Los Angeles Times: Obamacare Sign-Ups Hit New Record Even As GOP Promises Repeal
More than 670,000 people signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, marking the busiest single enrollment day since the healthcare law’s coverage expansion began three years ago. The record tally, announced by President Obama at his year-end news conference Friday, continues the strong enrollment this fall following Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory. (Levey, 12/16)

Sacramento Business Journal: ACA And Covered California Enrollment Numbers Are Surging As Deadline Approaches For 2017 Coverage
As an incoming president and Congress discuss plans to repeal Affordable Care Act, enrollment numbers are on the upswing. Federal and state departments this week report surging enrollment for health insurance coverage through ACA and Covered California as the new Monday deadline approaches. Healthcare.gov, the federal insurance marketplace used by 39 states, saw record enrollment on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13 totaling more than 700,000 signups. These are two of the biggest days out of all past open enrollment periods. (Siu, 12/16)

The Mercury News: Californians With Pre-Existing Conditions Worried About Health Care Future
A stunning analysis released this past week by the Menlo Park-based Kaiser Family Foundation found that 52 million American adults under age 65 — including 5.8 million Californians — have pre-existing health conditions that would most likely make them uninsurable under underwriting practices in place in most states before Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law six years ago. Many Obamacare opponents — including Trump — say the pre-existing condition provision is one of the few parts of the Affordable Care Act worth keeping, but it’s far from clear how their alternative plans could afford to retain it. (Seipel, 12/17)

KPCC: Covered California Pushes Deadline 2 More Days
Covered California is extending the deadline to sign up for 2017 health coverage that takes effect Jan. 1 by two more days until midnight Monday, the state health insurance exchange said Friday. Earlier this week Covered California had extended the original deadline from Thursday to midnight Saturday. The exchange said it's pushing it back again to align with the midnight Monday deadline the federal government announced for states that use the healthcare.gov exchange. (Glickman, 12/16)

Los Angeles Times: OxyContin Goes Global — “We’re Only Just Getting Started”
OxyContin is a dying business in America. With the nation in the grip of an opioid epidemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, the U.S. medical establishment is turning away from painkillers. Top health officials are discouraging primary care doctors from prescribing them for chronic pain, saying there is no proof they work long-term and substantial evidence they put patients at risk. ... So the company’s owners, the Sackler family, are pursuing a new strategy: Put the painkiller that set off the U.S. opioid crisis into medicine cabinets around the world. (Ryan, Girion and Glover, 12/18)

inewsource: San Diego Doctors Join Protest Of Trump’s Choice To Lead HHS 
San Diego cardiologist Dr. Eric Adler wasn’t thrilled by President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Dr. Tom Price to head the federal agency that pays for services to Medicare and Medicaid patients. Far from it. Adler was distressed enough that he was among 6,000 physicians across the country — some 63 in San Diego County and more than 1,000 in California — to sign an online letter in protest. It’s titled “The AMA Does Not Speak For Us.” (Clark, 12/16)

Los Angeles Times: Orange County Children's Dental Clinic Closed After Bacteria Found In New Water System 
Orange County health officials have ordered the closure of a children’s dental office in Anaheim after lab tests found bacteria in its new internal water system, which had replaced a system blamed for an earlier outbreak of bacterial infections. The county Health Care Agency conducted initial testing of the water system at Children’s Dental Group of Anaheim in September when the agency received multiple reports of children who had developed oral infections after undergoing “baby root canals” at the facility, according to the agency. (Rocha and Lozano, 12/17)

KPCC: Anaheim Children's Dental Clinic Ordered Closed Due To Bacteria In Water
Orange County's health department Friday ordered a troubled Anaheim children's dental clinic to close after its new water system tested positive for bacteria. Children's Dental Group had recently replaced its on-site system after health authorities determined the water had caused infections among dozens of kids who underwent partial root canals there earlier this year. (Plevin, 12/16)

KPCC: US Pediatrics Group Says Don't Get Breast Milk Online 
Health care providers should discourage families from procuring milk online regardless of whether it is sold or donated, according to the Academy, "because of the increased risks of bacterial or viral contamination of nonpasteurized milk and the possibility of exposure to medications, drugs, or other substances," such as pesticides or mercury. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recommends against feeding babies breast milk acquired directly from individuals or via the internet, citing similar concerns about possible contamination. (Plevin, 12/19)

