Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: Health Care Package Gets Gov. Brown’s Signature, ‘Public Option’ Still In The Cards 
Gov. Jerry Brown signed five bills this weekend that seek to make health care more accessible to low and middle income Californians. The package came from lawmakers and advocates who want to see all Californians insured. (Caiola, 9/24)

KPCC: LA Officials Fear Trump Immigration Proposal Could Prompt Local Families To Drop Public Benefits 
A new Trump administration proposal seeks to greatly expand the list of public programs that, if immigrants participate in them, could allow officials to deny their application for permanent legal residency. Local officials say they're worried immigrant families could drop out of public medical, food or housing programs and endure untreated illness or hunger, even if the rule does not affect them. (Berenstein Rojas, 9/24)

California Healthline: 5 Things To Know About Trump’s New ‘Public Charge’ Immigration Proposal 
A proposed rule from the White House would make it harder for legal immigrants to get green cards if they have received certain kinds of public assistance — including Medicaid, food stamps and housing subsidies. Green cards allow them to live and work permanently in the United States. “Those seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can support themselves financially,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. (Luthra, 9/25)

Reuters: Facebook Not Protecting Content Moderators From Mental Trauma: Lawsuit
A former Facebook Inc contract employee filed a lawsuit in California, alleging that content moderators who face mental trauma after reviewing distressing images on the platform are not being properly protected by the social networking company. Facebook moderators under contract are "bombarded" with "thousands of videos, images and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder," the lawsuit said. (Vengattil and Babu, 9/24)

The Washington Post: A Content Moderator Says She Got PTSD While Reviewing Images Posted On Facebook
The suit by former moderator Selena Scola, who worked at Facebook from June 2017 until March, alleges that she witnessed thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence “from her cubicle in Facebook’s Silicon Valley offices,” where Scola was charged with enforcing the social network’s extensive rules prohibiting certain types of content on its systems. Scola, who worked at Facebook through a third-party contracting company, developed post-traumatic stress disorder “as a result of constant and unmitigated exposure to highly toxic and extremely disturbing images at the workplace,” the suit says. (Dwoskin, 9/24)

Los Angeles Times: Former Content Moderator Files Lawsuit Against Facebook, Claims The Job Gave Her PTSD
“Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job,” Korey Nelson, an attorney with Burns Charest LLP, said in a statement. The firm is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. Content moderators tasked with removing posts that violate Facebook’s terms of use watch videos and livestreams of “child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder,” according to the complaint. (Parvini, 9/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Explainer: What Is This “SF Mandates” Healthcare Surcharge On My Restaurant Bill?
San Franciscans may have grown accustomed — in a grumbling, resentful kind of way — to spotting an “S.F. Mandates” surcharge on the bottom of the check they receive from a restaurant. But it still comes as a surprise to visitors from other parts of the country. (Kauffman, 9/24)

In other news from across the state —

Los Angeles Times: West Nile Virus Kills At Least 4 In California, Health Officials Say
At least four people in California have died of West Nile virus this year, state health officials said. The first deaths were reported earlier this month in Glenn and Yuba counties, the officials said. Two other deaths occurred in Placer and Yolo counties. On Monday, Butte County reported a West Nile virus death. The patient who died reported symptoms in August and was between 50 to 70 years old. (Parvini, 9/24)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Oakmont Senior Living Drops Plan To Build Santa Rosa Elder Care Home
Oakmont Senior Living has withdrawn its plan for the company’s fifth senior care center in Fountaingrove, as City Council was considering final approval of the project, a Santa Rosa city planner said. Emerald Isle, which would have housed up to 70 seniors in a 49-unit project, was awaiting council action on an appeal of the Design Review Board’s March approval. The Emerald Isle appeal will no longer go before the council and no other action will be taken until Oakmont either renews its application or submits a revised plan, said Patrick Streeter, a senior planner. Two daughters of an 85-year-old woman who resided at another Oakmont care home that burned to the ground during the October 2017 wildfires had lodged the appeal, alleging the design board’s approval of Emerald Isle was “fatally flawed” and incorrectly concluded it would not adversely affect the health, safety and welfare of the community. (Kovner, 9/24)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: 'Deplorable' Conditions In Two Elder-Care Homes Lead To Charges 
The owners and managers of two San Diego elder-care facilities face a host of misdemeanor charges after inspectors found the residents living in “deplorable" conditions, including scabies and mice infestations in one of the homes and mold in the other, city prosecutors announced Monday. The residents — the charges list 11 victims — ranged in age from 57 to 84 years old. At one home, one victim was found living in a garage without ventilation, while another lived in a tent on the side of the house. All seven residents of that home were suffering from heat exposure when they were found, according to a news release issued by the City Attorney’s Office. (Figueroa, 9/24)

KPBS: Soaring Fentanyl-Related Overdoses Prompt New San Diego Response Team 
A soaring number of fentanyl-related overdoses has prompted the formation of a new Drug Enforcement Administration overdose response team in San Diego County. ... According to the California Department of Public Health, the county’s fentanyl overdose death rate in 2017 was twice the California rate last year, with nearly 150 fentanyl-related fatalities. (Murphy, 9/24)

In other public health news —

Capital Public Radio: As Concussion Concerns Grow, CDC Issues New Guidelines For Treating Student Athletes With Head Injuries 
Concussions in NFL players have caused a major shift in rules and safety standards for California school sports. Now, the state’s doctors are changing the way they care for student athletes after hard blows to the head. This month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new federal guidelines for youth traumatic brain injury. (Caiola, 9/24)

