Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
How Obamacare, Medicare And ‘Medicare For All’ Muddy The Campaign Trail
A talking point used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refers to all three of these distinct concepts in a way that could magnify public misperceptions. (Shefali Luthra, )
Good morning! Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s rule that he says weakens labor unions and their ability to collectively bargain. More on that below, but first, here are your top California health care stories for the week.
Calif. Jury Awards Couple $2 Billion In Damages In Third Verdict Linking Roundup Weed Killer To Plaintiffs' Cancer: The couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, used Roundup on their Northern California property for decades. They both have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The verdict includes punitive damages of $1 billion each for Alva and Alberta Pilliod, ages 76 and 74. An additional $55 million was awarded to the couple in compensatory damages. The product liability case is the third in which California juries have considered scientific evidence and concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, contributes to or causes cancer in people. The trial unfolded much like the earlier two, with sparring over scientific studies, the credibility of expert witnesses and the relative importance of a WHO decision that glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Roundup, is likely carcinogenic to humans. The EPA's officials stance on the product is that it's safe. Last September, another Alameda County jury awarded groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson $289 million in compensatory and punitive damages, an amount later reduced by a superior court judge to a total of $78 million. Read more from KQED, CNN, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and The New York Times.
As Deadline To Reach Budget Deal Approaches, Newsom Hits The Road To Drum Up Support For Health Ideas: Gov. Gavin Newsom is launching a statewide tour to promote his plans to shore up the health law marketplace in California. “No state has more at stake on the issue of health care,” Newsom plans to stay at his first stop on the tour, a health care nonprofit in Sacramento. “While the Trump administration seeks to destroy the Affordable Care Act, California is leading the nation in expanding access to health care and tackling affordability.” Newsom wants to use money generated by his proposed reinstated individual mandate to increase insurance subsidies for people making up to 600 percent of the federal poverty level – about $150,000 for a family of four. Now he’s trying to get buy-in from constituents and lawmakers. Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
S.F.’s Board of Supervisors Rules Committee May Block Proposal To Let City Force Mentally Ill People Into Treatment: A state law gives San Francisco the ability to set up a five-year pilot program in which the city has more power to involuntarily hold those deemed a danger to themselves and others. But the supervisors have concerns about what exactly that would entail. “There are still too many unanswered questions about how this could fit into a more comprehensive strategy to address the needs of our behavioral health system,” said Supervisor Gordon Mar said. But Jeff Kositsky, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said he agrees the systems needs to be improved but that shouldn’t come at the cost of halting the program’s implementation altogether. “Just because there is one problem doesn’t mean we should try to fix another,” he said. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
The Associated Press:
California Sues US Over Home Health Worker Union Dues
Five states have joined forces to try and block a new rule from the Trump administration they say weakens labor unions and their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, announced the lawsuit on Monday with attorneys general in Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon. (5/13)
KQED:
Newsom Proposes Expansive New Strategy To Combat Drug Addiction Spike In State Prisons
Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing for California to spend more than $233 million over the next two years to battle substance abuse in the state's roughly three dozen prisons, an effort to stem the increasing frequency of inmate overdoses in recent years. ...Health officials, inmate advocates and lawmakers who've been critical of the prison system's previous efforts to tackle the problem are applauding Newsom's proposal, which faces its first round of hearings on Tuesday. (Goldberg, 5/13)
CALmatters:
California Schools Haven't Fully Embraced Laws Protecting LGBTQ Kids, Study Shows
In the past decade, California has adopted more than a half-dozen laws intended to prevent bullying, strengthen suicide prevention and cultivate inclusive learning environments for LGBTQ students in the state’s public schools. But the state’ school districts are implementing these new laws inconsistently, according to a new sweeping report-card style analysis from the Equality California Institute. As an emotional, hours-long hearing last week on statewide sex education guidance underscored last week at the state Board of Education, California has been slow in general to fully embrace new laws aimed at deterring discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, along with those questioning their sexual identities. (Cano, 5/13)
Sacramento Bee:
Elk Grove School Staff Member Diagnosed With Meningococcal Disease
Parents in Elk Grove Unified School District have been alerted that a staff member has been diagnosed with meningococcal disease, bacterial infection that can cause bacterial meningitis, and may have interacted with students and faculty, the Sacramento County Department of Health Services said Monday. The staff member works at James McKee Elementary School and is not a teacher, according to the district. (Morrar, 5/13)
San Francisco Chronicle:
SF Residents Give Their City A Report Card — Not Bad But Not Straight A’s
San Franciscans give their local government a “B-” grade, despite widespread sentiment that the city has failed to make meaningful progress on its biggest problem — homelessness. That’s according to the results of the latest biennial San Francisco survey — a barometer of how residents feel about the city’s libraries, transportation, parks and public safety services. (Fracassa, 5/13)
San Jose Mercury News:
ACLU Argues Mountain View, California RV Ban Is Unconstitutional
