KCRA: Dameron Hospital In Stockton Hit By Cyberattack
Dameron Hospital in Stockton said it is investigating a cyberattack that has forced some patients to reschedule their procedures. The hospital said in a statement Tuesday that “patient care operations are functioning normally,” which includes its emergency department. (Macht, 12/5)

The Oaklandside: Oakland Neglected Hundreds Of 911 Dispatcher Applications
Oakland failed to take action on hundreds of applications for 911 dispatcher jobs between 2022 and 2023, according to a new report and public records.  On Tuesday, staff from the Human Resources Department told the City Council the problem was discovered in January 2023 as part of an audit during the transition from outgoing Mayor Libby Schaaf’s administration to Mayor Sheng Thao’s team, and took a few months to fix. (Wolfe, 12/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: 'Big Bang Theory' Producer Donates $10M To California Hospital
The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation, the philanthropic foundation of television producer Chuck Lorre, donated $10 million to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The donation will fund a program for students from under-resourced communities who are interested in studying medicine. Through the program, the hospital created the Chuck Lorre Research Scholars Program, a 10-week paid summer laboratory program for area college students. The first cohort finished the program in the summer of 2023, according to a Dec. 5 Children's Hospital Los Angeles news release. (Schwartz, 12/6)

Reuters: Over 7 Million People Have Signed Up For 2024 Obamacare Plans 
Nearly 7.3 million Americans so far have signed up for health insurance for next year through the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) marketplace, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday. The enrolment for 2024 includes 1.6 million new additions to the marketplace, the data showed. (12/6)

CNN: Here’s Why It Would Be Even Harder Now To Kill Obamacare
A record number of people signing up for Obamacare policies. Nine more states expanding Medicaid coverage to more than 2 million adults. Much higher favorability ratings among the public. Another victory for the landmark health reform law in the nation’s highest court. These are among the main reasons why it would be even tougher than it was in 2017 for Republicans to try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, even if they secure control of the White House and Congress next year. (Luhby, 12/7)

Morning Consult: Obamacare Has Become Even More Popular Over Biden’s Presidency
According to our Nov. 30-Dec. 2 survey, 57% of voters approve of the Affordable Care Act, while just 3 in 10 voters disapprove. Roughly a third of voters (32%) said Obamacare should be repealed partially or completely, lower than at any other time in Morning Consult surveys conducted since 2017. The same share said the law should be expanded and 1 in 5 want it to be kept as is. (Yokely, 12/6)

Bloomberg Law: Obamacare LGBTQ+ Discrimination Clause Could Cause Circuit Split
Sixth Circuit judges grappled Wednesday with whether two groups representing conservative doctors should have a chance to challenge an antidiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act that they say threatens their religious liberty, in a case that presents the possibility of a circuit split. The judges grilled attorneys on both sides on a range of topics related to the care of transgender people, though standing for the two groups—the American College of Pediatricians and the Catholic Medical Association—was the issue of the day for the oral argument, which went more than 10 minutes past the allotted time. Two other federal appeals courts have already ruled on the issue. (Heisig, 12/6)

KFF Health News and PolitiFact: Candidates Clashed But Avoided Talk Of Abortion At 4th GOP Primary Debate
Obamacare had its moment, but not until the faceoff’s final minutes. Front-runner Donald Trump again was not on the debate stage, leaving the other Republican presidential hopefuls to slug it out to break through and gain voters’ attention. (12/7)

Los Angeles Times: Buying Guns For Criminals: Easy, Illegal And ‘Extremely Difficult’ To Stop
American civilians own an estimated 352 million firearms and demand for guns reached record levels in 2020, as measured by background check data. In exploring gun access in the U.S., The Times interviewed more than 100 people, obtained volumes of public records, reviewed thousands of pages of court filings and law enforcement records, and analyzed millions of rows of federal, state and local data. The Times analysis found that there’s a firearms dealer within a 10-minute drive of 88% of the U.S. population, and layers of regulations have not stemmed the flow of guns to criminals. (Lemee and Sheets, 12/7)

Los Angeles Times: No Plot Or Gang Ties Seen In Redondo Beach Students' Arrests 
The arrests of two students bringing loaded weapons to Redondo Union High School on consecutive days were not believed to be tied to a planned school shooting or gang-related, Redondo Beach police said Wednesday. (Campa, 12/6)

