Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Lawmakers Push To Stop Surprise ER Billing
Millions of Californians are vulnerable to hefty surprise medical bills from their trips to the emergency room. Now, state lawmakers are considering a measure to cap how much out-of-network hospitals can charge privately insured patients for emergency care, which could serve as a model for other states. (Ana B. Ibarra, )
Good morning! A lot of California health care news for you today, so let’s get to it!
California Governor, Lawmakers At Odds Over Prediction Feds Will Approve Tax On Managed Care Organizations: California Gov. Gavin Newsom didn't include the tax on managed care organizations, which helps offset the state's Medicaid costs, in his budget because it requires approval from the Trump administration. Lawmakers were more optimistic that the federal government would approve the tax, pointing out a similar tax in Michigan made it through officials. But California has a rocky relationship with the current administration. The state is poised to extend Medicaid to cover some adults in the country illegally, which goes against Trump’s immigration policy. It has also brought a number of lawsuits against the administration’s policies. The tax in question is unusual because many managed care organizations want to keep paying it. The money they send to the state is used to draw down federal cash that's sent back to them for providing coverage to Medicaid recipients. “Closed mouths don’t get fed, as my father used to say,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat who heads the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. “I couldn’t support not trying, based on an assumption because [Trump] changes his mind apparently every day.” Read more from Adam Beam of The Associated Press.
A Look At The Progress That's Been Made During California’s Biggest Transformation To Its Prisons Since The First One Opened In 1851: In 2006, a federal judge seized control of California’s dysfunctional prison health care system and appointed a receiver to fix the problems. Two years later, then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a sweeping prison measure that provided $7.75 billion to add 53,000 state prison and county jail beds. And then a federal three-judge panel ordered the release of 44,000 inmates to ease overcrowding. In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the conditions in California prisons, particularly for mentally ill people, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Soon after the Supreme Court decision, the voters of California were sending clear signals that they wanted to end the era of mass incarceration as well. Read more about the history of the problem and where the state’s prisons are headed from the Sacramento Bee and ProPublica.
California One Of Several States Suing Over Administration’s Home Care Worker Rule: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington state and, separately, the Service Employees International Union sued the Trump administration earlier this month over a rule that blocks hundreds of thousands of Medicaid-funded home health aides from deducting union dues from their paychecks. In their suit, the state attorneys general, all Democrats, said the rule will disrupt their longstanding labor arrangements and make it harder for home care professionals to work together to improve their jobs and better serve their elderly and disabled clients. CMS says the new rule repeals an Obama-era regulation unsupported by statute and that it won’t prevent home care workers from unionizing or accessing benefits. Read more from Sophie Quinton of Stateline.
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
Los Angeles Times:
Secret USC Records Reveal Dire Warnings About Gynecologist Accused Of Abusing Students
Confidential records released this week show decades of warnings to the University of Southern California about Dr. George Tyndall, the longtime campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing hundreds of students. The documents span the entirety of Tyndall’s career at USC, including a handwritten complaint in 1990 about a “rude” exam and a lengthy expert analysis in 2016 that posited the gynecologist had “underlying psychopathy.” (Hamilton and Ryan, 5/25)
Ventura County Star:
Gold Coast Health Plan Projects $39 Million Loss, Blames Medical Costs
