- California Healthline Original Stories 1
- States Attacking ACA Would Suffer Most If Preexisting Conditions Shield Gets Axed
- Elections 2
- Gubernatorial Candidates Seizing On Abortion As Threat To Roe V. Wade Highlights Role Of State Governments
- Unions, Dialysis Companies Pouring Millions Into A Fight Over Ballot Initiative
- The Opioid Crisis 1
- San Francisco Steps Back From Safe Injection Sites Under Threat From Federal Laws
- Public Health and Education 1
- Brain Scans Try To Take Guesswork Out Of High Schoolers' Football Injuries
- Around California 1
- With Its Eye On Customer Demand For Convenience, Scripps To Launch A Dozen Walk-In Health Clinics
- National Roundup 3
- Judge Grants Request To Temporarily Halt Deportations Of Families That Have Been Reunited
- House Ways And Means Chairman Working With Trump To Figure Out Ways To Unfreeze Insurer Payments
- Kavanaugh Took Swipe At Administration Just Days Before Nomination With Ruling On Medicare Payments
Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
States Attacking ACA Would Suffer Most If Preexisting Conditions Shield Gets Axed
A coalition of Republican states has launched a legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, including provisions requiring insurers to offer coverage to people with preexisting conditions without raising rates. An analysis shows that some of these states have the highest proportion of such residents. (Harriet Blair Rowan, )
More News From Across The State
If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, abortion rights could go back to the states. Democrats are trying to impress upon voters just how much of a difference they would make if that scenario were to occur.
Politico:
Democratic Governors Campaign As Last Line Of Defense On Abortion
The Supreme Court confirmation fight brewing in Washington has made abortion a front-burner issue in governor’s races around the country, as Democrats warn that Republicans could try to ban the practice in their states if Roe v. Wade is overturned. The possibility that the Supreme Court will leave it to the states to legislate the legality of abortion has prompted a flurry of advertisements and campaign pronouncements from Democrats — and muted responses from many Republicans, who have generally praised Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh without getting into specifics about how he might affect abortion rights. (Strauss, 7/17)
Sacramento Bee:
CA Governor Race: Gavin Newsom Takes On John Cox On Abortion
Abortion hasn’t been a high-profile issue in the California governor’s race this year, and that makes sense: Voters here have long supported abortion rights, and a Democratic-controlled Legislature has sought to expand them. But with President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination raising the issue nationally, Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Gavin Newsom now says he wants to talk about it in his race against Republican John Cox. (Hart, 7/17)
Unions, Dialysis Companies Pouring Millions Into A Fight Over Ballot Initiative
The measure would limit the amount of profits that kidney dialysis companies can keep. The union says the companies are sacrificing patient quality in pursuit of profits that will wow Wall Street, while the companies fire back that the union has been trying to organize the centers' workers for years.
Sacramento Bee:
Why One Sacramento Family’s $127 Million Jury Award Became Part Of Debate Over Prop. 8
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West has poured more than $7.9 million so far into an effort to persuade California voters to approve a statewide proposition that would limit the amount of profits that kidney dialysis companies such as DaVita and Fresenius can keep. Those companies have countered with at least $7.2 million into the opposition effort. (Anderson, 7/17)
San Francisco Steps Back From Safe Injection Sites Under Threat From Federal Laws
According to sources, city officials were warned that they could be held criminally liable if they moved forward with plans.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Plan For Safe Injection Site Gets Dose Of Reality Over Federal Drug Laws
There’s a reason San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that she is opening a model of a safe injection center in the Tenderloin: She’s been warned by the city attorney that opening a real injection site, where drug users can shoot up under supervision, could get her in hot water with the federal government. According to City Hall sources, City Attorney Dennis Herrera had confidentially advised her predecessor, former Mayor Mark Farrell, and members of the the Board of Supervisors that they could be held criminally liable under federal drug statutes if they attempted to move ahead with the injection centers — that was a red flag warning not to proceed. (Matier and Ross, 7/16)
Brain Scans Try To Take Guesswork Out Of High Schoolers' Football Injuries
Research emerging in the past several years has revealed just how much damage those injuries can do to young people.
LAist:
Can These Brain Scans Make High School Football Safer?
