NBC News: Biden-Trump Debate 2024: What Experts Want To See Addressed About Health Care
When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face off Thursday during the first general election debate, health policy experts say tackling the exorbitant cost of health care is as much a top issue for voters as the U.S. economy. Health care costs in the United States continue to rise — and Americans increasingly say they are unable to afford the care they need. (Lovelace Jr., 6/26)

NBC News: Biden Administration To Lower Costs For 64 Drugs Through Inflation Penalties On Drugmakers
The Biden administration on Wednesday said it will impose inflation penalties on 64 prescription drugs for the third quarter of this year, lowering costs for certain older Americans enrolled in Medicare. ... A provision of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act requires drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare, the federal health program for Americans over age 65, if they hike the price of a medication faster than the rate of inflation. (Kim Constantino, 6/26)

Axios: Smallest Businesses Feel Crush Of Health Care Costs
Employee health care costs are increasingly eating up larger shares of payroll costs for America's smallest businesses, according to a new analysis from the JPMorgan Chase Institute. (Reed, 6/27)

Modern Healthcare: Health Inequity Laws, Policies See Mixed Results In Last 20 Years
The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine on Wednesday said law and policy changes aimed at eliminating health disparities have made slow and uneven progress improving racial inequities over the past 20 years. The Ending Unequal Treatment report found that people of color in 2024 are still disproportionately uninsured, underutilizing care services and underrepresented in the healthcare workforce. (Devereaux, 6/26)

Bay Area News Group: Concord Nursing Home Worker Banned From Speaking Spanish At Work
A housekeeper in a Concord nursing home who was allegedly banned from speaking her native Spanish at work is to receive monetary damages in a settlement with her employer, according to a federal workplace regulator. (Baron, 6/26)

Modern Healthcare: Walmart Health To Close All Clinics Friday
All Walmart Health clinics will close Friday, ending the retail chain's yearslong effort to build its own primary care network. Walmart announced April 30 it would shut down Walmart Health, including the virtual care platform and all 51 clinics across five states. The company did not provide closing dates for individual centers, but at the time a spokesperson said some clinics would be open for up to 90 days, or the end of July. (Hudson, 6/26)

Modern Healthcare: Home Health Agencies Face 1.7% Medicare Pay Cut In 2025 From CMS
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is proposing a net 1.7% Medicare pay cut to home health agencies for 2025. The proposed reduction is the sum of several factors: The agency proposes a 2.5% payment update, which is offset by a proposed 0.6% fixed-dollar loss cut and a 3.6% spending cut tied to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model. (Early, 6/26)

Modern Healthcare: Skilled Nursing Facilities Compete For Labor With Home Health
Home health companies fear care delivery could get harder as a federal nursing home staffing mandate forces them to vie for a limited pool of talent with skilled nursing facilities. Demographics, consumer preference and Medicare Advantage are driving more post-acute care into the home and increasing the demand for home healthcare workers. But companies offering home health services worry the nursing home staffing mandate ... will make it even harder for them to recruit enough workers to meet rising demand. (Eastabrook, 6/26)

