The California Health Report: Proposal To Change Poverty Calculations Could Cause 30,000 To Lose Public Benefits In California 
California advocacy groups are decrying a Trump administration proposal to change one of the measurements to determine the federal poverty level, a move that could force tens of thousands of state residents to lose their public benefits over the next decade. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has proposed switching calculations for the federal poverty level from the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers to what is known as the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The former calculates what a large array of goods cost over the passage of time. The latter is based on how consumer-spending habits change to buy less expensive goods. (Shinkman, 6/25)

CNBC: California Blue Shield Exec Slams 'zombie' Workplace Wellness Programs
Companies have embraced health surveys, biometric screenings and other wellness offerings, as a way to keep employees healthy and lower their overall medical costs. But studies are finding that most traditional workplace wellness programs do not work, and large employers aren’t reporting a reduction in their health-related spending, which is now at a record high.One of California’s largest health insurers has had enough. (Farr, 6/25)

Los Angeles Times: Wildfires Fueled By Climate Change Will Mean Shorter Lives For Many Americans
Climate change in the Western U.S. means more intense and frequent wildfires churning out waves of smoke that scientists say will sweep across the continent, affecting tens of millions of people and causing a jump in premature deaths. That emerging reality is prompting people in cities and rural areas alike to prepare for another summer of sooty skies along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains — the regions widely expected to suffer most from blazes tied to dryer, warmer conditions. (Brown, 6/25)

Capital Public Radio: Plan For Homeless ‘Village’ Of Tiny Homes Draws Opposition From Woodland Residents
City and county leaders have shelved plans for a “tiny homes village” for homeless individuals in downtown Woodland, saying they’ll focus now on a larger residential “campus” for those without a home on the city’s outskirts. Officials said last week they backed away from the downtown village after two dozen residents blasted the idea at a recent Yolo County supervisors meeting. (Nichols, 6/25)

The Associated Press: 2020 Democrats Converge In Miami For 1st Night Of Debates
Ten presidential candidates, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, will converge on the debate stage on Wednesday on the first night of Democratic debates to offer their pitches to voters and attempt a breakout moment for their campaigns. For many of the White House hopefuls, it will be the highest-profile opportunity yet to offer their vision for the country and, if for just two hours, chip into a political news cycle often dominated by President Donald Trump. Given the massive field , the debate will be split over two nights , with 10 other candidates — including former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — appearing Thursday. (6/26)

Politico: Five Topics To Watch For In The First Democratic Debates
Thanks to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for president, “Medicare for All” has cemented itself firmly in the Democratic lexicon. Now, the 2020 candidates have embraced policies aimed at addressing the cost of health care that range from Sanders’ single-payer plan to improving the Affordable Care Act. Look for health care to be one of the most prominent issues over  which candidates clash during the debates.Supporters of California Sen. Eric Swalwell were most likely to say health care was their top issue, while supporters of author Marianne Williamson were least likely to rank it the issue they cared most about. (Jin and Oprysko, 6/25)

The Hill: Poll Finds Trump Vulnerable On Health Care In Battleground States 
A majority of people polled in four major battleground states would not vote for a president who supports many of the policies being pursued by the Trump administration, according to a new survey. The poll, conducted on behalf of pro-ObamaCare group Protect Our Care, found voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would not consider voting for a presidential candidate who supports policies including eliminating protections for people with pre-existing conditions, cutting funding for Medicare or letting insurance companies stop covering the costs of prescription drugs. (Weixel, 6/25)

The New York Times: Migrant Children Moved Back To Troubled Texas Border Facility
At the squat, sand-colored concrete border station in Texas that has become the center of debate over President Trump’s immigration policies, a chaotic shuffle of migrant children continued on Tuesday as more than 100 were moved back into a facility that days earlier had been emptied in the midst of criticism that young detainees there were hungry, crying and unwashed. The transfer came just days after 249 children originally housed at the station in Clint, Tex., had been moved to other facilities to relieve overcrowding. (Rubio and Dickerson, 6/25)

Politico: ‘Kids Are Really Suffering’ As Migrant Surge Overwhelms Health Department
Hundreds of migrant children being transferred from squalid, overcrowded Border Patrol detention centers are heading into the custody of a federal refugee agency that’s already struggling to feed and care for tens of thousands of minors. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is so swamped with new arrivals that it is burning through cash to house children in military bases around the country, including one in Oklahoma that interned Japanese-Americans during World War II. On Tuesday, the agency even had to send 100 children back to a much-criticized Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, saying it lacks the room to take them. (Rayasam and Diamond, 6/25)

The New York Times: Mark Morgan To Lead Customs And Border Protection In Latest Shake-Up During Migrant Crisis
Turmoil intensified on Tuesday inside the agency responsible for securing the country’s borders as a top official was replaced by an immigration hard-liner and former Fox News contributor who last week pushed for nationwide raids to deport undocumented families. That hard-liner, Mark Morgan, will take over as the head of Customs and Border Protection, administration officials said Tuesday. (Kanno-Youngs and Haberman, 6/25)

