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"content": "\u003cp>Many seniors are grateful when they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. But to get enrolled they first have to make a big decision — choosing a Medicare plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initial choice is whether to go with traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditional Medicare has deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance, and the extra costs can add up. To fill in the gaps, people often buy a private supplemental plan called Medigap insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the main benefits of Medigap is that it provides people on Medicare predictable expenses, because people pay monthly premiums to avoid unpredictable expenses if they get sick,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/person/tricia-neuman/#:~:text=Tricia%20Neuman%20is%20senior%20vice,Americans%20and%20people%20with%20disabilities\">Tricia Neuman\u003c/a>, Executive Director for KFF’s Program on Medicare Policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This combination also gives people the most options in choosing doctors, because most accept traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other option a newly eligible senior can choose is Medicare Advantage. This plan, sold by a private insurance company, streamlines the upfront costs, making a separate Medigap plan unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance companies often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/medicare/report/how-health-insurers-and-brokers-are-marketing-medicare/\">heavily market\u003c/a> their Medicare Advantage plans, and offer extra benefits like dental and vision insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the initial appeal of Medicare Advantage plans, over half of people eligible for Medicare \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/half-of-all-eligible-medicare-beneficiaries-are-now-enrolled-in-private-medicare-advantage-plans/\">opted\u003c/a> for a Medicare Advantage plan in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a major drawback to Medicare Advantage plans: they lock patients into a preferred network of doctors and hospitals, narrowing options for treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They might be 65, 66, 67 — in the scheme of things, they’re at their healthiest, but it could be that over the course of several years, they develop a serious illness,” Neuman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The limited nature of the Advantage plans, Neuman added, means seniors might not be able to go to the specialists they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes seniors decide they’d rather have the flexibility and choice of providers available under traditional Medicare and try to switch back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they might be stuck. If they try to switch back after the first 6 months of enrollment in Medicare, there’s no guarantee they can get a Medigap policy to pair with traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because private insurers who issue Medigap policies have the power to refuse coverage or set a high price once the six-month window is closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People can be denied a policy because they have a pre-existing condition, or they can be charged more, or they can get the policy — but not for the particular condition that will require medical attention,” Neuman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These coverage denials and price hikes were common in the individual health insurance market before reforms under the Affordable Care Act. However, the ACA’s regulations don’t apply to seniors seeking Medigap plans after the six-month window.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>California takes a stab at opening Medigap enrollment\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A bill that would have changed that was introduced in the California legislature this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving the effort was concern among legislators that California seniors on Medicare Advantage plans were facing fewer and fewer choices in their networks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, Scripps Health, a major San Diego hospital system, stopped accepting \u003ca href=\"https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/106483\">Medicare Advantage plans\u003c/a>, saying the plans paid less than other insurers for the same treatments and required doctors to navigate prior authorization protocols that were burdensome and time-consuming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move sent seniors in the San Diego region scrambling to sign up for traditional Medicare, supplemented by Medigap plans. The high number of people who found Medigap plans unaffordable drew the attention of State Senator \u003ca href=\"https://sd38.senate.ca.gov/\">Catherine Blakespear\u003c/a>, who put forward a Medigap reform \u003ca href=\"https://sd38.senate.ca.gov/news/legislation-protect-seniors-high-health-care-costs-passes-senate-health-committee#:~:text=SB%201236%20protects%20people%20who,regular%20private%20health%20insurance%20markets\">bill\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four states reformed Medigap in the 1990s — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York. The rest, including California, allow Medigap insurers wide leeway in setting prices and issuing denials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s bill would have created a 90-day open enrollment period for Medigap every single year. That would allow seniors to opt in or out each year and not be denied — or face exorbitant premiums due to pre-existing conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/844x423+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F96%2F8e%2F9e96bd744cccaf43a7ca65b5f266%2Fsteffanie-watkins.png\" alt=\"Insurance industry representative Steffanie Watkins testifies April 24 before the Senate Standing Committee on Health, in opposition to a bill that would have created an annual open enrollment period for Medigap insurance. This could have allowed seniors greater flexibility in switching from Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"601\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Insurance industry representative Steffanie Watkins testifies on April 24 before the Senate Standing Committee on Health in opposition to a bill that would have created an annual open enrollment period for Medigap insurance. This could have allowed seniors greater flexibility in switching from Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare. (Senate of the State of California)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\u003cfigcaption>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society became a major supporter of the effort to pass the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cancer or any chronic illness is very, very expensive, and that’s why having supplemental coverage is important,” said Adam \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-zarrin/?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F\">Zarrin\u003c/a>, a policy analyst for the Society. “The second part is about making sure that patients have access to the best health care available.