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The Minnesota House on Monday approved plowing hundreds of millions dollars into a new program meant to tamp down health insurance costs and ensure plans are offered after years of instability and skyrocketing premiums. (3/13)

Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is drafting a health care plan for California that he plans to unveil as a core component of his gubernatorial run, based in part on the universal health care program he signed into law when he was mayor of San Francisco. Newsom, seen as a strong contender in the increasingly crowded field of candidates vying to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018, is staking out an ambitious plan to rein in rising health care costs, expand universal access to people across the state regardless of income or immigration status, and preserve coverage for the estimated 5 million Californians who risk losing their insurance under President Donald Trump’s changes. (Hart, 3/13)

A plan to spend taxpayer money to try to produce a cheaper, more stable health insurance market is moving forward in the Minnesota Legislature. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted largely on party lines Monday to pass a “reinsurance” proposal, and a similar measure is moving forward in the Senate...The 78-53 vote saw four members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party join most Republicans to support the package, with the rest of the DFLers and two Republicans voting no. Neither the House bill nor the Senate version is likely to become law in its current form. Instead, they’ll head to a conference committee where lawmakers will try to get a bill that DFL Gov. Mark Dayton will sign. (Montgomery, 3/13)

Members of the House Finance Committee got an earful from nursing home operators, representatives of the developmentally disabled and counselors on the front lines of the opioid crisis in the third and final public hearing on the state budget, this one held in Representatives Hall at the State House. The testimony on Monday was similar to what lawmakers heard in Derry last week, as one speaker after another took the microphone to urge generous funding for alcohol and drug rehabilitation, services for the developmentally disabled and mental health treatment. (Solomon, 3/14)

A Kansas senator who compared Planned Parenthood to Dachau doubled down on his statement and called Planned Parenthood worse than Nazi concentration camps. Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, Republican of Leavenworth, told KCUR on Monday that he saw nothing wrong with the comparison, which he made in a letter to Planned Parenthood after a woman made a donation to the organization in his name. Asked if he thought Planned Parenthood was akin to a Nazi concentration camp, he replied, “Worse. Much worse, much worse, much worse." (Margolies, 3/13)

The number of new HIV infections in Minnesota — 300 annually — has remained stubbornly unchanged for the last 15 years, prompting a bipartisan group of legislators to call for the first-ever statewide strategy to tackle the ongoing HIV epidemic and reduce infections to virtually zero. If approved, the legislation would require the state health department to report to the Legislature next year, explaining how Minnesota can reduce new infections and provide care for the estimated 8,200 people living with HIV or AIDS in the state. (Lopez, 3/13)

Starting this month, California hospitals must comply with a new federal law that requires them to notify patients when they are in observation care and explain why they are not officially admitted even if they are staying a few nights. That’s on top of a state notice law that took effect in January. In the past, California seniors often were unaware they had not been admitted until they received surprise bills for the services Medicare doesn’t cover for observation care patients, including some drugs and — more importantly — expensive nursing home stays. (Jaffe, 3/14)

The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing has won a $2 million grant from the France-Merrick Foundation that school leaders say will mean not only an expansion and renovation of their East Baltimore building but extra volunteer commitments in the surrounding community. The nursing school is expected to produce 30 percent more graduates annually by 2021 after the project is completed in 2020. Currently, there are 1,100 students enrolled, up about 500 from when the building was completed in 1998. (Cohn, 3/13)

Hamilton is proposing legislation that would curtail the ability of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, to change a patient's drug treatments in an attempt to protect the relationship between doctor and patient. Thus far, he has been unable to get a hearing on the bill from his House GOP colleagues. (Collican, 3/13)

The $577.9 billion national defense bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week includes a provision for money that would go to a University of Central Florida clinic that treats veterans and first responders for post-traumatic stress disorder. UCF RESTORES uses virtual reality as a key part of treatment. The funding for the clinic would come from a defense budget devoted to advanced concepts and simulation. (Sago, 3/13)

A judge says California is legally authorized to label the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, the nation’s most widely used herbicide, as a potential cause of cancer. A state environmental agency announced plans in late 2015 to add the chemical, glyphosate, to California’s list of potential cancer-causing chemicals based on a World Health Organization research agency’s findings that it was a probable human carcinogen. (Egelko, 3/13)

It’s become common in the health-care industry for nurses to work three 12-hour shifts, for a total of 36 hours, and remain eligible for the full employee benefit package. With the demand for nurses far exceeding the supply, flexible scheduling has become a popular incentive, according to hospital administrators. But the state can’t compete on those terms, at least not under the current contract with the State Employees Association. (Solomon, 3/13)

Last week, Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento showed off its first-ever “germ-zapping” robot, a wheeled machine that emits pulsating ultraviolet light that’s been shown to kill off infection-causing bacteria. It’s even got a name, chosen by hospital staffers: Xhaiden, an American baby name said to mean “beam of cleansing light.” (Buck, 3/13)

Advocates for marijuana reform waited up to 10 hours to testify Monday night at the Texas Capitol in support of a bill that would dramatically reduce criminal penalties for marijuana possession. HB 81, the last of 11 bills heard by the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Monday, would eliminate any jail time or threat of arrest for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana and the offense would be punishable with a fine of $250. (Mejia Lutz, 3/13)

Georgia Tech researchers have found it's not just car emissions sending people to emergency rooms in Atlanta, but all that dust coming off brakepads and tires. Last year, researchers suspended monitors near I-75 in Atlanta to measure air pollution including the acidity in the air. (Shamma, 3/13)

Last week, the council revised how marijuana businesses will be regulated, writing legislation faster than a waitress taking orders at a crowded all-night diner. Before the revisions, half of the city’s cannabis permits were reserved for residents who were jailed on marijuana convictions in Oakland within the past decade or had lived for at least two years within six police beats in East Oakland with a high volume of marijuana arrests, convictions and jail sentences. The beats were in districts represented by Councilwoman Desley Brooks, the architect of Oakland’s equity permits, and council President Larry Reid. (Taylor Jr., 3/13)