Latest California Healthline Stories
Los Angeles Times Looks at Debate Over Physician Collective Bargaining Bill
The Los Angeles Times this weekend examined the debate between health plans and physicians over legislation (AB 1600) that would exempt doctors and medical groups from federal antitrust laws and permit them to collectively bargain with health plans over payments.
Officials Hope Newly Announced Medicaid Rules Will Speed Approval of Healthy Families Waiver
Although California’s “ambitious proposal” to extend Healthy Families coverage to more than 300,000 low-income parents and children has been stalled for seven months, state officials have “expressed hope” that this weekend’s announcement (see story 6) by President Bush of changes to Medicaid policy could mean the expansion “will become a reality,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
HHS Proposal Would Give States ‘Flexibility’ to ‘Trim’ Medicaid Benefits
The Bush administration this weekend announced a “fundamental change” in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would give states more flexibility in “ensur[ing] that their programs broaden coverage for low-income Americans,” the Washington Post reports.
ERs Face Problems Despite Economic Boom
Despite a decade of economic prosperity, the United States now has fewer emergency rooms that it had in the early 1990s, and evidence suggests that emergency room care is “worse” today than it was in the early 1990s, the Los Angeles Times reports in the second part of a two-part series on “Private Prosperities, Public Breakdowns.”
Kaiser Permanente to Raise Premiums By More Than 10% in 2002
Citing rising health care costs, Kaiser Permanente announced plans last Friday to boost health insurance premium rates by more than 10% in 2002, the Contra Costa Times reports.
Bill Would Regulate Overseas Drug Studies
American pharmaceutical companies planning clinical trials in developing counties would be prohibited from shipping experimental treatments to those countries without first providing “details” of the proposed studies to U.S. regulators under legislation approved by a House committee last week, the Washington Post reports.
Baucus Wants All $300B Spent on Medicare Rx Drug Benefit
Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Friday that the $300 billion allocated by Congress over the next decade for Medicare reform “must be used solely to provide a prescription drug benefit” and not for broad-based changes to the program, the AP/Detroit News reports.
Medical Journals to Call for ‘Scientific Independence’
Responding to what they view as drug companies’ “increasingly tight hold” over how research is conducted and presented, editors from several of the “world’s most prominent medical journals” will publish a joint editorial next month outlining a new policy designed to enhance researchers’ “scientific independence,” the Washington Post reports.
Simi Valley High School Students to Receive Student IDs Listing Pregnancy, Drug Abuse Hotlines
When high school students in Simi Valley return to school this fall, they will receive student ID cards that include a list of phone numbers and hotlines for help on issues such as teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Early Returns on Prop. 36 Show Some Defendants Serve Prison Time Despite New Law
“Early evidence” from county courts reveals that some drug offenders are “walking a precarious line” between receiving the treatment mandated under Proposition 36 or prison time, the Los Angeles Times reports.