CalMatters: Insulin, Health Privacy, Insurance Delays Head To Gavin Newsom
Several health care bills are now on the governor’s desk, aiming to improve access for Californians who can’t afford prescription drugs, shorten delays to medical decisions, and address threats to personal privacy. This year, California lawmakers backed at least half a dozen bills that would change how consumers access drugs and health care – and set new protections for their medical privacy. Opponents of some of these efforts say more regulations will only make health care more expensive, while advocates say consumers need protection from the federal government and from powerful industry lobbies that drive up costs. (Hwang and Ibarra, 9/17)

Times of San Diego: Sharp Nurses Rally For Better Pay, Safety As Contract Deadlines Loom
More than a hundred registered nurses will gather Wednesday at Sharp Healthcare corporate headquarters in San Diego to demand fair pay, treatment and contracts that put patients first. The rally is set for 9 a.m. Sept. 17. Nurses and workers plan to meet at the Marriott parking lot at 8651 Spectrum Center Boulevard, and march from there to Sharp’s corporate office. (Fonseca, 9/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Cedars-Sinai Launches Sports Cardiology Program
The Smidt Heart Institute at Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai has launched a sports cardiology program to provide specialized cardiovascular care for athletes and exercise enthusiasts. ... The service expansion comes at a time of growing concern over heart health among athletes. A recent study found male athletes who exercised more than 3,000 metabolic equivalents of task minutes per week had a higher likelihood of experiencing subclinical coronary atherosclerosis. (Gregerson, 9/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Stanford Benchmarks AI Agents In Healthcare
A team of Stanford University researchers developed benchmarks for measuring the accuracy and effectiveness of AI agents to assist physicians and published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine AI. The team tested how well large language models could process medical information and complete administrative tasks for physicians, such as ordering tests, prescribing medication and retrieving patient information. (Dyrda, 9/16)

Modern Healthcare: Vital, Penguin Ai Offering Guaranteed ROI To Compete Against Epic
The landscape for companies selling artificial intelligence tools was already crowded before Epic bolstered its offerings. The electronic health record company made it clear last month that it wasn’t going to cede the market to other vendors when it announced new AI tools for patients, for providers and for revenue cycle management functions. For some startups, the competition from Epic and elsewhere has meant adjusting their strategies to attract potential customers. (Perna, 9/16)

Fierce Healthcare: Optum Rx Rolls Out New Brand Drug Pricing Model For Pharmacies
Optum Rx, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S., has increased reimbursement minimums for brand drugs for approximately 2,300 independent pharmacies. The initiative builds on the company's commitment earlier this year to modernize its pharmacy payment model. Optum Rx said in March it would shift to a cost-based model, which will better align with "the costs pharmacies may face due to manufacturer pricing actions." (Landi, 9/17)

Berkeleyside: 'Dystopian’ Berkeley CVS Security May Lead To Citywide Ban
If you live near the North Berkeley CVS, you may have heard the store’s safety system this summer. One neighbor said she could hear it while walking her dog a block and a half away. Another, who lives 500 feet away from the store, said it woke him up through sealed windows. The automated alarm systems are meant to frighten off would-be thieves and burglars, but neighbors of the CVS at 1451 Shattuck Ave. have said the robotic voices and flashing lights have plunged the area into exhaustion and despair. (Gecan, 9/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Encampments Cleared Under Notorious Highway Tangle
Encampments along the network of highway exits along Cesar Chavez Street in San Francisco were cleared in recent days in what state officials called the latest iteration of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to tackle homelessness. For years, encampments have formed in small passageways or inlets along the noisy tangle of freeway arteries connecting Cesar Chavez Street, Potrero Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard, often referred to as “the hairball.” Caltrans and California Highway Patrol crews worked throughout the day Tuesday to clear debris left over from the encampments, whose residents were given 72 hours notice on Friday to clear out their belongings and work with local agencies to receive support. (Vainshtein and Bollag, 9/16)