If an athlete takes a hit to the head during a practice or game, the athletic staff at JSerra can rescan him or her and send the "before and after" results with the athlete to the doctor's office. The decision to move forward with testing for about 100 football players at the San Juan Capistrano high school came after a pilot program earlier this year. (Replogle, 7/16)
In other public health news —
Capital Public Radio:
Spanish-Speaking Doctors Hope To Build Trust At New Downtown Sacramento Medical Center
From the front desk to the exam rooms, Spanish is spoken everywhere inside Kaiser Permanente’s new Salud en Español clinic in downtown Sacramento. The nine bilingual providers who work in the clinic hope to build trust with Spanish-speaking patients, who often struggle to access medical care because of language barriers. (Caiola, 7/16)
With Its Eye On Customer Demand For Convenience, Scripps To Launch A Dozen Walk-In Health Clinics
Services will include care for those with flu symptoms, ear infections, sinus infections, urinary tract infections, skin conditions, bites, stings and minor cuts, burns and wounds.
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Scripps To Open 12 New Walk-In Clinics
Scripps Health plans to have a dozen new walk-in health clinics with extended morning and evening hours up and running by the end of September, the health system announced Monday. Dubbed “Scripps HealthExpress” the small facilities will be built along the same lines as those often stationed inside some stores run by CVS, Target and Albertson’s. But, unlike many that have come before it, Scripps is staying away from the retail world, choosing instead to locate its new clinic collection at existing Scripps Clinic and Scripps Coastal outpatient medical office complexes. (Sisson, 7/16)
In other news from across the state —
Modesto Bee:
Why Stanislaus County Is Weighing Its Future In Offering Health Care Services
Tuesday, county supervisors will consider exploring options for ending the county’s role as a provider of clinical services for some of the poorest county residents. The county closed its hospital on Scenic Drive in 1997, but the Health Services Agency has continued operating primary care, specialty and physical rehabilitation clinics. (Carlson, 7/16)
The Associated Press:
San Francisco To Consider Tax On Companies To Help Homeless
San Francisco voters will decide in November whether to tax large businesses to pay for homeless and housing services, an issue that set off a battle in another West Coast city struggling with income inequality. The city elections department verified Monday that supporters had collected enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot. It would raise about $300 million a year — doubling what San Francisco spends on homelessness — for more shelter beds and housing for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so. (7/16)
Judge Grants Request To Temporarily Halt Deportations Of Families That Have Been Reunited
"Persistent rumors" of mass deportations had advocates worried that immigrants were giving up their right to pursue an asylum claim as the price for recovering their children.
The Hill:
Judge Temporarily Halts Trump Admin From Deporting Reunited Families
A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted the deportations of families that have been recently reunited after being separated by the Trump administration. San Diego-based Judge Dana Sabraw granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at the top of a status hearing on the administration’s efforts to reunite children over 5 years old with their parents. (Weixel, 7/16)
The New York Times:
Court Orders Temporary Halt To Migrant Family Deportations
Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the Federal District Court in San Diego granted a request to allow families extra time to discuss the “momentous” and “exceedingly complex” decision of whether to leave the United States or continue to fight their immigration cases. Normally, families would have days or weeks to consider such a decision, but the separation of families and the rush to reunite them in response to an earlier court order has rendered such discussions difficult for most. (7/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
Federal Judge Orders Temporary Halt To Deportations Of Recently Reunited Migrant Families
Judge Sabraw said Mr. Meekins’s filing suggests that HHS wants to continue treating separated children by the same standards as immigrant children who have arrived at the U.S. border on their own. Under a federal law governing the care and custody of such immigrants, HHS officials generally hold children for weeks or even months until a sponsor can be found and vetted by the government. Reuniting separated children, Judge Sabraw said, should be a much faster process since they arrived with their parents. “It is failing in this context,” the judge said. “Mr. Meekins wants to hold children for months. The problem with that is it doesn’t comport with fundamental due right process.” (Caldwell, 7/16)
San Diego Union-Times:
Judge Temporarily Halts Deportations Of Reunified Families
In a court filing, the ACLU argued that giving families a week together would allow them time to decide what’s best for them, whether the children should stay to push ahead with their own immigration cases or go back to their home countries with their parents. “It’s hard to imagine a decision more profound and momentous that parents have to make,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the case for the ACLU. (Morrissey, 7/16)
ProPublica:
A Baby Was Separated From Her Uncle At The Border. Three Months Later, Her Mother Is Still Trying to Get Her Back.
