NPR: Supreme Court Hears Fiery Arguments In Case That Could Gut Public Sector Unions
The Supreme Court heard fiery arguments Monday in a case that could remove a key revenue stream for public sector unions. A sharply divided court could be poised to overturn a 40-year-old Supreme Court decision that would further undermine an already shrinking union movement. Attorneys for Mark Janus, a child support specialist for the state of Illinois, argue that people like Janus, who choose not to join a union, shouldn't be compelled to pay partial union fees. (Totenberg, 2/26)

Sacramento Bee: Union Fees On The Line: Five Takeaways From The Supreme Court Hearing
Justice Neil Gorsuch, the newest member of the Supreme Court, is the “x” factor on this case. The court’s eight other members split, four to four, in 2016 on a case challenging the California Teachers Association on the issue of “fair share” fees, which left a lower court ruling in favor of those fees in place. Gorsuch represents the deciding ninth vote, having filled the vacant seat created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2016 death. And given his conservative credentials, most legal observers expect Gorsuch to join his fellow Republican-appointed colleagues in ruling against the unions. (Cadei, 2/16)

CNBC: Apple Is Launching Medical Clinics To Deliver The 'World's Best Health Care Experience' To Its Employees
Apple is launching a group of health clinics called AC Wellness for its own employees and their families this spring, according to several sources familiar with the company's plans. The company quietly published a website, acwellness.com, with more details about its initiative .... This new primary care group will initially only serve Apple's employees in Santa Clara County, where its headquarters are located. At present, it includes only two clinics. (Farr, 2/27)

In other news on health systems —

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Palm Drive Health Care District Rejects Claims Of Insurance Fraud At Sebastopol Hospital
The Palm Drive Health Care District has rejected allegations that it has conspired to defraud Anthem Blue in a scheme the insurance giant says resulted in more than $13.5 million in improper payments to Sonoma West Medical Center in Sebastopol. In a Feb. 9 letter to both the district and medical center, Anthem threatened legal action and demanded the money be repaid. The letter states the medical center contracted with Florida-based Durall Capital Holdings and its testing laboratory, Reliance Laboratory Testing, to fabricate or misrepresent claims for toxicology testing services that were improperly billed to the insurance company. (Espinoza, 2/26)

Modern Healthcare: Last Of The Molinas: Former CFO Resigns From Insurer's Board
Molina Healthcare's former CFO John Molina, the last Molina family member still linked to the health insurer, has resigned from the board. John Molina stepped down from the board more than two months after his brother, former CEO Mario Molina, cut ties with the company. The Long Beach, Calif.-based insurer said John Molina, who has served on the board since 1994, will pursue other endeavors. He is a founding partner of Pacific6, a California-based investment and development partnership. (Livingston, 2/26)

Sacramento Bee: Rent Control And Health Care: Liberals Fight For The Soul Of The California Democratic Party
As her primetime speech at the California Democratic Party convention ran long Saturday, an orchestral recording drowned out Sen. Dianne Feinstein. ... And at one point, angry over Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon's decision to hold a proposed single-payer universal health care bill in committee, a person in the crowded room at the Progressive Caucus Friday night yelled that Rendon was a "DINO," or "Democrat-in-name-only." (Hart and Kosseff, 2/26)

Orange County Register: Santa Ana River Homeless Encampment’s Last Residents Move Out
Orange County’s largest homeless encampment is no more. On Monday, following a six-day blitz during which county officials moved 732 homeless people into local motels and shelters, the once-bustling tent encampment sat unoccupied. The last few occupants packed their belongings and left. Sheriff’s deputies guarded locked gates to the flood control channel, preventing people from reentering. (Graham, 2/26)

Los Angeles Times: Santa Ana River Homeless Camp Cleared After More Than 700 People Relocated
"This was a landmark process with so many different groups combining forces," said Brooke Weitzman, an attorney who sued Orange County on behalf of seven homeless people, alleging that officials' goal to empty the tent city last month violated her clients' civil rights. Weitzman and county representatives agreed to a stipulation that allowed clearing of the encampment, with guidance from U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, who toured the site and demanded that government and social services staff work with residents in a "humane way." (Do, 2/26)

LA Daily News: LA County Offers To Pay Off Student Debt For New Doctors — If They Work In Its Jails
On the outside, Richard Brent was a thief and a user. He stole and used meth and heroin, acted tough and aggressive, all of which got him a 90-day sentence to Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail. But for Dr. Lauren Wolchok, his physician on the inside, Brent is neither criminal nor inmate. For her, he is a person in need of medical care like anyone else. (Abram, 2/26)

