Los Angeles Daily News: 330,000 People In LA County Are Expected To Lose Out On Medi-Cal In April 
As pandemic-era policies come to an end, tens of thousands of Southern Californians are expected to lose out on Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, come April. (Farzan, 2/27)

Axios: Kids Could Soon Fall Off Medicaid Rolls
Almost 7 million children and teens are at risk of losing their health coverage when the public health emergency ends, new estimates from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute show. States in April will begin redetermining Medicaid eligibility as pandemic-inspired coverage requirements lapse and enhanced federal matching funds dry up. (Dreher, 2/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Cerebral To Cut 15% Of Staff In Fresh Round Of Layoffs 
Cerebral Inc. is cutting 15% of its workforce, the latest round of layoffs at the California telehealth startup. The layoffs are part of Cerebral’s yearlong plan to reorganize the company and focus on the services patients want, a spokesman for the company said Monday. The spokesman didn’t say how many jobs would be cut, or what areas would be affected. The layoffs were earlier reported by Business Insider. (Pisani, 2/27)

Reuters: Mental Health Startup Cerebral To Lay Off About 15% Of Workforce
Last October, the company had cut its workforce by 20%. "Affected employees will be fully supported with extended severance pay and benefits, as well as outplacement services," the company said on Monday, without providing details on its staff strength or the number of employees being laid off. (2/27)

Sacramento Business Journal: Kaiser Permanente Announces First Steps On Railyards Hospital 
About 900 people attended the event at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center. (van der Meer, 2/21)

AP: Feds Promise To Trim Backlog Of Health Care Investigations 
Federal officials said Monday they’re working to cut down on a growing backlog of complaints lodged against health care providers, insurers or government agencies by patients who claim their civil rights or privacy have been violated. Americans filed more than 51,000 complaints against health agencies last year, a number that has grown tremendously — 69% — over the last five years, the federal Health and Human Services agency announced. Some complaints can take years to investigate. (Seitz, 2/27)

Roll Call: Surprise-Billing Lawsuits Slow Payments Processes
A year after the Biden administration implemented Congress' law to ban surprise medical bills, the policy particulars are still caught up in litigation, and lawsuits are preventing insurers and hospitals from settling out-of-network disputes. (Cohen, 2/27)

CapRadio: Home Care Workers Could Get More Bargaining Power With Proposed Bill 
A new bill proposed in the California legislature would allow in-home care workers to bargain with the state for better working conditions, instead of on a county-by-county basis. Over 650,000 people who are elderly, disabled or sight impaired rely on home care aides to help them with daily tasks through the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program, or IHSS. These tasks include bathing, dressing, eating, cleaning and cooking. About 550,000 work through IHSS and most are women of color, according to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute. (Wolffe, 2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. To Create Court For Severely Mentally Ill People. Will It Work?
When Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced the idea of creating a new system to get more of California’s mentally ill homeless people into treatment and housing, he said he was driven by his outrage about people dying on San Francisco’s streets. The Legislature passed Newsom’s bill, and now San Francisco is among the first batch of counties tasked with launching the program by Oct. 1. Dubbed CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment) Court, the program could refer hundreds of people in San Francisco to court-ordered care plans, offering hope to families who’ve long struggled to get their loved ones into care, but drawing opposition from disability and civil rights advocates. (Moench, 2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: CDC Death Certificate Guidance Now Includes Long COVID
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has expanded in its guidance for certifying deaths due to the coronavirus to include complications of long COVID. “Emerging evidence suggests that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection,” the new guidance says. (Vaziri, 2/27)

Politico: Still No Consensus On Covid’s Origins, White House Says
The U.S. government still has not reached a consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic started, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday — despite news reports that the Energy Department has concluded the virus most likely leaked from a lab in China. “The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” Kirby said. “There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say — nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here. What the president wants is facts.” (McCarthy, 2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Former CDC Director Says “People Will Realize” Virus Came From Lab
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Trump administration, on Monday backed a controversial reported assessment from the Department of Energy “low confidence” finding that COVID-19 likely began with a lab leak in Wuhan, China. U.S. media organizations cited unnamed sources saying the department had such a report based on new intelligence. (Vaziri, 2/27)

Orange County Register: Report Finds Substantial Increase In Orange County Homeless Deaths
Deaths among those in Orange County’s homeless community have risen substantially over the past decade as the number of accidental deaths has begun outpacing natural ones, according to a county report released on Monday. The Homeless Death Review Committee found that deaths among the local homeless rose from 103 in 2012 to 395 in 2021, with drugs becoming the leading cause of death. (Emery, 2/27)