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zarrin says leukemia and other blood cancers are more commonly diagnosed in older adults after age 55.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the case for Oakland resident \u003ca href=\"https://healthtree.org/myeloma/community/articles/a-myeloma-patient-s-story-judith-dambowic-and-her-cancer-cafe\">Judith Dambowic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic was 58 and working as a physical therapist when she found out her swollen and painful eye was a symptom of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten years after being diagnosed, Dambowic has become a patient advocate in the effort to reform Medigap in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the options. It’s the choice that matters,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic has a Medicare Advantage plan, and for the moment, she is satisfied with her network choices. But with her cancer, traditional treatment options often stop working to manage the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic wants flexibility in the future to seek out different clinicians or even experimental trials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These slots are highly coveted, and it’s very hard to get in from an Advantage plan. And the Advantage plans aren’t really running these cutting-edge clinical trials,” Dambowic said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unless the regulations change, Dambowic will have to stay in Medicare Advantage. She thinks it’s unlikely she could get a Medigap policy that would allow her to return to traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s some evidence that indicates cancer patients may have fewer options in Medicare Advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that “[Medicare Advantage] beneficiaries have significant barriers in accessing optimal surgical cancer care” when compared to people with traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Insurance rates would increase, industry fights back\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As the bill was being debated in the state Capitol this spring, \u003ca href=\"https://aclhic.com/about-us/steffanie-watkins/\">Steffanie Watkins\u003c/a> spoke to lawmakers on behalf of the insurance lobby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If more sick Californians are able to move onto Medigap plans, Watkins argued, insurance companies would have to raise premiums for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are concerned with the potential devastating impacts this bill could have on the 1.1 million seniors who, by no fault of their own, would experience significant rate increases if this bill were to pass,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.chbrp.org/sites/default/files/bill-documents/SB1236/SB%201236%20Infographic_revised.pdf\">state budget analysis\u003c/a> of the proposed bill found the average Medigap premium would increase by 33%, about $80 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a valid concern, according to KFF’s Tricia Neuman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For people with modest incomes, people [on]of the sort of lower end of the income scale who have Medigap, they might feel priced out of the market,” she said.[aside postID=news_1993623,news_11764070]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, the bill failed to advance to a full vote in the Senate after being passed through the appropriations committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zarrin blamed legislators for siding with the insurance companies but said his group will keep pushing for this reform in future sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judith Dambowic was also disappointed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, she’ll continue to focus on educating friends and other cancer patients about their Medicare options, so they know what they’re signing up for from the start — and how difficult it might be to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/\">CapRadio\u003c/a> \u003cem>and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/\">KFF Health News.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other option a newly eligible senior can choose is Medicare Advantage. This plan, sold by a private insurance company, streamlines the upfront costs, making a separate Medigap plan unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance companies often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/medicare/report/how-health-insurers-and-brokers-are-marketing-medicare/\">heavily market\u003c/a> their Medicare Advantage plans, and offer extra benefits like dental and vision insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the initial appeal of Medicare Advantage plans, over half of people eligible for Medicare \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/half-of-all-eligible-medicare-beneficiaries-are-now-enrolled-in-private-medicare-advantage-plans/\">opted\u003c/a> for a Medicare Advantage plan in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a major drawback to Medicare Advantage plans: they lock patients into a preferred network of doctors and hospitals, narrowing options for treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They might be 65, 66, 67 — in the scheme of things, they’re at their healthiest, but it could be that over the course of several years, they develop a serious illness,” Neuman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The limited nature of the Advantage plans, Neuman added, means seniors might not be able to go to the specialists they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes seniors decide they’d rather have the flexibility and choice of providers available under traditional Medicare and try to switch back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they might be stuck. If they try to switch back after the first 6 months of enrollment in Medicare, there’s no guarantee they can get a Medigap policy to pair with traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because private insurers who issue Medigap policies have the power to refuse coverage or set a high price once the six-month window is closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People can be denied a policy because they have a pre-existing condition, or they can be charged more, or they can get the policy — but not for the particular condition that will require medical attention,” Neuman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These coverage denials and price hikes were common in the individual health insurance market before reforms under the Affordable Care Act. However, the ACA’s regulations don’t apply to seniors seeking Medigap plans after the six-month window.