Stat: Millions Of People Became Uninsured As Medicaid Programs Cut Coverage, New Data Show
The national uninsured rate rose from 7.7% to 8.2% earlier this year, a result of states booting millions of Americans from their state Medicaid programs, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Herman, 8/6)

Axios: The States With The Most Uninsured Americans, Mapped
Texas is home to the country's largest share of Americans under 65 without health insurance, according to new Census Bureau data, with 18.8% of residents uninsured as of 2022. That's a big improvement over 2006, when 27.6% of Texans were uninsured — but still nearly double the national uninsured rate of 9.5%. (Fitzpatrick and Beheraj, 8/6)

Axios: Charted: Uninsured Population Grows
1.6 million more people lost health coverage in the first quarter of this year as states continued to cut their Medicaid rolls and unemployment ticked up, according to preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Goldman, 8/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: Bloomberg Donates $600M To Black Medical Schools
Bloomberg Philanthropies is donating $600 million to the endowments of the nation's four historically Black medical schools. ... Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science in Los Angeles will receive $75 million and the other three schools will each receive $175 million. The funding, based on current class size and anticipated growth, will more than double three of the schools' endowments. (Gooch, 8/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: Dignity Health Taps 2 Hospital Presidents, Searches For Market President
San Francisco-based Dignity Health has appointed two hospital presidents in its Central Coast market. Sue Andersen will lead Dignity Health - French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and Patrick Caster will oversee Dignity Health - St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, Calif., and Dignity Health - St. John's Hospital Camarillo (Calif.), according to a news release shared with Becker's. (Gooch, 8/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Heart Transplant List Does Not Rank Children By Medical Need: Study
The United Network for Organ Sharing pediatric transplant list does not rank patients by medical need, according to a study published Aug. 5 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Stanford (Calif.) Medicine partnered with Stanford's Department of Economics and the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine in Dallas to compare how pediatric heart transplant candidates would have been ranked if medical need determined waitlist order. (Gregerson, 8/5)

Axios: Rich-Poor Divide In U.S. Hospitals Widens As 700+ At Risk Of Closing
Some of America's largest hospital systems saw their financials soar in the first half of 2024. And yet, more than 700 facilities across the country still are at risk of closing. It's a familiar tale of the rich getting richer, as big, mostly for-profit health systems see improved margins while smaller facilities in outlying areas are barely hanging on. (Reed, 8/6)

Stat: Disparities Increase In Post-Hospital Care For Heart Patients 
Recovery from a cardiac-related hospitalization requires coordinated, timely care to prevent a return to the hospital for an avoidable readmission. A new study concludes that while the picture is getting brighter for all Medicare patients, persistent racial disparities are widening. (Cooney, 8/5)

The New York Times: Study Puts A $43 Billion Yearly Price Tag On Cancer Screening
The United States spent $43 billion annually on screening to prevent five cancers, according to one of the most comprehensive estimates of medically recommended cancer testing ever produced. The analysis, published on Monday in The Annals of Internal Medicine and based on data for the year 2021, shows that cancer screening makes up a substantial proportion of what is spent every year on cancer in the United States, which most likely exceeds $250 billion. The researchers focused their estimate on breast, cervical, colorectal, lung and prostate cancers, and found that more than 88 percent of screening was paid for by private insurance and the rest mostly by government programs. (Kolata, 8/5)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Doctor Pay, PBM Bills In Limbo As Congress Takes A Break
Members of Congress headed home for the summer over the weekend, leaving the healthcare community in an all-too-familiar position: Wondering how key priorities will turn out after lawmakers failed to address them in the first part off the year. At the top of the list is money, with billions of dollars in cuts to physician pay and safety net hospitals funding set to begin in January, as well as appropriations for expiring programs such as community health centers. (McAuliff, 8/5)

Modern Healthcare: Low-Paid Nursing Aides, Assistants Have More Medical Debt: Report
Extensive training requirements and lower wages lead healthcare professionals to accrue more debt than other workers, according to a recent analysis published in JAMA Health Forum. The study, which used 2018 through 2021 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, found physicians and registered nurses are more likely to have student loan debt. Nursing aides and environmental service workers have more medical debt. (Devereaux, 8/5)

The New York Times: Harris Officially Secures Democratic Party’s Nomination For President 
Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the Democratic nomination for president, becoming the first woman of color to win a major party’s nomination and officially setting up her matchup against former President Donald J. Trump. Ms. Harris, 59, earned the support of 99 percent of the 4,567 delegates who cast ballots, the Democratic National Committee said in a statement late Monday. In an unusual move meant to avoid potential legal headaches, the roll call was held virtually over five days, instead of in-person at the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Aug. 19 in Chicago. (Nehamas, 8/6)

USA Today: Agenda47 On Healthcare: Trump's Proposal On Lowering Drug Prices
Agenda47 is Trump's official campaign platform for the 2024 election. ... While Trump's proposals on healthcare are slim, he has put forward a few policies focused on drug shortages, prices and addiction. The U.S. faces an uphill battle against private, for-profit pharmaceutical companies that develop our drug supply, according to Colleen Grogan, a professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. (Crowley, 8/5)

