Latest California Healthline Stories
As Health Jobs Grow, a Prescription for Smart Growth
Health care is facing a different kind of jobs debate. The sector has added more than one million jobs since the Great Recession began, but analysts warn that the jobs growth masks major concerns about labor productivity.
Health Care Reform for Small Businesses
The number one key to success for small businesses in the state’s Health Benefit Exchange is choice, according to several presenters at a panel discussion last week in Sacramento.
“You have to have choice, that’s the big thing,” Bill Wehrle of Kaiser Permanente said. “If you don’t have choice, people won’t sign up.”
Wehrle was part of a forum addressing the needs of small businesses in California, and what the state’s exchange needs to do to woo both small-business owners and their employees.
What Can California Learn From Healthy San Francisco?
San Francisco’s previously uninsured residents seem to be getting healthier, and health care providers generally are satisfied with the country’s first effort to provide government-sponsored health care access to all residents, according to a new report. We asked policymakers and experts what the rest of the state might glean from Healthy San Francisco.
Why the ‘Moneyball’ Approach Isn’t a Home Run for Health Care
Billy Beane’s data-driven strategies made him the talk of baseball, the king of the current box office and a highly visible advocate for evidence-based medicine. But Beane’s teams have faded since their “Moneyball” heyday — and evidence-based medicine might not be the home run that some reformers hope it will be.
Country Getting Healthier, Policy Experts Told
Despite obstacles and opposition to health care reform, the country is getting healthier, according to HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh. Speaking to state health policy experts in Kansas City this week, Koh said HHS will release statistics showing that individuals and communities are making progress toward a number of health goals.
The Benefits of Changing Medicare’s Drug Benefit
Medicare Part D is Exhibit A in how a health reform can evolve from partisan legislation to beloved protection. Aware of the drug benefit’s popularity, but facing real fiscal concerns, lawmakers are broaching delicate changes to the program.
Our Sidneys: The Six Key Studies That Shook Up the Summer
With a nod to David Brooks’ annual awards in the New York Times, “Road to Reform” highlights our own Sidney Awards, named for Kaiser Permanente’s co-founder. Here are six major health policy studies that changed the course of conversation this summer.
Reform’s Unanswered Question: To Trim or Transform Medicare?
More cuts to Medicare are looming, just months after the Affordable Care Act sliced billions in program spending. Whether the new changes will be sweeping or merely substantive remains to be seen.
What Texas Can Teach California About Health Care Reform
Texas’ hands-off approach to its health care safety net can offer takeaways for California, either as a hard lesson for the cash-strapped Golden State — or as an example of what not to do.
New Location for Patient Advocate and DMHC
The Legislature on Friday approved AB 922 by Bill Monning (D-Carmel), which expands the work of the Office of the Patient Advocate, providing a single source to help people with all of their health insurance questions when major health care reform changes come into play in 2014.
The bill raised some eyebrows with a late amendment, one that moves the Department of Managed Health Care to a different agency.
The question of where the Patient Advocate position would be housed is politically charged. Originally established in the Business, Transportation and Housing agency, with its expanded role in the Affordable Care Act, OPA clearly needed to be more closely allied with a government agency that deals with the health care reform law.