The Intersection: Valley Medicaid Recipients, Providers Face ‘Worst Case Scenario’ With One Big Beautiful Bill Passage
San Joaquin Valley residents who rely on Medicaid – either for their own vital healthcare or to take care of loved ones – are facing their “worst case scenario” as they prepare for $1 trillion in cuts to the program now that President Trump has signed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” With narrow passage along party lines, the Republican-backed law is estimated to result in some 3.4 million Californians losing coverage, according to numbers from state health officials. Those losses will likely be acutely felt in the Valley, where across the eight-county swath from San Joaquin to Kern more than 51% of the population relies on Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in state, for their health insurance. (Rowland, 7/29)

Roll Call: Judge Shields All Planned Parenthood Clinics From Defunding 
A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction blocking language in the GOP budget reconciliation law that made Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid reimbursements for one year. (Raman, 7/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Medicare Part D Drug Plan Premiums Set To Rise
Premiums for Medicare drug plans are set to increase sharply next year, due to rising costs, regulatory changes and cutbacks to a subsidy program. The subsidy program, which sent extra federal funds to the private insurers that offer the drug benefit—known as Part D—had largely shielded seniors from rising monthly bills in 2025. (Mathews and Essley Whyte, 7/28)

MedPage Today: Here's Who Made This Year's List Of Top Hospitals
The latest "Best Hospitals" rankings from U.S. News & World Report have been released, with familiar facilities largely comprising the top-performing Honor Roll. Included on the list are: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles; Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, California; UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles; and UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco.

Becker's Hospital Review: Healthcare's Surprise Tech Hit From 49 Leaders
Emerging technology is becoming increasingly crucial to the efficiency and success of health systems. Forty-nine healthcare leaders spoke with Becker’s about the emerging technology that has surprised them the most. (King, 7/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Made It Easier To File Complaints About Homelessness
San Francisco has made it easier for residents to report concerns about homeless people who are causing disturbances that don’t involve pitching a tent on the sidewalk. The city’s 311 app for non-emergency complaints now prompts residents who file reports about homelessness to choose between two categories: one that relates to encampments and one that does not. It’s an attempt to help City Hall get better data about issues with unhoused people and ensure the resources dispatched by the city correspond to the specific problems outlined in residents’ reports, officials say. (Morris, 7/29)

LAist: LA’s New Top Homelessness Official Draws Support And Concerns About Prosecutor Past
A longtime Los Angeles city prosecutor will serve as temporary head of the region’s homeless services agency, but critics argue she has a history of enforcing policies that “criminalize and displace” unhoused people. Gita O’Neill was appointed last week by commissioners of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. She will replace former chief executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who stepped down last week. (Schrank, 7/29)

Los Angeles Times: Despite New Sales Tax To Reduce Homelessness, LAHSA Cuts Back An Effective Path To Housing
When people walked into the Downtown Women’s Center in Skid Row seeking help, the organization often turned to a lifeline. The center enrolled people in a temporary housing subsidy designed to help homeless individuals pay rent for a limited time while they get back on their feet. Lately, that’s not an option. (Khouri, 7/29)

The Oaklandside: Lead In OUSD Schools: Emails Reveal Panic Among School Leaders
A glance at the agenda for Oakland’s first school board meeting last August reveals nothing out of the ordinary. ... But when the meeting opened up to public comment, it suddenly became clear that a scandal was unfolding. ... “The other day, we got a report that the children at the school could no longer drink the water at our school,” [Frick United Academy of Language counselor Catherine Cotter] said. “As a school counselor, I have to raise up any inequities that I see; that’s my job. We are demanding safe drinking water for our students immediately, transparency about what’s happening, and why we were not told this until the other day.” (McBride and Rhoades, 7/28)

Berkeleyside: What Could Changes To California' CEQA Mean For Berkeley?
Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law last month, reforming a landmark California environmental law that has been in place since the 1970s. The bills, led in part by two Bay Area legislators, tackle reforms to The California Environmental Quality Act, often known as CEQA, which requires developers to assess the potential environmental harm of proposed development and require mitigation if necessary. Housing advocates had long argued that the law’s requirements hampered development and contributed to the state’s housing crisis. The two so-called “trailer bills” — which accompanied the state budget bill — created exemptions to CEQA with the goal of reducing barriers to building housing and other urban development. (Rhoades, 7/28)

