The Ventura County Star: Brownley Bill Aims To Reduce Suicides Among Female Military Veterans
Seeking to implement the most effective methods of preventing suicide by female military veterans, the House passed a bill authored by Rep. Julia Brownley by voice vote Tuesday. Women veterans are six times as likely to commit suicide as non-veteran women, according to studies conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The National Institute on Mental Health also has conducted studies in the past two years pointing to the alarming trend. (Sullivan, 2/9)

The New York Times: Obama’s Last Budget, And Last Budget Battle With Congress
President Obama on Tuesday sent his final annual budget proposal to a hostile Republican-led Congress, rejecting the lame-duck label to declare that his plan “is about looking forward,” with new initiatives that include $19 billion for a broad cybersecurity plan. Mr. Obama’s proposed 10-year savings would push deficits down again for a couple years and offset costs of the president’s proposed initiatives. Then deficits would begin increasing again with the retirement and health costs of aging Americans. (Calmes, 2/9)

The Washington Post: HHS Budget Would Rise To $1.1 Trillion And Encourage States To Expand Medicaid
Spending for the Department of Health and Human Services would increase to $1.1 trillion under a proposal that would add large mandatory expenditures for cancer research and fighting drug addictions while slightly decreasing the department’s discretionary programs. The budget furthers the administration’s efforts to move toward new payment methods in Medicare, including a new competitive bidding system for private Medicare Advantage health plans. (Goldstein, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Obama’s Budget Has Modest Provisions For Affordable Care Act
The Obama administration stopped short of writing a detailed prescription for its signature health law into the president’s final budget, but called for growth for the nation’s premier agency for biomedical research for the first time in a decade. In the fiscal 2017 budget proposal, widely seen as a template for a Democratic successor, officials stuck to modest recommendations for the Affordable Care Act aimed at encouraging more states to expand their Medicaid programs as part of the law, and tweaking its so-called ‘Cadillac tax’ on high-cost health plans. (Radnofsky and Burton, 2/9)

Bloomberg: Wall Street Partners Targeted For Obamacare Tax In Budget Plan
Some high-earning partners in hedge funds, private-equity firms and other businesses organized as so-called pass-throughs would pay a 3.8 percent health-care income tax under President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget request. The proposal would extend a “net investment income tax” for Medicare that’s been in place since 2013 to taxpayers who have successfully characterized their income in ways the tax doesn’t reach, according to Obama administration officials. Combined with another provision, which is designed to require more business owners to pay self-employment taxes, the change is projected to raise $271.7 billion over the next decade. (Browning, 2/9)

The Washington Post: Budget Breakdown: What The White House Wants To Spend Money On
The CDC is seeking $15 million in new funding to improve health and wellness for Native Americans and $30 million in mandatory funding for suicide prevention. The latter is part of the administration’s proposal to boost federal mental health spending by $500 million over two years to improve access to care and prevent suicides. ... Funding for Vice President Biden’s cancer “moonshot,” advances in precision medicine and research on the complexity of the brain highlight the president’s $33.1 billion proposed 2017 budget for the National Institutes of Health. About $680 million would expand clinical trials to include more minorities and others who suffer from higher cancer rates. (Sun and Bernstein, 2/9)

The Washington Post: What The Turmoil At Zenefits Reveals About Silicon Valley’s Big Problem With Health Care
Zenefits was reportedly one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley, a region famous for giving birth to companies that undergo tremendous growth spurts. The startup, which distributes free administrative software to businesses and works as a health insurance broker, was dealt a serious blow last fall when a BuzzFeed News investigation revealed that the company had not been obtaining licenses necessary to sell insurance in individual states. ... Zenefits is just the latest example of a high-flying startup trying to revolutionize the health-care space, only to discover along the way that Silicon Valley's philosophy of disruptive innovation can be more difficult to apply to health care than in the digital world. (Johnson, 2/9)

The San Francisco Business Times: With $50M Round, Peninsula Biotech Bets On Next Generation Cancer Drug Combos
Armed with $50 million from the former Google Ventures, Celgene Corp. and others, a young Redwood City biotech company is aiming to pair its drug with other drugs that rev up the immune system to destroy cancer cells. [ARMO BioSciences Inc.'s] lead drug, called AM-0010, has shown promise as a potential standalone therapy, said President and CEO Peter Van Vlasselaer. But its real power, he said, is combining it with other drugs that reset the immune system to attack a wide range of cancers. (Leuty, 2/10)

The New York Times: Taming Drug Prices By Pulling Back The Curtain Online
Americans have come to rely on their smartphones to help them do seemingly everything, like hailing a taxi and comparing prices of dog food. But when it comes to buying prescription drugs, consumers still find the process maddeningly antiquated. Now, a few entrepreneurs say they are aiming to fundamentally change the way people buy drugs, bringing the industry into the digital age by disclosing the lowest prices for generic prescriptions to allow comparison-shopping. (Thomas, 2/9)

KBAK: Mosquito Linked To Zika Virus Found In Kern County
The Aedes mosquito that transmits the Zika virus was found in traps last summer in Kern County. Luckily, none of these mosquitoes carry the Zika virus or any other infections, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. There have been no cases of any of these diseases in California. The mosquitoes are black-and-white striped and usually active during the day. Public health officials say that the mosquito has been discovered in 12 other counties across the state. (Hall, 2/9)

NPR: Virus Profilers Race To Figure Out What Makes Zika Tick
When Carolyn Coyne's lab at the University of Pittsburgh recently tried to order a sample of Zika virus from a major laboratory supplier, they were told it was out of stock. "They are actually back-ordered until July for the virus," Coyne says. "At least that's what we were told." She ended up obtaining Zika from another source, and it arrived at her lab Tuesday. She's just one of a growing number of lab researchers who are racing to investigate Zika virus in the wake of reports that it may be linked to some cases of microcephaly, the birth defect that leaves babies with small heads and brains. (Greenfieldboyce, 2/9)

