Sacramento Business Journal: Obamacare’s End May Be $20 Billion Hit To California 
Almost $20 billion in annual federal stimulus money to California could go on the chopping block when President-elect Donald Trump tries to make good on his promise to end Obamacare. Insurance coverage for more than five million Californians, thousands of jobs and a hefty chunk of business for health plans, providers, brokers and others hang in the balance. (Robertson, 12/2)

In other news —

Sacramento Bee: ‘Code Blue!’ UC Davis Med Students Call Trump A ‘Medical Emergency’
Calling it a “code blue” medical emergency, more than 100 UC Davis medical students held a rally on the Sacramento campus Thursday night to speak out about their fears for health care under incoming president Donald Trump... Organized over Thanksgiving break, the rally included about a dozen speakers, mostly medical students, who described their concerns as future doctors and as Muslims, minorities, gays, immigrants and victims of sexual assault. (Buck, 12/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Zenefits Must Charge For Software In Washington State
Washington’s insurance regulator said Thursday that Zenefits can no longer offer its human resources software for free in the state, another setback for the embattled health-benefits brokerage that has sought to move past regulatory violations. The order from Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler strikes at the heart of Zenefits’s business model, which offers free human-resources software to small businesses so that it can collect commissions when the companies use Zenefits to sign up for health benefits. (Winkler, 12/1)

In case you missed it: Zenefits Slammed With $7M Fine From California Insurance Regulator

Los Angeles Times: California Health Officials Report First Death Of Flu Season
California health officials on Thursday confirmed the state’s first death of this year’s influenza season and reminded everyone to get a flu shot before more people get sick. “As this unfortunate case illustrates, the flu can be deadly and causes thousands of fatalities each year in the United States,” said Karen Smith, director of the California Department of Public Health. “Fortunately, people can get vaccinated to help keep them from getting sick and spreading the flu to others.” (Karlamangla, 12/1)

The Mercury News: California Reports First Flu Death Of 2016-17 Flu Season
California public health officials on Thursday announced the first flu-related fatality of the 2016-17 flu season. The victim, whom the department would identify only as a person under age 65, died in Los Angeles County. (Seipel, 12/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: On World AIDS Day, Activists Brace For New Fight In Trump Era
The people who have been battling AIDS for three decades got together in San Francisco on Thursday to buck each other up for what they say are the brand-new battles bound to come after Inauguration Day. The fight against the virus, and with the people who control the health care purse strings, never ends, said the 500 or so AIDS activists and supporters who gathered in Golden Gate Park for the 23rd annual World AIDS Day observance. (Rubenstein, 12/1)

KPBS: San Diego Marks World AIDS Day As Officials Target End Of HIV Epidemic 
San Diego health officials and activists are marking World AIDS Day on Thursday, nine months after the county approved a plan to end the local HIV epidemic within 10 years. UC San Diego will be holding events throughout the day for World AIDS Day, including a panel on living with HIV. The San Diego LGBT Community Center is hosting the annual A. Brad Truax Award Ceremony, meant to honor activists, volunteers and health care providers who work to combat HIV/AIDS. Officials are later gathering in Hillcrest for a tree lighting ceremony to commemorate victims of the disease. (Bowen, 12/1)

California Healthline: California Has High Aspirations For Lowering HIV Infections
Zero. That’s the number of new HIV infections California officials are aiming for under a comprehensive initiative released this fall. The “Getting to Zero” plan, intended to guide the state’s AIDS policy from 2017 to 2021, is designed to boost surveillance, increase access to care and eliminate disparities in treatment. (Korry, 12/2)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: UC San Diego Performs Region's First Heart-Liver Transplant 
Frank “Sonny” Taitano has made history as the first person to undergo a concurrent heart-liver transplant surgery in the county. That detail is not lost on his wife, Linda Castro, but she tends to view the milestone operation by the ways it is already changing his life. While her husband still struggles to get out of his bed at UC San Diego’s Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center in La Jolla, Castro said some of the heart-failure symptoms that increasingly debilitated him during the past 11 years have started to disappear. (Sisson, 12/1)

