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CMA Publishes November 2022 Physician Voter Guide

Mail-in-ballots for the November 8, 2022, California General Election will soon arrive in the mail. We hope that you will mail in your ballot or show up to the polls to help ensure the voices of physicians are heard loud and clear. Click here to view the California Medical Association's (CMA) November 2022 General Election Physician Voter Guide, which includes CMA’s positions on statewide ballot measures and endorsements for two CMA-supported physicians running for their first terms in office. Kermit Jones, M.D., is a candidate for the new Congressional District 3, a district based in the ...

Growing Numbers of Californians Are Having Problems Paying Medical Bills — and Half Say They Have Skipped or Postponed Health Care in the Last Year Due to Cost

The rising cost of health care continues to be one of California’s most urgent issues, with one in four Californians saying they have struggled to pay at least one medical bill in the past 12 months — up from 20% last year — and 49% saying they have postponed care due to cost, according to a newly released statewide survey conducted by the California Health Care Foundation and NORC at the University of Chicago. Of those who postponed care, the survey finds, 47% report their health condition worsened as a result, ...

With Sexually Transmitted Infections Off the Charts, California Pushes At-Home Tests

SACRAMENTO — California has become the first state to require health insurance plans to cover at-home tests for sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, chlamydia and syphilis — which could help quell the STI epidemic that has raged nearly unchecked as public health departments have focused on covid-19. The rule, part of a broader law addressing the STI epidemic, took effect Jan. 1 for people with state-regulated private insurance plans and will kick in sometime later for the millions of low-income Californians enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program. By making it easier and ...

The Work of Family Caregiving: Invisible, Costly, and Taxing

  Laura’s 78-year-old mother fell off a health cliff, spiraling downward in a decline that’s not uncommon among older adults. “She went from normal cognition to thinking it was her wedding day and that I was her mother,” Laura told Vox journalist Anne Helen Petersen. “She didn’t know how to walk and didn’t remember what had happened to her.” Laura, whose last name and location were withheld to protect her privacy, spent the next few years caring for her parents. Like many other Americans who become full-time caretakers, she had limited options. Medicare doesn’t cover ...

California Screens More Than 500,000 Children and Adults for Adverse Childhood Experiences

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), in partnership with the Office of the California Surgeon General (CA-OSG), today announced that the ACEs Aware initiative has reached two key milestones less than two years after launching. To date, more than 20,500 California clinicians have been trained to screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and more than 500,000 children and adults across the state have been screened for ACEs. Research shows that 62 percent of Californians have experienced at least one ACE. Emerging data show that the COVID-19 pandemic is leading to significant increases in ...