The New York Times: Brett Kavanaugh, Facing New Allegations, Vows He Will Not Withdraw 
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, facing new allegations of sexual impropriety and growing doubts over his confirmation to the Supreme Court, mounted an aggressive defense of himself on Monday, vowing to fight the “smears” and declaring that he will not withdraw his nomination. With President Trump publicly backing him, and senior Senate Republicans closing ranks around him, Judge Kavanaugh — joined by his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh — gave an extraordinary interview to Fox News that aired Monday evening. He pledged to “defend my integrity, my lifelong record,” and told his interviewer, Martha MacCallum, that he “did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter.” (Stolberg and Edmondson, 9/24)

NPR: Brett Kavanaugh Says 'I'm Not Going Anywhere' Following 2nd Accusation
"We're looking for a fair process where I can be heard and defend my integrity and my lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality for women, starting with the women who knew me when I was 14 years old. I'm not going anywhere," Kavanaugh said. (Naylor, Taylor and Snell, 9/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Rally Around Kavanaugh Nomination
Republicans rallied around embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, vowing Monday to push his confirmation through the Senate even as a new allegation of sexual misconduct emerged days before a hearing on an earlier assault claim. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) took to the Senate floor to call the allegations a “smear campaign” and promise a vote on the Senate floor to confirm the judge “in the near future.” President Trump, in New York for a United Nations meeting Monday, reiterated his support for his second Supreme Court pick, saying, “I am with him all the way.” (Andrews and Peterson, 9/24)

Politico: Kavanaugh Drama Rattles GOP Support
Senate Republicans have gone from confidently predicting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to a new message: It all comes down to Thursday. The GOP is staking Kavanaugh’s prospects to his hearing later this week, when he and Christine Blasey Ford will testify publicly about her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school more than 30 years ago. (Everett and Bresnahan, 9/24)

Politico: Graham: Ford’s Testimony Won’t Change My Vote
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday the testimony of Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser won’t change his mind, no matter what she says. “You can’t bring it in a criminal court, you would never sue civilly, you couldn’t even get a warrant,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace. “What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation? I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know where it happened, and everybody named in regard to being there said it didn’t happen.” (Kullgren, 9/23)

Bloomberg: Gilead To Sell Cheaper Versions Of Drug That Sparked Cost Debate 
Gilead Sciences Inc. will sell cheaper versions of its blockbuster hepatitis C drugs, the original versions of which sparked widespread debate about U.S. pharmaceutical costs when they were introduced at a price of more than $1,000 a pill. The new, cheaper versions of Gilead’s Epclusa and Harvoni will cost $24,000 for a course of treatment, the Foster City, California-based company said in a statement on Monday. When Harvoni came on the market in 2014, Gilead set a list price of $94,500. Epclusa was approved for sale in 2016, with a price of $74,760. (Spalding, 9/24)

The Associated Press: AP Investigation: Drug Prices Going Up Despite Trump Promise
President Donald Trump made reducing drug prices a key promise during his election campaign, repeatedly accusing drugmakers of “getting away with murder.” At the end of May, he promised that drug companies would be announcing “massive” voluntary drug price cuts within two weeks. That hasn’t happened, and an Associated Press analysis of brand-name prescription drug prices shows it’s been business as usual for drugmakers, with far more price hikes than cuts. The number of increases slowed somewhat and were not quite as steep as in past years, the AP found. (Johnson and Forster, 9/24)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Drug Industry Tries To Slip $4 Billion Windfall Into Opioid Bill
Drug companies usually get what they want in public-policy battles on Capitol Hill, but a move by the pharmaceutical industry to grab $4 billion from the federal Treasury in a bill that is supposed to address the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic is meeting fierce resistance. At issue is a small measure that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, has deemed a “technical correction” to a bipartisan budget law signed by President Trump in February. The law required drug manufacturers to provide deeper discounts to Medicare beneficiaries whose spending on prescription drugs falls within a range called the coverage gap, or the “doughnut hole.” The discount, now 50 percent on brand-name drugs, is set to rise next year to 70 percent. (Pear, 9/24)

The New York Times: Trial By Fire: Critics Demand That A Huge Sepsis Study Be Stopped
A large government trial comparing treatments for a life-threatening condition called sepsis is putting participants at risk of organ failure and even death, critics charge, and should be immediately shut down. A detailed analysis of the trial design prepared by senior investigators at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., concluded that the study “places seriously ill patients at risk without the possibility of gaining information that can provide benefits either to the subjects or to future patients.” (Rabin, 9/24)

Reuters: Some 129 Countries Sign Up To Trump's Pledge At U.N. To Fight Drugs
Some 129 countries at the United Nations signed on to a U.S.-drafted pledge to fight the global drug problem on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump warned presented a public health and national security threat. In order to attend the brief U.N. event with Trump, countries had to sign the one-page "call to action on the world drug problem." Trump held a similar event at the annual gathering of world leaders in New York last year, focused on U.N. reform. (Nichols and Mason, 9/24)

The Associated Press: Implant, Intense Rehab Help 3 Paralyzed For Years Take Steps
Three people whose legs were paralyzed for years can stand and take steps again thanks to an electrical implant that zaps the injured spinal cord — along with months of intense rehab, researchers reported Monday. The milestone, reported by two teams of scientists working separately, isn't a cure. The patients walk only with assistance — holding onto a rolling walker or with other help to keep their balance. Switch off the spinal stimulator and they no longer can voluntarily move their legs. (9/24)