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The Bay Area’s largest county announced plans Wednesday to buy a private hospital that had been slated for major cutbacks — a move that county officials say will preserve critical medical care for the low-income community it serves. Santa Clara County has reached a tentative agreement with the owner of Regional Medical Center, a 250-bed hospital in East San Jose, to acquire the facility for $175 million. (Ho, 8/21)

California lawmakers are debating whether to go where Congress won't and pass legislation that would give the state the ability to block private equity acquisitions of health care facilities or providers. (Goldman, 8/22)

Health systems investing in affordable community housing have seen significant decreases in inpatient and emergency department visits among patients experiencing homelessness. Hospitals are creating housing programs and partnering with local building developers, health departments and governments to connect patients to stable housing options. (Devereaux, 8/21)

Quest Diagnostics plans to acquire some outreach laboratory assets from University Hospitals. Quest and the Cleveland-based health system have entered a definitive agreement and expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter pending regulatory approval, the company said in a Wednesday news release. Financial terms were not disclosed. (DeSilva, 8/21)

Hospitals and other health providers will shift their attention to how states opt to police non-compete agreements now that a federal court has blocked a Federal Trade Commission ban on the widely used contracts. (Reed, 8/22)

North Carolina’s population of adults 65 and older is expected to grow by about 50 percent in the next couple decades — from 1.8 million in 2023 to 2.7 million in 2040, according to state data. As these residents age, they’ll have greater need for care. (Vitaglione, 8/21)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Biden Administration Blocks Two Private Sector Enrollment Sites From ACA Marketplace

Federal regulators have blocked two private sector enrollment websites from accessing consumer information through the federal Obamacare marketplace, citing “anomalous activity.” The unusual step comes as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is under the gun to curb unauthorized enrollment and switching of Affordable Care Act plans by rogue agents. The agency received more than 200,000 complaints in the first six months of the year about such actions. (Appleby, 8/22)

A new genomic sequencing technique could help hospitals better track and control the spread of multiple drug-resistant pathogens, researchers reported yesterday in The Lancet Microbe. (Dall, 8/21)

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University will be developing new tools to ensure cancer surgeries are safer and more effective. The funding for this effort is coming from an initiative from the Biden Administration -- the Cancer Moonshot Initiative -- which aims to reduce the cancer death rate by at least half before 2047. The initiative also aims to improve the experience of people touched by cancer. (Valera, 8/20)