California's nation-leading $25 minimum wage for health workers relies on a significant boost in federal funding. It also leaves out thousands of state employees under an agreement that is expected to win approval from state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom in the coming days. (Don Thompson, )
The most populous county in the U.S. is buying up and retiring millions of dollars in residents' medical debt as part of its plan to tackle a $2.9 billion burden. But some health experts worry the initiative could incentivize hospitals to pursue debtors rather than boost financial assistance to patients. (Molly Castle Work, )
A federal judge has found top California officials in contempt for failing to hire enough mental health professionals to adequately treat tens of thousands of incarcerated people with serious mental disorders. The judge ordered the state to pay $112 million in fines. (Don Thompson, )
State Finally Recalls Vape Cartridge Tainted With Pesticide: California cannabis regulators on Tuesday issued the state's first recall of a pesticide-tainted weed product following a Los Angeles Times investigation. The state did not immediately say why it took seven months to recall a product reported for safety concerns. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
More News From Across The State
State of the State Address
Politico: Newsom Warns Of 'Forces Of Darkness' Ahead Of Presidential Debate Gov. Gavin Newsom struck a somber tone in his annual remarks to Californians on Tuesday, warning that the state's democratic values are at stake while taking the opportunity to castigate Republican opponents for rolling back reproductive rights and failing to pass meaningful immigration reform. "This year, we face another extraordinary moment in history — for California, for the country, and for the world," he said. "We are presented with a choice between a society that embraces our values and a world darkened by division and discrimination." (Korte, 6/25)
CalMatters: Gavin Newsom: California's Way Of Life Is Under Attack The governor did not announce any major new initiatives, but highlighted the CARE Court system that he developed to push more people with serious mental health challenges into treatment and a bond approved by voters in March to fund more beds for those patients. "Every year, the people of California stun the world with something new that our detractors could never have dreamed of," he said. "The only surprise is that they keep being surprised." (Koseff, 6/25)
Sacramento Bee: California Republicans Respond To Gov. Newsom's 'Unhinged' State Of The State Address California Republicans denounced Gov. Gavin Newsom's pre-recorded State of the State address, which he released Tuesday morning and in which he called out "conservatives and delusional California bashers." Members of the CAGOP mocked the governor for recording the address instead of facing the electorate live — especially after it was delayed so many months. (Hatch, 6/25)
LGBTQ+ Health
The Wall Street Journal: Biden To Pardon Military Service Members Dismissed For Their Sexual Orientation President Biden will move Wednesday to pardon LGBTQ military service members who were discharged or prosecuted because of their sexual orientation, providing a path for them to clear their records and apply for veterans benefits. Administration officials said Tuesday evening that they didn't know exactly how many former service members would be affected by the order, which creates a process for veterans to apply for a pardon, but they estimate the number is in the thousands. (Linskey, 6/26)
Becker's Hospital Review: State Won't Interfere With HCA California Hospital Service Cuts, Closures The California Department of Health will not interfere with San Jose, Calif.-based Regional Medical Center's plans to close its trauma center and reduce other services amid local stakeholder backlash. The hospital, part of Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, shared plans in mid-February to end its trauma services in August. (Ashley, 6/25)
KVPR: These Nurse Managers Were Burnt Out. Then Their Hospital Gave Them A 4-Day Workweek The four-day workweek has won converts in offices, government agencies, even manufacturing. Now it's making inroads into health care. Since the pandemic, a handful of hospitals, including AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in New Jersey, have begun offering a four-day workweek to nurse managers, who are akin to CEOs in their level of responsibility overseeing big teams of nurses and ensuring proper care. (Hsu, 6/26)
Modern Healthcare: AHA Backs Bid To Repeal Nursing Home Staffing Rule The American Hospital Association is throwing its clout behind a push to overturn the regulation that established minimum staffing levels for nursing homes. On Monday, the AHA sent a letter to Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) endorsing his plan to subject the rule to a congressional vote that would void it. (McAuliff, 6/25)
Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Slams Study Tying Unemployment To Hospital Price Increases The American Hospital Association denounced a new report that links hospital price hikes to job loss in local communities and increased suicide rates, saying findings are based on "extremely limited and disparate data." The study, published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, indicated that for every 1% increase in healthcare prices, local employers' head count decreases by about 0.4%, and payments for tax-funded unemployment insurance grow 2.5%. The authors used data from large insurers to evaluate how hospital prices changed after more than 300 mergers between 2010 to 2015. Their analysis of how rising healthcare prices affect the local economy is based on filings with the Labor Department on premiums for fully insured employers and individual earnings and unemployment records. (Carbajal, 6/25)
Environment and Health
CalMatters: Drinking Water Of Almost A Million Californians Failed To Meet State Requirements Almost 400 water systems serving nearly a million Californians don't meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water supplies — and fixing them would cost billions of dollars. More than two-thirds of these failing water systems serve communities of color, and more than half are in places struggling with poverty and pollution, according to an annual assessment released today by the State Water Resources Control Board. (Becker, 6/25)
Los Angeles Times: California Clean Water Solutions Will Cost $11.5 Billion California has made significant progress helping small communities address problems of contaminated drinking water, but the costs of bringing safe tap water to hundreds of communities over the next five years will run more than $11.5 billion, according to a new state estimate. In a newly released report, the staff of the State Water Resources Control Board estimated that at the start of this year approximately 913,000 Californians depended on public water systems that are failing to comply with drinking water regulations, while an additional 1.5 million people depended on water systems that are determined to be "at-risk." (James, 6/26)
Los Angeles Times: Sewage Spills Cause Beach Closures In Morro Bay And San Diego Weekend beachgoers across California were warned to stay out of the water in light of bacterial contamination from sewage spills. A spill in Morro Bay on Sunday dumped 7,600 gallons of sewage into the harbor and caused local beach closures, health officials said. The cause was a ruptured sewage main at the Inn at Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo County's Public Health Department said. (Castleman, 6/26)
Voice of OC: Grand Jury: Organic Waste Is Filling Up OC Landfills, Producing Methane Most Orange County cities are failing to recycle organic waste, according to a new grand jury report that examined OC jurisdictions and local waste facilities and how they're responding to statewide recycling goals. "The majority of Orange County jurisdictions have not yet distributed residential waste containers that meet the SB 1383 standardization requirements, leaving outdated labeling/embossing in place," reads the report. "Education and outreach have not yet taken place at all in some jurisdictions." (Hicks, 6/25)
Housing Crisis
Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Affordable Housing, Homelessness Sales Tax Heads To Ballot Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to send a measure to the November ballot that would double the county's homelessness sales tax to a half-cent to fund housing and homeless services. If approved by voters, it would replace Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax voters approved in 2017 that was set to sunset in 2027. (Ellis, 6/25)
Voice of San Diego: Morning Report: Mega Shelter Lease Headed To City Council Mayor Todd Gloria's plan to open a 1,000-bed homeless shelter in Middletown appears to be moving forward. After a fourth closed-door City Council discussion of a proposed lease with the owner of the warehouse Gloria's eyeing for the shelter, the mayor and Council President Sean Elo-Rivera released a joint statement saying Gloria will request a public hearing – and that Elo-Rivera, who has publicly said he isn't necessarily on board with the shelter pitch, "has committed to efficiently processing that request." (6/25)
CalMatters: A Nonprofit Got Jobs For Disabled Workers In California Prisons. A Union Dispute Could End Them A long-simmering dispute between California's largest state employee union and a nonprofit organization that hires disabled workers is coming to a head this summer, and dozens of people could lose their jobs. SEIU Local 1000 for several years has been trying to push the state's correctional health care system to terminate its contracts with nonprofit PRIDE Industries at two state prisons where it employs dozens of disabled workers and others who are recovering from addictions. (Nanguneri, 6/25)
Around California
The 19th: California Bill Aims To Include Menstrual Health In School Sex Education Sriya Srinivasan stopped menstruating for nearly three years and had no idea why. She went online for answers, and the search results frightened her so much that she stayed silent about the problem instead of asking relatives or teachers for help. (Nittle, 6/25)
CalMatters: Workers' Comp Delays Harm Firefighters, Frustrate Therapists With a diagnosis of complex post traumatic stress disorder and wracked by frequent anxiety-induced seizures, Cal Fire Captain Todd Nelson spends much of his days in acute mental distress. His therapist, Jennifer Alexander, said "nine out of ten therapists wouldn't touch Todd with a ten-foot pole." Why? Because of the challenge of treating a firefighter with such a severe mental health condition, including multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations? (Cart, 6/26)
Los Angeles Times: How Much Screen Time Is Too Much For Kids? Parents Clash Over Advice Parents are bombarded with a dizzying list of orders when it comes to screen time and young children: No screens for babies under 18 months. Limit screens to one hour for children under 5. Only "high-quality" programming. No fast-paced apps. Don't use screens to calm a fussy child. "Co-view" with your kid to interact while watching. The stakes are high. Every few months it seems, a distressing study comes out linking screen time with a growing list of concerns for young children: Obesity. Behavioral problems. Sleep issues. Speech and developmental delays. (Gold, 6/26)
Veterans' Health Care
Military.com: After Crippling Ransomware Attack, VA Is Still Dealing With Fallout, Trying To Pay Providers Four months after a crippling cyberattack on a company that manages prescription processing and community provider payments for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA continues to address the fallout, with officials saying Tuesday they are taking steps to clear a backlog of payments to pharmacies and medical providers. A Feb. 21 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group that serves as a clearinghouse for insurance payments and pharmacy prescriptions, disrupted operations at hospitals and clinics nationwide, including the Defense Department and VA. (Kime, 6/25)
Military.com: Democrats Push Pentagon On Birth Control For Service Members As Defense Bill Looks To Ease Access As studies show service members continue to struggle to access birth control, a group of Senate Democrats is pushing the Defense Department to do more to expand contraception services and counseling. In a letter Tuesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a dozen Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee pushed for details on any "barriers preventing the department from implementing provisions mandated by Congress to protect and expand service members' access to contraception and contraceptive counseling." (Kheel, 6/25)
Dengue, Powassan, and Bird Flu
NBC News: CDC Warns Of Increased Dengue Fever Risk Across The U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory Tuesday alerting authorities, health care providers and the public of the increased risk of dengue fever infections in the United States. The alert comes as an unexpectedly higher number of dengue fever cases have been reported across the country, according to the CDC. (Acevedo, 6/25)
CIDRAP: Surveillance Data Show Rise In US Powassan Virus Cases From 2004 through 2013, 64 cases of human Powassan virus were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but that number jumped to 270 cases from 2014 to 2023. (Soucheray, 6/25)
CIDRAP: Scientists Expand H5N1 Testing In Dairy Products, Launch Human Serology Study Don Prater, DVM, acting director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition, said the FDA last week launched a second round of testing in retail products to fill remaining gaps in knowledge about the status of products from different geographic areas and about a wider variety of products, which will include aged raw-milk cheese, cream cheese, butter, and ice cream. In an update on its website, the FDA said it will test 155 dairy products collected from retail outlets for H5N1. (Schnirring, 6/25)
San Francisco Chronicle: California's Summer COVID Wave Arrives Early. How To Stay Safe California's COVID-19 summer wave has struck earlier than expected, threatening to disrupt travel plans, sleepaway camps and family gatherings. Last week, emergency room visits in California rose by around 16% from the week before, with a test positivity rate increasing to 7.5%, the highest for this time of year since summer 2022. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California is among 39 states where infections are rising, with no states or territories experiencing a decline for the first time in months. (Vaziri, 6/25)
CBS News: "No Evidence" New COVID Variant LB.1 Causes More Severe Disease, CDC Says There are no signs so far that the new LB.1 variant is causing more severe disease in COVID-19 patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, as infections have begun to accelerate in this summer's wave around the country. The LB.1 variant currently makes up 17.5% of new COVID cases, the CDC projected Friday, and could be on track to overtake its sibling, the KP.3 variant, which has also been growing in recent weeks. (Tin, 6/25)
The Washington Post: Federal Covid Spending Helped Students Recover From Educational Losses When Congress sent tens of billions of dollars to schools — an unprecedented sum — to battle the pandemic, it seemed like reopening campuses was going to be the toughest thing. Or maybe keeping teachers and students covid-free. But it turns out the hardest thing was helping students recover from severe academic losses sustained during the depths of the pandemic. Schools reopened. Students and teachers were, for the most part, kept safe from covid. But what about academic recovery? Did the money help kids get back on track? Two new reports offer the same answer: Yes. (Meckler, 6/26)
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