Archived California Healthcare News

Buoyed by growth in commercial and Medicaid enrollment as part of the Affordable Care Act, Woodland Hills-based Health Net posted strong numbers for the second quarter ending June 30.

Analysts who fear health spending is accelerating got plenty of evidence in Wall Street\'s second-quarter results to support their thesis. But so did folks who hope spending is still under control. Now everybody\'s trying to sort out the mixed message.

As states ready their health insurance exchanges for a second open enrollment season in November, many have more to worry about than the computer glitches that plagued them last year. Last month’s federal appeals court ruling that said language in the Affordable Care Act allows only state-run exchanges to give consumers tax credits to help pay for policy premiums is spurring several states to solidify their state-based credentials.

The California Department of Public Health has moved to terminate the troubled Sonoma Developmental Center\'s ability to participate in the Medi-Cal program. It\'s a rare instance of one California government entity taking action against another. Sonoma, which operates 15 residential care facilities for about 170 disabled children and adults in California, is operated by the state Department of Development Services.

A new analysis by the California Department of Insurance concluded that many state residents paid far steeper premiums for individual healthcare policies this year than they had in the past. According to the analysis, premiums increased an average of 22% to 88%, depending on geographic location and age.

Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which finances about half the health program for seniors and the disabled, won’t run out of money until 2030, the program’s trustees said Monday. That’s four years later than projected last year and 13 years later than projected the year before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Unlike Medicare, however, the part of Social Security that pays for people getting disability benefits is in far more immediate danger. The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is projected to run out of money in 2016, just two years from now, unless Congress intervenes, the trustees said.

Three times within a week, 34-year-old Michael Granillo went to Northridge Hospital Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles because of intense back pain. Each time, Granillo, who didn’t have insurance, stayed for less than an hour before leaving without being seen by a doctor. “I was in so much pain I wanted to be taken care of now,” said Granillo, who lives in Reseda and runs a hot dog cart business. “I didn’t want to sit and wait.”

CDPH Declares Whooping Cough Epidemic In California

The California Department of Public Health has declared that whooping cough is epidemic statewide.

By his own admission, for many years Cyrus Napolitano’s mental illness—bipolar disorder—did not make him an ideal employee. Perhaps the worst moment came when he walked into the Brooklyn McDonald’s he was managing to discover some now-forgotten worker infractions. “Whatever it was,” he said, “it triggered an explosion where I was screaming at the top of my lungs and beating a path of destruction all the way to the back, knocking everything off shelves and kicking the back door with my boot.”