The Oaklandside: Encampment Policy Meetings Violated Transparency Law, City Attorney Says
Oakland’s city attorney has put city officials on notice that some of them violated a state transparency law while promoting changes to the city’s homeless encampment policy. According to the city attorney, Council President Kevin Jenkins’ chief of staff, Patricia Brooks, held meetings with each councilmember about the policy in recent months. Councilmember Ken Houston was at four of the meetings. (Orenstein, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: A Homeless Encampment, With Pickleball Court And Garden, Becomes Both Refuge And Scourge
Forced from his residence in an old Victorian house to make way for a redevelopment, Tim Gilbert said he was wandering Koreatown in November looking for a place to live when he ducked through a hole in a fence into a vacant lot and found himself alone. He set up camp, and as other followed suit, began to build a little community: Toward one corner of the 15,000-square foot lot, Gilbert erected a pickleball net he said he found near Wilshire Boulevard. Behind the net, where people volley from time to time, is a small garden of tomatoes, cannabis and onions that he tends to. There are at least two barbecues, one propane, one charcoal. (Khouri, 9/17)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Calistoga Councilmember To Lead Keynote At Napa Suicide Prevention Event
Mentis Napa, a nonprofit dedicated to providing mental health support to Napa County residents, is hosting its second annual suicide prevention conference on Wednesday, Sept. 17, from 2:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Yountville Community Center. (Cavazos, 9/16)

AP: Parents Of Teens Who Died By Suicide After AI Chatbot Interactions Testify To Congress
Parents whose teenagers killed themselves after interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots testified to Congress on Tuesday about the dangers of the technology. “What began as a homework helper gradually turned itself into a confidant and then a suicide coach,” said Matthew Raine, whose 16-year-old son Adam died in April. “Within a few months, ChatGPT became Adam’s closest companion,” the father told senators. (O’Brien, 9/16)

CBS News: OpenAI Says It Is Rolling Out New Safety Measures For ChatGPT Users Under 18
OpenAI announced Tuesday that it is directing teens to an age-appropriate version of its ChatGPT technology as it seeks to bolster safeguards amid a period of heightened scrutiny over the chatbot's safety. Users of the chatbot identified as under the age of 18 will automatically be directed to a version of ChatGPT governed by "age-appropriate" content rules, OpenAI said in a statement. This under-age edition includes protection policies such as blocking sexual content and — "in rare cases of acute distress" — law enforcement to ensure a user's safety, according to the company. (Cunningham, 9/16)

Axios: Exclusive: Half Of Young People Plagued By Loneliness, Family Problems
Half of U.S. youth say that loneliness has a daily disruptive impact on their mental health, according to Hopelab and Data For Progress survey results shared exclusively with Axios. The big picture: The polls shows two different paths, with over half of respondents reporting good mental health, though that state of well-being strongly correlates with income and LGBTQ+ identity. (Rubin, 9/16)

NPR: RFK Jr. Panned Mental Health Screenings In Schools. Here Are 3 Things To Know
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and Education Secretary Linda McMahon want schools to do away with mental health screenings and therapy. Instead, they argue in a Washington Post opinion piece that schools "must return to the natural sources of mental well-being: strong families, nutrition and fitness, and hope for the future." In the op-ed, the two secretaries mention a recent bill signed by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, which requires all schools in the state to offer mental health screening tests, starting with third graders. The screenings are standardized questionnaires that ask children about their feelings and well-being. (Chatterjee, 9/16)

