Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
‘Medieval’ Diseases Flare As Unsanitary Living Conditions Proliferate
Outbreaks of infectious diseases such as typhus and hepatitis A are resurging in California and around the country, particularly among homeless populations. Public health officials warn that such diseases could spread broadly. (Anna Gorman, )
Good morning! President Donald Trump released his budget yesterday, which included optimistic economic expectations, sharp cuts in safety net programs, and lots of red meat for his base. It’s likely to be dead-on-arrival when it lands in Congress, but the proposals provide an insight into the administration’s focus as the election season creeps ever closer. More on that below, but first, here are your top California health stories for the day.
The Health Bills In Calif.’s Legislature Focus On Increasing Coverage, Making Insurance Cheaper, Health Disparities And More: Although many advocates in California are pushing for universal health coverage, the bills that are actually on the table at the moment are more geared toward incremental change. Some of the measures would extend Medi-Cal eligibility to all income-eligible adults regardless of their immigration status, while other legislation would both require Covered California to provide more financial help to low-income residents buying health insurance. Still other bills would create transparency in the health system—such as AB 537, which would require California’s Department of Health Care Services to create a rating system for Medi-Cal managed care plans. Check out the list compiled by Capitol Public Radio for more details on the plans, including their sponsors and estimated costs.
Scripps Health CEO Speaks Out In Favor Of California Bill Geared Toward Protecting Health Care Workers: The legislation would require up to one year in jail and fines of up to $2,000 for those who assault a health care worker inside a hospital. Current law only protects emergency responders outside of a hospital settings. Studies have found that up to 80 percent of staff members at hospitals have been physically assaulted at least once during their careers, and the bill notes that California is one of the few states that has not passed a felony law pertaining to violence committed inside a health care facility. “Hospitals and healthcare personnel are being attacked. It's impossible to care for a patient with a barrier between the patient and the healthcare provider—physician, nurse, technician, security officer and others,” said Scripps Health CEO Chris Van Gorder. Read more from Modern Healthcare.
Kaiser Permanente To Invest $3 Million In Partnership With Organization That Uses Data To Fight Homelessness: Community Solutions’ “Built For Zero” campaign works with communities to end chronic and veteran homelessness by helping them develop tools to collect real-time data on homelessness. Kaiser Permanente has already pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward eradicating homelessness, but this investment expands on those efforts. The company’s continued focus on the homeless crisis highlights how closely tied housing insecurity and health can be. “Living without a home can have a dramatic impact on a person’s health, yet many of the communities we serve are grappling with extreme rates of housing insecurity and homelessness,” Dr. Bechara Choucair, Kaiser’s chief community health officer. Read more from the Mercury News and Modern Healthcare.
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:
Doctor Sees Bureaucratic Headache In Prescription Form Fix
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Monday a bill meant to give doctors, pharmacists and the California Department of Justice more time to implement new security measures for prescriptions of controlled substances such as opioid pain medications. However, the new law known as Assembly Bill 149 adds a new requirement: that serial numbers on the prescription pads be readable as bar codes by Jan. 2, 2021. (Anderson, 3/12)
Ventura County Star:
Los Robles Hospital Hit Again With Medicare Penalty For Infection Rate
Los Robles Regional Medical Center Thousand Oaks will face Medicare penalties for the second year in a row for its rate of infections and other illnesses acquired after patients are admitted. Like last year, the Thousand Oaks for-profit hospital is the only Ventura County hospital to be hit with penalties in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services hospital-acquired conditions program. Several area hospitals improved their scores with Ventura County Medical Center, penalized in the first three years of the five-year program, receiving the best total score in the county. (Kisken, 3/11)
East Bay Times:
Nurses At O’Connor And St. Louise Hospitals Vow To Strike Tuesday
Nurses at two Santa Clara County hospitals were scheduled to go on a one-day strike Tuesday morning. Following up on a threat delivered last month, nurses at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy were set to walk off the job at 7 a.m., the California Nurses Association (CNA) announced Monday. County Executive Jeffrey Smith said the hospitals would still be ready to serve patients. (Deruy, 3/11)
La Prensa Sonoma:
How Sonoma County Hospitals Lack In Spanish-Speaking Medical Staff Is Impacting Patients
At Santa Rosa Community Health, there are around 500 administrative and medical employees, and almost 50 percent of them are Latinos with bilingual skills, said Gabriela Bernal, SRCH’s Operations Officer. The rapid and recently changing demographics of Sonoma County have generated health care challenges for community clinics, explained Bernal, around 44% of their patients are Latinos or Spanish speaking. (Ibarra, 3/11)
Capital Public Radio:
Men Are More At Risk For Suicide, And Doctors Are Trying To Get Them To Talk About It
