Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! Is Striking For School Nurses The Way To Go?
Inspired by Los Angeles teachers, who were promised 300 more school nurses after striking last month, unions in Denver, Oakland, Calif., and beyond are demanding more school nurses or better compensation for them. (Ana B. Ibarra, )
Good morning! Sen. Bernie Sanders, the drafter of “Medicare for All,” has officially thrown his hat into the ring for 2020. But Sanders is entering into a race that looks a lot different than the 2016 landscape. For one, many of the candidates vocally support universal coverage. More on that below, but first here are some of your top California health care stories for the day.
California Lawmaker Beseeches Surgeon General To Make Vaccinations A Top Priority: Amid a particularly contagious measles outbreak, Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) wrote to U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams telling him that “our nation needs your leadership” when it comes to vaccinations. Pan, a pediatrician and ardent vaccine proponent, wrote that the “deliberate spread of vaccine information discouraging vaccination” requires the surgeon general to “stop this attack on our nation’s health by addressing the spread of vaccine misinformation.” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
San Francisco’s New Health Director Gets Up Close And Personal With City’s Public Health Crises: Dr. Grant Colfax, who will head up the city’s Department of Public Health, hit the streets with San Francisco Mayor London Breed to meet with homeless people who are being helped by the city’s initiatives. Breed took the opportunity to emphasize the key role public health policies play in addressing the homeless crisis, and Colfax listed it as one of his main priorities, as well. Breed and Colfax are also of the same mind when it comes to controversial safe injection sites. While Breed’s efforts to set one up in the city are facing federal obstacles and legal threats, Colfax said he was “all onboard” with the idea. The department is also seeking to come up with a solution to the “balance billing” debacle at San Francisco General Hospital, which has left patients who have private insurance with eye-popping medical bills. Read more about Colfax and his goals in The San Francisco Chronicle.
Bills Introduced In Both Calif. Senate, Assembly To Reinstate Individual Mandate For State: Now that the federal individual mandate tax has been zeroed out, California lawmakers are worried that healthy people won’t have an incentive to buy into the Covered California marketplace. If all that is left are the sickest consumers, premiums skyrocket and the exchanges could become quite unstable. “We need young people to pay into the health insurance system, even though they think they will live forever and nothing will ever be wrong with their health,” said Bill Youngblood of William Youngblood Insurance Agency. “By everyone paying into the system, it helps keep insurance prices stable and more affordable for everyone.” Some experts predict the worst and point to the dropping numbers of new enrollees for this year as a sign of things to come. But others say there won't be a big difference either way. Read more from The Desert Sun.
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. Media outlets report on news about hospitals, health insurance brokers, the HIV crisis, "young blood" transfusions and more.
More News From Across The State
Modern Healthcare:
CommonSpirit Health's CHI Posts $424 Million Loss In Latest Quarter
Catholic Health Initiatives was hit by the sharp year-end downturn in the stock market in 2018, posting a bottom line loss of $424.3 million, a $627 million swing from the year-earlier quarterly profit of $203.6 million. CHI, which just merged with Dignity Health to form CommonSpirit Health based in Chicago, posted a non-operating loss of $362.8 million driven by $331 million in investment losses and $29.8 million in losses tied to interest rate swap agreements, according to the system's fiscal second-quarter earnings report. (Barr, 2/19)
Orange County Register:
Kaiser Permanente To Open Medical School In Pasadena, Offer Free Tuition For First Classes In 2020
Kaiser Permanente is opening a hospital-run school of medicine in Pasadena, announcing Tuesday, Feb. 19 it would waive tuition for its first five graduating classes in an attempt to jump-start medical careers minus the typical crushing student debt. The Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine said it has received preliminary accreditation and will begin accepting applications from prospective students in June for admission in the summer of 2020. (Smith, 2/19)
Ventura County Star:
