Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Health Industry Wields Power in California’s High-Stakes Battle to Lower Health Care Costs
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to regulate out-of-control health care spending in California. The effort is being shaped by the very health industry players that would be regulated. (Angela Hart and Samantha Young, )
Kaiser Permanente Workers One Step Closer To A Strike: Nearly 21,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other health care workers who say they’re understaffed and facing a new pay system at Kaiser’s Southern California hospitals and clinics have voted to authorize a strike against the health care giant. The vote was 96% in favor of a walkout. Read more from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Modern Healthcare and the Los Angeles Times. Continued coverage, below.
LAUSD Extends Deadline For Vax Mandate: The Los Angeles school district — confronted with widespread campus disruption and the firing of potentially thousands of unvaccinated teachers and other staff — has extended its deadline for all workers to be fully immunized for covid-19 from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15. Read more from the Los Angeles Times and Southern California News Group.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
More News From Across The State
CalMatters:
770 New Laws Coming To California
You’d be forgiven for not knowing Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the largest expansion of California’s college financial aid system in a generation — he did so during the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants’ first playoff game Friday night. Hours later, it was all over: Newsom signed his final bills on Saturday, a day ahead of the Oct. 10 deadline to act on the 836 proposals state lawmakers sent to his desk. Of those, he signed 770 (92%) and vetoed 66 (7.9%), according to Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli. Here’s a look at the significant new laws coming to the Golden State — as well as ideas Newsom prevented from becoming law. (Hoeven, 10/11)
Abc10.Com:
Lawsapalooza: Here's A List Of New Laws Gov. Newsom Recently Signed
California is the first state to let some adult children add parents as dependents on their insurance plans. The trend nationally has been to let children linger on their parents' health insurance plans. But California is now the first state to go the other direction by letting some adults join their kids' health plans. The law applies only to people who purchase their health insurance on the individual market. (10/9)
KQED:
The Major Bills Newsom Just Signed And Vetoed
Newsom also has vetoed a number of bills, including one that would have, among other things, established visitation as a civil right to people who are incarcerated. Perhaps the biggest veto shocker so far this year has been his recent rejection of a bill that sought to increase pay rates during paid family leave. (Clyde, 10/9)
KCRA:
New California Laws: Recent Notable Bills Signed By Gov. Newsom
California will streamline and extend its assisted death law under a bill signed by Newsom that reduces the time until terminal patients can choose to be given fatal drugs. Starting Jan. 1, the waiting period required between the time a patient makes separate oral requests for medication will drop to 48 hours, down from the current minimum 15 days. The California legislation also eliminates the requirement that patients make a final written attestation within 48 hours of taking the medication. (10/11)
Southern California News Group:
New California Law Will Free ‘Blood Slave’ Donor Dogs
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will usher in major changes in how life-saving animal blood is collected in California and eventually free “blood slave” donor dogs from captivity. The Golden State has long been alone in requiring blood donor animals to live in captive, closed colonies, where they’re bled every couple of weeks to save other animals’ lives — and make their keepers money. Supporters of this model said it ensures a reliable blood supply and keeps it free from disease. (Sforza, 10/12)
KQED:
California's Reparations Task Force To Hear Testimony On Anti-Black Racism In Housing And Education Policy
Continuing their historic charge, California’s State Reparations Task Force, the first in the nation, will meet this Tuesday and Wednesday to hear testimony on housing and education segregation, the impacts of environmental racism, discrimination in banking and the wealth gap. It's the fourth of at least 10 meetings as the group considers the history and impact of slavery in the state — and how best to repay Black Californians for those injustices. (Sarah, 10/12)
AP:
California Coronavirus Death Count Tops 70,000 As Cases Fall
California’s coronavirus death toll reached another once-unfathomable milestone — 70,000 people — on Monday as the state emerges from the latest infection surge with the lowest rate of new cases among all states. Last year at this time, cases in the state started ticking up and by January California was in the throes of the worst spike of the pandemic and was the nation’s epicenter for the virus. Daily deaths approached 700. (Thompson, 10/12)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. COVID Halloween 2021 Guidelines Amid The Delta Variant