Times of San Diego: Anti-Abortion States See Drop In Birth Control, Emergency Contraceptives, USC Study Shows
Women living in states with the most restrictive abortion policies after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade experienced steep declines in the use of birth control pills and emergency contraceptives, according to a USC study released Wednesday. The findings, which appear in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, suggest that the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case had even wider impact for women’s reproductive health than previously thought, the authors said. (Sklar, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: San Diego's Dr. George Delgado Champions Abortion Pill 'Reversal'
Two months before the U.S. Supreme Court shot down an attempt to ban abortion medication, a San Diego County doctor who was a plaintiff in the case stepped onto a stage in Texas and warned that another civil war is coming — this time over an issue “deeper than” slavery. “This is life versus death, much more fundamental to our existence and to our relationship with our creator than being free or being a slave,” Dr. George Delgado said in April at an event hosted by the antiabortion group Life First. “This has a true potential to divide our country in a civil war. ... The pro-life states must remain vigilant.” (Mays, 6/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Police Testing Device To Detect Fentanyl During Arrests
A first-of-its-kind device that can detect fentanyl and other drugs on the spot will soon be used to assist in San Francisco’s public intoxication arrests, the latest addition to what has been a yearlong, multiagency crackdown on the city’s open-air drug markets. The Dräger DrugTest 5000, a system that tests saliva samples for drugs like amphetamines, cocaine and opiates, has for years been marketed to law enforcement as a roadside tool in DUI investigations. (Cassidy, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Welfare Failed Toddler Who OD'd On Fentanyl, Family Says
Justin Bulley had been in the custody of Los Angeles County’s child welfare system, but during an approved visit with his mom, the toddler somehow came into contact with the county’s most deadly drug. Within hours, the 1-year-old was dead. The cause: A lethal dose of fentanyl — the synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin — was found in the toddler’s bloodstream. (Toohey, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Matthew Perry Death Probe Nearing Conclusion, Sources Say
A criminal investigation into Matthew Perry’s death from acute effects of the prescription drug ketamine is nearing its conclusion, with prosecutors ultimately deciding whether those with ties to how the actor got the drug will face charges, two law enforcement sources told The Times. (Winton, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Details Of Tyler Skaggs' Death Tell Crucial Story About Opioid Crisis
The Times has pored over hundreds of pages of court documents and cellphone records to reconstruct [Tyler] Skaggs’ final hours. Playing cards with teammates on a three-hour flight. Teasing rookies on the bus. Trading affectionate texts with his wife until late at night. Even the most ordinary details tell an important story, offering an intimate look at an epidemic that has ravaged the country. (Wharton and Fenno, 6/27)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Veteran Healthcare On Wheels To Roll Into Some MTS Stations To Help Homeless Veterans 
The VA San Diego Healthcare System and San Diego Metropolitan Transit System are working together to bring health care to homeless veterans through mobile medical vans parked at various MTS trolley stations, where veterans travel daily. (McIntosh, 6/26)

KQED: How This Classroom On Wheels Is Meeting Oakland's Unhoused Kids Where They Are
From a distance, the lime-green vehicle with wide awnings looks like a fancy food truck. But the tricked-out RV has all the necessities of a preschool classroom, including a short toilet and sink, carpeted play area and cabinets full of building blocks, musical instruments and art supplies. (Nguyen, 6/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Planned S.F. Women’s Shelter In Jeopardy Despite New Funding Source
A few months ago, a nonprofit’s vision for converting a fully vacant office building in San Francisco’s Civic Center neighborhood into a new, 150-bed long-term shelter and drop-in center for women in crisis appeared to be within reach. Community Forward SF, which already operates supportive housing and a women-focused program in the city, negotiated a contract to buy the 80,000-square-foot building at 1128 Market St. out of foreclosure, for half of what the property was worth pre-pandemic. (Waxmann, 6/27)

USA Today: LGBTQ Youth Crisis Line Launched In 2023. It's Been Swamped
The numbers are staggering: 39% of young people who identify as LGBTQ+ seriously considered attempting suicide within the last year. The data, from a May 2024 study by the Trevor Project, a crisis intervention nonprofit for LGBTQ+ youth, also shows that more than 1 in 10 (12%) actually attempted suicide. For transgender and nonbinary young people, it's even worse – 46% report having considered suicide within the last year. And only half of those who wanted mental health care were able to access it, the Trevor Project report said. (Trethan, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: Father Who Drove Family Off Cliff Receives Mental Health Diversion 
The Pasadena doctor accused of trying to kill his family by driving the family Tesla off a cliff with his wife and two children inside will receive mental health treatment and has the opportunity to get his criminal case dismissed, a judge ruled. Dharmesh Patel, 43, has been held in jail in San Mateo County since January 2023, when he drove his wife and 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son off a cliff on Pacific Coast Highway at Devil’s Slide, plummeting 250 feet to the rocky terrain below. The family miraculously survived. (Goldberg, 6/26)

Voice of San Diego: LA Unified's Cell Phone Ban Could Spread To San Diego Unified
Last week, the board for the largest school district in California passed a remarkable resolution: a ban on cell phones. Los Angeles Unified School District officials’ ultimate goal is to restrict cell phone usage not only in class but during non-instructional periods like lunch as well. But LA Unified officials aren’t the only ones on the march toward a cell phone free campus. (McWhinney, 6/26)

