KVPR: What The Big Beautiful Bill Could Mean For Some Hospitals In The San Joaquin Valley
Hospital executives in the San Joaquin Valley are assessing how to take in looming Medicaid changes from the Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress and signed by President Trump earlier this month. Health advocates say the bill in several ways will limit health care access in addition to cutting social safety net resources for residents, like food assistance. On the other hand, the bill extended tax cuts passed under President Trump’s first term and increased spending on immigration enforcement and the military. (Livinal, 7/11)

Politico: How Hospitals Could Still Escape The Megabill’s Medicaid Cuts
Hospitals lost big in President Donald Trump’s megabill, but they still have plenty of time to fight back. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed on the 4th of July will take a $340 billion bite out of hospital budgets over a decade to pay for tax cuts and other Trump priorities. Then again, maybe it won’t. That’s because Congress delayed implementation of the most devastating of those cuts till 2028, and hospitals, their armies of lobbyists and many allies on Capitol Hill are already gearing up to use the next two and a half years to persuade lawmakers to rescind them. (King, Chu and Lim, 7/14)

Reuters: Trump's Spending Bill Will Likely Boost Costs For Insurers, Shrink Medicaid Coverage
President Donald Trump's spending bill is set to raise administrative costs and make managing costs more difficult for insurers like UnitedHealthcare and CVS Health's Aetna that operate Medicaid health plans, experts say. As a result, those insurers will likely pull back their Medicaid coverage and invest more in existing markets to retain their healthier members, experts said. (Niasse, 7/14)

California Healthline: In Rush To Satisfy Trump, GOP Delivers Blow To Health Industry
Doctors, hospitals, and health insurers for weeks issued dire warnings to Republican lawmakers that millions of people would lose health coverage and hospitals would close if they cut Medicaid funding to help pay for President Donald Trump’s big tax and spending bill. But Republicans ignored those pleas, made even deeper cuts, and sent the legislation on July 3 to the White House, where Trump signed it the next day. (Galewitz and Armour, 7/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: ‘Elisa’s Story Is Forcing Change’: In Year Since $15M Jail Death Settlement, Sheriff Reforms Training, Medical Care
When Michael and Paloma Serna agreed last year to settle their lawsuit over the death of their daughter Elisa in a San Diego jail, included with the headline $15 million payment were several perhaps more important provisions aimed at preventing future tragedies. The agreement called for the Sheriff’s Office to implement compassion training for staff and improve how medical personnel hand off patient information during shift changes. (Davis, 7/13)

LAist: Despite Three 911 Calls, Two Homebound Disabled Men Died In The Eaton Fire Waiting For Rescue
By the time Anthony Mitchell Sr. called 911 for the first time at 6:03 a.m. on Jan. 8, sparks were flying into his west Altadena backyard. “There’s two disabled people in the house,” he told the dispatcher, who then asked for his exact address. The Eaton Fire erupted about 12 hours earlier, and driven by extreme Santa Ana winds, it was burning a path through neighborhoods of 100-year-old homes and tight-knit, multigenerational communities. (Stone, 7/14)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Micah’s Hugs Stocks Old Newspaper Boxes With Free Narcan, Fentanyl Test Strips In Sonoma County 
What Micah’s Hugs does is nonstop advocacy and education around the prevalence and dangers of fentanyl, including providing free naloxone and fentanyl test strips, as well as giving scholarships to people newly out of rehab who need a sober living environment. (Benefield, 7/12)

Bay Area News Group: San Jose Homeless Population Unchanged — But More Are In Shelter
Two years into an aggressive push to address homelessness, San Jose has managed to bring more people indoors — but the total number of unhoused residents remains stubbornly unchanged. A new “point-in-time” census released Monday found that the city’s 2025 homeless population was 6,503, largely the same as 2023’s count of 6,266. That’s despite the city’s efforts to increase its emergency shelter capacity and hundreds of millions of dollars in public spending. (Talerico, 7/14)

LAist: Results Of LA Region’s Annual Homeless Count To Be Released
The results of the L.A. region’s annual point-in-time homeless count are expected to be released Monday afternoon. The count — the largest of its kind in the country — is one of the most important surveys on homelessness in the Los Angeles area. The data plays a critical role in how resources are used to address homelessness and is a requirement for seeking federal funding. (Sievertson, 7/13)

Voice of San Diego: How Palomar Health Plans To Turn Its Finances Around
The region’s largest public healthcare district is in financial trouble. Now, officials at Palomar Health have their sights set on a comeback. (Layne, 7/14)

CT Insider: Prospect Medical Borrows $30M For Payroll As CT Hospital Sale Lags
Bankrupt hospital operator Prospect Medical Holdings asked a judge on Wednesday to approve $30 million in emergency debt financing as it faces a cash crunch. Prospect, which owns Waterbury, Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals, said it needed the cash infusion to avoid layoffs and service cuts at its hospitals in California and Connecticut. (Klein, 7/11)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Data Breaches In 2025 Lower Than 2024 But Still High
A record-high number of organizations reported healthcare data breaches in 2024 — and the first half of 2025 forecasts another challenging year for cyberattacks. As of Friday, the Health and Human Services Department’s Office for Civil Rights has listed 378 breaches affecting 500 or more individuals in the first six months of 2025. That’s fewer than the 408 reported through June in 2024, but more than all years previous. (Broderick, 7/11)