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>California takes a stab at opening Medigap enrollment\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A bill that would have changed that was introduced in the California legislature this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving the effort was concern among legislators that California seniors on Medicare Advantage plans were facing fewer and fewer choices in their networks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, Scripps Health, a major San Diego hospital system, stopped accepting \u003ca href=\"https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/106483\">Medicare Advantage plans\u003c/a>, saying the plans paid less than other insurers for the same treatments and required doctors to navigate prior authorization protocols that were burdensome and time-consuming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move sent seniors in the San Diego region scrambling to sign up for traditional Medicare, supplemented by Medigap plans. The high number of people who found Medigap plans unaffordable drew the attention of State Senator \u003ca href=\"https://sd38.senate.ca.gov/\">Catherine Blakespear\u003c/a>, who put forward a Medigap reform \u003ca href=\"https://sd38.senate.ca.gov/news/legislation-protect-seniors-high-health-care-costs-passes-senate-health-committee#:~:text=SB%201236%20protects%20people%20who,regular%20private%20health%20insurance%20markets\">bill\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four states reformed Medigap in the 1990s — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York. The rest, including California, allow Medigap insurers wide leeway in setting prices and issuing denials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s bill would have created a 90-day open enrollment period for Medigap every single year. That would allow seniors to opt in or out each year and not be denied — or face exorbitant premiums due to pre-existing conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/844x423+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F96%2F8e%2F9e96bd744cccaf43a7ca65b5f266%2Fsteffanie-watkins.png\" alt=\"Insurance industry representative Steffanie Watkins testifies April 24 before the Senate Standing Committee on Health, in opposition to a bill that would have created an annual open enrollment period for Medigap insurance. This could have allowed seniors greater flexibility in switching from Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"601\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Insurance industry representative Steffanie Watkins testifies on April 24 before the Senate Standing Committee on Health in opposition to a bill that would have created an annual open enrollment period for Medigap insurance. This could have allowed seniors greater flexibility in switching from Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare. (Senate of the State of California)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\u003cfigcaption>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society became a major supporter of the effort to pass the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cancer or any chronic illness is very, very expensive, and that’s why having supplemental coverage is important,” said Adam \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-zarrin/?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F\">Zarrin\u003c/a>, a policy analyst for the Society. “The second part is about making sure that patients have access to the best health care available.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zarrin says leukemia and other blood cancers are more commonly diagnosed in older adults after age 55.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the case for Oakland resident \u003ca href=\"https://healthtree.org/myeloma/community/articles/a-myeloma-patient-s-story-judith-dambowic-and-her-cancer-cafe\">Judith Dambowic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic was 58 and working as a physical therapist when she found out her swollen and painful eye was a symptom of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten years after being diagnosed, Dambowic has become a patient advocate in the effort to reform Medigap in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the options. It’s the choice that matters,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic has a Medicare Advantage plan, and for the moment, she is satisfied with her network choices. But with her cancer, traditional treatment options often stop working to manage the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dambowic wants flexibility in the future to seek out different clinicians or even experimental trials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These slots are highly coveted, and it’s very hard to get in from an Advantage plan. And the Advantage plans aren’t really running these cutting-edge clinical trials,” Dambowic said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unless the regulations change, Dambowic will have to stay in Medicare Advantage. She thinks it’s unlikely she could get a Medigap policy that would allow her to return to traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s some evidence that indicates cancer patients may have fewer options in Medicare Advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that “[Medicare Advantage] beneficiaries have significant barriers in accessing optimal surgical cancer care” when compared to people with traditional Medicare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Insurance rates would increase, industry fights back\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As the bill was being debated in the state Capitol this spring, \u003ca href=\"https://aclhic.com/about-us/steffanie-watkins/\">Steffanie Watkins\u003c/a> spoke to lawmakers on behalf of the insurance lobby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If more sick Californians are able to move onto Medigap plans, Watkins argued, insurance companies would have to raise premiums for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are concerned with the potential devastating impacts this bill could have on the 1.1 million seniors who, by no fault of their own, would experience significant rate increases if this bill were to pass,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.chbrp.org/sites/default/files/bill-documents/SB1236/SB%201236%20Infographic_revised.pdf\">state budget analysis\u003c/a> of the proposed bill found the average Medigap premium would increase by 33%, about $80 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a valid concern, according to KFF’s Tricia Neuman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For people with modest incomes, people [on]of the sort of lower end of the income scale who have Medigap, they might feel priced out of the market,” she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, the bill failed to advance to a full vote in the Senate after being passed through the appropriations committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zarrin blamed legislators for siding with the insurance companies but said his group will keep pushing for this reform in future sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judith Dambowic was also disappointed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, she’ll continue to focus on educating friends and other cancer patients about their Medicare options, so they know what they’re signing up for from the start — and how difficult it might be to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/\">CapRadio\u003c/a> \u003cem>and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/\">KFF Health News.