Politico: California's Nurses Union Loses Longtime Leader, But Not Agenda
Don’t expect the retirement of the head of California’s politically powerful nurses union after 32 years to distract the labor organization from its long-standing focus on single-payer health care — or its efforts to push the state Democratic Party further to the left. RoseAnn DeMoro, who stepped down over the weekend, has long been grooming her second-in-command, Bonnie Castillo, to take the helm. The union’s supporters — as well as some detractors — say DeMoro has embedded her colorful antics and firebrand, rabble-rousing style in the DNA of the California Nurses Association. (Colliver, 3/8)

23ABC News: Nurse Shortage Has Local Hospital Offering Extra Incentives 
The nation is facing a shortage of nurses with a need of nearly one million by the year 2022. Locally a Bakersfield hospital see a similar problem. Thursday afternoon Adventist Health in Downtown Bakersfield, celebrated about two dozen new nurses finishing their training. But hospital staff said, even with these new nurses they still have more job openings. ...[T]he hospital is doing two things to recruit more nurses to Kern County. One is to offer up to $8,000 in signing bonuses and up to $5,000 in moving fees and two months of housing payments to highly skilled nurses, the other is offer residency training courses to better train newly graduated nurses. (Sheahen, 3/8)

The Washington Post: Premiums For ACA Health Insurance Plans Could Jump 90 Percent In Three Years
Insurance premiums for Affordable Care Act health plans are likely to jump by 35 to 94 percent around the country within the next three years, according to a new report concluding that recent federal decisions will have a profound effect on prices. The nationwide analysis, issued Thursday by California’s insurance marketplace, finds wide variations state to state, with a broad swath of the South and parts of the Midwest in danger of what the report calls “catastrophic” average rate increases by 2021. (Goldstein, 3/8)

The Hill: Study: ObamaCare Premiums Could Increase 90 Percent Over Three Years For Some States
Beginning in 2019, premiums increases could range from 12 to 32 percent in the U.S. Cumulatively, states could see increases ranging from 35 to 90 percent from 2019 to 2021. The report, released by California's insurance marketplace, estimates that states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas could see cumulative increases of 90 percent by 2021. Indiana, Illinois and Iowa could see increases of 50 percent in the same time period. “The challenges to our health care system are threatening to have real consequences for millions of Americans,” said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California. (Hellmann, 3/8)

Capital Public Radio/Politifact: Villaraigosa Neglects Key Facts In Claim Single-Payer ‘Forces Seniors Off Medicare’ 
At issue is Healthy California, or Senate Bill 562, introduced last year by Democratic State Sen. Ricardo Lara. It would establish one central government health insurance provider to cover all Californians. Supporters say the plan would save money by eliminating the need for private insurance and reduce prescription drug costs. But even some who back the idea question how the key details will work, including how to pay for it. (Nichols, 3/8)

KPCC: Car Camping, Temporary Shelters Mulled As 'urgency' Measures To House West LA Veterans 
For decades, the West L.A. VA offered no solutions to Southern California’s mounting homelessness crisis. It took a long legal battle by homeless and disabled veterans, but there are now big changes in the works at the West L.A. VA. (Denkmann, 3/9)

In other news —

Orange County Register: Advocates Spent 12-Hour Days Helping Homeless People Move From The Santa Ana River. Their Work Isn’t Done
In February, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter brokered an agreement between the county and plaintiffs’ attorneys in a civil rights lawsuit that resulted in giving people at the riverbed temporary motel stays. Several advocates attended the court sessions to share their insights and concerns. They took on the role of watchdogs as the mass exodus unfolded under the eye of Orange County sheriff’s deputies. (Walker, 3/8)

