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.
Sen. Bernie Sanders pilloried Republican efforts to overhaul the health care system and touted his own Medicare for all plan Friday before an effusive California audience that welcomed him on stage with chants of "Run, Bernie, Run!"
Republican efforts in Congress to “repeal and replace” the federal Affordable Care Act are back from the dead. Again.
The Word & Brown General Agency has signed a new General Agent contract with Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest integrated health system, based in California. The new agreement enables Word & Brown’s vast network of health insurance brokers to write Kaiser Permanente group health coverage for small businesses (1 – 100 employees) across California effective January 1, 2018.
A California bill headed to the governor’s desk may be the most sweeping effort in the nation to shine a light on drug pricing, but it lacks the muscle being applied in other states to directly hold those prices down.
Powered by increasing scrutiny of costly prescription drugs, a measure that would require sweeping new disclosure on how medicines are priced cleared its final legislative hurdle Wednesday.
California lawmakers approved several key health care proposals — and stalled on others — in their mad dash toward last Friday’s do-or-die legislative deadline.
The California State Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly approved Senate Bill 17, controversial legislation that could soon become the nation’s most comprehensive law aimed at shining a light on prescription drug prices.
California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday told a crowd of mostly liberal activists that she plans to co-sponsor a “Medicare-for-all” bill pushed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that would create a national health insurance system.
Frustration with sky-high hospital bills and a lack of local competition is common to many employers and consumers across the country after years of industry consolidation. Fed up with wildly different price tags for routine operations, some private employers are steering patients they insure to top-performing providers who offer bargain prices. Santa Barbara County, with about 4,000 employees, is among a handful of public entities to join them.