The San Jose Mercury News: Obamacare: Key Moves By Covered California Helped Keep Premiums Down 
The nation’s ever-controversial health care law suffered a black eye last week after the federal government announced that next year’s premiums for those who depend on the Affordable Care Act would increase by an average of 22 percent. But the blow won’t be as painful for most of the 1.4 million Californians who get their health coverage through Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange: The average 2017 premium increase will be 13.2 percent after two years of modest increases. (Seipel, 10/30)

Modern Healthcare: Dignity, CHI Would Gain Scale In Merger, But Debt Issues Loom 
Six months before Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives announced they were in merger talks, the two hospital giants each dispatched small work teams to probe whether a deal was desirable. What they found were complementary geographic footprints, hefty debt burdens and several very successful markets dragged down by a smattering of challenging ones. (Barkholz, 10/29)

In other hospital news —

East Bay Times: Planned Closure Of Alta Bates Raises Concerns Of A Health Care Desert 
The announcement earlier this year that Alta Bates Summit Medical Center would close its campus [in Berkeley, Calif.], possibly as early as 2018 but certainly by 2030, sent shock waves through the East Bay. Cities issued resolutions calling for the hospital to stay open, and “Save Our Hospital” signs popped up on lawns and in store windows. Coming just a year after Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo closed following a long struggle to stay solvent, Alta Bates’ plans to shutter has stoked fears that a large swath of the East Bay is turning into a health care desert that will result in delays in care for those facing life-threatening conditions and longer waits for inpatient procedures. (Ioffee, 10/30)

KPCC: LA County May Let More Hospitals Detain Dangerous Psychiatric Patients 
When someone with a mental health disorder arrives at a hospital emergency room and staff determine that he poses a danger to himself or others, they can detain him for a 72-hour crisis intervention - but only if the facility has an in-house psychiatric unit that's designated to treat such patients. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider setting up a pilot program that would change that policy at at one hospital. The County Department of Mental Health is proposing the experiment at south L.A.'s Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, which doesn't have a mental health unit. Since MLK's ER staff don't have the authority to detain psychiatric patients, they have to wait for one of the county's Psychiatric Mobile Response Teams to collect a patient deemed dangerous and transport him to a county or private psychiatric facility. (Plevin, 10/31)

California Healthline: FDA Faults 12 Hospitals For Failing To Disclose Injuries, Deaths Linked To Medical Devices
Federal regulators said 12 U.S. hospitals, including well-known medical centers in Los Angeles, Boston and New York, failed to promptly report patient deaths or injuries linked to medical devices. The Food and Drug Administration publicly disclosed the violations in inspection reports this week amid growing scrutiny of its ability to identify device-related dangers and protect patients from harm. (Terhune, 10/28)

Sacramento Business Journal: Soda Taxes On The 2016 Ballot Could Eventually Save Millions In Healthcare Costs 
The soda taxes popping up on ballots in cities across the U.S. could lead to a major drop in sugary beverage consumption and millions of dollars in healthcare savings. Soda tax initiatives under consideration in California would result in a 20 percent drop in soda consumption, according to a new study out Thursday from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The resulting reduction in obesity and diabetes would slash healthcare costs in the San Francisco Bay Area by $54.9 million over 10 years, the study's authors said. The study was released just ahead of the Nov. 8 vote on the measures in three California cities — San Francisco, Oakland and Albany. The proposals would tax soda at a rate of 1 cent per ounce. (Hall, 10/28)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Adverse Childhood Experiences Focus Of New Sonoma County Initiative 
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control study looked at childhood traumas, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and the effects they have on young people as they grow up. A new initiative in Sonoma County seeks to take that research and give new tools to those on the frontlines — teachers, counselors, coaches and nurses — to better help troubled kids. Sixty people applied for the county’s first ACEs and Resiliency Fellowship and 25 were selected to participate in an intensive nine-month training, led in part by Dr. Robert Anda, who authored the CDC study. The goal is to help them recognize toxic stress and what that can do to kids. The approach is called “trauma-informed care.” (Warren, 10/28)

In other news from across the state —

Capital Public Radio: Free Health Clinic Provides Dental, Vision Care 
Since Thursday, Sandra Scott has spent six hours driving back and forth from her home in the Sierra Foothills to the free medical clinic at Cal Expo. Scott says she can't afford to see a dentist for chronic tooth pain she's had for the last three years. "If it's between eating or paying a dental bill, this gives me an answer," she says. The clinic, hosted by California Careforce, is a three-day event where people can get free eye exams and glasses; see a dentist or oral surgeon; and get a physical examination. (Johnson, 10/28)

The New York Times: As Health Premiums Jump, Obama Wields An Imperfect Shield
Urging people to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Obama said last week that while premiums might be rising, most consumers need not worry. “Premiums going up,” he said, “don’t necessarily translate into higher premiums for people who are getting tax credits.” ... But left unmentioned in the pitch to consumers are what economists and health policy experts describe as possible reasons to be concerned about rising premiums. (Pear, 10/30)

In other national health care news —

McClatchy: U.S. Healthcare Sector Vulnerable To Cybersecurity Attack 
The U.S. health care industry has been hit with 22 major computer breaches since mid-2015 that have resulted in the loss of millions of patient records, says SecurityScorecard, a New York City firm that offers cybersecurity ratings and monitoring. Nearly two-thirds of the 27 largest hospitals in the United States are slow to install security patches to overcome cyber vulnerabilities, the company said in a report released Thursday. It was only one of two surveys released this week on the health care system and cybercrime. A second report, released by Intel Security’s McAfee Labs unit, underscored that stolen medical records are less valuable than stolen records from banks – but still valuable. (Johnson, 10/28)

Stat: New Cholesterol Drugs Aren't Selling, And That's Worrying Biotech
A year ago, two new drugs that used a novel mechanism to drive down cholesterol levels came on the market, and were promptly crowned as blockbusters in waiting. Analysts estimated sales at more than $3 billion a year. But the two drugs have been commercial flops, in part due to a complicated reimbursement system that has frustrated doctors, confused patients, and left the biotech industry worried about the implications for other high-priced drugs in the pipeline. (Garde, 10/28)

The Washington Post: There’s A Shortage Of Child Psychiatrists, And Kids Are Hurting
Pediatrician Karen Rhea said she found it “gut-wrenching” to see young people in psychiatric crisis: a teen who overdosed, the one with mental illness who landed in jail, the high school senior who tried to kill herself by crashing her car. With a population of about 20,000 then, Franklin, Tenn., where she practiced, had no child and adolescent psychiatrists, so Rhea spent long hours searching for inpatient care, phoning judges, looking for mental-health specialists in Nashville 20 miles away. Sometimes her efforts made a difference. The suicide survivor thrived in therapy. She wrote a note to Rhea, thanking her for saving her life. (Vander Schaaff, 10/30)

The New York Times: Medicaid Finds Opportune Time To Offer Birth Control: Right After Birth
Last month, Akia Gayle gave birth to her third child. Sixteen hours later, while she was still in her hospital bed, a doctor implanted a matchstick-size plastic rod in her left arm because she did not want to have a fourth. “To have it done right then and there — that’s good,” Ms. Gayle said. “I don’t want more kids.” (Tavernise, 10/28)