Medicaid Weighs Attaching Strings to Nursing Home Payments to Improve Care
The Biden administration is considering whether Medicaid, which pays the bills for 62% of nursing home residents, should require that most of that funding be used to provide care, rather than for maintenance, capital improvements, or profits. (Susan Jaffe, 6/10 )
Anthem Blue Cross Overcharged California Patients $9.2M, Regulator Says: The California Department of Managed Health Care levied $1.1 million in fines against Anthem Blue Cross over two legal violations, one of which increased out-of-pocket costs for consumers over a four-year period, the agency announced Thursday. Anthem incorrectly required consumers to pay office visit costs as part of their deductibles, a billing error that resulted in 6,561 enrollees paying out $9.2 million to their providers from 2015-2020, the agency said. Read more from The Sacramento Bee.
Third Worker At Office Of AIDS Pleads Guilty In Scandal: A third OA worker pleaded guilty Thursday in a $2.7 million fraud case that prosecutors say involved a scheme to siphon off cash from HIV programs for personal expenses, trips to Disneyland, and lavish meals at pricey restaurants. Read more from The Sacramento Bee.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
San Francisco Chronicle: Monkeypox In Bay Area: Alameda County Has First Suspected Case San Francisco on Thursday reported three additional cases of probable monkeypox as Alameda County announced its first likely infection, bringing the Bay Area total to five cases amid a rapidly growing global outbreak. The Alameda County case is in an individual who had close contact with someone who had earlier tested positive for the virus. In the San Francisco cases reported Thursday, one person had recently traveled within the U.S., but the other two did not. (Allday, 6/9)
Bay Area News Group: Alameda County Announces Suspected Monkeypox Case Alameda County health officials Thursday said a resident has tested positive for an orthopox virus and is suspected to be infected with monkeypox, a smallpox cousin whose recent global spread outside of Africa where it originated has concerned medical authorities. The California Department of Public Health tested the patient for orthopox, the family of viruses that includes smallpox, cowpox and monkeypox, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is further testing to confirm a monkeypox infection. (Woolfolk, 6/9)
Palm Springs Desert Sun: Monkeypox: What Californians Need To Know About The Virus Outbreak The world is currently grappling with a multi-country outbreak of monkeypox, and several U.S. states, including California, have reported cases. Should Californians be worried? The last time the Western hemisphere faced a monkeypox outbreak was in 2003, when there were 47 confirmed and probable cases reported in six states— Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin — due to imported small mammals from Ghana. This marked the first time that human monkeypox was reported outside of Africa. (Sasic, 6/9)
BuzzFeed: What’s It Like To Get Monkeypox? We Talked To People Who Have It Marco, 40, lives with his partner in Edmonton, Alberta. Marco’s partner had been “feeling off” for a couple days — a low fever, some fatigue, and a few little bumps on his hands, which he didn’t give much thought as they didn’t look serious. Marco joked with him, suggesting that it might be monkeypox. “I mean, what are the chances? Like 1 in 6 billion?” he told BuzzFeed News. At that point, there was only one confirmed case of the monkeypox virus in all of Alberta. The next day, Marco’s partner received a call from a public health nurse letting him know that he had been in close contact with a person who had tested positive for monkeypox. Marco spoke with the nurse as well, telling her that he felt fine, but he did have what seemed to be a canker sore under his tongue, only it wasn’t particularly sensitive. (Waechter, 6/9)
CNBC: Flu, Hepatitis, Monkeypox: Diseases Suppressed During Covid Are Back The Covid-19 pandemic has abated in much of the world and, with it, many of the social restrictions implemented to curb its spread, as people have been eager to return to pre-lockdown life. But in its place have emerged a series of viruses behaving in new and peculiar ways. Take seasonal influenza, more commonly known as the flu. The 2020 and 2021 U.S. winter flu seasons were some of the mildest on record both in terms of deaths and hospitalizations. Yet cases ticked up in February and climbed further into the spring and summer as Covid restrictions were stripped back. “We’ve never seen a flu season in the U.S. extend into June,” Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital, told CNBC Tuesday. (Gilchrist, 6/10)
The Atlantic: The Worst Case Scenario For Monkeypox: Another Syphilis Where, exactly, is the outbreak headed? When I asked five experts for their predictions, they would say only one thing for certain: Monkeypox is not the next COVID-19. It’s simply not transmissible enough to cause infections on the scale of the pandemic, nor does it seem to be a particularly deadly virus. (None of the 1,200 patients has died so far.) But beyond that, their views ranged widely: The outbreak may be over before we know it; or it might become a modest, intermittent problem; or it could transform into an ever-present risk and inconvenience, like the next genital herpes. Here are three possible paths monkeypox could take. (Gutman, 6/9)
