Modern Healthcare: Uninsured Rates Lower In States That Run Their Own ACA Exchanges
The average uninsured rate in states that use the federal HealthCare.gov exchange is nearly double that of states that set up their own public health insurance exchanges, data released by the CDC shows.In the first six months of 2017, HealthCare.gov states had an average uninsured rate of 16.1%, while states with their own exchanges—like California and Colorado—had an average uninsured rate of 8.3%. The disparity in coverage in states that use HealthCare.gov and those with state-based exchanges can be explained, at least in part, by Medicaid expansion. (Livingston, 11/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Record Low 6.8% Of Californians Lack Health Insurance, Figures Show
The percentage of Californians without health insurance reached a record low 6.8 percent during the first six months of 2017, according to new estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figure, released Thursday, is down slightly from the 7.2 percent uninsured rate from a year ago, which was at the time a record low — and significantly lower than the 17 percent uninsured rate in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act took effect. (Ho, 11/20)

Sacramento Bee: Hospitals Are Rationing Saline Solution. Patients Are Starting To Worry
Earlier this month, leaders of both the American Hospital Association and the California Hospital Association sent letters about the scarcity of supplies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, asking Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to take any and all steps to resolve the worsening shortages. The treatments, they said, are essential to patient care in hospitals. (Anderson and Sullivan, 11/21)

Los Angeles Times: Drugs Made In Mexican 'Superlabs' Are More Potent Than Ever, Fueling The Addiction Epidemic
Ten years ago, the average gram of meth available in the U.S. was 39% pure. Today, it is being sold in a nearly pure state, manufactured in Mexican "superlabs" and smuggled across the border to feed an epidemic of addiction. The drug is being peddled alongside fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin, and carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer that can kill a human with just a speck or two. (Davis, 11/20)

Los Angeles Times: For Opiate Addiction, Study Finds Drug-Assisted Treatment Is More Effective Than Detox
Say you're a publicly-insured Californian with an addiction to heroin, fentanyl or prescription narcotics, and you want to quit. New research suggests you can do it the way most treatment-seeking addicts in the state do — by undergoing a medically-supervised "detoxification" that's difficult, expensive and highly prone to failure. (Healy, 11/20)

The Mercury News: Nursing Home Residents Have Little Access To Palliative Care, Study Says
In a survey of 228 residents in three northern California nursing homes between January and May 2015, UCSF researchers found that 157 patients (68.8 percent) were eligible for specialized medical care that focuses on improving quality of life for patients with serious illness, known as palliative care. (Seipel, 11/20)

Capital Public Radio: National Health Survey Gathers Data In San Joaquin County
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey is underway in Stockton, operating out of mobile trailers at the Sherwood Mall. ... Researchers are compiling data from more than 500 people as they look at hearing, bone density, cholesterol, diabetes, oral hygiene and more. (Ibarra, 11/20)

In other public health news —

KPCC: ACLU Report Slams Anaheim For High Rate Of Officer-Involved Deaths
Using data collected by the ACLU and from the Mapping Police Violence project, the organization determined that the rate of arrest-related deaths at the hands of Anaheim police officers is higher than the state average and higher than deaths at police agencies in Los Angeles, New York and San Diego. (Replogle, 11/20)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County To Pay UC Davis More Than $98 Million Under Health Care Settlement
UC Davis Health and Sacramento County said Monday that they have reached a settlement agreement of a pending university lawsuit over county payments for health care administered to county indigent residents and jail inmates. (Glover, 11/20)

In other news from across the state —

Modesto Bee: Easier Access To Cancer Treatment: Stanford-Emanuel Center Expands In A Big Way
A treatment center at Turlock’s Emanuel Medical Center now has double the capacity for treating patients with cancer. The Stanford-Emanuel Radiation Oncology Center has added a second linear accelerator for delivering doses of radiation to treat malignant tumors. (Carlson, 11/20)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Fire Erupts At Navy Dental Clinic, Four Burned
A fire erupted at Naval Medical Center San Diego on Monday morning, seriously injuring a patient and three staffers. Federal firefighters responded to the alarm at around 10:30 a.m. and confined the blaze to a single second floor room at the Dental Clinic in Building 1 of the sprawling Navy medical complex. It was extinguished by 11 a.m., according to Navy spokesman Miguel A. Alvarez. (Prine, 11/20)

The Press Democrat: Nurse Turned Petaluma Fairgrounds Into Medical Clinic During Sonoma County Fires
Registered nurse Michelle Patino had no idea that she’d be supervising a mini-hospital when she answered a call for pillows and blankets at the Petaluma Fairgrounds on Oct. 9. Patino, a 43-year-old Petaluma resident, had suited up for her job that morning, but the emergency department at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center where she works had closed because of the Tubbs fire. She hurried the three blocks to the Beverly C. Wilson Hall at the fairgrounds to donate bedding. She ended up staying for the better part of 12 days. (Lawton, 11/20)

