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California Watch

News stories in this section spotlight activities in California, including actions by the state Assembly and state Senate; proposed legislation; regulators like the Department of Managed Health Care and Department of Insurance; and the state ACA exchange, Covered California.

California’s Individual Mandate 2020: What You Need to Know

California is implementing its new state individual mandate in 2020. It requires all California residents to maintain Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) – medical health insurance coverage – for themselves and their dependents beginning January 1, 2020. Californians who do not maintain this coverage, or otherwise meet exemption requirements, will be subject to a tax penalty that somewhat resembles the former penalty at the federal level.

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Medi-Cal To Expand Eligibility To Young Undocumented Adults. But Will They Enroll?

Starting in January, young adults can sign up for California’s Medicaid program regardless of immigration status. But a fundamental question looms: Will they?

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Bipartisan California Lawmakers Seek to Avert Cuts to Hospitals’ Medicaid Payments

Concerned about the nation’s health care safety net, a bipartisan coalition of California’s congressional leaders urged the U.S. House leadership Tuesday not to cut off supplemental Medicaid payments to hospitals because doing so could jeopardize care for millions.

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Coping With (Power) Loss: California’s Hospitals, Clinics, Patients Face New Reality

California’s recurrent power outages this year by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison, in response to wildfire threats up and down the state, have forced patients to think about how they get care when the power is cut at hospitals and clinics.

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California’s New Gig Economy Worker Law Faces First Lawsuit

The California Trucking Association has filed what appears to be the first lawsuit challenging a sweeping new labor law seeking to give wage and benefit protections to workers in the so-called gig economy, including rideshare drivers at companies such as Uber and Lyft.

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Dialysis Patients Panic As Financial ‘Life Raft’ Becomes Unmoored

Russell Desmond received a letter a few weeks ago from the American Kidney Fund that he said felt like “a smack on the face.”

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Does Gavin Newsom Have the Answer to Democrats’ Health Care Fights?

A year and a half ago, Gavin Newsom was in the same place as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, running in a tough Democratic primary and vowing “it’s about time” for a single-payer health care system while dismissing his critics as “can’t-do Democrats” who refuse to think big.

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Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson Dead at 60

Bernard J. Tyson, the chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, died in his sleep early Sunday, the company confirmed. Tyson, who was appointed CEO of the medical group and health care provider in 2013, “unexpectedly passed away early today in his sleep,”

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The Air Ambulance Billed More Than His Surgeon Did For A Lung Transplant

Before his double lung transplant, Tom Saputo thought he had anticipated every possible outcome. But after the surgery, he wasn’t prepared for the price of the 27-mile air ambulance flight to UCLA Medical Center — which cost more than the lifesaving operation itself.

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Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Launch a $90-million Fight Against California Labor Law

Uber, Lyft and DoorDash submitted a California ballot measure Tuesday to exempt their business operations from a sweeping new state labor law.

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