KQED: Student With Meningitis Was Vaccinated. What Happened?
One of the three students sickened in last week’s meningococcal disease outbreak at Santa Clara University is the son of Penny Nelson, who works with me at KQED News. What’s especially interesting about his case is that he had received a new vaccine against the illness, yet still got sick. (Aliferis, 2/9)

The Los Angeles Daily News: How Can L.A. Fix Its Homeless Problem? Leaders Pass Broad Plans To Try
Amid a 12 percent spike in homeless since 2013, both city and county officials moved to commit more money and resources to curbing homelessness, an issue now defined as a crisis by advocates. From downtown Los Angeles to Pomona, encampments are now visible as people create makeshift homes to survive in a region that lacks both affordable housing and accessible mental health services. (Smith and Favot, 2/9)

KPCC: OB-GYNs Navigate Catholic Hospitals' Ethics Rules
On a recent morning, Dr. Brian Fenmore listens to the heartbeat of the baby growing inside a pregnant patient's belly at Providence Tarzana Medical Center. Everything looks and sounds normal, he says. But the woman is 42 years old and diabetic, so Fenmore explains that she's at higher risk of having a Cesarean birth. That spurs another discussion. (Plevin, 2/9)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Palomar To Close Downtown Escondido ER On Mar. 14
Palomar Health plans to shutter its standby emergency department in downtown Escondido on March 14 while having affiliated urgent-care centers in the area stay open later to help take up the slack, the medical system’s officials said Tuesday. These actions have been eyed since June, when Palomar announced that it would close its downtown hospital, formerly called Palomar Medical Center, because running the facility costs about $20 million per year and the services available there could be offered by sister hospitals in west Escondido and Poway. (Sisson, 2/9)

The Ventura County Star: County Offers Nurses 11 Percent Raise, But No Deal Reached
Ventura County officials say they've offered county nurses an average wage increase of more than 11 percent but have not yet reached a deal with the union. "We are at a standstill," said Kim Milstien, CEO of Ventura County Medical Center and Santa Paula Hospital. (Kisken, 2/9)

The Press Democrat: Sonoma County Approves New Food Safety Rating System For Restaurants
Sonoma County’s 3,500 restaurants and retail food outlets soon will participate in a new public rating system that could be more important to everyday business than winning a Michelin star or Zagat survey mention. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a color-coded placard system to let customers know how eateries fared in food safety inspections. (Payne, 2/9)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Grossmont Health District Offering Scholarships
The deadline to apply for two scholarship programs for nursing students and those pursuing careers as medical health technicians is Friday. The Grossmont Healthcare District is looking for applicants who have been residing within the boundaries of the district for a minimum of one year, or have graduated from a high school within the district’s boundaries. (Pearlman, 2/9)

The New York Times: Donald Trump And Bernie Sanders Win In New Hampshire

The Washington Post: Trump Notches An Easy Victory In New Hampshire’s Republican Primary

The Wall Street Journal: Sanders And Trump Win Big But Leave Their Races Unsettled

Politico: Trump Vs. Sanders?

The Wall Street Journal: Panel Recommends FDA Approval Of Remicade Knockoff
A U.S. regulatory panel vote on Tuesday is a win for companies developing lower-cost copies of pricey biotechnology drugs, but it could be a while before patients see them. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted to recommend the agency approve the sale of a knockoff version of Johnson & Johnson’s arthritis drug Remicade, which had U.S. sales of $4.45 billion last year. The copy was developed by Celltrion Inc. and licensed to Pfizer Inc. (Loftus, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal: How A Sanofi Diabetes Bet Went Wrong
The history of inhalable insulins for diabetes care is full of disappointments, but Sanofi SA thought a new approach would turn all of that around. It was wrong. The French drugmaker last month ended a licensing pact with MannKind Corp. for the rights to sell the insulin inhaler Afrezza, saying that despite substantial marketing efforts, the product was unlikely to reach even the lowest patient levels anticipated. Sanofi’s bet on inhaled insulin shows the strain pharmaceutical chiefs are under to acquire innovative products when their own pipelines aren’t delivering. (Roland and Bisserbe, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Centene Profit Continues To Grow With Membership
Centene Corp., a Medicaid-focused health insurer, reported its profit rose 5.7% in the final quarter of the year as a key measure of the company’s medical costs fell and the company boosted its number of managed care members, but it also lowered its guidance for the year.The company said that its Medicaid business grew 30% to include 3.5 million members. (Steele, 2/9)

Bloomberg: Medicare Weighing Changes To Doctor Drug Payments, Memo Shows
The U.S. is mulling changes to how the Medicare program pays physicians for administering expensive cancer drugs and other medications given in doctors’ offices, according to a memo from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The memo tells Medicare contractors who process payments to set up a system allowing the government to vary by geographic location how much it reimburses doctors for the drugs they administer. The government could then set up a pilot program to test how limiting reimbursement in Medicare Part B, which pays for seniors’ medical services and supplies, affects doctors’ choice of drugs, according to the memo that was posted on the CMS website. (Tracer and Damouni, 2/9)

STAT: Opioid Crisis Puts Pharmacists On The Front Line, Pressed To Serve As Drug Cops
From behind their counters, pharmacists are increasingly, and controversially, called upon to play drug cop — to turn away abusers, to reject phony prescriptions, and to protect their inventory of pills from criminals who see pharmacies as an easy target. (Glionna, 2/10)