KQED: 'The Rhetoric Is Amplified': SF Homeless Sweeps A Focal Point Of Mayor's Race
Facing a tough reelection this November, San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s “tough-love” approach to homelessness in the city has become increasingly vitriolic — an approach some critics say could put actual lives at risk. Last month, Breed vowed to begin “aggressively” removing people experiencing homelessness from encampments beginning in August. She told reporters, “We are going to make them so uncomfortable on the streets of San Francisco that they have to take our offer” of shelter or housing. (Johnson, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: A Woman Died After An L.A. Rehab Closed. Why Was It Forced To?
Jasmine Richardson had been struggling with methamphetamine and fentanyl addiction for more than a decade, but she got sober after completing a six-month program at the Teen Project’s Freehab center on Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley. That was right around Thanksgiving last year, and it was the first time the 33-year-old had been clean in years. Still, she wasn’t ready to leave the Freehab just yet. ... All of that was cut short Dec. 4, when the Los Angeles City Fire Department shut down the facility over what it said were building and fire code violations, officials said. The group of 43 women, whose ranks included survivors of human trafficking, substance abuse and homelessness, had a few hours to pack up their belongings and find a new place to stay. (Lin, 8/6)

The War Horse: Amputee Veterans Face Chronic Lack Of VA Care, Prosthetics
From Utah to Tennessee to North Carolina, [veterans] say they are all experiencing similar frustrations with the dense bureaucracy and gaps in care for prosthetics and accessibility equipment provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. ... The concerns of amputee veterans and their advocates are now making their way to Capitol Hill, with site visits by the House Veterans Affairs Committee and letters from lawmakers signaling a growing acknowledgment of the program’s shortcomings. (Hodge Seck, 8/6)

KVPR: California’s Aging Population Is On Front Lines Of Extreme Heat
Prolonged periods of extreme heat are the deadliest forms of weather in the country, killing more Americans each year than floods, tornadoes or hurricanes. They’re especially dangerous for older adults, who make up an oversized share of heat-related fatalities.In the San Joaquin Valley, adults aged 65 and over account for 12% of the population but 28% of all heat-related deaths since 2020, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Arredondo, Public Health Watch, 8/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Weather: Heat Advisories And Warnings Across State
More than 20 million people in the western U.S. are included in an excessive heat warning Tuesday as a high-pressure system expands across a broad swath of the country. Millions more Californians are under a heat advisory, including in San Jose, Los Angeles and Orange County. The hot weather is not expected to be as extreme or long-lasting as the record July heat, but triple-digit high temperatures and warm nights will result in a major risk of heat-related impacts. According to the National Weather Service, major heat risk can affect “anyone without effective cooling or adequate hydration.” (Edwards, 8/6)

VC Star: Harmful Algal Blooms Located In Most California Counties
Nearly three quarters of California counties have some kind of harmful algal bloom, according to the State Water Control Resources Board, prompting warnings at rivers and lakes. (Woods II, 8/5)

East Bay Times: Experts Urge People To Mask Up As Southern California Sees COVID-19 Surge
Health experts are urging community members to exercise greater caution and mask up as Pasadena and the rest of Los Angeles County deal with a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases driven in large part by a highly contagious new variant. (Liu, 8/6)

CIDRAP: After Pandemic, School Openings Linked To Poor Mental Health
While many studies have shown that COVID-19 pandemic-era school closures had negative effects on student mental health, a new study in JAMA Network Open shows the opposite: the re-opening of schools trigged an increased incidence of acute psychiatric emergencies, suggesting school can be a substantial source of stress for some students. The study is based on 13,014 psychiatric emergency department (ED) visits at 9 university hospitals in Italy from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021. (Soucheray, 8/5)

Bay Area Reporter: LGBTQ Agenda: Queer Americans Are Coming Out Younger, But Some Have Never Escaped The Closet
LGBTQ Americans are coming out at younger and younger ages — though almost one-in-five never have escaped the closet — according to a newly-released Gallup survey. ... Among all LGBTQ+ Americans, the median age of coming out was 19. For those aged 18-29, the median age was 17. That went up to 26 for those 65 and older — with 8% of them staying in the closet until they were over 50. (Ferrannini, 8/6)

CBS News: Excessive Smartphone Use Can Negatively Impact Teen's Mental Health, Researchers Find
Researchers have found more evidence that excessive smartphone use could impact a teen's mental health. Scientists refer to it as "problematic smartphone use" or PSU; in other words, behaviors around smartphone use akin to an addiction. ... Researchers at King's College London found that teens with PSU were twice as likely to have anxiety and almost three times more likely to suffer from depression compared to teens without problematic smartphone use. (Marshall, 8/5)

The Washington Post: Teenager Sues Meta Over ‘Addictive’ Instagram Features
A minor from New York on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against Meta, alleging that the social media giant sought to keep teens hooked on Instagram while knowingly exposing them to harmful content. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that Meta implemented features its leaders knew would make Instagram addicting for teens, such as displaying counts of how many “likes” posts receive, even as internal evidence grew that the service could harm their mental health. The 13-year-old girl is seeking $5 billion in damages, to be shared among eligible Instagram users if the suit is certified as a class action. (Nix, 8/5)

Voice of San Diego: What Schools Can Learn From A Traumatic Active Shooter Drill
On Jan. 24, 2023, the sounds of gunfire and screaming began to play on staff walkie-talkies at Harriet Tubman Village Charter School. They immediately caused a panic. ... The sounds turned out to be part of an active shooter drill performed by administrators at the K-8 school and not an actual active shooter as many had feared. But for teachers, 10 of whom submitted a letter to San Diego Unified’s board requesting an investigation in the following days, the drill was traumatic, not only for them but for the students they serve. (McWhinney, 8/6)