The Mercury News: Midnight Saturday Is First Deadline For 2017 Covered California Plans
Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, has extended the 2017 enrollment deadline to midnight Saturday for those who want their coverage to start on Jan. 1. Anyone signing up after that — and through the Jan. 31 deadline — won’t see their plan kick in until either Feb. 1 or March 1. (Seipel, 12/14)

San Francisco Business Journal: Covered California Extends Signups Deadline To Saturday
Those interested in purchasing health insurance coverage through Covered California that begins on Jan. 1 will have two more days to do so. The state's health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act is extending its deadline to purchase coverage to midnight Saturday — moving the deadline up from midnight Thursday, according to spokesman James Scullary. Officials said they extended the deadline due to the high volume of people signing up for insurance. (Patton, 12/14)

KPCC: Covered California Extends Enrollment Deadline By 2 Days
Covered California is extending its deadline to enroll for health insurance coverage that begins January 1st. The new deadline is midnight on Saturday, December 17th. "Many of our insurance agents are saying their stores are full—they’re booked," said Peter Lee, Covered California’s executive director. (Browne, 12/14)

Ventura County Star: Obamacare Numbers Rise Despite Trump's Plan
President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to pull the plug on the Affordable Care Act has not stopped people in Ventura County and elsewhere from enrolling in plans through the marketplace created by the controversial law, said local and statewide officials. Leaders of Covered California, the state exchange created through the reform dubbed "Obamacare," said more than 25,000 Californians enrolled in plans for 2017 on Monday and Tuesday alone. The 153,000 total new enrollees compares to 144,000 people at the same time last year. (Kisken, 12/14)

Orange County Register: Number Of Uninsured In State Hits New Low As Covered California Deadline Is Extended
California’s uninsured population has plunged to a historic low of 9.5 percent, according to data released Wednesday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. In Orange County, the uninsured rate was 9.6 percent, the lowest rate since county data was first collected in 2001. The information comes from the 2015 California Health Interview Survey, which queried 21,444 households. (Perkes, 12/14)

The Washington Post: Sign-Ups For 2017 Affordable Care Act Health Plans Run Slightly Ahead Of Last Year
The number of Americans signing up for 2017 health plans through HealthCare.gov is running slightly ahead of a year ago, even as President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Congress prepare to dismantle the law that provides the coverage. Customers new to the Affordable Care Act marketplaces account for just 25 percent of the enrollment so far, however, compared with almost 40 percent at about the same time last year, according to figures released Wednesday by federal health officials. (Goldstein, 12/14)

The Desert Sun: Two Years After Prop 47, Addicts Walk Free With Nowhere To Go
Two years after it was approved by California voters, Prop 47 has scaled back mass incarceration of drug addicts, but successful reform is woefully incomplete. Proponents celebrate how the law freed at least 13,500 inmates from harsh sentences in crowded prisons and jails, but Prop 47 has done little to help these people restart their lives. Instead, the unprecedented release of inmates has exposed the limits of California’s neglected social service programs: Thousands of addicts and mentally ill people have traded a life behind bars for a churning cycle of homelessness, substance abuse and petty crime. Prop 47 earmarked millions saved in prison costs for inmate rehabilitation, but not a penny has been spent. Meanwhile, the state’s shortage of treatment programs is more glaring than ever. (Castellano, Kelman, Hwang, Carlson, Wu and Espino, 12/14)

KPCC: One Paramount Firm Agrees To Chromium 6 Reduction Plan
One of two metal processing firms air regulators blame for elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in Paramount has reached an agreement over how to curb its emissions. The South Coast Air Quality Management District is still in negotiations with the other firm, according to an agency spokesman. (Plevin, 12/14)

In other news —

KPCC: Regulators Want To Clean About 50 Lead-Tainted Homes A Week In Vernon 
State toxics regulators Wednesday released their draft plan for removing lead from the soil of roughly 2,500 properties around the former Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Vernon. The cleanup plan, along with a draft environmental impact report, envisions the work getting underway in the summer of 2017. The Department of Toxic Substances Control has scheduled a series of community meetings to solicit public comment on the plans. (Glickman, 12/14)

Sacramento Bee: MMA Fighters Must Pass Pre-Event Concussion Protocol In California
For the first time in California, mixed martial artists – along with professional boxers – will undergo testing before and possibly after bouts to help determine if they have suffered neurological damage or deficiencies. All fighters scheduled for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night on Fox at Golden 1 Center have been given baseline testing on cognitive awareness and balance using an iPad with proprietary software designed for the C3 protocol. It stands for Comprehensive Concussion Care and is modeled after tests administered by the Cleveland Clinic’s Professional Fighter Brain Health Study. (Billingsley, 12/14)

KPBS: Local Headphone Maker Earns Top Rating For Protecting Young Ears
There are dozens of headphone manufacturers that pledge to safeguard children's ears by limiting how loud they can listen to music. But a New York Times analysis last week found half of the 30 kids headphones tested blew past their promised noise limits. (Lipkin and St John, 12/14)

In other news from across the state —

San Jose Mercury News: Samaritan Medical Center Project Adds Pedestrian, Bicyclist Improvements
Samaritan Medical Center’s expansion plan is getting tweaked in response to neighbors’ concerns that it could worsen traffic congestion and invade their backyard privacy. The Schoennauer Company, which is developing the 475,000-square-foot project on Samaritan Drive that includes five new buildings ranging from 45,000 to 120,000 square feet and approximately 1,500 parking spaces on both sides of the street, has offered to make some changes and improvements to help offset some of the impact on the surrounding area. (Baum, 12/15)

Politico: Democrats Open To Replacing Obamacare
Senate Democrats will never vote to repeal Obamacare. But once the deed is done, a surprising number of them say they’re open to helping Republicans replace it. “If it makes sense, I think there’ll be a lot of Democrats who would be for it,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). As Republicans aim to make good on their years-long vow to quash Obamacare and replace it with their own health care vision, they’ll have to do something Democrats were never able to: Bring members of the opposing party on board. (Everett and Haberkorn, 12/15)

The Associated Press: Study: Premium Hikes Add $10B To Taxpayers' Health Law Tab
Taxpayers will fork over nearly $10 billion more next year to cover double-digit premium hikes for subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's law, according to a study being released Thursday. The analysis from the Center for Health and Economy comes as the Republican-led Congress is preparing to repeal "Obamacare" and replace it with a GOP alternative whose details have yet to be worked out. (12/15)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Obama Bars States From Denying Federal Money To Planned Parenthood
Mindful of the clock ticking down to a Trump presidency, the Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other health clinics that provide abortions. The measure takes effect two days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump. The rule was proposed three months ago, when many Democrats assumed the next president would be Hillary Clinton; she presumably would have promoted the rule’s completion if it were still pending. (Calmes, 12/14)

The New York Times: Go To The Wrong Hospital And You’re 3 Times More Likely To Die
Not all hospitals are created equal, and the differences in quality can be a matter of life or death. In the first comprehensive study comparing how well individual hospitals treated a variety of medical conditions, researchers found that patients at the worst American hospitals were three times more likely to die and 13 times more likely to have medical complications than if they visited one of the best hospitals. (Abelson, 12/14)