Problem Gambling Summit Tackles Cultural Barriers

Post News Group

Problem gambling crosses the lines of culture, race and economic status—impacting more than a million people in California. The 2013 Problem Gambling Training Summit, hosted by the California Office of Problem Gambling (OPG) on March 4-5 in San Diego, will focus on prevention and treatment approaches tailored for the state’s diverse populations. “There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for problem gamblers,” said OPG Deputy Director Terri Sue Canale. “Language and cultural barriers have to be considered when looking at effective prevention and treatment approaches.”

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Coroner Stumped by Detox Death

San Juan Capistrano Patch

The Orange County coroner’s office has completed its investigation into the death of a San Juan Capistrano man at a Huntington Beach detox center but cannot figure out why he died. Jason Redmer’s cause of death is “undetermined,” said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which also operates the coroner’s office. About 10 months ago, Redmer checked into a residential center – West Coast Detox on Yale Circle, licensed by the state to offer non-medical detox – to cleanse himself from an alcohol addiction. Four days later, staff found him not breathing. He died before help could arrive.

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Rescue Mission Announces “Tribute to Recovery” Graduation Ceremony

Santa Barbara Independent

In the past fifteen years, the Mission has helped over 500 people achieve recovery through the completion of this year long process. Rolf Geyling, President of the SB Rescue Mission, stated “On March 2nd, before a packed house at Calvary Chapel, 19 courageous men and women will mark the end of a year-long journey that has brought them from the depths of addiction to a world of exciting possibilities. They are the latest graduates of the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission’s 12-month residential treatment program. Their words are a powerful testimony to the grace of God and the power of love.”

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California is rebuilding health care mid-flight

Sacramento Business Journal

If you think that the business community has a ton of questions about Covered California, the state’s health benefit exchange that goes into effect Jan. 1, you should see what health officials themselves are wondering. The frenzied pace of building the state’s cornerstone of health care from scratch was bared to all who attended the Business Journal’s “The Future of Health Care” event Thursday morning at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento.

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California lawmakers move forward on health insurance law

Reporter

California lawmakers took the first step Thursday toward passing new consumer protections, such as guaranteeing coverage even with pre-existing conditions, under the federal health care overhaul. Democrats in both houses of the Legislature passed bills dealing with individual insurance regulations that would prevent insurers from discriminating and overcharging customers.

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Annual Medicare, Medicaid spending in California tops $100 billion

Sacramento Bee

Government health spending in California now exceeds the size of the entire state general fund budget.The federal and state government spent $46 billion on Medicaid (Medi-Cal), a health care program for the poor, and the federal government spent $59 billion on Medicare, a health care program for the elderly, in 2011, according to recent estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That's roughly $2,800 per California resident.Medicare and Medicaid spending in California has doubled in the last 15 years, even after adjusting for inflation.

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Analysis: Spending on Health Programs Trumps Calif.'s General Fund

California Healthline

In California, government health spending on Medicare and Medi-Cal has surpassed the total amount of the state's general fund budget, according to estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Sacramento Bee reports. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program. Government Spending in California: In 2011, the federal and state government spent $46 billion on Medi-Cal, and the federal government spent $59 billion on Medicare in California, according to the estimates. The figures roughly equate to $2,800 per California resident.

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How budget cuts could affect you

Associated Press

Government agencies are already taking steps to comply with automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect Friday. Defense Department: One of the Navy's premiere warships, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, sits pier-side in Norfolk, Va., its tour of duty delayed. The carrier and its 5,000-person crew were to leave for the Persian Gulf on Feb. 8, along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg. Department of Homeland Security: Hundreds of illegal immigrants have been freed from jail across the country.

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Sequester Would Cut $23M to California Health, Social Programs

Capitol Public Radio

A White House report says if Friday's sequester cuts are triggered, California would have less money to prepare for public health threats from disasters or infectious disease. Thousands of kids would go without vaccines, and disadvantaged children would lose access to child care. Dr. Paul Phinney with the California Medical Association says medical research and food safety will be hit, but the sequester cuts endanger a variety of programs.

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Trauma Sets Female Veterans Adrift Back Home

New York Times

In the caverns of her memory, Tiffany Jackson recalls the job she held, fleetingly, after leaving the military, when she still wore stylish flats and blouses with butterfly collars and worked in a high-rise with a million-dollar view. Two years later, she had descended into anger and alcohol and left her job. She started hanging out with people who were using cocaine and became an addict herself, huddling against the wind on Skid Row here.

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NIH: Liver Damage From Binge Drinking Evident In Lab Mice

Guardian Express

Scientists may be better able to study how heavy drinking damages the liver using a new mouse model of alcohol drinking and disease developed by researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The model incorporates chronic and binge drinking patterns to more closely approximate alcoholic liver disease in humans than any existing method. A report of the new model appears in the March issue of the journal Nature Protocols.

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Poll: California Voters Support Marijuana Being Sold And Taxed Like Alcohol

CBS (Sacramento)

A poll released Wednesday has promising news for marijuana users who hope California will join the two other states that have voted to legalize recreational use of the drug. A Field Poll found that a solid majority of those surveyed this month — 54 percent — support allowing weed to be sold and taxed like alcohol.

