Healthcare Reform

Position

News

• Calaveras labor pact calls for 4.6% pay cut
  Sep 5, 2010 — The Record (Stockton, Calif.)
  For the moment, however, the new agreement is good until Aug. 31. One selling point was that employees will have choices in scheduling half of the furlough days.
• California paralyzed by government
  Sep 5, 2010 — Ventura County Star
  Why can't the government tackle big issues? In the year after Proposition 13 passed, state spending increased by 39 percent. Since 1998, Mathews and Paul write, voters have rejected only two such bonds, approving $97 billion in borrowing since 2000 alone.
• Medical prison pact no end to debate
  Sep 5, 2010 — The Record (Stockton, Calif.)
  ...health care," Fama said. A related lawsuit taking aim at California's lack of mental health care for prisoners is Coleman v. Schwarzenegger. Attorney Michael Bien, who leads that case, said the Stockton facility can't open fast enough to help inmates who are his clients. "As Californians, we should be ashamed of what we're doing now in our prisons," Bien said. "It's disgusting." Prison health care workers aren't to blame for a lack of care, he said.
• Millions of young adults to regain parents' health coverage
  Sep 5, 2010 — The Sacramento Bee
  ...-- Millions of 20-somethings who became uninsured after falling off their parents' health plans can regain coverage soon as a key provision of the federal health care overhaul law takes effect. As the open enrollment season begins, parents will be able to include grown children up to age 26 on their coverage. The new law goes into effect Sept. 23 and requires insurers and companies to offer the coverage as part of the open enrollment period, the time of year when health plan...
• Push to enroll uninsured kids in health coverage under way in California
  Sep 5, 2010 — The Sacramento Bee
  ...a travesty when children who are eligible for health coverage programs fall through the cracks," said Suzie Shupe, executive director of the California Children's Health Initiatives, a coalition of 29 county-based children's health initiatives. "California can't afford to ignore the health of a generation of children," Shupe said. Health policy researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimate that California has 1.5 million uninsured children. The tally...
• County seeking major retirement, health care concessions
  Sep 4, 2010 — The Bakersfield Californian
  ...variables. --That all members begin paying 20 percent of their health-care premiums. Those two items constitute the county's last, best and final offers, which negotiators for the Service Employees International Union, Local 521 presented Thursday night to members of the three county bargaining units they represent. SEIU is by far county government's largest employee union. Regina Kane, president of Local 521's Kern County chapter, said county negotiators...
• Free mammograms, education offered
  Sep 4, 2010 — Ventura County Star
  FILLMORE -- Community Memorial Health System's Healthy Women's Program will offer free mammograms and healthcare education to the first 35 women who qualify as part of a community outreach day at the Center for Family Health in Fillmore on Sept. 25. The women, who are to arrive early at the Center for Family Health office, 852 Ventura St., will be taken to The Breast Center at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, then back to the center's office. In 2009, an estimated 194,280...
• San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Scott Harris column
  Sep 4, 2010 — San Jose Mercury News
  Better point-of-care IT systems could help a doctor pick a cheaper and just-as-effective treatment for a patient. The reality is that step one will cost more than we think it will. I think the real battle in health reform is going to occur at step two.