VC Star: Some Medi-Cal Patients Forced To Change Doctors After Dignity Ends Contract
Thousands of low-income Medi-Cal patients in Ventura County are being told to change doctors as a result of insurance contracts set to terminate Nov. 30. (Kisken, 11/20)

Becker's Hospital Review: NorthBay's $250M Plan To Deliver Ambulatory Care Closer To Home
In his second year as president and CEO of Fairfield, Calif.-based NorthBay Health, Mark Behl is prioritizing ambulatory and outpatient care to meet growing demand and diversify revenue streams. The health system is investing more than $250 million over the next five years in its ambulatory strategy, which includes expanding its network by building neighborhood clinics throughout the region, Mr. Behl told Becker's. (Kuchno, 11/20)

Becker's Hospital Review: PPE Manufacturers Urge Congress To Reauthorize Pandemic Preparedness Bill
The American Medical Manufacturers Association is calling on Congress to quickly reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act before the end of the 118th Congressional Session in January 2025. In a Nov. 19 news release from the agency, AMMA Executive Director Eric Axel emphasized that the reauthorization is critical for ensuring U.S. resilience in future crises including pandemics, natural disasters and other emergencies. (Murphy, 11/20)

Los Angeles Times: Tracking Your Health With A Device? Here's Where The Data Could Go
Every day millions of people share more intimate information with their accessories than they do with their spouse. Wearable technology — smartwatches, smart rings, fitness trackers and the like — monitors body-centric data such as your heart rate, steps taken and calories burned, and may record where you go along the way. Like Santa Claus, it knows when you are sleeping (and how well), it knows when you’re awake, it knows when you’ve been idle or exercising, and it keeps track of all of it. (Fry, 11/20)

The Washington Post: CDC Warns Of Body-Lice Transmitted Infections Among Homeless Populations 
A rare disease spread by body lice poses a danger to people experiencing homelessness and others who have received organ transplants from the infected, according to three papers released Wednesday by investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacterial infection, known as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever as it was called during World War I, lives in the feces of body lice and can cause skin lesions, fever and bone pain. However, severe cases can lead to a potentially fatal infection of the heart valves. (Johnson and Malhi, 11/20)

Los Angeles Times: Nearly Half Of L.A.'s Homeless Budget Went Unspent, Controller Finds
Nearly half of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ record $1.3-billion homelessness budget for fiscal 2023-24 went unspent, an analysis by the city controller found.Controller Kenneth Mejia found that only $599 million had actually been spent. An additional $195 million was encumbered, leaving at least $513 million unspent. (Smith, 11/21)

Voice of OC: Santa Ana Delays Bolstering Anti-Camping Laws
Santa Ana officials delayed ramping up anti-camping laws because of concerns from some council members that it went too far in a city that’s home to the largest homeless population in Orange County. The proposed ordinance comes after the Supreme Court overturned a case that required cities to offer shelter to homeless people before they could clear them off the streets. (Elattar, 11/20)

Bay Area News Group: New Morgan Hill Housing Helps Farmworkers, Homeless Residents
While a law meant to encourage more farmworker housing passed in California this September, the county has only added some 262 housing units for farmers in recent years, according to August numbers provided by representatives from Santa Clara County. (Zambrano, 11/21)

NBC News: Georgia Woman Sues In Response To E. Coli Outbreak Linked To Carrots
Melinda Pratt had been buying the same brand of organic carrots for years: Bunny Luv by Grimmway Farms. ... After she ate them, she said, she began experiencing bloody diarrhea and stomach pain that felt like “somebody getting stabbed in the stomach repeatedly and not stopping.” ... Pratt sued in Kern County, California, where Grimmway Farms is based. The suit alleges that the company breached its duty to provide safe products and failed to warn about the potential hazards of the carrots. Now recovered, Pratt said she hopes the suit could help prevent future outbreaks. (Richardson, 11/20)

CBS News: Are Food Recalls And Outbreaks On The Rise? FDA Says U.S. Food Supply Still "One Of The Safest In The World"
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that the U.S. food supply is still "one of the safest in the world," in the wake of a number of foodborne disease outbreaks affecting items ranging from organic carrots to deli meats to McDonald's Quarter Pounders. E. coli, listeria and other contaminants have sickened thousands of people and forced a number of recalls in recent months. But despite those high-profile examples, data cited by the FDA suggest recalls were not unusually high this past year. (Tin, 11/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Surprise Birth Wasn’t Enough To Loosen Fentanyl’s Grip On S.F. Woman
Jessica DiDia was accustomed to her body feeling broken — her limbs swollen, her muscles aching. And after years of living on San Francisco’s streets in the grip of fentanyl, she was no stranger to the city’s emergency rooms, where she was often taken after overdosing or experiencing a seizure. So in early October, when severe back pain led Jessica, 37, to ask police officers to call an ambulance for her, she didn’t think much of it. (Angst, Ho and Lurie, 11/21)

