Los Angeles Times: Nonprofit Hospitals Are Being Less Charitable. They Say That Shows Obamacare Is Working
California’s nonprofit hospitals are providing sharply less free and reduced-cost medical care than they did a few years ago, raising questions about the role and obligations of those institutions in the age of Obamacare. About 170 nonprofit general acute-care hospitals provided $651 million of charity care in 2016, down from $985 million in 2011, according to a report due out this week by the California Nurses Assn. (Cosgrove, 6/12)

LA Daily News: Southern California Emergency Room Use Has Actually Risen After The Passage Of Obamacare. Here’s Why 
Homeless people and a growing number of newly insured young adults are flooding Southern California’s emergency departments for non-life threatening illnesses, years after proponents of the Affordable Care Act promised that better health coverage would divert people away from ERs, according state data and public health experts. State data show the opposite has happened: Emergency department visits, including those that resulted in hospital admissions, grew an average 4 percent every year from 2010 to 2016. (Abram and Wheeler, 6/12)

And in other health care coverage news —

The California Health Report: California Advocates Outraged By Health Proposals Cut From Budget At 11th Hour
Health advocates are decrying the budget deal reached between Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders last week, calling it a missed opportunity to improve health care access for struggling Californians. The $200 billion deal reached Friday between Brown, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins includes $500 million to fight homelessness and $90 million to increase grants to people on welfare. However, it dropped key proposals by Democratic legislators to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to undocumented immigrants under age 26 and expand financial subsidies for people who purchase health insurance on the Covered California exchange. (Boyd-Barrett, 6/12)

Los Angeles Times: 'We Have Been Hurt.' More Women Say They Were Mistreated By USC Gynecologist
The Times reported in May that during 27 years at USC’s student health clinic, Tyndall had repeatedly been accused of “creepy” behavior, including improperly photographing patients’ genitals, touching women inappropriately during pelvic exams and making sexually suggestive and sometimes crude remarks about their bodies. There were earlier investigations of Tyndall, including a 2013 review by USC’s Office of Equity and Diversity, which is charged with investigating sexual harassment and other misconduct cases. (Winton, 6/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Data Breach At Dignity Health Affected 56,000 Patients, Is Under Investigation
Federal health officials are investigating an April data breach that affected 55,947 patients of Dignity Health, a major health system headquartered in San Francisco that operates 39 hospitals and 400 care centers in California, Nevada and Arizona. ...It was the third-largest data breach, by number of affected patients, reported to the federal health agency that month. (Ho, 6/12)

Los Angeles Times: Are Prescription Medications Making Americans Depressed?
The incidence of depression has been rising in the U.S. for more than a decade. So has Americans’ reliance on prescription medications that list depression as a possible side effect. Coincidence? Perhaps not, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Using 10 years of data collected from more than 26,000 Americans, researchers reported a significant link between the use of medications with the potential to cause depression and the chances of becoming depressed. (Kaplan, 6/12)

Sacramento Bee: Here’s What The Suicide Epidemic Looks Like In California 
Nearly 4,300 Californians killed themselves in 2016, a 50 percent increase from 2001, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The suicide rate rose from 8.2 suicides per 100,000 residents to 10.9 suicides per 100,000 residents over the same time period. (Reese, 6/13)

Los Angeles Times: Psychedelic Drugs Change Brain Cells In Ways That Could Help Fight Depression, Addiction And More
sychedelic drugs’ mind-expanding properties may be rooted in their ability to prompt neurons to branch out and create new connections with other brain cells, new research has found. This discovery may explain why psychedelic drugs appear to be a valuable treatment for a wide range of psychiatric diseases, scientists said. In test tubes as well as in rats and flies, psychedelic drugs as diverse as LSD, ecstasy, psilocybin and ketamine all share this knack for promoting neural “plasticity,” the ability to forge new connections (called neurites) among brain cells. In particular, the drugs appeared to fuel the growth of dendritic spines and axons, the appendages that brain cells of all sorts use to reach out in the darkness and create connections, or synapses, with other brain cells. (Healy, 6/12)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Expands Homeless Services With Toilets In Venice And Overnight Parking In Hollywood And North Hollywood
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to expand services for homeless people in areas where the city of Los Angeles has struggled. The supervisors approved the overnight placement of two portable toilets and hand-washing stations at the Rose Avenue beach parking lot in Venice Beach — the latest development in an ongoing debate about bathroom access for the homeless. (Agrawal, 6/12)

In other news from across the state —

Capital Public Radio: California Awards Millions In Grants Aimed At Stopping Tobacco Sales To Kids
Today, [Xavier] Becerra announced $37.5 million in state grants which are going to 71 entities throughout the state, including the police departments in Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Stockton and Rocklin, and the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office. Los Angeles is getting the biggest share — more than $5.5 million.  (Milne, 6/12)

