The New York Times: California Moves To Allow Undocumented Immigrants To Buy Insurance
In a move that is sure to draw the ire of Republicans, California officials are asking the Obama administration this week to approve a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance on the state’s public exchange. Officials say that up to 30 percent of the state’s two million undocumented adults could be eligible for the program, and that roughly 17,000 people are expected to participate in the first year, if the plan is approved. But the proposal faces serious hurdles in Washington, where it must be approved by both the Treasury and the Health and Human Services Departments. (Medina, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: California Democrats Urge President Obama To OK Expanding Covered California To People In Country Illegally
California will soon be the first state in the nation to ask the federal government to allow immigrants in the country illegally to purchase health insurance through a state exchange. Democrats from the Golden State gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to urge President Obama to approve the request quickly. (Wire, 9/14)

Morning Consult: California Democrats Urge Administration To Grant Coverage To Undocumented Immigrants
California Democrats on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to approve a waiver that would allow undocumented immigrants to access unsubsidized health care under the state’s insurance marketplace. California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed a bill in June that obligated the state to ask the federal government to allow undocumented immigrants to purchase insurance on the state’s marketplace set up under the Affordable Care Act. Under the health care law, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to purchase insurance on the exchanges. (McIntire, 9/14)

Marin Independent Journal: Marin Hospital To Study Medical Marijuana Use On Site 
Marin General Hospital will study the feasibility of allowing patients at the hospital to use medicinal marijuana when it is recommended by their physician. The hospital is embarking on the investigation at the request of the publicly elected Marin Healthcare District board. The board voted 2-0 Tuesday night, with three members abstaining, to ask for the study. In an email statement, Marin General CEO Lee Domanico, said, “Marin General Hospital will consult with members of the medical staff, legal counsel and other experts to produce a response to this request.” (Halstead, 9/15)

KQED State of Health: California Hospital Considers Allowing Patients To Use Medical Marijuana
On Tuesday evening, the Marin Healthcare District Board took a step in that direction by voting to ask its staff to investigate clinical and legal issues related to patient use of the drug on-site. Medical marijuana is legal in the state, but hospitals haven’t yet allowed patients to use it. (Fine, 9/14)

Santa Cruz Sentinel: County To Build Mental Health Center In Watsonville With Alliance Grant
Mental health services in Santa Cruz County will get a big boost from the Central California Alliance for Health, which has awarded $2.5 million to build a 33-space treatment facility in Watsonville. It’s part of $20 million awarded by the Alliance, a nonprofit Medi-Cal managed care health plan, to organizations in Santa Cruz, Monterey and Merced counties, to expand the pipeline for services needed by more than 350,000 residents — nearly a third of the population — enrolled in the state Medi-Cal program in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. (Gumz, 9/14)

KPBS Public Media: San Diego Unified School Board Says Prop. 56 Will Reduce Teen Smoking
It's not every day that the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education weighs in on a statewide ballot proposition. But at its general meeting this week, the board unanimously endorsed Proposition 56. Prop. 56 would raise California’s tobacco tax by $2 a pack. (Goldberg, 9/15)

Press Enterprise: What Happens If Pot Is Legal? Riverside County Wants To Know
If California voters pass Proposition 64 in November, Riverside County supervisors want to be ready. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday asked county staff to study and report back on potential effects, good and bad, should voters approve the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, but not before lamenting the prospect of legalization. (Horseman, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: Majority Of Californians Support Initiative To Require Actors In Adult Films To Use Condoms
A majority of Californians support an initiative on the November ballot to require performers in adult films to use condoms during sex scenes, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of registered voters conducted by SurveyMonkey. Fifty-five percent said they would back Proposition 60 if the election were held today, the survey found. (Panzar, 9/15)

Idyllwild Town Crier: Prop 61, A Prescription Drug Purchase And Pricing Initiative: Major Drug Manufacturer Opposition
Proposition 61, titled by its drafters as “The California Drug Price Relief Act,” and on the ballot as “State Prescription Drug Purchases. Pricing Standards. Initiative Statute,” seeks to cap prices state agencies pay for prescription drugs to the lowest price paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA generally pays the lowest prices under mandatory discounts under federal law. Tying prices state agencies pay for prescription drugs to VA prices is intended to reduce prescription drug spending for the populations state agencies serve through their health-care programs. (9/14)

The Washington Post: Clinton Campaign Releases Doctor’s Letter Describing ‘Mild’ Pneumonia
Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a letter from her doctor Wednesday describing her treatment for “mild” bacterial pneumonia and painting an overall picture of good health in an attempt to put to rest concerns about her medical condition following her illness over the weekend. The letter, from Clinton’s doctor, Lisa Bardack, noted that she received a CT scan confirming the pneumonia diagnosis and is now about halfway through a regimen on the antibiotic Levaquin. (Phillip and Gearan, 9/14)