Pushed by mushrooming medical costs, publicly funded Gold Coast Health Plan is staring at a loss projected to reach nearly $40 million by the end of June. Budget leaders of the plan that administers Medi-Cal health insurance to 194,000 low-income Ventura County residents say the losses include $13.6 million in March alone. They said the budget hole means payment rates to hospitals and clinic systems have been frozen for at least 90 days and could eventually be reduced. Although the plan’s reserves of $101 million are enough to cover the losses, they too are diminishing. The sinking numbers represent an “unsustainable” trend, said Gold Coast CEO Dale Villani. (Kisken, 5/25)
San Jose Mercury News:
Understanding Where California's Marijuana Tax Money Goes
Drug abuse prevention, public safety, protecting the environment, economic development — these were some of the visionary promises that legalized cannabis would pay for. Now, 1 1/2 years after the start of legal sales, the lofty goals of Prop. 64 remain only partially fulfilled, deferring the dream of funding major new social programs. (Krieger, 5/25)
Ventura County Star:
Patient Safety Grades Given To Area Hospitals Range From A To D
Hospitals in Camarillo, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks scored A grades in a patient safety assessment released this month while marks at other local facilities fell as low as the D given to Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura. The grades were issued by the nonprofit Leapfrog group that rates hospitals on 28 measures, rating from antibiotic-resistant infections and blood clots during surgery to bed sores and nurse staffing. Adventist Health Simi Valley, St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo and Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks received Leapfrog’s top grade. (Kisken, 5/24)
Sacramento Bee:
UC Davis Competition Awards Health, Agriculture Innovators
A Mountain View-based health technology company won first place and $20,000 in a UC Davis entrepreneurship competition Thursday evening for its innovations in treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Respira Labs, founded in 2018, won the top prize in the university’s 19th annual Big Bang! Business Competition out of a field of 105 businesses for developing a wearable device meant to predict and prevent COPD attacks using artificial intelligence and other data. (Moleski, 5/24)
Ventura County Star:
Westminster Free Clinic Could Expand To Oxnard With Ventura County's OK
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors has pushed forward a proposal to spend $1.5 million to help a Thousand Oaks free clinic that includes medical career training for high school students expand to Oxnard. The long-running Westminster Free Clinic receives 8,000 visits a year from uninsured patients, most of them immigrants with low-paying jobs, in its once-a-week program at United Methodist Church of Thousand Oaks. Driven by volunteers, the clinic utilizes high school students as medical assistants in an almost 20-year-old internship program called Healthcare Pathways that has helped lead graduates to careers as doctors and health care workers. (Kisken, 5/27)
The Hill:
Oakland Could Become 2nd U.S. City To Decriminalize Hallucinogenic Mushrooms
Oakland, California, could become the second city in the U.S. to decriminalize certain natural hallucinogenics, including "magic mushrooms," the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. A resolution that would instruct law enforcement to stop investigating and prosecuting people using the drugs will have its first public hearing before Oakland City Council’s public safety committee on Tuesday. (Rodrigo, 5/27)
The New York Times:
Frances Arnold Turns Microbes Into Living Factories
The engineer’s mantra, said Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, is: “Keep it simple, stupid.” But Dr. Arnold, who last year became just the fifth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is the opposite of stupid, and her stories sometimes turn rococo. Take the happy images on her office Wall of Triumph. Here’s a picture of a beaming President Obama, congratulating Dr. Arnold in 2013 for winning the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. (Angier, 5/28)
Capital Public Radio:
‘It’s Inexcusable’: Dozens Of California Government Agencies Failed To Ensure Sexual Harassment Training To Nearly 1,800 Supervisors
California requires all agency supervisors receive sexual harassment training. Last year, however, nearly 60 percent of agencies surveyed by the State Personnel Board did not provide this training, up from 25 percent in 2016 and 32 percent in 2017. Some larger agencies, like the Department of Corrections, failed to train hundreds of supervisors, while several smaller ones didn’t train any. (Rodd, 5/28)
KQED:
Who Do You Call For Help When Your Abuser Is A Cop?
