San Bernardino County Sun: Death Option Still Debated, Despite Right-To-Die Law's Passing
Fairchild isn’t sure when he will die. But he’s mostly sure how he will die: With the love of his life beside him. His favorite music playing on the stereo. And cancer in his bones. “It will be a little Jimmy Buffett and it will be us two,” Fairchild said, looking from his kitchen table in Burbank, to his wife, Ginger Fairchild, who sat on a nearby sofa. (Dulaney, 3/17)

The San Jose Mercury News: Rare Transplant Procedure At Stanford Hospital Saves Two Women's Lives
It was literally the meeting of a lifetime Thursday when Tammy Griffin laid eyes on Linda Karr for the first time and embraced her tightly inside the heart surgery clinic at Stanford Hospital. For almost three years, the two women had waited and worried, wondering if they would ever receive the precious donor organs they needed so desperately to survive. (Seipel, 3/17)

In other hospital news —

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Tri-City Sidelines One CEO, Names Another
Tri-City Medical Center has a new CEO, but it’s not clear yet what will happen to the old one. After meeting for three and a half hours in private, the Tri-City board returned to open session Thursday evening and announced that it had appointed Steve Dietlin, the hospital’s chief financial officer, as the public district hospital’s permanent chief executive. (Sisson, 3/17)

The Bakersfield Californian: Physician Praises Bakersfield's Commitment To Burn Center
For years when burn patients from Kern County needed treatment they were faced with an arduous drive out of the area — often to Los Angeles. After six years at San Joaquin Community Hospital, the Grossman Burn Center is relocating its facilities to Memorial Hospital. It puts Kern County in the unique position of having two burn units — other comparable counties have none. (Amestoy, 3/17)

Payers & Providers: Seeking A Root Cause For Readmissions
Hospital executives often minutely study the clinical causes behind readmissions of inpatients within 30 days of discharge, but it may often be as simple as poor communications. That's the conclusion of researchers at UC San Francisco, which with a group of East Coast hospitals studied more than 1,000 readmissions. Among those cases, some 27% likely could be avoided, while 15% could definitively be avoided. (Shinkman, 3/17)

The Marin Independent Journal: Marin Continues Its Reign As The Healthiest County In California
Continuing its winning streak, Marin County was ranked as the healthiest county in California for the seventh consecutive year in a new report released Tuesday. The rankings, done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, compare counties on more than 30 factors that influence health including length of life, quality of life, health behaviors, access to health care, socioeconomic factors and physical environment. (Halstead, 3/16)

Meanwhile, in San Bernardino, officials use lessons they've learned to improve emergency response time —

The San Bernadino Sun: How Emergency Responders Are Getting Faster At Responding To Disasters
It was winter darkness in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains above Azusa and Glendorahen the Colby fire broke out at 5 a.m. on Jan. 16, 2014. Fierce winds began to blast the fire scene as daylight broke and local emergency responders soon realized this fire would surpass their manpower and equipment capabilities. (Steinberg, 3/17)

The Sacramento Bee: An Rx To Undercut Public Health
To be a parent of grown children is to have talked to a lot of pediatricians. I was thinking about this the other day, after our youngest turned 21, finally. So little time, so many Tweety Bird Band-Aids. We’ve known cool L.A. pediatricians and brisk HMO pediatricians, pediatricians who murmured endearments as the nurse prepped the syringe and pediatricians who were businesslike as they slipped in the needle. One doc, in San Francisco, wore a candy-striped jacket instead of a white coat, like the host of a kids’ show. Another, in Laguna Beach, was freckled and sometimes wore sandals. All had one thing in common, though: They never minced words when it came to our children’s health, or seemed in the least bit inclined to. (Shawn Hubler, 3/16)

Orange County Register: Health Insurance Deductibles Going Up
What good is health insurance coverage if you can’t afford to actually use it? Unfortunately, that’s not a rhetorical question. It’s one facing thousands of Californians who are required to purchase health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges. As if rising premiums – which increased across California this year – weren’t already hard enough, skyrocketing deductibles have rendered many plans “all but useless,” according to a recent report in the New York Times. And, as a new analysis from my organization shows, it’s only getting worse. (Nascimento, 3/17)

