Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Meth In The Morning, Heroin At Night: Inside The Seesaw Struggle of Dual Addiction
Many users now mix opioids with stimulants like meth and cocaine — and researchers believe opioids kicked off this new stimulant wave. (April Dembosky, KQED, 6/20)
Good morning! Could the technology used to catch the Golden State Killer help identify two mysterious victims of the devastating Camp Fire? Experts hope so. More on that below, but first here are your top California health stories of the day.
Despite Gains Made Under The Health Law, Many Californians Still Struggle To Afford Insurance: According to a new survey, almost a third of state residents making under 200 percent of the federal poverty level—about $49,000 annually for a family of four—said they had problems paying medical bills in the past year. Even when they did get medical or dental care, a majority of low-income Californians had difficulty paying for it. Almost three quarters of low-income residents said they had to cut spending on other household items to pay medical bills, and about 6 out of 10 said they’d gutted their savings, put off vacations, or had to borrow money from family or friends to pay their medical bills. Read more from Claudia Boyd-Barrett of the California Health Report.
Meanwhile, in related news, a closer look at Inland Empire gig workers illustrates a dynamic that sets the region apart from the rest of California. The uninsured in the region, consisting of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, includes a much higher percentage of workers who are eligible for free, low-cost or subsidized insurance through Medi-Cal or Covered California than the average statewide. Yet they remain without health coverage. That’s largely because low-wage workers in the region often lack health insurance options from their employers, according to those who follow the local economy. Others qualify for insurance through Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange created through the Affordable Care Act, but find even its subsidized plans too costly to afford. And some qualify for free care through Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, but may not be aware of their options and remain uninsured. Read more from Nicole Hayden and Deepa Bharath of The Desert Sun and the USC Center for Health Journalism News Collaborative.
And furthermore, California’s push to give everyone access to affordable health insurance could be disrupted by a federal plan to change the standards for poverty, according to analysts. Research estimates that should that change occur 30,000 children and 30,000 adults would lose Medi-Cal eligibility, and over 1 million Californians with subsidized coverage through Covered California would receive smaller subsidies or lose their subsidies entirely. Read more from Sammy Caiola of Capital Public Radio.
Homeless Activists Call For L.A. Mayor To Step Down: 'He Can't Handle The Crisis': According to the latest count, homelessness has swelled 16% over the past year, largely because of a shortage of affordable housing, and critics have questioned whether Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is treating the homelessness problem with enough urgency. “He can’t handle the crisis,” said Alexandra Datig, a political commentator and registered Republican who described herself as longtime Angeleno frustrated by the surging number of people living on the street. “He needs to step down.” Garcetti argues that the region has built tens of thousands of housing units in recent years and that the crisis would be worse without city efforts under his leadership. Read more from Dakota Smith of the Los Angeles Times.
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.
More News From Across The State
San Jose Mercury News:
Anti-Vaccine Doctors Sign Most Bay Area Medical Exemptions
In the midst of a fierce legislative battle over student immunization requirements, a Bay Area News Group investigation found a who’s-who of ‘‘vaccine choice’’ doctors signed the bulk of the 180 vaccine exemptions on file at eight local school districts, with five doctors accounting for more than half. The exemption practices of three doctors in the records have already come under investigation by California authorities, and many are on lists of “vaccine-flexible” pediatricians circulated online by anti-vaccine parents. (Ferguson, 6/20)
The Associated Press:
Public To Weigh In On Revised California Vaccine Bill
Residents are getting their first chance to weigh in on a revised California measure giving state public health officials oversight of doctors who grant over five vaccination medical exemptions annually vaccinations and schools with vaccination rates less than 95%. Thursday's Assembly committee hearing is expected to draw hundreds of people against vaccines to the Capitol. (6/20)
Los Angeles Times:
2020 Hopeful Marianne Williamson Apologizes For Calling Vaccine Mandates ‘Draconian’ And ‘Orwellian’
Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who will appear on the Democratic debate stage next week, apologized Wednesday night after she attacked mandatory vaccinations as “draconian” and “Orwellian” at a Manchester, N.H., event. “To me, it’s no different than the abortion debate,” Williamson said at the event, according to a tweet from an NBC News reporter. “The U.S. government doesn’t tell any citizen, in my book, what they have to do with their body or their child.” (Pearce, 6/19)