In other public health news —

KPCC: Fearful Of Parents, Many Teens Still Avoid Sex-Related Health Care 
Under California law, teenagers can get reproductive care and treatment for sexual issues confidentially, without parental consent or notification. The Center for Health Statistics studied 2013-2015 data compiled by the National Survey of Family Growth. It found that nearly 18 percent of youths between 15 and 17 won't go to a provider at all because of confidentiality concerns. (Browne, 12/19)

WBUR: On A 'Eugenics Registry,' A Record Of California's Thousands Of Sterilizations
There's a grim chapter in American history that involves forced sterilization. And for much of this past century, California had one of the most active sterilization programs in the country. A state law from 1909 authorized the surgery for people judged to have "mental disease, which may have been inherited." That law remained on the books until 1979. (12/18)

The Mercury News: Stanford Manufactures Gene-Engineered Cells To Cure The Incurable 
Inside “clean rooms” of Stanford University’s fledgling Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine, lab techs tend machines that churn out gene-engineered cells, which can attack cancer, fix blood disease, patch a heart, alter the immune system, build skin grafts and create a realm of yet-to-be discovered therapies. The 25,000-square-foot facility, which opened last September, puts Stanford at the forefront of one of medicine’s most important and promising trends: regenerative medicine, which aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body’s own healthy cells. (Kreiger, 12/17)

In other news from across the state —

The Bakersfield Californian: California Prisons Reduce Risk Of Valley Fever For Inmates 
In the last few years, state prisons, at least, have made changes. They have worked harder to screen out prisoners who are the most vulnerable to the disease and to take measures to lower the risk to inmates who are incarcerated there. Between 2011 and 2015, their valley fever rates fell dramatically — close to 90 percent overall. Within that time period, valley fever became less prevalent all around, but even in the most endemic areas of the southwest, background rates fell by only 30 to 50 percent. (Klein, 12/18)

Fresno Bee: Three Clovis West High School Student Suicides In Three Months 
Clovis Unified maintains that it has deployed ample resources to educate students and parents. Students, teachers and staff members are encouraged to ask for help and report warning signs. The suicides may be part of a larger issue, as local government and health officials are working to curb an unusually large number of child suicides across Fresno County. (Appleton, 12/15)

The Associated Press: After Harsh Light, A Cheaper Version Of EpiPen From Mylan
Mylan is releasing a generic version of its emergency allergy treatment EpiPen at half the price of the branded option, the cost of which drew scorn from parents nationwide and spawned Congressional inquiries. The potential cost savings will depend in part on a patient's insurance coverage and qualifications for discount and assistance programs that the drugmaker also provides. (12/16)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Trump Action On Health Care Could Cost Planned Parenthood
One of President-elect Donald Trump's first, and defining, acts next year could come on Republican legislation to cut off taxpayer money from Planned Parenthood. Trump sent mixed signals during the campaign about the 100-year-old organization, which provides birth control, abortions and various women's health services. He said "millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood," but he also endorsed efforts to defund it. (12/19)

The Associated Press: Medicare Outpatients Risk Higher Bills For Some Procedures
You pay less for outpatient treatment than for a hospital admission, right? Not necessarily in the topsy-turvy world of Medicare billing, according to a government report. People entitled to benefits under Medicare who had heart stents inserted as outpatients faced hospital bills that were $645 higher on average than those who had the same kind of procedure as inpatients, the Health and Human Services inspector general has found. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/19)

Stat: NIH's Francis Collins On Obama, Congress, And His One Regret
At what was supposed to be the end of his tenure atop the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins is still a very busy man. In his seven and a half years leading the agency, Collins has been involved in the response to Ebola and Zika. He has helped secure the first funding increases for the NIH in decades. Congress just this month funneled billions of dollars into several major projects — the Precision Medicine Initiative, the cancer moonshot — that Collins helped craft. This was supposed to be the finale for Collins. But, as he told STAT in a recent interview in his offices here, he loves the NIH and believes in public service, so if asked he would consider it a “privilege” to remain director under President-elect Donald Trump. (Kaplan and Scott, 12/16)

The New York Times: Medical And Health News That Stuck With Us In 2016
As the year ends, the Science desk at The New York Times asked its reporters to look back at the news they reported on that was the most memorable. These are the selections, with a focus on health and medicine news. (12/16)