Sacramento Bee: California Orders Health Care Company To Stop Selling Plans
The Department of Insurance Monday ordered a health care company to stop selling membership plans in California saying it was not licensed to do so. Jericho Share operates as a health care sharing ministry, meaning it is made up of a group of people with common religious, or other, beliefs who decide to split medical expenses among members. (Hobbs, 3/20)

CalMatters: California Health Insurance Penalty Can Cost More Than Coverage
Californians without health insurance are again facing tax penalties this year, and some may pay more in fines than they’d spend buying coverage, state officials say. That’s because some of them may qualify for heavily subsidized insurance and not know it. California’s insurance marketplace, Covered California, offers health insurance for as little as $10 a month, with rates depending on household income and size, as well as location and age. (Ibarra, 3/20)

Stat: UnitedHealth Increases Loan Offers After Change Healthcare Outage
UnitedHealth Group appears to be offering some providers more substantial loans in the wake of the cyberattack on Change Healthcare, according to three doctors who each saw their advances increase up to seven figures. (Trang and Bannow, 3/19)

Modern Healthcare: Cybersecurity Spending Too Low To Prevent Another Change Breach
Healthcare’s lack of investment in cybersecurity is in the spotlight as the Change Healthcare breach continues to disrupt the industry. ... Cybersecurity professionals are sounding the alarm on future attacks if healthcare organizations don't start putting more financial resources into protecting their data. “The landscape has changed. The threats are higher,” said David Ting, chief technology officer and founder of cybersecurity company Tausight. “We should be going to DEFCON 2.” (Turner, 3/19) 

Politico: 5 Takeaways From POLITICO’s ‘Corrective Action: How To Address Prescription Drug Costs’ Event 
Key California health care players are divided over whether the state should impose new regulations on pharmaceutical middlemen to bring down spiraling drug prices in the largest market in the nation. Those middlemen, the pharmacy benefit managers, came under the microscope Tuesday at “Corrective Action: How to address prescription drug costs,” a POLITICO Live event. (Jones, 3/19)

The San Francisco Standard: San Francisco Hospital Deal Won’t Lead To Layoffs, Says UCSF
University of California San Francisco officials promised Monday there would be no layoffs following its $100 million purchase of San Francisco's St. Francis and St. Mary's hospitals from Dignity Health. “No nurses, no staff, period, will lose their jobs as a result of the transaction,” said UCSF Health Vice President of Partnerships Shay Strachan at a Board of Supervisors hearing. (Baustin, 3/18)

UC Davis / Medical Xpress: Review Of California's Mental Health Crisis Programs Identified Gaps And Needs For Consistent Funding
A team of UC Davis experts was tasked with evaluating the services of 15 mental health crisis programs in California. These programs designed for adult and transitional age youth (ages 16-25) were funded between 2018 and 2021 by state mental health legislation called SB-82.The goal of the evaluation was to draw lessons learned from investing in these programs that could help inform crisis intervention development in California. (Yehya, 3/19)

CBS News: Digital Stethoscope Uses Artificial Intelligence To Help Doctors Detect Heart Valve Problems
A new, digital stethoscope uses AI to help doctors detect heart valve problems. ... Only about 40-percent of murmurs can be detected during a physical exam by a clinician with a regular stethoscope. But this new stethoscope, developed by EKO Health, and the new technology with it are changing that. (Marshall, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Revisiting The Day Newsom Issued California’s COVID Stay-Home Order
At times, it feels like ages ago, almost like another lifetime, while other times it’s like it happened just yesterday. In just a few days, everything changed: Streets emptied, schools and businesses closed and supermarket shelves were stripped bare. On March 19, 2020, amid the escalating threat posed by the novel coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a bold call to action, imploring all Californians to stay at home. (Vaziri, 3/19)

NPR: In A Pandemic Milestone, The NIH Ends Guidance On COVID Treatment
Lately, the development of new COVID-19 treatments has slowed to a drip, prompting the guideline group to rethink its efforts. "I don't know that there was a perfect moment [to end it], but ... the frequency of calls that we needed to have began to decrease, and then on occasion we would be canceling one of our regularly scheduled calls," says Lane. "It's probably six months ago we started talking about — What will be the end? How do we end it in a way that we don't create a void?" (Huang, 3/19)

CIDRAP: Transportation, Treasury Departments Need To Prep For Infectious Disease Outbreaks, Track Aid Money, Report Urges 
The Department of Transportation (DOT) hasn't created a national aviation preparedness plan for infectious disease outbreaks, despite a 2015 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation to do so, according to a new report on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. When tasked with identifying pandemic lessons for the report, the GAO reviewed more than 20 of its previous reports and documents from offices of inspectors general and aviation stakeholders and interviewed officials from the DOT and the Department of the Treasury. (Van Beusekom, 3/19)

