Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
On The Border, Volunteer Doctors Struggle To Provide Stopgap Care To Immigrants
As recent arrivals are released from detention with severe medical problems ranging from diarrhea to gaping wounds, a makeshift health system of volunteers is overwhelmed. The work is taking a financial and emotional toll. (Anna Maria Barry-Jester, )
Good morning! California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is facing a tricky battle of getting NRA allies and gun-control advocates to find common ground on the Violence Against Women Act. More on that below, but first, here are some of your top California health stories for the day.
Judge Rules California’s Ban On High-Capacity Magazines Unconstitutional: Opponents of voter-approved Proposition 63, the high-capacity magazine ban, scored a win in courts this week when a judge found that the gun control law to be an unconstitutional restriction on the right to own weapons. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has asked the judge to stay his decision pending an appeal, which likely would be heard before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But some gun retailers are eager to celebrate the win—gun manufacturer Beretta this week advertised a 20 percent discount at its online store to mark the decision. Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
Amended Use-Of-Force Bill That’s Supported By Law Enforcement Now Incorporates AG’s Suggestions: For the past 147 years, California law enforcement officials have operated under a use-of-force statute that allows police officers to use deadly force when “arresting persons charged with felony, and who are fleeing from justice or resisting such arrest.” Rival bills that would update those guidelines have been going head-to-head in the California Legislature. The legislation that’s back by law enforcement groups includes best practices that seek to reduce not just deadly force, but also any force. They include de-escalation, implementing “distance, time and place restrictions” on when force can be used, a duty to report excessive use of force by a fellow officer, and requiring that agencies investigate any such reports. A separate measure, which would strengthen the legal standard for when police officers can use deadly force from “reasonable” to “necessary,” is getting its first committee hearing in a few days. Law enforcement is bitterly opposed to the latter bill. Read more from Capital Public Radio and The Washington Post.
UC Berkeley’s Decision To Change Insurers Makes It Even More Difficult For Students To Get Mental Health Care, Advocates Say: UC Berkeley is switching to Blue Shield for its health insurance provider and mental health professionals say that will make it even more difficult to help students in need, citing problems with the company’s low reimbursement rates and slow, bureaucratic process. "Anthem and Aetna before them only pay us about 50 percent of our regular full fee," said Psychotherapist Orit Weksler of UC Berkeley's current and previous insurance partners. "Blue Shield will offer even less, which will make it impossible for most of us to offer more than one or two slots per week for students, due to the cost of living." The new plan will serve around 20,000 students and is scheduled to begin Aug. 1. Read more from KQED.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
Sacramento Bee:
Dianne Feinstein Seeks Deal On Violence Against Women Act
One senator is a longtime foe of the National Rifle Association. The other came to national attention with a campaign ad promising to “unload” on Obamacare while firing a handgun at a shooting range. But a popular law to prevent violence against women now rides on whether California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Iowa Republican Joni Ernst can find common ground on gun rights and several other thorny social issues. (Cadei, 4/5)
Sacramento Bee:
Dignity To Pay $3.4 Million To Fired Pharmacist
Dignity Health must pay $3.4 million to a Woodland Memorial Hospital pharmacist who claimed she was fired in 2015 after she refused to fudge the pharmacy’s pill totals while the Woodland hospital was the focus of state and federal probes over thousands of pills missing from its narcotics inventory. Jurors handed down the verdict in favor of former outpatient pharmacy manager Mandy Kazminy on Thursday after a two-week trial in Woodland before Yolo Superior Court Judge Stephen Mock. (Smith, 4/4)
Orange County Register:
Health Spending On Homeless People In Orange County Will Grow By $100 Million
The rising number of homeless deaths in Orange County, coupled with the intervention of a federal court judge, will spur an extra $100 million in health care spending for homeless people over the next three years. A package of initiatives approved Thursday, April 4, by CalOptima, the county’s healthcare program for the poor, includes spending federal Medicaid dollars, known as Medi-Cal in California... The board declined to discuss increasing the reserve fund to $140 million as requested by U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter during a homeless lawsuit conference on Tuesday that was attended by CalOptima representatives. No board member seconded the motion by Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, who also sits on the CalOptima board, to consider the judge’s request. (Walker, 3/4)
San Jose Mercury News:
San Francisco Fight Over Homeless Shelter Sparks GoFundMe Duel