In other news from across the states —

LA Times: Judge Orders California Agricultural Officials To Cease Pesticide Use
A judge has ordered California agricultural officials to stop spraying pesticides on public and private property to control insects that threaten the state's $45-billion agriculture industry. The injunction by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge, issued late last week, could throw a substantial hurdle in front of efforts by the state Department of Food and Agriculture to control dozens of crop-damaging pests such as the Asian citrus psyllid, which carries bacteria that have decimated the citrus industry in Brazil and Florida. (Mohan, 2/26)

LA Daily News: Filmmaker Kevin Smith Had A Heart Attack, And He Turned It Into Excellent Social Media
As a guy who’s rarely come close to what my doctor would call ideal body mass index, I’ve always admired the filmmaker Kevin Smith’s owning of his own girth. How the “Clerks” director and podcasting raconteur would always talk about how much his wife loved him no matter how big he got, how he Internet-shamed Southwest Airlines for removing him from a flight for being “too fat” . . . . Stuff like that was, if not exactly empowering or inspirational, at least semi-encouraging in a “let me be me” kind of manner. (Strauss, 2/26)

The Associated Press: LA Police Shoot Man With Weapon Described As Mentally Ill
Los Angeles police say officers have shot and killed a man described as mentally ill who was armed with a sharp weapon. Officer Drake Madison says the man, believed to be in his 20s, died at the scene in Panorama City Monday morning. Madison says police initially responded to a report of a man with a mental illness wielding a 16-inch edged weapon. (2/26)

Orange County Register: So-Called ‘Rehab Mogul’ Raped Women, Dealt Drugs In Treatment Centers
A self-dubbed “Rehab Mogul” who operated more than 13 drug treatment centers in Southern California was convicted Monday of rape and drug dealing. In all, Christopher Bathum, 56, was found guilty of 31 criminal counts. A Los Angeles jury also found him not guilty on 12 similar counts and deadlocked on three others. Before he was arrested in 2016, Bathum owned and operated 13 “Community Recovery” treatment centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties, as well as six in the state of Colorado. He faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in state prison for the sex conviction and lifetime registration as a sex offender. (Saavedra, 2/26)

KPCC: 'The Rehab Mogul’ Convicted Of Sexually Assaulting Treatment Center Patients
The Los Angeles District Attorney's office said the victims' ages range from their 20s to their early 30s. It said the 56-year-old Bathum "preyed upon female patients between 2014 and 2016 by providing them with drugs as they battled to overcome their addiction" and then sexually assaulted them "while they were under the influence." (Faust, 2/26)

The Associated Press: Administration Considers Expanding Mental Health Treatment
Amid the outcry over the Florida school shootings, the Trump administration says it is "actively exploring" ways to help states expand inpatient mental health treatment using Medicaid funds. President Donald Trump again brought up the issue of mental hospitals in a meeting with governors on Monday, invoking a time when states maintained facilities for mentally ill and developmentally disabled people. "In the old days, you would put him into a mental institution," Trump said, apparently referring to alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz, whose troubling behavior prompted people close to him to plead for help from authorities, without success. (2/27)

Los Angeles Times: What The Florida School Shooting Reveals About The Gaps In Our Mental Health System
After Adam Lanza burst into Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 20 students and six educators, Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate tapped Julian Ford to help make sense of the shooting. A professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and a practicing psychologist for 35 years, Ford served on an expert panel that conducted a detailed review of Lanza’s brief life to look for “any warning signs, red flags, or other lessons that could be learned.” The resulting report painted a picture of an odd, sensitive child with significant communication difficulties who became an anxious and withdrawn adolescent. ... At every turn, the report saw missed opportunities to treat Lanza’s multiple interpersonal and mental health difficulties ... and to draw him out of his profound isolation. (Healy, 2/26)

The Washington Post: What Will Congress Realistically Do On Guns After The Florida Shooting?
Congress is back this week for the first time since the Parkland, Fla., high school massacre. Sustained national media attention on the shooting, emotional confrontations between politicians and survivors and their families, as well as a public-opinion shift in favor of stricter gun laws could spur Congress to do something to tighten access to guns. But don't expect Congress to do something big. The party that tends to support looser gun laws controls both chambers, and President Trump has appeared to double down on a pro-gun position to arm some teachers. (Phillips, 2/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Background-Checks Bill Runs Into Hurdles In Congress
Legislation designed to improve background checks for gun purchases ran into new hurdles Monday, raising doubts about lawmakers’ ability to act in the wake of the Florida school shooting. The background-checks bill, sponsored  by Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), would encourage states and federal agencies, including the military, to submit criminal-conviction records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. That step has broad bipartisan support. (Peterson and Bender, 2/26)

