Latest California Healthline Stories
Illicit Drug Use on the Decline in U.S. Schools, But Marijuana Easier To Obtain, Survey Finds
Although fewer adolescents are using drugs in school, an increasing number of teens say that marijuana is “easier to buy than beer and cigarettes,” the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Walk to School Not a ‘Simple Answer’ to Childhood Obesity, Press-Enterprise States
A new CDC report that in part attributes the low rate of U.S. children who walk to school to the nation’s childhood obesity problem “takes a swing and a miss at a public health issue,” according to a Riverside Press-Enterprise editorial.
California Healthline Rounds Up Editorials on Medicare Reform, Rx Drug Benefit
Although President Bush has criticized Medicare as “old,” “stale” and “tired,” the program is “not failing its participants,” but rather “the federal government is failing Medicare” through “misguided federal budget policies,” according to a New York Times editorial.
N.C. Program Reduces Health Care Costs
The Washington Post today profiles a disease management program in Asheville, N.C., that links city workers with pharmacists to control chronic illnesses and to reduce health care costs.
State Budget Impasse Impacts Services for Elderly, Blind and Disabled
The budget stalemate in the Legislature is preventing some programs from receiving state funds, impacting services for hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind and disabled Californians, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The Los Angeles County Office of AIDS Programs and Policy cannot account for the expenditure of more than $80 million in state and federal HIV/AIDS funds last year, according to a report issued by the Auditor Controller’s Office, the Pasadena Star News reports.
Assembly Passes Bill To Ensure Abortion Rights, Allow Nurses To Prescribe Mifepristone
The Assembly yesterday voted 44-23 to pass a bill (SB 1301) that would ensure that women in the state have access to legal abortions in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, the Contra Costa Times reports.
Congress Unlikely To Address the Issue of the Uninsured, Reinhardt Says
Congress “could not find it in its heart and mind” to provide health coverage for the uninsured last year when the nation had a budget surplus, and “it is unlikely to do so as the government once again faces red ink,” Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of political economy at Princeton University, writes in a Boston Globe opinion piece.
USA Today Opinion Pieces Address Genetic Testing and Medical Privacy
Genetic tests that identify predisposition to certain medical conditions could “cause more problems than they solve” without laws to protect the confidentiality of test results, according to a USA Today editorial.
Iowa To Ask HHS To End Disparity in States’ Medicare Rates
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) and Attorney General Tom Miller (D) said yesterday that current Medicare reimbursement rates “shortchange” the state by $1 billion annually and announced plans to send a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson demanding that his department calculate states’ Medicare payments “equivalently,” the Des Moines Register reports.