The failure of single-payer health care legislation in California casts doubt on the ability of other states to pass government-run, universal health care. But activists in New York, Washington state, and elsewhere say they are taking lessons from California and changing their tactics.
The insurance company said that the birth of the Bull family’s twins was not an emergency and that NICU care was “not medically necessary.” The family’s experience with a huge bill sent to collections happened in 2020, but it exposes a hole in the new No Surprises law that took effect Jan. 1.
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.