Experts say men tend to be less likely to seek help or tell loved ones about suicidal thoughts. That’s why doctors at UC Davis are designing videos to encourage male patients to bring the issue up with their doctors. (Caiola, 3/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Accidental Alcohol Poisoning Caused Death Of UC Irvine Student After Party, Coroner Says
The death of a UC Irvine freshman after an off-campus party in January was caused by accidental alcohol poisoning, the Orange County coroner’s office said Monday. Noah Domingo, 18, of La Crescenta died around 3:30 a.m. Jan. 12, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The results of a toxicology report revealed that his blood-alcohol level was about 0.33%. No other substances were detected in Domingo’s system at the time of his death, the Sheriff’s Department said. (Sclafani, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Trump Proposes A Record $4.75 Trillion Budget
President Trump sent Congress on Monday a record $4.75 trillion budget request that calls for increased military spending and sharp cuts to domestic programs like education and environmental protection for the 2020 fiscal year. (Tankersley and Tackett, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump’s 2020 Budget: The Top 10 Takeaways
The biggest losers: Under Trump’s budget proposal, 10 major departments and agencies would see their budgets slashed by 10 percent (or more) in the next year alone: Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, State, Transportation, Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. (Long, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump 2020 Budget: Which Department Budgets Would Be Cut
While the cuts are unlikely to become reality — Congress has rejected many of Trump’s previous requests — the budget is an important signal of the administration’s priorities and suggests a major funding fight in October. (Rabinowitz and Uhrmacher, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump 2020 Budget To Include Big Domestic Cuts, $8.6 Billion For Border Wall
The budget proposal ran into an immediate buzz saw on Capitol Hill, where many Democrats flatly rejected it and even some Republicans sought to distance themselves from key details. (Paletta, Werner and Stein, 3/11)
The Associated Press:
Highlights Of Trump's $4.7 Trillion Budget Request
Under Trump's proposal, the budget deficit is projected to hit $1.1 trillion next year — the highest in a decade. The administration is counting on robust economic growth, including from the 2017 Republican tax cuts, to push down the red ink. (3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Proposes Huge Cuts To Medicaid And Medicare
The Trump administration is proposing a sharp slowdown in Medicaid spending as part of a broad reduction in the government’s investment in health care, calling for the public insurance for the poor to morph from an entitlement program to state block grants even after a Republican Congress rejected the idea. The budget released by the White House on Monday also calls for a sizable reduction for Medicare, the federal insurance for older Americans that President Trump has consistently promised to protect. Most of the trims relate to changing payments to doctors and hospitals and renewing efforts to ferret out fraud and wasteful billing — oft-cited targets by presidents of both parties. (Goldstein and Stein, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Medicare-For-All V. Medicare-For-Less: Trump’s Proposed Cuts Put Health Care At Center Of 2020 Race
Trump’s 10-year budget unveiled Monday calls for more than $845 billion in reductions for Medicare, aiming to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal program that gives insurance to older Americans. It’s part of a broader proposed belt-tightening effort after deficits soared during the president’s first two years in office in part due to massive tax cuts for the wealthy. The move immediately tees up a potential messaging battle between Democratic proposals for Medicare-for-all — castigated by Republicans as a socialist boondoggle — and a kind of Medicare-for-less approach. focused on cutting back on spending, from the GOP. (Olorunnipa and Sullivan, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Seeks Cuts In Science Funding
President Trump’s third budget request, released Monday, again seeks cuts to a number of scientific and medical research enterprises, including a 13 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a 12 percent cut at the National Institutes of Health and the termination of an Energy Department program that funds speculative technologies deemed too risky for private investors. (Achenbach, Guarino, Kaplan and Dennis, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Budget Request Cuts Funds For Health And Human Services
The administration’s budget signals cuts at almost every institute that is part of the NIH. For example, the budget proposes a cut of $897 million for the National Cancer Institute, down from $6.14 billion this year. Another big NIH component, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, would lose about $486 million in funding, to $3 billion from $3.49 billion for fiscal 2019, accounting for rounding. The Food and Drug Administration would fare considerably better under the president’s proposal, with a $643 million increase in funding, to $6.14 billion. (Burton and Armour, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Budget Calls For $291 Million To Fund HIV Initiative
The Trump administration is calling for $291 million for its domestic campaign to stop the transmission of HIV in the United States within a decade, proposing significant new resources for programs that have not received major increases in the past few decades. The administration announced a budget for fiscal 2020 on Monday that follows President Trump’s State of the Union pledge to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. (Sun, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Budget Proposal Adds Funding For Fighting HIV/AIDS In U.S., Cuts Contribution To Global Effort
