Modern Healthcare: Scripps Will Cut Hospital Leadership Positions And $30 Million In Corporate Services
Scripps Health is eliminating chief executive positions and cutting corporate services by $30 million in order to remain "relevant and viable in a new health care era," according to the San Diego-based system's CEO. The CEO positions at each of the system's four hospitals will be cut. Scripps instead will have one CEO overseeing Scripps Encinitas, Green and La Jolla campuses, another chief executive for the Scripps Mercy San Diego and Chula Vista campuses and one CEO over ancillary services. These leaders will supervise chief operations executives at the facilities. In another move, Scripps will create a joint leadership model between hospital executives and physician leaders "to further align physician and hospital objectives." (12/2)

Los Angeles Times: Is This What The Doctor's Office Of The Future Will Look Like?
The new Forward medical clinic in Century City does not have a waiting room. The initial check-up with a doctor at Parsley, a new medical center in Playa Vista, involves a 75-minute meeting with a doctor and a session with a health coach. Loom, in Los Angeles, has a cozy space for clients to chat with a counselor about trying to get pregnant or dealing with a miscarriage. As people tire of long wait times, rushed visits, a reliance on prescription medicines and dealing with the morass that is the insurance system, some doctors, practitioners and entrepreneurs — especially those trying to attract millennial customers — are finding another way to deliver wellness. (Daswani, 12/2)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Officials Launch Effort To Curb HIV
Los Angeles County public health officials on Friday announced an effort aimed at reducing the annual number of HIV infections by more than two-thirds and bringing an end to the virus that causes AIDS. More than 60,000 people in the county live with HIV, the second-largest such population in the nation. Around 1,850 new cases are diagnosed here each year, the majority among LGBTQ residents, Latinos and African Americans. (Etehad, 12/1)

Los Angeles Times: Early-Life Stress, Especially In War, Can Have Consequences Across Multiple Generations
The wartime evacuation of Finnish children more than 70 years ago might have been an historical footnote, its cost to human health and happiness lost in the passage of time. More than 70,000 Finnish children were separated from their parents in a frantic rout and whisked away to institutions and foster families in Sweden and Denmark. The aim of this mass migration of unaccompanied children was to shield them from harm, as Finland had become a battleground for clashing Soviet and German forces. But studies by an international group of experts in child development have found that its effect was not wholly protective. (Healy, 12/1)

Los Angeles Times: Porter Ranch Residents Informed Of Brief Surge In Methane Levels At Aliso Canyon Gas Storage Facility
Methane levels briefly surged Friday night at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility in the San Fernando Valley, prompting Southern California Gas Co. to notify nearby residents in Porter Ranch. The company sent out the notice late Friday night, saying that increased levels of methane had been found earlier that evening on two fence-line monitors along the facility border. (Reyes, 12/2)

In other news from across the state —

Los Angeles Times: Former Official Accused Of Stealing $800,000 From Nonprofit San Diego County Clinic
The former head of information technology at the nonprofit North County Health Services, which aids low-income people, pleaded not guilty Friday to siphoning nearly $800,000 from San Diego County organization. Hector Ramos, 55, of Murrieta, was charged with 49 counts related to the loss of the money, which authorities say happened over the course of eight months in 2015. (Figueroa, 12/1)

Ventura County Star: Local Hospitals Push Through Shortage To Keep IVs Dripping
Pharmacy leaders at area hospitals are preserving supplies and crafting backup plans to keep a national shortage of IV bags from affecting medications given to patients. The shortage involves small intravenous bags used to administer drugs including antibiotics and chemotherapy. It was triggered by damage from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The hurricane knocked off the power grid three Baxter International plants that made small IV bags — Mini-Bag and Mini-Bag Plus. Other barriers include damage inflicted on roads, bridges and communication systems. (Kisken, 12/1)

San Jose Mercury News: Valley Medical Center’s Sobrato Pavilion Marks New Era In Patient Care
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center marked a new era Saturday with the unveiling of its new Sobrato Pavilion, a facility boasting cutting-edge technology and innovation that officials say will put the needs of patients first. The six-story, 370,000-square-foot building, with 168 private patient rooms, is named after prominent Silicon Valley philanthropist John Sobrato, because of his record-setting $5 million donation, matched by another $5 million raised by the VMC Foundation. (Sanchez, 12/2)

The Associated Press: Tax Bill Clears Senate In Big Boost For Trump, GOP
Republicans muscled the largest tax overhaul in 30 years through the Senate early Saturday, taking a big step toward giving President Donald Trump his first major legislative triumph after months of false starts and frustration on other fronts. "Just what the country needs to get growing again," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in an interview after a final burst of negotiation closed in on a nearly $1.5 trillion package that impacts the breadth of American society. (12/2)

The Los Angeles Times: After Last-Minute Deals, The Senate Narrowly Passes Republican Tax Plan
The final Senate bill also includes a repeal of the Affordable Care Act requirement that Americans have health insurance, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would result in higher premiums and leave an additional 13 million Americans without coverage. (Mascaro and Puzzanghera, 12/1)