Orange County Register: Thousands Of Pounds Of Human Waste, Close To 14,000 Hypodermic Needles Cleaned Out From Santa Ana River Homeless Encampments 
Orange County Public Works released eye-popping figures Thursday, March 8, on the total amount of debris, needles and hazardous waste removed when crews cleaned up the area along the Santa Ana River Trail once populated by the encampments of homeless people. (Walker, 3/8)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Blocks Idaho’s Plan To Circumvent Health Law
The Trump administration rejected on Thursday Idaho’s plan to allow the sale of stripped-down, low-cost health insurance that violates the Affordable Care Act. The 2010 statute “remains the law, and we have a duty to enforce and uphold the law,” Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a letter to the governor of Idaho, C. L. Otter. (Pear, 3/8)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Trump Draws ‘Lively’ Opinions On Video Game Violence But Shrouds His Own
President Trump on Thursday began the next leg of a listening tour he promised after last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., eliciting heated opinions at the White House from critics of violent video games and from game makers who reject any connection to mass shootings, but offering no concrete views of his own. In broaching the subject after a mass school shooting, Mr. Trump was traveling a path well worn by his predecessors going back for decades. But his approach was all his own. (Rogers, 3/8)

The New York Times: How One Child’s Sickle Cell Mutation Helped Protect The World From Malaria
Thousands of years ago, a special child was born in the Sahara. At the time, this was not a desert; it was a green belt of savannas, woodlands, lakes and rivers. Bands of hunter-gatherers thrived there, catching fish and spearing hippos. A genetic mutation had altered the child’s hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that ferries oxygen through the body. It was not harmful; there are two copies of every gene, and the child’s other hemoglobin gene was normal. The child survived, had a family and passed down the mutation to future generations. (Zimmer, 3/8)

The Wall Street Journal: After Addiction Comes Families’ Second Blow: The Crushing Cost Of Rehab
Michelle and Darin Vandecar have spent nearly all their time and energy in recent years trying to help their drug-addicted sons stay clean. They’ve spent nearly all their money, too. The Salt Lake City-area couple amassed $120,000 of credit-card debt, took out a home-equity loan and cleaned out part of their 401(k) to pay for multiple rounds of addiction treatment for their three sons, aged 18, 20 and 23. Their insurance covered some of the costs, but because their out-of-pocket expenses were so steep, they sold motorcycles and other belongings to raise cash. (Whalen, 3/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Police Have A New Tool In Their Arsenal: Mental-Health Professionals
Police departments nationwide have started teaming up officers with therapists in situations involving the mentally ill, largely in the hope of avoiding the type of incident that recently landed a New York Police Department sergeant on trial for murder. The move to create what some departments call “co-response teams” of officers and clinicians has been adopted or expanded in recent years in Salt Lake City, Houston, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Officials in these cities say clinicians can bring meaningful insight to delicate situations, and can help prevent mentally ill people from harming themselves or others. (Kanno-Youngs, 3/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Abortion Provisions Lead To Tensions Over Spending Bill
A push from the White House and congressional Republicans to add new antiabortion provisions into a sweeping spending bill has divided lawmakers as they work to reach a deal that will fund the government beyond mid-March. Republican lawmakers want to expand restrictions that already prevent federal funding from going to abortions, and they also want to fully cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has long been a target of conservatives. (Peterson and Armour, 3/8)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Approval Of 23andMe Kit Is Latest Example Of Agency’s Course Reversal
Federal health officials this week allowed a genetic testing firm to sell kits to consumers to test whether they carry gene mutations that put them at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The action, part of a broader regulatory shift, is the first time the Food and Drug Administration has allowed a company—in this case 23andMe Inc.—to market such a cancer-risk test directly to the public. (Burton, 3/9)

Orange County Register: Protecting Health Care For Californians Takes More Than A Press Release — It Takes A Real Plan
I grew up in East Lost Angeles where many residents had no health insurance or were dramatically underinsured. When I was a teenager I was diagnosed with a tumor in my spinal canal. It sent me to the emergency room and for a moment I was so sick a priest was called to give me last rites just in case. There is a decent chance I am here today because my mother, a public employee, had good health care. I have never forgotten that — the difference between quality health care and no care. And that’s why I have never stopped fighting my entire adult life for quality, universal and affordable health care for all Californians. (Antonio Villaraigosa, 3/3)

