The San Francisco Business Times: Where Biotechs Go To Hatch: Inside Mission Bay's Startup Incubators And Accelerators
When is an incubator not an incubator? When it’s an accelerator, a collaborator, a venture fund or simply lab space for rent. (Kilpatrick, 2/26)

The San Francisco Business Times: With Biotechs Squeezed Out In Mission Bay, Where Will The Next Generation Of Life Sciences Go?
Mission Bay’s success in hatching incubator-bred biotech startups is shining a light on its biggest challenge: There’s no space for those young companies to grow. (Leuty, 2/26)

Modern Healthcare: Stanford Preps Insurance Products For Bay Area Tech Employers
Stanford Health Care, the Bay Area academic medical center, is entering the insurance market with a product that will be offered to Silicon Valley's technology companies. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider already covers its own employees through the Stanford Health Care Alliance, a narrow network plan that currently covers 15,000 lives. It will be offering the plan to two major high-tech employers starting next year, with two more employers coming on in 2018, said Chris Dawes, president and CEO of Stanford Children's Health. (Kutscher, 2/25)

Payers & Providers: Health Net’s 2015 Earnings Rise Sharply
Health Net, the Woodland Hills-based health insurer, reported sharply higher earnings for the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31 and for all of calendar 2015. (2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: McKesson To Buy Two Cancer-Focused Firms For $1.2 Billion
McKesson Corp. agreed to acquire cancer-care company Vantage Oncology LLC and oncology pharmacy-services firm Biologics Inc. in separate deals with a combined value of roughly $1.2 billion. McKesson’s shares rose 3.5% to $160.08 in recent premarket trading. The San Francisco company said the acquisitions will expand the scale of its specialty-drug distribution operations and increase its other capabilities, including its cancer-focused pharmacy offerings. (Stynes, 2/25)

The San Jose Mercury News: Cancer Surgeries In California Hospitals: Is There Safety In Numbers?
It sounds logical: People facing cancer surgery probably want to know which hospitals in their area perform their cancer operation most frequently. But until recently little information has been publicly available to help patients figure out where to go. Now, however, Californians can access that data readily because a research team funded by the nonprofit California HealthCare Foundation has made it easily searchable through a website: www.CalQualityCare.org. (Seipel, 2/26)

Payers & Providers: Hospital Never Self-Reported Breach
A clerical employee was fired from Tri-City Medical Center in San Diego County this week for an alleged breach of patient data that has not been reported to state authorities, Payers & Providers has learned. The dismissal of Cheryl Rhead, a 19-year-employee of the hospital and its lead admitting clerk for the emergency room, came just weeks after she became one of the head signatories for a San Diego County ballot initiative that would limit executive pay at Tri-City to $250,000 per year and require the district hospital to publich the compensation of its 10 highest-paid employees on its website if passed by voters. (Shinkman, 2/25)

Payers & Providers: Hospital CABG Death Rate Up Slightly
The number of Californians dying as a result of undergoing coronary artery bypass grafts or CABG in 2013 is stable, although slightly elevated from the prior year, according to data released last week by the Office for Statewide Health Planning and Development. The mortality rate for isolated CABG procedures in California was 2.29% in 2013 – 273 patients died out of 11,940 procedures that were performed at the 125 hospitals surveyed. That is up from the 2012 morality rate of 2.11%, but remains significantly lower than the 2.91% mortality rate that was reported in 2003, the first year OSHPD began gathering and reporting on such data. (Shinkman, 2/25)

KPCC: Orange County Hunts The Zika Mosquito To Prevent Virus' Spread
The Aedes mosquitoes first showed up in California's Central Valley in 2013. Since the beginning of this year, the Orange County mosquito district has found four of them. None carried Zika. But the virus could still show up, so health officials have gone to war against Aedes aegypti. In neighborhoods where they've found the invasive mosquitoes, Orange County investigators are going door-to-door in search of mosquito breeding sites. (Plevin, 2/25)

KQED: Transgender Children Living Openly Are Doing Well, Study Shows
New research finds that young transgender children who have “socially transitioned” — living their lives under the gender they identify with — had positive mental health outcomes. (Aliferis, 2/25)

Capital Public Radio: UCD Research Suggests Exercise May Help Restore Mental Health
Researchers at UC Davis say exercise may be as good for your brain as it is for your body. (Ray, 2/25)