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Critics of San Francisco’s approach to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-crisis\">overdose crisis\u003c/a> are pointing to a handful of nonprofits that give out aluminum foil, pipes and other supplies to drug users, arguing that they’re only making the problem worse. However, the programs, while they might seem counterintuitive, represent a key strategy for reducing harm and guiding people toward recovery, nonprofit leaders and health experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harm-reduction programs such as supervised consumption sites and needle exchanges have come under fire in the past. Last week, a report from the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> drew attention to the Tenderloin’s Glide Foundation and other city-funded nonprofits for supplying people with foil, pipes and other materials used for smoking drugs such as fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who visit Glide can request these materials during its Syringe Access and Health Hub hours and at its mobile clinics, according to Glide’s senior director of health access services, Mike Discepola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once people are there, Glide CEO Gina Fromer said, they have access to recovery services, including a peer-led 12-step program, referrals to detox and inpatient treatment beds, medically assisted treatment options like methadone, and educational materials. In October, the nonprofit plans to open a mental health services clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe you yesterday said, ‘I’m going to start recovery,’ and you didn’t because addiction is strong, addiction is a disease, it takes a lot to get to a place where you’re ready to get on that recovery spectrum,” Fromer said. “But we want to make sure when you’re ready, you have what you need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told KQED that Glide’s decision to offer foil and other supplies “is really about saving lives and preventing disease, but also creating opportunities for recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Amer Raheemullah, the director of the Inpatient Addiction Medicine Service at Stanford Hospital, said such harm-reduction strategies not only make drug users safer but also can urge them to turn to treatment options when made available at the same location as other recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11998108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11998108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Contents of a harm reduction kit on June 17, 2024. The kit includes new syringes, fentanyl test strips and Narcan. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The idea is to reduce harm, but then also have this interaction with somebody who’s actively using to slowly nudge them toward treatment,” he told KQED. “That can be through counseling, like a skilled counseling interview that’s been shown to be effective, but it can also simply be by co-locating treatment in the same place that they’re getting these needles or these other harm reduction tools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One way to think about harm reduction, Raheemullah said, is to consider those struggling with addiction as having a neurological deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take someone with Parkinson’s disease, for example — “They might have an increased risk of falls. So, in order to reduce harm, we pad their house; we may make adjustments in their living situation, not to encourage falls, but to reduce the damage of falls if or when they occur. It’s the same with substance use,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharing and reusing needles can increase the risk of contracting HIV and Hepatitis C, which can lead to illness and, in some cases, death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11998115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11998115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A psychiatric clinical pharmacist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health packs a backpack with harm reduction supplies before making deliveries to SROs and Permanent Supportive Housing in San Francisco on March 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The higher objective is to just reduce this harm that’s occurring, preserve life and not do too much damage for later down the line when people eventually accept treatment,” Raheemullah said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is also no proof that administering needles or other safe injection supplies increases the use of illegal drugs, he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A randomized study of 600 people who injected cocaine, morphine and/or amphetamines found “no difference in the number of injections over time” for people supplied with sterile needles compared to those taught how to purchase them, according to the 2003 report out of the University of Alaska Anchorage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Center for Disease Control also said in a February 2024 report that 30 years of research has shown programs that provide access to sterile injection equipment “do not increase illegal drug use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fromer said that Glide’s distribution of safer drug-use materials is one of the nonprofit’s many programs geared toward helping drug users — whether they have chosen recovery or not.[aside postID=news_11995842 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/SFOverdoseDeathDecline-1020x680.jpg']“Anybody walking through our door, we want to have resources and information available to them so they can decide what their recovery journey might look like,” she said. “Or, It might start next week, and we’re going to make sure that you’re not going to die in that week or catch HIV or Hepatitis C in that week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providing clean materials lessens infectious disease spread and decreases overdose risk, Discepola said — if someone were to pick up used foil from the ground or borrow a pipe, they might not know what substances have come in contact with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There could be very small quantities of fentanyl in a device, and if someone doesn’t know it and they think they’re smoking something else, then they could actually overdose and die,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handing out clean foil or pipes can also encourage people to smoke instead of injecting drugs, which can be less dangerous because it doesn’t have the same disease transmission risks, Raheemullah told KQED. But there can be a risk in administering foil or pipes to people who have previously used drugs by snorting them, which is considered less addicting than smoking or injecting, he explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In general, providing sterile drug supplies is an important tool for addressing the opioid epidemic, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fromer said that Glide will continue to provide access to those materials — and encourage people to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to be talking to them about recovery; we’re going to hint toward recovery,” she said. “Every time you walk into Glide, you’re going to learn about recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Critics of San Francisco’s approach to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-crisis\">overdose crisis\u003c/a> are pointing to a handful of nonprofits that give out aluminum foil, pipes and other supplies to drug users, arguing that they’re only making the problem worse. However, the programs, while they might seem