Insight

Latest California Healthline Stories

Exemptions Surge As Parents And Doctors Do ‘Hail Mary’ Around Vaccine Laws

In California, medical exemptions to skip childhood vaccinations are on the rise. The trend underlines how hard it is to get parents to comply with vaccination laws meant to protect public safety when a small but adamant population of families and physicians seems determined to resist.

Popular Weed Killer’s Alleged Link To Cancer Spreads Concern

The main ingredient in numerous popular herbicides has been implicated by two juries in the cancers of frequent users, but major public health agencies disagree over whether it is a carcinogen. Can you use it safely in your garden? Here are some answers to questions you may have about the weed killer glyphosate.

California Hospitals See Massive Surge In Homeless Patients

Homeless patients accounted for about 100,000 visits to California hospitals in 2017, marking a 28% increase from just two years earlier. Health officials attribute the surge to the overall rise in California’s homeless numbers and the large proportion of people living on the streets with mental illness.

CMS Ignores Federal Judge Ruling To Approve Medicaid Work Rules in Utah

Work helps make people healthier, CMS chief Seema Verma said in approving Utah’s waiver request to tie government health benefits to employment or volunteer work. But Judge James Boasberg has said that isn’t the goal of Medicaid.

Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Health Care’s Back (In Court)

It’s been a wild week for health policy, mostly because of developments surrounding two different legal cases. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner join KHN’s Julie Rovner to sort it out with a discussion of a setback for Medicaid work requirements and the Trump administration’s decision to back a lawsuit claiming the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Also, Rovner interviews filmmaker Mike Eisenberg about his movie “To Err Is Human: A Patient Safety Documentary.”