The New York Times: Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump Give More Details On Their Health
With less than eight weeks until Election Day and pressure mounting for the candidates to give details about their health and medical histories, Donald J. Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he was overweight and taking a cholesterol-fighting drug, and Hillary Clinton elaborated on the circumstances that led to her contracting pneumonia and the medicine she was taking to recover. (Chozick and Haberman, 9/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Are Slow To Back Donald Trump’s Paid Maternity-Leave Plan
Donald Trump’s proposal to create a new federal program offering six weeks of partially paid maternity leave is winning few Republican supporters in Congress. The mixed reaction to Mr. Trump’s proposal, put forward in a speech Tuesday night, leaves him squeezed between Democrats who dismiss it as insufficient and Republicans reluctant to embrace ideas they have spent years criticizing. (Rubin, 9/14)

The New York Times: Workers Pay More For Health Care As Companies Shift Burden, Survey Finds
State health insurance exchanges created under the new health care law are in turmoil. By contrast, the employer market — where the majority of Americans still get their coverage — seems like a bastion of stability. An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation released on Wednesday shows that the share of employers offering coverage remained steady this year, and that the cost of premiums for health plans remained largely unchanged. (Abelson, 9/14)

The Washington Post: How Companies Are Quietly Changing Your Health Plan To Make You Pay More
While politicians have been embroiled in a fiery debate over President Obama's signature health-care law, a quiet but profound shift is fundamentally reshaping how health insurance works for the roughly 155 million Americans who receive coverage through their employers. A national survey of employer health benefits released Wednesday shows how much deductibles — the health-care costs that people must pay out of their own pockets before insurance kicks in — have shot up. In 2016, 4 in 5 workers had a deductible as part of their individual coverage, averaging $1,478. During the past five years, deductibles have grown 10 times as fast as inflation and nearly six times as fast as wages, according to the new report. (Johnson, 9/14)

NPR: Workers' Health-Care Deductibles Are Going Up Again
High deductible health plans are the new normal. Just over half of employees this year have a health insurance policy with a deductible of at least $1,000, according to a survey of employers from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It's the continuation of a multiyear trend of companies passing more of the costs of employee health care back onto workers. (Kodjak, 9/14)

Kaiser Health News: Studies: Employer Costs Slow As Consumers Use Less Care, Deductibles Soar
Employer health insurance expenses continued to rise by relatively low amounts this year, aided by moderate increases in total medical spending but also by workers taking a greater share of the costs, new research shows. Average premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage rose 3.4 percent for 2016, down from annual increases of nearly twice that much before 2011 and double digits in the early 2000s, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) (Hancock and Luthra, 9/14)

The Wall Street Journal: EpiPen Maker Executive To Testify At House Hearing
Lawmakers have summoned the top executive from EpiPen maker Mylan NV to Washington for a hearing next week to explain substantial price increases for the emergency allergy treatment that have generated widespread consumer outrage. The company confirmed Wednesday that Chief Executive Heather Bresch will come to Capitol Hill Sept. 21 to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a hearing likely to feature intense questioning about Mylan’s pricing strategy. (Radnofsky, 9/14)

USA Today: Senators Move To Force Drug Makers To Justify Big Price Hikes
A bipartisan group of Senate and House members plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would force drugmakers to tell the Department of Health and Human Services why any price hike of more than 10% is justified at least a month before the increase. Companies would have to disclose spending on research and development, manufacturing, marketing and advertising spending on the drug, as well as profit information. (O'Donnell, 9/14)

The Associated Press: The Pluses And Minuses Of Drugmakers' Discount Cards
Facing public furor for the price of its emergency allergy shot EpiPen, Mylan Pharmaceuticals quickly pointed to a familiar industry solution: copay discount cards. Copay coupons or cards have become a ubiquitous part of the pharmaceutical business, offered through websites, mobile apps and doctor's offices. Patient advocates say they can bring down out-of-pocket expenses for patients who face high copays and deductibles. Mylan last month boosted its discount cards to cover $300 of insured patients' copay costs, up from $100. (Perrone, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: Oral Infection Outbreak Appears Linked To An Anaheim Dental Office, Officials Say
As if visiting the dentist wasn’t scary enough, Orange County health officials are alerting parents to an outbreak of oral infections that appear linked to a children’s dental office in Anaheim. At least one case of a Mycobacterial abscessus infection has been confirmed in a patient who visited the Children’s Dental Group, in the 2100 block of East Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim, according to the OC Health Care Agency. The infection was detected after the child underwent a pulpotomy procedure to remove or treat an infected tooth, health officials said. (Rocha, 9/14)