Capital Public Radio:
Prop. 64 Taxes Are Threatening Charity Groups Who Give Away Pot To Chronically Ill Californians
A new bill moving through the Legislature could exempt donated marijuana from state taxes created under California’s Prop 64. Nonprofit owners, farmers and dispensaries say the new regulations have made it more difficult for them to give pot to chronically ill people who can’t otherwise afford it. (Caiola, 6/19)
Sacramento Bee:
Camp Fire Victims Could Be Identified With DNA From Bones
Their bones lie in a refrigerated morgue in Sacramento, waiting to be identified.Seven months after California’s deadliest wildfire devoured most of Paradise, the names of two of the Camp Fire’s 85 victims remain a confounding mystery. No relatives or friends have shown up to offer clues. There are no fingerprints to cross-check, no hip implants or other tell-tale signs. (Kasler, 6/19)
Sacramento Bee:
CA Wildfires: PG&E Finds ‘Immediate Safety Risk’ Flaws
PG&E Corp. said Wednesday its inspectors have found hundreds of “immediate safety risk” problems on its transmission towers and other equipment in recent months, some of them comparable to the flaws that state officials say ignited the Camp Fire last November. The utility said it has fixed almost all of the problems already.PG&E officials made the disclosure as they neared completion on an intensive inspection-and-repair program begun earlier this year in response to a 2018 law requiring utilities to improve their wildfire safety records. (Kasler, 6/19)
San Jose Mercury News:
Santa Clara County Partners Mountain View Planned Parenthood
At a time when Planned Parenthood facilities across the country are increasingly under fire, Santa Clara County has vowed to stand by the organization — becoming a tenant in its Mountain View facility and providing additional services to its patients. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a partnership with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte aiming to expand health care services in northern Santa Clara County. (Angst, 6/19)
Ventura County Star:
Doctor With County History Hired To Run Ventura County Medical Center
A doctor with deep roots at Ventura County Medical Center was named Wednesday as CEO of the Ventura-based hospital and the affiliated Santa Paula Hospital. Dr. John Fankhauser is taking over the job of running the two hospitals immediately, Ventura County Health Care Agency Director Bill Foley said. He succeeds Kim Milstien, who has resigned and was relieved of her duties earlier this week. (Wilson, 6/19)
Sacramento Bee:
CalPERS Retirees In Loyalton To Get 83 Percent Of Pensions
Three Loyalton retirees will receive about 83 percent of the pensions they were promised for careers in the tiny Sierra County town’s government, according to settlement agreements the town released Wednesday. The payments resolve a lawsuit retirees John Cussins, Patsy Jardin and Donald Yegge filed after the California Public Employees’ Retirement System reduced their benefit checks by about 60 percent in November 2016. (Venteicher, 6/20)
Ventura County Star:
Lawsuit Alleges Vista Del Mar Is Responsible For Employee's Sex Crimes
A Ventura psychiatric hospital and the Michigan company that manages it should be held responsible for a former mental health worker who pleaded guilty to sexual contact with three female patients, a lawyer argued in a multi-million dollar civil trial on Wednesday. Juan Pablo Valencia, who worked for more than two years at Aurora Vista del Mar Hospital before being terminated in December 2013, was arrested twice in 2015 and accused of sex crimes involving patients during his time with the hospital. He pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor of having sexual contact with a confined person and two felonies involving rape of an incompetent person and sexual penetration with a foreign object. (Kisken, 6/19)
Sacramento Bee:
Syphilis PSA Poster By Sacramento County Joked About Online
Sacramento County Public Health tweeted the image almost a month ago, in May. It’s a clever enough concept for a public service announcement, but it didn’t appear to get any attention at the time – not a single retweet. But a few weeks later, many local social media users can’t help but laugh about the poor model in the stock photo, who’s now inextricably linked to the STD. (McGough, 6/19)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Kamala Harris To Introduce Bill To Cover HIV Prevention Drug
Sen. Kamala Harris will introduce legislation Thursday that would require health insurance companies to cover the HIV prevention drug PrEP, a first-of-its-kind bill that the California Democrat timed to coincide with Pride Month. The bill would require that insurance plans cover the full cost of PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, as well as require initial tests and related follow-up visits with a doctor. (Kopan, 6/20)
Politico:
How Kamala Harris Would Prevent The Spread Of HIV