The New York Times: House Approves Border Aid, Seeking To Curb Trump’s Crackdown
A divided House voted on Tuesday to send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border to address horrific conditions facing a crush of migrants, attaching significant rules on how the money could be spent in the first action by Democrats to rein in President Trump’s immigration crackdown. But the package — which passed by a vote of 230 to 195 nearly along party lines, only after Democratic leaders toughened restrictions on the money to win over liberal skeptics — faces a tough path to enactment. (Hirschfeld Davis and Cochrane, 6/25)

The Washington Post: Former Captives Contrast Conditions With U.S. Treatment Of Child Migrants
American journalist Michael Scott Moore, abducted in 2012 while reporting in Somalia, watched Fabian argue that minimal necessities, like toiletries and sleeping conditions, were not essential to meet minimum “safe and sanitary” standards. “That was — let’s say — below my experience in Somalia,” he told The Washington Post Tuesday of his more than two years in captivity. “The conditions were about as miserable as you could imagine,” he said, describing a barren and concrete prison house. Often there was no electricity, he said, “but we had certain minimum things that kept it from being completely wretched.” (Paul, 6/25)

The Hill: Senate Finance Leaders In Talks On Deal To Limit Drug Price Increases
The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are in bipartisan talks on a potentially sweeping deal to limit drug price increases in Medicare, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the panel, is pushing to make drug companies pay back rebates to Medicare’s prescription drug program, called Part D, if their prices rise faster than inflation. Another measure would force drug companies to pay money back to Medicare if they launch a new drug with a high price. (Sullivan, 6/26)

Politico: How The VA Uses Algorithms To Predict Suicide
The Department of Veterans Affairs is using artificial intelligence to figure out which veterans are in critical need of mental health treatment as part of a massive effort to stem suicide in its ranks, a top priority of President Donald Trump and his VA leadership. A computer program scours millions of records for medications, treatment, traumatic events, overall health and other information, and based on prior experience, it plucks out the names of veterans most likely to die by suicide in the next year. Clinicians then reach out to them directly, sometimes before the patient has expressed suicidal thoughts to anyone. (Ravindranath, 6/25)

Reuters: Special Report: How Judges Added To The Grim Toll Of Opioids
The opioid epidemic that has so far killed half a million Americans is routinely blamed on greedy drug makers, feckless doctors and lax regulators. But there’s another group that has contributed to the depth and duration of the catastrophe: judges. Judges like Booker T. Stephens. Until his retirement in May, Stephens sat on the West Virginia Circuit Court in Welch, deep in Appalachian coal country, where addiction took early root among miners who were prescribed the blockbuster opioid OxyContin for the pain their jobs inflicted. And it was in his court where the first lawsuit filed by a state against OxyContin’s maker, Purdue Pharma LP, landed in 2001. (6/25)

The New York Times: Botox Maker Allergan Is Sold To AbbVie In $63 Billion Deal
The drugmaker AbbVie said on Tuesday that it planned to buy Allergan, the maker of Botox, for about $63 billion, in one of the biggest mergers in the health care industry this year. The deal represents a classic response to a perennial drug industry challenge: how to recover when a blockbuster drug is losing its patent protection. In acquiring Allergan, AbbVie gets to bypass the risky process of research and development by buying a portfolio of popular products as it faces the loss of patent protection for Humira, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis that is the world’s top-selling drug. (Thomas and de la Merced, 6/25)

The New York Times: Judge Halts Treatments At Florida Stem Cell Clinic
A federal judge on Tuesday issued a permanent injunction against U.S. Stem Cell, a Sunrise, Fla., clinic accused of blinding three patients by injecting a fat extract into their eyes. The company is just one of hundreds of businesses that have sprung up around the country offering to treat a wide array of illnesses with products they say contain stem cells that have healing and regenerative properties. Medical experts say there is no proof that such treatments work. (Grady, 6/25)

The Washington Post: They Turn To Facebook And YouTube To Find A Cure For Cancer — And Get Sucked Into A World Of Bogus Medicine
Mari pressed kale leaves through the juicer, preparing the smoothie that she believed had saved her life. “I’m a cancer-killer, girl,” Mari told her niece, who stood next to her in the kitchen. The pair were filming themselves for a YouTube video. Mari said she was in remission from a dangerous form of cancer, and the video was meant as a testimony to what she believed was the power of the “lemon ginger blast.” In went some cucumber, some apple, some bok choy, a whole habanero pepper. (Ohlheiser, 6/25)

The New York Times: Risk For Dementia May Increase With Long-Term Use Of Certain Medicines
Can certain medications increase your risk of dementia? A new study suggests that people who take a class of common medicines called anticholinergic drugs for several years may be more likely to develop dementia as they age. This is not a new hypothesis about these drugs, which are used to treat a wide range of conditions from depression to epilepsy to incontinence. (Belluck, 6/25)