The New York Times: ‘People Are Losing Hope’: Suicide Risk Is Rife In ICE Detention Centers
Daniel Cortes De La Valle had been in immigration detention for more than seven months — sleeping in dirty cells, being mocked by guards for his weight and being denied his epilepsy medication — when, in July 2023, he tried to hang himself. “‘I can’t anymore,’” Mr. Cortes De La Valle, 35, recalls thinking. “‘I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s like a horror movie.’” (Goldberg, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: UC Employees, Not Waiting On Leaders, Sue Trump For 'Financial Coercion' Over UCLA Cuts
A group of 21 unions and faculty associations representing more than 100,000 University of California employees sued President Trump on Tuesday, alleging he is illegally forcing “ideological dominance” over a UC education, has violated the constitution and endangered jobs by suspending research grants and seeking a $1.2-billion fine against UCLA. ... The groups that sued include faculty associations from each campus as well as the UAW 4811 academic workers union, the AFSCME 3299 union — representing patient care technical and service employees — the California Nurses Assn. and several other organizations. (Kaleem, 9/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: UC Employees Sue To Block Trump Moves To Control Campus Speech
Unions representing thousands of University of California teachers and employees sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal funds unless UC halts its longtime policies that aid racial, ethnic and sexual minorities. ... In July, the suit said, three federal agencies — the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Department of Energy — without any advance notice, cut off $564 million in research funds to UCLA because of what they agencies described as “illegal affirmative action,” “antisemitism and bias” and “discrimination against and endangering of women.” (Egelko, 9/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Jewish Professors Urge UC Regents To Reject Trump Talks
Nearly 200 Jewish professors are urging the University of California’s governing Board of Regents not to negotiate with President Donald Trump, on grounds that he is trying to exert political control over UC by spreading the false idea that it harbors widespread antisemitism. “Let us be clear: the University of California is not being targeted because of antisemitism on our campuses,” the professors from nearly every UC campus wrote the regents ahead of the board’s meeting this week in San Francisco. Instead, the university is “under assault because it poses a considerable obstacle to authoritarianism,” they wrote in a letter with 186 signatures as of Tuesday. “Let there be no concessions, compromises, bargains, or capitulation. Not in our name.” (Asimov, 9/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Posey, Giants Raise $1.3M For Pediatric Cancer Research At Oracle Park
Buster Posey’s role with the San Francisco Giants has shifted from beloved catcher to part owner to president of baseball operations. Through his changing roles, Posey’s dedication to pediatric cancer research has not wavered. On the Giants’ off day Thursday, Posey and his wife, Kristen, hosted their seventh BP28 Gala held on the Oracle Park field to raise money for pediatric cancer research. It’s a cause with which the Poseys have been deeply involved with for nearly a decade. (Rubin, 9/12)

Los Angeles Times: California Issues Advisory On New World Screwworm, Danger To Humans
A parasitic fly whose maggots can infest living livestock, birds, pets and humans, could threaten California soon. The New World Screwworm has rapidly spread northward from Panama since 2023 and farther into Central America. As of early September, the parasitic fly was present in seven states in southern Mexico, where 720 humans have been infested and six of them have died. More than 111,000 animals also have been infested, health officials said. (Lin II, 9/17)

Los Angeles Times: Did L.A. Wildfire Debris Worsen This Year's Toxic Algal Bloom?
When scores of dead and dying sea animals began washing up on L.A.-area beaches just weeks after January’s devastating fires, the timing seemed suspicious. Harmful algae blooms had sickened marine life in each of the three years prior. But the especially high number of animal deaths this year prompted several research teams to investigate whether runoff from the fires may have accelerated algae growth to particularly dangerous proportions. The evidence available so far suggests that this year’s algae bloom would have been just as deadly if the catastrophe on land hadn’t happened, multiple scientists said this week. (Purtill, 9/17)

Capital & Main: Effort To Curb Southern California Rail Yard Pollution Stalls Under Trump
When MaCarmen Gonzalez moved from Mexico to the city of San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles, two decades ago, she brought one of her two sons with her. Soon after, he began suffering from asthma, while the son who remained in Mexico stayed healthy. The contrast convinced Gonzalez that the air in her new community — which had become a major distribution hub for Amazon and other online retailers — was making people sick. (Greenaway and Tran, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: As California Installs More Artificial Turf, Health And Environmental Concerns Multiply
Fields of plastic, or fake turf, are spreading across the Golden State from San Diego to Del Norte counties. Some municipalities and school districts embrace them, saying they are good for the environment and promote kids’ activity and health. But some cities including Los Angeles are considering banning the fields, citing concerns about children’s health and the environment. (Rust, 9/17)

Modern Healthcare: House Spending Bill Sets Up Fight Over ACA Subsidies
House Republican leaders Tuesday unveiled a bill to keep government and key healthcare programs running through Nov. 21, but declined to heed calls to address expiring tax credits for federal marketplace insurance plans. The proposal emerged as Democrats complain Republicans have refused to negotiate with them at all. A growing number of Democrats have also said extending the enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 is a requirement for them to vote to keep government funded. (McAuliff, 9/16)

The Washington Post: The GOP Cut Parts Of Obamacare. Now It’s At The Center Of A Funding Fight.
Voters across the country are already beginning to feel the impact of the recent ACA rollbacks. They could also see their premiums rise when enhanced tax subsidies to purchase ACA marketplace insurance plans — which Democrats passed under President Joe Biden — expire at the end of the year. Insurers have already started sending notices to consumers that their premiums will rise significantly in 2026. Without the enhanced tax credits in place, ACA marketplace consumers’ out-of-pocket premium payments will rise by more than 75 percent on average, according to an analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization. (Abutaleb and Meyer, 9/17)