Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Patients Suffer When Health Care Behemoths Quarrel Over Contracts
The latest example is Sutter Health and Anthem Blue Cross, whose failure to seal a deal is causing Anthem members to worry they may not have access to one of the dominant hospital chains in Northern California. Across the U.S., the stakes in such contract fights have risen, as health systems and insurers battle to increase their market share. (Barbara Feder Ostrov, )
To Get Mental Health Help For A Child, Desperate Parents Relinquish Custody
To get care for their 12-year-old son's severe mental illness, Toni and Jim Hoy had to give up custody of him and allow the state of Illinois to care for him. It happens to hundreds, perhaps thousands of children each year. The exact number is unknown because two-thirds of states do not keep track. (Christine Herman, Side Effects Public Media, )
Good morning! Newly released rules from the Trump administration take aim at the rebate system that flourishes between drugmakers and middlemen. The proposed changes would “fundamentally change how drugs are priced and paid for at pharmacies,” HHS officials said, while experts predicted the rules could have a “devastating” effect on the industry. More on that below, but first, here are some of your top California health stories for the day.
San Francisco’s Health Warnings On Ads For Sugary Drinks Ruled Unconstitutional: The decision from the federal judge halts the city’s requirements that certain advertisements for sugary drinks include warnings about obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. The labels "offend plaintiffs' First Amendment rights by chilling protected speech,” the court found in its unanimous ruling, adding that the city’s warnings weren’t based on established fact because the FDA says sugar is safe when not consumed in excess. Supporters of the measure, though, weren’t deterred. “The fight isn’t over,” said state Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat who authored the ordinance, in The Associated Press’ coverage.
Report Provides Roadmap For Lawmakers To Expand Health Coverage In California: Health policy experts have crafted a report that’s aimed at guiding lawmakers as they seek to both expand access to health insurance and make those plans more affordable for those who already have them. The experts looked at two different approaches to achieving those means: one that’s more sky’s-the-limit and one that takes into account budget restraints, and the price tags on the options match how ambitious they are. Read more from Capital Public Radio.
S.F. Hospital Agrees To Temporarily Halt Practice That Sticks Patients With Astronomical Bills: A series of investigations into the “balance billing” practices of San Francisco General Hospital have recently brought to light a serious problem. The hospital was set up to care for low-income patients, so it lacks agreements with private insurance companies—a crucial part of keeping bills in check for patients with insurance. S.F. General has temporarily halted the practice as it looks for a way to address the issue, but patients who sought care before the hospital’s agreement with the city are still getting eye-popping bills. Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle.
‘Birth Tourism’ Scheme Uncovered In Los Angeles, The Inland Empire And Orange County: Chinese women who wanted their children to be born on U.S. soil were being coached on how to lie on their tourist visas. The scheme had been in operation for years. Check out more in the Los Angeles Times and The Mercury News.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day. Media outlets report on news about dialysis legislation, Molina Healthcare, the opioid epidemic, wildfires, the homelessness crisis and more.
More News From Across The State
The California Health Report (healthycal.org):
Bill Takes Aim, Again, At California's Kidney Dialysis Industry
A California lawmaker has resurrected a bill targeting the profits of the state’s kidney dialysis industry, arguing it will ensure patients who qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal don’t get pushed into private insurance plans. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa), introduced AB 290 this week, saying it would prevent dialysis companies from unfairly boosting their reimbursement rates by steering patients who qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal toward private health insurance coverage instead. Wood accuses dialysis companies of indirectly subsidizing private insurance premiums for these patients via donations to the nonprofit American Kidney Fund (AKF). The clinics get much higher reimbursement through private insurance than through Medicare and Medi-Cal, even though the care they provide to patients is the same, he said. (Boyd-Barrett, 1/31)
Sacramento Bee:
Molina Switches Doctors For 19,000 Sacramento-Area Residents
Molina Healthcare has abruptly reassigned roughly 19,000 patients to new doctors, effective Friday following a contract dispute with Golden Shore Medical Group, said J. Mario Molina, Golden Shore’s CEO and owner, whose company cared for mostly Medi-Cal patients. Molina said that Golden Shore would complete the sale and transfer of its local clinics Thursday to Sacramento-based WellSpace Health. (Anderson, 1/31)
KQED:
Orange County's Only Needle Exchange Continues Fight To Reopen
