Posts Tagged: individuals

Tackling California’s opioid crisis

A photo illustration of opioid addiction. (Photo: Kimberly Boyles, via Shutterstock)

by KIPP SNIDER posted 02.23.2018

OPINION: A key focus of this year’s California legislative session is the nation’s opioid crisis, and rightly so. According to the California Healthcare Foundation, an estimated 2,000 Californians died of an opioid overdose in 2016. The opioid epidemic confronting California and the rest of America is a growing public health crisis from which no state is immune. 

California slaps surcharges on some health care policies

Illustration: Logo of Covered California

by CHAD TERHUNE, KAISER HEALTHLINE posted 10.12.2017

California’s health exchange said Wednesday it has ordered insurers to add a surcharge to certain policies next year because the Trump administration has yet to commit to paying a key set of consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The decision to impose a 12.4 percent surcharge on silver-level health plans in 2018 means the total premium increase for them will average nearly 25 percent, according to Covered California.

A California fight for universal health care

Thousands attend a Jan. 17 rally in San Francisco to demonstrate for affordable health care. (Photo: Kim Wilson Photography, Shutterstock)

by LISA RENNER posted 03.01.2017

With the Affordable Care Act facing an uncertain future, could California set up its own universal health care system as an alternative?

Private firms eye state-run pension savings plans

A retiree checks out the newspaper in his back yard. (Photo: Budimir Jevtic, Shutterstock)

by ED MENDEL posted 11.02.2015

Calpensions: A board working on a proposal to enroll most small business employees in a state-run retirement savings plan, unless they opt out, was told last week that small technology-focused financial firms could do the job. The founders of three firms that offer 401(k)s and other retirement plans to small businesses did not object to competition from the state.

Close to 1.2 million adults in California live with serious mental illnesses. Each one of these cases is an individual—a parent or sibling or child—and no two people battling the same condition respond to the same treatment alike. Treating mental conditions—and in fact, treating all illnesses—has to be based on the fact that every person is unique and each patient requires therapies that suit him or her best.

Common Core: A critical tool to meet workforce challenges

Youngsters in a California classroom. (Photo: Monkey Business Images, via Shutterstock)

by PETE MANZO posted 02.18.2015

OPINION: The health of California’s evolving and global 21st century economy depends on a skilled workforce. Yet, there are too few qualified applicants to create talent pools for jobs that fuel our economic growth. And while STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) jobs in the state are projected to grow 22 percent by 2020, the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that in 2011, 75 percent of California’s 8th graders were not proficient in national math standards.

California’s new online insurance marketplace signed up 31,000 customers in the first month it was open for business and another 18,000 in the first two weeks of November. That’s less than 1 percent of the number of people without insurance in the state, but California, through Nov. 2, still accounted for more than a third of those who signed up for insurance nationwide under the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature program to overhaul the health insurance industry.