The Associated Press: Health Law's Fines Are Not The Big Stick Everybody Thought
There was one thing that supporters and detractors of former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul agreed on for years: unpopular fines on Americans forgoing coverage were essential for the plan to work because they nudged healthy people to get insured, helping check premiums. Now it turns out that might not be so. (12/20)

The Hill: California Asks Federal Judge To Block Trump Contraception Rule 
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) asked a federal judge on Thursday to block Trump administration rules that would allow more exemptions to ObamaCare's contraception mandate. The final rules, slated to take effect Jan. 14, would allow most businesses to opt out of covering contraception for their employees if they have moral or religious objections. (Hellmann, 12/20)

Capital Public Radio: California Will Soon Require More DUI Offenders To Pass A Breathalyzer Test Before Starting Their Car
More Californians convicted of DUI offenses will be required to pass a breathalyzer test to start their vehicles under a new law going into effect Jan. 1. SB 1046 by State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, expands a pilot program already in place in Sacramento, Alameda, Tulare and Los Angeles counties to the entire state. (Nichols, 12/20)

California Healthline: No-Go On Drunken Driving: States Deploy Breathalyzers In Cars To Limit Road Deaths
’Tis the season to be a little too merry, and law enforcement officials across the country are once again reminding revelers not to drive if they’ve been drinking. Along with those warnings comes a bit of good news: Deaths involving drunken driving are only about half of what they were in the early 1980s, though they have ticked back up in recent years. The long-term decline is largely attributable to greater public awareness, stricter seat belt enforcement and the establishment in 2000 of a national blood-alcohol threshold of 0.08 percent — far below the 0.15 percent standard commonly used before then. (Ibarra, 12/21)

The New York Times: 12 People Hospitalized With Infections From Stem Cell Shots
The F.D.A. said on Thursday that it had also written to 20 clinics that offer unapproved stem cell treatments, warning them that such products are generally regulated by the agency and encouraging the clinics to contact federal regulators before November 2020, when enforcement will tighten. The names of the clinics have not been released. “We’re going to be going in and inspecting more stem cell operators this year,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, said in an email. “We’re focused on outfits that may be engaging in unsafe practices and haven’t been working with F.D.A. to come into compliance with the laws they’re subject to. Unfortunately, there are too many firms that fit this description.” (Grady, 12/20)

The Washington Post: FDA Warns Stem-Cell Company Linked To E. Coli Infections
A year ago, the agency issued a “regulatory framework” spelling out the rules on stem-cell products and procedures. And it said it would exercise “enforcement discretion,” giving companies until November 2020 to comply — as long as they don’t pose safety risks to patients. The for-profit, direct-to-consumer stem-cell industry started in other countries but has grown rapidly in the United States. Today, several hundred clinics sell therapies to treat conditions as varied as arthritis, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Some sell stem cells derived from the patients' own blood, fat or bone marrow, while others use stem-cell products manufactured by outside suppliers. (McGinley, 12/20)

CNN: Infections Put 12 People In Hospitals After They Received Unapproved Stem Cell Products
"We see a lot of promise from stem cell treatments, but we also have a lot of concern, and we started by sending these 20 letters singling out these firms that should be engaging with FDA but haven't been," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said. "In addition, we are also stepping up our inspections this year. We are concerned that there are firms whose actions could be putting patients at risk and might be subject to additional action." (Christensen, 12/20)

Sacramento Bee: Kaiser: Health Giant ‘Quietly’ Settled 2014 Class-Action, Union Says
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan recently settled a 2014 class-action lawsuit stemming from two allegations that it dumped patients with severe mental illness. Plaintiffs Douglas Kerr and Barbara Knighton alleged that in separate incidents, Kaiser psychiatrists told them their sons needed to be transferred to locked residential facilities called IMDs (institutions for mental disease) for treatment, according to court documents. (McGough, 12/20)

In other news from across the state —

Ventura County Star: Integrated Breast Center Receives $30,000 Grant
The Integrated Breast Center at St. John’s recently received a $30,000 grant from Sientra FULL CIRCLE. This recognition is awarded to eight programs in the nation, and funds will be used to expand current Integrated Breast Center outreach and help launch this program at St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo. St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo and St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard are members of Dignity Health Central Coast. (12/20)

Los Angeles Times: Here’s How California Can Use Fire To Solve Its Wildfire Problem
If California wants to get out in front of its wildfire problem, scientists have some clear but counterintuitive advice: Start more forest fires. Decades of research shows that lighting fires under safe conditions not only clears out the dead plants and thick underbrush that fuel many severe wildfires, it also restores a natural process that once kept forests healthy and resilient. (Rosen, 12/20)

In other public health news —

Los Angeles Times: Voters Have High Tolerance For Politicians Who Lie, Even Those Caught Doing It
In a modern democracy, peddling conspiracies for political advantage is perhaps not so different from seeding an epidemic. If a virus is to gain a foothold with the electorate, it will need a population of likely believers (“susceptibles” in public-health speak), a germ nimble enough to infect new hosts easily (an irresistible tall tale), and an eager “Amen choir” (also known as “super-spreaders”). Unleashed on the body politic, a falsehood may spread across the social networks that supply us with information. Facebook is a doorknob slathered in germs, Twitter a sneezing coworker, and Instagram a child returning home after a day at school, ensuring the exposure of all. (Healy, 12/20)

PolitiFact California: Pot 101 Update: What Are The Laws Surrounding Second-Hand Marijuana Smoke?  
As mentioned in our January article, the rules regarding smoking within your residence are different for owners and renters. If you are renting, your landlord can restrict the use of cannabis in or around the property, or completely prohibit it, under Proposition 64. (Soto, 12/20)

ProPublica: In Immigrant Children’s Shelters, Sexual Assault Cases Are Open And Shut
Over the past six months, ProPublica has gathered hundreds of police reports detailing allegations of sexual assaults in immigrant children’s shelters, which have received $4.5 billion for housing and other services since the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America in 2014. The reports, obtained through public records requests, revealed a largely hidden side of the shelters — one in which both staff and other residents sometimes acted as predators. (Grabell, Sanders and Pensel, 12/21)

The New York Times: Justice Department Investigating Migrant Shelter Provider
The Justice Department is investigating possible misuse of federal money by Southwest Key Programs, the nation’s largest operator of shelters for migrant children, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry could upend shelter care for thousands of children, escalating government scrutiny of the nonprofit even as it remains central to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. The charity operates 24 shelters to house children who were separated from their parents at the border or arrived on their own. (Ruiz, Kulish and Barker, 12/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Question Homeland Chief Nielsen Over Girl’s Death At Border
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday offered a glimpse of the strict oversight to come from Democrats still fuming over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy along the Southern border. Ahead of the hearing, Ms. Nielsen said the U.S. plans to start returning migrants who enter the country illegally to Mexico until their immigration proceedings are complete. (Jamerson, 12/20)

The Wall Street Journal: ICE Drafts Guidelines With Fewer Restrictions On Restraining Pregnant Women
The U.S. is weighing looser standards for some immigration detention centers, including scrapping certain guidelines governing the restraint of pregnant women and ensuring children can visit detained parents. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drafted new standards that don’t include a host of current requirements, according to people who have read them. ICE told Congress last year that it planned to issue new standards for scores of detention facilities, such as county jails, that hold both immigrants awaiting deportation and criminal prisoners for more than a week. (Vogt, 12/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: The Affordable Care Act Is Still Alive, Despite Latest Court Decision
A federal judge in Texas struck down the Affordable Care Act on Friday, but it’s not the end of the line for the crucial, long-beleaguered health insurance program. The judge, Reed O’Connor, did not rule that the law must be enjoined immediately. (12/17)