counterintuitive, represent a key strategy for reducing harm and guiding people toward recovery, nonprofit leaders and health experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harm-reduction programs such as supervised consumption sites and needle exchanges have come under fire in the past. Last week, a report from the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> drew attention to the Tenderloin’s Glide Foundation and other city-funded nonprofits for supplying people with foil, pipes and other materials used for smoking drugs such as fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who visit Glide can request these materials during its Syringe Access and Health Hub hours and at its mobile clinics, according to Glide’s senior director of health access services, Mike Discepola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once people are there, Glide CEO Gina Fromer said, they have access to recovery services, including a peer-led 12-step program, referrals to detox and inpatient treatment beds, medically assisted treatment options like methadone, and educational materials. In October, the nonprofit plans to open a mental health services clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe you yesterday said, ‘I’m going to start recovery,’ and you didn’t because addiction is strong, addiction is a disease, it takes a lot to get to a place where you’re ready to get on that recovery spectrum,” Fromer said. “But we want to make sure when you’re ready, you have what you need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told KQED that Glide’s decision to offer foil and other supplies “is really about saving lives and preventing disease, but also creating opportunities for recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Amer Raheemullah, the director of the Inpatient Addiction Medicine Service at Stanford Hospital, said such harm-reduction strategies not only make drug users safer but also can urge them to turn to treatment options when made available at the same location as other recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11998108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11998108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240617-SyringeExchange-35-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Contents of a harm reduction kit on June 17, 2024. The kit includes new syringes, fentanyl test strips and Narcan. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The idea is to reduce harm, but then also have this interaction with somebody who’s actively using to slowly nudge them toward treatment,” he told KQED. “That can be through counseling, like a skilled counseling interview that’s been shown to be effective, but it can also simply be by co-locating treatment in the same place that they’re getting these needles or these other harm reduction tools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One way to think about harm reduction, Raheemullah said, is to consider those struggling with addiction as having a neurological deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take someone with Parkinson’s disease, for example — “They might have an increased risk of falls. So, in order to reduce harm, we pad their house; we may make adjustments in their living situation, not to encourage falls, but to reduce the damage of falls if or when they occur. It’s the same with substance use,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharing and reusing needles can increase the risk of contracting HIV and Hepatitis C, which can lead to illness and, in some cases, death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11998115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11998115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/001_KQED_SOMABuprenorphineDelivery_03232023_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A psychiatric clinical pharmacist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health packs a backpack with harm reduction supplies before making deliveries to SROs and Permanent Supportive Housing in San Francisco on March 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The higher objective is to just reduce this harm that’s occurring, preserve life and not do too much damage for later down the line when people eventually accept treatment,” Raheemullah said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is also no proof that administering needles or other safe injection supplies increases the use of illegal drugs, he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A randomized study of 600 people who injected cocaine, morphine and/or amphetamines found “no difference in the number of injections over time” for people supplied with sterile needles compared to those taught how to purchase them, according to the 2003 report out of the University of Alaska Anchorage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Center for Disease Control also said in a February 2024 report that 30 years of research has shown programs that provide access to sterile injection equipment “do not increase illegal drug use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fromer said that Glide’s distribution of safer drug-use materials is one of the nonprofit’s many programs geared toward helping drug users — whether they have chosen recovery or not.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Anybody walking through our door, we want to have resources and information available to them so they can decide what their recovery journey might look like,” she said. “Or, It might start next week, and we’re going to make sure that you’re not going to die in that week or catch HIV or Hepatitis C in that week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providing clean materials lessens infectious disease spread and decreases overdose risk, Discepola said — if someone were to pick up used foil from the ground or borrow a pipe, they might not know what substances have come in contact with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There could be very small quantities of fentanyl in a device, and if someone doesn’t know it and they think they’re smoking something else, then they could actually overdose and die,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handing out clean foil or pipes can also encourage people to smoke instead of injecting drugs, which can be less dangerous because it doesn’t have the same disease transmission risks, Raheemullah told KQED. But there can be a risk in administering foil or pipes to people who have previously used drugs by snorting them, which is considered less addicting than smoking or injecting, he explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In general, providing sterile drug supplies is an important tool for addressing the opioid epidemic, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fromer said that Glide will continue to provide access to those materials — and encourage people to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to be talking to them about recovery; we’re going to hint toward recovery,” she said. “Every time you walk into Glide, you’re going to learn about recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Radius Steel and two company leaders were charged with 10 environmental crimes for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957894/smelly-smoke-from-oakland-metal-recycler-fire-prompts-health-concerns\">fire that broke out last August\u003c/a> at