CBS8.com: City Attorney To Prosecute Baby Formula Price Gouging The national baby formula shortage has left many families feeling anxious. The City Attorney’s office says they plan to take action on any price gouging. Governor Gavin Newsom’s June 7th executive order prohibits sellers from selling baby formula for a price that is more than 10% greater than what they charged February 17th. "Unfortunately, people are charging anything because they know the demand is there and that is really what we are focused on. We want to make sure consumers are protected," said Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney for the City of San Diego, Mark Ankcorn. (Cohen, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Among Cities Hardest Hit By Baby Formula Shortage Weeks into the national shortage, Sacramento remains the city most affected by the lack of baby formula. According to data compiled by Datasembly, Sacramento ended the week of May 28 with an out-of-stock rate of 94.6% — tied with Atlanta as the worst in the nation. (Davidson andh Hodgman, 6/9)
Bay Area News Group: Bay Area COVID Surge Has Peaked, But Cases Likely Higher Case rates in the Bay Area are down about 10% from two weeks ago, suggesting the most recent rise in infections is abating. But don’t be fooled, said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine. We are still experiencing “an extraordinarily high level of cases,” and because so many people are using at-home tests that go unreported, the level of virus circulating in the region is probably four to five times higher than records show. (Rowan, 6/9)
Los Angeles Times: San Francisco Defends Keeping Masks Optional Amid Coronavirus Wave San Francisco and the greater Bay Area were pioneers in imposing the nation’s first regional stay-at-home order in early 2020 when the coronavirus first hit. And the region takes pride in the relatively low cumulative death rate throughout the pandemic. But with coronavirus-positive hospitalizations rising and some residents worried about the high rate of viral transmission, San Francisco is facing some scrutiny for its decision to not go back to indoor mask mandates. (Lin II, 6/9)
Los Angeles Times: School's Out. Will That Help California Get Ahead Of COVID-19? Coronavirus cases across Los Angeles County are rising just as students are counting down the days left in school. As L.A. prepares for its third pandemic summer, a question hovers like June gloom: What will the summer holiday mean for COVID-19?“It’s very hard to accurately predict,” said L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “I’m less and less comfortable with the modeling and the predictions, and more and more comfortable with just noting that we have a lot of uncertainty.” (Purtill, 6/9)
Orange County Register: Coronavirus: Orange County Is 71.9% Fully Vaccinated With 4.6 Million Doses Administered The OC Health Care Agency reported 2,319,958 county residents were fully vaccinated as of Thursday, June 9. This represents about 71.9% of Orange County’s total population. Also, there have been 1,299,053 booster doses administered. (Goertzen, 6/9)
San Francisco Chronicle: London Breed Proposes Slashing COVID Funding, Nonprofits Scrambling Dozens of nonprofits across San Francisco are asking Mayor London Breed and the city’s public health department to reconsider their abrupt cancellation of funding that has helped thousands of low-income residents cope with COVID-19 during the pandemic. Breed’s $14 billion budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1 eliminates $9.5 million in COVID assistance funding that flows to at least 25 nonprofits across the city, including the Mission Neighborhood Health Center, Excelsior Strong and the Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness. The money has been part of the city’s much-publicized effort to provide an equitable response to COVID so that low-income residents, many of them people of color, could have similar access to testing, vaccination and COVID care as wealthier San Franciscans. (Asimov, 6/9)
Los Angeles Times: In Red California, Anti-Mask Recall Effort Fizzles And A Candidate Harassed By Election Deniers Wins Like a growing number of small, local races, the unusually vicious election in this Sierra Nevada county was beset by all the ills of today’s American politics: conspiracy theories, election denial, bitter partisanship and rage over COVID-19 pandemic policies. (Branson-Potts, 6/9)
CalMatters: Burnout-Prevention Programs Aim To Help Medical Workers Yvonne Vigil-Calderon, an osteopathic medicine student at Touro University California, went to the doctor earlier this year with such severe exhaustion that she thought she was anemic. Her lab results came back normal. “‘When was the last time you took a day off?’” her doctor asked. She realized she hadn’t taken time off all semester. (Dubose-Morris and Murphy, 6/10)
Sacramento Bee: New Covered CA CEO Makes Keeping Federal Subsidies A Priority Jessica Altman took over in March as chief executive officer of Covered California, and even as she was settling into a new home in Sacramento she also was making the rounds with congressional leaders to drive home just how much Californians want access to health insurance. The greatest barrier to getting it is all too often the cost, Altman said in her first interview with The Sacramento Bee, and nothing underscored that more than the record enrollment Covered California saw last year when new federal assistance in the American Rescue Plan slashed premiums for California enrollees by an average of 20%. (Anderson, 6/10)