The only needle exchange in Orange County, a mobile unit that was sidelined by a judge in November, is fighting in court to continue offering its services. The Orange County Needle Exchange Program (OCNEP) filed an appeal with a San Diego County Superior Court judge last week, seeking to resume operations. (Wiley, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
Hate Crimes In L.A. Highest In 10 Years, With LGBTQ And African Americans Most Targeted
Los Angeles recorded its highest level of reports of hate crimes in a decade, with a nearly 13% increase in 2018 over the year before. Last year, L.A. tallied 289 hate crimes, compared with 256 in 2017, according to LAPD statistics gathered by researchers at Cal State San Bernardino. Members of the LGBTQ community, African Americans and those of Jewish faith were the most frequently targeted, according to the newly released report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. (Winton, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
Costa Mesa Officials Hear Questions And Concerns About Proposed Homeless Shelter During Community Meeting
About 200 people cycled through the Costa Mesa Senior Center on Wednesday to ask questions and air concerns during a community open house about the city’s proposal to open a temporary 50-bed homeless shelter at a Westside church. Throughout the evening, guests visited booths featuring city staff, public safety personnel and representatives of various nonprofits. (Money, 1/31)
Reuters:
Altria Says Juul Sales Skyrocket To $1 Billion In 2018
Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc said on Thursday e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc posted more than $1 billion in revenue in 2018, up from about $200 million a year earlier, the first official growth figures for the controversial vaping product. Altria paid $12.8 billion to acquire a 35 percent stake in Juul in December 2018, getting a foothold in a segment that is quickly becoming an attractive alternative for smokers. (1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
D.A. To Review Video Evidence In Case Of O.C. Surgeon Charged With Rapes
The Orange County district attorney has ordered an examination of all evidence, including numerous videos, in the case of a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend charged with sexually assaulting seven women. Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said that after the review, he will determine how to proceed in the case against Dr. Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, whose high-profile prosecutions were launched by Spitzer’s predecessor, Tony Rackauckas. (Winton, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
Climate Change Should Tamp Down California’s Wildfire-Fanning Santa Ana Winds, Study Finds
Scientists have warned that California should brace for more wildfire as global warming drives longer bouts of hot and dry weather.Now researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have found a positive trend when it comes to Southern California’s battle against destructive blazes. Santa Ana winds — which routinely whip up walls of flame through brush-covered hillsides — are likely to be tempered in coming decades as a result of climate change, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. (Smith, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
FEMA Extends Application Deadline For California Wildfire Victims To Feb. 15
Federal officials Thursday said residents in Los Angeles, Ventura and Butte counties who suffered damages from the Woolsey, Hill or Camp wildfires have 15 more days to register for aid. The Federal Emergency Management Agency extended the Jan. 31 deadline to Feb. 15. (Panzar, 1/31)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Kaiser Donates $1.6 Million For Apartment Project At Site Of Journey’s End Mobile Home Park
Earlier this month, Kaiser said it was donating $1.6 million to help kick-start the development of an affordable apartment community on the burned property. The money, a portion of more than $8 million Kaiser has thus far donated to local fire recovery, was given to nonprofit developer Burbank Housing. The nonprofit now has control of the Journey’s End property. The donation is expected to advance an ambitious plan for a multi-story housing complex with 160 apartments that would replace mobile homes lost in the fire and the 44 homes that did not burn but were declared uninhabitable because of the blaze. Those homes will be razed or relocated to make way for the apartments. (Espinoza, 1/31)
Ventura County Star:
Ready For A Disaster? Simi Hospital Takes Tests
Actors at Adventist Health Simi Valley portrayed victims infected with a life-threatening bacterial disease Thursday as part of an annual disaster drill for Ventura County hospitals. The state-mandated exercise originally had been planned for November, but real-life disasters, including the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks followed directly by the Hill and Woolsey fires, forced organizers to postpone until this month, said Shirley Niell, the hospital's communication manager. (1/31)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Noted Sonoma County Tech Innovator Teams With Petaluma Health Clinic On Digital Health Project
Michael Hatfield became a legend in Sonoma County tech circles understanding, monitoring and processing the vast array of data coursing through telecommunications networks. The 56-year-old entrepreneur used that same knowledge and expertise when he turned last spring to the human body for his latest technology venture. The advent and explosion of mobile devices and wearable technology such as Fitbits, Apple watches and smart medical implants have ushered in a new era of digital health systems analysis, one that can keep people healthy and even alive. (Espinoza, 1/31)