AP: Nursing Homes Face Staffing Crunch As Trump's Immigration Policies Disrupt Workforce
Nursing homes already struggling to recruit staff are now grappling with President Donald Trump’s attack on one of their few reliable sources of workers: immigration. Facilities for older adults and disabled people are reporting the sporadic loss of employees who have had their legal status revoked by Trump. But they fear even more dramatic impacts are ahead as pipelines of potential workers slow to a trickle with an overall downturn in legal immigration. (Sedensky, 7/13)

Times of San Diego: County Sprays For Mosquitoes After Finding West Nile Virus In Rolando
As part of ongoing efforts to reduce the risk of disease, San Diego County conducted pesticide spraying this week in neighborhoods across San Diego and La Mesa. Mosquitoes trapped during a routine monitoring in Rolando last month tested positive for West Nile virus. (Vazquez, 7/12)

Berkeleyside: Who Gets To Live Well In Berkeley?
Stark racial and geographic disparities in mental health, toxic exposures and life expectancy are among the findings of a new $270,000 report on the city’s overall health and well-being. (Ioffee, 7/9)

NBC News: Premenstrual Disorders Linked To Higher Risk For Heart Disease, Study Finds
Premenstrual disorders are associated with a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a large, long-term study has found. New research analyzing patient health data from more than 3 million women in Sweden over a 20-year period found that those who were diagnosed with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) had an 11% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease at some point, compared to women who did not have a diagnosis. (Srinivasan, 7/11)

The Hill: Here Are The Most And Least Stressed Cities In The US: Study
A recently published study from finance site WalletHub ranked 182 U.S. cities from most to least stressed, with Detroit taking the crown for most and South Burlington, Vt., winning in the least stressed category. The study determined its rankings through five different dimensions — work, financial, family, and health/safety stress. A higher number denotes a lower level of stress. (Sanders and Tanner, 7/12)

The Hill: Judge Reverses CFPB Rule Erasing Medical Debt From Credit Reports
A federal judge in Texas reversed a Biden-era rule on Friday that permitted medical debt to be wiped from credit reports, according to court documents. U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan, a 2019 appointee of President Trump, said the rule by the previous administration exceeds the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). ... The Biden administration estimated that the action would remove nearly $50 billion of medical debt from the credit reports of roughly 15 million Americans. (Fields, 7/12)

Bloomberg: FDA Offers To Trade Faster Drug Reviews For Lower US Prices
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said his agency may fast-track new drugs from pharmaceutical companies that “equalize” the cost of their medicines between the US and other countries, an unusual proposition from the regulator that’s long avoided contentious pricing debates. ... Price adjustments may give companies another way to obtain “national priority vouchers,” the reward that comes as part of a new program the FDA announced last month that would slash review times for companies it says are backing national interests. (Cohrs Zhang and Hornblower, 7/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Stay Or Go? For Some Transgender San Diego Sailors And Marines, Trump’s Ban Leaves One Option: ‘Come And Find Me’ 
San Diego has one of the largest military communities in the country, but the Department of Defense did not respond to the Union-Tribune’s questions about how it might staff positions left vacant once service members are forced to leave. (Fox, 7/13)

CBS News: HHS Facing Billion-Dollar Backlog Of Delayed Grants After DOGE
The Department of Health and Human Services has asked some laid-off staff if they could return to work temporarily, as the department grapples with a backlog of grants that has swelled to more than a billion dollars in the wake of hurdles set up by DOGE. Multiple HHS officials, who were not authorized to speak to the press, said the laid-off staff asked to return to work include a handful of employees who managed grants in the department's Administration for Children and Families, or ACF. (Tin, 7/11)

California Healthline: Vested Interests. Influence Muscle. At RFK Jr.’s HHS, It’s Not Pharma. It’s Wellness
On his way to an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stopped by the home of podcaster Gary Brecka. The two spent time in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and tried some intravenous nutrition drips that Brecka, a self-avowed longevity and wellness maven, sells and promotes on his show, “The Ultimate Human.” Then the podcast taping started, and Kennedy — who was also on the mic — took aim at Big Pharma’s influence on federal health policy. (Armour, 7/14)

CBS News: COVID Cases Likely Rising In Half Of States, CDC Estimates
Cases of COVID-19 are now likely growing in 25 states, according to estimates published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, as this year's summer wave of the virus appears to be getting underway. The agency's modeling suggests that the uptick is in "many" Southeast, Southern and West Coast states, the CDC said in its weekly update. COVID-19 activity nationwide, however, is still considered "low," based on data from wastewater samples, although that is up from "very low" the week before. (Tin, 7/11)

AP: Walmart Recalls 850,000 Water Bottles After Two Consumers Suffer Vision Loss From Ejecting Caps
Walmart is recalling about 850,000 stainless steel water bottles because the lid can “forcefully eject” and unexpectedly strike consumers — resulting in permanent vision loss for two people to date. The recall covers Walmart’s “Ozark Trail 64 oz Stainless Steel Insulated Water Bottles,” which have been sold at the chain’s stores across the country since 2017. According to a notice published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday, these products pose “serious impact and laceration hazards.” (7/11)

Stat: Reports Of Young Children Accidentally Eating Nicotine Pouches Rose Dramatically
Nicotine pouches like Zyn have exploded in popularity in the U.S. With that growth comes a steep increase in the risk of young children accidentally eating the pouches, with potentially serious consequences, according to a new study. (Todd, 7/14)