The prospect of a 225-bed shelter in San Francisco’s trendy South Beach neighborhood has kicked off a bitter fundraising battle between area residents who say homeless people should be helped somewhere else and supporters who say no one should be sleeping on the streets. To some residents in the pricey and touristy neighborhood along the Embarcadero, plans to build a new homeless shelter amid expensive apartment towers threaten public safety and tourism. (Baron, 4/4)
The Bakersfield Californian:
'Cognitive Center' Opens To Address Mental Health Issues In Bakersfield
Steve Horton asked the more than 50 people gathered in the Pacific Health Education Center’s presentation room to raise their hands if they had a family member experiencing some type of mental challenges.The majority of the hands around the room shot up while some people simply nodded their heads. ...Horton and his team unveiled a new branch of the center based in Bakersfield, the Pacific Health Education Cognitive Center, to address mental health issues in the community with outpatient services. A ribbon cutting at the office at 5300 California Ave. on Thursday served as the “grand opening.” The Cognitive Center wing featured several offices and a group activity/therapy room. The Cognitive Center’s vision is to provide programs ranging from psychiatric evaluations and therapy to alcohol and drug treatment. (Mettus, 3/4)
The New York Times:
A Brief History Of The 25-Year Debate Over The Violence Against Women Act
Since it was proposed in the early 1990s as a bill to protect women “on the streets and in homes,” the Violence Against Women Act has been scrutinized by lawmakers, the Supreme Court, civil rights groups and the National Rifle Association, among others. The bill, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994, was designed to protect victims of domestic crimes and reduce the stigma associated with domestic abuse. It must be renewed every few years by Congress, and on Thursday the House approved a bill that would reauthorize the act for a fourth time. (Rueb and Chokshi, 4/4)
Ventura County Star:
Layoffs Possible At County Medical Center As $19M Loss Projected
Faced with a projected loss of $18.8 million this fiscal year, managers of Ventura County Medical Center are looking at making employee layoffs, renegotiating insurance and supply deals, boosting the efficiency of county clinics and other fixes. “At this point, we are looking at all options,” Bill Foley, director of the Ventura County Health Care Agency, said this week. He said a more definitive picture should be available in a few weeks for the medical center that encompasses the main hospital in Ventura, Santa Paula Hospital and dozens of outpatient clinics. (Wilson, 3/4)
The Associated Press:
California Eyes Risk Pool As It Struggles With Costly Fires
Officials were struggling Wednesday to find ways for homeowners to afford insurance in fire-prone areas of California and for utilities to survive liability from devastating wildfires that threaten to worsen with climate change. One option on the table is the creation of a new state catastrophe fund backed by tens of billions of dollars. (Thompson, 4/4)
The New York Times:
Trump Is Being Vague About What He Wants To Replace Obamacare. But There Are Clues.
We don’t know what will emerge as President Trump’s plan to replace Obamacare, which he has promised to unveil immediately after the 2020 elections. But he has recently endorsed several proposals, and they could provide clues. Over the last two weeks, he has sought to re-emphasize health care as an issue, after a set of bruising legislative defeats in 2017. He directed the Justice Department not to defend the Affordable Care Act against a legal challenge. And he issued statements and tweets calling for Republicans to become “the party of health care,” at a moment when many of his party’s leaders had hoped to focus on different issues. (Sanger-Katz, 4/5)
The Washington Post:
Pelosi Questions Whether Medicare-For-All Can Deliver Benefits Of Obamacare
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned whether a health-care proposal embraced by several Democratic presidential candidates would be too expensive and fail to provide the same coverage as the Affordable Care Act. Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Thursday that she would rather build on the 2010 law and is yet to be convinced the Medicare-for-all proposal pushed by many liberals would achieve its purported goals. “I’m agnostic. Show me how you think you can get there,” Pelosi said in an interview with The Washington Post. (Kane and Bade, 4/4)
The New York Times/ProPublica:
Memorial Sloan Kettering Leaders Violated Conflict-Of-Interest Rules, Report Finds
Top officials at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center repeatedly violated policies on financial conflicts of interest, fostering a culture in which profits appeared to take precedence over research and patient care, according to details released on Thursday from an outside review. The findings followed months of turmoil over executives’ ties to drug and health care companies at one of the nation’s leading cancer centers. The review, conducted by the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, was outlined at a staff meeting on Thursday morning. (Ornstein and Thomas, 4/4)
The New York Times:
Scott Gottlieb Says He Will Return To Conservative Think Tank After Leaving F.D.A.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb plans to work on drug prices and other health policy issues as a part-time fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, after he leaves his post as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. His last day at the F.D.A. is Friday. In an interview, Dr. Gottlieb said he was not yet sure what other work he would pursue beyond the half-dozen or so days he’d spend each month at the conservative think tank. Although A.E.I., where Dr. Gottlieb once worked, opposed some regulations of vaping, it did not take part in the vituperative public attacks on Dr. Gottlieb for his work to end the youth vaping epidemic like much of the rest of the Washington conservative establishment. (Kaplan, 4/4)