The Bakersfield Californian: Newsom Lays Out Plans For Methane-Detecting Satellites After 9 More Leaky Wells Come To Light Gov. Gavin Newsom punctuated the discovery of nine more leaky oil wells in Bakersfield during the past week — 30 have now been confirmed in the city since mid-May — with an announcement Thursday that California will deploy satellites to detect methane emissions from sources including oil and gas infrastructure. ... Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that can also present health and safety risks, though there is no indication any of the leaks discovered recently have allowed the gas to accumulate in a way that would allow it to ignite and explode. (Cox, 6/9)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Hold Off On That Car Wash. New Drought Restrictions Take Effect Friday San Diegans across the region will face new local drought restrictions under a state mandate that goes into effect Friday. The rules vary based on a customer’s water retailer but generally include checks on outdoor watering and prohibitions on at-home car washing. In the city of San Diego, for example, irrigation of nonagricultural landscapes will be limited to three days a week before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. If hand-watering with a hose, it must be equipped with a shutoff nozzle or be hooked up to a sprinkler system on a timer. (Smith, 6/9)
The Washington Post: Sweltering Heat To Bake Southwest, California Before South, Southeast Temperatures are soaring as we head into the weekend beneath an intense and sprawling heat dome that will bring triple-digit heat to 45 million Americans in the coming week. Heat advisories and excessive heat watches and warnings blanket the map in the Desert Southwest and California, with the heat set to expand into the central United States this weekend. By early next week, the stifling heat dome will shift to the eastern Lower 48, baking the Ohio Valley, Midwest, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Highs could run 10 to 15 degrees above normal, with readings peaking in the upper 90s and heat indexes topping 100. (Cappucci, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee: PG&E Pleads Not Guilty In Fatal Zogg Fire In Shasta County PG&E Corp. pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal charges filed in connection with a 2020 wildfire that killed four people in Shasta County. The innocent plea in Shasta Superior Court was hardly a surprise. California’s largest utility has long said that while its equipment sparked the Zogg Fire, its conduct didn’t constitute criminal behavior. (Kasler, 6/9)
Los Angeles Times: New Alcohol Certification Required For California Bars By the end of summer, every bar and restaurant employee who serves alcohol in California must obtain a new certification. ... Assembly Bill 1221, or the Responsible Beverage Service Training Act, will require bartenders, waitstaff and their managers at establishments licensed to serve alcohol to undergo a three- to four-hour training on how alcohol affects the body, the consequences of over-serving, basic laws regulating alcohol and intervention techniques for dealing with inebriated customers. Workers must then pass a two-hour open-book exam. (Hussain and Breijo, 6/9)
AP: Lawsuit: LA Shelter For Kids Was A Den For Sexual Abuse A Los Angeles County-run shelter meant to be a safe space for children as they awaited placement in foster homes was for decades a den for sexual predators among the staff — and some residents — who preyed on children as young as 5, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by dozens of former residents. Some of the more than 30 plaintiffs spoke at a news conference and wept and trembled as they detailed abuse and some victims’ attempts to escape the hall’s barbed-wire fences and guarded gates. Among the victims was a 6-year-old boy who in 1990 was molested by a male staffer who locked the boy in a closet as punishment for screaming during the assault, according to the lawsuit. (Weber and Dazio, 6/9)
The Bakersfield Californian: Inaugural Maternal Health Fair Set For Saturday A Bakersfield mother is hosting her first-ever maternal health fair Saturday to offer wide-ranging resources all in one place. Bethany Ministries, located at 1200 Baker St., will host the event from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tracy Dominguez, a local mother who lost her pregnant daughter Demi Dominguez after alleged medical negligence, sought to raise awareness for soon-to-be mothers and mothers about different potential health problems, as well as tips for motherhood. (Desai, 6/9)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Spike In Local Accidental Fentanyl Deaths Prompts Outreach To Parents A 17-year-old high school student bought a pill from a friend that looked like a prescription painkiller, a pill he took before school. But the blue tablet was counterfeit — and contained a lethal dose of fentanyl. When Connor White didn’t show up for his first two classes at Cathedral Catholic High, his worried father — a Cathedral teacher — headed home. He found his son, a straight-A student and member of the school’s football team, dead from an overdose. (Kucher, 6/9)
Modesto Bee: Will Democrats Push To Add Supreme Court Justices If Roe Falls? Emily Blocher remembers the response she received from an aide to Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff when, last fall, she traveled to Washington to advocate for expanding the size of the Supreme Court: It was warm and attentive, she said, but conspicuously non-committal to the proposal. The 31-year-old Los Angeles resident has reason to think she’d be more persuasive now — not least because the California congressman has subsequently embraced a bill to add justices to the nation’s high court after news leaked that a majority of justices intended to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion. (Roarty, 6/10)
