Los Angeles Times: Despite Trump Attacks, Obamacare Sign-Ups Hold Steady, New Numbers Show
Almost 12 million Americans signed up for 2018 health coverage through marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, according to a new tally that indicates nationwide enrollment remained virtually unchanged from last year despite President Trump's persistent attacks on the 2010 health law. The new enrollment numbers — which include totals from California and other states that operate their own marketplaces, as well as states that rely on the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace — offer the most detailed picture to date of the insurance markets. (Levey, 2/7)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Covered CA Sees First Enrollment Decline Despite Influx Of New Enrollees
Enrollment in health plans sold by Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, dropped 2.2 percent this year even though the nonprofit managed to attract 432,484 new customers, a 3 percent increase over last year. Peter Lee, the exchange’s executive director, said in a Wednesday morning news conference that enrollment decreased from 1.55 million in 2017 to 1.52 million in 2018. He said the decrease, the first since Covered California started operating in 2013, was caused in large part to elimination of a key type of government reimbursement program for insurers, which forced the exchange to recommend that higher-income policyholders re-enroll off exchange. (Sisson, 2/7)

Capital Public Radio: Covered California Sees Slight Drop In Renewals 
"There could be a number of different reasons for that," says James Scullary with Covered California. "Certainly we're seeing a strong economy here in California. More people may have job-based coverage as an option and not have a need for Covered California because they're getting health care coverage through their employer." Scullary says another reason may be because some people who make too much money to qualify for subsidies could get better deals elsewhere. (Milne, 2/7)

The Washington Post: ACA’s State-Run Insurance Exchanges Fare Better Than The Law’s Federal Marketplace
States that run their own Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces significantly outperformed the rest of the country in attracting consumers to sign up for health plans for 2018, according to enrollment tallies released on Wednesday. Overall enrollment stayed essentially level from the year before in the 11 states plus the District of Columbia with state-based marketplaces, while sign-ups in states that rely on the ACA’s federal exchange fell, on average, by more than 5 percent. Five states with hybrid systems did best of all, according to a report compiled by the National Academy for State Health Policy. (Goldstein, 2/7)

The Associated Press: AP Count: Nearly 11.8M Enroll For Obama Health Law In 2018
Call it the political equivalent of a death-defying escape: former President Barack Obama's health care law pulled in nearly 11.8 million customers for 2018, despite the Republican campaign to erase it from the books. An Associated Press count found that nationwide enrollment was about 3 percent lower than last year. California, with more than 1.5 million sign-ups, was the last state to report, announcing its numbers on Wednesday. (2/7)

The Hill: ObamaCare Enrollment Drops 3.7 Percent For 2018, Health Group Says 
ObamaCare saw a 3.7 percent drop in enrollment in 2018 compared to the year before, according to new numbers released Wednesday from a health-care group that says the relatively minor decline demonstrates “remarkable stability.” The national total of consumers who selected ObamaCare plans during this year’s open enrollment period was 11.8 million, compared to 12.2 million who signed up for plans in 2017. (Hellmann, 2/7)

Los Angeles Times: Chorus Of Healthcare Advocates Praise Single-Payer System, But Differ On How Quickly California Should Pursue It
A months-long series of informational hearings on achieving universal health coverage in California culminated Wednesday with experts voicing widespread praise for creating a single-payer system, but starkly different opinions on the pace of such an overhaul. The Assembly convened hearings in the face of activist outrage with last year’s shelving of SB 562, an ambitious bill that would establish a state-funded healthcare system to cover nearly all of Californians’ medical costs without requiring premiums or co-pays. (Mason, 2/7)

KPCC: Audio: A Renewed Push For Single Payer At Sacramento Health Care Hearing 
Economist Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who co-wrote an analysis of SB 562 last year, also addressed the committee. The analysis found that the state would need to raise about $100 billion in additional funds each year to cover the cost of switching to single payer, but that most Californians would end up paying less for health care with the elimination of insurance-related expenses. Some members of the committee expressed concern that the assumptions in Pollin's study might be overly optimistic about how many federal dollars will continue to flow to California, and whether the Trump administration would grant waivers to allow federal money to be used for universal care. (Faust, 2/7)

