California

Latest KFF Health News Stories

California Lawmakers to Newsom: Give All Immigrants Health Coverage

KFF Health News Original

Given the pandemic’s disproportionate hit on minority communities, two Democratic lawmakers are pushing Newsom to agree to offer health care to all unauthorized immigrants. They planned to unveil legislation Monday — and a new strategy to make it happen.

OSHA Let Employers Decide Whether to Report Health Care Worker Deaths. Many Didn’t.

KFF Health News Original

Four workers died at a facility with one of the largest U.S. outbreaks, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration never conducted an inspection. It’s a pattern that’s played out across the nation, a KHN investigation finds.

California Law Banning Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics Will Transform Industry

KFF Health News Original

The law will ban the manufacture and sale in California of personal care products that contain 24 toxics, including asbestos, formaldehyde and lead, and is expected to fill a gap in federal regulation as companies sell the new formulations nationwide.

Surging LA

KFF Health News Original

Eight months after California Healthline’s Heidi de Marco photographed LA under lockdown, she returned to the same iconic spots. Vehicle and foot traffic are up — as are coronavirus cases.

As Broad Shutdowns Return, Weary Californians Ask ‘Is This the Best We Can Do?’

KFF Health News Original

California’s ping-ponging approach to managing the pandemic — twice reopening large portions of the service sector economy only to shut them again — has residents and business owners on edge. But experts say the push and pull on businesses may be what success looks like in much of the U.S. for months to come, given COVID-19’s pervasive spread.

What Doctors Aren’t Always Taught: How to Spot Racism in Health Care

KFF Health News Original

Activists across the country are demanding that medical schools eliminate the use of race as a diagnostic tool, recognize how systemic racism harms patients and reckon with some of medicine’s racist history.

Stanford vs. Harvard: Two Famous Biz Schools’ Opposing Tactics on COVID

KFF Health News Original

While the Harvard Business School gently chided returnees to be on their best behavior, Stanford deployed green-vested enforcers and campus police who sometimes threatened students if they violated the rules. Both, apparently, succeeded.

Orange County Struggles With Health Equity — And Battles State Restrictions

KFF Health News Original

Disneyland can’t reopen until Orange County’s coronavirus infection rates improve — especially among its poorest and most vulnerable residents. Local officials are protesting the requirements, saying the economy will suffer, and residents’ health along with it.

Justices Bound to See ACA as ‘Indispensable,’ Says Californian Leading Defense

KFF Health News Original

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is defending the law with the backing of more than 20 other states, told California Healthline that he predicts the justices will uphold it.