Sacramento Bee: California Lawmakers Push New Gun Restrictions After The Parkland Shooting
In the aftermath of the Florida high school shooting that left 17 people dead on Valentine’s Day, state lawmakers are introducing 10 new bills to increase gun control in California — home to some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. (Deruy, 2/26)

Politico: Trump Says He Is 'Writing Out' Bump Stocks
President Donald Trump said Monday he is “writing out” so-called bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to mimic the firing speed of fully automatic weapons. “Bump stocks, we are writing that out. I am writing that out,” he said, addressing a group of state governors at the White House. “I don’t care if Congress does it or not, I’m writing it out myself." (Alexander, 2/26)

Stateline: Limits On Federal Gun Research Spur States To Step In
As deaths from mass shootings have mounted across the United States, some states are moving to collect hard data to guide their decisions about guns — even as the federal government has retreated from such research in the face of pressure from pro-gun groups. The New Jersey Legislature, for example, is weighing a measure that would create a gun-violence research center at Rutgers University. The center would be modeled on the new Firearm Violence Prevention Research Center at the University of California at Davis, which launched last summer with $5 million in state money over five years. (Ollove, 2/27)

Reuters: Twenty States Sue Federal Government, Seeking End To Obamacare
A coalition of 20 U.S. states sued the federal government on Monday over Obamacare, claiming the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal last year of its requirement that people have health insurance or pay a fine. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, the lawsuit said that without the individual mandate, which was eliminated as part of the Republican tax law signed by President Donald Trump in December, Obamacare was unlawful. (Beech, 2/27)

Politico: 20 States Sue Over Obamacare Mandate — Again
The GOP tax law "eliminated the tax penalty of the ACA, without eliminating the mandate itself,” the states argue in a complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas. “What remains, then, is the individual mandate, without any accompanying exercise of Congress’s taxing power, which the Supreme Court already held that Congress has no authority to enact." The Supreme Court in 2012 upheld Obamacare’s individual mandate in one of the highest-profile court cases in years. The justices did not agree then with the Obama administration’s main argument that the mandate penalty was valid under the Commerce Clause. But the justices did say that the mandate was a constitutional tax. (Haberkorn, 2/26)

In other national health care news —

Stat: Drug Makers Lobby For Antibiotic Incentives In Pandemic Preparedness Bill
A big legislative package due for renewal later this year could include hundreds of millions of dollars of drug incentives — and the medical community is already jostling to shape its contents. The Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act, a 2013 update of a 2006 law, is slated to end in September. It helps fund disaster-response initiatives such as vaccines for smallpox, diagnostic tests for influenza, and hospital programs to treat victims of a nuclear attack. (Swetlitz, 2/27)

The Associated Press: Flu Shot Doesn't Cause Influenza Epidemic
You can't get the flu from a flu shot. And public health officials aren't blaming the vaccine for causing this season's nasty epidemic. Some "natural" health websites have misrepresented remarks of a Wisconsin county public health nurse, Anna Treague, who was trying to explain to a local newspaper why this year's influenza vaccine was not as effective as other years. (2/26)

The Washington Post: The Heart Skips A Beat With Palpitations But It May Not Be Serious
You might feel them as skipped heartbeats or unusually forceful beats. One friend describes her heart palpitations as a soft fluttering that starts in her chest, moves to her neck and sometimes makes her cough. Another says her heart feels as if it’s flipping over in her chest. Mine come in a “pause-thump” pattern that occasionally make me lightheaded. “Heart palpitations” is a catchall term used to describe anything unusual that people feel in the rhythms of their hearts. And pretty much everyone has them at some point, said Gregory Marcus, a cardiac electrophysiologist at the University of California at San Francisco. (Sohn, 2/26)

The Washington Post: Autism Connection To Ultrasound Seems Unlikely, Study Says
Ultrasounds during pregnancy can be lots of fun, offering peeks at the baby-to-be. But ultrasounds aren’t just a way to get Facebook fodder. They are medical procedures that involve sound waves, technology that could, in theory, affect a growing fetus. With that concern in mind, some researchers have wondered if the rising rates of autism diagnoses could have anything to do with the increasing number of ultrasound scans that women receive during pregnancy. (Sanders, 2/26)

Kaiser Health News: Following The Fire: Montana Scientists Seize Chance To Scrutinize Smoke Exposure
Jean Loesch and her family live in Seeley Lake, Mont., which saw the longest and most intense smoke from Montana’s wildfires last summer. Loesch has 10 children, adopted or in her foster care, and they are learning what it’s like to have lingering respiratory problems. The smoke from the fires was so thick outside, Loesch said, the family couldn’t see the trees across the street, so they stayed inside. It was still really hard to breathe. (Saks, 2/27)