Los Angeles Times: Trump And The GOP Are Charging Forward With Obamacare Repeal, But Few Are Eager To Follow
As they race to repeal large parts of the Affordable Care Act, President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are leaving behind nearly everyone but their base voters and a handful of conservative activists. Not a single major organization representing patients, physicians, hospitals or others who work in the nation’s healthcare system backs the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. New polls also show far more Americans would like to expand or keep the healthcare law, rather than repeal it. (Levey, 12/12)

Politico: GOP Will Kill Obamacare … And Then Fund It
Republicans are going to kill Obamacare — but first they might have to save it. The already fragile Obamacare markets — beset by soaring premiums and fleeing insurers — are likely to collapse unless Republicans take deliberate steps to stabilize them while they build consensus on a replacement plan, say health care experts. That could lead to a mess for the roughly 10 million Americans currently getting coverage through the government-run marketplaces — and backlash against the GOP. (Demko, 12/9)

In other national health care news —

The Wall Street Journal: Insurers Step Up Lobbying With An Eye To Health-Law Changes
Health insurers are bracing for rapid changes to the Affordable Care Act, preparing contingency plans for their business and readying a full-court lobbying press as Congress looks to overturn swaths of the law as soon as January. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have promised quick action on the health law. They have said that much of the dismantling—and replacement—could take effect after a transition period of as long as a few years. (Wilde Mathews and Radnofsky, 12/11)

The Washington Post: New Push To Replace Obamacare Reignites Old GOP Tensions
Republicans on Capitol Hill are already laying the groundwork for a rapid repeal of President Obama’s signature health-care law beginning on the first day of the new Congress, before President-elect Donald Trump is even sworn in. But the urgent efforts to make good on a Republican campaign promise six years in the making obscure major GOP divisions over what exactly to replace Obamacare with and how to go about it, and how long a transition period to allow before the law’s insurance would go away. (DeBonis and Snell, 12/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Opioid Epidemic Is An Immediate Test For Donald Trump’s Administration
Donald Trump’s plans to tackle the opioid crisis are taking on new urgency as deaths from the drugs are rising sharply in the U.S. The number of deaths from heroin overdoses surged by 23% to 12,990 in 2015, while fatal overdoses from powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl rose by more than 73% to 9,580, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. (Adamy, 12/9)

The New York Times: Wary Drug Makers Move To Fend Off Further Attacks Under Donald Trump
If the nation’s pharmaceutical executives thought Donald J. Trump would grant them a reprieve from scrutiny over high drug prices, he made them reconsider that idea in the last few days. “I’m going to bring down drug prices,” he told Time magazine in an interview published on Wednesday. “I don’t like what’s happened with drug prices.” ... But unlike those other companies, many drug makers have already been taking steps in recent weeks to insulate themselves from future attacks. (Thomas, 12/9)

The New York Times: Abortion Foes, Emboldened By Trump, Promise ‘Onslaught’ Of Tough Restrictions
Christina Hagan, the youngest woman in the Ohio Legislature, received a surprise last week. The toughest piece of abortion legislation in the country — a bill she had championed for years — suddenly passed. The measure, which would ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks, was long presumed dead. But now that Donald J. Trump is headed to the White House, the political winds have changed, and it passed with overwhelming majorities. (Tavernise and Stolberg, 12/11)

Ventura County Star: Health CEOs In Ventura County Paid More Than Obama
Gary Wilde gained $1.4 million in salary, bonuses, benefits and deferred compensation while leading the nonprofit Community Memorial Health System in 2015. Tax records filed in November show the health system paid annually over 12 years into a retirement fund for the 61-year-old CEO. The plan had reached more than $4.2 million by the end of 2015. Wilde says taxes have cut the number by more than half. The system Wilde leads is nearing the end of a $350 million hospital construction project funded by bonds and contributions solicited from the community. Citing similar compensation packages given to other California hospital system CEOs, Wilde noted that his compensation dipped in 2016. He did not receive a salary raise or the roughly $150,000 in bonuses recorded the previous year. (Kisken, 12/10)

Ventura County Star: Hospital Flood Blamed On Plugged Pipe
A sewer pipe plugged by construction debris triggered a Wednesday flood that has pushed the opening date of a new wing at the Ventura County Medical Center into limbo, an official said Friday. The backed-up pipe spewed torrents of water out of two sinks in what will be the emergency department of a replacement wing being built at the county-run hospital in Ventura. Joan Araujo, deputy chief director for the Ventura County Health Care Agency, said the pipe was plugged by a 3-inch wide device that shouldn't have been there. (Kisken, 12/9)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Specialist Doctors Find Second Act In Medicine 
Thirty hours a week spread over four days, including one weekend per month. It’s a pretty sweet semi-retirement for Dr. Michael LaRocque, an Escondido urologist turned part-time family medicine physician. ... His transition was enabled by a homegrown program called Physician Retraining & Re-entry, a 100-hour online course developed by family medicine professors at UC San Diego. The project aims to help retired specialists who have kept their medical licenses current get a refresher — and enhance — the primary-care skills they learned in medical school but may not have used fully during their careers. (Sisson, 12/9)

Sacramento Bee: Father Of Sick Nevada County Boy Works To Build California Network For Medical Marijuana Using Families 
Silas Hurd, 9, arises in the morning these days giddy with anticipation. “Oh, he is excited, just really excited,” said his father, Forrest Hurd. “He asks over and over again, just to confirm that he is really going.” This month, the reddish-haired boy from Nevada County went back to public school – nearly two years to the day after he suffered a seizure in a special education classroom, collapsing and gasping for breath as his mother rushed to his side and an ambulance raced him to an emergency room. The episode prompted his father to quit his job as a mental health program specialist to care for Silas at home. (Hecht, 12/10)

In other marijuana news —

San Jose Mercury News: Experts: California's Marijuana Legalization Could Be Delayed
Right when it seems like “The Great Pot Moment” is upon us, it turns out there are a lot of really tough regulatory issues to resolve first, according to government and industry experts who sketched out all the thorny challenges at the two-day conference, competition and harvest celebration at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. (Krieger, 12/11)

Orange County Register: NFL Punishes Pot Use, But More Former Players Say It's Better Than Painkillers 
With funding from former Ravens offensive lineman Eugene Monroe, a Colorado non-profit has emerged on the front lines of research, rolling out two studies of NFL players -- current and former -- to help understand their use of marijuana, the drug’s capacity as a pain-relief alternative, and even, perhaps, the possibility it could have neurologically regenerative properties. Some believe such research could hold the key to solving the league’s concussion crisis. (Kartje, 12/9)

Los Angeles Times: Optimistic Women Are Less Likely To Die Prematurely Of Cancer Or Heart Disease, Study Says
Having an optimistic outlook on life could help you live longer, according to a new study. Researchers at Harvard University found that among a group of 70,000 female nurses, the 25% who were most optimistic had a 31% reduced risk of mortality while they were being tracked compared with the 25% who were least optimistic. (Netburn, 12/9)

In other public health news —

Los Angeles Times: Personality Trait Or Mental Disorder? The Same Genes May Weigh In On Both
You don’t need fancy genome-sequencing or brain-imaging equipment to know that some of the people we know and love are just a little, well, out there. We used to call these people “worriers,” “creative types,” “eccentrics” or “loners.” Like the rest of us, they seem to have come into the world with some recognizably fixed personality settings: They’re friendly or moody or dreamy or disorganized. They’re just more extremely so. (Healy, 12/9)