The Mercury News: After Nearly Two-Month Delay, Judge Lets Oakland Remove Homeless Camp
A federal judge on Monday ruled the city can resume efforts to remove dozens of people from a large homeless camp in West Oakland, ending a nearly two-month courtroom battle over the camp’s fate. The city has demonstrated it now has enough shelter beds for everyone who will be displaced by the camp’s closure, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled. (Kendall, 2/27)

The Imprint: Grappling With Homelessness, California Weighs Extending Foster Care For 5 Years
California lawmakers will soon weigh legislation that would extend the nation’s largest foster care system by five years for some youth, making it the first state in the nation to offer housing, financial and caseworker support to young adults through age 26. (Loudenback, 2/28)

The Bakersfield Californian: Public Health Seeks Supervisors' OK To Put STD Message On Dating App 
Amid a recent county surge in HIV and STD infections, Kern health officials plan to roll out an ad campaign on Grindr, a dating app designed for gay, bisexual and transgender men. (Donegan, 2/27)

Bay Area Reporter: LGBTQ Agenda: Survey Says Bisexuals Make Up Most Of The Rainbow Umbrella 
The percentage of American adults self-reporting as non-heterosexuals remained steady last year — and almost three-fifths of those are bisexual, a Gallup survey found. The survey results, released February 22, were based on phone conversations with 10,000 people in 2022.The survey found 86% of adults identified as heterosexual, 7.2% as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or "something else, allowing them to choose multiple identities," and 7% declined to answer. (Ferrannini, 2/28)

Los Angeles Times: Democrats And Republicans Are Greatly Split On Gun Control 
Following two high-profile mass shootings in California, the majority of voters surveyed in a new statewide poll said they worry that gun violence will affect them or someone close to them. The survey also revealed a stark political divide over fear about gun violence among Californians, and of the disproportional concern among women, city residents and people of color in the state. (Wiley, 2/28)

Los Angeles Times: ACLU Asks Judge To Hold Sheriff In Contempt For Jail Conditions 
The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge Monday to find Los Angeles County, the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Robert Luna in contempt of court for failing to fix “appalling” conditions in local jails. In a 27-page motion detailing the jails’ “systemic failures,” lawyers with the civil rights organization — which is representing inmates in a long-standing class-action lawsuit — accused the county of flouting court orders by chaining inmates to benches and gurneys for hours at a time, locking people in cells covered with trash and feces, and leaving them to sleep on crowded intake center floors with nothing but plastic bags to keep warm. (Blakinger, 2/27)

San Bernardino Sun: Man Who Sold Fatal Dose Of Fentanyl To Temecula College Student Gets 9 Years In Federal Prison
Matt Capelouto stood in the Riverside courtroom of federal Judge Jesus G. Bernal on Monday, Feb. 27, clutching a blue urn containing the ashes of his daughter, Alexandra. He was there to address the man who sold Alexandra the fentanyl that killed her. (Nelson, 2/27)

inewsource: San Diego Mom Says SDUSD Owes Her Thousands For Son's Education
For the past year, Heather Russell has home-schooled her son Ethan, who is nonverbal and, in his 17 years, has had a heart attack, 23 surgeries, and is living with cerebral palsy and floating harbor syndrome, an extremely rare disease that causes delayed bone growth and intellectual disabilities. Russell took on that role because she didn’t want her son to be exposed to COVID-19 at school, and San Diego Unified wasn’t meeting his needs through virtual education, she said. (Briseño, 2/27)

Stat: One Type Of Artificial Sweetener May Increase Heart Attack Risk, Preliminary Study Says
The sweetener erythritol, which is becoming increasingly popular in snack bars and low-sugar ice cream substitutes, may increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, according to a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. (Herper, 2/27)

The Mercury News: FDA Warns Of Guillain-Barre Syndrome As Possible Risk Of Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration has flagged Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition, as a potential risk for Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. Two people in their 60s who received the shot were diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, out of about 20,000 vaccine recipients who participated in Pfizer’s Phase 3 clinical trial, according to the FDA document. One person’s illness had completely resolved after three months, while the other continues to show signs of improvement six months later. (Schladebeck, 2/27)

Fox News: Wearable Fitness Trackers With Sensing Technology Could Interfere With Implantable Cardiac Devices: Study
Many people use fitness trackers, such as smartwatches, as part of achieving a healthy lifestyle — but some cardiac patients should be aware of the risks. Some smart scales, smart rings and wearable fitness devices that use "bioimpedance," a sensing technology that emits a tiny unnoticeable electrical current into the body, may interfere with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs), like pacemakers and defibrillators, according to a new study. (Sudhakar, 2/27)