In other news from across the state —

KPCC: LA Voters Might Be Asked To Help The Homeless — By Raising Taxes
L.A. County, looking for millions of dollars to fund its plan to eradicate homelessness, will likely turn to voters for a way to raise the cash. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and incoming Supervisor Janice Hahn have co-authored a motion to put a quarter-cent sales tax up for voter approval in March. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the idea Tuesday at their regular meeting. Should it make its way to the March ballot, the measure would require support from two-thirds of voters to become law. (Palta, 12/1)

Politico: GOP's Medicare Plans Run Into Wall In The Senate
The GOP’s dream of privatizing parts of Medicare is running up against resistance among Senate Republicans. Interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers reveal they’re not planning to pursue big changes to the popular health care program for seniors — at least not in the first year of the Trump administration. That hesitation starts with the chairman who would lead any overhaul in the Senate. (Haberkorn and Cancryn, 12/2)

In other national health care news —

Bloomberg: GOP’s Delayed-Repeal Obamacare Strategy Faces Major Obstacles
Republicans are coalescing around a plan to quickly pass next year a delayed repeal of Obamacare to give them two or three years to craft an alternative. But that plan, designed to create a “cliff” that according to lawmakers and aides would push Congress to get its act together, comes with significant perils. “We’re going to begin immediately to repeal Obamacare and reconciliation is the only way to do it. And I believe we will have 51 Republican senators or 52 to vote for that,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chairs the health committee, told reporters Thursday. (Kapur, 12/1)

Stat: Drug Makers Are Getting Ready To Shape Trumpcare
The upcoming fight over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act promises to shake up hospitals and insurers, but drug makers also stand to gain — or lose — a lot. On the upside, congressional Republicans have already signaled that they plan to roll back billions of dollars in fees the law imposed on the industry. But drug makers also risk losing millions of new customers who became insured under the health care law. And if President-elect Donald Trump and Congress decide they need to cover the full cost of whatever they propose to replace the law, they might turn to drug companies to pay up. (Scott, 12/2)

Reuters: Pharma Execs Weigh In On Possible Changes Under Trump
Top executives from large U.S. drugmakers on Thursday discussed for the first time possible changes for the industry under President-elect Donald Trump, and issues that have damaged the reputation of their industry. (Pierson, Berkrot and Humer, 12/1)

Los Angeles Times: End The Outdated, Unscientific Restrictions On Gay Blood Donors
More than 30 years ago, as the AIDS epidemic exploded, the nation’s blood banks banned donations from men who had sex with other men. The logic was sound at the time. Tests of the era couldn’t adequately detect HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As a result, thousands of people unwittingly contracted HIV from tainted blood during transfusions. Banning donations from gay men was a drastic step, but necessary to protect the nation’s blood supply. (12/1)

Fresno Bee: AIDS Patients Still Face Challenges, Despite Successes In Treatment 
Fresno County saw its first cases two years later in 1983. Now, approximately 1.2 million Americans have HIV. Another 40,000 are diagnosed each year. One of 8 infected persons does not yet know it. As for Fresno County, there are about 700 persons with HIV and 1,100 have progressed to AIDS. Transmission risks for HIV remain unchanged from those that were quickly identified in 1981. Shared needles and unprotected sex remain the leading causes. Occupational exposure remains rare, and casual contact from daily interaction in a school or a household is still perfectly safe. (Roger Mortimer, 11/29)

Sacramento Bee: Trump Starts To Reveal Obamacare Plans 
After campaigning on a platform long on platitudes and short on specifics, President-elect Donald Trump this week started to reveal what he has in store for the nation’s health care system – and many Californians aren’t going to like what they hear. Trump, who promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific,” chose Rep. Tom Price, a tea party Republican from suburban Atlanta and one of Obamacare’s fiercest critics, as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. (Sal Rosselli, 12/1)

