Sacramento Bee: Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee Talks About Obamacare, Millennials And Premium Increases 
Starting Tuesday, Nov. 1, through Jan. 31, Californians who don’t have employer-based health insurance or Medicare can sign up for health insurance through the state’s marketplace, Covered California. That’s the easy news. As Covered California launches its fourth annual sign-up season under the federal Affordable Care Act, health care coverage is as contentious as ever, both in presidential debates and in national headlines. Covered California has already posted average premium increases of 13.2 percent, compared with a nationwide average of 25 percent. (Buck, 10/31)

KPBS: Open Enrollment Underway For Covered California
Hold onto your stethoscopes: it's open enrollment time for Covered California. From now until the end of January 2017, consumers can renew their health insurance coverage, switch plans, or newly enroll through the state's health insurance exchange. This year, the Covered California website has an upgraded shopping tool that allows consumers to compare up to 12 health plans at once. Consumers can filter their choices by quality ratings, out-of-pocket costs, plan type and other options. (Goldberg, 11/1)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Covered California Open Enrollment Starts Tuesday 
Covered California’s fourth open-enrollment season has arrived with a measure of sticker shock for the health insurance exchange’s 1.3 million enrollees. For the first time next year, many Obamacare premiums are increasing by double digits, and Tuesday begins a three-month period when consumers can change their coverage for 2017. Dec. 15 is the last day to make changes for those who want their 2017 coverage to begin on New Year’s Day, but changes with later start dates can still be made through Jan. 31. (Sisson, 10/31)

Los Angeles Times: The Tobacco Tax Campaign Has Reached $100 Million. But This Time Something's Different
Never before have tobacco companies spent so much trying to defeat a cigarette tax hike in California. The $71 million raised by opponents of this year’s Proposition 56, which would add a $2 per pack tax on cigarettes, to date tops the industry’s totals in 2006 and 2012, when R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris successfully knocked down previous tobacco tax hikes at the ballot. But unlike those previous failed campaigns, proponents of this tobacco tax hike have done a lot more to match the industry’s dollars. (Dillon, 11/1)

Reveal: Disabled And Disenfranchised: Families Fight To Restore Voting Rights 
Across the country, thousands of people with appointed guardians routinely lose the right to vote. More than 7,300 lost the right to vote due to “mental incompetence” between 2012 and 2014 alone, according to federal survey data collected from 33 states by the Election Assistance Commision. Ten states automatically ban anyone declared mentally incompetent from voting. Among them is Missouri, which restricted more voters than any other state, rescinding the rights of close to 2,000 people for mental incompetence in those election years. (Walter, 10/31)

The Modesto Bee: Valley Children’s Specialty Care Center Planned In North Modesto 
Valley Children’s Hospital of Madera County has unveiled plans for a specialty care center on Pelandale Avenue in north Modesto. Calling it a major investment in the patients and families it serves in Modesto, Valley Children’s said the first phase will encompass 36,000 square feet and offer outpatient services in 11 medical specialties, including pediatric cardiology, endocrinology, metabolic genetics, neurology and urology. The $25 million center could open in summer 2018. (Carlson, 10/31)

Los Angeles Times: Women In California Can Legally Get Birth Control Without A Prescription. But For Many, It's A Struggle
For many women in California, a new law that was supposed to make getting birth control easier has been a little disappointing. Under the law, women should be able to go to a pharmacy without a doctor’s prescription and pick up hormonal contraception, including pills and patches. Although the legislation was passed in 2013, women still struggle to find pharmacists who will dole out the medicines. (Karlamangla, 10/31)

In other women's health news —

Orange County Register: More Women Decide That Babies Can Wait, Census Finds
Teenage pregnancy and birthrates continue to fall. And as female millennials outpace their male peers in education – and the cost of housing soars – growing numbers are prioritizing their careers and personal happiness over having children and starting families. New census data show overall birthrates are continuing to decline, as women increasingly delay pregnancy until their mid-30s or later. (Leung, 10/31)

The New York Times: For Melinda Gates, Birth Control Is Women’s Way Out Of Poverty
Melinda Gates has made providing poor women in developing countries access to contraception a mission. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she leads with her husband, has donated more than $1 billion for family planning efforts and will spend about $180 million more this year. Since 2012, she has helped lead an international campaign to get birth control to 120 million more women by 2020. (Dugger, 11/1)

Los Angeles Times: Does The Soda Industry Manipulate Research On Sugary Drinks' Health Effects?
One hundred percent. That is the probability that a published study that finds no link between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and poorer metabolic health was underwritten by the makers of sugar-sweetened beverages, or authored by researchers with financial ties to that industry. (Healy, 10/31)

Los Angeles Times: Accepting More Facebook Friend Requests Is Linked To Lower Mortality, Study Says
Think online social networks have no bearing on your real life? Think again. Scientists who studied Facebook activity and mortality rates of registered California voters found that people who received many friend requests were far less likely to die over a two-year period than those who did not. Initiating friend requests, however, seemed to have no effect on death rates whatsoever. (Khan, 10/31)