The 19th: Sen. Elizabeth Warren And Rep. Hank Johnson Reintroduce Gun Safety Bill
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Hank Johnson renewed their push for comprehensive gun violence legislation by reintroducing their Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act late Tuesday. This effort was timed around the 30th anniversary of the Brady Bill last week — and the continued toll that gun violence is taking on American lives. (Gerson, 12/6)

AP: Senators Tackle Gun Violence Anew While Feinstein's Ban On Assault Weapons Fades Into History
One of the first votes new Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich cast was against legislation from Sen. Dianne Feinstein to reinstate an assault weapons ban in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting. In the decade since, as mass shootings have touched almost every corner of the United States, the New Mexico senator, an avid hunter once endorsed by the NRA, has been considering what it would take to draft legislation that avoids banning guns that Americans use for legitimate purposes while still saving lives. (Mascaro, 12/6)

Axios: Out-Of-State Travel For Abortion Surged After Roe Was Overturned
More than twice as many people crossed state lines for abortion care in the first half of 2023 compared with a similar period in 2020 when abortion was legal nationwide, according to a new analysis. The Guttmacher Institute data demonstrates how state bans that took effect since Roe v. Wade was overturned have forced patients to travel longer distances to obtain an abortion. (Goldman, 12/7)

Stat: Electronic Health Record Privacy At Issue For Out-Of-State Abortions
At a time when abortion access can vary widely across the U.S., many reproductive health advocates are concerned about the impact of data sharing systems that automatically transmit patients’ electronic health records across institutions and state lines. The Biden administration is looking to introduce new regulations to bolster patients’ privacy — but the proposed rules are getting pushback from companies like UnitedHealth Group and Epic, which argue that they would make data sharing harder overall, contrary to the overarching goals of the health care system. (Webster, 12/7)

Stat: Abortion Pill Activist Network Links Women In Mexico, U.S. 
Just over a decade ago, when Crystal Pérez Lira needed an abortion, she had to leave Mexico. The procedure was illegal in her home state of Baja California and so deeply stigmatized that even Pérez Lira supported the procedure only for those who were raped. Until she unexpectedly got pregnant. (Goldhill, 12/7)

The 19th: Pregnancy After 35 Is More Common. Is U.S. Health Care Keeping Up?
Federal data shows steady growth in older people becoming first-time parents over at least the past two decades. By 2021, the mean age for first birth hit 27.3, a record high. The share of people in their 30s and 40s giving birth has continually increased since 2000. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that in 2021, close to 1 in 5 pregnancies in America were among people 35 and older, along with almost 12 percent of first pregnancies. In 2000, by contrast, people 35 and older made up about 7.4 percent of first births. (Luthra, 12/7)

USA Today: For First Time Ever, FDA Approves At-Home Artificial Insemination Kit
Anyone who's struggled with infertility knows that getting treatments can be expensive. Insurance doesn't cover artificial insemination, a procedure that places sperm into the cervix or uterus during ovulation. ... That means that many people who need such treatments to reproduce often can't afford them. But that could be changing with the introduction of a new at-home artificial insemination kit. This week in a historic first, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the kit for use by consumers. (Walrath-Holdridge, 12/6)

Politico: ‘Stalemate’ On AIDS Relief To Drag Into 2024
The top Republican working to extend the United States’ global HIV/AIDS relief work admitted negotiations are deadlocked, jeopardizing one of the most successful U.S. foreign interventions of this century. “I’m disappointed,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told POLITICO. “Honestly, I was looking forward to marking up a five-year reauthorization, and now I’m in this abortion debate.” (Ollstein and Paun, 12/7)

Stat: Study Billed As The Last Chance To Soon Develop An HIV Vaccine Fails
A study billed as the last chance to develop an HIV vaccine this decade has been shut down, investigators announced Wednesday at a conference in Harare, Zimbabwe. The trial, known as PrEPVacc, was testing two different vaccine regimens on about 1,500 volunteers in East and Southern Africa. After multiple other high-profile trials failed, a PrEPVacc investigator described the study this summer as “the last roll of the dice” for an HIV vaccine until the 2030s. (Mast, 12/6)