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) released a plan Thursday that would seek to slow the spread of HIV by making a preventive drug more accessible. What’s the reason for the plan? Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) has been found to reduce the risk of contracting HIV by up to 92 percent for those who take it on a daily basis. But the drug cost more than $20,000 a year in 2018, according to Harris' office. (Levine, 6/20)
Stat:
Biden Wants To Cure Cancer. Trump Does, Too. But Cancer Is Complicated
As a crowd of 20,000 looked on, laughing, Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday mocked his father’s emerging rival Joe Biden for the ambitious pledge he made recently to “cure cancer” if elected president. “I’m going to cure cancer,” Trump Jr. said contemptuously, throwing his arms above his head. “Wow! Why the hell didn’t you do that over the last 50 years, Joe?” Once President Trump took the stage at his campaign kickoff rally in Orlando, he made his own pledge: He, too, would cure cancer once and for all. (Facher and Joseph, 6/19)
The Associated Press:
Biden Anti-Cancer Groups Could Pose Influence Concerns
Joe Biden was on friendly turf when he appeared in January 2018 at a San Francisco health care conference to call for urgency in the search for a cancer cure. He had come before an invitation-only crowd of 2,000 health care industry leaders and investors to tout the work of his Biden Cancer Initiative, the nonprofit that has been his defining venture since leaving the Obama White House more than two years ago. (6/19)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Joe Biden’s Claim That ‘Almost Half’ Of Americans Live In Poverty
What does it mean to be poor? Biden took an expansive view at a presidential candidate forum hosted by anti-poverty advocates. The Census Bureau calculates the poverty rate in different ways. Using the official poverty measure, 12.3 percent of U.S. residents were below the federal poverty line in 2017. Using the supplemental poverty measure, the rate was 13.9 percent. Biden says it’s much more: almost half the country. We surveyed several leading researchers on poverty, and almost all agreed Biden was including people who are not poor. (Rizzo, 6/20)
The Hill:
Key Senators Release Bipartisan Package To Lower Health Care Costs
A pair of key senators on Wednesday unveiled a revised version of their bipartisan package aimed at lowering health care costs, ahead of a committee markup expected next week. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) released the package, which takes steps to protect patients from receiving massive “surprise” medical bills when they get care from an out-of-network doctor. It also cracks down on anti-competitive clauses in hospital contracts with insurers that can drive up costs, and encourages the introduction of cheaper generic drugs. (Sullivan, 6/19)
The Associated Press:
House Passes $1T Spending Bill As Budget Talks Resume
The Democratic-controlled House passed a $1 trillion spending bill Wednesday that amounts to an opening bid in a guns vs. butter fight with the Trump administration, with both sides trying to avert the return of drastic automatic spending cuts or a budgetary impasse that could put federal agencies on autopilot. The House voted along party lines to pass the bill, which blends military spending that’s a priority for Republicans with Democratic-sought funding increases for health and education programs. (Taylor, 6/19)
The Hill:
Grassley Announces Opposition To Key Trump Proposal To Lower Drug Prices
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday announced his opposition to one of President Trump’s signature proposals aimed at lowering drug prices. Grassley told reporters that he opposes a plan that Trump announced in October to lower the prices Medicare pays for certain drugs by tying them to lower prices paid in other countries, an idea known as the International Pricing Index. (Sullivan, 6/19)
The Hill:
Trump Administration Defends Controversial Changes To Family Planning Program On Capitol Hill
The Trump administration faced fierce backlash from Democrats Wednesday when it defended its controversial decision to ban abortion providers from participating in a federally funded family planning program. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs Diane Foley, a Trump appointee, testified before Congress for the first time Wednesday about the administration’s changes to Title X, a decades-old grant program for family planning clinics that offer contraception and preventive health services to low-income women. (Hellmann, 6/19)
The Washington Post:
Meet The New York Couple Donating Millions To The Anti-Vax Movement
A wealthy Manhattan couple has emerged as significant financiers of the anti-vaccine movement, contributing more than $3 million in recent years to groups that stoke fears about immunizations online and at live events — including two forums this year at the epicenter of measles outbreaks in New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Hedge fund manager and philanthropist Bernard Selz and his wife, Lisa, have long donated to organizations focused on the arts, culture, education and the environment. But seven years ago, their private foundation embraced a very different cause: groups that question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. (Sun and Brittain, 6/19)