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.
A contract dispute being waged in a Northern California courtroom is complicating the re-election plans for state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who two years ago suspended all fundraising amid a campaign finance scandal uncovered by The San Diego Union-Tribune. The lawsuit involves Lara’s one-time boss and political mentor, former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. It ...
New coronavirus cases have jumped more than 20% in California and the Bay Area since the state’s June 15 reopening – a sign that even as residents embrace a return to normalcy, the virus can still spread among unvaccinated people and will likely linger for months to come. Statewide, new cases crept up from about ...
Gov. Gavin Newsom routinely boasts that California has “one of the highest vaccination rates in the United States of America.”
The Delta coronavirus variant is now the third-most common in California, new data show, underscoring the danger of the highly contagious strain to people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. The variant makes up 14.5% of California coronavirus cases analyzed so far in June, up from 4.7% in May, when it was the fourth-most ...
The California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups are urging state legislators to restore the net operating loss deduction and business incentive tax credits that were suspended and capped by AB 85 last year. The action was taken as part of last year’s strategy to close an estimated $54.3 billion budget deficit ...
A California jury has cleared CVS in a years-long lawsuit alleging the pharmacy giant overcharged them by more than $121 million for generic drugs. A group of insured pharmacy customers in six states filed suit against CVS Pharmacy in 2015, claiming that the company overcharged them and their insurers for generic drugs while charging low, ...
Health officials in Los Angeles County now strongly recommend that people wear masks indoors in public places — regardless of their vaccination status — to prevent the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus. The move comes two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom reopened California and lifted the statewide mask mandate. The LA ...
Over the next month, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara will review rates recommended by the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, a nonprofit which evaluates trends, including the costs of potential claims.
A 2017 California law that banned drugmaker copay coupons failed to increase the use of generic drugs, according to a study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The study, published June 15 in JAMA, found that the law did not meet its goal to boost use of generic drugs instead of patients’ relying on copay coupons ...
The highly infectious delta coronavirus variant is rising fast in California, with cases more than doubling in the past month and tripling in one Bay Area county, according to genomic sequencing results reported by state and local public health departments. The first California cases of delta, a variant that emerged in India, were reported in ...