the large scrap metal processing plant near the Port of Oakland, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges allege that Radius Steel, Daniel Woltman and Dane Morales recklessly managed hazardous materials and later engaged in a cover-up. The company and the two men are also charged with violating local air quality regulations and state toxic substance control laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges are the first ever filed by an Alameda County district attorney for environmental crimes committed by a corporation, according to Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This administration will not allow corporate criminals to poison our community recklessly and just walk away having made a profit and get off with a slap on the wrist,” she said at a press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 9, 2023, the fire at Radius Recycling, formerly Schnitzer Steel, sent plumes of gray, toxic smoke over the East Bay. Price announced an investigation into the Oregon-based company days later. The charges were filed at the end of June following a grand jury indictment and unsealed this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Large clouds of smoke rise from an industrial-looking space where many truck cabs are parked.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1920x1283.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke rises from a fire burning at Schnitzer Steel in Oakland on Aug. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Nik Altenberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If found guilty, Radius would be liable for between $625,000 and $33 million in criminal fines, according to Price’s office. Woltmann and Morales could face up to three years in county jail, in addition to financial penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that Radius has often shrugged off the regulations when it was convenient to them, treating minor administrative fines and civil penalties as the cost of doing business,” Price said. “There is a new day in Alameda County and we intend to hold people accountable. No one is above the law, and we will no longer have a double standard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Radius, said the company does not treat or store hazardous waste, and it did not hide or destroy any evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are fully confident that the company’s actions will be proven to have prioritized public safety and compliance with the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Hunt, a spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department, said the fire started in a pile of scrap metal and was likely caused by a lithium battery. The facility shreds cars and other large appliances. The size of the scrap pile prevented firefighters from reaching the source of the fire for hours, according to Hunt. County and city officials advised residents near the Port of Oakland to avoid Jack London Square and to keep windows closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most impacted areas were immediately downwind of the fire. So that was East Oakland, West Oakland and other areas along the I-80 corridor, which are historically overburdened communities that kind of experience a disproportionate impact and exposure to poor air pollution already,” Michael Flagg, principal air quality specialist at Bay Area Air Quality Management District told KQED in August 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates have long called for the facility to leave the city, citing harmful smoke from frequent fires. The facility was the site of large fires in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11832073/as-file-suit-against-state-agency-to-regulate-steel-recycler\">Oakland A’s sued\u003c/a> to have the waste materials created by the plant reclassified as hazardous, alleging that five smaller fires had occurred at the facility since 2018. The A’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/State-Supreme-Court-rejects-Oakland-A-s-legal-17726660.php\">lost\u003c/a> the legal challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past investigations by the Alameda County DA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that the facility released particulate matter contaminated with hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc. The investigations were cited in a 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-announces-41-million-settlement-schnitzer-steel\">settlement\u003c/a> between Schnitzer and the state Department of Justice over “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” in West Oakland and across the Oakland estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Price called the number of fires significant, the Oakland Fire Department said fires at the facility “are not frequent” compared to other fire sources the city responds to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Awareness and interest in fires at Schnitzer has grown over the last few years,” Hunt said, adding that frequent fires at homeless encampments, which often include burning plastics, pose a more daily source of local air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margaret Gordon, the co-founder of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, an environmental justice organization, said pollution from trucks, ships and fires in and around the Port of Oakland, as well as fires at nearby homeless encampments, contribute to the poor air quality in her West Oakland neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m glad that they saw the impact and investigated with the depth that they did,” Gordon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is requesting anyone who was impacted by the fire to contact its consumer justice bureau by email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:askcjb-da@acgov.org\">askcjb-da@acgov.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Radius Steel and two company leaders were charged with 10 environmental crimes for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957894/smelly-smoke-from-oakland-metal-recycler-fire-prompts-health-concerns\">fire that broke out last August\u003c/a> at the large scrap metal processing plant near the Port of Oakland, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges allege that Radius Steel, Daniel Woltman and Dane Morales recklessly managed hazardous materials and later engaged in a cover-up. The company and the two men are also charged with violating local air quality regulations and state toxic substance control laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges are the first ever filed by an Alameda County district attorney for environmental crimes committed by a corporation, according to Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This administration will not allow corporate criminals to poison our community recklessly and just walk away having made a profit and get off with a slap on the wrist,” she said at a press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 9, 2023, the fire at Radius Recycling, formerly Schnitzer Steel, sent plumes of gray, toxic smoke over the East Bay. Price announced an investigation into the Oregon-based company days later. The charges were filed at the end of June following a grand jury indictment and unsealed this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Large clouds of smoke rise from an industrial-looking space where many truck cabs are parked.