Los Angeles Times: Obamacare May Have Popular Features, But It's Not Constitutional 
The finesse built into Obamacare in 2010 allowed Congress to avoid some difficult issues, but it relied on an unconstitutional step. Now our elected representatives will finally have to answer the two questions they dodged in passing the Affordable Care Act: How much health insurance do we want, and how much are we willing to pay for it in taxes? (Tom Campbell, 12/21)

Los Angeles Times: 7-Year-Old Jakelin Caal Maquin Died At The Border. What Happened To Her Is Not An Aberration
A Customs and Border Protection spokesman insisted to the Washington Post that “Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the child’s life under the most trying of circumstances.” That may well be technically true. But even if individual Lordsburg agents rushed to save Jakelin’s life, it won’t erase another truth: The institutional culture of the Border Patrol regularly dismisses even the most basic needs of detained migrants. (Francisco Cantu, 12/18)

Sacramento Bee: Fighting Wildfire From The Inside Out
In the wake of the Camp Fire, I’ve been reading about the work of wildfire scientist Jack Cohen. During his many years with the U.S. Forest Service, Cohen studied which houses in fire-prone areas tend to burn and which survive. His work is deeply respected and several of his videos are on YouTube. They should be required viewing for anyone living in a wildfire zone. To his surprise, Cohen found that the houses closest to catastrophic blazes often withstood the fires even when those farther away burned. It often wasn’t the approaching flames that threatened houses the most. The bigger danger, it turns out, were the thousands of small embers, called firestarters, that blew off of fires and traveled for miles on the wind. (Karin Klein, 12/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: To Help The Homeless, Offer Shelter That Allows Deep Sleep 
Shelters aren’t providing the needed respite — 70 percent of homeless individuals who had experienced shelter stays reported that they sometimes felt so tired that they could not function normally during the day, according to a 2011 study conducted by the House the Homeless in Austin, Texas. Yet the simplest way for people to drastically improve the quality of their lives, [Bobby Watts, chief executive officer of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council] notes, is: “Get more sleep.” (Lori Teresa Yearwood, 12/19)

San Jose Mercury News: Good And Bad In Much-Needed Bay Area Housing Plan
A coalition of divergent Bay Area interests has come together on a plan to confront the region’s housing crisis. The group’s so-called CASA Compact, unveiled last week and up for its first public review at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on Wednesday, provides a serious foundation for a much-needed discussion. It hits the target on several fronts but misses the mark on others. (12/19)

San Jose Mercury News: Food Banks Need Your Help During Holiday Season
Nutritious food is the foundation for a healthy, productive life. It literally fuels our community. That’s why I’m asking you to please give to local food-assistance organizations by donating or volunteering your time. Your support will ensure that we all have access to the nutritious food we need to thrive, no matter who we are or what table we sit at this holiday season. (Bruno Pillet, 12/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Alta Bates’ Closure May Be An Economic Necessity For Sutter, But It Will Come At A High Cost To The East Bay
Hospital closures displace patients, overburden the hospitals that remain open and adversely affect regional mortality. Patients also struggle with longer travel times, which can be fatal in emergency situations. Residents in northwest Alameda County and West Contra Costa County are still struggling to absorb the 2015 closure of Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo. (12/20)

Los Angeles Times: Molina Healthcare Goes To War With Its Founding Family, Affecting Coverage For 79,000 Patients 
In the Medi-Cal system, the state contracts with health plans, which in turn contract with physician groups and hospitals to provide services, paying them a portion of Medi-Cal fees as reimbursements. ... With negotiations on a renewal for 2019 having reached an impasse, Molina Healthcare apparently has decided to let the contract lapse entirely as of Feb. 1. According to documents Molina Healthcare filed with the state Department of Managed Health Care, that means the vast majority of the clinics’ nearly 79,000 Medi-Cal patients must be assigned new doctors or find replacements on their own. (Michael Hiltzik, 12/14)