Los Angeles Daily News: Hospitals Want To Inflict Pain On Taxpayers
In 2012, those of us who opposed Proposition 30 were told that the measure, which was the largest state tax hike in American history, was just a “temporary” fix to address the emergency of a severe budget shortfall. But just as Milton Friedman noted that “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government measure,” here in California it appears that nothing is so permanent as a temporary tax increase. However, in their journey to extend the Prop. 30 tax hikes, the tax raisers started tripping over their own greed. Even the public sector union bosses weren’t reading off the same page and different proposals began to emerge, each targeting billions of dollars of tax revenue to their respective constituencies. (John Coupal, 3/15)

The Sacramento Bee: Prescription Monitoring System Isn’t Up To The Job
The California Medical Association has long supported the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System and continues to do extensive outreach to educate physicians about it. In conjunction with the Department of Justice, which oversees the program, the association has hosted registration tables, offered a webinar and publishes regular updates in our newsletter. We also supported legislation that requires registration and increased physician license fees to help pay for the system, which had its budget slashed several years ago. As a physician, I’m always looking for ways to increase patient safety and want to limit opioid abuse. (Ruth Haskins, 3/14)

The Bakersfield Californian: McCarthy Needs To Cosponsor Pharma Bill
Many parts of Kern County are categorized as “medically underserved areas” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, meaning those residents do not have adequate access to medical professionals. Quite often, the local pharmacist is their most readily accessible health care professional. Pharmacists are now trained to provide immunizations, furnish smoking cessation products, order lab tests, furnish travel medications, and will soon be allowed to furnish oral contraceptives. (Person, 3/17)

Orange County Register: There Must Be A Better Way To Pay For Health Care
Late last year, while playing tennis, I reached up to serve and felt a painful pop in my shoulder. The inflammation got worse over the next few months. Now, anytime I try to put my arm above my head, pain shoots up my arm. I often wake up at night with an agonizing throb in that shoulder. I finally, and reluctantly, went to the orthopedic surgeon; he said that I had a rotator-cuff tear, and I probably would need surgery. (Stephen Moore, 3/13)

The Ventura County Star: Not Ready To Drink The Soda Tax Kool-Aid
Ventura County, like California and the nation as a whole, has a serious, growing problem it needs to better address — diabetes. A new UCLA study says more than half of Ventura County adults either already have diabetes or are on their way toward getting it. (3/15)

The Oakland Tribune: An NFL Official Finally Admits The Link To CTE
Will wonders never cease? A top official of the National Football League on Monday admitted there is a clear link between football and serious brain injuries. This, of course, is not stunning to anyone who has been paying attention. What is stunning is that the connection has finally been acknowledged by an NFL official. (3/15)

The Los Angeles Times: Should A Man Taken To The ER In An Ambulance Against His Will Have To Pay The Bill?
A 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office found that the cost of an ambulance ride nationwide can range from $224 to $2,204. In Los Angeles, it typically runs about $1,300, depending on the amount of medical attention required. Anyone who's ever experienced an ambulance ride — myself included — probably has a horror story to tell about the crazy fee, even when only basic medical care was provided. (David Lazarus, 3/14)

The Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton Had Trouble Explaining Obamacare To A Layperson. Here's Why.
During a CNN Town Hall appearance Sunday night, Hillary Clinton was presented with an Obamacare riddle. Moderator Jake Tapper introduced Teresa O'Donnell, an office coordinator from Powell, Ohio, to relate her family's health insurance problem. Clinton did what she could to explain the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, which she supports and for which she has proposed several improvements. But under the circumstances her hands were mostly tied, thanks to the inherent difficulties of analyzing any family's health insurance situation in less than five minutes. (Michael Hiltzik, 3/14)

The Los Angeles Times: Why Are Doctors And Health Clinics In The Business Of Selling Prescription Drugs?
Americans spent almost half a trillion dollars on prescription drugs last year, or nearly $1 out of every $6 spent on healthcare. And the total is rising fast, driven by an increased reliance on medications and a shift toward higher-priced drugs. (3/14)

The Ventura County Star: Camarillo Woman Doesn't Take Nursing For Granted
Although few people would argue about the impact nurses have on helping us heal or stay healthy, chances are that on any given day, most people don't think about where they'd be without a nurse nearby. That's not the case for Aurora Loss, who every year expresses gratitude to nurses by supporting Ventura College nursing students with scholarships and program support. Decades ago, as a young, single professional in Washington, D.C., Aurora became ill and needed to be hospitalized. It was an era when women had difficulty advocating for themselves. When the doctors brushed away her symptoms, she was shown support and kindness by a nurse. To this day, she believes the nurse's efforts helped save her life. (Sandra Melton, 3/12)