KQED: Proposition 1 Update: Gavin Newsom’s Mental Health Plan Maintains Slim Lead
California voters, by a thin margin, are favoring Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $6.4 billion plan to build mental health treatment beds and housing through a ballot measure that he characterizes as critical to addressing the state’s homelessness crisis. Proposition 1 is a two-part ballot initiative. It includes a bond to build treatment facilities and permanent supportive housing for people with mental health and addiction challenges. It also proposes changes to a longstanding tax on personal incomes over $1 million, known as the Mental Health Services Act, by requiring counties to spend 30% of that revenue on housing instead of other services. (Hwang and Kuang, 3/11)

ABC7 San Francisco: California Lawmakers Propose Bill To Keep Medical Debt From Impacting Credit Scores
California lawmakers are working on a bill that promises to protect residents from having their credit rating affected by unpaid medical debt. State Sen. Monique Limon introduced Senate Bill 1061 which aims to ban healthcare providers, collection agencies and credit reporting agencies from sharing a person's medical debt. Credit reporting agencies would also be prohibited from accepting or storing that kind of information. (Hayes, 3/11)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Petaluma Health Center Lays Off 32 Staff, Including 8 Medical Workers, As COVID-19 Dollars Run Out
Petaluma Health Center has laid off 32 employees hired during the pandemic after the federal COVID-19 funding that covered their jobs ran out late last year, the provider said Monday. (Espinoza, 3/11)

Sacramento Business Journal: Kaiser Files Railyards Hospital Plan With City 
Kaiser Permanente is making big moves toward fulfilling its plan to build a hospital in the Sacramento Railyards. (Hamann, 3/11)

Modern Healthcare: Unions Try To Enforce Nurse Staffing Agreements With HCA, Kaiser
Unions at health systems including HCA Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente also say they have run into issues with enforcing staffing agreements. However, the unions still think contract language that dictates staffing grids and ratios provides a valuable framework for nurses to tackle staffing issues with hospital leadership. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which represents more than 85,000 workers, has had staffing language in its contracts with the health system for more than a decade. Its 2023 contract—which followed the largest strike in healthcare history last fall—added timelines for hitting staffing goals in every department by August 2025, bi-weekly meetings with union and health system leaders and an oversight committee, said Caroline Lucas, executive director of the coalition. (Devereaux, 3/11)

Los Angeles Times: Feds Won't Reimburse California $300 Million For Homeless Housing Amid COVID. Congress Wants Answers
California cities and counties might be on the hook for more than $300 million they spent placing thousands of homeless residents in hotels in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, local officials made the unprecedented move under the impression that the federal government would reimburse much of their cost for offering shelter, without time limits, to unhoused people at elevated risk of severe symptoms. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency says that they were mistaken and that the agency had only agreed to pay for hotel stays of up to 20 days. (Castillo, 3/12)

Voice Of San Diego: Escondido Is Turning Up The Heat On Its Only Homeless Shelter Provider 
North County homeless services provider Interfaith Community Services is worried about its future in Escondido. Late last month, Escondido’s chief of police notified the nonprofit’s CEO that he was referring two of their properties to the city attorney’s office for violations related to trash, loitering, increased calls for service and more.  (Layne, 3/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: The Homeless Population Downtown Just Hit A Two-Year Low. The Result Is A Mixed Bag. 
The number of people living outside or in vehicles downtown has plunged to a two-year low as San Diego officials enforce the city’s camping ban and push for new shelters. (Nelson, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Marcia Fudge To Step Down As HUD Secretary At End Of Month 
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge will step down from her role in the Biden administration this month, she announced Monday, saying she had “mixed emotions” about leaving an agency that serves those most frequently left behind. ...In a statement, President Biden praised Fudge as someone whose “transformational leadership” led to lower housing costs and increased housing supply, with more housing units under construction now than at any time in the past 50 years. (Wang, 3/11)

Modesto Bee: UCSF Study Sheds Light On How Long COVID-19 Stays In Blood
A new study, showing the COVID-19 virus may remain in the body more than a year, could help researchers develop a better understanding of so-called long COVID and possible treatments. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, detected pieces of the SARS-CoV-2 in the bloodstream up to 14 months after the person came down with COVID-19, a news release said. (Carlson, 3/11)

Bloomberg: As Covid Spread, A Strain Of Flu Disappeared. Now Scientists Say A Second Could Go, Too
Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming Covid-19’s spread led to the global disappearance of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one. For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage of type B influenza, was struggling to compete before the pandemic and hasn’t been seen since March 2020. (Gale, 3/12)

Modern Healthcare: Biden’s Budget Includes Health Cybersecurity, Insurance Subsidies
The White House released its fiscal 2025 budget blueprint Monday, and its healthcare provisions are very much as President Joe Biden previewed them during his State of the Union address last week. The Health and Human Services Department budget request offers more detail about Biden's plans, including how his administration wants to respond to cyberattacks such as the one that has crippled UnitedHealth Group unit Change Healthcare for nearly three weeks. (McAuliff, 3/11)

The Washington Post: Full transcript of Biden’s special counsel interview paints nuanced portrait
President Biden was in the early stages of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur when the topic of Beau Biden came up — initially with Biden raising it and later as Biden was attempting to get his chronological bearings and wondered aloud when, exactly, it was that his son died. “What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,” he said, naming the correct day, according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed by The Washington Post. Two others in the room chimed in with the year, and Biden questioned, “Was it 2015 when he died?” Not long after the exchange, Hur suggested they consider taking a brief break. “No,” Biden responded, before launching into a long explanation of Beau’s death and its impact on him deciding not to run for president in 2016. “Let me just keep going to get it done.” (Viser, 3/12)

