With 93 percent of the vote counted this morning, the biggest landslide on the California ballot was the vote against a measure to suspend the state’s landmark global warming law. On a day when Republicans won across the nation by calling for smaller government and even Californians voted against tax increases and made it harder for the Legislature to raise fees, voters here gave a huge endorsement to perhaps the most controversial environmental protection law ever enacted in the nation.
California is about to get a new governor, but the situation in the state Capitol is not likely to change much in the months ahead. If Jerry Brown becomes the state’s next chief executive, as Tuesday night’s returns suggest will be the case, he will inherit a budget shortfall that will probably be about $15 billion to $20 billion on a $90 billion general fund. And he will be trying to work with a deeply divided Legislature, with Democrats holding strong control but Republicans still able to block any tax increases, which require a two-thirds vote for passage.
California’s next governor will have an opportunity to play a major role in the health and well being of the state’s growing senior population. Right now, the system is inadequate to support vulnerable older adults who find it increasingly more challenging to live independently as they age. Roughly 70 percent of individuals age 65 and above will have long-term care needs at some point in their lives. When learning of this real likelihood, people feel deeply worried and unprepared. Here are some steps the governor can take to make the state’s senior population more secure.
Federal health reform will add as many as two million more people to California’s seven million person Medi-Cal program. What will it take to guarantee this expansion exists not only on paper but results in meaningful access to quality healthcare for new enrollees? The first thing to understand is that this may require a substantial commitment of state resources.
For more than a year, a debate has been brewing in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood around affordable housing. The debate centers on one intersection but represents a much larger issue: is there such a thing as too much affordable housing in one community?
Three Stanford Medical School students have helped organize a local effort to offer flu vaccinations at two polling places in Santa Clara County Tuesday. Jessica W. Tsai, one of the organizers, explains why they got involved and how the clinics will work in this blog post.
Low-income women over age 40 will soon be able to receive mammograms again through the state-run Every Woman Counts cancer detection program. The Schwarzenegger Administration shut down enrollment in the program in January and limited screenings to those already enrolled to woman over age 50. But the Legislature, as part of the budget, restored funding for the program to return to its former status.
Residents and activists hoping to reduce the number of stores selling alcohol in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood are worried that the latest U.S. Census numbers could make their job harder by bolstering the population figures used to justify the addition of new liquor outlets.
“We’re walking to the Moon,” says Linda Reich, deputy director of community services for the City of Chino.
Reich is talking about the newest goal of the city’s Chino Walks program, the adult walking club that is the cornerstone of its Healthy Chino wellness initiative. Since its beginning in 2005, Reich has logged every step the club’s members have accrued in their quest for fitness. In Chino, where 68 percent of residents are obese and five of the city’s 10 leading causes of death are obesity-related, wellness is serious business. In public health surveys, Chino’s obesity rate is higher than both San Bernardino County at 65 percent and the State of California at 55 percent.
Patients generally come to the doctor’s office expecting that their doctor will do stuff. And, doctors often feel a sense of satisfaction the more they can do for their patients. Psychologically, it makes sense: as doctors, we feel a sense of purpose by providing, measuring, injecting, prescribing, cutting, and ordering. We want to help set our patients down a healthier pathway, which often requires change in their current status; naturally, we respond to this call to duty to promote change by doing, doing, doing. But is all this doing really necessary?