San Francisco Chronicle: How President Trump’s Tax Bill Will Impact California Health Care
Legislation that would blow a hole in California’s health care spending, disproportionately tax Californians and neuter the state’s ability to regulate artificial intelligence passed the House early Thursday. ... The bill would cut nutritional assistance spending, repeal green energy tax credits, provide additional funding to crack down on illegal immigration and lower taxes, primarily for the wealthy. (Stein, 5/22)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Issa Votes For Trump Agenda Bill, But Mum On Medicaid Cuts 
More than 200,000 Medicaid recipients live in Rep. Darrell Issa’s 48th Congressional District. Some of them, maybe a lot, likely would lose coverage under the domestic policy bill pushed by President Donald Trump and approved by House Republicans early Thursday morning. (Smolens, 5/22)

Modern Healthcare: What The 'One Big Beautiful Bill' Cuts From Healthcare
The House passed a sweeping tax-and-spending cuts bill Thursday that would dramatically reshape the healthcare system by slashing more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and other programs. The majority Republican lower chamber voted 215-214 to approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 just before 7 a.m. EDT after an all-night floor debate. Attention now shifts the GOP-led Senate, which has not commenced public debate on its tax measure. Congress is scheduled to begin a recess Friday and will return to Washington on June 2. (McAuliff, 5/22)

Modern Healthcare: GOP Senators Promise Changes To Medicaid Cuts In Tax Bill
Deep cuts to Medicaid and other healthcare programs the House passed Thursday are unlikely to survive Senate debate intact, key Republicans said. The House approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 by a single vote, and the internal GOP fight in the Senate is likely to be just as hard to resolve as it was in the lower chamber. Hard-line conservatives and swing-state senators are already facing off in a battle to change the House measure. (McAuliff, 5/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: CMS Updates Hospital Price Transparency Guidance Following Executive Order
CMS updated its hospital price transparency guidance May 22, requiring hospitals to post the actual prices of items and services, not estimates. The update comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order Feb. 25 aimed at boosting healthcare price transparency. In the updated guidance, CMS said hospitals must display payer-specific standard charges as dollar amounts in their machine-readable files (MRFs) whenever calculable. This includes the amount negotiated for the item or service, the base rate negotiated for a service package and a dollar amount if the standard charge is based on a percentage of a known fee schedule. (Cass, 5/22)

Modern Healthcare: ACO REACH Gets Risk Adjustment, Benchmark Updates From CMS
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will revise a popular Medicare accountable care organization as new evidence indicates the program is saving more money. CMS is updating financial benchmarks and risk-adjustment formulas for ACO Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health, or ACO REACH, the agency revealed in an update to its website Wednesday. These changes are prompted by a preliminary report showing gross savings are rising even though the alternative payment model remains costlier than the standard Medicare payment system. (Early, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Many Fire Cleanup Workers Are Not Protecting Against Toxic Debris
A crew of 10, many sporting bright orange National Day Laborer Organizing Network T-shirts, funneled out of a Mexican restaurant on the edge of the Eaton burn scar. Four months — to the day — after winds smashed a tree into a car next to NDLON’s Pasadena Community Job Center and soot blanketed the neighborhood, a University of Illinois Chicago professor, NDLON staff and volunteers sorted into cars under the midday sun and began discreetly traveling every road in fire-stricken Altadena. (Haggerty, 5/22)

Los Angeles Times: Residents Can Have Soil Tested For Lead Around Eaton Burn Area
Residents in the Eaton burn area and downwind can now send in soil samples from their yard to test for lead, a potent neurotoxin that’s especially dangerous for kids, thanks to a new program from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health that launched this week. The program is free for residents, who can check their eligibility and review detailed instructions for soil collection on the department’s soil-testing program website. The county also sent more than 25,000 postcards to eligible addresses. (Haggerty, 5/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: GoodRx To Directly Contract With Independent Pharmacies
In June, GoodRx will provide a cost-plus model offering to independent community pharmacies through direct contracts, the company said May 22. Dubbed GoodRx Community Link, it will allow locally owned and operated pharmacies to contract with its integrated savings program. The program compares a medication’s copay with GoodRx’s discount price to offer the lowest available price. (Twenter, 5/22)