Capital Public Radio: California Counties Prepare For Legal Cannabis
Wondering exactly how cannabis legalization is going to happen? We talk with the California State Association of Counties about what their plans are to handle the changes in the law this January. (Remington, 11/20)

The Associated Press: Health Nominee Reaped Big Earnings From Drug Industry Tenure
Newly disclosed financial records show that President Donald Trump's nominee to become Health and Human Services secretary reaped big earnings during his tenure as a top pharmaceutical executive. As a top drug industry veteran from 2007 to 2017, former Eli Lilly and Co. executive Alex Azar built a substantial financial portfolio now worth $9.5 million to $20.6 million, and he was paid nearly $2 million in his final year at the company. (11/20)

The Hill: HHS Nominee Azar Made Millions Working For Drugmaker Lilly
Alex Azar, who was previously president of the U.S. division of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co., has a net worth of at least $8.7 million, according to documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics and analyzed by The Hill. Azar was paid nearly $2 million in his final year at Eli Lilly, according to the documents, which only date back to the previous 12 months. The company also paid him a $1.6 million severance package. (Weixel, 11/20)

Politico: Azar Received Millions From Eli Lilly In Last Year, Disclosures Show
Multiple Senate Democrats, and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have already declared their opposition to Azar's nomination because of his ties to the drug industry. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is set to hold the first confirmation hearing on his nomination Nov. 29. After leaving Indianapolis-based Lilly, Azar leaned heavily on his industry experience to find new work. He collected $46,500 in speaking fees for four events, including ones hosted by the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy and pharma-focused tech company Veeva Systems. Azar also valued his consulting firm's worth at between $15,001 and $50,000. The firm's clientele included the National Pharmaceutical Council and drug company UCB Inc. (Cancryn, 11/20)

The Washington Post: 597 Days. And Still Waiting.
Webster County, Miss. — On the 597th day, the day he hoped everything would change, Joe Stewart woke early. He took 15 pills in a single swallow. He shaved his head. And then he got down to the business of the day, which was the business of every day, and that was waiting. He looked outside, and saw his mother there in a green sedan, engine running. So many months he had waited for this moment, and now it was here. Time for his Social Security disability hearing. Time to go. (McCoy, 11/20)

In other national health care news —

The Hill: Facing 'Hard Decisions,' Health Centers Plead For Restored Funding
Community health centers are scrambling to make contingency plans as they anxiously wait to see if Congress will renew billions of dollars in federal funding that expired on Sept. 30. Often situated in medically underserved areas, the health centers provide care to some 26 million of the nation’s most vulnerable people. They’re required to take any patient who seeks care, regardless of whether they can pay. (Roubein, 11/21)

CQ: Funding Cuts To Hospitals Imminent Unless Congress Acts
Billions of dollars in cuts to a federal program that helps hospitals cover the cost of caring for the uninsured will begin to take effect in a matter of weeks if Congress does not delay them. The House recently included a postponement in cuts to what's known as disproportionate share hospital, or DSH, payments in its bill to reauthorize funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (HR 3922). But the Senate hasn't followed suit thus far, leaving hospitals in the dark about whether they will start to see funding slashed in the first quarter of 2018. (Williams, 11/20)

The New York Times: New Gene Treatment Effective For Some Leukemia Patients
A new way of genetically altering a patient’s cells to fight cancer has helped desperately ill people with leukemia when every other treatment had failed, researchers reported on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. The new approach, still experimental, could eventually be given by itself or, more likely, be used in combination treatments — analogous to antiviral “cocktails” for H.I.V. or multidrug regimens of chemotherapy for cancer — to increase the odds of shutting down the disease. (Grady, 11/20)

The New York Times: Skin Cancers Rise, Along With Questionable Treatments
John Dalman had been in the waiting room at a Loxahatchee, Fla., dermatology clinic for less than 15 minutes when he turned to his wife and told her they needed to leave. Now. “It was like a fight or flight impulse,” he said. His face numbed for skin-cancer surgery, Mr. Dalman, 69, sat surrounded by a half-dozen other patients with bandages on their faces, scalps, necks, arms and legs. (Hafner and Palmer, 11/20)

Stat: Our Bodies Are Full Of Bugs. This MIT Engineer Wants To Manipulate Them To Treat Disease
Our bodies are full of bugs. They’re everywhere, hanging out on our skin, reproducing in our gut, growing on the glistening surface of our eyes. These bacteria, it turns out, don’t just beget other bacteria. They also beget scientific paper after scientific paper, which, in turn, beget headline after headline. But for all our talk of microbiomes, we aren’t all that great at shaping them, says Dr. Timothy Lu, an associate professor of biological engineering and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Boodman, 11/21)