COVID-19 Sick Pay In California Would Return Under Deal Between Newsom, Lawmakers

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers reached an agreement Tuesday to again require employers to provide workers with up to two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave to recover from COVID-19 or care for a family member with the virus. The legislation, which lawmakers would likely fast-track to the governor in the coming weeks, would ...

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Payers, Researchers Warn CMS Proposal Could Cut Funds To Insurers Enrolling High-Risk Consumers

Proposed changes to a CMS program that shifts funds to insurers that attract higher-risk consumers, intended to boost plan enrollment by lowering some premiums, could have the opposite effect and should be abandoned, researchers from the Brookings Institution and the University of Southern California argue in a new analysis. The CMS risk adjustment program established under ...

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Biden Administration Withdraws Vaccine-Or-Test Mandate For Large Employers

The Biden administration is withdrawing its Covid vaccination-or-test requirement for large employers, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision to block the rule. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, said Tuesday that the withdrawal of the emergency mandate would be effective Wednesday. The Supreme Court this month blocked the mandate, which required larger businesses to ensure that ...

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White House Mulling Scaled-Down, COVID-Related Paid Leave Plan

The White House is exploring a push for a coronavirus-related paid leave program akin to that enacted in an earlier round of pandemic relief, three people familiar with the conversations said Thursday. It would be much more narrowly tailored than the 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers Biden proposed in ...

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Biden Pressured To Cover COVID-19 Tests Through Medicare

The Biden administration is exploring ways for Medicare beneficiaries to get over-the-counter, at-home COVID-19 tests for free. The White House is requiring private insurance companies to cover the cost of eight at-home COVID-19 tests per person each month, if the customer files for reimbursement. The requirement was put in place as a result of the ...

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Government Watchdog Says HHS At ‘High Risk’ Of Bungling Public Health Crises

The Health and Human Services Department has failed to fix long-standing problems in its pandemic response, putting its ability to respond to future emergencies in jeopardy, the Government Accountability Office said in a report Thursday. The watchdog agency included HHS on its “High Risk List” of federal departments and programs susceptible to mismanagement and abuse ...

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No Debate On Skyrocketing Cost Of California Single-Payer Bill? So Much For Good Government

This measure, after all, would completely change healthcare coverage for Californians. Insurance companies would be shoved aside. People would be switched from their current coverage — whether private, federal Medicare or Medi-Cal for the poor — to a new state-run plan called CalCare.

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California Single Payer Proposal Moves Forward

We need your help in requesting that the California Assembly OPPOSE AB 1400, which mandates a government-run single payer health care program and abolishes private health insurance, Medi-Cal, Medicare, Covered California, and the valuable advocacy services of insurance professionals.

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Word & Brown Participates in California Chamber of Commerce AB 1400 Opposition Effort

The California Chamber of Commerce and the below listed organizations are OPPOSED to AB 1400 (Kalra, Lee, and Santiago) as amended on January 24, 2022, and ACA 11 (Kalra and Lee) as introduced on January 5, 2022, as JOB KILLERS, as the bills would create a new and exorbitantly expensive government bureaucracy, which would control and finance a state-run health care system (CalCare), ultimately resulting in significant job loss to California.

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Free N95 Masks Arriving At Pharmacies And Stores Around The Country

Pharmacies and health centers around the country have begun distributing the first of the 400 million N95 masks the White House is sending out to combat the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus.

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