Los Angeles Times: While Dialysis Clinic Battle Brews At State Capitol, Healthcare Workers Look To The Ballot
Cracking down on clinics treating Californians with chronic kidney disease has been a top legislative priority this year for unions representing healthcare workers. Now they’re opening a new front in their crusade against the dialysis industry: the ballot box. Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers filed two initiatives with the state attorney general on Wednesday that, if they qualify, would appear on the November 2018 ballot. The union is seeking to impose stricter rules at dialysis centers for the staffing levels and how much they charge. (Mason, 8/9)

Sacramento Bee: Backers Of Dialysis Measure File Ballot Measure Proposals
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West filed a pair of proposed November 2018 ballot measures Wednesday that would set staffing ratios at dialysis clinics and contain other provisions similar to pending union-backed legislation that faces an uncertain outcome in the Legislature. ...Besides setting rules on staffing levels, they would require annual inspections of dialysis clinics, require more recovery time for patients, and restrict how much patients can be charged. (Miller, 8/9)

The Mercury News: Jerry Brown Vetoes Bill About Drug Polices Impact On Suicide
Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill proposed by Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, which would have required schools to consider how zero-tolerance drug and alcohol policies keep students from seeking help when crafting suicide prevention policies. ...Since all school districts must adopt formal suicide prevention policies, Berman thought the new requirement would be a good way to highlight for school districts the connection between substance abuse and suicidal ideation. (Lee, 8/9)

In other news —

KPBS: Coronado Mayor On Why It’s Time To Install Suicide Prevention Barriers On The Coronado Bridge
Since the Coronado Bridge opened in 1969, nearly 400 people have jumped to their deaths according to the Bridge Collaborative for Suicide Prevention, a non-profit group made up of residents whose goal is to end suicide from the bridge, that has been compiling data on the number of suicides. Caltrans is in the middle of a 10-month study to explore suicide prevention measures on the bridge, and it is holding a series of meetings in San Diego this week to gather public input. (Cabrera and Cavanaugh, 8/9)

East Bay Times: Highland Hospital Named Level 1 Adult Trauma Center
Highland Hospital has been elevated to a Level 1 adult trauma center, the only one in the East Bay. The ranking is the highest level given by the American College of Surgeons. “This is a major accomplishment for Highland and a huge service for the residents of Alameda County and beyond. Our trauma services are an example of the essential services Highland offers to the entire community,” Dr. Ghassan Jamaleddine said at a press conference last week. (Parr, 8/10)

Ventura County Star: 3 Years Later, Kaiser Grant Shows HEALing Powers
Three years and $1 million later, Ventura’s west side has visible results of a Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living grant, according to people involved with the project. In 2013, Kaiser HEAL grants were awarded to six specific areas in cities around California that had been identified as having high childhood obesity rates. One of the grants went to the Ventura Avenue area, and ran from 2013 to 2016. A more recent grant of $150,000 from Kaiser Permanente is being used by the HEAL Partners for a referral program with the West Ventura Medical Clinic and Community Memorial Hospital Centers for Family Health. Health professionals are being encouraged to “prescribe” programs that promote healthy activities to children at risk for childhood obesity. (Kallas, 8/9)

In other news from across the state —

KPCC: New Farmers Market Tackles South LA's 'Food Deserts' At A Local Hospital 
A farmers market opening Wednesday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in the Willowbrook neighborhood of South Los Angeles is the first in the county to open on a hospital campus. ...The hospital serves over a million people in an area with the highest death rate related to diabetes in the county. (Dugdale, 8/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Gets Federal Lot On Mission, To Build Units For Formerly Homeless
A surface parking lot behind the federal courthouse at Seventh and Mission streets in San Francisco will become the site of the city’s largest housing development for formerly homeless people, thanks to a deal struck this week between city officials and the federal government. The city will lease the parking lot for three years while it pulls together the funding and irons out construction logistics for the development, which will house 250 units in two separate buildings. (Fracassa, 8/9)

KPCC: Already Dealing With Chromium 6, Some In Paramount Oppose Medical Waste Facility
Already rattled by high levels of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium in their city, residents of Paramount on Wednesday evening implored regional air regulators not to permit a local medical waste treatment plant to expand its operations to seven days a week. ...But officials with the South Coast Air Quality Management District said the facility complies with the agency’s rules and regulations, and the president of the company that runs the plant said it won't add to Paramount's pollution. (Plevin, 8/10)