The Press Democrat: High Levels Of Lead In Healdsburg Elementary Water
High levels of lead have been discovered in drinking fountains at Healdsburg Elementary School’s main building, county school and public health officials said Wednesday. The lead contamination first was detected over Thanksgiving break. Though Healdsburg school officials immediately shut off drinking fountains and began providing bottled water, parents and the Sonoma County public health department were not notified until this week because officials wanted to wait until they had a corrective plan in place. (Espinoza, 2/25)

The Press Democrat: Rise In Flu Cases Prompts Reminder From Sonoma County Health Officials
Though it got a late start this year, flu season is now here in force, and as the number of reported cases begins to ramp up, local health care officials are reminding North Coast residents that it’s not too late to get vaccinated. Health officials said the flu already has claimed the lives of two Sonoma County residents, a teen and an adult. Seven severe cases of flu-related illness have been reported by local health care providers. (Espinoza, 2/25)

The New York Times: Republican Debate Takeaways: Descent Into A Free-For-All

Politico: 11 Most Interesting Moments Of The GOP Debate

The Associated Press: Debate Takeaways: Rubio, Cruz Aggressively Take On Trump

The Associated Press: Fact Check: Trump Objects To Cursing

The New York Times: President Weighs In On Data From Genes
President Obama on Thursday waded into the complex and high-stakes debate over whether patients own their genetic information, saying that he believes that his tissues and any discoveries that stem from his DNA belong to him. “I would like to think that if somebody does a test on me or my genes, that that’s mine, but that’s not always how we define these issues,” Mr. Obama said during a White House forum on a major biomedical research initiative he began last year. The president said that the success of his Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to collect genetic data on one million American volunteers so scientists can develop drugs and treatments tailored to individual patients, hinged at least in part on “understanding who owns the data.” (Hirschfeld Davis, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Question Viability Of Health Co-Ops
Republican lawmakers on Thursday expressed concern that eight health cooperatives set up under the Affordable Care Act have been put on some type of enhanced oversight or correction plan, saying the situation raises questions about their long-term viability. Some lawmakers questioned whether the co-ops help keep the price of health-insurance premiums in check by providing competition with large insurers. And they lambasted the Obama administration for awarding federal loans to co-ops that failed. (Armour, 2/25)

The New York Times: An Insurance Penalty From Postpartum Depression
In January, a government-appointed panel recommended that all pregnant women and new mothers be screened for depression. Public health advocates rejoiced, as did untold numbers of women who had not known that maternal mental illness even existed before it hit them like a freight train.But the panel did not mention one possible consequence of a diagnosis: Life and disability insurance providers have sometimes penalized women with these mental illnesses by charging them more money, excluding mental illness from coverage or declining to cover them at all. And it’s perfectly legal. (Lieber, 2/26)

The Los Angeles Times: A Tax Hike That No One Could Quibble About
Gov. Jerry Brown has been advocating the tax on healthcare insurance plans for months. He'll quickly sign it once the Legislature sends him the measure. That should be in a few days. (George Skelton, 2/22)

The Sacramento Bee: A Health Care Tax Deal Worthy Of Support
Although they aren’t exactly singing kumbaya, the California Chamber of Commerce, health insurance corporations and proponents of greater access to health care are backing a major tax deal devised by aides to Gov. Jerry Brown. As part of the deal, Brown and Democratic leaders earmarked $300 million for 300,000 people with developmental disabilities. The goal is to attract backing from Republican lawmakers who have made aid to developmentally disabled people a priority. It’s unfortunate that vulnerable people become the subject of horse-trading, but that’s the way of the Capitol. (2/22)

The Press Democrat: A Tax Plan To Protect Health Care Gains
California didn’t hesitate when the Affordable Care Act took effect, establishing a state health insurance exchange and expanding Medi-Cal, resulting in a sharp increase in the number of people with health coverage. The biggest gains have come from Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for the poor, which has enrolled nearly 5 million people over the past two years, most of them newly eligible under President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law. Better yet, Washington is footing the bill. For now. (2/23)

