In May 2021, Lags Medical Centers, one of California’s largest chains of pain clinics, abruptly closed its doors amid a cloaked state investigation. Nine months later, patients are still in the dark about what happened with their care and to their bodies.
California’s homeless crisis is often understood through cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where the sheer number of people living unsheltered can quickly capsize the programs designed to help them. But in remote counties like Del Norte, California’s Project Homekey is having a tangible impact.
Localities in California and Colorado are contracting with private companies to create their own health departments, spurred by a disregard for regional covid safety mandates.
Schools that serve poor and disadvantaged kids have taken a series of hits during the pandemic. Now, teachers of color are leaving the profession at higher rates than are white teachers.
Problems with California’s new Medicaid prescription drug program are preventing thousands of patients from getting their medications, including some life-saving ones. State officials say they’re working on fixes.
Pandemic living has come with a barrage of daily choices that have many of us complaining of a sort of brain freeze. That exhaustion is real, and it’s got a name: “decision fatigue.”
Alice Wong, a writer and organizer in San Francisco, says the isolation and loss of the pandemic have shown society what it’s like to be disabled.
The backroom deal with politically connected Kaiser Permanente, which infuriated other Medi-Cal health plans, allows the health care giant to continue selecting the enrollees it wants.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is drawing criticism for his hands-off handling of the covid crisis even though the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and FDA report to him. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor looks to enforce mental health “parity laws” that have failed to achieve their goals. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Noam N. Levey, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode about a large emergency room bill for a small amount of medical care.
Many parents of children too young for vaccines are exhausted. Some feel isolated and even forgotten by those who just want to move on even as omicron continues to sweep through parts of the country.
