Opinion
California’s healthcare system is broken—and the solution is right in front of us.
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Posts Tagged: medical
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Helping mentally ill people: The debate over ‘involuntary treatment’
A woman in a medical ward ponders her situation. (Photo: Boyloso, via Shutterstock)Lee Davis says flatly that without involuntary treatment for her raging psychosis, she would be dead. “It saved my life.” A mental health activist who chairs the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board, which advises the board of supervisors and county officials on mental health policy, Davis acknowledges hers is not a popular view among disability rights advocates,
News
The young health care workers killed by COVID-19
Siblings Jasmine and Josh Obra both tested positive for COVID-19 on the same day. Only one of them survived. (The Obra family)Jasmine Obra believed that if it wasn’t for her brother Joshua, she wouldn’t exist. When 7-year-old Josh realized that his parents weren’t going to live forever, he asked for a sibling so he would never be alone. By spring 2020, at ages 29 and 21, Josh and Jasmine shared a condo in Anaheim, California, not far from Disneyland, which they both loved.
News
State offers scant funding to rape crisis centers
California’s 84 rape crisis centers are in a funding crisis. While California has experienced a steady rise in the number of reported rapes (over 5% per year since 2015), the state’s annual General Fund contribution to rape crisis centers over the past decade has been a miniscule $45,000.
Opinion
Flexibility, security for independent contractors
A man delivers pizza to a customer. (Photo: Nikolay Sirota, via Shutterstock)OPINION: I started DoorDash for people like my mom, who worked in a Chinese restaurant after immigrating to the United States. Working alongside her instilled in me a passion to help hard-working families and small businesses struggling to get ahead. Today, hundreds of thousands of Californians deliver with DoorDash to earn extra income while retaining the freedom to dictate when, where, and how much they work.
News
Organized labor in California as 2019 begins
San Francisco Marriott hotel employees picketing in October in support of better wages, benefits. (Photo: 1000Photography, via Shutterstock)California labor confronted major challenges last year but responded with frenetic organizing and a newfound aggressiveness—momentum unions hope to maintain in 2019. As 2018 opened, California had 2.49 million union members, roughly 15.5 percent of the state’s official working population
Opinion
California goal: Protect health care coverage
A vaccination in progress. (Photo: Komsan Loonprom)Many families across California are feeling anxious about the future of their healthcare coverage. The campaign promise by president-elect Donald Trump to repeal Obamacare has likely created unease among many of the approximately 1.5 million Californians who purchase insurance through Covered California—the state’s online healthcare marketplace. Even for those who receive coverage through their employer
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.
Opinion
An effort to give ER doctors unfettered power
The entrance to a hospital emergency room. (Photo: Johnson Photography, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Our California Legislature is considering a bill — AB 1300 by Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles — that would allow emergency room (ER) physicians to release psychiatric patients brought into their ER’s on a psychiatric detention, known as a “5150”, without any input from a psychiatrist. Currently, when a patient in psychiatric crisis is brought to an ER on a “5150”, the hospital discharges the patient to a psychiatric facility where that patient receives a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation.
Opinion
Minimum wage hike: The costs are higher than you think
Binders and documents relating to wage information. (Photo: Tashatuvango, via Shutterstock)The California minimum wage increase has been approved. The minimum wage will rise by $1 per hour through 2022, up to $15. There are significant costs to employers, both public and private, besides the $5-per-hour increase. Inflation is one of those costs. Let’s look at the real results and implications of what our elected officials have done to us and for themselves on many levels. And let’s find the unintended consequences.