Sacramento Bee: How Obamacare Ruling Could Shield Sanctuary Cities
While sanctuary policies vary, these cities generally limit how much local law enforcement cooperates with federal immigration officials. Leaders in Sacramento, San Francisco and other cities have vowed to fight federal attempts to deport undocumented immigrants. Ironically, the Republican assault on Obamacare may prove to be the basis that courts use to reject efforts to defund sanctuary cities. (Ong Hing, 11/28)

Los Angeles Times: Health Savings Accounts: Another Conservative 'Reform' Nostrum That Chiefly Benefits The Rich 
With Obamacare repeal-and-replace on the table, a favorite healthcare “reform” of Republicans and conservatives is about to have another day in the sun: health savings accounts. They sound good — tax-exempt personal slush funds that can be used to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses — but for the average person they’re almost useless and for the healthcare system they’re potentially disastrous. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/18)

Los Angeles Times: Texas Requiring Aborted Fetuses To Be Buried Is Plain Ridiculous
Anti-abortion lawmakers and state officials across the country have gone to unusual lengths since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade to deter women from exercising that particular constitutional right. Lately, however, a handful of states have taken the effort to a bizarre extreme. Following the strange trail blazed by Louisiana and Indiana, Texas will soon start enforcing a new rule requiring the fetal remains from any abortion performed in a hospital or clinic in the state to be treated “with dignity” by being buried, entombed or cremated. (12/2)

Los Angeles Times: A Hard, Personal Look At The Twilight We're All Headed For, But Often Unprepared To Handle 
Would my mother be better off in a nursing home, with round-the-clock professional help? Or would she do better staying in her own house, even if she doesn’t always recognize it, with hired help looking after her?Which would be more expensive? Why don’t Medicare and her supplemental insurance cover more than they do? (Steve Lopez, 11/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: All Of Us—Doctor And Patients—Need To Face Up To Healthcare Hazards 
Medical mistakes are a touchy subject in the medical community. Both sides of the healthcare system fear them—patients because of their general anxiety about going to the doctor, physicians because of the looming threat of malpractice. The situation needs to be faced squarely, with candor and above all, with reliable statistics. These have varied widely over the years. While the numbers of fatalities reported annually in US hospitals has had estimates from 44,000 to 440,000, even the lower estimate is a public health catastrophe. (Deepack Chopra, Nancy Cetel, Dianielle Weiss and Joseph Weiss, 11/21)

Los Angeles Times: The IRS Could Instantly Help 387,000 Disabled Americans. What's It Waiting For? 
The Department of Education and the Social Security Administration jointly are doing yeoman’s work in identifying about 387,000 severely disabled and insolvent Americans saddled with federal student debt they can’t repay and informing them that the law allows their loans to be forgiven. But one agency still needs to act to make sure these people aren’t hit with a tax penalty when that happens: the Internal Revenue Service. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/22)

Orange County Register: Public Pensions Facing Day Of Reckoning? 
The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Northern California “pension spiking” case that has major implications for pension financing and reform efforts throughout the state, setting up a showdown over whether pensions may be reduced for existing government employees. After the state passed the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013, Marin County took advantage of one of the law’s provisions to exclude certain compensation enhancements — including in-kind benefits converted to cash, like cash payments for waiving health care, and payments for “additional services rendered outside of normal working hours,” such as standby pay, administrative response pay and call-back pay — from base pay for the purpose of calculating pensions. Public employees objected and sued. (12/1)

Orange County Register: Fibromyalgia Tricky To Diagnose, But It Can Be Treated 
Despite the growing interest, little is known about the cause and probable cure of fibromyalgia. Yet, symptoms of widespread pain, headaches, sleep disorders, digestive problems, dizziness and chronic fatigue are shared among 5 million Americans, and 80 percent to 90 percent of people diagnosed are women.Traditionally, mainstream medicine has difficulty diagnosing this disorder. Since it affects the brain and central nervous system, fibromyalgia doesn’t have outward signs indicating a problem, nor does it show in ultrasound or MRI screenings. (Amy Osmond Cook, 11/30)