As has been the case throughout the pandemic, officials and experts say celebrating is safer outdoors. Having a small backyard gathering, visiting a pumpkin patch or going on a hayride will generally present less risk than walking through a scream-filled haunted house or attending a poorly ventilated indoor party or performance. Unlike last year, when trick-or-treating was strongly discouraged and even banned in some places, officials say indulging in the sweet and spooky tradition is doable this time around — with some caveats. (Money and Lin II, 10/11)
Sacramento Bee:
Fall Allergy Symptoms Or COVID-19? How To Tell Apart
Fall allergy symptoms can be easily confused with those of COVID-19. So, how do we tell them apart? (Caraccio, 10/11)
Bay Area News Group:
COVID Widened The Chasm Between Bay Area 'Haves' And 'Have-Nots'
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic slashed the finances of many Bay Area families, devastated their sense of economic security and forced them to scrimp, downsize and seek help, it simultaneously lifted others up, padded their savings and allowed them to upgrade their lifestyle. A new poll by the Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley spotlights the vast disparities between these two groups, showing how drastically the already substantial chasm between the region’s “haves” and “have-nots” has widened. Low-income workers whose jobs must be done in person experienced more pay cuts, layoffs and financial distress during the pandemic, while higher-earning people who could work from home were far more likely to say their finances improved. (Kendall, 10/11)
Sacramento Bee:
Some Central Valley Farmworkers Lose Paid COVID Sick Leave
A California law that provided employees with extended paid time off during the pandemic has expired. That could leave the Central Valley’s low-income workers, including those who are employed by the region’s agricultural industry, in a vulnerable position in the months ahead, worker advocates said. Now, advocates are calling for an extension of the law and more robust protections for a workforce that has been disproportionately devastated by the physical, emotional and economic toll of the pandemic. But because the program’s federal funding also expired, many employers are opposed to the idea of having to shoulder the costs to keep it running. (Lopez, 10/10)
San Francisco Chronicle:
What's The Risk Of Dropping Your Mask Now That S.F. And Marin Are Loosening Mandates?
This Friday, San Francisco and Marin County will relax some of their mask rules, allowing fully vaccinated people in certain public spaces like offices and gyms to shed their face coverings. But some may wonder if it’s the right time to drop their masks, especially as the Bay Area is still coming off the surge of the highly contagious delta variant. (Hwang, 10/12)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Kern County Public Health Opens New Vaccine Clinic At Fairgrounds
Kern County Public Health Services is relaunching a smaller mass vaccination site at the fairgrounds in anticipation of booster shots and vaccines for children driving increased demand. On Tuesday, the new free clinic — located at Gate 40 of the fairgrounds — will open for the first time. From 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday until the end of the year, free vaccines will be available for eligible populations. (Morgen, 10/11)
KQED:
'We Are Human Beings': California's Health Care Workers Are Asking For Empathy
In December 2020, KQED Forum interviewed four health workers experiencing the frontlines of the COVID crisis in California. At the time, cases were surging in California, and no coronavirus vaccines were yet available. Nine months later, Forum’s Mina Kim spoke with the same four health workers about the changes they have seen, and the challenges they have faced in the last year. (Jackson-Retondo and Kim, 10/11)
Axios:
Health Care Workers Strike As Pandemic Compounds Burnout
The toll of the coronavirus pandemic has spurred nurses, front-line technicians and other hospital employees to walk out or authorize strikes. The pandemic has buckled a system that already faced worker shortages and burnout. Patients ultimately can't receive adequate care if workers leave from the stress and violence. Unions representing more than 24,000 nurses and other hospital workers yesterday authorized strikes at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California and Oregon. (Herman, 10/12)
Time:
U.S. Workers Are Realizing It's the Perfect Time to Go on Strike
Thousands of workers have gone on strike across the country, showing their growing power in a tightening economy. The leverage U.S. employees have over the people signing their paychecks was amplified in Friday’s jobs report, which showed that employers added workers at a much slower-than-expected pace in September. The unemployment rate fell 0.4 percentage points during the month, to 4.8 percent, the government said Friday, and wages are continuing to tick up across industries as employers become more desperate to hire and retain workers. In the first five days of October alone, there were 10 strikes in the U.S., including workers at Kellogg plants in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee; school bus drivers in Annapolis, Md.; and janitors at the Denver airport. That doesn’t include the nearly 60,000 union members in film and television production who nearly unanimously voted to grant their union’s president the authority to call a strike. (Semuels, 10/8)
