State Highlights: California GOP Candidates Strike Back Against Single-Payer; ‘Unjust’ Conditions At Georgia Immigration Center Put In Spotlight
Media outlets report on news from California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Virginia, Louisiana, Iowa and Wyoming.
The Hill:
GOP Embraces Single-Payer Healthcare Attack In California
Republicans are seizing on Democratic demands for a single-payer health system as an attack line in California, arguing that candidates backing the issue spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are out of step with their districts. “My opponent wants socialized medicine and government-run healthcare,” Rep. Mimi Walters (Calif.), a GOP incumbent and top Democratic target, told The Hill. “The district does not support it.” (Sullivan and Hagen, 6/10)
Reveal:
Rep. Lewis Calls For End To ‘Unjust’ Immigrant Detention System
[John] Lewis wrote Congress must “safeguard living and working conditions for detained immigrants,” citing reports about conditions in immigration detention centers in Georgia. Reveal and WABE obtained federal records showing that the Stewart Detention Center in south Georgia has struggled with staffing shortages and an influx of drugs in the nearly 2,000-bed prison, operated by the private corrections company CoreCivic. (Yu, 6/8)
Boston Globe:
Physical Therapists Vs. Acupuncturists: Who’s Sticking It To Whom?
In Massachusetts and across the country, acupuncturists and physical therapists are fighting over who has the right to stick slender filiform needles into patients. ...As the use of alternative therapies grows, big money is at stake, and acupuncturists are trying to protect their turf. (Teitell, 6/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
California Workers’ Comp Insurer Cuts Way Back On Opioid Spending
The State Compensation Insurance Fund, one of the largest providers of workers’ compensation insurance in California, has cut its spending on prescription opioids by 74 percent amid a broader push by insurers and doctors to reduce the long-term use of addictive prescription painkillers. (Ho, 6/8)
Sacramento Bee:
Jerry Brown, CA Legislature Strike $200 Billion Budget Deal
Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders struck a $200 billion budget deal on Friday that rejected two proposals that would have expanded access to health care and tax breaks to undocumented Californians. The budget sets aside enough money in reserves to fill the so-called Rainy Day Fund with a sum equivalent to 10 percent of general fund spending, almost $14 billion. (Ashton, 6/8)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Homeless Programs Get An Extra $600 Million In California Budget Deal
Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders compromised on plans to put millions more toward homeless programs and agreed to pump more money into higher education under a $139 billion general fund budget deal announced Friday. (Gutierrez, 6/8)
Richmond Times-Dispatch:
A Place To Sleep: Many Of Virginia's Mentally Ill Caught In Cycle Of Housing Instability
For some of those people, lacking a safe place to call home means intermittent care at best. But most likely, it means months or years without adequate mental health treatment, and the ramifications can be far-reaching. (O'Connor, 6/10)
The Star Tribune:
UnitedHealth Buying Medicare Plan In Louisiana
Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group is acquiring a large Medicare Advantage health plan in Louisiana, a state that’s one of the few where the company’s UnitedHealthcare insurance business in 2017 wasn’t already one of the largest in the Medicare market. UnitedHealthcare, which is the nation’s largest health insurer, said Friday that it’s acquiring Peoples Health, an HMO with about 63,000 enrollees in Medicare health plans that posted $768.3 million in revenue last year, according to a regulatory filing. (Snowbeck, 6/8)
Des Moines Register:
TPI Composites: Iowa OSHA Fines Newton Wind Blade Maker $150,000
In 40 pages of documents, Iowa's Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleged an array of safety issues including fire hazards, airborne contaminants, faulty record keeping, fall hazards and a lack of employee training on using personal protective equipment. Most notably, the citations support the complaints of dozens of former workers who claimed that TPI did not properly protect them from dangerous chemicals that caused them severe skin injuries. (Hardy, 6/8)
Wyoming Public Radio:
Mary Jane To The School Nurse's Office
This month, Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow school nurses to administer medical marijuana to students. But not all nurses may be on board. (Budner, 6/8)