It also proposed a 29% cut to its fiscal 2020 contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a Geneva-based, international financing organization, and a $1 billion decrease in U.S. funding for the Global Fund over the next three years. The U.S. would match $1 for every $3 pledged by other donors in a coming fundraising round for the next three-year period, the budget said. That is down from a $1 for every $2 match from the U.S. during fundraising for the current three-year period, which ends this year. The new match level “challenges other donors to make significant new commitments to fighting the three diseases,” the budget document said. (McKay, 3/11)
Stat:
Trump Budget Pitches Capping Seniors’ Drug Costs, Cutting NIH Funding
The White House on Monday proposed capping out-of-pocket prescription drug expenses for seniors covered by Medicare, re-emphasizing Trump administration support for a concept endorsed both by pharmaceutical companies and congressional Democrats. The proposal came within President Trump’s draft budget proposal — a document that also calls for a roughly $5.5 billion funding cut for the National Institutes of Health, despite the recent announcement of research and public health initiatives to end new HIV transmissions by 2030 and develop new treatments for childhood cancer. (Facher, 3/12)
The Washington Post:
Trump Wants The E-Cigarette Industry To Pay $100 Million A Year In User Fees
The e-cigarette industry would pay $100 million a year in user fees under the Trump administration budget proposal released Monday. The funds would go to beefed-up regulatory oversight by the Food and Drug Administration. E-cigarettes are not subject to such fees now, but several other types of tobacco products are, including cigarettes, cigars and snuff. The agency is expected to collect an estimated $712 million in user fees in the current fiscal year, with cigarettes accounting for more than 86 percent of the amount. (McGinley, 3/11)
The Washington Post:
Trump Proposal Would Slash Total Cancer Funding While Boosting Pediatric Cancer Research
The Trump administration’s budget proposes a $50 million increase for pediatric cancer research for the next fiscal year, while cutting overall funding for the National Cancer Institute by almost $900 million. The budget said the childhood cancer request was the first step in investing $500 million over the next 10 years, something President Trump called for last month in his State of the Union address. (McGinley, 3/11)
Politico:
Trump's Budget Would Steer $20M To Jack Nicklaus-Backed Hospital Project
The White House's proposed budget includes funding for a small children's health program sought by one of President Donald Trump's golfing buddies: Jack Nicklaus. Under the administration's fiscal 2020 funding plan released Monday, HHS would steer $20 million toward a mobile children's hospital project at Miami's Nicklaus Children's Hospital, named for the legendary golfer. (Diamond, 3/11)
The New York Times:
Trump Lauded Farmers, Medicare And AIDS Programs. Then He Unsheathed The Budget Knife.
Some suggested cuts, like the proposal to slash Special Olympics funding, have become a perennial target. When the Education Department put funds for the Special Olympics on the chopping block again on Monday, it determined that the funding could be better found privately or at the state level. The department faces a 10 percent overall budget reduction, and has proposed eliminating dozens of programs it says “achieved their original purpose, duplicate other programs, are narrowly focused or are unable to demonstrate effectiveness,” according to budget documents. (Rogers, 3/12)
The Associated Press:
Pelosi Rejects Trump's Proposed Budget Cuts As 'Cruel'
President Donald Trump proposed a record $4.7 trillion budget, pushing the federal deficit past $1 trillion but counting on optimistic growth, accounting shuffles and steep domestic cuts to bring future spending into balance in 15 years. Reviving his border wall fight with Congress, Trump wants more than $8 billion for the barrier with Mexico, and he's also asking for a big boost in military spending. That's alongside steep cuts in health care and economic support programs for the poor that Democrats — and even some Republicans — will oppose. (3/12)
Politico:
Trump's Budget: Winners And Losers
The White House wants to trim $17 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the upcoming fiscal year and almost $220 billion over a decade. The plan also calls for trading out some SNAP benefits for “Harvest Boxes” that would deliver bundles of nonperishable foods to low-income families. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says that switch could save the government more than $129 billion over 10 years. (Scholtes, 3/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
White House Proposes $4.7 Trillion Budget For Fiscal 2020
“The lack of seriousness that the president brings to budget negotiations only further damages his relationship with Congress,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Monday. “Democrats wholeheartedly reject his proposal.” (Davidson, 3/11)
Los Angeles Times:
For A President Who Doesn’t Sweat Details, A New $4.7-Trillion Budget Gets Short Shrift
While past presidents used the release of their annual spending plans as an opportunity to lay out short- and long-term visions, and to influence subsequent negotiations on Capitol Hill, Trump has taken the lack of regard for budgets to new lows, reflecting his own lack of interest in policy details, his administration’s thin staffing and its overall ambivalence about the nitty-gritty of policy-making. (Bierman, 3/11)
The Associated Press:
Hospital Groups Protest Cuts In Trump Budget
Hospital groups are objecting strongly to hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts in President Donald Trump’s budget. Two major hospital trade groups did not mince words in blog posts Monday by their leaders. Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, is calling proposed Medicare cuts “arbitrary and blunt,” adding, “the impact on care for seniors would be devastating.” (3/11)