Capital Public Radio: Assembly Universal Health Care Hearing Wraps Up With Single-Payer Debate 
The Senate bill doesn’t contain funding — potentially a 15 percent payroll tax increase on the high-end — nor does it discuss how the state would receive federal approval to leverage Medicaid and Medicare funds, nor whether it would seek voter approval to circumvent constitutional spending restrictions. Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved the measure last year as “incomplete,” a position he doubled-down on last month. Instead, he convened this committee to come up with its own proposal for universal coverage, not necessarily single-payer. (Bradford, 2/7)

The Mercury News: UCSF To Build New Hospital, Aided By $500M Gift
Boosted by a massive new donation, UC San Francisco has unveiled plans to build a world-class hospital on its Parnassus Heights campus, replacing the aging Moffitt Hospital. On Thursday, the university announced a massive $500 million commitment from the Helen Diller Foundation to support the planning, design and construction of the new hospital, ensuring that UCSF will have an earthquake-resistant structure that can continue to provide top-tier care to patients in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. (Krieger, 2/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Gets $500 Million Gift To Help Build New Hospital By 2030
The new hospital, to be completed by 2030, will be built on the site of the current Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital. That hospital will be demolished, and its outpatient services will relocate to a new UCSF location in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood by 2020. Inpatient care will remain at Parnassus Heights. (Ho, 2/7)

In other hospital news —

The Modesto Bee: Modesto Hospital Adds More Heart Services. Turlock Hospital Changes Its Approach 
One thing is certain, after the 20,000th open heart surgery was performed at Doctors Medical Center in June, the Modesto hospital will keep rolling out services for treating heart disease. Doctors Medical Center has invested millions of dollars in state-of-the-art cardiac services facilities, including a new catheterization lab and a hybrid operating suite that should be completed in the summer. (Carlson, 2/7)

Fresno Bee: Visalia Hospital Puts Up Second Tent For Flu Patients
Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia is seeing so many patients with the flu that it has had to erect a second tent outside its emergency department to handle the surge in patients. “We are pulling out all of the stops and doing everything under the sun to take care of patients during this very challenging flu season,” said Gary Herbst, chief executive officer of Kaweah Delta Health Care District. “We’ve actually never had two tents up at the same time.” Kaweah Delta erected a tent on Nov. 22, to expand the size of its waiting area and accommodate an increase in patient visits this extreme flu season, and to accommodate an increase in patients from the recent closure of Tulare Regional Medical Center. (Anderson, 2/7)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Flu Update: 25 New Deaths Announced As Case Rate Increases 
Even though it looks like it may have peaked in late December, San Diego’s flu season showed Wednesday that it has staying power. And health officials are keeping a watchful eye should there be a flareup. For the first time in a month, the number of new flu cases reported across San Diego County increased, reaching 835 with an additional 25 flu-related deaths announced, including a 38-year-old man from coastal North County who was unvaccinated but had other underlying medical conditions. (Sisson, 2/7)

The New York Times: How To Know When A Child’s Flu Turns Serious
The standard prescription for flu is to stay home and rest, drink plenty of fluids, and keep pain and fever under control with over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen. But this flu season has been a particularly scary one for parents. At least 53 children across the country have died from flu-related illness, and parents need to know how to tell if a child takes a turn for the worse — and if it’s time to rush to the hospital. (Rabin, 2/7)

Los Angeles Times: How Your Brain May Have Shielded You From Depression After The 2016 Election If You Didn't Like The Result
For some people the election of Donald Trump was a glorious moment of triumph. For others, it was a debilitating moment of trauma. But for a team of researchers at UCLA, it was the perfect opportunity to test how the brain responds to political distress. "A lot of research on stress in the brain looks at events that occur on an individual level," said Sarah Tashjian, a graduate student in psychology at UCLA who led the work. "We wanted to see if we could extrapolate that to a larger event like a shift in the political climate" (Netburn, 2/8)

In other public health news —

Los Angeles Times: Snooping Around In Hospital Pipes, Scientists Find DNA That Fuels The Spread Of Superbugs
The pipes carrying away the effluvia of very sick people are bound to be nasty, dirty places. But just how unwholesome they are is made clear in a new report showing that the pipes beneath a hospital intensive care unit are a throbbing, seething hookup zone for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (Healy, 2/6)