The New York Times: Federal Officials Revise Recommendations For R.S.V. Vaccine 
In an unusual move, federal health officials revised their recommendations for who should receive the vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus. Among Americans aged 60 to 74, only those with certain health conditions need to receive the shots, the CDC concluded. (Mandavilli, 6/26)

Reuters: Moderna Says Its RSV Shot Is 50% Effective Across A Second Season
Moderna Inc. respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot mRESVIA showed 50% efficacy in preventing RSV after 18 months, the drugmaker said on Wednesday. In their clinical trials, GSK's RSV vaccine Arexvy was 78% effective in preventing severe RSV over a second year and Pfizer's was 78% effective through a second RSV season. (6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Is Bird Flu In Cattle Here To Stay?
Despite assurances from the federal government that bird flu will be eradicated from the nation’s dairy cows, some experts worry the disease is here to stay. Recently, Eric Deeble, USDA acting senior advisor for H5N1 response, said that the federal government hoped to “eliminate the disease from the dairy herd” without requiring vaccines. Since the disease was first publicly identified in dairy cattle on March 25, there have been 129 reports of infected herds across 12 states. In the last four weeks, there has been a surge — jumping from 68 confirmed cases on May 28 to nearly twice that many as of June 25. There are no cases in California. (Rust, 6/27)

Stat: Mike Leavitt Interview On Bird Flu Response 
Mike Leavitt is in the small club of government officials who’ve led an avian flu response. The experience is still fresh in his mind nearly two decades later. When he first heard about the avian flu outbreak in 2005, he had been secretary of health and human services in George W. Bush’s administration for just a couple of months. (Zhang, 6/27)

CIDRAP: USDA Confirms More H5N1 Detections In Dairy Herds And Cats
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed H5N1 avian influenza in three more dairy herds, two in Colorado and one in Iowa, raising its number of affected herds to 129 in 12 states. APHIS today added reports of nine more H5N1 detections in mammals across four states, of which five were domestic cats. The infected cats were from Minnesota (Kandiyohi County) and Texas (Hartley County). Other detections involved raccoons from Michigan and New Mexico, a striped skunk for New Mexico, and a red fox from Minnesota. The group also added eight more detections in wild birds, including five bald eagles from Iowa, New Jersey, and Virginia and three agency-harvested birds from New Mexico. (Schnirring, 6/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supervisors Approve Budget Restoring $60M In Critical Funding
Loud cheers echoed across City Hall Wednesday after supervisors gave final approval to a budget deal with Mayor London Breed that restores nearly $60 million in funding cuts she proposed to childcare, food insecurity and violence prevention programs, among others. (Toledo, 6/26)

Voice of OC: OC Supervisors Consider Gun Storage Law, Spark Constitutional Questions
A majority of Orange County Supervisors want to require gun owning residents to keep their firearms in a lock box or disabled by a trigger lock when stored at home. It’s sparking questions on how such a law would be enforced and if it’s constitutional. At their Tuesday meeting, Supervisors voted 3-2 along party lines to draft and bring back a safe gun storage law proposal at the request of Democratic Supervisor Katrina Foley. (Elattar, 6/26)

Bay Area News Group: Tesla Ordered To Stop Polluting Bay Area Air With 'Frequent And Ongoing' Toxic Emissions
Tesla has polluted Bay Area air with harmful and toxic emissions from its Fremont electric car factory more than 100 times in the past five years. On Wednesday, local authorities ordered it to stop. (Baron, 6/26)

KVPR: Fresno County Health Department Investigating Cases Of Botulism Among Residents
The Fresno County Health Department says it is investigating a suspected multi-person outbreak of botulism. That’s a rare but serious illness caused by a toxin that can attack a person’s nerves. (Rodriguez-Delgado, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Why You Should Think Twice Before Taking Daily Multivitamins
If you’re taking a multivitamin to help you live longer, a new study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute may prompt you to reconsider. After analyzing health and nutrition data from nearly 400,000 Americans, the researchers found that people who took multivitamins had a small but significantly greater risk of premature death than people who eschewed the supplements. (Kaplan, 6/26)