Los Angeles Times: Mobile Devices In The Bedroom Rob Kids Of Sleep, Study Says
Good night, sleep tight, and don’t look into that tablet light. Dads and moms who are concerned about the quantity and quality of their children’s sleep should keep mobile devices like phones, tablets and laptops out of kids’ bedrooms, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. (Netburn, 10/31)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Sober College To Help Students In Recovery Stay On Track 
Overcoming alcohol or drug addiction is hard enough, but college students going through recovery can face the extra burden of falling behind in their studies and potentially dropping out of school in frustration. Sober College, a program coming to San Diego in the late fall, helps students in recovery stay on track to graduation by offering higher education courses and up to 15 units they can transfer to other schools. “A lot of reasons why kids that age wouldn’t want to go to treatment is because they think, ‘Oh, I’ll have to take a full year of school off, and how’s that going to look on my transcript?’” said Rachel Sanders, vice president of Academic Affairs at Sober College. (Warth, 10/31)

In other public health news —

Los Angeles Times: A Neuropsychiatrist Explains Why We Crave Fear
Each Halloween, we are reminded that we are a nation divided. Some of us think going to an amusement park and being chased by people dressed as zombies is a really fun way to spend a Saturday night. Others think that sounds like torture. So why do some people love to be scared, while others find it so frightening? (Netburn, 10/31)

The Mercury News: Safeway Teams Up With Weight Loss Clinic Inside 5 Bay Area Stores
Could a trip to the grocery store help you lose weight? A unique partnership between five Bay Area Safeway stores and a longtime Southern California medical weight loss firm is giving it a try. The Pleasanton-based supermarket chain is doing what some weight-challenged consumers might call the unthinkable: leasing space to Lean for Life by Lindora Clinic adjacent to in-store pharmacies at Safeways in San Jose, Menlo Park, Danville, Dublin and Livermore. (Seipel, 10/31)

In other news from across the state —

East Bay Times: Hayward Man Who Blew Himself Up At Oakland Clinic Identified 
A wheelchair-bound man who blew himself up with a pipe bomb two weeks ago at an East Oakland health clinic was identified by authorities Monday as Ralph Mark Harris, 60, of Hayward. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office said they had no occupation listed for Harris. The case is being investigated as a suicide but has not yet been officially classified, officials said. (Harris, 10/31)

The Hill: House Dems Push Back Against GOP ObamaCare Lawsuit 
House Democrats on Monday accused Republicans of an “end-run around the law” as they pushed back on a GOP lawsuit against ObamaCare. House Democrats filed a brief in federal court defending the Obama administration in a lawsuit, House v. Burwell, brought by House Republicans. The GOP argues that certain ObamaCare payments are being made unconstitutionally because Congress has not appropriated the money.  (Sullivan, 10/31)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Is High-Deductible Health Insurance Worth The Risk?
As companies push workers to pay more for their medical care, millions of employees are facing a tough decision, choosing between high premiums and high deductibles. The choice is this: Pay more every month for peace of mind later, or pay less and run the risk of having higher out-of-pocket costs down the line. (Abelson, 10/31)

The New York Times: Also-Ran To EpiPen Reaches For A Closing Window Of Opportunity
As the list price of a pair of EpiPen devices soared to more than $600 this summer, people scurried to find alternatives, occasionally throwing caution to the wind. Some bought cheap syringes filled with epinephrine, the medication in EpiPens; others made homemade auto-injectors, following the steps in a popular YouTube video. Few people, though, have turned to the one true alternative — known by the brand name Adrenaclick. (Thomas, 11/1)

Bloomberg: Valeant Ex-CEO, Ex-CFO Are A Focus Of U.S. Criminal Probe 
U.S. prosecutors are focusing on Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s former CEO and CFO as they build a fraud case against the company that could yield charges within weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Authorities are looking into potential accounting fraud charges related to the company’s hidden ties to Philidor Rx Services LLC, a specialty pharmacy company that Valeant secretly controlled, the people said. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan and agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York have been investigating the company for at least a year. (Berthelsen, Farrell, Weinberg and Koons, 10/31)

The New York Times: Colombia Is Hit Hard By Zika, But Not By Microcephaly
This tropical city on the Caribbean coast may hold the answer to one of the deeper mysteries of the Zika epidemic: Why has the world’s second-largest outbreak, after Brazil’s, produced so few birth defects? In Brazil, more than 2,000 babies have been born with microcephaly, abnormally small heads and brain damage caused by the Zika virus. In Colombia, officials had predicted there might be as many as 700 such babies by the end of this year. There have been merely 47. (McNeil and Symmes Cobb, 10/31)

The New York Times: Americans Blame Obesity On Willpower, Despite Evidence It’s Genetic
Americans believe that obesity is the biggest health threat in the nation today — bigger even than cancer. But though scientific research shows that diet and exercise are insufficient solutions, a large majority say fat people should be able to summon the willpower to lose weight on their own. (Kolata, 11/1)