Latest Blog Entries

Bridge to Health Reform 'undoable' in San Luis Obispo
John Gonzales
May 16, 2012

Forty-seven California counties have provided health care to more than 335,000 people through the “Bridge to Reform” program.  San Luis Obispo is a case study in one county that has decided not to participate.

We have reported on the Bridge to Reform, also known as the Low Income Health Program, or the Health Care Coverage Initiative, since its early phases. I was the reporter of our first piece, which looked at Kern County’s efforts to build the bridge. A follow-up examined the challenges of implementing the program in the far reaches of rural California.

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Health care costs slow in California - what's it mean?
Kelley Weiss
May 15, 2012

When it comes to health care in California, low cost is not the first thing that comes to mind. But it turns out that the Golden State spends less than most others on health care.

That’s according to a new report from the California HealthCare Foundation. California’s per-capita spending on health care is the ninth lowest in the nation.

California’s growth in health care spending is slowing as well. In 2003 it peaked at 9.7 percent; in 2009 spending growth was 4.5 percent, in line with the national average.

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A triangle of health misery
Richard Kipling
May 9, 2012

Recently, I blogged about beautiful Humboldt County’s depressing health statistics, the worst in the state.

Since then, I’ve done a little more digging into the state health department’s newest health status profiles to see how California’s other 57 counties are faring. It doesn’t take long to discover that three other California counties are also consistently in the bottom tier, with health statistics almost as alarming as Humboldt’s.

Two other far northern California counties make up, with Humboldt, what appears to be a triangle of health misery.

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Brawley book skewers ‘gluttony’ of over-diagnosis, treatment
Deborah Schoch
May 8, 2012

The man known as Ralph DeAngelo had just turned 70 when his wife spotted a local hospital’s newspaper ad for free prostate cancer screening, billed as a test that saves lives.

To appease her, he went for a free PSA test, and was mailed a letter stating that his results were “significantly abnormal.”  In clockwork fashion, Ralph received12 biopsies, a cancer diagnosis, prostate removal, radiation, a hole between his rectum and his bladder, a colostomy. He died of a related urinary tract infection.

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