The New York Times: Democrats Won A Mandate On Health Care. How Will They Use It?
The top priorities for Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, and her party’s new House majority include stabilizing the Affordable Care Act marketplace, controlling prescription drug prices and investigating Trump administration actions that undermine the health care law. Administration officials who have tried to undo the Affordable Care Act — first by legislation, then by regulation — will find themselves on the defensive, spending far more time answering questions and demands from Congress. House Democrats plan to hold early votes on proposals to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, an issue they continually emphasized in midterm races. The votes will test campaign promises by Republicans who declared their support for such protections.(Pear, 11/10)

The Hill: Pelosi Says She'll Be Speaker ‘To Protect The Affordable Care Act’ 
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she is "staying on as Speaker" to protect the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi added during an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" that she could have "gone home" if Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2016. (Burke, 11/11)

The Associated Press: Meet The House Democrats Who Will Be Running The Show
Now that Democrats have captured control of the House for the next two years, the party's most senior members are poised to regain the wide-ranging power of committee chairmanships. While some of the Democrats have gained fame in feuds with President Donald Trump, others are relatively little-known outside of Capitol Hill. A look at the Democratic lawmakers expected to wield the gavels and shape the party's top priorities. (Freking, 11/12)

CQ: 116th Congress: With An Ambitious Policy Agenda, Pelosi Is Poised To Lead The House Again
Basking in House Democrats’ midterm election wins, Nancy Pelosi is focused on the planks of the Democratic campaign platform that will become the new majority’s agenda: health care, infrastructure and cleaning up corruption in Washington. ...Health care was the top issue for Democrats on the campaign trail. They hammered House Republicans for passing legislation that would’ve opened the door for states to gut protections for pre-existing health conditions. But Democratic candidates were divided about how best to shore up the health care system for the future. Some want to strengthen the health care law and add a public insurance option to compete with private-sector plans, while others want to allow everyone to join the government’s program for seniors, Medicare. (McPherson, 11/12)

Meanwhile —

The Hill: How Republicans Who Voted Against ObamaCare Repeal Fared In Midterms
Twenty House Republicans broke with their party last year and voted against the GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, a measure that Democrats used to hammer vulnerable Republicans in the campaign this year. Four of those Republicans still lost on Tuesday, despite a move to blunt one of Democrats’ most potent attacks. But nine Republicans, about half, ended up winning. (Sullivan, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Plan To Pursue Most Aggressive Gun-Control Legislation In Decades
Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar. Their efforts will be spurred by an incoming class of pro-gun-control lawmakers who scored big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, although any measure would likely meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate. Democrats ousted at least 15 House Republicans with “A” National Rifle Association ratings, while the candidates elected to replace them all scored an “F” NRA rating. (Epstein, 11/9)

The Associated Press: Democratic State Gains May Mean Tighter Gun, Looser Pot Laws
From New York to New Mexico, residents in a number of states can expect a leftward push for expanded health care coverage, gun control, education funding and legalized recreational marijuana as Democrats who gained new or stronger powers in the midterm elections seek to put their stamp on public policy. While Republicans remain in charge in more states, Democrats nearly doubled the number of places where they will wield a trifecta of power over the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature. (Lieb and Mulvihill, 11/11)

The New York Times: California Is Already Tough On Guns. After A Mass Shooting, Some Wonder If It’s Enough
After a mass killing in Santa Barbara in 2014, California passed a law that let police officers and family members seek restraining orders to seize guns from troubled people. A year later, a shooting rampage in San Bernardino led to voters approving a ballot proposition to outlaw expanded magazines for guns and require background checks for buying ammunition. The state has also banned assault weapons and regulates ammunition sales — all part of a wave of gun regulation that began a quarter century ago with a mass murder at a San Francisco law firm. (Arango and Medina, 11/10)

The Hill: Pence: 'Veterans Have No Better Friend Than President Trump'
Vice President Pence in an opinion piece on Sunday said that that veterans "have no better friend" than President Trump. "It is written that 'if you owe debts, pay debts; if honor, then honor; if respect, then respect,' " Pence wrote in a piece for Fox News. "The debt our nation owes those who have worn the uniform is a debt we will never be able to fully repay." (Keller, 11/11)

The Washington Post: VA Secretary Says He Will Continue Agency’s Controversial Experiments On Dogs
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie defended the agency’s ongoing experiments on dogs Friday and said he would continue to “reauthorize” them, eight months after Congress passed legislation limiting tests that are opposed by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers and several veterans’ groups. Speaking at the National Press Club, Wilkie rejected calls to end research that he said led to the invention in the 1960s of the cardiac pacemaker and the discovery in the late 1990s of a treatment for deadly cardiac arrhythmias. These days, he said, some of the testing is focused on spinal cord injuries. (Brulliard, 11/9)