The Guardian: People With Hypermobility May Be More Prone To Long Covid, Study Suggests 
People with excessively flexible joints may be at heightened risk of long Covid and persistent fatigue, research suggests. Hypermobility is where some or all of a person’s joints have an unusually large range of movement due to differences in the structure of their connective tissues that support, protect and give structure to organs, joints and other tissues. (Geddes, 3/19)

CIDRAP: Providing Lower Oxygen Levels May Be More Helpful In COVID ICU Patients
A new study based on outcomes seen at European intensive care units (ICUs) suggests higher is not better when it comes to targets for supplemental oxygenation levels for COVID-19 patients experiencing low oxygen, or hypoxia. (Soucheray, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: More Homeless People Likely To Be Sent Out Of San Francisco On Buses
 A program that offers unhoused people a fully paid trip home could soon become a permanent part of the city’s strategy for combating homelessness. San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday approved legislation to expand access to its Homeward Bound program among people in the city’s network of shelters and permanent supportive housing, an effort to revive the relocation program after it has languished with little use since the pandemic.  (Toledo, 3/19)

Fox News: American Cancer Society Finds 'Homophobia' And 'Discrimination' Can 'Increase Cancer Risk' In LGBTQ+ People
A leading cancer research organization released a first-of-its-kind study outlining how LGBTQ+ individuals face an "elevated prevalence" of certain risk factors linked to the disease. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), there are certain "minority stress" factors associated with LGBTQ+ individuals, such as smoking, excess body weight, HIV and access to gender transition surgical procedures that exacerbate their vulnerability to developing cancer. (Joseph, 3/19)

The 19th: Unfilled Prescriptions, Missed Checkups And Loneliness: Experts Worry About Health Consequences From States’ Anti-LGBTQ+ Moves
This year, states have tried to prevent transgender people from using public bathrooms and from being able to update identity documents like driver’s licenses. Legislators in multiple states are attempting to rewrite state code to define sex based on reproductive capacity, and to exclude gender identity from discrimination protections. (Rummler, 3/19)

LA Blade: Cable News Coverage Of Anti-Trans Bills: No Voices Of Trans People
New data from Media Matters finds that while 2023 coverage of anti-trans legislation varied widely in terms of tone and time spent across cable networks, reporting on this onslaught consistently failed to include the first-person perspectives of trans or gender-nonconforming people. (3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Year After Half Moon Bay Massacre, Farmworkers Focus On Living Conditions
One year after a deadly shooting rampage at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms highlighted the poor living conditions of many California farmworkers, grassroots organizers in San Mateo County on Sunday hosted what they billed as the first “convention” of its kind focused on their plight. (Mishanec, 3/17)

Los Angeles Times: Trader Joe's Recalls Whole Cashews Due To Possible Salmonella
Trader Joe’s is recalling a cashew product due to possible salmonella contamination, the company announced over the weekend. No illnesses have been reported in connection with the product, the company said. The recall applies to certain batches of Trader Joe’s 50% Less Salt Roasted & Salted Whole Cashews, which were sold in California and 15 other states. (Petrow-Cohen, 3/19)

LAist: U.S. Drops In New Global Happiness Ranking. One Age Group Bucks The Trend
North America does not fare as well overall. As a nation, the United States dropped in the global ranking from 15th to 24th. But researchers point to striking generational divides. People aged 60 and older in the U.S. reported high levels of well-being compared to younger people. In fact, the United States ranks in the top 10 countries for happiness in this age group. Conversely, there's a decline in happiness among younger adolescents and young adults in the U.S. (Aubrey, 3/20)

AP: Biden And Congressional Leaders Announce A Deal On Government Funding As A Partial Shutdown Looms
President Joe Biden and congressional leaders announced Tuesday that they have reached an agreement on this fiscal year’s final set of spending bills. Now, the question is how fast lawmakers can get the bills passed to avoid a partial government shutdown. While Biden said he’ll sign the bill package as soon as he receives it, time is running short. Legislative staff needs time to finish the bill text, an arduous task. The House has a rule that lawmakers get 72 hours to review a bill before voting. And the Senate has never been known for its ability to sprint. Meanwhile, funding for several key agencies expires at midnight Friday. (Freking, 3/19)

Axios: Global AIDS Program Gets A Lifeline In New Spending Deal
A successful global AIDS program that was in limbo for months got a temporary reprieve this week when congressional negotiators agreed to a one-year renewal in the next government funding package. (Knight and Sullivan, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: PBM Legislation Dropped — Again — From Funding Bill
A healthcare package that would have advanced pharmacy benefit manager legislation and other healthcare priorities including enhanced community health center funding will not move alongside the next round of federal appropriations. Committee leaders who hoped to build a legislative package around bipartisan PBM measures and other popular items were unable to come to agreement, and Senate and House leadership declined to add healthcare legislation to the fiscal 2024 government funding bill they are expected to release Tuesday or Wednesday. (McAuliff, 3/19)