Viewpoints: The Pros And Cons Of California Setting State-Mandated Health Prices

Sacramento Bee: Bill Won't Control Health Costs In California
Last week, a bill that would dismantle California’s health care delivery system as we know it was introduced in the Legislature. Assembly Bill 3087 would penalize millions of patients through massive cuts in services and result in as many as 175,000 hospital workers losing their jobs.The sponsors of AB 3087 – which is to be heard Tuesday by the Assembly Health Committee – falsely believe that this bill would lower health care costs by imposing a mandatory rate-setting system on doctors, hospitals, dentists and insurers. OPINIONThey claim their proposal is based on a similar system that operates in Maryland. As the former head of the Maryland Hospital Association, I know that nothing could be further from the truth. (Carmela Coyle, 4/23)

Sacramento Bee: This Bill Will Control Health Care Costs And Protect California Patients
Health care prices are just too high. Last month when Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued Sutter Health, one of California’s largest hospital chains, for anti-competitive practices and prices, he pointed to a problem not just with one provider, but to out-of-control health care pricing. We are co-sponsoring Assembly Bill 3087, the Health Care Price Relief Act, to institute new price controls and oversight to provide a fair, but not inflated, rate to doctors, hospitals and health plans – and to stop health care price-gouging. The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, is to be heard Tuesday by the Assembly Health Committee. (Anthony Wright, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Warning On Health-Care Price Setting As Envisioned By AB3087
AB3087 proposes to task an independent state agency with setting payment rates for all health-care providers. Such authority conveys substantial power to alter the market. However, the temptation for regulators to overreach presents a threat to rate setting’s success. (Clemens and Ippolito, 4/24)

The New York Times: California, Coffee And Cancer: One Of These Doesn’t Belong
About two-thirds of smokers will die early from cigarette-based illnesses. Cigarettes are also very addictive. Because of this, it seems reasonable to place warnings on their labels. If a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has his way, California businesses will have to put similar warnings on something else that can be addictive, coffee. His ruling, which is being challenged by coffee producers, is harder to justify in terms of health — if it can be justified at all. (Aaron E. Carroll, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Give Paramedics The Power To Make Better Choices On Behalf Of Vulnerable People
If a person is intoxicated or suffering from a mental health crisis, a crowded hospital emergency room may not be the right place to get treatment. Yet homeless people are often taken there when they may just need a place to sober up or be seen by a mental health professional. That's because paramedics don't have the option to take homeless people — or anyone else, for that matter — to a sobering center or a behavioral health facility. Under state law, paramedics (unlike police or sheriff's deputies in L.A. County) summoned through 911 calls are legally obligated to take an individual needing treatment to a hospital emergency room. (4/24)

The Mercury News: How To Keep Intoxicated Out Of Emergency Rooms
Assembly Bill 1795, introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, would give counties authority to allow specially trained paramedics to transport intoxicated adults directly to sobering centers when it’s determined they do not have an underlying medical issue. Sobering centers offer a safe and effective alternative. (Shannon Smith-Bernardin, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: Conversion Therapy For Gays Is Awful, But So Is California's Bill To Ban It
That a tiny market for conversion therapy to "cure" homosexuality still exists today is deeply sad, even infuriating. But here's the question: If a competent adult knows the most devastating critiques, and wants to pay for it anyway, should California law thwart him or her? The Assembly thinks so. Assembly Bill 2943, which State Rep. Evan Low shepherded through passage last week, declares that "the potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient." (Conor Friedersdorf, 4/27)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Opioids And County Jails: A Lesson For U.S.
The failure of Congress and the Obama and Trump administrations to aggressively address the opioid epidemic is a bipartisan indictment of our political establishment. That’s not just because opioid overdoses have killed more than 250,000 people over the past decade. It’s because of the growing reasons to think other drugs could have been used much more safely for pain relief in place of habit-forming drugs like OxyContin and Percocet that have created so many American addicts. ...Now there’s more evidence from our own backyard that opioids have been grossly overprescribed. A recent report in The San Diego Union-Tribune detailed how county jail officials had cut back opioid prescriptions from nearly 1,000 in early 2013 to 23 last month after adopting best-practices standards that focused on the risk prisoners face from opioids and the effectiveness of far less potent medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen. This was done, reassuringly, with relatively few complications. (4/26)

Los Angeles Times: What Homeless Crisis? HUD Secretary Ben Carson Wants To Raise Rents On The Poorest Of The Poor
Carson unveiled the Making Affordable Housing Work Act of 2018, a proposed bill that could force the very poorest tenants receiving federal aid — those most likely on the edge of homelessness — to pay three times as much in rent. It would also shrink the rent subsidies received by other low-income Americans, leaving them with less money for food, medical expenses and education. (4/27)

Los Angeles Times: South O.C.'s Solution To Homelessness Is Class Warfare At Its NIMBYest
Last week, the mayors of 12 cities in South Orange County had the opportunity to cut the Gordian knot that is homelessness. They met at the behest of U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, who'd issued them a warning: Step up and help solve this problem, or I'm striking down the HOA-approved hedge of laws you think guard your perimeter. See, for decades cops and sheriff's deputies in South County have picked up the destitute and then dropped them off in blue-collar North County towns including Costa Mesa and Anaheim, but especially Santa Ana, which just happens to be the most Mexican city in Orange County. (Gustavo Arellano, 4/25)

Sacramento Bee: Think Twice Before Signing Petition For Local Tax Limit
If you get asked to sign a petition for a ballot initiative to limit local taxes in California, you might just want to walk away. This radical measure would require a two-thirds supermajority for any new tax, tax increase or tax extension, making it much more difficult for cities and counties to control their own financial destinies. (4/24)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Should Invest Cannabis Taxes In Stephon Clark's Neighborhood
To repair some of the damage caused by criminalization, the city should set aside the millions of dollars it expects to bring in over the coming years from marijuana taxes and invest that money in children and youth services, and in economic development in those neighborhoods most impacted by the decades-long war on drugs. It should create a public planning process on how to use those revenues to build economic health and well being in Stephon Clark’s neighborhood and in neighborhoods like it. (Malaki Seku Amen, 4/24)