HIV/AIDS Cases Appear To Fall In Ventura County; Elimination Far Away
More funding. More education. More access to medication. More everything. That's what it would take locally to achieve President Donald Trump's nationwide pledge to eliminate the virus that can lead to AIDS in 10 years, said Ventura County HIV prevention advocates. They cited an area infection rate that has ridden a roller coaster of the past two years. In 2017, 85 new cases of HIV or AIDS emerged in Ventura County compared to 45 in 2016 and similar levels before that. The rise generated concern from local and state health officials who speculated about possible contributors ranging from increases in testing revealing more diagnoses to online hookup sites like Grindr. (Kisken, 2/19)
The Wall Street Journal:
Next Front In Tech Firms’ War On Misinformation: Bad Medical Advice
Pinterest has stopped returning search results for terms relating to vaccinations, a drastic step aimed at curbing the spread of misinformation but one that also reflects the challenge facing social-media companies in monitoring hot-button health issues. Most shared images on Pinterest relating to vaccination cautioned against it, contradicting established medical guidelines and research showing that vaccines are safe, Pinterest said. The image-searching platform tried to remove the antivaccination content, a Pinterest spokeswoman said, but has been unable to remove it completely. (McMillan and Hernandez, 2/20)
Stat:
Amazon Leader: AI Can Help Health, But ‘We Need To Ground That In Truth’
In health care, he is known for his work on President Obama’s precision medicine initiative and as the first-ever chief informatics officer at the Food and Drug Administration. Now a senior leader of artificial intelligence at Amazon, Dr. Taha Kass-Hout is working to implement many of his ideas for disrupting health care at one of the world’s largest technology companies. During an interview with STAT at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s meeting in Orlando, Fla., Kass-Hout spoke passionately about the increasing power and utility of AI in health care. (Ross, 2/20)
The Hill:
Patients, Health Data Experts Accuse Facebook Of Exposing Personal Info
A group of patients and health data experts is accusing Facebook of misleading users about how their personal health information can be manipulated and exposed without patients' explicit permission. In a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint released publicly on Tuesday, the group alleges that Facebook prompts its users to join online medical support groups under the guise that they are "private" – but does not make clear that users could expose their health data when they join those groups. (Birnbaum, 2/19)
Capital Public Radio:
Planned Aggie Square Rehab Facility Has UC Labor Unions Concerned Over Outsourcing
The new Aggie Square campus near the UC Davis hospital in Sacramento is being advertised as a hub of innovation for the university, but the new rehab facility there might not be staffed by UC employees. UC Davis is partnering with a national company called Kindred Healthcare to build the new 40-bed physical rehabilitation center, and that company — which owns 51 percent of the project — will be doing the hiring. When the current rehabilitation units close due to seismic compliance deadlines taking effect in 2020, administration says those workers can apply for jobs with Kindred, or they can take jobs elsewhere in the main hospital or at outpatient clinics. They say no one will be laid off. (Caiola, 2/18)
The New York Times:
On Health Care, 2020 Democrats Find Their First Real Fault Lines
The debate unfolded over a period of days, on multiple televised stages in different states. There were no direct clashes between the candidates, no traces of personal animus — but a debate it was, the first vivid disputation over policy in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The subject, perhaps predictably, was health care. At issue was just how drastically to transform the American system, and how comprehensive the role of government should be. (Burns, 2/20)
The Washington Post:
Caught Between Trump And The Left, Democratic Candidates Seek To Avoid The Socialism Squeeze
Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker on Sunday delivered what he called the “hard truth” about Medicare-for-all: It will be difficult to pass, so the party should also ready more incremental changes. His rival Sen. Kamala D. Harris the next day championed the Green New Deal, a sweeping climate proposal — before adding: “Some of it we’ll achieve, some of it we won’t.” (Sullivan and Linskey, 2/19)
The Hill:
Harris: 'Medicare For All' Is Not Socialism
