The Associated Press: California Withdraws Immigrant Health Care Request
California officials on Wednesday withdrew their request to sell unsubsidized insurance policies to people who can't prove they're legally in the United States after learning the decision would fall to President-elect Donald Trump's administration. (Cooper, 1/18)

Sacramento Bee: Trump's Imminent Inauguration Prompts California To Drop Healthcare Waiver Request
California has withdrawn its request to the federal government for permission to allow undocumented people to obtain health insurance from the state exchange, with a lawmaker linking the decision to concerns about the incoming Trump administration. State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, called the action “the first California casualty of the Trump presidency.” (Miller, 1/18)

In other news —

KPBS: San Diego Small Business Group Calls Obamacare Repeal Misguided 
A local coalition of small businesses says repealing the Affordable Care Act would lead to unaffordable premiums and job losses. The Main Street Alliance of San Diego has nearly 200 members. (Goldberg, 1/18)

Stat: California Stem Cell Agency Has Funded Just A Trickle Of Clinical Trials
It’s been more than a decade since California launched an unprecedented experiment in medical research by direct democracy, when voters created a $3 billion fund to kick-start the hunt for stem cell therapies. The bold plan, a response to federal funding limits for embryonic stem cell research, was sold with a simple pitch: The money would rapidly yield cures for devastating human diseases such as Parkinson’s and ALS. That hasn’t happened. A major reason, a STAT examination found, is that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has been slow to move promising experimental therapies into clinical trials. (Piller, 1/19)

Orange County Register: Flu Cases On The Rise In Orange County, 'Severe' Season Expected 
Orange County public health officials on Wednesday said flu cases have been increasing rapidly in recent weeks and urged residents to get vaccinated. The Health Care Agency said more than 900 confirmed flu cases have been reported this season. Nine adults under 65 and two children have been hospitalized in intensive care with severe infection. (Perkes, 1/18)

Fresno Bee: Woman Dies From Flu-Related Illness In Fresno County, First Such Death This Season
An unidentified woman has become the first flu-related death in Fresno County this influenza season, the county Department of Public Health announced Wednesday. So far this season, 44 people have died nationwide from flu-related illnesses, the health department said. County health officials encourage vaccinations for everyone over the age of 6 months. “This tragic, untimely death reminds us that we all must take action to prevent infection with influenza,” said Dr. Ken Bird, county health officer. (1/18)

The Desert Sun: No Surprise, The Tanning Bed Industry Sees A Friend In Donald Trump
The Obama years have scorched the indoor tanning industry. The first hit came when tanning customers were singled out with a new 10 percent tax as part of the president's health reform bill. The tax along with greater awareness of the cancer risk associated with too much sun exposure have helped decimate tanning businesses. One trade group says about 10,000 tanning salons have closed across the country since 2010, eliminating up to 100,000 jobs and cutting the industry by half. Those who are left think incoming President Donald Trump can help reverse that trend, starting with dropping the tax as part of his steadfast promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act. (Newkirk, 1/18)

In other public health news —

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: Cost Of Smoking At $300 Billion A Year For Americans 
WalletHub, a personal finance web site, pegs the real cost of smoking for Americans at $300 billion a year. That includes the cost of cigarettes, medical bills and loss of productivity. ... Kentucky ranked No. 1 with the lowest amount at just over $22,000 a year while New York was last with over $45,000. (Ibarra, 1/18)

The Bakersfield Californian: In A First, BCSD Uses Local-Control Dollars To Open Wellness Centers
Citing a need to address student health holistically, the Bakersfield City School District has opened three multi-million dollar regional wellness centers funded with a new kind of state education dollars, a first in California, officials said Wednesday. Construction of those free clinics was made possible by the Local Control Accountability Plan, a state funding model introduced in 2012 that gives school districts more discretion over how to spend state money. In this case, BCSD decided that its students could not perform academically unless their entire families were in good health. (Pierce, 1/18)

Ventura County Star: Nursing Manager Faces $5,000 Political Fine
A nursing administrator at Ventura County Medical Center has been fined $5,000 over failure to file a state-required financial statement, despite what officials say were close to 20 attempts to get her to comply. The state Fair Political Practices Commission last month approved the maximum fine for the violation against Shannon Matlock, assistant director of hospital nursing. Matlock, the night shift nursing supervisor at the public hospital in Ventura, was faulted for failure to file the annual statement showing her economic interests in 2014 until the deadline had long passed. (Wilson, 1/18)

The New York Times: Choice For Health Secretary Is Vague On Replacing Affordable Care Act
Representative Tom Price, the man President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, promised on Wednesday to make sure people do not “fall through the cracks” if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, and set a goal to increase the number of people with health insurance But at a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Mr. Price provided only vague reassurance to members of both parties who pressed him for specific policies. (Pear and Kaplan, 1/18)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's Pick For Health Secretary Tells Senators He Will Protect The Vulnerable, But Doesn't Say How
During a testy four-hour hearing on Capitol Hill — which also featured several heated exchanges about Price’s ethics — Price also repeatedly dodged questions from Democrats seeking assurance that he would preserve basic protections required by law. Among other things, Obamacare bans lifetime limits on coverage, requires that health plans offer basic benefits such as substance abuse treatment and mandates that plans allow parents to keep their children on their insurance until they are 26. (Levey, 1/18)

Politico: Obamacare Attack Dog To Lead GOP Effort To Replace It
Rep. Greg Walden spent four years capitalizing on Americans’ unease with Obamacare to usher in the largest House Republican majority in 90 years. Now, he has to help figure out how to replace it. (Cheney and Bade, 1/18)

CNN: Mike Pence: Trump 'Getting Very Close' To Obamacare Replacement
Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Wednesday that Republicans do not yet have a bill to replace Obamacare, but that he has "seen a lot of great ideas" and that transition officials and GOP leaders are "getting very close" to having a replacement. "It's being crafted right now," Pence said Wednesday in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, when asked about a replacement to the President's signature health care law. "We're getting very close. We expect to have that plan come forward in the early days of the administration." Pence's comments came after Trump said in an interview Saturday with The Washington Post that his health care replacement plan "is very much formulated down to the final strokes." (Diamond, 1/18)

The Washington Post: Republicans Look To Avoid YouTube Moments In Fight Over Obamacare Repeal
Seven years after unruly Democratic town halls helped stoke public outrage over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans now appear keen to avoid the kind of dustups capable of racking up millions of views on YouTube and ending up in a 2018 campaign commercial. One week after the Republican Congress kicked off the process of repealing the landmark health-care legislation, only a handful of GOP lawmakers have held or are currently planning to host in-person town hall meetings open to all comers — the sort of large-scale events that helped feed the original Obamacare backlash in the summer of 2009. (DeBonis, 1/19)

The Associated Press: AP-NORC Poll: Americans Of All Stripes Say Fix Health Care
Sylvia Douglas twice voted for President Barack Obama and last year cast a ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton. But when it comes to "Obamacare," she now sounds like President-elect Donald Trump. This makes her chuckle amid the serious choices she faces every month between groceries, electricity and paying a health insurance bill that has jumped by nearly $400. "It's a universal thing, nobody likes it," Douglas, a licensed practical nurse in Huntsville, Alabama, said of Obama's signature law. (Kellman and Swanson, 1/18)

And in other health care news, a partnership aims to get control of epidemics before they spiral out of control —

The New York Times: Donors And Drug Makers Offer $500 Million To Control Global Epidemics
Stung by the lack of vaccines to fight the West African Ebola epidemic, a group of prominent donors announced Wednesday that they had raised almost $500 million for a new partnership to stop epidemics before they spiral out of control. (McNeil, 1/18)