And in other veterans news —

North Carolina Health News: A Veteran And His Dog: A Story Of Mental Health Recovery
On Saturday mornings, Billy DeWalt stretches for a workout class at Neuse River Crossfit while his dog, Quinn, sits patiently watching. There are other adaptive athletes in the room. A one-armed athlete works out his remaining shoulder. Meanwhile, a woman with nerve damage lifts weights, despite arm and leg braces. “Everybody should be able to have their own health. That shouldn’t be a special thing that only certain people can have,” said John Prescott, the gym owner. “Everyone should have it.” (Knopf, 11/12)

Kansas City Star: HUD: Kansas City Has ‘Ended Homelessness Among Veterans’
Most weeks in Kansas City, more than three dozen local agencies meet to discuss how to help veterans find places to live. The effort involves local social service agencies, the Veterans Affairs department, and off-shoot private endeavors like the Veterans Community Project, which gained global attention for building tiny houses to help veterans transition to permanent homes. (Montgomery, 11/11)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Plans To Seek A Ban On Menthol Cigarettes
In a landmark move bound to further shake the tobacco industry, the Food and Drug Administration plans to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes next week as part of its aggressive campaign against flavored e-cigarettes and some tobacco products, agency officials said. The proposal would have to go through the F.D.A. regulatory maze, and it could be several years before such a restriction took effect, especially if the major tobacco companies contest the agency’s authority to do so. None of the major tobacco companies would comment on the possibility of barring menthol cigarettes at this early stage. (Kaplan, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA To Propose Ban Of Menthol Cigarettes
It could take a year or more for a rule banning menthol to be finalized, and then another year for it to be enforceable in the marketplace. But a ban on menthols would be a big blow to British American Tobacco PLC, which sells the Newport brand of cigarettes in the U.S. (Maloney, 11/9)

USA Today: FDA To Tighten Age Restrictions On E-Cigarettes, Limit Flavored Vapes
The FDA will ban convenience store and gas station sales of flavors other than tobacco, mint and menthol next week, the official said. Stricter age-verification requirements are also planned for online sales of e-cigarettes. The overwhelming majority of e-cigarette sales are through brick-and-mortar retail outlets, so the FDA's move would have a huge negative effect on business. It also is likely to draw legal action. (O'Donnell, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Juul To Stop Sales Of Most Flavored E-Cigarettes In Retail Stores
E-cigarette startup Juul Labs Inc., faced with a regulatory crackdown and criticism that its marketing has attracted underage users, plans to stop selling most of its flavored nicotine liquids at bricks-and-mortar stores, according to people familiar with the matter. Juul plans to keep selling menthol- and tobacco-flavored products in stores, while all flavors, including cucumber and mango, will remain on its website, which has age-verification controls, the people said. The planned restrictions could heavily affect Juul Labs, according to analysts who say more than half of its sales come from flavors other than tobacco, mint and menthol. (McKay and Maloney and Chaker, 11/9)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: Teen Vaping Sparks FDA Crackdown
Federal regulators want to ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes at retail locations like gas stations and convenience stores. They also want to require anyone buying e-cigarettes online to verify their age. The new restrictions come as the Food and Drug Administration has been trying to rein in a dramatic increase in vaping by young people. Smoking of traditional tobacco cigarettes has fallen to a record low, but the popularity of e-cigarettes among youth is raising alarm bells. (Daley, 11/9)

The Associated Press: Michelle Obama Had Miscarriage, Used IVF To Conceive Girls
Michelle Obama says she felt “lost and alone” after suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and she and Barack Obama underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their two daughters. “We were trying to get pregnant and it wasn’t going well,” Mrs. Obama, 54, writes in her upcoming memoir. “We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy, but a couple of weeks later I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt.” (Kellman, 11/9)

Boston Globe: Michelle Obama Talks Politics, Fertility Troubles, And Marriage Counseling On ABC’s ‘20/20’
“I felt lost and alone. I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them,” she said. She also said that both of her daughters, Sasha and Malia, were conceived through in vitro fertilization. “The biological clock is real,” she said, noting that she realized that when she was in her mid-30s. “We had to do IVF. I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don’t work.” (Reiss, 11/12)

NPR: After NRA Mocks Doctors, Physicians Reply: 'This Is Our Lane'
A mocking tweet from the National Rifle Association has stirred many physicians to post on social media about their tragically frequent experiences treating patients in the aftermath of gun violence. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted on Thursday. "Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves." (Wamsley, 11/11)

