May 4, 2011, 12:05 AM
Even as the U.S. House of Representatives voted to strip funding from the nation’s health reform law yesterday, California lawmakers were advancing bills meant to implement parts of the law early and make sure people are alerted to new benefits as they become available. Three bills would...
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April 11, 2011, 12:05 AM
A state fund meant to compensate victims of corporate fraud has given out less than 1 percent of its holdings since its inception nearly a decade ago and has denied or made no decision on all but six claims, records show. The Victims of Corporate Fraud Compensation Fund, operated by the...
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March 10, 2011, 12:06 AM
Research from UC San Francisco suggests that Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid, could save money and decrease abortion rates by allowing women to stockpile the pill. The study, which was first published online in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that low-income women...
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February 7, 2011, 12:05 AM
In an effort to close the state budget gap, California health officials are proposing a “hard cap” of 10 medical visits per year for needy patients who rely on the Medi-Cal program for health care. Some patients and health advocates are calling the strategy a "death sentence...
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January 13, 2011, 12:05 AM
To help close a $25.4 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed reallocating $1 billion in reserves from Proposition 10, which uses tobacco taxes to fund "First 5" childhood development programs, to Medi-Cal. But that's money First 5 says it does not have. Voters...
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January 10, 2011, 3:18 PM
Gov. Jerry Brown is counting on fewer Medi-Cal users seeing the doctor, visiting the emergency room or spending the night in the hospital - by charging those low-income patients a co-pay of as much as $100. In other words, what's bad for the patient, might be good for the state budget....
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November 15, 2010, 12:05 AM
California is grappling with a fiscal crisis again, and this time the goose that laid the golden egg has flown. In other words, the millions in stimulus funds that helped prop up the state’s lagging coffers are drying up, further darkening an already dismal budget picture. Complicating...
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October 27, 2010, 12:05 AM
Medi-Cal could cover as many as 10.5 million Californians by 2019 because of expanded eligibility and enrollment under federal health reform, according to a report released yesterday by an independent research group. More than 7 million Californians are currently enrolled in Medi-Cal, the...
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October 13, 2010, 12:05 AM
California health regulators are joining state and federal investigators in examining the practices of Prime Healthcare, a Southern California hospital chain with an unusually high rate of life-threatening infections, according to letters released to California Watch yesterday. In the letter...
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September 10, 2010, 12:05 AM
The ACLU and two AIDS advocacy groups claim the state’s Medi-Cal program illegally disclosed the names and contact information of about 5,000 AIDS patients. The state health insurance program acknowledges that it provided patient names, addresses and phone numbers to an AIDS treatment...
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August 27, 2010, 12:05 AM
Scores of medical providers that rely on the Medi-Cal program for funding are now getting "value of claims" statements in lieu of payments. The Medi-Cal agency ran out of funding for providers that typically see $300 million per month from the state, said Anthony Cava, a...
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July 15, 2010, 12:05 AM
A year after dropping several Medi-Cal benefits, the state Department of Health Care Services has reinstated one – optometry services – upon realizing that eliminating it violated federal law. By law, the state cannot eliminate optometry services if physicians can still...
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July 9, 2010, 12:05 AM
Latino and African-American children in California, whether covered by private insurance or Medicaid, visit dentists less frequently than their white counterparts. Overall, 24 percent of kids in the state have never been to the dentist. The findings are part of a study on racial and ethnic...
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May 28, 2010, 4:59 AM
Assembly Budget Subcommittee Chairman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, put the brakes on a nursing home reform proposal by the Schwarzenegger administration during a hearing yesterday. Jones, who is a candidate for insurance commissioner, asked a conference committee to consider one-year changes to a...
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May 24, 2010, 12:08 AM
The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed hiring scores of new regulators to conduct surprise audits of nursing homes after a California Watch investigation found some troubled homes had trimmed their staffs below the minimum number required by law. The governor’s plan includes...
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