Viewpoints: Lawmaker Who Pulled Single-Payer Bill The Political Hero California Needs
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Los Angeles Times:
In Blocking A Bad Single-Payer Healthcare Bill, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon Was Not ‘Cowardly’ – Quite The Opposite
California badly needs political heroes, and we just got one: Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon... He personally sent packing a so-called single-payer universal healthcare bill that was virtually all fluff with little substance. (George Skelton, 6/29)
Sacramento Bee:
California Single Payer, Trumpcare. Why Rush?
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon was absolutely correct to reject the aspirational universal health care legislation, and to tell the California Senate, in so many words, to get real. Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, should have known better than to push for a quick vote on their paper moon of a bill, which purported to quickly fix an issue that is fundamentally life-and-death. Their Senate Bill 562 holds out the hope of health care for all, but offered no method to pay for a program that would cost $400 billion a year, more than double the state budget signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday. (6/27)
Orange County Register:
Single-Payer Health Care Is Dead — For Now. Californians Shouldn’t Let It Come Back
Under SB562, the 92 percent of Californians covered by an employer-sponsored plan, an individual marketplace policy or a public program like Medicare or Medi-Cal would be forced to give up their insurance. Most state residents wouldn’t welcome that change. (Sally Pipes, 6/29)
Orange County Register:
Why There’s Likely At Least 3-Year Wait For Single-Payer Health Coverage
Single-payer health insurance that would cover every Californian has stalled, at least for now. Because Democratic Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved state Assembly consideration of the Senate-passed insurance outline at least until next year, a popular vote on the well-publicized, often criticized single-payer health insurance plan is probably at least three years away, and probably more. (Thomas D. Elias, 6/27)
Los Angeles Times:
The GOP Healthcare Plan Will Devastate Los Angeles
One in 20 of the nation’s Medicaid recipients lives in L.A. County and relies on the program for their healthcare... Many would be at grave risk of losing their health coverage, and consequently all but emergency medical treatment, under the Republicans' program. (6/27)
Orange County Register:
GOP Not Where It Needs To Be On Health Bill
Republicans owe their congressional majority to a simple promise: Repeal and replace Obamacare... Support for the overhaul is in the single digits among Democrats, but several polls show independents and Republicans also remarkably uneasy, with total support among all respondents languishing somewhere between about 12 and 27 percent. (6/30)
Los Angeles Times:
How Many People Will Die From The Republicans' Obamacare Repeal Bills? Tens Of Thousands Per Year
How many people would lose their lives if the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act succeeds? Estimates of this inherently murky statistic vary, but the range is from about 28,000 to nearly 100,000 a year. (Michael Hiltzik, 6/26)
Los Angeles Times:
As Depression, Anxiety And Suicide Skyrocket, The GOP Wants To Gut Our Mental Health Coverage
Since the Senate healthcare reform bill was released late last week, there’s been tons of conversation around what’s in the darn thing. Among the rotten provisions in the current iteration of Trumpcare — and there are many — arguably the least discussed are those affecting individuals with mental illness. Mental illness is an extraordinarily broad category, by the way; it includes everything from anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, ADHD, schizophrenia and more. To escape the bill’s clinical, impersonal language and get to the point: Folks living with mental illness are about to get completely screwed. (Melissa Batchelor Warnke, 6/29)
Los Angeles Times:
Blood Money And The Death Party: Let's Tone Down The Trumpcare Rhetoric
Earlier this month a political zealot went to a baseball practice with the intention of killing as many Republican congressmen as he could. As often happens after such horrible events, various politicians and media figures suggested that we should tone down the rhetoric and not paint everything in apocalyptic terms, casting Republicans or Democrats as villains with traitorous or evil intent in their hearts. Words have consequences, they sagely said into the TV cameras. Two weeks later, many of the very same people are describing the Republicans as murderers for proposing changes to Medicaid. (Jonah Goldberg, 6/27)
Sacramento Bee:
California Should Fear Republican Health Plan
I’ve got a slogan for the Republican health plan: “Make America Sick Again.” Put that on your baseball caps, you 14 California Congressional representatives – Calvert, Cook, Denham, Hunter, Issa, Knight, LaMalfa, McCarthy, McClintock, Nunes, Rohrabacher, Royce, Valadao, and Walters – who voted for the House plan. (Sheila Kuehl, 6/27)
Los Angeles Times:
The Senate GOP Hid The Meanest Things Very Deeply In Its Obamacare Repeal Bill. We Found Them
The Affordable Care Act repeal bill unveiled Thursday by Senate Republicans has aptly drawn universal scorn from healthcare experts, hospital and physician groups and advocates for patients and the needy. That’s because the bill is a poorly-disguised massive tax cut for the wealthy, paid for by cutting Medicaid — which serves the middle class and the poor — to the bone. (Michael Hiltzik, 6/23)
Los Angeles Times:
The GOP Says Its Healthcare Bill Will Protect Those With Preexisting Conditions. Um, No It Won't
Here’s the opening quote from a press release Thursday from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, about the Senate GOP leadership’s healthcare bill: “To begin with, the draft Senate healthcare bill makes no change in the law protecting people with preexisting conditions, no change in Medicare benefits, and increases Medicaid funding — that’s TennCare — at the rate of inflation.” (Jon Healey, 6/23)
Sacramento Bee:
Republican Health Bill Is A Disaster For Kids
Much of the debate on the Senate Republican health care bill and the similar House bill focuses on the Medicaid expansion for adults. But this proposal would be a disaster for America’s children. (Todd Suntrapak, 6/28)
Orange County Register:
Dialysis Patients Can’t Live With This Union-Backed Bill
Doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals and other experts warn that SB349 will significantly reduce access to care for dialysis patients. If SB349 passes, it will impose costly and unnecessary staff increases that may force clinics to reduce the number of patients they treat. (Melissa Wellman, 6/29)
Sacramento Bee:
Why Planned Parenthood In California Persists
Though she has been an institution in Sacramento, Kathy Kneer is not a household name for most Californians... Pound for pound, Kneer has had as much as any politician to do with the extent to which California women can take family planning and good prenatal care for granted. (Shawn Hubler, 6/29)
Los Angeles Times:
Adding Roundup To Prop. 65 List Is A Victory, But Will Californians Heed The Warning?
The weed killer glyphosate, known by the brand name Roundup and used by backyard gardeners and farmers the world round, will be added on July 7 to California’s list of more than 850 chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. The listing won’t restrict sales or use of the world’s most popular herbicide, only require that businesses alert people when it is present in levels above what is considered safe. (Mariel Garza, 6/29)
Los Angeles Times:
Fairview Site Could Be A Cornerstone For Addiction And Mental Health Services
You can’t talk about addressing the mental health crisis in this county without including the issues of homelessness and addiction. This is why a coalition of addiction and mental health experts from Hoag and St. Joseph hospitals, as well as local and state government officials, have been meeting to come up with a plan. No one facility or community can bear the burden, but networked campuses countywide just might. (Barbara Venezia, 6/28)
Orange County Register:
Failed Environmental Law Puts Californians And Their Businesses At Risk
Although the overwhelming majority of research indicates glyphosate is safe, the International Agency for Research on Cancer went against the grain in 2016, deciding that glyphosate “probably” causes cancer in humans... But California didn’t know the researcher who led IARC’s glyphosate evaluation had concealed significant amounts of his own research that strongly upheld glyphosate’s safety. (Joseph Perrone, 6/30)