KPCC: Air Filters Aren't A Cure-All For Those Living Near SoCal Freeways, Experts Say 
Air quality experts have long maintained that living close to a highway can be bad for your health. In Southern California where space is limited, however, hundreds of thousands of people live within a quarter mile of a freeway. (Cross and Martínez, 8/9)

The Washington Post: Bipartisan Health Policy Coalition Urges Congress To Strengthen The ACA
An unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative health-policy leaders is calling on Congress to strengthen the existing health-care law in a variety of ways to help Americans get and keep insurance. The group is urging the government, in particular, to continuing paying all the federal subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act and to help Americans enroll in coverage. In a five-point set of principles issued Wednesday, the coalition lays out a potential bipartisan path forward after a Republican strategy to tilt federal health policies in more conservative directions failed in the Senate last month. (Goldstein, 8/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Experts Push Fix For Insurance Markets Aimed At Both Parties
The plan makes five primary recommendations. It encourages lawmakers to formally authorize the ACA’s “cost-sharing reduction” payments, which help insurers subsidize costs for some low-income consumers. It recommends Congress ensure funding for the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is favored by members of both parties but has been floated as a vehicle to pass more contentious health reforms. The authors also endorse two GOP-backed ideas—expanding the use of health savings accounts and broadening the ACA’s state innovation waivers, to give states additional flexibility in administering their insurance markets. In exchange, they nod to a core priority for Democrats to have a mechanism that will entice more people to sign up for health insurance. (Hackman, 8/9)

The Associated Press: Study: Trump Actions Trigger Health Premium Hikes For 2018
The Trump administration's own actions are triggering double-digit premium increases on individual health insurance policies purchased by many consumers, a nonpartisan study has found. The analysis released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that mixed signals from President Donald Trump have created uncertainty "far outside the norm," leading insurers to seek higher premium increases for 2018 than would otherwise have been the case. (8/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Health ‘Navigators’ Brace For Decision On Their Funding
The Trump administration must decide within weeks whether to continue funding organizations that help people enroll in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, one of several imminent choices that could signal the administration’s larger approach to the law. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year awarded $63 million in grants to nearly 100 community organizations that help people sign up for health plans under the 2010 law. The grants for these so-called “navigators” are set to run through September 2018, but the contracts specify that funding year-to-year would be contingent on their performance. (Hackman, 8/9)

The Associated Press: Trump Hits McConnell For Senate Crash Of Obama Health Repeal
President Donald Trump scolded his own party's Senate leader on Wednesday for the crash of the Republican drive to repeal and rewrite the Obama health care law, using Twitter to demand of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, "Why not done?" Trump fired back at the Kentucky Republican for telling a home-state audience this week that the president had "not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." (8/9)

Politico: Trump Vs. McConnell
The tit-for-tat between Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the chamber's failure to repeal Obamacare opens a politically perilous schism within a party already riven by tensions over its lack of accomplishments this year. (McCaskill and Schor, 8/9)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Administration Shifts Tone On Obamacare, Signals Openness To Bipartisan 'Fix'
The Trump administration, thwarted in several attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, notably shifted tone Wednesday, opening the door for a bipartisan plan to "fix" the law. ... "Both folks in the House and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle frankly, have said that Obamacare doesn't work, and it needs to be either repealed or fixed," Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said on the Fox News program “Fox & Friends.” "So the onus is on Congress," he said.Talk of fixing the law is new for most Republicans. Price and President Trump have long focused only on repealing or replacing it. (Bierman, 8/9)

The New York Times: 5 Transgender Service Members Sue Trump Over Military Ban
Five transgender people serving in the United States military sued President Trump and top Pentagon officials on Wednesday, asking that transgender troops be allowed to stay in the military. The lawsuit was filed in response to Mr. Trump’s ban abruptly announced last month on Twitter. (Savage, 8/9)

The New York Times: For Transgender Women, An Extra Dose Of Fear
Abbie Paige began transitioning from male to female seven years ago. Since then, she has had electrolysis, hormone therapy, a neck lift and breast augmentation. In April, she had an orchiectomy or the removal of her testes, which stops the production of testosterone, which makes hormone management easier and curbs the growth of body and facial hair. She also had a vaginoplasty, changing her genitalia from male to female. (Ellin, 8/9)