The Bakersfield Californian:
LA-Based RadNet Buys Kern Radiology
In a continuing trend of local health-care consolidation, Kern Radiology Medical Group Inc. has been purchased by a Los Angeles outpatient medical imaging company touted as the largest company of its kind in the country. RadNet Inc.’s acquisition of Kern Radiology would combine the two companies’ physician groups in a way that would make more efficient use of personnel, said Dr. Girish Patel, a person with knowledge of the transaction and who sold Truxtun Radiology Medical Group to RadNet in 2010. (Cox, 1/31)
The New York Times:
Trump Officials Move To Lower Drug Prices By Passing On Rebates To Patients
The Trump administration proposed on Thursday to require health insurance companies and middlemen to give consumers the benefit of discounts they get on prescription drugs, a huge change that could substantially lower some patients’ costs but could also have unintended consequences. Drug makers now pay billions of dollars in rebates to such middlemen to increase the use and sales of their products. Under the proposal, these rebate payments would be viewed as illegal kickbacks, disrupting longstanding arrangements in the pharmaceutical industry. (Pear, 1/31)
The Associated Press:
Prescription Discounts Channeled To Patients In Trump Plan
The proposed regulation from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar would eliminate behind-the-scenes discounts among drugmakers, insurers and go-betweens and instead require that they be paid directly to consumers when they buy their medications. The idea is to do away with a hidden cost seen as contributing to artificially high list prices for prescription drugs. The proposal was co-authored with the Health and Human Services inspector general's office. (2/1)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Administration Moves To Curb Drug Rebates In Medicare, Medicaid
“This proposal has the potential to be the most significant change in how Americans’ drugs are priced at the pharmacy counter, ever, and finally ease the burden of the sticker shock that millions of Americans experience every month for the drugs they need,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. (Armour and Walker, 1/31)
Bloomberg:
Trump Targets Drug Middlemen With `Devastating' Rebate Plan
The changes are “potentially devastating to the current pharma ecosystem,” said Eric Coldwell, an analyst with Baird Equity Research. “The U.S. health-care system is a sandcastle and the tide is coming in.” Shares of major drug-plan providers fell. CVS Health Corp., which oversees drug benefits for more than 90 million Americans, fell 2.4 percent in late trading in New York, and Cigna Corp., which last year bought PBM giant Express Scripts, declined 1.4 percent. (Edney and Langreh, 1/31)
Politico:
Democrats' Divisions Bust Open As 2020 Primary Heats Up
That didn’t take long. Barely a month into the 2020 Democratic primary, rifts between the party’s liberal and moderate factions burst open this week — pried loose by an intraparty feud over health care and taxes that could define the battle to take on President Donald Trump. It started with Sen. Kamala Harris’ comments at a town hall Monday that she backed eliminating the health insurance industry in order to achieve Medicare for all. Distancing herself from the proposal on CNN the next day, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) cautioned against immediately “changing our entire insurance system where over half of Americans get private insurance.” (Siders and Cadelago, 1/31)
The Washington Post:
Republicans Seize On Liberal Positions To Paint Democrats As Radical
Sen. Kamala D. Harris is raising the possibility of eliminating private health insurance. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats are floating new and far-reaching plans to tax the wealthy. In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam voiced support for state legislation that would reduce restrictions on late-term abortions. Democrats, after two years largely spent simply opposing everything President Trump advocated, are defining themselves lately in ways Republicans are seizing on to portray them as far outside the American mainstream. (Viser, 1/31)
The New York Times:
Republicans Seize On Late-Term Abortion As A Potent 2020 Issue
When New York expanded abortion rights last week for the first time in 49 years, Democrats across the state were exultant. Now, that jubilation has been met with an equal and opposite reaction. Anti-abortion advocates, from grass-roots activists all the way to the White House, are taking aim at New York, Virginia and other states in a bid to halt similar legislative efforts by emboldened Democratic lawmakers and to mobilize supporters ahead of the 2020 presidential race. By Thursday, both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had leaned into the debate, homing in on provisions that would loosen some restrictions on late-term abortions. (Wang, 1/31)
Politico:
Trump To Throw Spotlight On Abortion In State Of The Union
President Donald Trump is telling conservative allies he wants to incorporate firm anti-abortion language into his State of the Union address Tuesday, and potentially include an anti-abortion figure among his list of invitees, according to four sources familiar with his plans. Trump sees an opening to energize his evangelical supporters and capture moderate voters who administration officials believe may be turned off by widespread coverage of New York’s newest abortion law, which allows for termination of some pregnancies after the 24-week mark for health reasons. (Orr and Restuccia, 1/31)