The Hill: Michelle Obama Urges Abortion Rights Supporters To ‘Double Down’ Ahead Of Roe V. Wade Ruling Former first lady Michelle Obama urged her Instagram followers to “double down” on working to protect abortion rights in a post Thursday as the Supreme Court gets closer to ruling on an abortion rights case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. “So we’ve got to get work today. We’ve got to press our elected leaders at every level to pull every lever they can to protect the right to safe, legal abortion — right now,” Obama wrote, urging voters to back political candidates who support abortion rights. (Gans, 6/9)
Politico: Biden Pledges Executive Orders On Abortion. His Options Are Limited. President Joe Biden says he’s looking at ways to shore up abortion rights if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks, but the White House has not given specifics and legal experts say there’s little he can do to stop states that want to outlaw the procedure. Biden said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday night that his team is looking at possible executive orders, but avoided specifics. Echoing Democratic congressional leaders, who have tried unsuccessfully to codify Roe’s protections and override state bans, Biden largely focused his remarks on electing more abortion-rights supporters to Congress in the November midterms. (Ollstein, 6/9)
Bay Area News Group: Oakland: Proposed 1,000-Person Homeless Shelter Hits Resistance City staff this week poured cold water on an ambitious proposal to build a homeless shelter for up to 1,000 people on the site of a former Army base in West Oakland. The shelter would cost as much as $22.5 million per year to operate — an expenditure that would nearly double what Oakland spends on homelessness in a given year, City Administrator Edward Reiskin told City Council. Even if the city had the money for that, which Reiskin made clear isn’t the case, the site is contaminated with toxic materials and is too far from any public transportation. (Kendall, 6/9)
The Wall Street Journal: Former Theranos President’s Defense Rests In Criminal-Fraud Trial Lawyers for Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani called their second and final witness and rested their brief defense of the onetime Theranos Inc. executive charged with a dozen counts of criminal fraud. Mr. Balwani didn’t testify in his own defense. Thursday’s testimony from technical consultant Richard Sonnier brings the trial, which follows the conviction of Theranos founder and Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes in January, nearer to completion. Mr. Sonnier’s technical testimony about a database followed testimony from an Arizona physician, who backtracked some of her support for Theranos on the stand. (Somerville, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee: San Quentin Inmate Reflects On COVID Outbreak Anniversary For six and a half hours, the greyhound-size prison bus bounced precariously along a highway from Chino, north toward San Quentin. Incarcerated men in orange jumpsuits were tightly packed inside, with metal restraints uncomfortably wrapped around their waists and ankles. Some of them were coughing, others were sneezing. None of them knew that they were about to experience the worst epidemiological disaster in prison history. (Steve Brooks, 6/8)
East Bay Times: Current State Of COVID-19 Should Invite Hope — Not Complacency The famous Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken” begins: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both.” The United States and the rest of the world faced a fork in the road with two possible options at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic: Attempt to control the spread of the virus through social measures and lockdowns or let the virus run its course naturally (“let it rip,” as some have referred to it) in the hope of inducing herd immunity in the populace. (Dr. Cory Franklin and Dr. Robert A. Weinstein, 7/8)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Politics Shouldn't Drive COVID-19 Guidance, But It Does. As Doctors, We're Concerned. Ever since it became clear in early 2020 that the novel coronavirus had become responsible for a worldwide pandemic, the scientific and medical community has attempted to provide clarity about this disease: How deadly is it? Who is at risk? How worried should we be? Is there anything that can be done to prevent transmission? What treatments are available? (Michael R. Wasserman and Flora Bessey, 6/7)
Los Angeles Daily News: One Million Americans Are Dead Of COVID Last month, a tragic national milestone was passed: Over 1 million Americans have died of COVID-19. That’s the highest death toll in the world. It didn’t have to be that way. When people do get sick, we have the most up-to-date health care system in existence. And in order to prevent them getting sick, or at least dramatically decrease the dangers of dying or becoming severely ill, American pharmaceutical companies were the first to develop the best vaccines against the disease. (6/8)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Here's How San Diego Biotech Helped Fight The COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic made a simple fact painfully clear: Our world is smaller and more connected than ever before, meaning that dangerous viruses and other communicable diseases can travel faster and farther than at any other time in human history. The question isn’t whether a new virus or strain will threaten us. The question is when. (Joe Panetta, Mike Guerra and Michelle McMurray-Heath, 6/7)