Sendy Karina Ferrera Amaya opened her mouth, and a gloved hand gave each cheek a perfunctory brush with a cotton swab.Fifteen seconds, and the $429 DNA test she’d paid for was over. “Eso es todo,” the lab technician said last Thursday. That was it. Ferrera, 25, gave a tentative smile and walked out to join her fiancé. Squeezing his hand as they drove away, she allowed herself to hope. To imagine her curly-haired 1-year-old daughter wrapped in her arms, much bigger and more wiggly than last time she held her. Maybe next week, she would finally be reunited with Liah, whose name she wore around her neck like a talisman. (Surana, 7/16)
House Ways And Means Chairman Working With Trump To Figure Out Ways To Unfreeze Insurer Payments
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) left open the possibility of legislative action to restore the payments that are made to insurers to help stabilize the marketplaces. The administration had frozen the program off of a judge's order from earlier in the year. Democrats also chimed in, asking for the funds to be unfrozen.
The Hill:
GOP Chairman In Talks With Trump Officials On Restarting Key ObamaCare Payments
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Monday that he is in talks with the Trump administration about ways to restart key ObamaCare payments that the administration abruptly suspended this month. The administration’s surprise suspension of $10.4 billion in payments to insurers this month set off a round of warnings of rising premiums and condemnation from Democrats who said it was further GOP “sabotage” of the health-care law. (Sullivan, 7/16)
The Hill:
Top Dems Urge Trump Officials To Reverse Suspension Of ObamaCare Payments
Top congressional Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to reverse its decision to suspend key ObamaCare payments to insurers, warning the suspension will cause premiums to rise. “The Administration's decision to suspend these collections and payments, which are required under federal law, appears to be yet another attempt by the Trump Administration to sabotage the nation's health care system for partisan gain,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Sullivan, 7/16)
Kavanaugh Took Swipe At Administration Just Days Before Nomination With Ruling On Medicare Payments
The hospitals that brought the suit said Medicare had been using the flawed data since 1983. The federal government tried to bar their claims, saying hospitals should not be able to challenge factual determinations made many years ago. “Saving money is a laudable goal,” Judge Brett Kavanaugh said, “but not one that may be pursued by using phony facts to shift costs onto the backs of hospitals.”
The New York Times:
Hospitals Challenge Medicare Payments, With Help From Judge Kavanaugh
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for hospitals around the country to seek more money from Medicare, based on evidence that the government has been using faulty data to calculate costs for decades. The case, which was decided in June, featured a concurring opinion by Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court, who heaved a broadside at the Department of Health and Human Services just days before he was nominated. (Pear, 7/16)
Politico:
Conservative Group Drops Another $1.4 Million To Confirm Kavanaugh
The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is dropping another $1.4 million on ads to help Brett Kavanaugh get confirmed to the Supreme Court. The group's ad buy this week will bring its total spending to $3.8 million, according to an official familiar with the efforts. The latest batch of ads will target four Democratic senators from conservative states on national cable and broadcast networks in their home markets: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Doug Jones of Alabama. (Everett, 7/16)
In other national health care —
NPR/ProPublica:
Health Insurers Tap Data Brokers To Help Predict Costs
To an outsider, the fancy booths at a June health insurance industry gathering in San Diego, Calif., aren't very compelling: a handful of companies pitching "lifestyle" data and salespeople touting jargony phrases like "social determinants of health. "But dig deeper and the implications of what they're selling might give many patients pause: A future in which everything you do — the things you buy, the food you eat, the time you spend watching TV — may help determine how much you pay for health insurance. (Allen, 7/17)
Politico:
Veterans Spending Dispute Raises Specter Of Stopgap
Inviting more stopgap spending, the White House has fired off an official warning against congressional efforts to blow through budget limits. Top Trump administration officials sent a letter Monday cautioning lawmakers against raising spending caps to accommodate shifts in funding for a popular veterans health program, though they stopped short of threatening a veto. (Ferris and Scholtes, 7/16)
The New York Times:
Psychology Itself Is Under Scrutiny
The urge to pull down statues extends well beyond the public squares of nations in turmoil. Lately it has been stirring the air in some corners of science, particularly psychology. In recent months, researchers and some journalists have strung cables around the necks of at least three monuments of the modern psychological canon. ... The assaults on these studies aren’t all new. Each is a story in its own right, involving debates over methodology and statistical bias that have surfaced before in some form. (Carey, 7/16)
The New York Times:
It’s 4 A.M. The Baby’s Coming. But The Hospital Is 100 Miles Away.
A few hours after the only hospital in town shut its doors forever, Kela Abernathy bolted awake at 4:30 a.m., screaming in pain. Oh God, she remembered thinking, it’s the twins. They were not due for another two months. But the contractions seizing Ms. Abernathy’s lower back early that June morning told her that her son and daughter were coming. Now. (Healy, 7/17)