Becker's Hospital Review: California 'High-Cost' Hospitals Sound Alarm Over 'Deep Rate Cuts'
Hospital leaders are sounding the alarm over California’s latest cost-control measures targeting “high-cost” hospitals as concerns mount over the potential effects on patient access, physician recruitment and financial viability. On April 22, the California Office of Health Care Affordability Board voted unanimously to cap spending growth at seven hospitals it identified as disproportionately expensive. Beginning in 2026, those hospitals would be required to limit annual growth in total patient and payer costs to no more than 1.8%, with the cap tightening to 1.6% by 2029. Failure to comply could lead to significant financial penalties. (Condon, 5/6)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Anthem Blue Cross Patients Regain Access To Scripps Health
Four months after the contract between Scripps Health and Anthem Blue Cross lapsed, forcing an estimated 125,000 San Diego County residents to consider changing their coverage or finding different doctors, the medical provider announced Tuesday afternoon that the previous relationship has been restored. (Sisson, 5/6)

Axios: Pharma Shipments Surge As Trump Tariff Threat Looms
President Trump's threat of pharmaceutical tariffs is driving a surge of exports of drugs and medical products from Europe to the U.S. as manufacturers look to build up stockpiles before duties hit. (Reed, 5/7)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Famous Geneticist Moving Research Institute To RaDD Project On San Diego Bay 
The J. Craig Venter Institute was formed in 2006, and is currently headquartered in the three-story building at 4120 Capricorn Lane in La Jolla. That is the site of the biomedical facility he opened in 2012, on land owned by his alma mater, UCSD. (Grove and Robbins, 5/6)

Index-Tribune: After Changing How A Community Sees Its Clinic, Sonoma Valley Clinic Leader Cheryl Johnson Steps Down 
When Cheryl Johnson took over Sonoma Valley Community Health Center in 2012, many locals referred to it as the “no” clinic — a place where patient requests were often met with rejection. (Johnson, 5/7)

Times Of San Diego: San Diego-Based Founder Of Nation's Largest Travel Nurse Agency Dies At 51 
Alan Braynin, the former chief executive officer and founder of the nation’s largest travel nurse agency, died of cancer at 51 years old, the San Diego-based company announced Monday. Aya Healthcare announced Braynin’s passing three days after the company publicized the appointment of a new CEO. (Caspers, 5/6)

MedPage Today: AI Topped Docs In Quality, Empathy Of Responses To Patient Questions On GI Cancers
Research presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) included studies on the quality and empathy of artificial intelligence (AI) responses versus physician responses to patient questions about gastrointestinal cancers, the stigmatizing terms used in media coverage of cirrhosis, and a meal that may be okay to eat the evening before colonoscopy bowel prep. ChatGPT outperformed physicians in the quality and empathy of responses to patient questions about gastrointestinal cancers, researchers said. (Haelle, 5/6)

CapRadio: New Bill Would Open Homelessness Funding To Centers That Require Residents Stay Sober
A bill moving through the California legislature would allow housing and shelters that require residents to remain sober to receive state homelessness funds. Right now, the state funds residential centers that do not require residents to remain sober, though most ban using drugs or alcohol onsite. State leaders say this Housing First policy allows people to fulfill basic needs before attempting recovery. (Myscofski, 5/6)

Bay Area News Group: California Lawmakers Are Worried For Head Start. Republicans In Congress Say It's Safe.
An unnamed official told The Associated Press that [President] Trump is not pursuing changes to the [Head Start] program after all, which had been in the administration’s sights for elimination. Despite the reprieve, Bay Area parents and Head Start employees say they’re still worried about the future of the program, which provides free education, health services and nutrition for about 80,000 kids age five and younger statewide, while employing about 27,000 adults. (Stringer, 5/7)

Roll Call: House GOP Drops Some Medicaid Cuts From Reconciliation Plan
Republicans will have to come up with alternative savings to make up for hundreds of billions of dollars in potential Medicaid cuts that GOP leaders appeared to rule out after meeting with moderates in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office Tuesday evening. Johnson, R-La., said leadership had ruled out two Medicaid policies that could go a long way toward meeting the Energy and Commerce Committee’s $880 billion, 10-year savings target but faced strong pushback from blue-state GOP centrists. (Hellmann, Raman and Bridges, 5/6)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Cuts In Budget Bill Could Be Delayed To July
House Republicans may miss their self-imposed deadline to advance legislation that extends tax cuts from President Donald Trump's first term and takes up to $880 billion out of Medicaid, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-La.) said at the American Hospital Association annual membership meeting in Washington on Tuesday. Carter, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee, said lawmakers are not on track to finish the sweeping bill before Memorial Day as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) intended. The House is scheduled to recess from May 26-June 2. (McAuliff, 5/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: Medicaid Cuts Could Cost 10 States, DC Nearly $500B
[California and nine] states and Washington, D.C., could face a $468 billion shortfall over the next decade if Congress reduces the amount it guarantees states to run their Medicaid programs, according to a May 6 report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The federal government has paid for at least half of every state’s Medicaid costs through the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, which starts at a floor of 50%, according to the report. If that floor were reduced, 10 states and the district would be affected. (Cass, 5/6)