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Modesto council denies request to block treatment center

Modesto Bee

The City Council denied Tuesday night the request of several residents that it stop a residential drug and alcohol treatment center from moving into their west Modesto neighborhood. The city's Board of Zoning Adjustment granted Nirvana Drug and Alcohol Treatment in December a permit to operate its women's treatment center from a home in the 800 block of Maze Boulevard across the street from Franklin Elementary School. Five residents who live on Owl Court behind the proposed treatment center appealed the zoning board's decision to the council. With little discussion, council members voted 7-0 to deny the appeal.

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Internet Gambling Scores Its Biggest Win

Wall Street Journal

New Jersey on Tuesday became the biggest state yet to allow regulated online gambling, establishing a template that proponents hope other states will follow for a business that federal authorities long treated as a criminal enterprise. The new law allows Atlantic City's casinos to run websites that take bets on games such as blackjack, slots and poker. It also could help legitimize online-gambling companies whose executives the U.S. Justice Department once targeted for offering the same kind of Internet wagers.

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How Many States Are Really Opting Into ACA? Devil's in the Details

California Healthline

Same story, different week: A governor who opposed the Affordable Care Act changes course and announces plans to opt into the Medicaid expansion. Supporters of the ACA rejoice, conservatives grumble, and a new number gets tacked on the board -- 24 states opting in, at last count. Yet there's more to the story than governors' speeches. In at least eight of those states, lawmakers are warning that they may not go along with expansion plans.

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An examination of Narconon

First Coast News (Video)

The East Coast headquarters for Narconon is right here in Florida. It's controversial drug rehab program where there have been a string of deaths.

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Healthcare overhaul may threaten California's safety net

Los Angeles Times

Millions of uninsured Californians will gain medical coverage under the national healthcare overhaul beginning in January, but Guadalupe Luna won't be one of them. Luna, an illegal immigrant and tamale vendor in Los Angeles, doesn't qualify. So she will continue going to the clinic where she has received free care for more than 20 years: Los Angeles County's Hudson Comprehensive Health Center. There, publicly funded doctors will help manage her diabetes and high cholesterol.

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Coordinated healthcare could save California $110 billion, group says

Los Angeles Times

California could cut $110 billion in healthcare spending over the next decade, saving the average household $800 a year, by quickly moving away from conventional fee-for-service medicine and embracing more coordinated care, a new report says. These findings released Tuesday come from the Berkeley Forum, a new group of healthcare executives, state officials and academics that studied California's healthcare market for the last year in hopes of finding ways to make care better and more affordable.

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California will test new health-care model

Sacramento Business Journal

California has been awarded a federal grant of $2.7 million to design a new model of government health care payment, state health officials announced Thursday. The grant will be used to produce a state plan to improve health care quality and reward value instead of volume by changing the payment structure. One possible method is to bundle payments to cover an entire episode of care rather than paying for each treatment and test. This approach encourages doctors and hospitals to work together rather than crank up their own separate charges.

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Brown Seeks Broad Authority on States' Expansion of Medicaid

California Healthline

On Saturday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) expressed concern about the state's ability to control costs as it expands Medi-Cal coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the Sacramento Bee's "Capitol Alert" reports. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program. Brown -- who was joined by Diana Dooley, California Health and Human Services Agency secretary -- spoke to reporters in Washington, D.C., at a National Governors Association meeting.

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Report Pegs California's Unfunded Retiree Health Care Costs at $63.84B

California Healthline

The cost of public retiree health care over the next 30 years is expected to be $63.84 billion more than California has allocated to pay for it, according to a recent report from State Controller John Chiang (D), the Los Angeles Times' "PolitiCal" reports. Main Findings: Chiang said that the cost of providing health care to retired public workers did not increase as fast as expected.

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Sequester Cuts Would Affect Health Care, Other Programs in California

California Healthline

On Sunday, the White House detailed how California and other states would be affected if a deal is not reached by Friday to avoid automatic cuts under sequestration, the Contra Costa Times reports. The automatic cuts involve nearly $1 trillion in across-the-board reductions over a decade, including a 2% reduction to Medicare reimbursement rates.

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Federal law means change for state, county health care

Merced Sun-Star

California is getting ready to implement the federal Affordable Care Act, and Mercedians could see changes as the process moves forward. This week, the Legislature's special session began with hearings and votes to implement the reforms, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide health care consumer coalition.

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Bay Area, California to lose big if federal sequester cuts hit this week

San Jose Mercury News

Just when Californians are finally feeling upbeat again about where the state is heading, here comes a fresh downer: The federal sequester cuts set to kick in this week could cost California billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs while making most of our daily lives more difficult. The state's budget may be balanced and the economy improving, but unless congressional Republicans and President Barack Obama reach a last-minute deal, the federal government on Friday will begin slashing $85 billion this year, including about 8 percent from the Pentagon and about 5 percent from most other discretionary programs.

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List of potential sequester cuts to California

San Jose Mercury News

The White House on Sunday released a list of potential hits to California if a budget deal isn't reached by Friday, when automatic cuts kick in. Among the cuts facing California: Education: Would lose $87.6 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting about 1,210 teacher and aide jobs at risk. About 320 fewer schools would receive funding. In addition, schools would lose $62.9 million in funds for about 760 special-education teachers and aides. About 9,600 fewer low-income college students would receive financial aid; about 3,690 fewer students would get work-study jobs. About 8,200 children would lose Head Start and Early Head Start services.

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