Latest From California Healthline:
KFF Health News Original Stories
Hormone Blocker Shocker: Drug Costs 8 Times More When Used For Kids
Two drug implants are nearly identical. The one for children has a list price of $37,300. For adults, the list price is $4,400. One dad fought for his daughter to be able to use the cheaper drug. (Sydney Lupkin, NPR News, 2/24)
California Defends Authority To Require Insurers To Cover Abortion As Protecting Women's Rights: California disputed a Trump administration assertion that the state is violating U.S. law by requiring insurers to cover abortion, after federal officials threatened to withhold funding if it doesn’t change its policy. California Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services that the state’s abortion-coverage requirement wasn’t in violation of federal law. It also noted that California provided a religious exemption in 2015 to the mandate. “California has the sovereign right to protect women’s reproductive rights. Political grandstanding should never interfere with that,” Mr. Becerra said in a statement before the letter was sent. “The Trump Administration’s threats not only put women’s health on the line, but illegally threaten crucial public health funding that Californians rely on.” Read more from Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal and Noam N. Levey of the Los Angeles Times.
Costa Mesa Successfully Sues To Block Transfer Of Coronavirus Patients From Travis Air Force Base To Orange County: A federal judge has granted a request to block temporarily the transfer of several dozen people who probably are infected with the new coronavirus from Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, where they have been under quarantine, to a closed facility in Orange County. In its request to the court, Costa Mesa said it was never notified of the “11th-hour plan ... to introduce people with a deadly and highly communicable disease” to Fairview. The judge’s ruling upends the plan for what to do with the patients. Meanwhile, Ventura County’s Point Mugu "may receive American travelers coming through Los Angeles International Airport who, in an abundance of caution, would be quarantined to be monitored" for symptoms of the virus "based solely on their travel history," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in the statement. Read more from Steve Rubenstein of the San Francisco Chronicle, Lisa M. Krieger of the Bay Area News Group, Benjamin Oreskes of the Los Angleles Times, and Gretchen Wenner of the Ventura County Star.
In related news from The New York Times: Don’t Send Them Here: Local Officials Resist Plans To House Coronavirus Patients
More coronavirus coverage:
Capital Public Radio: First Sacramento County Coronavirus Case Identified
Los Angeles Times: By Decoding The Coronavirus Genome, Scientists Seek The Upper Hand Against COVID-19
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
Los Angeles Times:
Newsom Wants Peace In California's Water War. Will He Cave To Trump?
Gov. Gavin Newsom may be piloting a lifeboat that will rescue the sinking California Delta. Or he may be in water over his head on a doomed mission.The governor gets angry with skeptics who say he’s being delusional. But history sides with the doubters. (Skelton, 2/24)
San Francisco Chronicle:
California’s New Labor Commissioner Discusses AB5 Gig-Work Law, Worker Protections
Lilia Garcia-Brower spent the past two decades fighting to make sure janitors got paid fairly. As executive director of Los Angeles’ Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a statewide watchdog, she oversaw probes into unfair and illegal practices in the cleaning industry. Now as California labor commissioner, she is taking that same mission to the entire state, enforcing labor laws to ensure just pay and fair treatment for workers. Her staff of 700 investigates and adjudicates workplace violations ranging from unpaid wages to retaliation. (Said, 2/22)
CalMatters:
Teachers Notice Rise In Homelessness Among Kids
Nationwide, homelessness among students is the highest it has ever been, according to a report released last month... A November 2019 audit in California found the Golden State’s schools undercounted their homeless students by at least 37% during the 2017-2018 school year. (Cimini, 2/21)
Ventura County Star:
California Housing: Student Homelessness In Ventura County Doubles
During the 2018-19 school year, more than 6,000 students experienced homelessness in Ventura County. They slept in motels, outside, in cars or in shared small spaces with multiple families. There were 2,953 homeless students in the county in the 2014-15 school year. By 2018-19, that number had jumped to 6,381, according to numbers provided by the Ventura County Office of Education. These numbers only include public school districts and exclude a few districts that did not report any homeless students. (Rode, 2/24)
Fresno Bee:
Fresno CA Caltrans Sites Could Be Used To Help Homeless
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced 286 state-owned properties this week that will be made available to local governments who could use them as solutions to the state homeless crisis, and five of them are in the Fresno area. All five Fresno County sites consist of vacant land owned by the California Department of Transportation. The sites can all be found along Highway 41 south of Ventura Avenue. One is south of the city of Fresno near Adams Avenue. (Miller, 2/22)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Adventist Health Bakersfield Celebrates New Designation For Its AIS Cancer Center
When Dale Lamason was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019, he suddenly was faced with decisions he never expected to have to make. One of them was where to seek treatment — out of town at some big-name university hospital or at a cancer center near where he lives.Lamason, 62, chose Adventist Health's AIS Cancer Center in downtown Bakersfield, a cancer treatment facility that on Friday announced it has been designated a Comprehensive Community Cancer Program by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer. (Mayer, 2/21)
Sacramento Bee:
40,000-Bee Swarm Stings 5 In Pasadena CA
A swarm of 40,000 “very aggressive” bees attacked police and firefighters Friday afternoon, forcing the closure of a street in Pasadena, California, CNN reports. A police officer and two firefighters were among five people sent to the hospital with multiple stings following the 4 p.m. incident, in which swarming bees filled an entire block on Colorado Boulevard, KTTV reported. (Fitzgerald, 2/23)
The Desert Sun:
Eisenhower Health Hosts Annual Concert In Rancho Mirage
A sold-out crowd of more than 450 guests gathered to enjoy the much-anticipated seventh annual concert presented by Eisenhower Health’s Dolores Hope Auxiliary. “Straight From the Heart: Love Songs From Broadway and Opera,” benefiting Eisenhower Health’s Memory Care Center, was produced by the California Desert Chorale, under the direction of artistic director Tim Bruneau. The California Desert Chorale comprises both professional and amateur singers with extensive experience. They provide a wide variety of choral and other inspiring vocal musical performances designed to entertain, educate and enrich the diverse audiences of Southern California’s desert communities. (Zuckerman, 2/21)
The New York Times:
What ‘Medicare For All’ Means After A Six-Year Strike For Health Benefits
They each remember that moment, just after dawn on a September day in 1991, when they walked out of the Frontier Hotel and Casino. There was music and singing — “Solidarity forever,” went the song. That first day, the atmosphere was more like a celebration than a work protest. But the strike would go on to last six years, four months and 10 days — one of the longest labor disputes in American history. There were fights along the picket line, with tourists throwing water and food at the strikers, who were more than willing to fight back. There were dozens of arrests. So much time went by that 107 babies were born to pickets and 17 people died during the strike. (Medina, 2/22)
Reuters:
Despite Attacks, Sanders' Medicare For All Boosts Early-State Triumphs
In the days leading up to Saturday's Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, Bernie Sanders withstood one attack after another over his Medicare for All plan – both from his rivals and the state's powerful hotel and casino workers' union. But entrance polls from Edison Research showed more than 60% of caucus-goers favored replacing private insurance with a government-run plan, suggesting Sanders' sweeping proposal helped deliver his decisive win in Nevada rather than damaging his bid. (2/23)