Stat:
House Committee To Weigh Bills Aimed At Shedding Light On High Drug Prices
The House Ways and Means Committee is poised to vote on a slate of as-yet-unintroduced drug pricing bills that would require sweeping disclosures from both drug middlemen and drug makers, according to summaries of the legislation obtained by STAT. The committee’s markup, which lobbyists say will be held Tuesday, will follow a flurry of drug pricing action on Capitol Hill in recent days. (Florko, 4/4)
Sacramento Bee:
Why Sacramento Residents Need A Universal Healthcare System
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced a new Medicare-for-All bill in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 26 that will finally mend our broken healthcare system. It would give all U.S. residents coverage for essential medical needs, including hospitalization, doctor visits, mental health, vision, dental and long-term care. (Elaine Silver, 4/4)
San Jose Mercury News:
Why Single-Payer Improves California Health Care
How to achieve universal health insurance in California? In our super-progressive, supermajority Democratic state, that’s the health policy question of the day. Not if we should lead the way on universal coverage, but how. ...We need to revamp our insurance mess. We can do this with a well-known and proven solution: single-payer. (James G. Kahn, 4/2)
The Mercury News:
Severity Of Homelessness Among CSU Students Is Real
The UC system found 5 percent of their students during 2017, and California community colleges showed nearly 20 percent of their students reported incidents of homelessness in 2019. Students facing homelessness typically describe their days as moving from place to place without adequate residence, or lodging in their cars, or in structures not intended for housing such as in storage units or abandoned buildings because they do not have a consistent place to stay. (Jennifer Maguire and Rashida Cruthfield, 4/3)
Orange County Register:
At Disneyland, Smoking Is Out And Drinking Is In
Disneyland dropped a ton of new “Project Stardust” news last week, but I think we can distill it a lot of that to this: Disneyland is getting rid of its last smoking section to help make room for its first bar. So it’s “Booze 1, Smoking 0” on the scoreboard as Disneyland moves toward the long-anticipated opening of its new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land on May 31. The Disneyland Resort will go smoke free on May 1 as the park eliminates its designated smoking areas inside Disneyland and Disney California Adventure and bans smoking in Downtown Disney, forcing visitors who want to smoke or vape to go outside its security perimeter. (Robert Niles, 4/2)
Sacramento Bee:
California Faces Nursing Shortage Unless Rules Change
Despite our many talented nurses and the accredited in-state institutions that prepare them for a lifetime of health care employment, California is plunging into a nursing shortage. By 2030, the state is projected to suffer from a deficit of approximately 140,000 nurses, according to the American Journal of Medical Quality. This would be one of the nation’s largest shortfalls. (Blanca Rubio, 3/29)
Los Angeles Times:
California Has One Year Before A Crucial Census Count. Money And Clout Are At Stake
A major undercount, for example, could cost California one of its 53 seats in the House and likely force a Democrat out of office. Others, though, could exacerbate the divide between rich and poor. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare for kids whose families earn too much for Medi-Cal but too little to pay for coverage on their own, depends on census data. (John Myers, 3/31)
The Mercury News:
Listen To Wieber And Speak Out Against Child Abuse
A U.S. national gymnastics doctor is accused of sexually molesting hundreds of young athletes for decades, including a young 5-foot-2-inch Michigan girl who adored the balance beam. A Penn State football coach sexually molests children in his care going back years. The Catholic Church abuse controversies, the University of Southern California gynecologist scandal. The tragic list seems endless, the problem intractable. How did such widespread, destructive, criminal behavior go on for so long? Why do some victims keep quiet, or wait years to report? Why do witnesses turn the other way? What exactly creates a culture of silence? (Stacy Castle and James Gibbons-Shapiro, 4/4)
The Mercury News:
Why 4 Alameda Council Members Back Homeless Center
We’ve seen a lot of misinformation and fear-mongering about the proposed Alameda Wellness Center, which is at the center of the city’s April 9 special election. So, we want to set the record straight. The center would provide services to help the homeless, including an assisted living facility, medical rehabilitation, primary health care and a resource center for finding housing. (Marilyn Ashcraft, John White, Jim Oddie et. al., 3/29)
Los Angeles Times:
C’mon Congress, It’s Time To Lighten Up On Pot
If you weren’t already convinced that the blanket federal prohibition on marijuana is illogical, counterproductive and confusing, consider this: Despite the ban, all but three states have legalized some form of cannabis. That creates a serious and obvious conflict. To address it, the federal government — under President Trump as well as President Obama — has for the most part opted not to enforce its own prohibition, so that marijuana growers and sellers in California and elsewhere are effectively permitted to violate federal law. (4/5)