The Washington Post: ‘Being Silenced Is Not Acceptable’: Doctors Express Outrage After NRA Tells Them ‘To Stay In Their Lane’
At first, Judy Melinek didn’t know how to respond when she learned about a National Rifle Association tweet last week telling doctors who dared enter the gun debate “to stay in their lane.” But two days later, when the West Coast forensic pathologist was on her way to the morgue to examine the body of one of the country’s many forgotten gunshot victims, the words came to her. “Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane,” she tweeted Friday. “It’s my [expletive] highway.” (Sellers, 11/11)

NPR: Psychological Effects Of Mass Shootings Are Widespread
Roger Chui first learned about the mass shooting that killed 12 people in a packed bar Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when he woke up the morning after and turned on his phone. "And I was like 'Oh, that seems really soon after Pittsburgh and Louisville,' " says the software developer in Lexington, Ky. "I thought we'd get more of a break." Chui feels like these kinds of shootings happen in the U.S. so often now that when he hears about them all he can think about is, "Oh well, it happened again I guess." (Chatterjee and Westerman, 11/9)

Los Angeles Times: The Role Of PTSD In Mass Shootings: Let’s Separate Myth From Reality
Just hours after former Marine Ian David Long killed himself and 12 other people at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday night, observers speculated that post-traumatic stress disorder played a role in the tragedy. The Ventura County sheriff alluded to it. One of Long’s former roommates in Reseda mentioned it. Even the president of the United States said it. But psychology experts say it is premature to suggest that Long suffered from PTSD — or that it could have prompted him to open fire in a bar packed with young adults. (Netburn, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Ventura Shooting: They Survived The Las Vegas Massacre. In A California Country Bar, It Happened Again.
The first frantic message buzzed Brendan Hoolihan’s phone at about midnight Wednesday, and for hours the messages continued to flood his Snapchat group text. His friends had created the chain after the Las Vegas shooting massacre a year earlier, just in case something unimaginable like that ever happened again. It had. (Mettler, 11/11)

NPR: Research Shows Strong Link Between Childhood Trauma And Adult Mental Illness
When public health officials get wind of an outbreak of Hepatitis A or influenza, they spring into action with public awareness campaigns, monitoring and outreach. But should they be acting with equal urgency when it comes to childhood trauma? A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests the answer should be yes. It shows how the effects of childhood trauma persist and are linked to mental illness and addiction in adulthood. And, researchers say, it suggests that it might be more effective to approach trauma as a public health crisis than to limit treatment to individuals. (Blakemore, 11/9)

NPR: The American Academy Of Pediatrics On Spanking Children: Don't Do It, Ever.
Twenty years after urging caution among parents who choose to discipline their children with spankings, the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its stance. Now, its overwhelming consensus for parents: do not do it. In a new policy statement issued earlier this month, the group warns that "Aversive disciplinary strategies, including all forms of corporal punishment and yelling at or shaming children, are minimally effective in the short-term and not effective in the long-term. With new evidence, researchers link corporal punishment to an increased risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children." (Jenkins and Garcia-Navarro, 11/11)

The Washington Post: How To Help A Child Dealing With Pain
Sheer panic. It’s all I can remember. Out of the blue, while enjoying his morning snack one day, my toddler started having seizures. And they didn’t stop. It was terrifying. He was admitted to the intensive care unit. Between seizures he was scared, flailing on the hospital bed, totally out of control. I wanted desperately to help soothe him but didn’t know quite what to do. My first intuition was to distract him. I remember grabbing a jungle pop-up book out of my diaper bag and springing the pictures open right in front of his face to block out all the doctors scurrying about. I made loud roaring sounds like a tiger to drown out all the scary medical noise. It didn’t help. (Coakley, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Harlem Study Fruitful In Teaching Children Healthy Habits
Preschoolers who went through a four-month program focused on the body, physical movement and emotions were able to maintain healthier behaviors in the future, according to research conducted at 15 Head Start schools in Harlem. Half of the children in the study—a continuing project led by Dr. Valentin Fuster, physician in chief at Mount Sinai Hospital—received no intervention initially, while the other half received 50 hours of health education, including lessons on how to take care of the body, the heart, healthy food choices and exploring mad, sad and happy feelings. (West, 11/10)

The New York Times: Dementia Is Getting Some Very Public Faces
The spouses arriving for the Wednesday afternoon caregivers’ class at the Penn Memory Center in Philadelphia had something on their minds even before Alison Lynn, the social worker leading the session, could start the conversation. A few days before, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had released a letter announcing that she’d been diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease. (Span, 11/9)