The San Jose Mercury News: California Health Care Tax Needs To Be Revised
Reaching a two-thirds threshold to pass a tax in the California Legislature is never easy -- but approving Gov. Jerry Brown's revised tax on managed care providers ought to be. The companies that will pay the tax support it. The amount of revenue will be roughly the same as the state currently receives. But -- and here's why this is so important -- if the revision doesn't pass, the state will lose $1.1 billion in federal matching dollars for health care programs covering 13.5 million Californians -- roughly one out of every three -- under Medi-Cal. (2/19)

The Los Angeles Times: Ignore Grover Norquist: Medi-Cal Fix Is A Good Deal
After a federal ruling last year threatened to cut aid for Medi-Cal by more than $1 billion, the Brown administration and lawmakers proposed a set of tax increases and reductions that would avert the cut without forcing higher costs onto state taxpayers or consumers. That deal is being challenged, however, by conservatives opposed to new taxes — even if the net cost is zero. Lawmakers should reject this ideological rigidity and keep the federal aid flowing. (2/25)

The Fresno Bee: Andy Vidak Is Wrong To Oppose Vital Health Care Tax Bill
Andy Vidak, a Republican who represents the 14th state Senate District, the poorest in California, has branded himself an independent thinker who fights valiantly on behalf of his constituents. But the Hanford lawmaker’s decision to oppose an important health-care tax bill that would restructure how the state taxes managed-care organizations so it complies with federal law suggests otherwise. (2/25)

The Los Angeles Times: Obamacare 'Gaming' Update: Feds, California Tighten Up On Documentation For Special Enrollments
The notion that mobs of Americans are actively plotting to cheat the Affordable Care Act by waiting until they get sick and then finding an excuse to sign up for health insurance is cherished by two groups: anti-Obamacare conservatives and insurance companies. As we've pointed out in the past, neither group has actually come up with data to substantiate their claim that this produces huge losses in the individual exchange market. But there plainly are good reasons to close any loopholes. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/24)

The Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton Reveals Her Plan To Revise--Not Repeal Or Replace--Obamacare
Since presidential candidate Hillary Clinton quietly updated the healthcare policy page on her campaign website over the last few days, most commentators have focused on the especially notable paragraphs stating that she will "continue to support a 'public option' — and work to build on the Affordable Care Act to make it possible." (Michael Hiltzik, 2/23)

The Los Angeles Times: The Extinction Inside Our Guts
The world is facing an extinction event. Hundreds of species are disappearing from their native habitat. This impending extinction is distinct from the plight of the polar bears or frog populations and is not a result of global warming or deforestation. It's happening within our guts, which are home to the trillions of microorganisms called the microbiota and the 2 million genes they carry called the microbiome. (Erica Sonnenburg and Justin Sonnenburg, 2/25)

The Sacramento Bee: Take The Politics Out Of HPV Vaccine
Though it is so preventable that young people now can be all but immunized against it, cervical cancer still kills more than a quarter million women annually. Most of the victims are in developing nations. But nearly 13,000 American women last year also were diagnosed with cervical cancer. More than 4,000 died, even though Pap screenings are a routine part of annual checkups for women in this country, and even though teenagers have, since 2006, had access to an FDA-approved inoculation against the virus that causes the disease. There is no good reason for this lethal public health gap in a First World country, and it’s time we got rid of the bad reasons, the biggest of which stem from – what else? – misinformation and partisan politics. (2/23)

The Press Democrat: Close To Home: Growing Concerns About LED Streetlights
A number of cities throughout Sonoma County, along with PG&E, are in the process of replacing streetlights with LED lights to save energy and money and reduce our carbon footprint. Sounds like a great idea. Or does it? Maybe not. According to the New York Times, when this was done in Brooklyn, people resorted to taping black garbage bags over their windows to block out the offending light. (Nancy Hubert, 2/21)

The Ventura Star: Fix Our Energy Facilities Before The Next Disaster Occurs
California is getting old and falling apart. At least its infrastructure is showing signs of aging. Jump in your car and head most any direction and you'll see why Gov. Jerry Brown wants an infusion of tax money to repair our roads and bridges. Read the news out of Los Angeles and you'll quickly find a story on another old water line bursting and flooding a neighborhood. (2/20)

The Los Angeles Times: Just What The Doctor Ordered: Connectivity In Medical Devices
In a few years, patients with chronic breathing problems will puff on an Internet-connected inhaler that instantly sends data about how often the device is used to the medicine provider and doctors who monitor care. (Mike Freeman, 2/21)