Latest California Healthline Stories
California’s ‘Care Courts’ Are Falling Short
California’s controversial experiment to order mental illness and drug treatment for some of its sickest residents is rolling out statewide, but the latest data shows the new initiative is falling far short of early objectives. The Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Act — known as Care — recently expanded from 11 pilot counties to all […]
Crackdown on Homeless Encampments Raises Public Health Questions
As states turn to the health-care system to help address homelessness, experiments with housing and other social services aimed at getting people healthier and off the streets are running up against new, aggressive crackdowns — with some cities ratcheting up enforcement of existing anticamping laws and others passing new restrictions. From Florida to California, elected […]
Calif. Ballot Measure Targets Drug Discount Program Spending
Californians in November will weigh in on a ballot initiative to increase scrutiny over the use of health-care dollars — particularly money from a federal drug discount program — meant to support patient care largely for low-income or indigent people. The revenue is sometimes used to address housing instability and homelessness among vulnerable patient populations. Voters […]
On the Campaign Trail, Democrats Call Out Opponents on Abortion
As Nov. 5 approaches and the struggle for control of the U.S. House reaches a fever pitch, Democrats are doing everything they can to tie their Republican opponents to their antiabortion voting records. Some Republican candidates, meanwhile, seem to be softening their positions. And political analysts say it’s part of a larger trend playing out […]
The Rapidly Evolving Field of Street Medicine
The rapidly evolving field of street medicine — the practice of providing health care to homeless people living outside — is getting a jolt in California with a new player: a medical group devoted exclusively to homeless people. And it’s actually making money. Sachin Jain, who worked on federal Medicaid policy during his tenure in […]
Planned Parenthood’s Push to Get Voters to the Polls
Planned Parenthood’s political and advocacy organizations will use a more than $40 million war chest to blitz GOP officeholders and candidates in an effort to flip the House and maintain Democratic control of the Senate and presidency. The plan is to focus on the records of Republicans who have repeatedly voted against access to abortion, contraceptives, in vitro fertilization or gender-affirming […]
A Little-Recognized Public Health Crisis
About every 12 minutes, someone is killed on America’s roads and countless others are injured. More than 42,500 people died in car crashes in 2022, a death toll that rivals or surpasses those of other major public health threats, such as the flu and gun violence. “We have not recognized that traffic violence is a […]
Relieving the Growing Burden of Medical Debt
Medical debt is a growing burden for millions of people around the country, from parents in Illinois to immigrants in Colorado to residents of the “Diabetes Belt” across the South, and it’s now being recognized as a health-care problem. People often forgo care or prescriptions if they have debt, according to a KFF Health News […]
Presidential Politics, Polka and Wisconsin
Wisconsin, the land of fried cheese curds and the Green Bay Packers, is one of a half-dozen key battleground states where President Biden is trying to make health care a key issue in his expected November matchup with former president Donald Trump. Biden narrowly won Wisconsin in 2020, after it went for Trump in 2016. […]
California Dabbles With Reining in Health Spending
California is now among the states trying to keep health-care costs down by setting spending caps — a task that pits public officials against a deeply entrenched and heavily lawyered set of players. It’s uncertain whether the state can get insurers, hospitals and medical groups to collaborate on containing costs even as they jockey for […]