Latest California Healthline Stories
The Premium Conundrum: Do Smokers Get a Fair Break Under Obamacare?
Would you quit smoking if you were charged $4,000 more per year for the habit? Some analysts say that a new measure under the Affordable Care Act is overly punitive for tobacco users, while others suggest it’s an overdue approach to take toward smokers.
California Health Care Workers Divided Over Flu Vaccine Requirements for Hospital Staff
Zenei Cortez of the California Nurses Association, Jan Emerson-Shea of the California Hospital Association, Shawn Evans of Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla and Linda Good of Scripps Health spoke with California Healthline about the challenges that California hospitals face in raising influenza vaccination rates among health care workers.
Sonoma Center Facing State Sanctions
The California Department of Public Health took a major step this week toward decertifying and revoking the license of the intermediate care facility at Sonoma Developmental Center.
The Sonoma facility, which serves 290 people with intellectual disabilities, is expected to appeal the state action.
The original survey in July by the Department of Public Health found 57 deficiencies, and four instances of immediate jeopardy to residents. The facility had two three-month periods to correct those problems. According to CDPH officials, time is up.
Rebecca Onie of Health Leads Discusses Efforts To Help Patients Access Community Resources
Rebecca Onie, co-founder and CEO of Health Leads, spoke with California Healthline about how her organization teams up with health care providers to help patients access healthy food, safe housing and other community resources.
Health Task Force Releases Draft Report
The first task has been checked off the list. Yesterday the Let’s Get Healthy California task force met to go over the release of its draft report, the culmination of six months’ work. The final report is slated for completion by Dec. 19.
“When you look at where we are today in California, there are so many challenges we’re facing [in health care],” said Pat Powers, director of the task force. “The population is aging, there are unprecedented levels of chronic disease across the state, and alarming high rates of obesity and diabetes. For the first time in a long time, the children born in this generation may not live as long as their parents.”
That creates a moral imperative to do something to meet all of those needs, Powers said. At the same time, the task force hopes to propose changes that not only improve care but save the state money, as well, she said.
Rural Health Care at a Crossroads
How to handle and benefit from changes affecting health care will be the central topic of conversation at the annual conference of the California State Rural Health Association, according to Steve Barrow, its executive director.
The rural health conference takes place today and tomorrow in Anaheim.
Rural communities, with higher percentages of Medi-Cal beneficiaries and seniors, feel the effects of change more than other parts of California — and those percentages are increasing, according to Barrow. Add in the difficulties of distance between patients and providers and the dearth of providers in the rural setting, and you have a population that likely will be affected more by the changes at the federal, state and local levels, Barrow said.
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 Care on California Ballots, Directly and Indirectly
California voters will deal directly and indirectly with health care issues in next week’s elections. On city and county ballots, voters will decide issues ranging from soda taxes to medical marijuana laws. Statewide propositions have potential for indirect but significant repercussions for health care.
Children Going Hungry ‘A Call to Action’
About 125 community leaders gathered in Yolo County last week to launch a new effort to end hunger in that county. The Yolo Food Summit brought together advocates, government workers and other stakeholders to brainstorm answers to the thorny problem of how to make healthy food accessible to people throughout the county.
It’s ironic that Yolo County is primarily an agricultural county and yet more than 17% of its citizens are food insecure. But that’s not the scariest statistic in Yolo County, according to Don Saylor, a Yolo County Supervisor who helped convene the food summit.
“The thing that is quite troubling to me is that 25% of children in Yolo County are food insecure,” Saylor said. “To me, that’s a call to action. When one in four children don’t have access to food in an area where … our economy is based on ag, that’s really troubling. This is a wonderful agricultural community, yet there’s this irony of hunger amidst abundance.”
Could Reform Initiative Affect Health Care?
Proposition 31 on California’s November ballot has some health advocates alarmed. They say it could hinder development of health programs, especially senior care options, and make existing programs more vulnerable to large cuts.
One of the big concerns about the measure, according to Steve Maviglio, a political consultant in Sacramento and former press secretary for Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, is that most people don’t know much about it.
“We haven’t heard a lot about Prop. 31,” Maviglio said. He said there is a lot of uncertainty about the measure, even among many who have studied it.