Capital Public Radio: Black Residents Create 'Emotional Emancipation Circles' In Wake Of Stephon Clark's Death 
Since the Stephon Clark police shooting in March, a type of talk group called Emotional Emancipation Circles has emerged in Sacramento neighborhoods that are dealing with race-based trauma. These groups led by and for people of African descent offer residents a safe space to talk about and heal from their struggles. (Caiola and Bandlamudi, 6/12)

Orange County Register: Marijuana Shops Will Have Glut Of Cheap Weed, Followed By A Possible Shortage 
For the next few weeks, retailers will do what they can to move stockpiles of untested product left over from California’s unregulated gray market. What they can’t sell by July 1, in theory, they’ll have to destroy. And once the old inventory is cleared out, experts say, licensed shops might be looking at a very different problem — a cannabis shortage. (Staggs, 6/12)

Sacramento Bee: PRIDE Industries Keeps Half Of Its Contract At CA Prison 
About 120 disabled employees working at a state prison will be able to keep their jobs despite an outsourcing complaint from state government’s largest union that threatened their company’s contract. PRIDE Industries, the contractor that employs the disabled workers, struck a compromise in the state budget that allows about half of its 217 employees at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton to continue working there. (Ashton, 6/13)

The Bakersfield Californian: Snake Season Starts Strong, With Two Bites In Kern County So Far 
With winter long gone and spring waving goodbye, people are increasingly heading outside to work in their yards, hike on backcountry trails and just lounge around in the shade. Another kind of California resident is out in force, too, after having spent the winter sheltering from the cold. Rattlesnakes have come out of hibernation, and they’ve already bitten at least two people in Kern County. Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley reports that two people have been treated for rattlesnake bites already this season. (Morgen, 6/12)

Stat: Can Major Opioids Legislation Make A Dent In A National Epidemic?
By the end of next week, the House will have considered more than 50 bills aimed at staunching the opioid crisis. The volume “may well be a record for legislating on a single issue,” Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday on the House floor. The House’s work touches on most aspects of the crisis, aiming to better monitor opioid prescriptions, increase treatment funding, improve drug enforcement efforts, and provide additional support to families affected by the epidemic. But does quantity equal quality? (Facher, 6/13)

The Hill: NIH Outlines Plans For $500M To Combat Opioid Epidemic
Leaders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday published an outline of how the nation’s medical research agency plans to spend the $500 million Congress gave it to fight the opioid epidemic. Specifically, the NIH will focus on improving treatments for opioid misuse and addiction and bolster strategies to manage pain, heads of the NIH wrote in an opinion piece published in the American Medical Association's JAMA. (Roubein, 6/12)

California Healthline: How America Got Hooked On A Deadly Drug
Purdue Pharma left almost nothing to chance in its whirlwind marketing of its new painkiller OxyContin. From 1996 to 2002, Purdue pursued nearly every avenue in the drug supply and prescription sales chain — a strategy now cast as reckless and illegal in more than 1,500 federal civil lawsuits from communities in Florida to Wisconsin to California that allege the drug has fueled a national epidemic of addiction. (Schulte, 6/13)

And in other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Frustrated AMA Adopts Sweeping Policies To Cut Gun Violence
With frustration mounting over lawmakers' inaction on gun control, the American Medical Association on Tuesday pressed for a ban on assault weapons and came out against arming teachers as a way to fight what it calls a public health crisis. At its annual policymaking meeting, the nation's largest physicians group bowed to unprecedented demands from doctor-members to take a stronger stand on gun violence — a problem the organizations says is as menacing as a lethal infectious disease. (6/12)

The New York Times: A Crispr Conundrum: How Cells Fend Off Gene Editing
Human cells resist gene editing by turning on defenses against cancer, ceasing reproduction and sometimes dying, two teams of scientists have found. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, at first appeared to cast doubt on the viability of the most widely used form of gene editing, known as Crispr-Cas9 or simply Crispr, sending the stocks of some biotech companies into decline on Monday. (Zimmer, 6/12)

The Washington Post: Kids In These U.S. Hot Spots At Higher Risk Because Parents Opt Out Of Vaccinations
Public health officials have long known that the United States has pockets of vulnerability where the risk of measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases is higher because parents hesitate or refuse to get their children immunized. Eighteen states allow parents to opt their children out of school immunization requirements for nonmedical reasons, with exemptions for religious or philosophical beliefs. And in two-thirds of those states, a comprehensive new analysis finds a rising number of kindergartners who have not been vaccinated. (Sun, 6/12)

