Los Angeles Times: People From All Around California Are Heading To The Central Valley To Defend Obamacare. Here's Why 
The crowd of hundreds was ready to march, winding a circuitous route from a Bakersfield park to the nearby district office of Rep. Kevin McCarthy to rally in support of the Affordable Care Act. But before they hoisted their signs and joined in healthcare-themed chants, there was a quick geographic roll call. “How many of you are from Bakersfield?” asked the emcee. About half the attendees cheered. The rest had come from farther-flung homes: Long Beach, Sacramento, Riverside. They had traveled via chartered bus, largely with labor unions or grass-roots liberal groups, to the heart of the California effort to save Obamacare. (Mason, 2/2)

Los Angeles Times: At Least Three L.A. County Patients Infected After Heart Surgeries
Los Angeles County health officials said Wednesday that at least three heart surgery patients at a hospital have been sickened by a dangerous bacteria linked to an operating room device. Officials are now investigating a fourth patient infection at another hospital that may also be linked to the device, said Benjamin Schwartz, acting director of the county’s acute communicable disease control program. (Petersen, 2/1)

Previous CHL coverage: Deadly Infections Linked To Heart Surgery Device Highlight Holes In FDA Monitoring

In other news —

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Infection Rates At SD Hospitals Draw Criticism 
San Diego County hospitals are among 159 statewide under fire from a national advocacy group for having high preventable infection rates, a criticism that is made more pressing by the revelation that some facilities are not getting inspected every three years as required by state law. Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of product research magazine Consumer Reports, recently filed a petition with the California Department of Public Health that was highly critical of how the regulatory agency uses the data that is collected and reported every time a patient gets one of several types of hospital-acquired infections.The nonprofit decries what it says is a “firewall” between the department’s infection-tracking and investigation divisions and calls for inspectors to start receiving prompt notification when infection rates spike. (Sisson, 2/1)

inewsource: Physician’s Lawsuit Says Sharp Grossmont Endangered Patients, Reinstalled Secret Video Cameras 
A former Sharp Grossmont physician has sued the hospital saying its officials harassed him and forced him to resign after he criticized dozens of practices he claims endangered mothers and newborns. In his 48-page complaint filed in San Diego Superior Court, Grossmont’s former chief of anesthesiology Dr. Patrick Sullivan also alleges that Sharp administrators in January 2016 reinstalled secret video cameras to record patients, doctors and others during surgeries without their consent. (Clark, 2/2)

Sacramento Bee: CA Nursing Board Demands Records 
Tens of thousands of California nurses are scrambling to prove that they have ... up-to-date credentials after a state licensing board suddenly demanded them. The Board of Vocational Nurses and Psychiatric Technicians in December mailed letters to more than 52,000 medical professionals simultaneously requesting confirmation that they’ve taken mandatory classes. (Ashton, 2/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: Calif. Lawmakers To Confer With Planned Parenthood 
California Democratic senators will meet with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. next week during an annual policy retreat in Sacramento as lawmakers map out strategies to resist policies pushed by President Trump and his administration. Richards will speak Tuesday to Democratic senators about how to preserve access to health care nationwide at a time when congressional Republicans are working to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal the Affordable Care Act. (Gutierrez, 2/1)

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: Number Of Heroin Poisonings Has Doubled For Some Age Groups In California
The number of heroin overdoses in California has doubled for certain age groups in the last four years. Data released by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development shows that 20- to 29-year-olds have had more heroin overdoses than any other age group since 2012. Last year, there were 412 overdoses among that age group. That's double the amount in 2012. (Johnson, 2/1)

In other public health news —

The Mercury News: UCSF Study Backs Research On Predicting Dementia
A UC San Francisco study that examined a population of older adults for more than a decade showed that poor performance on a simple odor test was linked to increased risk of developing dementia years later. The study of more than 2,400 older black and white adults, directed by Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a UCSF professor of psychiatry, neurology, epidemiology and biostatistics, was published this week in the journal Neurology. Previous research has shown that olfactory function may be an early marker for cognitive impairment, but the evidence had been mostly restricted to the white population. The new study is the first to look at that association in both black and white older adults. Researchers followed the patients for nearly 12 years. (Seipel, 2/1)