Bay Area Reporter: US Supreme Court Allows Trans Military Ban, For Now
The U.S. Supreme Court will allow the country’s armed forces to implement President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender servicemembers while the matter continues to be litigated in the federal courts. The 6-3 ruling Tuesday from the country’s highest court stays a national injunction against enforcing the ban until the constitutional issues can be fully litigated in the lower courts. By issuing the stay, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is allowing the Trump administration to enforce its ban until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the high court can act on the constitutional issues involved. (Keen, 5/6)

Los Angeles Times: Goal Of Welfare Checks: Protect Children Or Launch Deportations? 
Homeland Security officials have said welfare checks aim to ensure that unaccompanied children “are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked.” (Castillo and Gomez, 5/7)

NBC News: Trump Administration Has Shut Down CDC's Infection Control Committee
The Trump administration has terminated a federal advisory committee that issued guidance about preventing the spread of infections in health care facilities. The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) crafted national standards for hand-washing, mask-wearing and isolating sick patients that most U.S. hospitals follow. Four committee members said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention delivered the news about HICPAC’s termination to members Friday. (Bendix, 5/7)

MedPage Today: Vinay Prasad, Critic Of COVID Measures, Picked As FDA's Top Vaccine Official
Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, a frequent critic of the FDA and COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination policies, will be the next director of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), the center that oversees vaccine approvals. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, announced the selection Tuesday on X, saying Prasad "brings the kind of scientific rigor, independence, and transparency we need at CBER." (Clark, 5/6)

Politico: FDA Names First-Ever AI Chief
Jeremy Walsh is now heading up artificial intelligence and information technology in a newly created position at the FDA. He announced the move on LinkedIn. Walsh comes from the government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked for 14 years and was chief technologist, building out cloud networks and data analytics systems for the agencies the firm works with, Ruth reports. ... This is the first time the FDA has appointed a chief AI officer. Former chief information officer Vid Desai managed IT for the agency. (Lim, 5/6)

Stat: Fentanyl Busts Saved 258 Million Lives? Experts Say That’s Implausible
In recent months, federal prosecutors indicted a Georgia man for “possessing enough fentanyl to kill up to 500,000 individuals.” A sheriff in South Carolina announced the seizure of fentanyl that “had the potential to kill more than 800,000 people.” Perhaps most impressively, California Highway Patrol officers estimated they seized enough of the opioid to kill “a quarter of the population” of the entire state — some 10 million people. (Facher, 5/7)

Los Angeles Times: Another Measles Case Reported In L.A. County; Vaccination Urged
Los Angeles County reported another measles case involving a resident or traveler this week, prompting officials to renew their call for all residents to make sure they are up to date on their vaccinations. The latest case — the fourth so far this year — involves a visitor who recently arrived in L.A. County from another country, according to the county Department of Public Health. (Lin II, 5/7)

MedPage Today: H5N1 Bird Flu Cases Have Slowed In Animals And People
Detections of H5N1 avian influenza have slowed in both animals and humans, but continued surveillance is warranted, CDC researchers said. In dairy cattle, cases surged over the fall and early winter but eased in January, while cases in poultry flocks fell after February, and came down last month in backyard flocks, according to data on CDC's website that was shared during a clinician outreach and communication activity (COCA) call on Tuesday. (Fiore, 5/6)

Fox News: Alarming Fungus Could Invade Parts Of The US, Researchers Warn
Some researchers are sounding the alarm about a potentially deadly fungus that could spread throughout parts of the U.S., Europe and Asia. The study article, which was published in pre-print (not yet peer-reviewed) in Research Square, claims that "rising global temperatures" could lead to severe infections of Aspergillus, a fungal mold that thrives in warm, damp climates. (Rudy, 5/6)

San Francisco Business Journal: Nonprofit To Lay Off Up To 175 Staff After Losing Drug-Counseling Contract At Folsom, Other State Prisons
A change of vendors offering drug-counseling services is leading potentially to permanent layoffs of 175 positions at Northern California state prisons, including the two in Folsom. (Anderson, 5/6)