Stat: A Pivotal Day In World's Response To Ebola Nears: The Launch Of A Clinical Trial 
Health officials are preparing to launch a clinical trial designed to test whether experimental Ebola therapies improve patients’ chances of survival in the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — a landmark moment in the world’s efforts to respond to this and future crises. The randomized controlled trial will compare three different antibody treatments and an antiviral drug to each other, rather than involving a placebo. It is unlikely that the trial will produce clear results based on a single epidemic; it is expected to span several outbreaks and countries — a novel and challenging design. (Branswell, 11/12)

The New York Times: Soy Baby Formulas Tied To Menstrual Pain
Consuming soy-based formula during infancy may be linked to severe menstrual pain in adulthood, researchers report. A study published in Human Reproduction included 1,553 African-American women ages 23 to 35 with information on soy formula feeding gathered by questionnaires. To determine menstrual pain, they asked women whether they had ever taken prescription or over-the-counter medication to prevent menstrual cramps or pelvic pain. (Bakalar, 11/9)

Dallas Morning News: Why Last Flu Season Was So Deadly, And What You Can Do To Protect Yourself Now 
There’s some good news about influenza this fall: After the last brutal flu season, it’s less likely that Dallas-Fort Worth will see such a deadly outbreak again in the coming months, experts say. For now, flu activity is low across Texas and in D-FW. Before it picks up, here’s what you need to know to protect yourself and the people around you. It’s too early to say exactly how this flu season will play out, but Tarrant County Chief Epidemiologist Russ Jones said a season as bad as the last one typically happens only about once in a decade. (Branham, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Is Anorexia Part Of Ballet Culture? An Ex-Dancer Describes Her Struggles.
Anais Garcia, 21, anxiously stares at the menu of a Bob Evans restaurant in Baltimore. Her dark brown eyes gravitate toward the Fit and Healthy section, which lists calories per meal. She takes a long time figuring out what to order and decides to go with her “safe meal,” a small stack of pancakes, with no butter, reduced-calorie syrup, a small bowl of fruit on the side and a cup of black coffee. “Restaurants are like battle zones for me, literal war zones,” she says. (Rolz, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Poor Sleep Can Be The Cause Of Anxiety, Study Finds
A sleepless night can leave the brain spinning with anxiety the next day. In healthy adults, overnight sleep deprivation will trigger anxiety the next morning, along with altered brain activity patterns, scientists reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on Nov. 4. (Sanders, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Fructans, Not Gluten, Might Cause Wheat Sensitivity. Here’s What You Need To Know.
Americans love to designate dietary devils. MSG. Fat. Carbs. Gluten. The latest food to be nominated for devilhood is fructans. And the focus on them came about, in part, because of our obsession with gluten. Here’s how: We know that many people who follow a gluten-free diet don’t need to for medical reasons, such as having celiac disease. Yet some insist they aren’t going gluten-free because it’s trendy — they’re going gluten-free because it makes them feel better. Many researchers believe these people who think they can’t tolerate gluten are actually sensitive to fructans. (Dennett, 11/6)

The Washington Post: ‘Songs To Do CPR To’ Playlist Could Be A Lifesaving Soundtrack
You may have heard that “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees has the perfect beat for doing CPR. But it’s not the only song that can provide a soundtrack to chest compressions in an emergency. If you know “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga, “Rock This Town” by Stray Cats or “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, you already know a song that could help you save a life. The “Songs to do CPR to” playlist on Spotify collects those songs and more. (Blakemore, 11/10)

Iowa Public Radio: Can A Woman's Rising Social Status Bring Down Rates Of Domestic Violence?
Around the world, one in three women experiences domestic violence. How can it be reduced? New research is bringing unexpected insights into this problem — and its potential solutions. A study accepted for publication this month by the Review of Economics and Statistics found that, in Bangladesh, improving the economic status of women can decrease domestic violence if the women also took part in an educational program that helped elevate their social standing in the community. (Schreiber, 11/12)

Kaiser Health News: High Stakes, Entrenched Interests And The Trump Rollback Of Environmental Regs
Since his days on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump has promised to roll back environmental regulations, boost the use of coal and pull out of the Paris climate agreement — and he’s moving toward doing all those things. He has pushed ahead with such action even as a report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in October concluded that without much stronger measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels, a warming planet will witness the spread of tropical diseases, water shortages and crop die-offs affecting millions of people. (Appleby, 11/12)

NPR: To Make A Point, Bill Gates Brings A Jar Of Human Poop To His Toilet Expo
It's not every day that one of the world's richest men walks on stage carrying a jar of human feces, but that's precisely what Bill Gates did in Beijing on Tuesday. The Microsoft founder was in China to talk toilets at the Reinvented Toilet Expo, an event showcasing the latest in high-tech sanitation to entrepreneurs, development banks and government agencies. (Yu, 11/9)

