Latest California Healthline Stories
Wellness Programs: Big Brother, or a Big Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Obamacare encourages firms to incent employees to engage in healthy behaviors — but the media firestorm over a CVS plan underscores the fragile politics of workplace wellness programs.
Fiscal Cliff, Deals To Avoid It Worry Health Advocates
California health care advocates are worried about cutbacks under national budget sequestration. However, potential outcomes of a deal that would avoid the cuts concern some advocates even more.
Diana Dooley on 2 Years of Budget Cuts, Controversy and Reform
Diana Dooley reflects on her first two years as California’s Health and Human Services secretary — a tumultuous period of deep budget cuts, county and state realignment, and the beginning of historic reforms.
Health Policy and Winnie-the-Pooh
BALTIMORE — How health care is like A Bear of Very Little Brain:
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”
— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“That is what we are here to do — think of another way of doing things,” said Richard Gottfried, chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Health and moderator of a well-attended panel on payment reform Tuesday at the National Academy for State Health Policy’s annual conference.
Educator Praises Health Policy Officials for ‘Noble Work’
BALTIMORE — “I would argue that what you face in health care is very similar to what we face in education — revenues are down and needs are up,” Freeman Hrabowski III said in his keynote address Monday at the opening of the National Academy for State Health Policy’s 25th annual conference.
Quoting poets William Carlos Williams and Maya Angelou and evoking the legacies of Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr., Hrabowski told state policy wonks “the work you do is noble, but the situations we face are not easy. It comes down to how you respond. Aristotle said ‘excellence is never an accident.’ I think we need to remember that as we move forward,” Hrabowski said.
Hrabowski — president of University of Maryland, Baltimore County and one of Time Magazine’s choices of the 100 most influential people in the world — did his homework before addressing the NASHP crowd.
Why the Future of Health Care May Be on the Line With Prop. 30
If Proposition 30 fails to pass in the upcoming November election, billions of dollars worth of trigger cuts would kick in, cutting education funding drastically in California. But, it turns out, health and social service programs also have a lot riding on this election.
Governor Nixes Long List of Health Bills
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a number of health care bills over the weekend. They ranged from a program designed to improve flu vaccinations among health care workers, to a proposal to define and promote patient-centered medical homes, to a regulation on hospital-nurse staffing ratios.
The governor had a variety of reasons he gave for the different vetoes, but at least one of those explanations didn’t make much sense, according Assembly member Henry Perea (D-Fresno). Perea is the author of AB 1000, a measure designed to make oral chemotherapy more affordable and accessible for Californians.
“While I support the author’s efforts to make oral chemotherapy treatments more affordable for the insured, this bill doesn’t distinguish between health plans and insurers who make these drugs available at a reasonable cost and those who do not,” Brown wrote in his veto message.
Forum Examines Specifics of Bending the Cost Curve
A forum organized by a Massachusetts health policy research institute explored ways California policymakers and health care providers can combat the spiraling costs of health care ranging from adhering to prescription drug regimens to avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations.
Our Sidneys: Five Policy Studies That Warrant a Close Read
For the second straight summer, “Road to Reform” spotlights five of the most influential — and interesting — studies that were released in recent months. Here’s a look at what the wonks are reading.
Ombudsman, Immunization Bills Up for Floor Vote
Dozens of health-related bills passed through committee last week, setting up pending floor votes starting this week.
The last hurdle for many bills is the appropriations committee of each house. Those committees ran at high speed last week, churning out approvals for hundreds of bills.
The Legislature has until the end of August to vote on all bills.
Some of the health-related bills that cleared committee last week: