Politico: In A First, Medicare Has Set Prices For 10 Drugs, Saving Billions
The Biden administration on Thursday released the results of the first Medicare drug price negotiations, a milestone in Democrats’ decadeslong quest to have the nation’s largest payer use its leverage to lower prescription drug prices. The result is a $6 billion savings across 10 drugs when new prices take effect in 2026, according to the White House, and beneficiaries will save roughly $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. “Empowering Medicare to negotiate prices not only strengthens the program for generations to come, but also puts a check on skyrocketing drug prices,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. (King, 8/15)

USA Today: Medicare Negotiated Discounts On 10 Widely Used Prescribed Drugs
Older Americans on Medicare who take 10 widely-prescribed drugs such as Xarelto or Eliquis will get a break on the medications' list prices beginning in 2026. The Biden administration on Thursday announced Medicare negotiated discounts with pharmaceutical companies on 10 drugs prescribed to treat blood clots, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The drugs include Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara, and the insulins Fiasp and NovoLog. (Alltucker, 8/15)

Newsweek: California Counties See Drastically Different Medicare Advantage Enrollment 
The market penetration for Medicare Advantage was significantly lower in northern countries. (Blake, 8/12)

CNN: Kamala Harris’ Complicated History With Medicare For All Becomes A Trump Campaign Attack Line 
 Kamala Harris may be done with Medicare for All, but Medicare for All – with a new nudge from former President Donald Trump – isn’t done with her. The Trump campaign on Wednesday attacked Harris over her past support for a move to the single-payer, government-run health care system long championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Medicare for All gained broad support among progressive Democrats, especially those with eyes on the White House, before and during the early stages of the party’s 2020 presidential primary. (Krieg and Luhby, 8/14)

Becker's Hospital Review: Prospect Struggles To Sell Hospitals Amid New DOJ Investigation Details
As Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings works to sell off nine of its hospitals, more information has been unveiled regarding the Justice Department's Nov. 3 civil investigation into the hospital chain. Unsealed May 28 court documents, filed Aug. 13 by Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health and obtained by Becker's, shared that the DOJ's investigation was initiated over "concerning allegations that Prospect violated the False Claims Act by upcoding certain secondary diagnoses on claims for patient care that were submitted to federal healthcare programs." (Ashley, 8/14)

VC Star: St. John's Hospitals In Oxnard, Camarillo Announce CEO Appointment
The former top administrator at hospitals in San Luis Obispo and Gardena has been named CEO of St. John’s hospitals in Oxnard and Camarillo. (Kisken, 8/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Health Care System Kaiser Using AI To Listen To Doctor Visits
The Kaiser health care system is now using artificial intelligence to listen in on appointments between doctors and patients, the nonprofit said Wednesday. The announcement comes after other Bay Area hospital systems, including Sutter Health, have deployed the technology, and after Kaiser told the Chronicle earlier this month it had been testing similar technology. Called Abridge AI, the tool “is now available to doctors and other clinicians at Kaiser Permanente’s 40 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices in eight states and the District of Columbia,” Kaiser said. (DiFeliciantonio, 8/14)

Becker's Hospital Review: Physician-Owned Hospitals Could Boost Rural Healthcare: AMA
A bill calling for the establishment of physician-owned hospitals would improve access to healthcare in rural areas, the American Medical Association wrote in an Aug. 14 article. ... Physicians would be allowed to open a hospital in a rural area that is a 35-mile drive or farther from another hospital, or a 15-mile drive in areas with secondary roads or mountainous terrain, according to the bill. Existing physician-owned hospitals would also be able to expand services. The bill proposes changes to the Affordable Care Act, which effectively halted expansions of existing physician-owned hospitals and prevented the opening of new ones, the AMA wrote. (Kuchno, 8/14)

Voice of OC: Garden Grove Looks To Crack Down On Homeless Encampments After Supreme Court Ruling
Garden Grove City Council members are pushing to clear out homeless camps in the city after a recent landmark Supreme Court decision gives cities across the country power to do so again. Now, City Councilman George Brietigam and his colleagues are looking to give local police officers an ordinance to clear out homeless encampments in Garden Grove. (Elattar, 8/14)

Los Angeles Times: 'Our City Is Not An RV Park': L.A. To Study Widespread RV Parking Ban
An effort to restrict the thousands of RVs parked in residential areas, next to schools and along commercial districts, is gaining steam, as Los Angeles struggles to figure out how to house the families and individuals living in them. In a 14-0 vote Monday, the Los Angeles City Council ordered city agencies to come up with “recommendations for a citywide program” that would limit RV parking, while also providing restrooms, septic waste removal, help finding housing and other services in designated areas. (Uranga, 8/15)

Fresno Bee: Madera Police Want Encampment Law Update To Target Parks 
In dealing with homelessness in Madera, the police chief wants the City Council to approve new rules that would ban any unauthorized group from congregating in a public park if they make the space “unusable” to others. (Galicia, 8/15)

KQED: This Tech-Backed Company Tried To Disrupt California’s Housing Crisis. It Couldn’t
Jan Sramek saw one of California’s biggest challenges — its dire housing shortage — and wanted to propose a big solution. The former investor and startup founder’s bold “East Solano Plan,” headed to the November ballot, would have authorized construction of a dense, walkable city amid eastern Solano County farmland, complete with schools, parks, homes, and offices connected by bike lanes and buses. (Bandlamudi, 8/15)

Modesto Bee: Fentanyl-Related Deaths Continue To Plague Stanislaus County
Stanislaus County remains in the throes of a fentanyl epidemic that has killed hundreds of residents in the past few years. According to updated numbers released last week, the Coroner’s Office has confirmed 93 drug overdose deaths in 2024, as of about mid-June. Of those, 61 deaths were related to illegal fentanyl use and 23 were caused by methamphetamine. The county is on pace to approach the record-high mortality that alarmed health officials last year. Stanislaus had 213 fatal overdoses last year, including 138 related to fentanyl. (Carlson, 8/14)

KQED: 1 Dead In Santa Clara County’s 1st Human West Nile Cases Of The Year
Santa Clara County reported its first West Nile virus death of the year on Wednesday, coming after mosquitos with the disease were found last month. Two human cases of West Nile virus have been reported in the county so far in August, including one immunocompromised person who died at a hospital after experiencing symptoms. The other person is recovering at home after being hospitalized, according to a statement from the Department of Public Health. (DeBenedetti, 8/14)

KQED: Uninsured? Experts Explain How To Get Your Free COVID Shot Before The Money Runs Out
The federal program that funds free COVID vaccines for people without health insurance is ending several months earlier than expected – and uninsured folks are now being told it could be their last chance to seek out a free shot before the money runs out for good. The Bridge Access Program was launched by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September 2023, to provide free COVID vaccinations to the estimated 25-30 million adults in the U.S. without health insurance. (Severn, 8/15)

Sacramento Bee: New COVID Variant In CA: What Are Symptoms? Do Vaccines Work?
A new coronavirus variant is on the rise across the country — including in California. Cases of the new strain, known as KP.3.1.1, have nearly doubled in recent weeks, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Aug. 3, the variant was linked to about 27.8% of all COVID-19 cases. (Rodriguez, 8/14)

Los Angeles Times: A New Global Health Emergency: What Is Mpox, Where Are The Outbreaks?
The World Health Organization has declared that the increasing spread of mpox in Africa is a global health emergency, warning a deadlier version of the virus might spill broadly across international borders. The announcement Wednesday by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came after a meeting of the U.N. health agency’s emergency committee. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared mpox a public health emergency on the continent on Tuesday. (Cheng, 8/14)

Voice of San Diego: Cajon Valley Will Require Staff To Tell Parents If Students Change Identity
Last month. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act into law. The law restricts school districts from requiring teachers to tell parents if their child asks to go by a name or pronouns that differ from what they were assigned at birth. It’s meant to prevent what advocates call the “forced outing,” of trans students by educators. But last night, Cajon Valley Union School District’s board passed a resolution that requires district employees to notify parents or guardians of students under 12 years old if their child requests to be identified by new pronouns. It was part of a broader resolution on parental rights. (McWhinney, 8/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Transgender People Fund Gender-Affirming Care With GoFundMe
At one point, Prestin Bailey felt like he and his Oakland friends were just passing money back and forth. His friend group was “chock-full of trans people,” and the funds they raised again and again were for gender-affirming health care. Bailey, a trans man, created his own GoFundMe campaign to support his recovery from top surgery in 2021. His experience isn’t unique. GoFundMe crowdfunding is a common way for trans people to access health care. A Chronicle analysis found that as of Aug. 6, there were just under 3,000 GoFundMe campaigns seeking funds for gender-affirming medical procedures across the country. To identify these campaigns, the Chronicle searched for all campaigns that contained the keyword “gender affirming.” (Stiefel, 8/15)

Los Angeles Times: As Heat Rises, California Reduces Farmworker Oversite
California has sharply cut its enforcement of heat-protection laws for outdoor laborers while extreme heat has intensified in recent years — endangering farmworkers, construction workers and others who toil in scorching temperatures — an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and Capital & Main has found. From 2017 to 2023, the number of field inspections conducted by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, dropped by nearly 30%, according to agency data. The number of violations issued to employers in that period fell by more than 40%. (Lopez, 8/15)

The Hill: Kids Online Safety Bill Hits GOP Roadblock In House, After Easily Clearing Senate
A bill intended to boost privacy and safety for children online that had broad bipartisan support in the Senate is stalling in the House amid resistance from leadership, putting a spotlight on Republican divisions on tech policy. Supporters of the legislation are outwardly optimistic about advancing it before the end of the year, hoping momentum from the Senate passage will prove the House resistance to be a speed bump rather than a brick wall. (Brooks, 8/14)

Roll Call: Surgeon General Hones Dual Focus On Mental Health, Gun Violence 
The nation’s top doctor said the United States is “falling short” in protecting the public health of children and adolescents from the impact of social media and firearm violence — and both are areas where he wants Congress to take additional action. (Raman, 8/14)

Los Angeles Times: What Elmo Learned By Asking Americans About Mental Health
Remember when Elmo went viral in January by asking folks on the Internet how they were doing and briefly became the unofficial therapist of X? ... Six months later, Elmo’s creators at Sesame Workshop have collaborated with the Harris Poll to conduct a more thorough check-in on the state of Americans’ mental health. They conducted 2,012 online interviews in May on an array of topics with a nationally representative sample of Americans ages 16 and up. (Kaplan, 8/15)

ABC News: More People Are Dying From Dementia, According To New Study
Deaths from dementia have tripled in just 21 years, according to a new study published in The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders. In 1999, about 150,000 Americans died from dementia, according to the study. By 2020, that number had tripled to over 450,000. (Shaik, 8/14)

CNN: Alzheimer’s Risk Rose Up To 42% With Untreated High Blood Pressure, Study Finds 
Some 46% of the 1.28 billion adults around the world with high blood pressure don’t know they have it, according to the World Health Organization. Yet living with uncontrolled hypertension may dramatically raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease for people ages 60 and older, according to a new metanalysis. (LaMotte, 8/14)

CIDRAP: Shingles May Pose A 20% Higher Risk For Long-Term Confusion, Memory Loss
An observational study today in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy suggesting that a single episode of shingles is tied to a 20% higher risk of long-term confusion and memory loss further supports receiving the vaccine against the disease. (Van Beusekom, 8/14)

The Washington Post: Humans Undergo Midlife Molecule Changes In 40s And 60s, Stanford Study Says 
For many, middle age is associated with midlife crises and internal tumult. According to new research, it is also when the human body undergoes two dramatic bouts of rapid physical transformation on a molecular level. In a new study, scientists at Stanford University tracked age-related changes in over 135,000 types of molecules and microbes, sampled from over 100 adults. They discovered that shifts in their abundance — either increasing or decreasing in number — did not occur gradually over time, but clustered around two ages. (Sands, 8/14)

AP: Classes Across The Country Help Seniors Interact With A World Altered By AI
Older adults find themselves in a unique moment with technology. Artificial intelligence offers significant benefits for seniors, from the ability to curb loneliness to making it easier for them to get to medical appointments. But it also has drawbacks that are uniquely threatening to this older group of Americans: A series of studies have found that senior citizens are more susceptible to both scams perpetrated using artificial intelligence and believing the types of misinformation that are being supercharged by the technology. Experts are particularly concerned about the role deepfakes and other AI-produced misinformation could play in politics. (Merica, 8/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Some Patients Who Appear Unconscious Know What’s Going On 
As many 100,000 Americans with severe brain injuries are unresponsive, showing few or no signs that they are aware of themselves or their surroundings. But one in four people with this kind of injury can perform cognitive tasks on command, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The responses were detected with brain scans that show the patients are conscious but have no motor control. The findings could influence decisions about whether to continue life support or how caregivers interact with patients who appear unconscious but might be aware of what’s happening around them. (McGinty, 8/14)

The New York Times: A.L.S. Stole His Voice. A.I. Retrieved It. 
Last July, doctors at the University of California, Davis, surgically implanted electrodes in Casey Harrell’s brain to try to discern what he was trying to say. In an experiment that surpassed expectations, implants in his brain were able to recognize words he tried to speak, and A.I. helped produce sounds that came close to matching his true voice. (Mueller, 8/14)

Stat: Lessons From ALS Patient Using Brain-Computer Interface At Home
Brain-computer interfaces are still years, and several FDA approvals, away from being available on the market. Even though industry leaders tout their eventual use for the general public, the first users of these technologies have been and will continue to be people with disabilities. (Broderick, 8/14)