Orange County Register: Jury Orders UCI To Pay $5.8 Million To Neurosurgeon Who Complained About Patient Safety
An Orange County jury has ordered UC Irvine to pay $5.8 million in damages to a neurosurgeon who alleged in a whistleblower lawsuit that university medical center officials banned him from a residency program he founded after he complained about patient safety risks, financial waste and policy violations. An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated two days earlier this month before ruling in favor of Dr. Mark E. Linskey, former chair of UCI’s Department of Neurological Surgery. (Schwebke, 5/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: Cedars-Sinai Establishes Innovation Center Honoring Former CEO
Cedars-Sinai has established the Thomas M. Priselac Center for Innovation in Performance Improvement in honor of the organization’s former president and CEO. ... Donors have gifted $5 million to support the development of the center, which aims to build on the evolving digital landscape of medicine — particularly in areas such as information technology, data analytics and clinical operations, Cedars-Sinai said. (Gooch, 5/22)

Orange County Register: Stroke Patient Blames Major Brain Damage On Inadequate Care At California Hospital
A stroke patient who was rushed last year to an Orange County hospital that specializes in treating strokes suffered major brain damage after waiting nearly eight hours for surgery because the medical center did not have the proper equipment or a capable neurosurgeon, according to a lawsuit. (Saavedra, 5/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Language Service Cutbacks Raise Fear Of Medical Errors, Deaths
Health nonprofits and medical interpreters warn that federal cuts have eliminated dozens of positions in California for community workers who help non-English speakers sign up for insurance coverage and navigate the health care system. At the same time, people with limited English proficiency have scaled back their requests for language services, which health care advocates attribute in part to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and his executive order declaring English as the national language. (Sánchez and Orozco Rodriguez, 5/22)

CalMatters: Trump's NIH Cuts Hit Research Grants At California Universities
This spring, the National Institutes of Health quietly began terminating programs at scores of colleges that prepared promising undergraduate and graduate students for doctoral degrees in the sciences. At least 24 University of California and California State University campuses lost training grants that provided their students with annual stipends of approximately $12,000 or more, as well as partial tuition waivers and travel funds to present research at science conferences. The number of affected programs is likely higher, as the NIH would not provide CalMatters a list of all the cancelled grants. (Zinshteyn, 5/22)

NPR: Vaccine Advisers To The FDA Recommended Changes To COVID Vaccines
The companies that make COVID-19 vaccines should update the shots again to target a variant closer to the strains currently on the rise, a committee of independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended Thursday. Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Novavax should target strains related to the JN.1 variant with their vaccines for next fall and winter because that strain is closer to the new variants of the virus that are circulating, the advisers voted after a day-long meeting. (Stein, 5/22)

The New York Times: Kennedy And Trump Paint Bleak Picture Of Chronic Disease In U.S. Children
President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, set forth their vision on Thursday for how to “make America healthy again” with the release of an expansive report on a crisis of chronic disease in children. The report lays the blame on ultraprocessed foods, chemical exposures, stress, lack of physical activity and excessive use of prescription drugs, including antidepressants. The product of a presidential commission led by Mr. Kennedy, the report paints a bleak picture of American children, calling them “the sickest generation in American history.” (Gay Stolberg and Blum, 5/22)

The Hill: Trump Predicts Drug Prices Will ‘Drop Like A Rock’ After New Executive Order
President Trump on Thursday claimed his recent “most favored nation” executive order could cause U.S. drug prices to “drop like a rock” in just a matter of weeks, saying the savings will be “incalculable.” In a briefing to discuss the newly released Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report on children’s health, Trump ended the event by talking about the executive order he signed last week aimed at slashing prescription drug prices. (Choi, 5/22)

The Hill: Donald Trump: Autism ‘Has To Be Artificially Induced’
President Trump said Thursday that autism must not occur naturally, citing figures inflating the spike in autism and suggesting the administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission could provide answers. “When you hear 10,000, it was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 31 for autism, I think that’s just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced, has to be,” Trump said at a MAHA Commission event. (Gangitano, 5/22)