Bloomberg: EPA To Abolish US Government Authority To Regulate Greenhouse Gases
The Trump administration is set to announce its plans to abolish the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, threatening to strike a deep blow at Washington’s ability to fight climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a proposal as early as Tuesday to scrap a landmark determination that planet-warming gases endanger public health and welfare, according to people familiar with the matter. If finalized, the move would lay the foundation to unwind a host of regulations limiting emissions from power plants, oil wells and automobiles. (Natter and Dlouhy, 7/28)

The Washington Post: Overdose Deaths Declined For 15 Consecutive Months Starting In 2023
Beginning in August 2023, drug overdose deaths declined for 15 consecutive months, according to research published in JAMA. Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau, the analysis of drug overdose death rates was conducted from January 2015 to October 2024. Over 800,000 United States residents — 68 percent of them male with a median age of 42 — died of a drug overdose during the study period. (McMahan, 7/28)

Stat: Trump Order Threatens Supervised Consumption, Harm Reduction
President Trump is threatening to withhold funds from supervised drug consumption sites and potentially pursue criminal penalties against them, offering his clearest stance yet against the philosophy of harm reduction and marking a significant escalation of his rhetoric on substance use and addiction. (Facher, 7/25)

The Washington Post: FDA To Announce Crackdown On Synthetic Substance Derived From Kratom 
Health officials plan to announce measures Tuesday to crack down on an opioid-like substance found in tablets, gummies and drinkable shots commonly sold in convenience stores. The Department of Health and Human Services said in an advisory that it is targeting potentially dangerous products made of 7-OH, a potent substance synthesized from a compound in the kratom leaf, which grows on trees native to Southeast Asia. The Food and Drug Administration, researchers and kratom companies have grown increasingly alarmed by the rise of 7-OH products they say are distinct from all-natural plant teas and powders. (Ovalle, 7/29)

MedPage Today: Vaping Up Slightly While Heavy Alcohol Use Down A Little, SAMHSA Report Finds
Nicotine vaping has increased slightly over the past few years in the U.S., while binge drinking and heavy alcohol use were both slightly down, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The percentage of people ages 12 years and older who said they had vaped nicotine in the past month increased from 8.3% in 2022 to 9.6% in 2024, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). (Frieden, 7/28)

Stat: NIH Is Shrinking The Number Of Research Grants It Funds 
The National Institutes of Health plans to shrink the share of grant applications it will award for the remaining two months of the fiscal year due to a new Trump administration policy — in some cases, by more than half compared to the previous year. (Chen, Molteni and Oza, 7/29)

Fierce Healthcare: Feds Release Hepatitis C Care Model, $100M In Funding Available
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching an integrated care model to tackle hepatitis C, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a news release Monday. Through the Hepatitis C Elimination Initiative Pilot, the model will address “critical risk factors like substance use, mental health challenges and homelessness head-on,” said RFK Jr. in a statement. (Tong, 7/28)

The Hill: RFK Jr. Lashes Out At Vaccine Injury Program, Pledges Changes
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday he is working to overhaul the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which is aimed at compensating people who have been injured by vaccines. “The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it. I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals,” Kennedy wrote in a lengthy post on social platform X. Kennedy has long targeted the VICP, and his X post echoed many of his previous arguments. (Weixel, 7/28)

Military.com: VA Health Nominee Pledges To Find 'Balance' Between Treatment At VA Centers And Private Facilities
The nominee to lead the Veterans Health Administration hopes to streamline Veterans Affairs medical care so patients face fewer obstacles when they seek treatment, whether at a VA facility or with a community provider. During his confirmation hearing for VA under secretary for health, Air Force Reserve Maj. Gen. John Bartrum addressed the ongoing debate over the future of VA health care -- the role the federal government has in managing and providing care for veterans, either within VA facilities or by paying private doctors. (Kime, 7/28)