Desiree Martinez ran down a residential street in the small Central Valley town of Sanger, trying to escape. A muscular man wearing gray sweatpants and no shirt chased after her: her boyfriend, Kyle Pennington. “I was like crying and yelling and screaming,” she said during a recent interview. But she could hardly produce any sound. “I had been choked, so I couldn't even talk.” The police, responding to a neighbor’s call, arrived around 5:20 a.m. It was June 4, 2013. (Lewis, 5/27)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Sonoma County Heart Patients Set To Benefit From Heart-Valve Replacement Breakthrough
In a milestone for the heart procedure breakthrough, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve the procedure for low-risk patients. In advance of that approval, local health care giants Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente and St. Joseph Health are gearing up for the flood of new patients. Dr. David Daniels, a Sutter Health interventional cardiologist who participated in one of the two trials — the Partner 3 trial — said data from the trial showed that in cases when a patient with severe aortic stenosis is receiving a tissue-based, nonmechanical valve replacement, and undergoing no other cardiac procedures, TAVR is now the “gold standard.” (Espinoza, 5/24)
KQED:
Berkeley May Put Sidewalk Clearing On Hold Until Homeless Response System Is Developed
The city recently began enforcing the rule, which lets officials clear off the sidewalks during the day. People living on the streets are allowed to set up their camps between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., but must break them down during the day. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín has said the new ordinance was meant to address the accumulation of personal items on walkways without criminalizing homelessness. But Councilmember Cheryl Davila said that the city first needs a robust homelessness response system in place to help before it can expect the unhoused — including seniors and the disabled — to break down their camps each day. (O'Mara and Hossaini, 5/27)
The Wall Street Journal:
State Abortion Curbs Stoke Partisan Tensions In Washington
The passage of a number of state laws severely restricting abortion is intensifying a national fight over the issue on Capitol Hill and in the 2020 battle for control of Congress. Abortion-rights supporters are using the state actions, including an Alabama law effectively outlawing abortion, to mobilize Democratic voters. Some Republicans see the issue as playing to their advantage by rallying public support against procedures done later in a pregnancy. (Armour and Peterson, 5/27)
The Associated Press:
State Abortion Bans May Hand Democrats A Political Weapon
A flood of laws banning abortions in Republican-run states has handed Democrats a political weapon heading into next year's elections, helping them paint the GOP as extreme and court centrist voters who could decide congressional races in swing states, members of both parties say. The Alabama law outlawing virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, is the strictest so far. Besides animating Democrats, the law has prompted President Donald Trump, other Republican leaders and lawmakers seeking reelection next year to distance themselves from the measure. (5/24)
The Hill:
2020 Democrats Target Federal Ban On Abortion Funding
Democratic presidential candidates are seizing on the intensifying abortion debate by calling for an end to a 43-year ban on the use of federal funds for abortions. Twenty-one of the 24 Democrats running for president say they support repealing the so-called Hyde amendment, which has prevented public health programs like Medicaid from paying for abortions, in most cases, since 1976. (Hellmann, 5/25)
The Washington Post:
American Civil Liberties Union Sues Alabama Over Near-Total Abortion Ban
The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, sets off a chain of events that both sides say is likely to lead to a years-long court battle. State lawmakers have said they passed the law specifically to bring the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which they see as having the most antiabortion bench in decades. The bill was designed to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by arguing that a fetus is a person and is therefore due full rights. (Cha and Wax-Thibodeaux, 5/24)
The Associated Press:
'Here We Go Again': Judge Blocks Mississippi Abortion Ban
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. "Here we go again," U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves wrote in his order. "Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability." (5/24)
Politico:
'Medicare For All' Backers Find Biggest Foe In Their Own Backyard
Democrats who've made "Medicare for All" a top health care priority are running up against their toughest opponent yet: their own neighborhood hospitals. The multibillion-dollar industry has emerged as the most formidable foe of single-payer health care. It’s helped assemble a coalition of health care lobbies that has launched social media campaigns attacking Medicare for All and its most high-profile proponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), while fighting narrower Democratic proposals to expand federal health coverage over concerns any change would slash hospital revenue. (Cancryn and Roubein, 5/25)
ProPublica:
Senators Call For Disclosure Of Perks And Fees Paid To Health Benefits Brokers
