Latest California Healthline Stories
Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. John Kerry Wins Wisconsin Primary
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) won the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, with Sen. John Edwards’ (D-N.C.) second-place finish turning the nomination race “into a two-person contest,” the New York Times reports.
HHS Committee To Consider Whether HIPAA Medical Privacy Rule Applies to Banks
Representatives of patient advocacy groups and banks on Wednesday will testify before an HHS advisory panel about whether the privacy provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act should directly cover banks, USA Today reports.
San Francisco General Hospital Will Not Provide Abortion Records to Justice Department
San Francisco General Hospital officials will not provide records of so-called “partial-birth” abortions performed at the hospital to the U.S. Department of Justice, which subpoenaed the records in preparation for a lawsuit challenging a federal law that would ban such abortions, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office said on Friday in a letter to the Justice Department, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
California Regulators Investigate American Indian Workers’ Compensation Insurers
The Department of Insurance has begun to investigate American Indian tribes that establish workers’ compensation insurance businesses on reservations that are not licensed or regulated by the state and sell less-expensive coverage to businesses “hundreds of miles away,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The University of California-San Francisco Medical Center will spend $50 million during the next two years to upgrade its clinical information system as part of an effort to improve patient care, efficiency and safety, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Medicaid Cost Dispute Likely Between Federal, State Officials
The Bush administration and states appear “headed for a confrontation” as CMS officials begin to “crack down” on state efforts to shift more of the cost of Medicaid to the federal government, a dispute that “will be high on the agenda” on Saturday at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington, D.C., the New York Times reports.
HHS Replaced Report With ‘Cheery Rewrite,’ Opinion Piece States
An HHS report on health disparities that found racial and socioeconomic disparities were “pervasive in our health care system” was replaced with a “cheery rewrite touting administration successes and asserting that claims of minority groups receiving worse care than whites were unproved,” M. Gregg Bloche, professor of law and health policy at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities, writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece.
FDA Asks Canada To Increase Regulation of Online Pharmacies
FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan last week sent a letter to officials for Health Canada, which regulates prescription drugs in the nation, to request that the agency “take more aggressive steps to regulate” Canadian online pharmacies after Minnesota regulators found problems with some pharmacies in a recent inspection, the AP/Detroit News reports.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) proposed $2.7 billion in funding cuts to health and welfare programs included in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2004-2005 are “an unrealistic, last-minute package that relies heavily on proposed cuts drawn up by state accountants before” the governor took office, according to some health care advocates, the Orange County Register reports.
San Francisco Chronicle Examines Financial Problems at Public Hospitals
The San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday examined the “serious financial trouble” facing the state’s 26 public hospitals, a problem that could force the facilities to continue to reduce services for patients.