KPCC: Bill Would Regulate Middlemen Who Help Set Calif. Drug Prices
One of the bills in the California legislature designed to address high prescription drug costs would take aim at the middlemen who negotiate pharmaceutical prices by bringing them under the state's regulatory purview. ... AB 315, authored by Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), would require pharmacy benefit managers to register and submit information about drug costs, rebates and fees to the state Department of Managed Health Care. (Faust, 8/30)

In other news from Sacramento —

KPCC: Bill Aims To Help Those With Complex Conditions If Their Insurer Leaves The Market
In response to some health insurers leaving the individual market, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would ensure continuity of care for people with complex health conditions. The measure would require a new insurance firm to cover the providers of qualifying patients, even if the provider isn't in the insurer's network. (Faust, 8/29)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Assemblyman Jim Wood Co-Chairs New Statewide Commission On The Future Of Health Care
California’s severe shortage of primary care doctors is among the pressing health care issues that will be examined by a new statewide commission bringing together leaders in health, education and workforce development. Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, chairman of the Health Committee, is among the two dozen people on the California Future Health Workforce Commission who will convene over the next 15 months with the goal of drafting a master plan for bolstering the state’s health workforce. The first of its kind in the state, the commission will emphasize primary care, mental health and care for the aging. (Espinoza, 8/29)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Healthcare Vote Inspires Another Challenger For California's Rep. Jeff Denham
It was healthcare that inspired Riverbank small business owner Virginia Madueño to become the newest person to challenge Republican Rep. Jeff Denham in California's Central Valley. Madueño, 52, said she decided to run when Denham voted for the GOP bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act in May after initially saying he’d vote against it. (Wire, 8/29)

Los Angeles Times: Adventist Health Glendale Ranks High In Multiple Areas In Latest ‘Best Hospitals’ List
In a measurement by the U.S. News & World Report, multiple areas of care at Adventist Health Glendale were recently recognized as being among the best in the region and state. The media company released its “Best Hospitals” list for 2017-18 last week and ranked Adventist Health Glendale at No. 16 in the Los Angeles metro area and No. 28 in California. (Landa, 8/29)

Ventura County Star: Official: Canceled Surgeries Caused By Worker Sick Calls
Nearly two dozen elective surgeries were canceled Monday at Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura and Santa Paula Hospital because 11 surgical technicians called in sick, county officials said. All of the workers returned to work at the county-run hospitals Tuesday, officials said, igniting debate over whether the absences constituted a union-coordinated sick-out designed to send a message. "It was close to 100 percent of all those who were on shift," said Shawn Atin, human resources director for Ventura County, saying the absences looked as if they were been coordinated. (Kisken, 8/29)

Los Angeles Times: Knocking On Doors, Climbing Through Fences: How L.A. County's Health Investigators Are Out Trying To Stop Syphilis 
Every day, Rocha and dozens of other L.A. County public health workers get in their cars to search for people who might have been exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. They believe the only way to end an outbreak is to cure the infected and then find their sexual partners so they can also be treated. (Karlamangla, 8/30)

In other news across the state —

Capital Public Radio: Sacramento Considers Program Giving Gang Members Incentives To Avoid Violence
The Sacramento City Council will consider a program that would pay some of Sacramento's most violent people to do the right thing. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the "Advance Peace" program will identify the 50 people who police and the community believe are responsible for the most gun violence. (Moffitt, 8/29)

KPCC: Family Blames Whittier Police For Mentally Ill Man's Death 
The family of a man with mental health problems who died after an encounter with Whittier police last spring filed a legal claim against the department Wednesday, saying officers "brutally killed" him after being called to help transport him to a psychiatric hospital. Jonathan Salcido, 27, died at a hospital May 4, shortly after the incident, which ended with officers wrestling with him on the ground. (Stoltze, 8/29)

The Washington Post: The Health Dangers From Hurricane Harvey’s Floods
The flooding from Hurricane Harvey, which has wreaked havoc in Texas, is both catastrophic and historic. The reported death toll rose to at least 16 Tuesday, and officials were projecting that as many as 30,000 people will ultimately be evacuated from flooded homes in Houston and other cities and towns in the state. Though the storm will pass and waters eventually recede, the danger from floodwaters will linger. “I distill it down to short term, long term and big picture,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine. (Guarino, 8/29)

NPR: Harvey Evacuees Need Medical Attention And Mental Health Care
As floodwaters continue to rise in parts of Houston, health workers are trying to keep people safe and well, though that challenge is escalating. "The first and foremost thing that everybody's concerned about is just getting folks out of harm's way with the flooded waters," says Dr. Umair Shah, Executive Director of Harris County Public Health, whose own home came under mandatory evacuation Tuesday morning. (Hsu and Penaloza, 8/29)

Stat: Calls For Tetanus Shots Amid Houston Flooding Are Misguided, Experts Say
People caught up in the tragedy of Hurricane Harvey face uncertainty and stress. But one thing most of them don’t have to worry about right now is whether they need a tetanus shot. Scattered social media posts from Texas have invoked the importance of tetanus shots for those who have been wading through floodwaters; a U.S. congressman urged residents to start considering whether they needed to get booster shots. (Branswell, 8/29)

