Latest California Healthline Stories
Advocates for management and union retirees “are trying to draw more attention” to cuts and eliminations of company-sponsored health care benefits by organizing voter registration drives, writing to lawmakers, attending rallies and advertising in newspapers in a “last push before the elections to try to get more seniors to the polls,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The number of California residents without health insurance remained about the same between 2002 and 2003, but the number of residents with employer-sponsored health coverage decreased as enrollment in public health insurance programs increased, according to a California HealthCare Foundation report released Thursday, the Stockton Record reports.
Advertisements for Health-Related Ballot Initiatives Increasing in Number, Cost
The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday examined how spending on advertisements related to measures on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot, including several health-related measures, is “on pace to surpass” record spending of $198 million in 1998, as special interests have placed thousands of ads on television and radio outlets.
Anthem Remains ‘Very Committed’ to Merger With WellPoint
Anthem Chair and CEO Larry Glasscock on Wednesday in a statement said that the company remains “very committed to completing [its] proposed merger with WellPoint Health Networks,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
USA Today on Thursday examined how the outcome of two health-related measures on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot likely will “reverberate in other states and Congress” and “tilt the dynamics of two of the [United States’] most contentious issues.”
California Healthline on Tuesday incorrectly reported that 14 California physician groups would receive about $50 million in bonuses from a coalition of six health plans. The coalition will pay $50 million in bonuses to 215 physician groups.
San Francisco Mayor Convenes Union, Hotel Representatives To Discuss Negotiations
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday met with locked out unionized hotel workers and their employers at City Hall to mediate their contract dispute, which focuses largely on health benefits and the contract’s length, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Opinion Pieces Address Ballot Measure To Fund Stem Cell Research
Several recent opinion pieces have addressed Proposition 71, a measure on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot that would issue state bonds to raise an average of $295 million annually over a decade to promote human stem cell research.
Contributions to the campaigns asking voters to uphold or repeal SB 2 — a state law that will require some employers to provide health insurance to employees — could reach more than $10 million, as interested parties “try to get their message out amidst the clutter of the presidential campaign and 15 other ballot measures,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Studies Document Danger of Medical Residents’ Sleep Deprivation
First-year medical residents who work 80-hour weeks — including some 24-hour shifts — make “significantly more serious medical errors” and have more “lapses in attention” because of fatigue than those who worked fewer hours and got more sleep, according to two studies published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, the Wall Street Journal reports.