The New York Times: Veterans Affairs Nominee Vows Not To Privatize Health Care
President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, David J. Shulkin, vowed at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday to reform — but not privatize — veterans’ health care, potentially putting him at odds with Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to allow all veterans to choose private health care. “V.A. is a unique national resource that is worth saving,” Dr. Shulkin told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He added, “The Department of Veterans Affairs will not be privatized under my watch.” (Philipps, 2/1)

And in other news on the president's nominees —

Reuters: U.S. Senate Panel Suspends Rules, Backs Price, Mnuchin For Cabinet
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee suspended committee rules and confirmed U.S. Representative Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services and banker Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary Wednesday on a straight party line vote, sending the nominations to the Senate floor. Under pressure from their political base to block President Donald Trump's nominees, Democrats stayed away from the meeting for a second day running. This normally would have stopped action, but Republicans plowed ahead by voting to suspend the rule that required at least one Democrat to be present for business to be conducted. (Cornwell, 2/1)

The Associated Press: Backers Of Right To Die Fear Trump Supreme Court Nominee
Supporters of a terminally ill person’s right to take his or her own life said Wednesday they are alarmed by President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court and worry that Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation could mean a renewed battle over the legality of laws permitting the practice. Gorsuch, a Denver-based judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote a 2006 book titled “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” that included an extensive discussion of Oregon’s law, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication to patients to have less than six months to live and who request it. (Flaccus, 2/1)

The Associated Press: Gorsuch Case Review Shows He's No Crusader On Abortion
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to appoint a crusading anti-abortion Supreme Court justice who'd work to overturn the Roe v. Wade opinion that legalized it. However, an Associated Press review of decisions and writings by Neil Gorsuch during a decade as a federal appeals court judge in Denver turns up no guarantees on how he might rule on that hot-button issue. (Neumeister, Burke and Weiss, 2/1)

Bloomberg: Republicans Rebrand Obamacare Strategy From ‘Repeal’ To ‘Repair’ 
Some Republicans in Congress are starting to talk more about trying to “repair” Obamacare, rather than simply calling for “repeal and replace.” There’s good reason for that. The repair language was discussed by Republicans during their closed-door policy retreat in Philadelphia last week as a better way to brand their strategy. Some of that discussion flowed from views that Republicans may not be headed toward a total replacement, said one conservative House lawmaker who didn’t want to be identified. (Edney, House and Tracer, 2/1)

In other health law news —

The Wall Street Journal: Paring ACA Raises Questions On What A Health Plan Should Cover
As Republicans consider paring back the Affordable Care Act’s federal mandates, they face a difficult question: what does health insurance need to cover? The 2010 health law created a new set of federal requirements for plans sold to individuals and small businesses, including a list of 10 benefits, among them prescription drugs, mental-health services and laboratory tests. It also mandated that plans cover preventive services such as vaccinations at no cost to enrollees. (Wilde Mathews, 2/2)

The Wall Street Journal: 5 Things Required To Be Part Of ACA Health Plans
The Affordable Care Act created new federal requirements for health plans. Some critics of the law want to allow more flexibility in plan design, which they say could help bring down premiums and potentially draw in more healthy enrollees. Here are some of the law’s insurance mandates, and potential trade-offs, if those are relaxed or eliminated. (Wilde Mathews, 2/2)

The Associated Press: Risk To Women's Health Benefits Seen In Health Law Repeal
From a return to higher premiums for women to gaps in coverage for birth control and breast pumps, the Republican push to repeal the Obama-era health care law already is raising concerns that women could be hit hard. The 2010 law ended a common industry practice of charging women more than men for policies purchased directly from an insurer. It made maternity and newborn care a required benefit for individual market health plans. And it set a list of preventive services to be provided at no extra cost to women, including birth control and breast pumps used by nursing mothers. (2/1)