Los Angeles Times: Audit Slams L.A. Homeless Agency On Interim Housing Access
Poor and unreliable data collection by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority makes it “nearly impossible” for unhoused people and the city to know how many interim beds are available and how many are being used at any given time, according to a new city audit. Despite having a software-based reservation system for shelter bed availability, LAHSA’s system is so unreliable that the agency monitors bed availability using phone calls and daily emails, the audit found. (Pineda, 12/6)

CalMatters: Why A CA Domestic Violence Law Takes Kids From Abused Moms
Worried that her abusive partner would kill her or her boys, Jackie had nowhere to go and no one to ask for help. She said her partner had angry outbursts, beat her, degraded her and destroyed things in the house. She knew she had to escape. She called the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, hoping for a path to a safe place to stay. Instead, she received a warning that struck a different kind of fear in her. If she didn’t leave her partner within 30 days, the child welfare agency would take her four boys. (Mink, 12/7)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Avian Flu Outbreak In Stanislaus County Makes Five Counties In California With The Virus In Commercial Flocks
Stanislaus County is now the fifth county in California to report an outbreak of high pathogenic avian influenza in commercial poultry flocks. (Callahan, 12/6)

Politico: Targeting Costly Meds, Biden Admin Asserts Authority To Seize Certain Drug Patents 
The Biden administration has determined that it has the authority to seize the patents of certain high-priced medicines, a move that could open the door to a more aggressive federal campaign to slash drug prices. The determination, which was described by three people familiar with the matter, represents the culmination of a nearly nine-month review of the government’s so-called march-in rights. Progressives have long insisted that those rights empower the administration to break the patents of pricey drugs that were developed with public funds, in an effort to create more competition and lower prices. ...The framework is likely to face sharp opposition from pharmaceutical companies that argue it’s illegal for the government to seize its patents and would disincentivize the development of new drugs. (Cancryn, 12/6)

Stat: FDA, Patent Office Look To Team Up To Lower Drug Prices
In 1997, Celgene obtained a key patent for what would become a blockbuster blood cancer treatment, giving it a monopoly until 2019. But like any pharmaceutical company with an eye toward the future, Celgene continued to seek other ways to wring profits from its development work. (Silverman, 12/7)

Stat: Most Drugmakers Have So Far Ignored FTC Deadline On Wayward Patents
With 10 days to go, only one company has responded to a demand by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for several brand-name drugmakers to delist dozens of patents that were improperly or inaccurately listed in a government registry, according to a source familiar with the matter. (Silverman, 12/6)

ABC News: Free At-Home Testing And Treatments Now Available For COVID And Flu Through Federal Program 
Initially launched as a pilot program in select areas, the Home Test to Treat program from the National Institutes of Health is now available nationwide at test2treat.org.Any adult with a current positive test for COVID or flu can enroll to receive free telehealth care and, if prescribed, medication delivered to their home. Follow-up care is also possible through the treatment process. (Benadjaoud, 12/6)

CIDRAP: Using Both Nose, Throat Swabs Boosts Sensitivity Of Rapid COVID Testing 
Today in JAMA Network Open, a randomized clinical trial shows that a single healthcare worker (HCW)-collected throat swab had significantly higher sensitivity for COVID-19 rapid antigen testing (RAT) than an HCW-collected nose swab during Omicron predominance, but self-collected nose swabs were more sensitive than self-collected throat swabs among participants with symptoms. (Van Beusekom, 12/6)

CIDRAP: Study Shows Infants Exposed To COVID In Utero At Risk For Developmental Delay
A new study based on a cohort of Brazilian infants shows those who were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infections in the uterus may be at an increased risk for developmental delays in the first year of life. The study appeared yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. ... At 12 months, 20.3% of COVID-exposed children and 5.9% of the controls received a diagnosis of neurodevelopmental delay. (Soucheray, 12/6)

KFF Health News and Cox Media Group: Social Security Clawbacks Hit A Million More People Than Agency Chief Told Congress
More than 2 million people a year have been sent notices that Social Security overpaid them and demanding they repay the money. That’s twice as many as the head of Social Security disclosed at a congressional hearing in October. (Hilzenrath and Fleischer, 12/6)