Los Angeles Times: Teenagers Shouldn't Be Able To Buy Assault Weapons A gunman entered a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., last month and fatally shot 10 people. Just 10 days later, a gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers. These horrific tragedies have two things in common: teenage suspects were able to legally purchase AR-15-style assault weapons, and the shooters used such guns to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. (U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., 6/6)
CalMatters: Nursing Home Funding Cut In A Budget-Surplus Year Is Unconscionable The governor’s proposed state budget would cut $275 million from Medi-Cal payments to California’s skilled nursing facility operators, pushing financially vulnerable nursing homes to the brink of closure. Unlike other health care providers, skilled nursing facilities are nearly 100% government funded, with Medi-Cal funding care for two-thirds of the residents and Medicare paying the rest. These public funds don’t cover the cost of care, however. (Craig Cornett, 6/7)
San Francisco Chronicle: Can London Breed Solve San Francisco's Transgender Homeless Problem? San Francisco loves an ambitious goal. In 2003, the city set the objective to produce zero waste by 2020. In 2014, it vowed to reach zero traffic-related fatalities by 2024. And in 2015, it pledged to get to zero HIV infections and preventable deaths by 2020. None of those things happened. (Nuala Bishari, 6/4)
Sacramento Bee: CA Fire Smoke Causes Trauma Response For Wildfire Survivors There is no fire season any more, there are just fires — a recently popularized adage that’s becoming more true every year. Yet summer remains the most dangerous time for wildfires in California and surrounding western states. In just the last few days, Sacramento’s air quality has been affected by fires viewable from Highway 50 as well as from smoky air wafting in from Napa and Solano Counties. (Robin Epley, 6/7)
Newsweek: California's Water Problems Go Beyond Drought California farmers are not only suffering the state's third consecutive year of drought, but this year, 60 percent of the state is experiencing extreme drought conditions according to the California Water Board. As a result, total crop replants will be down again in 2022 with less overall acreage planted. Farmer frustration continues because the state is increasing curtailments as a solution instead of focusing on how they can better utilize storage. All while peak irrigation season runs through June, July and August. (Jonathan Destler, 6/6)
Los Angeles Daily News: Water Restrictions Show Folly Of California’s Rejection Of Large-Scale Desalination Projects As the state continues to grapple with drought conditions, water restrictions are being placed on six million residents in Southern California. The latest restrictions are another reminder that the California Coastal Commission’s recent rejection of the Orange County desalination plant, after 24 years of delay, reinforces the state’s position as a laggard in adopting technology that could provide water security. While arid coastal countries worldwide are implementing desalination, the most obvious solution to water scarcity, the Coastal Commission unanimously voted against the Huntington Beach project. (Joffe, 6/6)
CalMatters: Unjust Sentencing Law Is Overdue For Reform In 1991, a woman named Tammy Garvin was arrested and charged with a murder she didn’t commit. Garvin is a survivor of sexual abuse and trafficking, which began when she was 14 and compounded earlier abuse. The exploitation she suffered came to a head when her abuser — at that time, her boyfriend and pimp — murdered one of her clients. Garvin had driven her abuser to the crime scene to commit a robbery, but she was neither involved in the stabbing that followed nor in the room at the time. She fled the scene with her abuser and was subsequently arrested and charged with felony murder. (Yvette McDowell, 6/6)
Capitol Weekly: Call It What You Like, But Solitary Confinement Equals Torture Prolonged solitary confinement is torture. Whether it is referred to as administrative segregation, secure housing, or protective custody, the effect on an individual is the same. Significant psychological harm, and mental and physical damage that can be permanent. Study after study has documented just how devastating the practice of solitary can be, and why it has no place in our society. Certain populations are particularly vulnerable to these harms, including people with disabilities, young adults who are still developing, and the elderly. (Eric Harris and Bianca Sierra Wolff, 6/8)
Health Care Survey The 2022 CHCF California Health Policy Survey
This recent statewide survey found that one in four Californians had trouble paying a medical bill in the last 12 months. The survey also captures Californians' health care priorities for the governor and legislature to address.
Listening to Black Californians Black Californians on Racism and Health Care
CHCF commissioned interviews with 100 Black Californians to understand their views on health and well-being, their perceptions of discrimination and bias in the health care system, and their views on what a quality health care system looks like.
Health Care Costs How Eight States Address Health Care Cost Growth
This issue brief documents efforts in eight states that have established new independent commissions or increased the authority of an existing regulatory body to monitor and limit unnecessary growth in health spending.
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