Aiming to stop the displacement of hundreds of RV dwellers who have been priced out of the Bay Area’s housing market, two nonprofit legal organizations are challenging Mountain View’s plan to ban oversized vehicles from parking on city streets, calling it cruel and unusual punishment. The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and the ACLU of Northern California have sent a letter to Mountain View City Council members demanding that they abandon their plan and reverse a separate city code that bans people who own vehicles that discharge sewage from parking them on city streets. (Angst, 5/13)
Sacramento Bee:
Critics Call CA Homeless Student Parking Lot Bill Temporary Fix
California community colleges are walking a narrow path in raising concerns about a proposed law that would require them to keep their parking lots open at night for homeless students. They have not opposed the bill, Assembly Bill 302, but they are highlighting costs they would incur and asking lawmakers to pay for them. The proposal could cost the state “potentially in the tens of millions of dollars annually,” according to an analysis of the legislation by the Assembly Appropriates Committee. That’s counting extra money for security and maintenance, the costs associated with the issuance of overnight parking permits, as well as potential liability. (Sheeler, 5/14)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento Fire Dispatch Director On Leave, Position Still Vacant
The executive director of Sacramento County’s main fire and emergency medical dispatch center, who as of Monday remained on administrative leave and the subject of a workplace violence restraining order, is in the first full year of an at-will employment contract that would pay nearly $200,000 by its third and final year. Joseph Thuesen’s contract, provided to The Sacramento Bee in response to a public records request, commenced Aug. 28 after he had served for months as interim executive director of the Sacramento Regional Fire/EMS Communications Center, shortened in recent litigation to “the Center.” (McGough, 5/14)
Sacramento Bee:
South Placer Jail: Substance Hospitalizes Inmates, Deputies
Several inmates, sheriff’s deputies and a K-9 officer were transferred to hospitals from South Placer Jail in Roseville on Monday after being exposed to an unknown substance, officials said. Four inmates, eight Placer County Sheriff’s deputies and the K9 officer were treated on scene, put through a decontamination process by fire personnel and transported to hospitals, according to the Roseville Fire Department. Three other inmates were treated on scene and decontaminated, but not transported. (Darden, 5/13)
Politico:
Dems Tee Up New Document Fight With DOJ Over Obamacare
House Democrats are mounting yet another confrontation with the Justice Department that could lead to subpoenas, but this time it's not about special counsel Robert Mueller's report — it's about health care. Five committee chairman foreshadowed a possible subpoena as soon as May 24 if Attorney General William Barr declines to provide documents related to his decision to stop defending the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — the health care law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. (Cheney, 5/14)
Stat:
Joe Biden May Resurface A Long-Held Dream: A White House Laser-Focused On Cancer
[Joe] Biden’s announcement that he will run for president in 2020, however, has resurfaced his dream: a White House that makes cancer a signature issue, backed by a politician whose life was so publicly upended by the disease. With much of the early debate in the Democratic primary centering on health care, Biden’s stint as cancer-advocate-in-chief and orchestrator of the Obama administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” could give him the opportunity to make the disease, its treatments, and his own grief central to the presidential election. (Facher, 5/14)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Kamala Harris’s Claim That Medicare-For-All ‘Doesn’t Get Rid Of All Insurance’
This is one of those inside-the-Beltway exchanges that probably leaves many Americans scratching their heads. Harris, a 2020 presidential hopeful, is a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s plan to create a “single-payer” government-run health-care system. It’s called Medicare-for-all since it will be more all-encompassing than the current government-run program for the elderly. Harris made these remarks after Tapper asked her if she wanted to clarify comments she had made in a CNN town hall in January. At the time, her remarks “let’s eliminate all of that” were widely interpreted to mean doing away with private insurance. In her recent appearance, she argued that in context she was talking about health-care bureaucracy today. (Rereading the full exchange, she has a point.) She said she did think there was a role for private insurance in the government-run system. (Kessler, 5/14)
The New York Times:
Stem Cell Treatments Flourish With Little Evidence That They Work
A surgeon recommended a hip replacement, but Kenneth Cevoli said no thanks. “They’re really quick to try to give you fake joints and make a bunch of money off you,” he said. At 71, Mr. Cevoli, a high-school guidance counselor in Teterboro, N.J., coaches cross country, teaches mogul skiing, surfs and works summers as a lifeguard on Cape Cod. Despite pain in his left hip and knee, he questioned the need for major surgery, worrying it would sideline him for too long. (Grady and Abelson, 5/13)
The New York Times:
Largest U.S. Measles Outbreak In 25 Years Surpasses 800 Cases
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday reported a new total of 839 individual cases of measles across 23 states so far this year, as the largest outbreak of measles in the United States in a quarter century continued. Pennsylvania is the latest state with a measles outbreak, though most cases have occurred in New York, Michigan and Washington State. The disease spread in Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and in Rockland County, New York, before being carried to Michigan. A large outbreak in southern Washington State spread mostly among unvaccinated children under 10 years old. And in late April, hundreds of people were put under quarantine at two Los Angeles universities after an outbreak there. (Cai, Lu and Reinhard, 5/13)
The Hill:
Inslee Signs Nation's First Public-Option Insurance Bill
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), a 2020 presidential candidate, signed off Monday on a first-in-the-nation public-option insurance plan. The state will offer public health care plans that cover standard services to all residents, regardless of income, by 2021, Inslee said at a press conference. The plans will still be administered by private insurance companies, but the terms will be set by the state.Inslee called the bill a "template" for the U.S. (Hellmann, 5/13)