The Washington Post: What To Do When You’re Told You Have Thinning Bones
Two bits of health news last month left me puzzled. One study said don’t bother taking vitamin D for bone health. Another reported that bone-building medications are useful in women with thinning bones, but without an osteoporosis diagnosis. That pre-osteoporosis state is called osteopenia. It’s when your bone density score shows some bone loss, but not enough to be labeled osteoporosis. (Adams, 11/10)

Reuters: NHL Concussion Lawsuit Reportedly Near Settlement
A lawsuit brought against the NHL over what more than 100 former players claim was negligence in dealing with their head injuries could be on the verge of a settlement. According to a Forbes report on Friday, the case is "on the verge" of a settlement agreement worth a total of $18.9 million. Per the report, the lead attorney for the players is pushing for acceptance of the agreement, which would give $6.9 million to the players, or just $22,000 each. (11/9)

California Healthline: An Underused Strategy For Surge In STDs: Treat Patients’ Partners Without A Doctor Visit
If patients return to Dr. Crystal Bowe soon after taking medication for a sexually transmitted infection, she usually knows the reason: Their partners have re-infected them. “While you tell people not to have sex until both folks are treated, they just don’t wait,” she said. “So they are passing the infection back and forth.” That’s when Bowe, who practices on both sides of the North and South Carolina border, does something doctors are often reluctant to do: She prescribes the partners antibiotics without meeting them. (Gorman, 11/9)

The Associated Press: Death Toll Rises In California Wildfire, Matching Deadliest
As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones on Sunday, crews searching the smoking ruins of Paradise and outlying areas found six more bodies, raising the death toll to 29, matching the deadliest wildfire in California history. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state, with gusty winds expected overnight which will challenge firefighters. The statewide death toll stood at 31. The Camp Fire that ravaged a swath of Northern California was the deadliest. (Flaccus and Selsky, 11/11)

Sacramento Bee: 228 Missing, 29 Dead In California Wildfire
The death toll, which increased by six on Sunday, equals the death toll from the 1933 Griffith Fire in Los Angeles as the worst mass-casualty wildland fire ever in the state. The Oakland hills Tunnel Fire in 1991 caused 25 deaths. The fire slowed some on Sunday, but officials said the risk of flaring remains high and winds are once again a threat overnight. (Sabalow, Valine and Bizjak, 11/11)

Los Angeles Times: Death Toll Jumps To 29 In Camp Fire
The first bodies found after the fire passed were in a car on the road. Some survivors said they had only minutes to escape. Five of the bodies found Sunday were in homes. One was in a vehicle. Much of the area has still not been searched, and scores of people remain missing. “What I will say is we are very early in our efforts,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. “There is still a great deal of work to do.” (Sahagun and Serna, 11/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: More Than 200 Remain Missing In Camp Fire
The fire was just starting to pick up its pace Thursday morning when Greg Carota last spoke to his twin brother. Vinnie Carota, 65 years old and disabled, said he was sticking it out, even as his roommate and a sister-in-law offered him a ride. Vinnie said he was staying, even as Greg angrily pleaded over the phone for him not to. And then the line went silent. Every call went unanswered the rest of Thursday. Then the same silence on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (Gutierrez, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Firefighters Battle Deadly California Wildfires
The Camp Fire in Butte County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento, grew slightly to a total of 109,000 acres on Sunday, after destroying an estimated 6,500 homes and 260 businesses, mostly in the city of Paradise. At least five victims of the fire were found trapped in charred vehicles as they tried to flee the fast-moving blaze, authorities said. ... In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire expanded to 83,275 acres Sunday morning, after leaving an estimated 177 homes and other structures destroyed in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and at least two known fatalities. More than 200,000 people remained evacuated from their homes on Sunday, including in Thousand Oaks where a gunman fatally shot 12 people in the Borderline Bar and Grill before apparently taking his own life. (Carlton, 11/11)

San Jose Mercury News: Camp Fire's Unforgettable Tales Of Escape - 'This Is When I Die'
It’s the terror, the sheer terror of being stuck in a vehicle in bumper to bumper traffic with flames closing in and nowhere to go that haunts them most. On the main road that locals affectionately called “the Skyway to Paradise,” many of those trapped in the nerve-wracking slow-motion evacuation Thursday morning said their goodbyes, whispered their prayers and wondered, is this the end? (Sulek, 11/10)

