Health

Many Black Californians say they have been treated unfairly or felt disrespected by a health care provider because of their race or ethnicity. A recent study found that increasing the number of Black doctors is the best solution.

Low-income patients who need specialized cancer treatment often struggle to get it. Advocates say a new law is a small step toward improving services for those patients.

Only a small portion of Medi-Cal’s primary care providers share quality health data. We need to close the digital divide that has left behind the 13.6 million Californians supported by Medi-Cal health insurance, CalFresh food assistance and CalWORKs cash assistance—more than a third of our state’s population.

With demand rising for mental health care, and providers in short supply, experts explain how California got here - and where we may be headed.

If new parents want to take bonding leave, or adult children want to apply for Paid Family Leave to care for an ill parent, they need to be able to afford a 40% pay cut. Senate Bill 951 would provide enough income for workers who contribute to the fund with each paycheck to access the benefit.

In the face of overwhelming demand, a Medi-Cal program providing assisted living for low-income patients is expanding, but slowly. In the meantime, family caretakers struggle with jobs, child care and other responsibilities as they wait.

A beleaguered state program that provides hearing aids to children may soon include families with partial insurance coverage and youth up to 21 years old after the Legislature included the expansion in the budget bills. About 2,000 more children would be helped.

California’s workplace safety officials are considering keeping in place the requirement to keep positive COVID cases out of the workplace, but throwing out the requirement to pay workers who are excluded from the workplace when sick.

A program intended to provide hearing aids and services to thousands of children without health insurance has delivered devices to only a tiny fraction of those who need them. Parents complain the application process is cumbersome, while doctors say the state is reimbursing slowly or not at all.

Through state-led manufacturing, CalRx will be the backstop for markets that fail to deliver affordable medications for Californians.