The Orange County Register: Family Denied Dental Records After 4-Year-Old Hospitalized For Infection
Ramon Amador, 34, said his daughter, Nairi, went to the clinic for a routine exam in June when she was given a pulpotomy. ... Amador said he was denied Nairi’s dental records during his visit to the clinic Wednesday. California law gives dental practices 15 days to provide copies of records after a written request is made. (Perkes, 9/14)

The Mercury News: Campbell Doctor Gives Sight Back To Veterans, Disabled And Low-Income
[Sandra] De La Cruz is one of 10 patients who received free vision correction surgery as part of Furlong’s Gift of Sight program. Furlong has provided surgeries—which can cost $5,000-$6,000—annually to people in need. The recipients are identified with the help of nonprofit organizations that partner with Furlong. (Leyva, 9/14)

Ventura County Star: County Medical Examiner Quits
The chief medical examiner for Ventura County has resigned without explanation less than a year after taking the job, officials announced Wednesday. Dr. Ann Bucholtz was hired in November 2015 to fill a vacancy created by the dismissal of Dr. Jon Smith. Prosecutors found Smith had directed an unlicensed staff member to perform postmortem procedures via email while Smith was on vacation more than 2,000 miles away. Bucholtz's resignation takes effect Sept. 30. (Wilson, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: Women And Minorities Are Less Likely To Get Key Stroke Treatment, Even When They're Eligible, Study Says
If you’re having an ischemic stroke, it’s crucial that you get to a hospital fast so you can be treated with a clot-busting medicine. And to improve your odds of getting that medicine, it helps to be a white man. A new analysis of more than 60,000 stroke patients from around the country found that women were less likely than men to receive an infusion of tissue plasminogen activator, the drug that’s considered the gold standard in stroke treatment. The analysis also showed that racial minorities were less likely to get the drug than whites. (Kaplan, 9/14)

The Washington Post: Almost All Men With Early Prostate Cancer Survive 10 Years, Regardless Of Treatment
The survival rate for early-stage prostate cancer is 99 percent after 10 years, regardless of whether men undergo surgery, radiation or are "actively monitored," according to studies published Wednesday. Researchers hailed the results as good news, saying they had been expecting a survival rate of 90 percent. The two new studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also illustrated the complicated treatment equations facing men with early-stage prostate cancer, and they immediately set off a debate among physicians about how to interpret the results. (McGinley, 9/14)

Kaiser Health News: The Ads Say ‘Get Your Flu Shot Today,’ But It May Be Wiser To Wait
The start of flu season is still weeks — if not months — away. Yet marketing of the vaccine has become an almost year-round effort, beginning when the shots become available in August and hyped as long as the supply lasts, often into April or May. Not that long ago, most flu-shot campaigns started as the leaves began to turn in October. But the rise of retail medical clinics inside drug stores over the past decade — and state laws allowing pharmacists to give vaccinations — has stretched the flu-shot season. (Appleby, 9/15)

NPR: Sugar Shocked? The Rest Of Food Industry Pays For Lots Of Research, Too : The Salt : NPR
Sugar shocked. That describes the reaction of many Americans this week following revelations that, 50 years ago, the sugar industry paid Harvard scientists for research that shifted the focus away from sugar's role in heart disease — and put the spotlight squarely on dietary fat. What might surprise consumers is just how many present-day nutrition studies are still funded by the food industry. (Godoy, 9/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Greater Share Of U.S. Workers Testing Positive For Illicit Drugs
The share of U.S. workers testing positive for illicit drug use reached its highest level in a decade, according to data from millions of workplace drug tests administered by Quest Diagnostics Inc., one of the nation’s largest medical-screening laboratories. Detection of illicit drugs—from marijuana to heroin to methamphetamine—increased slightly both for the general workforce and the “safety-sensitive” workforce, which includes millions of truck drivers, pilots, ship captains, subway engineers, and other transportation workers. (Weber, 9/14)

NPR: Doctors Studied 42 Infants In Brazil With Microcephaly And The News Isn't Good
"These babies do not catch up as they grow," says Dr. Antonia Augusto Moura da Silva of the Federal University of Maranhao, Sao Luis, Brazil. He's describing the findings from a study of 48 babies whose mothers were believed to have been infected with the Zika virus. Forty-two of the children were diagnosed with microcephaly. The study, on the early neurological growth pattern of the infants, will be published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in November but was released early online. (Brink, 9/14)

The Washington Post: How Tens Of Thousands Of Patients Who Weren’t Actually Dying Wound Up On Hospice Care
Hospice patients are expected to die. The service, after all, is intended for the terminally ill. But over the past decade, as a 2014 Washington Post investigation found, the number of patients who outlived hospice care in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren’t actually dying. Now government inspectors have turned up information about how that happens. (Whoriskey, 9/14)