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Although it’s possible to buy travel insurance that provides some health coverage, the devil is in the fine print. Obama-era laws that prevent refusal of payment for preexisting conditions don’t apply to travel insurance.
While other states dramatically restrict abortion and the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court weighs Roe v. Wade, California is preparing to absorb the country’s abortion patients.
Tim Fall, a sitting judge in California’s Yolo County, decided to break the silence on his mental health issues with a book published during a campaign year. Depression and anxiety, he says, shouldn’t disqualify candidates from any profession.
About 21% of patients diagnosed with covid during a hospital stay died, according to data analyzed for KHN. In-hospital rates of spread varied widely and patients had no way of checking them.
Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.
California offers a lens on the challenges officials face in persuading parents to embrace covid shots for young children. While the state has a strong showing in overall vaccination rates, just 59% of kids 12 to 17 — eligible for a shot since May — are fully vaccinated.
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
Diapers are a baby essential, but no federal program helps families cover their considerable cost. Jennifer Randles, a professor of sociology at Fresno State in California, spoke with KHN about her novel research exploring the outsize role “diaper math” plays in the lives of low-income moms.
KHN’s Angela Hart leads a lively discussion on the challenges facing California’s mental health care system and potential solutions. The panel was part of a broader symposium on mental health and addiction hosted by the Sacramento-based publication Capitol Weekly.
For children with special needs returning to an L.A. classroom, mask-wearing is the least of their troubles.
California Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, who authored legislation to create and fund the state’s new 988 phone line for mental health emergencies, spoke with KHN about the effort and what more will be needed to create a full-fledged response network for people experiencing mental health crises.
Hundreds of towns, cities and states across the U.S. have ignored part of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and now it’s costing them billions of dollars to comply.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to regulate out-of-control health care spending in California. The effort is being shaped by the very health industry players that would be regulated.
Health care workers already bore the brunt of workplace violence in the U.S. Now, tensions from an exhausting pandemic are spilling over into hospitals.
Federally qualified health centers from California to Michigan are mired in a bureaucratic mess over how they should be paid under Medicaid for each dose of covid vaccine given. In California alone, clinics await reimbursement for at least 1 million shots, causing a “massive cash flow problem.”
Effective immediately, it will be a misdemeanor in California to harass people on their way to get a covid, or any other, vaccine. But First Amendment experts say the new law violates free speech protections and could face a constitutional battle.
Opponents of free needle programs in California are using environmental regulations to shut them down. On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will end that strategy.
Dr. Paula Braveman, director of UCSF’s Center on Social Disparities in Health, shares her insights on a provocative new study that identifies racism as a decisive factor in the gap in preterm birth rates between Black and white women.
As the pandemic has raged so has the country’s drug epidemic. California is looking to a controversial solution for certain drug users, but despite its effectiveness, critics have scoffed at the idea calling it unethical or a bribe.
Officials are enthusiastic about the Allcove initiative, modeled on an Australian program. But it will need to show effectiveness and find funding.
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