The Washington Post: VA To Expand IVF To Injured Single Veterans And Same-Sex Couples
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday that it will cover in vitro fertilization treatment for qualifying veterans who are single or in same-sex marriages, after it faced legal challenges last year that said its policies were discriminatory. VA had for years covered IVF costs for veterans with injuries and health conditions from their military service that affected their fertility, but only for those who were legally married and able to produce their own eggs and sperm from that relationship. Those benefits will now be extended to veterans regardless of marital status if they have service-connected fertility problems, VA said. (Somasundaram, 3/12)

Military.com: Electronic Health Record System Unveiled At VA And Pentagon's Largest Shared Health Care Facility 
The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs launched a shared electronic health record system at a Chicago hospital on Saturday, completing the military's adoption of the system and moving the VA a step closer to restarting its rollout across its 172 medical centers and clinics. VA officials said the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, which serves more than 75,000 patients per year, adopted the Oracle Cerner electronic health record system -- the first launch for a VA site since it paused the program in April 2023 amid concerns over patient safety, training and user-friendliness. (Kime, 3/11)

Military Times: BROKEN TRACK: Suicides and Suffering In Army’s Exhausted Armor Community
Collin Pattan remembers the winter of 2020. Before the first snow blanketed Fort Carson, Colorado, two members of the Iron Knight battalion were dead: Sgt. Larry Cook, a tanker, died by suicide in April, and Spc. Brian Seely, an intel analyst, killed himself in June. In total, six soldiers from 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment died by suicide in 14 months. (Winkie, 3/11)

Military Times: Doggone Deployment: Navy Carriers Em-‘Bark’ Mental Health Pups
When the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford departed Naval Station Norfolk in May for its first combat deployment, the 23 new technologies installed on the warship weren’t the only novelty aboard the ship. The voyage also marked the very first time an aircraft carrier deployed with a trained dog as part of a new pilot program the Navy is testing to improve morale and lessen the stigma sailors might feel about seeking mental healthcare. (Stancy, 3/12)

The Boston Globe: Pediatricians Fail To Prescribe Life-Saving Medications For Opioid Addiction
The summer before Becca Schmill entered her junior year of high school in 2018, she admitted to her parents that she was self-medicating with opioids and cocaine to cope with the trauma of being raped by a boy she met on social media. Becca’s mother, Deb Schmill of Needham, said she immediately notified Becca’s pediatrician and checked her into an outpatient treatment program for adolescents with substance use problems. Yet ... Becca never received a prescription for buprenorphine — a standard medication for treating opioid addictions. (Serres, 3/11)

Stat: Methadone Treatment Changes Are Coming. Do They Go Far Enough?
The federal government is reforming methadone care for the first time in over two decades. But how far do the changes actually go? To many methadone clinics, the Biden administration’s recent refresh of the rules governing opioid treatment programs represents an unprecedented opportunity to offer care that is more compassionate and responsive to patients’ needs. To many patient advocates, however, it simply nibbles around the edges. (Facher, 3/12)

Stat: Methadone Clinics' Rigid Rules Jeopardize Opioid Addiction Treatment
Every morning, Rebecca Smith, nursing a surgically repaired knee, carefully walks down the hallway of her brutalist brick apartment building, takes the elevator one floor to the lobby, and negotiates the sharply angled driveway outside. There, she waits for an Uber to take her to the last place she wants to go: her methadone clinic. (Facher, 3/12)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Sen. Steve Padilla Introduces Legislation Targeting Industrial Chemicals Flowing Into Tijuana River 
State Sen. Steve Padilla on Monday announced two pieces of legislation he says will address the worsening pollution of the Tijuana River. In addition to the raw sewage that contaminates local watersheds, Padilla wants to assess the role industrial waste plays in cross-border pollution. (Murga. 3/11)

Los Angeles Daily News: State Officials Will Discuss Cleaning Up Groundwater At Santa Susana Field 
The state agency that oversees the cleanup of the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab will host a series of workshops starting on Tuesday, March 12, where residents from the San Fernando and Simi valleys can learn about the conditions of the field’s groundwater near their communities. (Grigoryants, 3/11)

Reuters: FTC, 10 US States Sue 'Sham' Women's Cancer Charity 
The Federal Trade Commission and 10 U.S. states on Monday sued what they called a "sham" charity that raised $18.25 million to help women fight cancer, but spent just $194,809 for that purpose. According to a complaint filed in Houston federal court, telemarketers hired by Women's Cancer Fund and its founder Gregory Anderson lied to tens of thousands of prospective donors by promising their money would "help save lives," and help cash-strapped patients pay for rent, utility bills and food. (Stempel, 3/11)

CalMatters: California Parolee’s Death Reveals Gaps In Mental Health System
Each day someone at Patton State Hospital handed Fredreaka Jack her medication: three pills to manage her schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, one or two for her blood sugar, one for hypertension and one for hypothyroidism. That all changed on April 14, 2022. Jack had been sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree burglary. After successfully petitioning to be paroled into the community, she just had to complete about three months at a state-funded reentry facility known as Walden House and she’d be free. (Lyons, 3/12)

Voice of OC: Costa Mesa Struggles With Just How Many Cannabis Shops City Should Have
Costa Mesa City Council members are grappling with just how many cannabis shops the city should have. It comes after officials recently shot down an application for a new shop in town because the city currently has 9 retail shops as officials raise questions over why a limit wasn’t put in place when cannabis was legalized by voters in 2020.  (Gradillas, 3/12)