Los Angeles Times: As GOP Plows Forward On Obamacare Repeal, New Data Show The Nation's Uninsured Rate Hit A Record Low Last Year
The nation’s uninsured rate tumbled further last year, hitting the lowest rate on record, according to new government data that underscored what is at stake in the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In the first nine months of 2016, just 8.8% of Americans lacked health coverage, survey data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. (Levey, 2/14)

San Jose Mercury News: Obamacare: California's Uninsured Rate Drops To New Record Low
The Affordable Care Act, the same law that President Donald Trump and the Republican majority Congress are intent on replacing, has helped California reduce its uninsured rate to a  record low of 7.1 percent. That’s almost 10 percentage points less than in 2013, when 17 percent of Californians were uninsured and just before the health care law took full effect, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Seipel, 2/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Uninsured Rate In California Drops To Record Low, CDC Estimates 
The percentage of Californians without health insurance fell to a record low 7.1 percent in 2016, according to estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday. The figure represents just a 1 percentage point drop from 2015, but is down significantly from the 17 percent uninsured rate in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act was implemented. (Ho, 2/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Obamacare May Have Reduced The Nation's Divorce Rate, Study Says 
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have lowered the prevalence of divorce in the U.S., according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. When the burden of medical bills became too much to bear, some couples divorced in order to separate their joint assets, a phenomenon New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about in a 2009 column. Instead of draining their savings account to reach the maximum asset level to qualify for Medicaid, some couples divorced in order to preserve the healthy partner's retirement funds. (Robertson, 2/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Quiet IRS Change Could Undermine Obamacare, Supporters Say 
Following an executive order from President Trump to “minimize the economic burden” of the Affordable Care Act, the Internal Revenue Service said it is backtracking on its plan to reject 2016 tax returns that do not indicate whether the taxpayer complied with the act’s individual mandate. Supporters of the act, which is known as Obamacare, fear this behind-the-scenes change could undermine enrollment in health insurance. (Pender, 2/14)

Meanwhile, Valley Public Radio looks at how repeal would affect local residents —

Valley Public Radio: Health Law Repeal Could Hit County Budgets Hard
Much of the focus on the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act has been on the newly insured people that stand to lose their coverage. But there could be consequences that reach far beyond just people’s health care and impact nearly every taxpayer in the Central Valley. (Hess, 2/14)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Obamacare Uncertainty, Insurance Giant Humana Plans To Leave Marketplaces In 2018
Humana Inc., one of the nation’s largest health insurers, will stop selling Obamacare health plans next year, the company announced Tuesday. The move threatens to rattle jittery insurance markets and further complicate Republicans’ push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The company attributed its action to mounting losses caused by sicker-than-expected consumers. It is the first major insurer to pull back completely amid the mounting uncertainty over the GOP’s still undefined healthcare plans, though other leading health plans have exited marketplaces over the last year, citing losses. (Levey and Petersen, 2/14)

In other marketplace news —

The Associated Press: 2 Big Insurance Breakups On Valentine's Day
It was a rough day for the already-roiled U.S. health insurance market: One giant merger was abandoned, another is threatened by infighting, and a major insurer announced it will stop selling coverage on public exchanges in 11 states. Both merger deals had already been rejected by federal regulators and judges, but the companies were considering appeals to those decisions. Now they both appear to be off. (Murphy, 2/14)

East Bay Times: What It Takes To Open A Senior Care Franchise
As the Bay Area’s aging population fuels the demand for elder care, franchises of in-home senior care businesses are popping up around the Bay Area. “The world of senior care is a very highly regulated sector,” said Katie Fagan, a franchise consultant in the Bay Area for FranNet. “The franchise … is up to date on the regulations.” People also like the security of buying into a proven concept, which franchising provides, Fagan said. While food has always been a popular franchise model, essential services like home or auto repair, air conditioning and health care are strong franchise options. (Sciacca, 2/14)

Los Angeles Times: To Prevent Serious Medical Conditions, Scientists Should Be Able To Edit People's DNA, Panel Says
Scientists should be allowed to alter a person’s DNA in ways that will be passed on to future generations, but only to prevent serious and strongly heritable diseases, according to a new report from the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. However, tinkering with these genes in order to enhance or alter traits such as strength, intelligence or beauty should remain off-limits, the report authors concluded. Changing the so-called germline — effectively, editing humanity’s future by altering genes in human reproductive cells — is illegal in the United States. It has largely been considered ethically off-limits here as well, at least while bioethicists and scientists pondered the unforeseen effects and unexamined moral dilemmas of using new gene-editing technologies. (Healy, 2/14)

The Mercury News: Scalp Cooling Helps Some Breast Cancer Patients Keep Their Hair
Cooling the scalps of certain breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy can reduce their hair loss, according to researchers at UC San Francisco, Weill Cornell Medicine and three other medical centers. Their study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed that a majority of female patients who underwent “scalp cooling” with a special silicone cap retained more than half of their hair after completing chemotherapy. (Seipel, 2/14)

Orange County Register: Orange County To Get First Emergency Psychiatric Beds For Children 
Orange County soon will improve its capacity to help people – especially children – suffering sudden psychiatric episodes, when it opens a new Garden Grove facility late this year to temporarily house teenagers and adults on involuntary mental-health holds. The 22-bed center will be the only crisis stabilization unit in the county to serve minors and the first of three similar units the county plans to open in the coming years, according to Supervisor Andrew Do. (Graham, 2/14)

In other news from across the state —

Los Angeles Times: County Health Officials Investigate Death Of Santa Monica High Student Amid Norovirus Concerns
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is investigating the death of an 18-year-old Santa Monica High School student. Kelly Cano, a senior, died Saturday. She is the second student that the high school has lost this school year. Sophomore Vanai Jelks, 15, died in October. (Kohli, Karlamangla and Etehad, 2/14)

The Hill: Rift In GOP Threatens ObamaCare Repeal 
House Republicans are facing a major split on ObamaCare repeal that threatens to stall the effort. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus late Monday vowed to oppose any ObamaCare repeal bill that doesn’t go as far as what Congress passed in 2015. But the bill being pushed by the Freedom Caucus would repeal ­­ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid, an option that centrist Republicans are wary of supporting, particularly in the Senate. (Sullivan, 2/14)

The Washington Post: Ryan Faces Major Test In Selling Obamacare Repeal And Replacement
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) spent Tuesday on a door-to-door tour of the Capitol in hopes of salvaging his plan to repeal and largely replace the Affordable Care Act by spring. The day-long blitz comes as Republicans in Congress have made virtually no visible progress in recent weeks on overhauling the health-care system, according to interviews with several senior GOP aides. (Snell and DeBonis, 2/14)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Conservatives Want Fast Health Law Repeal, Leaders Cautious
Conservatives have demanded a quick vote on erasing much of President Barack Obama's health care law, with some threatening to oppose less sweeping legislation. But House Republican leaders said they were working deliberatively as the party continued its struggle to find a replacement that could pass Congress. "This affects every person and every family in America," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters on Tuesday. "That's why we're taking a step-by-step approach." (Fram, 2/14)

Politico: GOP May Boost Medicaid Spending In Order To Slash The Program
Republicans determined to cut Medicaid may first have to pour more money into it, to keep the peace between Republican governors who expanded health care for low-income people under Obamacare and those who resisted. It’s all part of the GOP’s long-term plan to dramatically revamp the health care entitlement for the poor in order to cap what they see as runaway federal spending. (Haberkorn and Pradhan, 2/15)

Stat: The Next Big Alzheimer's Trial Came Up A Dud
Merck pulled the plug on a closely watched trial in Alzheimer’s disease after finding out its in-development drug had no effect on patients with mild forms of the disorder. The drug, verubecestat, showed “virtually no chance” of meeting its goal in a 2,200-patient study, Merck said. The trial was meant to read out later this year, but Merck, on the advice of its independent data monitors, pulled the plug early. (Garde, 2/14)

The Washington Post: CDC Reports More Progress Against HIV, But Gay Latinos Contracted More Infections
The government reported more evidence of progress against HIV on Tuesday, citing an 18 percent decline in the number of U.S. infections between 2008 and 2014 and even sharper drops among heterosexuals and people who inject drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the estimated number of infections fell from 45,700 in 2008 to 37,600 in 2014, after remaining at roughly the same level for more than a decade. Heterosexuals saw a 36 percent decline in HIV diagnoses during the same period, and intravenous-drug users experienced a 56 percent drop despite a burgeoning opioid epidemic. (Bernstein, 2/14)