Latest California Healthline Stories
Senate Rejects GOP-Sponsored Plan To Offer Discount Rx Cards to Medicare Beneficiaries
One day after rejecting competing proposals to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, the Senate yesterday defeated a Republican-backed proposal to create a prescription drug discount card for Medicare beneficiaries, the New York Times reports.
CMS Deputy Administrator Touts Bush’s Plan To Increase Medicare+Choice Reimbursement Rates
African-American and Hispanic seniors will “disproportionately lose access to medical care” unless Congress approves an increase in reimbursement rates for Medicare+Choice plans that President Bush has proposed, CMS Deputy Administrator Ruben King-Shaw said yesterday in Denver, the Denver Post reports.
‘California Connected’ To Air Special Health Care Edition Tonight
“California Connected,” a weekly, hour-long newsmagazine produced by PBS stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco that covers state events and issues, tonight will air a special health care edition, titled “Caring About Health.”
State leaders at the National Conference of State Legislatures’ annual meeting yesterday called for additional federal funds to help states address budget shortfalls, the AP/New York Times reports.
Alameda County health care employees and church leaders said at an Oakland press conference Tuesday that they would work to “erase the stigmatization and silence” that surrounds and perpetuates the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially among minorities, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Paychecks Delayed for 13,000 San Diego County Home Care Workers
About 13,000 home care workers in San Diego County who provide services for elderly and disabled patients have received their paychecks late because the staff at the county In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority, which last year took over as the workers’ formal employer, is insufficiently trained and lacks adequate computer equipment, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
HHS Releases Bilingual Booklet on CHIP, Medicaid; Thompson Speaks on Hispanic Health
HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson yesterday released a new bilingual booklet to provide information to low-income Spanish-speaking parents whose children may qualify for CHIP or Medicaid, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Senate Unanimously Approves Richard Carmona as Next Surgeon General
The Senate yesterday unanimously voted to confirm Dr. Richard Carmona as surgeon general, despite questions about his qualifications raised during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing earlier this month.
San Joaquin County Nurses Set To Begin 24-Hour Strike Today
As expected, nurses employed by San Joaquin County are scheduled to hold a 24-hour strike, beginning this morning, after contract negotiations broke down on Monday, the Stockton Record reports.
Davis Should Sign Legislation To End ‘Confusion’ over Proposition 215, Sacramento Bee Says
Although last week’s state Supreme Court decision on Proposition 215 “usefully tidied up one small corner of the medical marijuana mess” in California, Gov. Gray Davis (D) must “clean up the rest of the confusion” over the law, according to a Sacramento Bee editorial.