Sacramento Bee: It's Up To A New Guard Of California Democrats To Push Single-Payer Health Care
As gubernatorial candidates gear up for the 2018 race, the issue of health care stands to divide the Democratic Party in an exciting and necessary way. At the state party convention last month, four candidates, including Gavin Newson and Delaine Eastin, called out their peers for not supporting single-payer health care, especially considering Trump administration rollbacks could strip health insurance from millions of Californians. It's about time. (Harry Snyder and Courtney Hutchison, 3/8)

The Mercury News: Make Abortion Pill Available At State Universities
When I was accepted to UC Berkeley, I was excited about what it meant for my future. Coming from Oklahoma to California, I was also looking forward to living in a state that embodied the progressive values close to my heart —  including by making sure that abortion is safe, legal, affordable, and available to all who need it. (Adiba Khan, 3/4)

Los Angeles Times: Locked-Down Schools With Metal Detectors May Harm Students More Than Help Them
After recent school shootings, especially the appalling attack at a Florida high school that killed and injured so many students and staff, it's only natural and right for local authorities throughout the nation to consider how they might best protect the children and teenagers in their charge. ...Do these terrifying events call for metal detectors at the entrances to every school, or for all campuses to be securely fenced so that only students and teachers can enter? Fortunately, Los Angeles city and educational leaders aren't jumping up to demand immediate, draconian measures, though they're also wisely acknowledging that new safety protocols may be needed. No one can pretend any longer that such tragedies only happen somewhere else. (3/8)

The Mercury News: End The Ban On Federal Research Of Gun Violence
Bay Area Rep. Mark DeSaulnier should have been present for Wednesday’s televised meeting on gun violence at the White House.The Concord Democrat would have put ending Congress’  22-year ban on gun violence research front and center in the discussion, where it belongs. (3/5)

Sacramento Bee: Teachers Don't Need Guns, But Students Do Need Gun Control
As the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and California Teachers of the Year in 2018 and 2014, we would like to focus on education – our students, our challenges, and our inspirations in the classroom. The last thing we want to talk about is guns. But we must. We can no longer stand on the sidelines while students and teachers are murdered on school campuses with assault weapons designed for combat use. In the nearly 20 years after the first horrific incident at Columbine, we have witnessed tragedy after tragedy with virtually no changes in our national gun laws. (Tom Torlakson, Brian McDaniel and Michael Hayden, 3/8)

Sacramento Bee: HPV Vaccine: Who Should Get It?
The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. The HPV vaccine, when administered to boys and girls, can prevent transmission of the virus and reduce the risk of related cancers. (Emily Zentner, 3/8)

New England Journal of Medicine: Where There’s Wildfire, There’s Smoke
With the undeniable march of climate change, the danger of catastrophic wildfires is increasing around the globe, with such fires occurring in Australia, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the United States, over the past decade. Large forest fires in the western United States have been nearly five times as frequent on an annual basis as they were 50 years ago. ...When catastrophic wildfires either come near or hit populated urban areas, as has recently occurred in both northern and southern California, large numbers of people are exposed to relatively high levels of smoke (see images). Wildfire smoke contains carbon dioxide, water vapor, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, complex hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, trace minerals, and several thousand other compounds. (John Balmes, 3/8)

New England Journal of Medicine: Physician-Assisted Suicide And Psychiatric Illness
In exceptional cases, suicide might be considered a rational choice of a competent person, even in the presence of psychiatric illness. But unless a truly rigorous prospective review system is in place for such cases, countries should not legalize the practice. (Joris Vandenberghe, 3/8)

Los Angeles Times: Are Hollywood Movies Teaching Men And Boys That Predatory Behavior Is OK?
We've all sat in horror these last several months as some of the most influential and powerful men in the movie business have been accused of sexual abuse, harassment and assault. Yet, as a film buff, reading account after account of predatory men behind the scenes in Hollywood, it's been impossible to ignore how similar the predatory behavior we've been reading about is to what often see celebrated on the big screen. (Jonathan McIntosh, 3/1)