Viewpoints: There Are Still Ethically Challenged Pediatricians Dodging State’s Strict Vaccination Law
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Sacramento Bee:
California: Stop Bogus Medical Exemptions To Vaccine Rules
Few pieces of legislation have made more of a difference to more Californians more quickly than the bill two years ago to tighten school vaccination laws. ...The new law has worked like a champ, raising dangerously low levels of immunity in California back up to the public health minimum, 95 percent of the population. But that’s a statewide number, and outbreaks, when they happen, do so locally. (7/23)
Sacramento Bee:
Universal Health Care Is Now The Law In California, More Or Less
A single-payer system assumes that the feds would agree to funnel their money through the state, including health care for federal and military retirees. It also would require new taxes of at least $100 billion a year to cover the remainder, while presumably relieving consumers and employers of their current costs and providing health coverage to several million Californians, especially undocumented immigrants, who still lack it. The new commission will probably reach much the same conclusion. (Dan Walters, 7/26)
Los Angeles Times:
Let's See How Many People Were Shot In America While I Was On Vacation
Today is my first day back at work after more than two weeks of vacation — my time off started July 4, fittingly enough (a few weeks of independence beginning on Independence Day). The news, of course, doesn’t go on holiday when we do (nor, evidently, do President Trump’s efforts to destabilize everything he comes in contact with). Now that I’m back, I thought I’d check in with the Gun Violence Archive to see whether gun violence took a holiday too. It didn’t, of course. Our fellow Americans continued to kill themselves and others with abandon, from toddlers shooting siblings to violent criminals killing police officers. In fact, from July 4 through Sunday night, the Gun Violence Archive recorded at least 1,930 shooting incidents in which at least 730 people died and 1,731 people were wounded. That’s an average of at least 38 people killed and 91 wounded per day. And it doesn’t include most firearm suicides, which rarely get mentioned publicly and so are aren’t picked up by the Gun Violence Archive from daily reports. (Scott Martelle, 7/23)
Sacramento Bee:
Migrant Kids Are Being Traumatized, Not Treated For Mental Health Needs
Held down, injected, drugged – this is how immigrant children in need of mental health support, but detained in government facilities, are being treated, according to a lawsuit filed in a California court in April. Children at the Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas, were allegedly prescribed as many as 10 different shots and pills at a time and told they would never leave the center if they refused to take the medication. One plaintiff declared that staff members at Shiloh provoked the children to make then angry and justify giving them injections. (Lea Labaki, 7/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Why Did The Trump Administration Blow Its Family Reunification Deadline? Cruelty, Pure And Simple
The failure of the U.S. government to reverse the kidnapping of thousands of children from their parents has been chalked up to incompetence. People want to believe that this act of extraordinary cruelty — and the Trump administration’s inability to fix it — stems from our leaders’ lack of experience or common sense. But this too is a failure — of our collective imagination. The separation of children from their parents at the Southwest border is not simply a policy that has resulted in immeasurable harm, but a policy designed to inflict it. The government blew its Thursday deadline to reunite these families because it never intended to do so. (U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, 7/27)
Sacramento Bee:
To Overcome Opioid Crisis, California Needs Legislators Who Will Be Real Leaders
While legislation is important, we need leaders to be the voices that draw those suffering with addiction out of darkness and despair and into the light of needed, quality treatment. My organization fights for better treatment and more access, but faces a state Capitol that lacks leadership on the issue and a comprehensive approach to solving it. (Pete Nielson, 7/26)
Bloomberg:
California’s Ban On Soda Taxes Should Not Stand
The small but growing parade of cities battling obesity by imposing taxes on sugary drinks ran into a wall last month, when California outlawed the practice. But that wall, meant to stand until 2031, is already looking flimsy. Public health advocates are moving to bring it down in two years by persuading voters to pass a hefty statewide tax on soda. (7/23)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Safe Injection Site In SF Would Address Drug Use And Discarded Needles
One proposal is for safe injection sites — facilities where drug users can go to inject without fear of arrest, violence, robbery or other problems of living on the street. ...Reducing addiction, crime, taxpayer costs and public nuisance are positive goals. (John Maa and Steve Heilig, 7/22)
Los Angeles Times:
Dialysis Firms' Profits Are Obscene. What Will Happen If California Tries To Cap Them?
The two dominant for-profit dialysis firms, Denver-based DaVita and German-owned Fresenius, report pretax operating profits in the billions and margins of 18% to 19%. Proposition 8, an initiative appearing on California’s November ballot, would cap those profits at 15% over their direct spending on health services. (Michael Hiltzik, 7/20)
Orange County Register:
Overcharged In The Emergency Room
For patients who don’t have a health plan that negotiates lower rates with the hospital — either because the hospital was out-of-network or the patient was uninsured — the trauma activation fee can be a terrifying surprise that destroys a patient’s credit rating. While the abuse of “trauma fees” is scandalous, it’s also a drop in the bucket. (David Hyman and Charles Silver, 7/22)
San Jose Mercury News:
Trump Plan Would Damage California Women's Health
It’s appalling that this president wants to strip Title X federal funding from family planning clinics that provide abortions or refer patients to places that do. The direct attack on Planned Parenthood will have a negative impact on 850,000 women throughout California, most of whom are low-income and do not have the resources to go elsewhere. (7/20)