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1920x1283.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke rises from a fire burning at Schnitzer Steel in Oakland on Aug. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Nik Altenberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If found guilty, Radius would be liable for between $625,000 and $33 million in criminal fines, according to Price’s office. Woltmann and Morales could face up to three years in county jail, in addition to financial penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that Radius has often shrugged off the regulations when it was convenient to them, treating minor administrative fines and civil penalties as the cost of doing business,” Price said. “There is a new day in Alameda County and we intend to hold people accountable. No one is above the law, and we will no longer have a double standard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Radius, said the company does not treat or store hazardous waste, and it did not hide or destroy any evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are fully confident that the company’s actions will be proven to have prioritized public safety and compliance with the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Hunt, a spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department, said the fire started in a pile of scrap metal and was likely caused by a lithium battery. The facility shreds cars and other large appliances. The size of the scrap pile prevented firefighters from reaching the source of the fire for hours, according to Hunt. County and city officials advised residents near the Port of Oakland to avoid Jack London Square and to keep windows closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most impacted areas were immediately downwind of the fire. So that was East Oakland, West Oakland and other areas along the I-80 corridor, which are historically overburdened communities that kind of experience a disproportionate impact and exposure to poor air pollution already,” Michael Flagg, principal air quality specialist at Bay Area Air Quality Management District told KQED in August 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates have long called for the facility to leave the city, citing harmful smoke from frequent fires. The facility was the site of large fires in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11832073/as-file-suit-against-state-agency-to-regulate-steel-recycler\">Oakland A’s sued\u003c/a> to have the waste materials created by the plant reclassified as hazardous, alleging that five smaller fires had occurred at the facility since 2018. The A’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/State-Supreme-Court-rejects-Oakland-A-s-legal-17726660.php\">lost\u003c/a> the legal challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past investigations by the Alameda County DA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that the facility released particulate matter contaminated with hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc. The investigations were cited in a 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-announces-41-million-settlement-schnitzer-steel\">settlement\u003c/a> between Schnitzer and the state Department of Justice over “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” in West Oakland and across the Oakland estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Price called the number of fires significant, the Oakland Fire Department said fires at the facility “are not frequent” compared to other fire sources the city responds to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Awareness and interest in fires at Schnitzer has grown over the last few years,” Hunt said, adding that frequent fires at homeless encampments, which often include burning plastics, pose a more daily source of local air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margaret Gordon, the co-founder of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, an environmental justice organization, said pollution from trucks, ships and fires in and around the Port of Oakland, as well as fires at nearby homeless encampments, contribute to the poor air quality in her West Oakland neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m glad that they saw the impact and investigated with the depth that they did,” Gordon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is requesting anyone who was impacted by the fire to contact its consumer justice bureau by email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:askcjb-da@acgov.org\">askcjb-da@acgov.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Sent a Mentally Ill Man to a State Hospital and Charged Him Nearly $770,000",
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"content": "\u003cp>The first bill arrived in Sultan Khan’s mailbox two years after his release from Napa State Hospital. Khan had received psychiatric treatment there for three years after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to a criminal charge stemming from an assault.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stared in disbelief at the paper in front of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of State Hospitals wanted him to pay back the cost of that stay: $769,490.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wondering if he was being scammed, Khan phoned the department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They suggested a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department’s practice of billing patients exorbitant sums after releasing them from its care has existed for decades, attorneys and advocates say. Such billing has been required under state law since 1967, and has been allowable since the 1930s. The practice has endured even though the state has passed laws in recent years preventing other government entities from charging big fees to vulnerable populations. One example: People leaving prisons and jails no longer have to pay for many of the costs of their incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here’s (the Department of State Hospitals) quietly collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from our absolutely most, most vulnerable clients with the least ability to make any kind of payment,” said Rachel Draznin-Nagy, Khan’s public defender in Contra Costa county. “I’m so furious about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has five state mental health hospitals caring for more than 5,500 patients, the vast majority of them from the criminal justice system. Most have been charged with or convicted of offenses related to their serious mental illnesses; some, like Khan, are sick enough to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/medi-cal/\">Medi-Cal\u003c/a> does not insure people who are in state hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After they are released months or years later, few of these patients have the financial resources to pay off massive bills, Draznin-Nagy and other public defenders said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of State Hospitals refused to make anyone available to speak with CalMatters about its fee collections program. But, in an unsigned email, representatives of the department said it “recognizes the stress and concern that individuals may experience when receiving