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.
In a major legislative proposal to combat the state’s growing homelessness crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Sunday an effort to push billions of dollars toward building a vast network of treatment beds to help California’s mentally ill and drug-addicted residents find care. Through a bond measure that could reach up to $5 billion, the governor ...
California will soon restart its annual eligibility review for people enrolled in Medi-Cal, a process that has been suspended since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that starting in mid-April, residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people, will start to receive renewal notices in the mail. The process will ...
With the COVID-19 state of emergency a thing of the past, California health officials on Friday unveiled plans to relax guidance on masking in high-risk settings and to end vaccination requirements for healthcare workers.
California’s state of emergency declaration, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ends on February 28. The federal state of emergency also ends this spring, on May 11.
As pandemic-era policies come to an end, tens of thousands of Southern Californians are expected to lose out on Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, come April. Experts estimate about 330,000 people in Los Angeles County and approximately 160,000 in Orange County will be ineligible for Medi-Cal in April when states resume the redetermination process. The number of ...
A doctor found cysts in Lilia Becerril’s right breast five years ago, but the 51-year-old lacks health insurance. She said she can’t afford the imaging to find out if they’re cancerous. Becerril earns about $52,000 a year at a nonprofit in California’s Central Valley, putting her and her husband, Armando, at more than double the ...
The state Supreme Court rejected a challenge Wednesday to a ruling that said school districts in California cannot require their students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because only the state government can issue such a mandate. While public health agencies have recommended the vaccinations for children as young as 6 months old, legislation calling for ...
It looks like California’s single-payer dreams will be delayed at least another year. After suffering a devastating blow in the Capitol last winter, advocates had been eager to reintroduce legislation that would create a first-in-the nation, state-run health care system.
Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics. State Sen. María Elena Durazo’s bill would require health facilities and home health agencies to give raises to many support employees, including ...
About four years ago, Dr. Gene Dorio sat on the ethics committee of a Southern California hospital whose administrators insisted they could decide whether to disconnect a ventilator from an unconscious patient — even though the man’s wife and adult children wanted to continue life support. The problem, Dorio told California lawmakers last year, was ...