KQED reporter Izzy Bloom circled back with Trump voters she spoke with last year, on how they think his first year back in the White House went.
Kaiser Permanente Nurses Begin “Unfair Labor Practice” Strike
More than 31,000 nurses and healthcare workers walked out of Kaiser Permanente hospitals and facilities in California and Hawaii this morning, kicking off an indefinite strike over better staffing numbers and the healthcare giant’s alleged unfair labor practices.
United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, the organization representing the striking workers, voted on January 16th to walk off the job. The absence of staff is expected to be felt at around 20 Kaiser hospitals and 200 clinics across both states.
UNAC/UHCP says that Kaiser attempted to sidestep good-faith negotiation practices when it suspended national bargaining last month. The move spurred the Alliance of Health Care Unions to file a case against the healthcare provide with the National Labor Relations Board.
Charmaine Morales, who’s President of UNAC/UHCP, said in a statement when the strike was first announced that the union is striking to “win staffing that protects patients, win workload standards that stop moral injury, and win the respect and dignity Kaiser has denied for far too long.”
The healthcare provider said in a statement last week that its offer to workers includes a 21-percent pay increase, and that company leadership is willing to meet union leaders for local bargaining negotiations, even as strikes continue.
Kaiser alleges that it halted national bargaining after a union official threatened to release evidence that the company has engaged in unethical practices.
DOJ Drops Pursuit of Trans Patients Medical Records from California Hospital
Transgender patients of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles secured a win this week after the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to end its efforts to obtain personal and medical information of more than 3,000 young patients.
Last summer, the federal Justice Department announced that it sent subpoenas to more than 20 medical providers that offered gender-affirming care for minors. At the time, the department said it was doing so to investigate “healthcare fraud” and “false statements.”
Seven families whose children have received gender-affirming services at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles sued in November to quash the subpoena to protect their information.
The department never provided evidence of fraud, said Khadijah Silver, director of Gender Justice & Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, one of the firms representing families in the class action lawsuit. The hospital did not not turn over the requested documents.
“It was basically a fishing expedition,” Silver said. “Without any probable cause, they did not have the authority to be seeking medical information.”
The DOJ and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles did not immediately return requests for comment.
The department subpoena demanded the hospital provide a large range of documents, including patient intake forms, insurance claims and “documents sufficient to identify each patient (by name, date of birth, social security number, address, and parent/guardian information) who was prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy,” court documents show.
Under the agreement, filed in federal court this past Thursday, the Justice Department will withdraw requests for documents that identified patients or their families through 2029.
