Viewpoints: Medi-Cal Hospital Payments; Controlling Drug Prices
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Sacramento Bee:
Low Medi-Cal Payments To Hospitals Hurt Patients
In most areas of California, including Sacramento County, the state has contracted its role of coordinating care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries to health plans. These plans, however, are not receiving adequate funding from the state. As a result, higher-cost providers such as academic medical centers are often eliminated from the insurer’s network. (C. Duane Dauner, 8/14)
Orange County Register:
Reining In Predatory Pharmaceutical Drug Prices
I’ll bet every Orange County Register reader knows someone who relies on prescription medication to stay alive. Whether they’re fighting cancer, controlling high blood pressure or diabetes, treating an auto immune disease or a bout with pneumonia, access to medication is just as critical as food and water for many in our communities. (Jennifer Muir Beuthin, 8/11)
Sacramento Bee:
Democrats Must Stand Up For Abortion Rights
As Democratic leaders search for ways to win in 2018, some have recently suggested that women’s rights and reproductive health care are dispensable. ...Such a strategy would not only betray what it means to be a Democrat, it would also be destined to fail. (Amy Everitt, 8/15)
The Washington Post:
Trump Needs To Stop Sabotaging Obamacare — Before It’s Too Late
Yet the administration has stoked more uncertainty than it has allayed, leaving the health system in peril. The White House has been deciding month-to-month whether to keep important subsidy payments flowing to insurance companies — payments that were simply assumed during the Obama administration. Without these payments, insurers would have to jack up premiums or leave Obamacare markets next year. The CBO estimated Tuesday that average premiums would jump by 20 percent next year if the Trump administration pulled them. Moreover, because of how the payments interact with other elements of the health-care system, the government would end up losing money — $194 billion over a decade. (8/17)
Los Angeles Times:
Vaccination Rates Are Up In California, But Pockets Of Resistance Still Threaten Everyone
Despite an overall increase in kindergarten vaccination rates to 95.6% since 2015, when the Legislature stopped allowing public school students to skip their shots simply because of their “personal beliefs,” a Los Angeles Times analysis found that at nearly 750 California schools, most of them charter or private schools, 90% or fewer of the kindergartners had their full course of vaccinations against diseases such as measles, polio, and whooping cough. Some gaps are unavoidable over the next few years because the law, SB 277, isn’t retroactive. (8/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Californians Lack Access To Safe Drinking Water. Let's Fix That Once And For All
alifornia’s wet winter eased the immediate water shortages that affected most of the state, giving lawmakers and water agencies a bit of a breather as they craft new policies and design new infrastructure to weather the next big drought (which, for all we know, may already be underway). But neither the rainfall nor the new projects and policies will help hundreds of thousands of Californians whose local water supply is contaminated. These residents must either pay an inordinate amount of their income to truck in drinkable water or suffer the dire health consequences of drinking, cooking with and bathing in poisonous H20. (8/18)
Los Angeles Times:
An Obamacare Insurer Flees Another State, Blaming Trump And The GOP For Sabotage
The effort by congressional Republicans and the Trump White House to sabotage the Affordable Care Act reached another milestone Friday when the big insurer Anthem announced it will be pulling out of Virginia’s ACA marketplace next year. Anthem has been the biggest insurer in the Virginia individual market. Its enrollment base of 165,000 in 2017 is nearly three times the size of the No. 2 insurer, Kaiser, which has 60,000. (Michael Hiltzik, 8/14)
NPR:
How Doctors Deal With Hate, Racism And Their Own Biases
The events that unfolded in Charlottesville last weekend are a stark reminder of how far we haven't come as a nation. Like so many Americans, I am horrified that white supremacist and neo-Nazi adherents have recently found sanction to put hateful ideologies more overtly on display. ... For doctors, public emergencies bring to mind ethical duties and dilemmas that never go away. Current events compel us to examine our core beliefs and do a gut-check of our own ethical standards and sense of professionalism. (John Henning Schumann, 8/16)