Philanthropy Circles
The “Come Fly with Me” charity ball is an opulent affair held annually for a different cause. This time around, the black-tie event at the Hotel del Coronado raised money for the Chadwick Center at Rady Children’s Hospital. The center advocates for kids and their families who’ve experienced abuse, neglect and trauma. Sitting at a table near the front was T. Denny Sanford, the billionaire implicated in a child pornography probe in 2020. (Marx, 3/6)

Capitol Weekly: A Chat With BART's Homelessness Czar 
One of the groups most dependent on BART is the region’s homeless population – and that dependence became even more pronounced during the COVID pandemic. As part of a larger Action Plan, BART introduced its first Homelessness Czar (technically, “senior manager of social services”), Daniel Cooperman in 2021.  Cooperman joined us to talk about the challenges and rewards of his very unique job, and explains why elevators figure so prominently in his duties. (3/6)

Sacramento Bee: Rise In California Hate Crimes Prompts Call For Creation Of Special Intervention Unit 
Amid a dramatic rise in hate crimes against ethnic groups in California, one lawmaker seeks to create a special intervention unit to directly address those incidents. If signed into law, the Combat Hate Crimes proposal would create a Hate Crimes Intervention Unit inside California’s Department of Public Health. (Smith, 3/6)

Berkeleyside: Daniel Ellsberg, 'Pentagon Papers' Whistleblower, Has Pancreatic Cancer
Daniel Ellsberg, the former government analyst who leaked a trove of classified documents that became known as the “Pentagon Papers” and has lived near Berkeley for more than four decades, announced that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In a Facebook post Thursday, Ellsberg wrote that doctors told him that he has inoperable pancreatic cancer, and estimated he has three to six months to live. Ellsberg, 91, has decided to forgo chemotherapy. (Savidge, 3/6)

The Mercury News: Elizabeth Holmes On $878 Million Demand: Crimes Didn't Kill Theranos
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, fighting a $900 million restitution demand, claims her crimes were not proven to have caused her blood testing startup’s collapse, and her deceptions did not generate all the money investors poured into her firm. Federal prosecutors last month filed a motion asking Judge Edward Davila to order Holmes, convicted in January 2022 of four counts of defrauding investors in her now-defunct Palo Alto startup, to pay $878 million in restitution. Davila sentenced Holmes in November to more than 11 years in prison, ordering her to start imprisonment April 27, a date she is battling to extend until her appeal concludes. (Baron, 3/6)