Latest California Healthline Stories
Cash, Credits, Peer Support Incentives To Alter Bad Health Habits
Paying workers to take care of themselves could seem like an odd notion, but California businesses are funding wellness incentive programs to encourage employees to live healthier lives and in turn miss less work, be more productive and cut medical costs.
Taking Stock of Three Major Health Reform Laws on Their Birthdays
Last year’s federal health overhaul, the Massachusetts health reform law and the groundbreaking EMTALA all marked significant anniversaries in recent weeks. “Road to Reform” looks back on how the laws affected the nation’s health policy — and each other.
Four Is a Quorum — Exchange Board Gets To Work
Darrell Steinberg can take as long as he wants.
The Senate Rules Committee, headed by Steinberg, will appoint the fifth and final member of the California Health Benefit Exchange board, but the rest of the board has decided it needs to get started.
The exchange board’s first public meeting is scheduled Apr. 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Goldberg Auditorium at the Franchise Tax Board building on Butterfield Drive in Sacramento.
Selling Exchange as ‘El Mercado’
The Latino population will be a vital element of the new health exchange and a special effort should be made to involve them in it, according to Chad Silva of Latino Coalition for a Healthy California.
“As Latinos go in California, so will go California,” Silva said. “It’s really important that linguistic and cultural competency has to be structurally built into the exchange.”
Silva was part of a panel discussion on exchange strategy in Sacramento last week. He pointed out that projections point to a 52% Latino majority in California by 2050, and that the state is already one of the most diverse in the nation. He said the exchange would do well to court those consumers.
First Exchange Board Meeting Within ‘Couple of Weeks’
Just because California doesn’t have a full board for the Health Benefits Exchange doesn’t mean it can’t get to work.
“As long as we have a quorum, we can meet,” exchange board member Kim Belshé said yesterday. “And we expect to meet in the next couple of weeks, whether we have that fifth person or not.”
Belshé, former secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, spoke at the State of Health Care Conference in Sacramento. She is one of four appointed members of the exchange board, along with current CHHS secretary Diana Dooley, Susan Kennedy and Paul Fearer. The Senate Rules Committee, headed by Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), will appoint the final board member, but that appointment is not yet on the committee’s weekly agenda.
Paul Ryan’s Radical Plan To Reform Medicare not so Radical
While Republicans’ plan to transform Medicare into a voucher program is being hailed as groundbreaking, the model has been floated for decades. Here’s a look back at the history of Medicare vouchers — and what makes Ryan’s plan different.
National Partisan Debate Elbows in on California
A Field Poll on attitudes toward health care reform in California had some interesting results — including a much more positive feeling about reform among Californians than is found in national polls.
One of the main results this year and last, according to Field pollster Mark DiCamillo, is that opinions on health care are highly partisan.
“The data were very partisan last year, and the reality of the data is, we haven’t had that much of a change since then. The amount of knowledge people have about reform is not greater than last year, but there’s so much heat on this issue, so much of a partisan divide — it’s here, it has been here and I don’t expect it to go away anytime soon.”
Lawmakers, Advocates Call for New Consumer Health Office
An Assembly bill seeks to create a statewide Office of Health Consumer Assistance to help people navigate California’s fragmented, confusing system, which is about to grow by millions of previously uninsured Californians.
State Is ‘Ready, Willing and Able’
The U.S. Health and Human Services agency yesterday released federal rules on accountable care organizations (ACOs). It’s a big step nationally for health care reform — and may be a significant development for California, given the current structure of doctors’ offices, hospitals and long-term care facilities in the state.
“This is a promising new day for seniors in California,” according to Donald Crane, President and CEO of the California Association of Physician Groups. “Where accountable, coordinated care will be supplanting inefficient, costly fee-for-service.”
In health care policy circles, an ACO is often compared to a unicorn — everyone knows what it looks like, but no one has actually seen one.
How March Madness Can Help Explain Health Reform
The constitutional battle over health reform shares unusual parallels with the nation’s college basketball tournament. Here’s a scouting report as the legal fight moves to the next round of courts.