Health benefits brokers would have to reveal the fees and other enticements they’ve received from the insurance industry under bipartisan legislation proposed Thursday in the U.S. Senate. The brokers are supposed to independently help employers select benefits for their workers. But a ProPublica investigation in February found that the insurance industry often uses undisclosed money and gifts to influence which plans the brokers favor. The payments and perks include healthy commissions, six-figure bonuses and exotic island vacations. Critics call the compensation a “classic conflict of interest” that drives up costs. (Allen, 5/24)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
Trump Takes Credit For Obama's Gains For Vets
Boastful on the occasion of Memorial Day, President Donald Trump and his Veterans Affairs secretary are claiming full credit for health care improvements that were underway before they took office. Trump said he passed a private-sector health care program, Veterans Choice, after failed attempts by past presidents for the last "45 years." That's not true. The Choice program, which allows veterans to see doctors outside the government-run VA system at taxpayer expense, was first passed in 2014 under President Barack Obama. (5/27)
The New York Times:
U.S. Army’s Tweet Prompts Stories Of Harmful Effects Of Military Service
It was meant to be part of a social media tribute on Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday afternoon, the United States Army posted a video on Twitter featuring a scout in fatigues who said his service gave him the opportunity to fight for something greater than himself, making him a better man. In its next tweet, the Army opened the floor and asked: “How has serving impacted you?” The post was shared widely and received thousands of responses. But many were probably not what the Army was looking for. (Zaveri, 5/26)
The New York Times:
E.P.A. Experts Objected To ‘Misleading’ Agency Smog Decision, Emails Show
Newly released emails show that Environmental Protection Agency scientists raised strong objections to a 2018 decision by Scott Pruitt, who was head of the agency at the time, to exempt most of southeastern Wisconsin from federal limits on smog. The decision by Mr. Pruitt was notable because it came as Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was campaigning for a third term and trying to bring a Foxconn factory, and thousands of new manufacturing jobs, to a part of the state where pollution levels already exceeded federal limits. (Friedman, 5/24)
The Associated Press:
At $2M, Priciest Ever Medicine Treats Fatal Genetic Disease
U.S. regulators have approved the most expensive medicine ever, for a rare disorder that destroys a baby's muscle control and kills nearly all of those with the most common type of the disease within a couple of years. The treatment is priced at $2.125 million. Out-of-pocket costs for patients will vary based on insurance coverage. (5/24)
The Associated Press:
Administration Moves To Revoke Transgender Health Protection
The Trump administration moved Friday to revoke newly won health care discrimination protections for transgender people, the latest in a series of actions that aim to reverse gains by LGBTQ Americans in areas ranging from the military to housing and education. The Health and Human Services Department released a proposed regulation that in effect says "gender identity" is not protected under federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination in health care. It would reverse an Obama-era policy that the Trump administration already is not enforcing. (5/24)
The New York Times:
Scientists Wanted: Recruited By Juul, Many Researchers Say No
Alex Carll was presenting his research about the impact of e-cigarette smoke on mouse hearts at an American Heart Association conference when a man from Juul Labs approached him and started asking questions. “He seemed genuinely concerned about the health implications of Juul,” said Dr. Carll, who recalled meeting the e-cigarette company’s medical liaison, Jeff Vaughan, in November as he stood by a poster of his research findings. “He said they were looking for people to collaborate with and that they could offer up to $200,000.” (Kaplan, 5/27)
Politico:
How The Anti-Vaccine Movement Crept Into The GOP Mainstream
The anti-vaccine movement, which swelled with discredited theories that blamed vaccines for autism and other ills, has morphed and grown into a libertarian political rebellion that is drawing in state Republican officials who distrust government medical mandates. Anti-vaccine sentiments are as old as vaccines themselves — and it’s been nearly 300 years since smallpox immunization began in what is now the United States. Liberal enclaves from Boulder, Colo., to Marin County, Calif., have long been pockets of vaccine skepticism. But the current measles epidemic, with more than 880 cases reported across 25 states of a disease declared eradicated in the U.S. 19 years ago, shows it gaining power within the GOP mainstream. (Allen, 5/27)
The Associated Press:
Spotlight On Oklahoma For Start Of Trial For Opioid Makers
Oklahoma is poised to become the first state to go to trial in a lawsuit against the makers of pharmaceuticals blamed for contributing to the nation's opioid crisis. Although several states have reached settlements with drugmakers, including Oklahoma's agreements this year with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, the trial set to begin Tuesday against consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson and some of its subsidiaries, could bring to light documents and testimony that show what companies knew, when they knew it and how they responded. (5/27)