The New York Times:
Sackler Scion’s Email Reveals Push For High-Dose OxyContin, New Lawsuit Disclosures Claim
A member of the Sackler family that owns OxyContin’s maker directed the company to put a premium on selling high dosages of its potentially addicting painkillers, according to new disclosures in a lawsuit. Richard Sackler, a son of a founder of Purdue Pharma and its onetime president, told company officials in 2008 to “measure our performance by Rx’s by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths,” according to an email written by Mr. Sackler, contained in the filing. The lawsuit, which was filed in June by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods increased the risks of serious side effects, including addiction. (Meier, 1/31)
Stat:
Massachusetts Releases Its Full Lawsuit Against Purdue Pharma
The Massachusetts attorney general’s office on Thursday made public a full copy of its lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, which it accuses of igniting the opioid epidemic through the deceptive marketing of its painkillers, including OxyContin. The court filing details how the company considered expanding into addiction treatment, how much the Sackler family that controls Purdue and company executives were paid, and how the company was advised by McKinsey & Co. to improve its image in the face of concerns about addiction and overdoses. (Joseph, 1/31)
Stat:
No Products Yet, But Gawande Health Venture To Begin 'Deploying Tests’ This Year
Atul Gawande’s new Boston-based health care venture has yet to design any products, but it could be changing the way some employees of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase receive their health care within the year, the venture’s chief operating officer told a federal judge on Thursday. The venture’s COO, Jack Stoddard, testified for an hour on Thursday at a Boston federal courthouse during a contentious, technical, and unusually long hearing. The hearing was intended to determine the fate of David Smith, a former midlevel executive at Optum. Smith began a new job at Gawande’s venture, referred to in court documents as ABC, earlier in January. Optum is suing to prevent Smith from continuing to work for the new company. (Sheridan, 1/31)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Time Is Now For Talk About Vaccinations
Anti-vaccination propagandists also tend to rely on people’s fears about government intervention, which is why it’s important for them to hear accurate information from people with whom they have something in common, like a religious community. ...Will this be enough to save us from the next disease outbreak? Who knows. (Caille Millner, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
In The Epic Trump Vs. California Battle, California Is Ahead
For most of the past two years California has been widely regarded as the nation’s preeminent center of resistance to the Trump administration. “No other entity — ,” said one writer in the American Prospect early in 2017, “not the Democratic Party, not the tech industry, surely not the civil liberties lobby — has the will, the resources, and the power California brings to the fight.” That’s been the rough consensus ever since. But what impact has that resistance — Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra’s wave of lawsuits (45 at last count), California’s state and local sanctuary laws, the Air Resources Board’s pointed tightening of its already tough auto emissions regulations — had? (Schrag, 2/1)
Los Angeles Times:
Once And For All: Hormone Replacement Is Good For Women
We don’t suggest that all women should take hormones, or will benefit if they do. We are well aware that every medication carries risks. Neither of us has financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. We simply are persuaded that the minor risks of HRT for some women are far outweighed by the major benefits for most women. (Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris, 1/31)
The Mercury News:
New Family Planning Rules Hurt Families, Economy
Any day now, the Trump administration is expected to finalize new rules attacking the Title X family planning program that will make birth control and other preventive reproductive health care inaccessible for millions of Americans. This is an obvious calamity for the women and families that rely on Title X, but it would also weaken the economy President Trump claims to care so much about. (1/29)
Sacramento Bee:
Loneliness Is As Bad For You As Smoking
Is it possible that loneliness is worse for you – and a harder habit to break – than smoking? Maybe. The only way health and science experts could make the health crisis surrounding chronic loneliness more urgent would be to announce that loneliness makes Americans look fat, especially from behind. (Gina Barreca, 1/27)
Los Angeles Times:
A Power Vacuum On Safety Oversight
California’s largest provider of electricity puts profits before safety. So proclaimed a federal judge Wednesday during a hearing in which he excoriated representatives of Pacific Gas & Electric for their company’s lack of investment in safety measures and its shameful history of sparking wildfires so deadly and destructive that the expected claims have driven the company to bankruptcy. (2/1)