This past week, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) released a new report entitled, “The Impacts of Chronic Underfunding on America’s Public Health System: Trends, Risks, and Recommendations, 2021,” examining federal, state, and local public health funding trends and recommending investments and policy actions to build a stronger public health system, prioritize prevention, and address…
Read More »The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research this week issued a new health policy brief exploring the rollout of each Whole Person Care (WPC) program pilot, including implementation strategies and enrollee experiences. The report analyses interim data from the statewide evaluation of WPC to present a snapshot of the 25 participating pilots’ enrollee characteristics and…
Read More »This week, California Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek issued a post setting forth a framework for the Legislature to allocate the anticipated $26 billion to be received by California from the recently enacted federal American Rescue Plan (ARP). Notably, the Legislature will face important decisions on to allocate California’s share of fiscal recovery funds. States have…
Read More »The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) this week issued an analysis of the estimated costs of expanding full-scope Medi-Cal coverage to all otherwise-eligible residents regardless of immigration status. The LAO notes their analysis is not of a specific legislative measure – such as AB 4 (Arambula) – but instead a cost estimate of a coverage…
Read More »This week, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released results of a statewide survey that sought to gauge public sentiment toward receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Overall, PPIC found that four in 10 Californians (39 percent) report that they have already received the COVID-19 vaccine. One in four (26 percent) say they will get the…
Read More »The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) this week included an article modeling future COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination rates and nonpharmaceutical intervention (NPI) scenarios in the U.S. from April through September 2021. The MMWR article provides background on the recent increase in COVID-19 cases…
Read More »This week, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) published a report detailing the state’s constitutional spending limit, also known as the Gann Limit, and its implications for the state’s budget for the upcoming and future fiscal years. By way of background, voters in 1979 passed Proposition 4, establishing a constitutional appropriations limit on the state…
Read More »New data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week found that reported annual cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the U.S. continued to climb in 2019, reaching an all-time high for the sixth consecutive year. The newly released 2019 STD Surveillance Report found: 2.5 million reported cases of…
Read More »This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report finding that four in 10 transgender women surveyed in seven major U.S. cities have HIV. The report also revealed that nearly two-thirds of African American/Black transgender women and more than one-third of Hispanic/Latina transgender women surveyed have HIV. The CDC report…
Read More »The Little Hoover Commission, California’s independent state oversight agency, this week issued an issue brief in response to questions posed by a series of California State Senators relative to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on housing in California. In developing its brief, the Commission determined that thousands of renters, landlords, and homeowners across California, particularly those…
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