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on Tuesday defended her support for “Medicare for all,” saying it is not a socialist idea. "No, no. It’s about providing health care to all people," Harris said in an interview with NBC News's Kasie Hunt after being asked if what she supported was socialism. Harris, a progressive Democratic presidential candidate who has embraced Medicare for all, told NBC that rising costs are making health care unaffordable. (Weixel, 2/19)
The Associated Press:
Sen. Bernie Sanders Says He’s Running For President In 2020
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination again, a decision that will test whether he can still generate the progressive energy that fueled his insurgent 2016 campaign. ... An enthusiastic progressive who embraces proposals such as “Medicare-for-all” and free college tuition, Sanders stunned the Democratic establishment in 2016 with his spirited challenge to Hillary Clinton. While she ultimately became the party’s nominee, his campaign helped lay the groundwork for the leftward lurch that has dominated Democratic politics in the Trump era. (Summers, 2/19)
The New York Times:
The Difference Between A ‘Public Option’ And ‘Medicare For All’? Let’s Define Our Terms
Democrats, the many running for president as well as energized members of Congress, are talking big about health care again. Among other things, that means brace yourself for some jargon. Here’s your neighborhood health care nerd to help define some terms. Various proposals are floating around, each of which would change the health care system in distinct ways. Some, like one from Senator Bernie Sanders, would do away with all private health insurance. Some would make small expansions in existing public programs. Some would try to cover all Americans through a mix of different insurance types. (Sanger-Katz, 2/19)
Politico:
From Moonshot To HIV Eradication
Moonshots have to start on earth. Extensive groundwork went into President Barack Obama’s cancer moonshot, announced during his final State of the Union. And the ambitious project is still blazing ahead, albeit in a different form than it might have under a Democratic administration, with broad bipartisan and science community support. (Owermohle, 2/19)
ProPublica:
Behind the Scenes, Health Insurers Use Cash and Gifts to Sway Which Benefits Employers Choose
The pitches to the health insurance brokers are tantalizing. “Set sail for Bermuda,” says insurance giant Cigna, offering top-selling brokers five days at one of the island’s luxury resorts. Health Net of California’s pitch is not subtle: A smiling woman in a business suit rides a giant $100 bill like it’s a surfboard. “Sell more, enroll more, get paid more!” In some cases, its ad says, a broker can “power up” the bonus to $150,000 per employer group. (Allen, 2/20)
The Hill:
High Stakes As Trump, Dems Open Drug Price Talks
Democrats and the Trump administration are beginning to hold talks on lowering drug prices as they look for a rare area of common ground. Both President Trump and congressional Democrats say that lowering drug prices is a priority, providing a potential area for bipartisan action in a government that is otherwise bitterly divided after a months-long fight over border security. (Sullivan, 2/16)
The Washington Post:
FDA, Drug Companies, Doctors Mishandled Use Of Powerful Fentanyl Painkiller
The Food and Drug Administration, drug companies and doctors mishandled distribution of a powerful fentanyl painkiller, allowing widespread prescribing to ineligible patients despite special measures designed to safeguard its use, according to a report released Tuesday. The unusual paper in the medical journal JAMA relies on nearly 5,000 pages of documents that researchers obtained from the government via the Freedom of Information Act, rather than a more typical controlled scientific study. (Bernstein, 2/19)
The Washington Post:
FDA Warns Consumers Against ‘Young Blood’ Plasma Infusions For Dementia, PTSD And Other Conditions
Federal health regulators on Tuesday warned consumers against controversial “young blood” treatments — plasma infusions from young donors marketed for conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder. “There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product,” Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. (McGinley, 2/19)
The Washington Post:
Border Crisis: Surge Of Families Crossing Shifts Focus To Medical, Humanitarian Needs
This cactus forest on the U.S.-Mexico border was quiet one recent day. No mass crossings of migrant families. No sprinters. Just two men caught sneaking into the Arizona desert. Then U.S. Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez spotted a youth alone under a juniper tree, dressed as if he were headed to church. When the agent approached, the teen quickly surrendered. (Sacchetti, 2/19)