The 19th: Climate Change Is Disrupting Access To HIV Treatment
Half of people with HIV in the United States are living in places that are vulnerable to extreme weather and climate disasters, according to a new analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP). The report from CAP released Wednesday finds that the areas of the country where HIV is being diagnosed at disproportionately high rates are also places most at risk of disasters. (Kutz, 11/20)

Stat: Top Medicaid Official Calls GOP Reforms 'Bad Policy' 
The Biden administration’s outgoing Medicaid chief said on Wednesday that Republican ideas to overhaul Medicaid are “just plain bad policy” and will hurt the program’s low-income enrollees. (Herman, 11/20)

The New York Times: Medicaid May Face Big Cuts And Work Requirements 
With Republicans set to control Washington, conservative lawmakers and policy experts who could advise the next Trump administration are discussing long-sought cuts to Medicaid, the government health program that covers roughly a fifth of all Americans and makes up about 10 percent of the federal budget. Some of the changes are being proposed as a way to pay for a law that would extend the tax cuts from the first Trump administration, most of which benefited corporations and wealthier Americans. The policies might slash funding for Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion — which added roughly 23 million people to the program — or require that many enrollees work in order to receive benefits. (Kliff and Weiland, 11/20)

Disability Scoop: Disability Advocates Sound Alarm Over Possible Medicaid Cuts 
With Republicans set to assume control in Washington, disability advocates are warning that proposals are in the works to drastically reshape Medicaid and undermine the nation’s system of home and community-based services. (Diament, 11/21)

MarketWatch: Trump’s Choice Of TV’s ‘Dr. Oz’ To Oversee Medicare And Medicaid Could Be ‘Devastating’ For Millions Of Americans 
“Nominating a person who has promoted unproven medical treatments for personal gain, opposed the Affordable Care Act and supports the further privatization of Medicare to oversee the healthcare for millions of people, including seniors, will have devastating consequences,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of government watchdog Accountable.US. “President-elect Trump is helping his friends, but the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections — especially those with pre-existing conditions,” Carrk said. As of 2022, Oz and his wife owned up to $600,000 in UnitedHealth Group stock and up to $100,000 in shares of CVS Health, which owns Aetna, according to Accountable. US. Both companies are large Medicare Advantage providers. Medicare Advantage is a private-company alternative to traditional Medicare. (Hall, 11/20)

Fortune Well: How Dr. Oz Could Change Medicare Under President Trump 
When Trump made his CMS nomination announcement, he said Oz “will also cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of the Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.” There seems to be plenty of waste, and possibly fraud, for Oz to try eliminating from Medicare and Medicaid. (Eisenberg, 11/20)

The New York Times: Dr. Oz, Tapped to Run Medicare, Has a Record of Promoting Health Misinformation
The heart surgeon turned TV star has championed healthy lifestyle habits. But he’s also promoted sham diet pills and ineffective Covid-19 treatments. (Blum, Schmall and Agrawal, 11/20)

Politico: Dr. Oz Getting High Marks From Senate Moderates — Maybe Even Fetterman 
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, is seemingly drawing more enthusiasm from Senate Republicans than Trump’s selection to run HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Some GOP senators have not been publicly enthusiastic about Kennedy’s selection. But Senate Republicans across the ideological spectrum — and even the Democrat who beat Oz in a bitter Pennsylvania Senate race in 2022, Sen. John Fetterman — are voicing potential support for the TV celebrity doctor. That bodes well for his confirmation: Senate Republicans can confirm Oz without Democrats, and Democratic support would give him a healthy margin. (Leonard, 11/20)

Bloomberg: Trump's Top Candidate For FDA Seen To Be Marty Makary
Surgeon and author Marty Makary is seen as the leading candidate to run the US Food and Drug Administration under President-elect Donald Trump, people familiar with the matter said. Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine, is a health researcher whose latest book focuses on questioning medical orthodoxy on topics from peanut allergies to antibiotics. (Tozzi, Muller, and Cook, 11/20)