San Jose Mercury News: Camp Fire Smoke: ‘Everybody Is At Risk' From Poor Air Quality
Just as Californians have long been told to prepare for earthquakes, they must now start protecting their health from the wildfires becoming more commonplace in this state, experts warned Sunday. That means learning how to monitor the smoke-filled air from raging fires — and avoid breathing it. (Geha, 11/11)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento CA To Give Residents Masks Due To Wildfire Smoke
The city of Sacramento is offering its residents free respirator masks to deal with smoke and worsening air quality caused by the Camp Fire. The fire, which started Thursday, has been steadily pushing smoke into the Sacramento region and raised the Air Quality Index number to 367 in some Sacramento neighborhoods Saturday. That is considered hazardous for all people regardless of age or physical health, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. (Morgan, 11/11)

Denver Post: Colorado Hospitals Charge Patients More Than 5 Other Jurisdictions, Survey Finds
Colorado hospitals charge their insured patients significantly more for inpatient and outpatient care than hospitals in five other jurisdictions studied, a report released on Thursday found. The analysis reviewed health care costs in Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, Oregon, Maryland and St. Louis. It found the price of inpatient care at Colorado hospitals in 2016 was 31 percent higher than the average for the six jurisdictions reviewed. The cost of outpatient care in Colorado that year was 15 percent higher than the average for all the jurisdictions. The study was conducted by the Portland, Maine-based Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement. (Osher, 11/9)

Boston Globe: New York Financial Firms To Buy Athenahealth, Report Says
Athenahealth, the Watertown health care software company, has agreed to a $5.5 billion buyout offer from a pair of New York financial firms, Veritas Capital and Elliott Management, according to a news report. The company has faced more than a year of uncertainty leading up to the decision. Athenahealth has been in the crosshairs of Elliott, a major shareholder whose complaints about sluggish profits led company management to grudgingly put it up for sale. (Rosen, 11/12)

Wyoming Public Radio: Colorado And Utah Have Third Gender Option On Licenses
Two Mountain West states are part of a dozen across the country that allow people to select non-binary gender on legal documents. Colorado residents, who do not identify as male or female, will be able to choose "X" as their gender on driver's licenses starting on Nov. 30. "It's really important that Colorado is now allowing another opportunity for male, female and non-binary -- people who identify as neither male or female -- to also have an identity document who matches who they are," said Daniel Ramos, executive director of One Colorado, an LGBTQ advocacy organization. (Daniel, 11/9)

Georgia Health News: State OKs New Hospital For Children’s Healthcare
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has received state approval for its planned 446-bed hospital in Brookhaven. The approval of the certificate-of-need application was announced late last week. The project was not opposed by any other hospital system. (11/11)

KCUR: Wichita Clinic Challenges Kansas Law Banning Medication Abortions Via Telemedicine 
A Kansas law prohibiting drug-induced abortions via telemedicine is being challenged by a women’s health clinic in Wichita that provides abortions. Trust Women Wichita on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking to block the law from taking effect on Jan. 1. “Our mission as an organization is to provide reproductive health care to people in the state of Kansas and elsewhere, and to provide that care to underserved communities,” said Julie Burkhart, founder and CEO of Trust Women Wichita. (Margolies, 11/9)

The Washington Post: Former Fairfax Teachers Allege Pregnancy Discrimination By School System
A former Fairfax County teacher has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that administrators at the nationally recognized Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminated against her after she became pregnant. The social studies educator, Amanda Hurowitz, said she was on maternity leave in April with her second child when she learned from the school’s principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and an assistant principal that her contract as a part-time teacher would not be renewed for the 2018-2019 academic year. (Truong, 11/11)

The Star Tribune: 'Change Is Very Alarming' For Some As Insurers Take A New Approach To Medicare Incentives 
Free rides to the doctor. Smartwatch fitness trackers. Hearing aid discounts. Health insurers are dangling extra benefits in front of roughly 1 million Minnesotans on Medicare who have the chance in the coming weeks to pick a health plan for next year. Always a busy time for some Medicare consumers, this year’s insurance shopping season is particularly volatile as a federal law forces more than 300,000 people in Minnesota to find new coverage. While there are more extra benefits in the mix this year, many consumers seem focused on just trying to figure out the basics of what’s happening. (Snowbeck, 11/10)

NPR: Retailers Plan To Clear Deadly Paint Removers From Shelves, As EPA Delays Ban
In October 2017, Drew Wynne collapsed inside a walk-in refrigerator at his coffee business in North Charleston, S.C. By the time his business partner found him crumpled on the floor, Wynne was dead. He had suffocated on a chemical called methylene chloride. The 31-year-old's death is one of dozens blamed on popular paint removers sold under the brand names Goof-Off, Strypeeze, Klean Strip and Jasco among others. (11/12)

