Latest California Healthline Stories
California Cities Gear Up To Vote on Ballot Initiatives To Tax Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
El Monte Planning Commissioner Art Barrios, Chuck Finnie of the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes, El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero and Richmond City Council member Jeff Ritterman spoke with California Healthline about local ballot measures that tax sugar-sweetened beverages.
Tuberculosis Added to Screening List
Legislators have worked on a number of bills this session related to immunizations. On Friday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed one of them into law.
SB 659 by state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino) requires tuberculosis screening to be included on the state’s immunization registry. That will help health officials coordinate TB immunization efforts, Negrete McLeod said, because parents now won’t need to prove immunization with their yellow-card record.
“By allowing these results to be included in the state registry,” she said, “parents will have an easier time demonstrating compliance with the requirements of local school districts.”
Essential Benefits, Medical Review Change Passed
The countdown has begun. Only three more voting days till the end of California’s legislative year. The Legislature’s 2012 session ends on Friday, making this a busy week.
A number of health-related bills are among the hundreds of laws passed so far and headed to the governor’s desk (some of them are pending technical concurrence in the house of origin):
Health for Sale as Retail Clinics Expand in California
The retail clinic sector is experiencing healthy growth in Los Angeles and could grow throughout the state as health care reform comes into play, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation.
Task Force Tackles Access, Coverage, Workforce Issues
The state’s health care task force met yesterday with an ambitious end goal and a complex agenda that broached access and coverage issues, as well as health workforce concerns.
The end goal, according to Diana Dooley, HHS Secretary and a co-chair of the task force, is embodied in a single question: “What will it take for California to be the healthiest state in the nation?”
Getting to that simple question is a complex, multi-layered, 10-year effort. Yesterday’s meeting was the third of four opening workshops of the Let’s Get Healthy California Task Force, formed by executive order of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.
University of California Campuses Gear Up To Implement, Enforce Upcoming Smoking Ban
UC-Berkeley student Irene Cheng, Kevin Confetti of the University of California, Colleen Stevens of the California Department of Public Health, Kim Homer Vagadori of the California Youth Advocacy Network and a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory spoke with California Healthline about the upcoming smoking ban at UC campuses.
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:
Nearing Consensus on Dense Tissue Bill
In case you missed it, yesterday was the day to ask people if they’re dense. The Legislature last session officially approved Aug. 8 as Are You Dense Day. Not surprisingly, the occasion yesterday marked the reintroduction of a bill that would notify women if their dense breast tissue might interfere with mammogram results.
SB 1538 by Joseph Simitian (D-Palo Alto) has passed the Legislature before despite opposition from provider groups. Last year the governor vetoed it.
“Dense breast tissue can appear white in a mammogram, and cancer can appear white in a mammogram,” Simitian said at yesterday’s Assembly Committee for Appropriations hearing.
Governor Signs Veteran-Benefit Bill
It was a bill that had no organized opposition, and passed through every committee without a single “nay” vote.
The governor added his approval Tuesday to that overwhelming support, signing AB 1869 by Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) into law.
The legislation affects approximately 130,000 veterans who remain uninsured despite possibly being eligible for federal Veterans Affairs health benefits, according to a Senate analysis of California Health Interview Survey data compiled by UCLA.
‘Where You Live Matters’ to Your Health
Health care numbers are interesting to Angela Russell but they only become important when you remember what they represent, Russell said.
“Data rankings are a starting point, not an endpoint, and the key is using that information to take action,” Russell said. “You have to remember, this data is alive. It represents families and individuals and communities.”
Russell is the engagement lead for the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps program at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Yesterday, she was in the Capitol Building to talk about using federal and state health care data to make policy changes at the local level. The event was part of a California Health Policy Forum briefing called: “Health Rankings for Communities Across California: Using Data To Improve Population Health.” The event was funded in part by California HealthCare Foundation, which publishes California Healthline.