The New York Times: A ‘Sick Joke’: Democrats Attack Health Secretary On Pre-Existing Conditions
Democratic senators blistered President Trump’s health secretary on Tuesday, telling him that the Trump administration’s efforts to undo health insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions made a mockery of the president’s campaign to rein in prescription drug prices. The secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, told Congress that he would be glad to work with lawmakers on legislation — “alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, modifications of the Affordable Care Act” — to provide access to insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. (Pear, 6/12)

The Washington Post: Azar Backs Protections For Preexisting Conditions, Skirting Administration’s Legal Stance
Calling it “a constitutional position . . . not a policy position,” Azar sidestepped grilling on whether he agreed with a legal brief filed last week by Justice Department attorneys stating they would not defend the Affordable Care Act in a federal lawsuit by Texas and 19 other Republican-led states. During a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that was mainly about the president’s blueprint to address drug prices, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) told Azar that Justice’s legal position is “like some kind of a sick joke.” The administration argues that the ACA’s individual mandate, requiring most people to carry health insurance, will become unconstitutional next year — and, with it, the law’s insurance protections for consumers. (Goldstein and McGinley, 6/12)

Politico: McConnell: 'Everybody' In Senate Likes Pre-Existing Condition Safeguards
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “everybody” in the Senate wants to preserve consumer protections for people with pre-existing conditions, an Obamacare provision that the Trump administration last week said is unconstitutional and should be struck down in court. “Everybody I know in the Senate — everybody — is in favor of maintaining coverage for pre-existing conditions,” McConnell told reporters in the Capitol. “There is no difference in opinion about that whatsoever.” (Haberkorn, 6/12)

The Hill: GOP Senator: DOJ's ObamaCare Argument 'As Far-Fetched As Any I've Ever Heard'
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate's health committee, called the Trump administration's argument against ObamaCare in a court case "as far-fetched as any I've ever heard." The Justice Department wrote in a filing Friday that it would not defend ObamaCare's protections for people with pre-existing conditions, siding in large part with a challenge to the law brought by a coalition of Republican-led states. (Hellmann, 6/12)

The Hill: Senior DOJ Official Resigns In Wake Of ObamaCare Decision 
A senior career Department of Justice (DOJ) official has resigned, one week after the Trump administration made a controversial announcement that it would argue key parts of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. A DOJ official confirmed to The Hill that Joel McElvain resigned and his last day is July 6, but declined to comment on whether the resignation was due to last week’s announcement. (Roubein, 5/12)

The New York Times: The New Obamacare Lawsuit Could Undo Far More Than Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions
A new Trump administration court challenge is explicitly aiming to remove a central promise of Obamacare — its protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. But it could also make it much harder for any individual to obtain health insurance on the open market. The administration’s brief, filed in Federal District Court in Texas on Thursday, focuses on the core Obamacare provisions that make insurance available to people with prior illnesses. Those protections — which President Trump once praised and Republicans in Congress vowed not to disrupt last year — don’t exist in a vacuum. (Sanger-Katz, 6/12)

Azar also spoke about the administration's proposals for cutting drug prices —

The Wall Street Journal: HHS Secretary Says Several Drug Companies Looking At ‘Substantial’ Price Cuts
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday touted the administration’s plan to combat high drug prices, saying several drug companies are looking at “substantial and material” price cuts, while Democrats said the plan would accomplish little. He said in testimony before the Senate health committee that companies are working with industry middlemen, including pharmacy-benefit managers, to make sure “they’re not discriminated against” for cutting their prices. Middlemen currently have an incentive to provide more favorable coverage to drugs with higher list prices, he said. (Armour and Loftus, 6/12)

Politico: Trump’s Health Chief Suggests ‘Massive’ Drug Price Cuts Not Imminent
Azar claimed pharmacy benefits managers and drug distributors have held up efforts to reduce prices, and he blamed the drug pricing system for incentivizing high list prices. Drug companies are worried that if they cut list prices, these drug supply chain middlemen will no longer prioritize their products, Azar said. That’s because these companies sometimes make more money when a drug’s list price is higher. (Karlin-Smith, 6/12)

Stat: Azar Says HHS Could Change Medicare Drug Rebates Without Congress
The federal government has the authority to modify or eliminate the rebates pharmacy benefit managers get from drug makers on behalf of patients in Medicare prescription drug plans, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday, the clearest indication yet that the administration might exercise that power. “Rebates are allowed under an exception to the anti-kickback statute, and that’s an exception that we believe by regulation we could modify,” Azar told lawmakers. (Swetlitz and Mershon, 6/12)

The Hill: Warren Presses Health Chief Over Trump's Promise Of Drug Price Cuts 
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday about why no drug companies have announced price decreases despite President Trump saying they would soon. Warren focused on Trump’s statement at the end of May that "in two weeks" drug companies would "announce voluntary massive drops in prices." The two-week mark from that statement is this Wednesday. (Sullivan, 6/12)