KQED: Monterey County Declares Hepatitis A Outbreak Among Homeless 
Monterey County is the latest county in California to declare a hepatitis A outbreak among its homeless population. California has been dealing with its largest hep A outbreak since the vaccine came out more than 20 years ago. (Mahoney, 2/7)

KPBS: UC San Diego Research Finds More Children Affected By Fetal Alcohol Disorders Than Previously Thought 
In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted in the U.S., researchers screened more than 6,000 first-graders in four different regions of the country. Researchers found that one to five percent of the children had a fetal alcohol disorder. (Goldberg, 2/7)

The New York Times: Senate Leaders Reach Deal To Raise Spending Over Two Years
Senate leaders struck a far-reaching bipartisan agreement on Wednesday that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to military and domestic programs over the next two years while raising the federal debt limit, moving to end the cycle of fiscal showdowns that have roiled the Capitol. The accord between Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Chuck Schumer of New York, his Democratic counterpart, would raise strict caps on military and domestic spending that were imposed in 2011 as part of a deal with President Barack Obama that was once seen as a key triumph for Republicans in Congress. (Kaplan, 2/7)

The Associated Press: Budget Agreement Adds Money For Defense, Infrastructure
Key aspects of the proposed budget agreement that covers the current fiscal year and the next. ... Extends the Children's Health Insurance Plan for 10 years, up from six years under a previous agreement. Includes an additional $6 billion for fighting opioid addiction and boosting mental health services, $4 billion to improve health care for veterans, $20 billion for infrastructure improvements and $2 billion to support additional research at the National Institutes of Health. (2/7)

The Hill: Senate Deal Would Fund Children's Health Insurance, Community Health Centers
The Senate budget deal released Wednesday would fund the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for an additional four years and community health centers for two years. A stopgap funding measure passed by Congress earlier this month only funded CHIP for six years, but the spending deal announced Wednesday would tack on another four years of funding. (Hellmann, 2/7)

The Hill: Budget Deal Includes $6 Billion To Fight Opioid Abuse 
A bipartisan Senate budget deal includes $6 billion for opioid addiction and mental health, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. Advocates have been calling for more funding to combat the increasing deaths from opioid overdoses, which are now killing more Americans than car accidents. (Roubein, 2/7)

The Washington Post: Sweeping Budget Deal Would More Than $500 Billion In Federal Spending, End Months Of Partisan Wrangling
Some of the funding is reserved for programs favored by lawmakers of both parties: research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, for instance, as well as transportation and water infrastructure. Also included are extensions of tax breaks that could add billions of dollars more to the cost of the bill. The Children’s Health Insurance Program would be extended through 2028, and the federal fund for community health centers would see a two-year extension. The bill also abolishes the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a body established in the 2010 Affordable Care Act with the power to reduce the payments Medicare makes to health providers. (DeBonis and Werner, 2/7)

Stat: NIH And Opioid Response Get Boost In Senate Budget Deal
The increase in NIH funding continues a trend of substantial budget increases for the agency over the last several years. In a budget request submitted last May, the White House proposed a 17 percent reduction in the 2018 NIH budget, and indicated support for a cap on the portion of agency grants that can be used toward research institutions’ infrastructure costs. Congress instead ignored the White House request, and raised planned spending on the NIH to $36.1 billion dollars. (Facher, 2/7)

California Healthline: Bipartisan Senate Budget Deal Boosts Health Programs
Not in the deal, for which the path to the president’s desk remains unclear, is any bipartisan legislation aimed at shoring up the Affordable Care Act’s individual health insurance marketplaces. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) a vote on health legislation in exchange for her vote for the GOP tax bill in December. So far, that vote has not materialized. (Rovner and Luthra, 2/7)

The Hill: Senate Dems Push For Expansion Of ObamaCare Subsidies In Deal
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is pushing for major changes to an agreement on an ObamaCare fix, including an expansion of subsidies under the health-care law. Murray, who is leading negotiations for Senate Democrats on the issue, wants to increase the ObamaCare tax credits that help people afford coverage, according to a Senate Democratic aide. That would be a significant expansion of ObamaCare that could help make premiums more affordable for many people. (Sullivan, 2/7)

