Author: Daniel Weintraub

In tough economic times, Americans tend to look inward. We see foreigners as competition — for business, for jobs, for all the things that underpin our livelihood. Combine tough economic times with a bitterly fought, hike-stakes presidential campaign, and globalism can really take a beating. But the truth is that an increasingly interconnected global economy is more likely to save us than sack us. And right now, the biggest risk to the modest momentum we’ve got going is not that foreign countries will overwhelm us with their economic juggernauts, it is that the economies of China and Europe are slowing down. Nowhere is that more true than in California, which has led the nation in a rebound of exports as we’ve begun to crawl out of the Great Recession.

Think California’s economy is bad? It certainly hasn’t returned to full health since the ravages of the Great Recession. But a couple of pieces of economic data released Friday show once again that the state is not the job-killing machine that some try to paint it as.

Low-income Californians want closer relationships with their doctors’ offices — but not only with their doctor, according to a new poll that plumbed the needs and desires of a population that will be at the heart of federal health reform.

Today’s Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s health care law will help millions of Californians gain access to health insurance, and the decision could jump start Obama’s reelection campaign. But in an odd twist, even while upholding the law, Chief Justice John Roberts also gave a major legal victory to conservatives, ruling that Congress does not have the power under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to require people to buy insurance.

Advocates for California children were outraged Thursday when Democrats in the Legislature disclosed that they had accepted Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to eliminate the Healthy Families insurance program next year.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget for the coming year proposes deeper cuts in the health and social safety net, with hospitals, nursing homes and home care for disabled people and older adults taking the biggest hits.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to shift nearly 1 million children from subsidized private insurance into the state Medi-Cal program is running into a wall of opposition from children’s advocates, health care providers and faith-based groups, who are now pushing an alternative that would dramatically scale back the governor’s plan.

The health reform law passed by a Democratic Congress and President Obama two years ago appeared to be in more jeopardy than ever today after the last of three days of hearings at the US Supreme Court.

The future of America’s health care system could be decided by Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court justice from California who has become the court’s all-important swing vote.

One of the most common arguments in favor of the federal health reform law that the Supreme Court is weighing this week is that people without insurance overuse emergency rooms because they lack access to basic care. But new research released today suggests that people without insurance use the ER no more than those who have health coverage.