The Associated Press: Delaware Psychotherapist Pleads Guilty To Health Care Fraud
A psychotherapist in Delaware has pleaded guilty to health care fraud. The News Journal of Wilmington reports 47-year-old Sachin Karnik was sentenced to two years in prison. He was charged last year with fraud, falsifying business records and theft by false pretenses. The state’s Department of Justice said Friday that Karnik submitted fraudulent claims to Medicaid for counseling sessions. The state says Karnik also lied about his educational background. (11/12)

Kansas City Star: Group Busted By KC Health Officials Feeds Homeless Again
One week after Kansas City health officials busted up several picnics for the homeless, the cooks and their meals returned Sunday afternoon. This time, the volunteers with Free Hot Soup KC were ready if health officials returned with their trash bags and bleach, said Nellie McCool of Merriam.“Everybody was ready to stand up for themselves,” she said. “We’re prepared to face the law.” (Robertson, 11/11)

The Associated Press: Delaware Woman Sentenced For Embezzling From Hospital
Authorities say a Delaware woman has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $100,000 from a hospital. A news release from the Delaware Department of Justice said Friday that 49-year-old Hope Abram was sentenced to 25 years, though much of it was suspended. The release said the sentence includes 2 years in prison, followed by home confinement. (11/11)

Chicago Tribune: Walgreens Cuts Manager Bonuses Following Employee Benefit Changes 
Walgreens is slashing bonuses received by store managers and others in management, in many cases by thousands of dollars each – a move that follows a series of changes to the store's employee benefits. Deerfield-based Walgreens told managers about the cuts to their bonuses in late October, according to sources familiar with the situation. Store managers and others receive annual bonuses based on a number of factors, including individual, store and company performance. This year, those bonuses were much lower than what store managers typically receive and expected to get, sources said. (Schencker, 11/9)

Seattle Times: At Swedish’s Neuroscience Unit, Some Staff See A Better Culture; CEO Vows More Improvements 
Two years ago, Bernedette Haskins left her job as a nurse inside Swedish Health’s acclaimed neuroscience institute, alarmed that her concerns about surgical scheduling, staffing and patient safety weren’t being addressed. But after internal turmoil and a 2017 Seattle Times investigation that exposed concerns about the organization’s culture, Swedish implemented changes that assured Haskins she could again care for the brain-surgery patients who have long been a passion of hers. She returned to the neuroscience institute a year ago and says the culture has undergone a substantial overhaul. (Baker, 11/9)

The New York Times: By Protecting Veterans’ Health, You May Protect Your Own
This Veterans Day, in addition to honoring those who serve in uniform, we should spend some time remembering the 300,000 employees of the Veterans Health Administration. The V.H.A. — the nation’s largest public health system — doesn’t just keep veterans healthy; it has developed treatments that help all Americans. And if we don’t defend it, it could be dismantled and auctioned off in whatever remains of the Trump era. (Suzanne Gordon, 11/10)

Fox News: Veterans Day – Veterans Have No Better Friend Than President Trump
President Trump has signed the most substantial veterans’ health-care reform in a generation, making Veterans Choice a permanent part of American law. Today our veterans have access to the real-time, world-class care they have earned, whether at a private health-care provider or the Department of Veterans Affairs. This law will also improve the VA’s ability to recruit and retain quality health-care professionals, give veterans access to walk-in care, and expand health-care choices, including options for telehealth and mental health services. (Vice President Mike Pence, 11/11)

Fox News: Veterans Day: By The Time I Saw My VA Doctor, He Said It Was Too Late
As I sat in the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital on Dec. 21, 2012, I had no idea my life was about to change. I’d seen a nurse practitioner in 2011 and was finally consulting with a VA urologist almost a year later. I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t prepared for the diagnosis I was about to receive. “You’ve got one of the worst cases of prostate cancer I’ve ever seen in my life,” the urologist said to me. “Hospice will call you Monday morning.” Those words hit me like a ton of bricks. (Steve Cooper, 11/11)

USA Today: Doctors: NRA Should Work With Us To Reduce Death Toll From Guns
After the American College of Physicians released a paper last week about reducing firearm injuries and deaths in America, the NRA tweeted the statement: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” A couple of days later, the Centers for Disease Control published new data indicating that the death toll from gun violence in our nation continues to rise. As the NRA demanded that we doctors stay in our lane, we awoke to learn of the 307th mass shooting in 2018 with another 12 innocent lives lost to an entirely preventable cause of death — gun violence. (Megan L. Ranney, Heather Sher and Dara Kass, 11/11)

