Latest California Healthline Stories
The Senate Budget Committee on Thursday “soundly rejected” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) proposed $1.9 billion in midyear budget cuts for fiscal year 2003-2004, including funding reductions to health programs for low-income residents, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Language of Bush’s FY 2005 Budget Hides ‘Flimflam’ of Tax Credit Proposal
The “bland language” in the fiscal year 2005 budget proposal released last week by President Bush related to a proposal that would provide refundable tax credits to help uninsured U.S. residents purchase health coverage “conceals the flimflam” of his “dubious solution” to the “medical crisis” in the United States, columnist E.J. Dionne writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.
Political committees designed to promote the policies of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) have received more than $6.4 million in donations, including six-figure donations from Zenith Insurance and several other groups that support Schwarzenegger’s call for legislation to reduce employers’ workers’ compensation insurance premiums, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
County Agency Votes To Retain Independence of Health Plan of San Mateo
The San Mateo County Health Commission on Wednesday voted to retain local control of Health Plan of San Mateo, rather than outsourcing day-to-day management of the health plan to Solano County-based Partnership HealthPlan of California, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Injunction Against Closure of Los Angeles County Rehabilitation Center
A three-judge panel of U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday unanimously upheld an injunction that blocks a plan by Los Angeles County to close the 207-bed Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey until the county can prove that disabled Medi-Cal beneficiaries can obtain comparable care at a different facility, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Tenet Officials Say They Have No Plans To Close Hospitals Put Up for Sale in California
Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare has no plans to close any of the 19 hospitals it has put up for sale in California, although the company would not “promise that the hospitals would remain open,” Dr. Stephen Newman, CEO of Tenet California, said Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Revision to Organ Donor Match Criteria Allows More African Americans To Receive Kidneys, Study Finds
A revision to donor-recipient matching criteria that the United Network for Organ Sharing implemented in May will lead to an estimated 6.4% more African-American patients receiving kidney transplants and will slightly increase the rate of unsuccessful transplants, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Grocery Store Chains Reject Union Offer for Binding Arbitration To End Strike
Officials from three grocery store chains on Wednesday refused an offer from the United Food and Commercial Workers union for binding arbitration that would have ended a four-month strike and lockout by about 70,000 union members that centers mainly on health benefits, the Sacramento Bee reports.
American Heart Association Issues Guidelines To Help Prevent Heart Disease in Women
American Heart Association officials on Wednesday announced new guidelines aimed at preventing heart disease in women, Long Island Newsday reports.
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Bush’s proposed fiscal year 2005 budget, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), one of the two Democrats who was involved in negotiations over the Medicare law (HR 1), on Wednesday said that the Bush administration last year “withheld information” about the new legislation’s estimated cost, the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer reports.