The Bay Area Reporter: Federal Judge Hears Arguments In SFAF Suit Against Trump’s DEI, Gender Identity, Equity Executive Orders
A federal judge in Oakland didn’t seem impressed by the justice department’s arguments as it pressed for the legality of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; equity-related grants; and gender identity. The judge is expected to issue a ruling in a couple of weeks. As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS nonprofits, including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the San Francisco Community Health Center, filed suit after they acknowledged they’d received stop-work orders or termination notices for federal funds as a result of the orders. (Ferrannini, 5/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Data Shows That Encampment Complaints In SF Are Rising. Here's Why
As San Francisco has ramped up arrests against unhoused people for illegal camping, the number of homeless tents in San Francisco has dropped to at least a half-decade low. Yet encampment complaints filed through 311 are still on the rise. In many cases, residents like [Kevin] Miller are no longer reporting tents and structures but rather individuals asleep in doorways, people sitting at bus stops with bags of belongings or groups of people hanging out and using drugs. (Angst and Echeverria, 5/22)

Bay Area News Group: Here's Where The Money Meta Spent On Its $1 Billion Pledge For Affordable Housing Has Gone
A $150 million loan fund for affordable housing, called the Community Housing Fund, is one of the only funding promises the company has kept as part of its 2019 announcement. A Bay Area News Group investigation found that Meta has largely abandoned its $1 billion housing pledge, having spent just $193 million six years in. (Talerico, 5/23)

Voice Of San Diego: Morning Report: Ahead Of Possible Shelter Closure, Many Shelters Halt Intakes
The city has stopped welcoming new clients at many of its homeless shelters and both of its safe sleeping sites to prepare for the possible closure of a Midway shelter. Following Mayor Todd Gloria’s decision last week not to include nearly $5 million for the city and county-backed shelter in his final budget proposal, Housing Commission Senior Vice President Casey Snell said city officials last Thursday began temporarily halting intakes at eight other shelters and two safe campsites so officials can focus on moving Midway shelter residents elsewhere. (5/23)

San Diego Union-Tribune: UCSD Team Is Part Of Cutting-Edge, Nationwide Cancer Program 
UC San Diego researchers are part of a nationwide effort to increase the precision of cancer therapy through the better and broader use of computer modeling and machine learning, often called artificial intelligence. (Sisson, 5/22)

CBS News: Deaths From Alcohol-Related Cancers Doubled From 1990 To 2021, Study Finds
New research is showing just how much alcohol has impacted cancer mortality rates in the past three decades. In the analysis, released Thursday ahead of being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2025 conference in Chicago, researchers found alcohol-associated cancer deaths in the United States doubled from 1990 to 2021, rising from 11,896 to 23,207. The authors also found mortality rates were significantly higher in males and those above age 55. On a state level, the analysis found Washington, D.C., had the highest alcohol-related mortality rate across both sexes, while Utah had the lowest. (Moniuszko, 5/22)

CBS News: U.S. Reports Cases Of New COVID Variant NB.1.8.1 Behind Surge In China
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's airport screening program has detected multiple cases of the new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, which has been linked to a large surge of the virus in China. Cases linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant have been reported in arriving international travelers at airports in California, Washington state, Virginia and the New York City area, according to records uploaded by the CDC's airport testing partner Ginkgo Bioworks. (Tin, 5/22)

Orange County Register: Republican Medi-Cal Reforms Will Restore The Program To Its Original Intent
The reconciliation package now being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives will reform Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, the state-run safety-net health insurance program for the better. The California Medical Association (CMA) has released a letter condemning the proposed changes. The CMA’s rhetoric is strong but their arguments reveal more about ideology, and a misunderstanding of Medicaid’s purpose, than sound policy. (Anthony Digiorgio and Wayne Winegarden, 5/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Californians Just Voted To Crack Down On This Hospital Scam. Why Are Lawmakers Now Trying To Protect It?
Health care costs are out of control, hitting Californians in the form of higher premiums, higher deductibles and higher costs at the pharmacy counter. Millions of patients risk foregoing critical treatments because they cannot afford the co-payments and out-of-pocket costs. (Anthony M. DiGiorgio, 5/21)

Capital & Main: The Great Food Bank Robbery: Hungry Californians Face Losing Their Daily Bread
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year has generated more attention for his walkback of Medi-Cal expansions than anything else, but tucked in among the many proposed cuts is a small stunner: a nearly 90% reduction in funding for a state program called CalFood, from $60 million to $8 million a year. (Mark Kreidler, 5/22)

East Bay Times: Why California Owes Its Undocumented Workers Medi-Cal
One recent morning, I visited a cauliflower field in the Salinas Valley to talk to farmworkers. Over a couple hours, we chatted about their diverse circumstances — their families, their various home countries, their homes in different California communities. The workers had one thing in common. They all reported feeling much healthier than they had in years. (Joe Mathews, 5/23)