USA Today: Thousand Oaks: Update Gun And Mental Health Laws To Prevent Shootings
The horrendous killings and  pipe bomb threats over the past few weeks have raised the specter of evil and hatred lurking in our society. We should pay close attention to the mindsets of the alleged perpetrators, because there is nothing normal about what they did or said. The rule of thumb is not to render opinions without examining them. But let's be honest: the actions and conduct of these men have been off the deep end. (Stephen N. Xenakis, 11/9)

Los Angeles Times: Save A Grandma. Get Your Flu Shot
A natural disaster is bearing down on our country, one assured to take the lives of thousands and hospitalize tens of thousands more: the annual flu epidemic. Last year’s strains were particularly virulent, with 900,000 Americans hospitalized and more than 80,000 people dying from the flu or its complications.To make matters worse, many of these people died needlessly. The flu vaccination rate in the United States hovers around 45%. If we could increase this rate to 70% — the level required to reach “community” or “herd” immunity and keep an epidemic from propagating — the majority of the deaths, hospitalizations and missed days of work could be avoided. But to do that, we need to properly incentivize vaccination. (Ian Ayres, 11/12)

Stat: Summer Research Opportunities For High Schoolers Should Be Available To All 
For some high school students, an ideal summer is one spent on the beach with friends. For others, like me, an ideal summer is one spent hunched over a lab bench carrying out experiments. I had two such summers, which amplified my passion for science and profoundly motivated me in my studies. But I worry that this experience is denied to many who could learn and blossom from summer research opportunities. (Kenneth Pham, 11/12)

Lexington Herald Examiner: Legislature Must Beef Up Staffing At Nursing Homes 
In Kentucky, it isn’t unusual to find nursing homes that schedule one registered nurse or nurse’s aide to do the impossible — provide quality care to 40 residents for the entirety of a 12-hour shift. This is nowhere close to the federal government’s recommendation of an “expected staffing” level that provides residents more than one hour of care from registered nurses and two hours and 45 minutes from nurse’s aides every day. The feds also urge states to beef up those requirements, and many have. But not Kentucky. In the Bluegrass, the majority of nursing homes fall short of that goal — and many fall way short. (Sherry Culp, 11/9)

Sun Sentinel: A Triumph For Voting Rights. Next Up, Medicaid?
Also on Tuesday, voters in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah voted in favor of ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, something that Scott and the Florida Legislature have refused to do. That political spitefulness — rooted in the Republican vendetta against President Barack Obama — left some 1.5-million low-income Floridians ineligible for Medicaid, including about 467,000 who also do not qualify for health insurance subsidies under the ACA. Idaho, Nebraska and Utah are conservative states that voted strongly for Donald Trump. In three other states — Kansas, Wisconsin and Maine — the election of Democratic governors likely means a total of six more states will accept the Medicaid expansion, leaving only Florida and ten others as outliers. (11/8)

Los Angeles Times: A Texas Abortion Procedure Ban Is Unnecessary, Full Of Theatrics And Harmful To Women
The Texas state Legislature has been relentless in its efforts to stop women from exercising their legal right to an abortion. When the Supreme Court tossed out the state’s onerous requirements for abortion clinics and providers in 2016, the statehouse just kept churning out other restrictions, both absurd (such as the requirement that fetal remains be buried or cremated, which has also been struck down) and serious. The 5th Circuit should see a restriction on this common and safe second-trimester procedure as onerous and unlawful, and uphold the injunction. (11/12)

USA Today: US Can Eradicate Cervical Cancer Like Australia By Requiring HPV Vaccine
Researchers announced last month that thanks to a compulsory vaccine program, Australia is on track to eradicate cervical cancer. This is due to almost universal vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus which isresponsible for 90 percent of cervical cancers. The vaccine itself is a medical breakthrough and has only been available for use since 2006. In just 12 short years, cervical cancer is becoming a rarity in Australia and will eventually be eliminated, saving thousands of Australians’ lives. (Terry Gallagher, 11/12)

Boston Globe: More Than 7 Million Women In America Struggle With Infertility. Michelle Obama And Gabrielle Union Are Among Them
Womanhood and motherhood are bound together so tightly, women are expected to reproduce as easily as they breathe. And we’re choking on the myth. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 7 million women in America struggle with infertility. Michelle Obama and Gabrielle Union are among them. So when the former first lady and the actress each shared their difficult paths to parenthood last week, the conversation went viral. (Jenee Osterheldt, 11/11)

The Hill: Reproductive Services Are A Key Component To Health Of Latina Women
Halfway through Trump’s first term, on the heels of the recent confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and with the increased xenophobic rhetoric all around us, many Latinx voters are galvanized to engage in a political system. They're motivated by the fact that their very basic rights are threatened, namely, access to health care, reproductive freedom and immigrant rights. (Ann Marie Benitez, 11/ 11)