Stat: Senate Budget Deal Puts Drug Makers On The Hook For More Costs
The budget deal announced in the Senate on Wednesday contained a provision surprising to drug companies and Medicare beneficiaries alike: a sooner-than-expected change to the program’s “donut hole” coverage gap. The provision included in the budget plan would mean a sizable hit to the pharmaceutical industry. It would move from 2020 to 2019 a requirement that drug makers pick up a larger portion of costs for their medicines for Part D beneficiaries who reach the so-called “donut hole” — a gap in Medicare coverage where beneficiaries often have to pay eye-watering drug prices out of pocket up to a certain dollar amount. (Facher and Silverman, 2/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Congressional Leaders Say They Agree On Budget Deal
“This bill is the product of extensive negotiations among congressional leaders and the White House,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday in announcing the pact. “No one would suggest it is perfect, but we worked hard to find common ground.” “After months of legislative logjams, this budget deal is a genuine breakthrough,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on the Senate floor. (Peterson and Hughes, 2/7)

The Hill: House Eyes Changes For ‘Right To Try’ Bill 
Lawmakers in the House appear likely to make changes to the “right to try” bill on experimental drugs, something supporters worry could make it harder to get the bill to President Trump’s desk. Advocates of the measure — which would let terminally ill patients request access to treatments the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn’t approved — want the House to take up the Senate-passed bill as is. But that’s unlikely, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said Monday. (Roubein, 2/8)

In other national health care news —

Stat: He Calls Animal Testing 'Taxpayer-Funded Torture.' The FDA Listened
Now the 39-year-old founder of an animal rights group, [Anthony] Bellotti last month achieved an important victory for opponents of animal testing. He played a key role in pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to shut down a nicotine-addiction study in which four monkeys died, and prompting the appointment of an independent investigator to look into the agency’s animal research program. Emboldened by that success, Bellotti is redoubling fundraising efforts for his fledgling organization, and publicizing more government-backed medical tests that he believes taxpayers oppose. It is, he suggests, a wholly novel approach to animal-rights advocacy, since no one has previously sold this idea as a way to cut government waste.

The Hill: Planned Parenthood Begins Search To Replace Cecile Richards 
Planned Parenthood is kicking off its search to replace departing President Cecile Richards, the organization's board of directors announced Wednesday. Former Planned Parenthood board member Anna Quindlen was elected to lead the group's search committee for a new president. The committee also includes members of Planned Parenthood's board and CEOs from affiliates in Ohio, Florida and Minnesota. (Hellmann, 2/7)

The Hill: Abortion Fights Loom In States 
Both sides of the abortion rights debate are preparing for a busy year of fights over when and how abortions may be performed in states across the country — and both sides are developing a long-term strategy that could involve a new challenge to Roe v. Wade. While it is still early in the year, several measures seeking to limit abortion rights have already advanced in Republican-dominated states. (Wilson, 2/7)

NPR: Opioid Law Enforcement, Not Treatment, Is Trump's Priority
More than three months after President Trump declared the nation's opioid crisis a public health emergency, activists and healthcare providers say they're still waiting for some other action. The Trump administration quietly renewed the declaration recently. But it's given no signs it's developing a comprehensive strategy to address an epidemic that claims more than 115 lives every day. The President now says to combat opioids he's focused on enforcement, not treatment. (Allen, 2/7)

The Washington Post: Robin Williams's Suicide Was Followed By A Sharp Rise In 'copycat' Deaths
“Hanged.” The front page of the New York Daily News said it all in one word on Aug. 13, 2014. Above the capital letters, which filled nearly a third of the page, was a photo of comedian Robin Williams with a somber expression, dead at age 63. The headline, unfortunately, contravened the most basic recommendations of the World Health Organization and suicide prevention experts for how the media should cover suicide, including “toning down” accounts, to avoid inspiring similar deaths. News of Williams's death appears to be associated with a nearly 10 percent rise in the number of suicides in the United States in the five months that followed, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. (Nutt, 2/7)