The Washington Post: Houston’s Polluted Superfund Sites Threaten To Contaminate Floodwaters
As rain poured and floodwaters inched toward his house in south Houston, Wes Highfield set out on a risky mission in his Jeep Cherokee. He drove in several directions to reach a nearby creek to collect water samples, but each time he was turned back when water washed against his floorboard. “Yesterday as these large retention ponds filled up, eight feet deep in places, kids were swimming in them, and that’s not good,” said Highfield, a scientist at Texas A&M University’s Galveston campus. The Brio Refining toxic Superfund site, where ethylbenzene, chlorinated hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds were once pooled in pits before the Environmental Protection Agency removed them, sits “just up the road, and it drains into our watershed,” he said. (Fears and Dennis, 8/29)

Politico: Harvey Triggers Spike In Hazardous Chemical Releases
Hobbled oil refineries and damaged fuel facilities along the Gulf Coast of Texas from Tropical storm Harvey have released more than two million pounds of dangerous chemicals into the air this week, adding new health threats to Houston’s already considerable woes. The big spike in releases, which include carcinogenic benzene and nitrogen oxide, will add an environmental and long-term health risk to the region that's struggling with the massive flooding that Harvey has brought to the country’s energy capital, according to environmental watchdogs. (Lefebvre, 8/29)

Reuters: Storm Harvey Could Financially Hurt Already Strained Houston Hospitals
Structural improvements over the last decade to Houston hospitals have helped them so far to avoid devastation like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, but the pounding it is receiving from Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to financially hobble many already strained Texas medical centers. The storm has forced hospitals to cancel surgeries, evacuate patients and contend with food and supply shortages. Even bigger challenges are expected in coming months when people who have lost homes and jobs avoid medical treatment or seek charitable care. (Scheyder and Mincer, 8/29)

Stat: Where Did All The Bare Counties Go? Four Takeaways From Nevada's Fight To Preserve Coverage
In June, Nevada suddenly found itself in quite a jam — 14 of its 17 counties had zero insurers offering plans on the Obamacare exchanges. Insurance officials in the state scrambled, wooing and cajoling insurers to return. Two weeks ago, those efforts paid off. Centene Corp., a Missouri-based insurer, agreed to provide coverage in all the bare counties. A similar relief has played out nationwide: From a high of 49 counties left bare in late June, it was announced last week that every county in the country had at least one insurance carrier for 2018. (Ross, 8/30)

In other national health care news —

The Wall Street Journal: Pressure Grows To Fund Children’s Health Program
State officials increasingly worry that this year’s turbulent health-care politics could threaten funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a popular initiative that usually wins broad bipartisan support. Federal funding for CHIP is set to end Sept. 30. The federal-state program provides health coverage to more than eight million low-income, uninsured children whose family incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid. (Armour, 8/29)

Modern Healthcare: Providers Feel The Pain Of Slow Medicaid Mental Services Rule Rollout
David Ramsey's hospitals and emergency departments in West Virginia see the effects of the opioid epidemic every day. Medicaid beneficiaries battling addiction and psychiatric disorders crowd into his emergency departments even though the CMS has launched a nationwide policy to pay for substance abuse treatment and stays at inpatient psychiatric facilities. But a year after that Medicaid policy became effective nationwide, Ramsey's hospitals have seen no relief. (Dickson, 8/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Advisory Board Co. To Be Split And Sold For $2.58 Billion, Including Debt
The Advisory Board Co. will be split up and sold in a deal valued at around $2.21 billion, with its health-care business going to UnitedHealth Group Inc. and its education unit to private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management LLC. The consulting and software company had announced in February that its board was exploring strategic alternatives, including a possible sale. That move came after activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. said it and related entities had bought about 8.3% of the company’s shares, saying at the time they were undervalued and it wanted to engage in a dialogue with the company’s board. (Wilde Mathews and Cooper, 8/29)

The Associated Press: Sessions: Drug Overdoses 'The Top Lethal Issue' In The US
Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday called drug overdose deaths "the top lethal issue" in the U.S. and urged law enforcement and social workers to "create and foster a culture that's hostile to drug use." Sessions spoke to the annual conference of the National Alliance For Drug Endangered Children. He said preliminary data show nearly 60,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016, the highest ever. (Moreno, 8/29)

Politico: Why Hasn’t The White House Declared A State Of Emergency Over The Opioid Crisis?
Speaking from Bedminster, New Jersey, in early August, President Donald Trump vowed to formally dub the U.S. opioid crisis a “national emergency.” But nearly a month later, the president has yet to officially declare a state of emergency — a move that would enable the federal government to pump funds into addressing the drug epidemic. (8/30)

Politico: Mattis Allows Transgender Troops To Serve As Pentagon Studies Trump's Ban
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that transgender troops would continue serving in the military while the Pentagon studied the issue, a decision that delays the implementation of President Donald Trump’s recently signed directive. Mattis said he would establish a “panel of experts serving within the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security” to provide advice and recommendations on putting into effect the president’s order to bar transgender individuals from serving in the armed forces. The presidential guidance, which Trump signed on Friday, gave the defense secretary until Feb. 21 to submit a plan for implementing the new policy. (Hillman, 8/29)