Bay Area News Group:
Confrontations At Walnut Creek’s Planned Parenthood Clinic Prompt Talk Of Buffer Zone
Against the backdrop of a conservative U.S. Supreme Court and a Texas law that would all but ban abortion if upheld, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Walnut Creek has become the Bay Area’s ground zero in a renewed conflict between abortion supporters and opponents, as sidewalk protests intensify and women must navigate through the commotion to get inside. The encounters have gotten so heated that the City Council is looking into establishing buffer zones to keep protesters 30 feet away from the clinic’s patients, a tactic similar to what the city of Napa recently did, but one which has raised legal questions in the past. San Jose established a buffer zone at all reproductive health centers in the late 1990s, although the minimum distance then was set at eight feet. (Mukherjee, 10/11)
AP:
Justices' Views On Abortion In Their Own Words And Votes
Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi’s call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks. The justices won’t be writing on a blank state as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments. (Sherman and Gresko, 10/12)
Los Angeles Times:
How Hot Is It Inside Southern California’s Warehouses? Ask The Workers At Rite Aid
When Rite Aid Corp. decided to build a giant warehouse to serve its Southern California stores in 1999, it chose an isolated stretch of the Mojave Desert where the air vibrates with heat in the summer. The land was cheap. The freeway was nearby. But during summers, the workers are boiling inside the mostly non-air-conditioned warehouse. They say their leg muscles cramp and their hearts race. They sweat through their clothes. Made sluggish by the heat, they struggle to pull products at the pace the company sets, incurring demerits that threaten their jobs. In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, Rite Aid workers said at least three employees fell ill with heat exhaustion in June, when an unusually severe heat wave descended on Southern California. Two became so dehydrated that they needed IV bags of saline solution to replenish lost fluids. (Phillips, 10/12)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Where Low Cost Air Quality Sensors Are — And Aren’t — In The Bay Area
As the region’s air quality and the effects of wildfire smoke continued to rise as a pressing issue in the Bay Area, the number of private, low-cost air quality sensors have skyrocketed in the past year— PurpleAir sensors are among the most popular brands of monitors. These sensors, which users can install in their homes to collect and access real-time data, offer a hyperlocal perspective compared to government-run air monitoring stations, which tend to show data for the broader region. (Jung and Echeverria, 10/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Invasive Aedes Mosquito Expands Reach In Los Angeles, Orange Counties
County vector control personnel informed Graham Jenkins and his wife late last month that the itchy bites on their ankles were the work of an insidious mosquito that had invaded their Gardena home — and that there was nothing they could do. A pair of bites on the 34-year-old’s wrist recently got infected and sent him to the emergency room. After a week of antibiotics, he said he was “almost back to normal,” but still wearing his watch on the other wrist. The invasive Aedes mosquito is an aggressive biter with the ability to pierce clothing and reproduce in water sources as small as a bottle cap. (Seidman, 10/11)
CNN:
Phthalates: Synthetic Chemical In Consumer Products Linked To Early Death, Study Finds
Synthetic chemicals called phthalates, found in hundreds of consumer products such as food storage containers, shampoo, makeup, perfume and children's toys, may contribute to some 91,000 to 107,000 premature deaths a year among people ages 55 to 64 in the United States, a new study found. People with the highest levels of phthalates had a greater risk of death from any cause, especially cardiovascular mortality, according to the study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution. (LaMotte, 10/12)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Moves To Make Amends To Indigenous People
Standing with Morales and other tribal leaders on Indigenous Peoples Day, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans Monday to rename Father Serra Park in downtown Los Angeles — one of several policy initiatives intended to right historical wrongs and rectify the city’s relationship with its Indigenous people. “The buildings that are here were built on the slave labor of native inhabitants. And we’re sorry,” Garcetti said, gesturing at the brick wall of one of L.A.’s oldest buildings. “We’re sorry as a city for all the things that were done as a Spanish city, a Mexico city, an American city to erase the peoples whose land this is and always will be.” (Wick, 10/12)