Molina Healthcare Chief Executive Officer J. Mario Molina, M.D., hedged on whether his Long Beach-based Medicaid managed care plan would continue to offer insurance in various state exchanges beginning next year.
“There are just too many unknowns at this point to give a definitive answer,” Molina told the publication Axios earlier this week.
In an unusually impassioned speech, Gov. Jerry Brown vowed this week to protect California’s health care gains under Obamacare against Republican attempts in Washington, D.C., to roll them back.
“More than any other state, California has embraced the Affordable Care Act,” Brown told state legislators and appointees in his annual State of the State address at California’s Capitol. “I intend to join with other Governors and Senators, and with you, to do everything we can to protect the healthcare of our people.”
The California Department of Public Health has come under fire from a leading consumer advocacy organization that is claiming the agency has taken little action in investigating hospitals with high rates of patients who contract infections during their stay.
The San Francisco-based Consumers Union reported on the matter earlier this week, asserting that the CDPH's internal structure made aggressive policing of infec-tions in hospital settings nearly impossible.
The Department of Managed Health Care has taken the rare step of publicly barring a licensed insurance agent after he allegedly engaged in submitting false applications for coverage.
The DMHC barred Marc Howard Shields of Carlsbad from soliciting health insurance plans on Nov. 29, records show.
One of the largest district hospitals in California has been shaken up after two of its incumbent directors were turned out of office by local nurses.
As the healthcare sector enters what could be some of its most turbulent years ever, the Hospital Association of Southern California has turned to an outsider with extensive political experience to fill its top post.
The appointment of George W. Greene, currently president of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, was announced by the HASC board of directors on Dec. 1. He takes over the reins at HASC in February.
A key California lawmaker has reintroduced legislation intended to make drug price increases more transparent, vowing to take up arms again with the pharmaceutical industry over runaway costs.
Senator Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, announced a measure that would require pharmaceutical companies to notify state health programs and private insurers before they increase prices. Hernandez dropped a similar bill last session because he was dissatisfied with amendments that raised the threshold for reporting.
Even though voters approved Proposition 64 by a 12-point margin on Tuesday, a new report by the California Workers' Compensation Institute said workplace bans on the drug would still legal.
Kaiser Permanente reported healthy gains in both operating revenue and investment returns in the third quarter ending Sept. 30.
The Oakland-based Kaiser reported operating revenue for the quarter of $16.2 billion, up from $15.3 billion for the year-ago quarter, a gain of just under 6%. Operating income was $672 million for the quarter, compared to $363 million a year ago.
California's voters overwhelmingly approved baking in a hospital bed tax, a hefty new tax on tobacco and electronic cigarettes, and an extension of a tax on its wealthiest residents, all of which will help fund Medi-Cal and other healthcare services statewide. But they narrowly defeated an initiative intended to control rising drug costs that was fought with more than $100 million in money from the pharmaceutical industry, and shot down another intended to protect the health of performers in the adult entertainment industry.
The stunning victory of Donald Trump on Tuesday and the GOP's continued hold on Congress likely puts the Affordable Care Act in its greatest peril since it was signed into law more than six years ago.
With the dust just settling on the election and more than two months to go before Trump's inauguration, it remains unclear as to what the ramifications will be to California's huge healthcare sector.
The California Department of Public Health has not issued an administrative penalty or fine to a hospital for endangering the lives of patients since January 2016, records show.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Anthem Blue Cross of California by the Santa Monica-based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog over keeping its individual PPO plans in force in 2017.
Anthem Blue Cross of California has announced that its consortium of accountable care organizations saved more than $70 million over a variety of 12-month periods that ended in September of last year.