Reuters: U.S. Senate Tax Bill Accomplishes Major Obamacare Repeal Goal
The sweeping tax overhaul that passed the U.S. Senate on Saturday contains the Republicans' biggest blow yet to former President Barack Obama's healthcare law, repealing the requirement that all Americans obtain health insurance. The individual mandate is meant to ensure a viable health insurance market by forcing younger and healthier Americans to buy coverage to help offset the cost of sicker patients. It helps uphold the most popular provision of the law, which requires insurers charge sick and healthy people the same rates. Removing it while keeping the rest of Obama's Affordable Care Act intact is expected to cause insurance premiums to rise and lead to millions of people losing coverage, policy experts say. (Abutaleb, 12/2)

The Washington Post: Senate’s Huge Tax Bill Would Have Potent Ripple Effects For Health-Care System
The Republican tax overhaul that squeaked through the Senate early Saturday morning would reach deep into the nation’s health-care system, with a clear dagger to a core aspect of the Affordable Care Act and broader ripple effects that could threaten other programs over time. The measure would abolish the government’s enforcement of the ACA requirement that most Americans carry insurance coverage. It would not end the individual mandate itself but would eliminate tax penalties for flouting that requirement. The result could cause an extra 13 million people to become uninsured and drive up insurance premiums in marketplaces created under the law, according to an estimate by Congress’s nonpartisan budget analysts. Yet downstream effects of the bill that have drawn less attention could potentially damage the health care and well-being of far more people. (Goldstein, 12/2)

The New York Times: For McConnell, Health Care Failure Was A Map To Tax Success
For Mitch McConnell and fellow Senate Republicans, the push for a sweeping tax overhaul was never anything like the divisive internal party struggle that prevented repeal of the Affordable Care Act. “All of my members, from Collins to Cruz, were just more comfortable with this issue,” Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, said in an interview this weekend, referring to the centrist Susan Collins of Maine and the conservative Ted Cruz of Texas. “Everybody really wanted to get to yes. There was a widespread belief that this was just a good thing to do for the country and for us politically.” (Hulse, 12/3)

The New York Times: CVS To Buy Aetna For $69 Billion In A Deal That May Reshape The Health Industry
CVS Health said on Sunday that it had agreed to buy Aetna for about $69 billion in a deal that would combine the drugstore giant with one of the biggest health insurers in the United States and has the potential to reshape the nation’s health care industry. The transaction, one of the largest of the year, reflects the increasingly blurred lines between the traditionally separate spheres of a rapidly changing industry. (De La Merced and Abelson, 12/3)

Reuters: CVS Health To Acquire Aetna For $69 Billion In Year's Largest Acquisition
The deal comes after Aetna's $37 billion plan to acquire smaller U.S. health insurance peer Humana Inc was blocked in January by a U.S. federal judge over antitrust concerns. A proposed combination of peers Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp was also shot down. (O'Donnell and Humer, 12/4)

The Washington Post: CVS Agrees To Buy Aetna In $69 Billion Deal That Could Shake Up Health-Care Industry
If approved, the mega-merger would create a giant consumer health care company with a familiar presence in thousands of communities. Aetna chief executive Mark T. Bertolini described the vision in an interview as "creating a new front door for health care in America." "We want to get closer to the community, because all health care is local," Bertolini said. "What was going to draw people into an Aetna store? Probably not a lot. We looked for the right kind of partnership." (Johnson, 12/3)

The Wall Street Journal: CVS To Buy Aetna For $69 Billion, Combining Major Health-Care Players
The proposed deal is the latest and most dramatic sign of how the lines between traditional segments in health care are blurring as companies, saddled with mature businesses and in many cases restricted from buying rivals, enter new areas in search of growth. Companies from insurers to hospital chains are also looking for ways to squeeze costs and bolster their leverage against other players in the food chain. That is creating opportunities, but also new fault lines as companies find themselves competing against erstwhile partners. (Terlep, Wilde Mathews and Cimilluca, 12/3)

The New York Times: Why A CVS-Aetna Merger Could Benefit Consumers
There are reasons for consumers to be optimistic about CVS’s reported purchase of Aetna for $69 billion on Sunday. It’s one of the largest health care mergers in history, and in general, consolidation in health care has not been good for Americans. But by disrupting the pharmacy benefits management market, and by more closely aligning management of drug benefits and other types of benefits in one organization, CVS could be acting in ways that ultimately benefit consumers. (Frakt, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: CVS To Buy Aetna For $69 Billion In Deal That Would Shake Up Healthcare Industry
Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said, "It remains to be seen whether this [merger] is actually going to drive costs down" for consumers but that savings could materialize "if it becomes a lower-cost alternative to sending people to a doctor's office or having people show up in the emergency room." "To the extent they can help manage the Aetna members' conditions — particularly people who might otherwise end up in the ER or were recently hospitalized — this could lower costs," Kominski said. "We'll see how it pans out." (Peltz, 12/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Will CVS Health Deal To Buy Aetna Hold Up To Antitrust Scrutiny?
CVS Health Corp.’s planned acquisition of Aetna Inc. will face tough antitrust scrutiny, but the limited overlap between the companies’ businesses should help bolster their case for the deal, experts said. The $69 billion acquisition would involve CVS’s drugstores, some including retail clinics, and its massive pharmacy-benefit-management business. Aetna is the third-biggest U.S. health insurer, selling plans to employers as well as offering Medicare and Medicaid coverage, among other types. The two companies have some areas of direct competition, particularly in the sale of drug plans to Medicare beneficiaries. (Wilde Mathews, 12/3)