Posts Tagged: doctor

News

Labor, industry tangle over dialysis ballot initiative

A dialysis machine at work. (Photo:Aleksandr Ivasenko, via Shutterstock)

Kidney dialysis may sound like an odd topic for a California ballot proposition, but voters will tangle with the issue on Nov. 3 — for the second time.The basic fight over Proposition 23 is between organized labor, which favors the initiative, and the dialysis clinic industry, which is opposed. Surrounding the debate are questions of medical care quality, clinic staffing, access, and costs.

Opinion

Telehealth: Keep it robust after the pandemic

A photo illustration of a doctor using telehealth to provide care to a patient via the internet. (Image: Agenturfotografin, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: The need for infection prevention opened the door for telehealth, and we cannot let that door slam shut after the pandemic. Telehealth is essential to expanding people’s access to health care and the health system’s capacity.

Opinion

Nurse practitioners: Key piece of healthcare puzzle

A nurse practitioner, left, discusses care with a young girl and her mother.(Photo: Monkey Business Images)>

OPINION: California is facing a crisis in our healthcare workforce. We lack enough primary care providers. This issue, combined with a wave of physicians getting set to retire and an expanding aging population, has created a perfect storm particularly in our rural and underserved communities.

Opinion

How much will my Medicare cost in 2017?

A health care professional tallies the cost of a patient's care. (Photo: Monika Wisniewska)

Not long ago, I had dinner with a group of friends from college. One of the big topics of conversation was Medicare, for which we’ll all be eligible in the next several years. (Farewell, callow youth!) And one of the biggest questions about Medicare was, “How much is it going to cost me?” Like private health insurance, Medicare has premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. These costs can – and often do – change from year to year. What you actually pay depends on your work history, income, and inflation.

News

State’s vaccination law under fire

A vaccination in progress. (Photo: Komsan Loonprom)

At least three lawsuits have been filed seeking to overturn California’s new law that prevents children from attending public or private school or day care without getting mandatory vaccinations.

News

Disabled face high hurdles for health care

A man in a wheelchair prepares for his daily constitutional. (Photo: Vadim Ratnikov)

Yvette Baptiste’s son Andrew was born with Klippel-Feil syndrome, a bone disorder where the neck vertebrae are fused, causing pain and limiting movement. But even though Baptiste, as the Executive Director of Eastern Los Angeles Family Resource Center, was a seasoned health advocate, it still took more than a year to find a new doctor to treat her adult son.

Opinion

Time has come to fix Denti-Cal

A youngster on his visit to the dentist. (Photo: Wavebreakmedia, via Shutterstock)

What if I told you there was a straightforward way to raise kids’ grades, increase funding for schools and cut costly emergency room visits? You’d probably tell me to get my head checked by a doctor. And I’d tell you to see a dentist.

News

A ghost of Prop. 46 eyed in the Capitol

A jumble of prescription drugs. (Photo illustration via Shutterstock)

California voters, confronted by a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz, overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 46, which would have raised the cap on pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. But new legislation in the Capitol targets a slice of Proposition 46 dealing with the state’s prescription drug database. And rival forces that clashed over Proposition 46 are poised to do battle again.

Opinion

Injured workers pay price for reform

OPINION: Seemingly every decade or so, California’s workers’ compensation system is deemed to be “fixed — once and for all.” And yet, like clockwork, each subsequent round of changes to workers’ compensation brings about unintended consequences once in effect.

Opinion

Tragedy: Mental illness in a state prison

OPINION: This is what it’s like to be a mentally ill, delusional prisoner in a California prison. Already so deranged, paranoid and irrational that you have flooded your concrete prison cell with toilet water and smeared feces, a small, grinning face appears in the window slit of the cell door and tells you to take medication. (Photo: Rennett Stowe)

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