MedPage Today: What To Know About Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's Potential NIH Pick 
Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, of Stanford University in California, has emerged as President-elect Donald Trump's top pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to reporting from the Washington Post. Amid Trump's stated plans to "restructure federal agencies," Bhattacharya would indeed be an outsider coming in to lead the NIH. And Bhattacharya has previously said he believes top officials there hold too much influence. (Henderson, 11/20)

Roll Call: CDC Director Looks To Future Of Public Health With Worry
With two months to go before the end of the Biden administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen says she’s worried about the future of the public health agency and the people it serves. House GOP appropriators are pushing a 22 percent cut to the sprawling public health agency. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a vaccine skeptic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. And years after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, skepticism about public health agencies remains despite the agency’s work to restore trust in it and its efforts. (Cohen, 11/20)

USA Today: RFK Jr., AIDS Denial, Trans Rights: Why LGBTQ+ People In Uproar
RFK Jr. has become somewhat of a persona non grata for sharing what LGBTQ+ advocates say is harmful misinformation about some of the hot-button topics that impact them the most: HIV, transgender people and their healthcare. In the days since his name was put forward, many have expressed their concern and disappointment both with Kennedy and the direction they fear the Trump administration will take overall. (Oliver, 11/20)

Roll Call: FDA’s Nutrition Goals Similar To Kennedy’s, Experts Say 
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to helm the Department of Health and Human Services has said he wants sweeping changes to how the United States approaches health and food, going so far as to suggest that the Food and Drug Administration should eliminate its nutrition operations. But the agency may be more aligned with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goals than he’s made it seem. (DeGroot, 11/20)

Politico: Anti-Abortion Groups Have 2 Asks. RFK Jr. Is Listening. 
Abortion opponents — concerned about Kennedy’s past comments supporting abortion access — have two major asks: that he appoint an anti-abortion stalwart to a senior position in HHS and that he promise privately to them and publicly during his confirmation hearing to restore anti-abortion policies from the first Trump administration, according to four anti-abortion advocates granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. And Kennedy, according to a fifth person close to the Trump transition, is open to their entreaties. (Messerly, Ollstein and Cancryn, 11/20)

NBC 7 San Diego: Oceanside Unified Suit Alleges Drug Companies Colluded On Insulin-Price Hikes
The attorney representing Oceanside Unified School District announced on Wednesday that it was suing three drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers for collusion in hiking up insulin costs. Some of those companies, however, are already calling the legal action baseless. Oceanside Unified School District is one of more than 200 school districts joining in the lawsuit nationwide. The attorney representing it says they’re anticipating more districts from San Diego County to come forward. (Quezada, 11/20)

Stat: The Health Care Industry Is Girding For Trump’s Tariffs —And Pushing Hard For Carveouts
President-elect Trump campaigned on imposing broad, steep tariffs to create more jobs in the U.S. and combat China. If enacted, these taxes would send the U.S. health care industry scrambling and could eventually force patients and insurers to shell out more for medical care. But no one in the industry is in a tizzy just yet, at least not publicly. There are two reasons for that. One: No one knows what Trump is actually going to do. Two: They’re pushing hard for carve-outs behind the scenes. (Bannow and Silverman, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Underinsured Patients At Risk If ACA Subsidies Lapse
More people may face gaps in insurance coverage, have trouble affording medical care or not be able to pay for coverage if certain Affordable Care Act subsidies aren't renewed next year, the Commonwealth Fund said Thursday. The independent healthcare research organization's 2024 report on health insurance found 44% of Americans are underinsured, face coverage gaps or are uninsured, despite improvements in lowering the number of uninsured citizens. In its 2022 report, the group pegged the percentage at 43%. (DeSilva, 11/20)

MedPage Today: Health Prices Are Getting More Transparent, But It's Still Not Enough, Experts Say 
Health transparency rules have helped researchers gain more insight into hospital pricing practices, Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, said here Wednesday at an event sponsored by Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms. The price transparency regulations that were part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) "gave us unprecedented insight into what's really going on in the commercial market," said Bai, who is professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. (Frieden, 11/20)

Modern Healthcare: Prior Authorization Policies Need More Changes, Providers Say
The Biden administration sought to tackle one of the most contentious policies in healthcare: prior authorization. Providers and insurers say there’s still room for improvement. Provider groups have complained misuse of prior authorizations is responsible for care delays, increased hospitalizations and a reduced likelihood that patients follow their care plans, along with the administrative burden providers face in trying to secure coverage for patients. (Early, 11/20)