financial notifications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They pointed to \u003ca href=\"https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/welfare-and-institutions-code/wic-sect-7275/\">statutes\u003c/a> “which require (the department) to collect upon the cost of care delivered in state hospitals.” In order to be reimbursed by Medicare, they said, state agencies must bill patients for the cost of care when such billing is required by state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past May, thanks to \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB184/id/2600107\">recent changes in law\u003c/a>, the department rolled out a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.dsh.ca.gov/Financial_Assistance_Program/index.html\">financial assistance program\u003c/a> that allows it to forgive some or all of a patient’s debt. But public defenders say many of their clients do not have the wherewithal to complete the paperwork required to apply for the program in a timely manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evening before publication, the department announced it had fully forgiven the debt of its first applicant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data from a report to the Legislature in 2022 showed that the department collected $418,861 from an unspecified number of former patients between January 2018 and September 2021. The report also noted that the department had filed six lawsuits seeking collections during that time. It had not written off, reduced or canceled any patient debt in that period. The department did not provide CalMatters with more recent data. Its current budget is \u003ca href=\"https://www.dsh.ca.gov/About_Us/docs/DSH_2024-25_Budget_Act_Highlights.pdf\">$3.4 billion (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its email, the department’s representatives said it has neither sent former patients to collections agencies nor garnished their wages. But if patients have not made an effort to pay their bills or been in contact about making payment arrangements, contesting their bill, or applying for the financial assistance program, the department can forward a request to the Franchise Tax Board to collect unclaimed property, funds or tax returns to offset the cost of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Shocking’ hospital bills\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, advocates and attorneys have convinced the Legislature to overturn other policies that require billing vulnerable groups, often low-income people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, California led the way nationally in \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_201720180sb190\">abolishing fees for juvenile offenders\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the state halted the collection of fees from people in jail and prison for\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB177\"> costs associated with their incarceration\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996600\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan’s medical bills and related letters that he received from the California Department of State in Martinez, on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stephanie Campos-Bui, a Berkeley Law professor involved with those efforts, said the size of Department of State Hospitals bills, such as the one Khan received, is “shocking.” Part of what led to legislative changes banning collection of other types of fees is that the cost to the state often negates any revenue such fees might generate, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we really think it’s in our interest as a society to be placing these people in state hospitals, that should be on the general fund, the taxpayers, to do that, not on people who are involuntarily being committed to these facilities,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joseph Gocke, a public defender from Yolo County, said one of his clients received a bill in 2022 for $81,491 after spending months in a state hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We went to court. We contested it. We lost, unfortunately,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the case law that allows the department to collect such fees dates back to the 1950s and early ’60s, he said, predating even the right to an attorney, which was \u003ca href=\"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/372/335/\">established in 1963\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s bizarre that this is still allowed because these are clients of ours that the law also mandates that they go to the state hospital for treatment,” he said. “And to then turn around and give them a bill for something they’re not choosing seems fundamentally unfair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Madsen, a Placer County public defender, requested an itemized bill for one client in 2020, after he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and sent to a state hospital. The Department of State Hospitals, the bill showed, charged $520 a day for his three-month stay. State officials sent multiple bills to his parents trying to collect a total of $51,945, which included the day rate as well as the cost of medications and vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996602\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan at the Contra Costa County Public Defenders’ office in Martinez on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Madsen said this was the only such bill she was aware of any of her clients receiving over the years, leading her and other public defenders to believe such billing is unevenly implemented. She said state hospital representatives told her they sent such bills all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The email from the Department of State Hospitals earlier this month noted that, “upon any individual’s admission to the state hospital, the Hospital’s Trust Office informs the patient about their liability for the care, support, and maintenance in a state institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Khan doesn’t remember anyone telling him he’d be on the hook for so much money. He was struggling with a new diagnosis of schizophrenia and his life being upended at the time: “I had other things on my mind,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If hospital officials had explained how much debt he’d be in, he said, he might have opted to just go to prison – even though he feels the treatment he received at the state hospital ultimately helped him enormously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, $760,000, I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life,” he said recently, sitting in a conference room in downtown Martinez with his public defender, Draznin-Nagy. “It’s not a good feeling, believe me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996601\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan’s medical bills and related letters that he received from the California Department of State after he was involuntarily committed to Napa State Hospital by Contra Costa County in Martinez, on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Khan had landed in the criminal justice system soon after he returned from a stint as a Pashto interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, the controversial detention camp in Cuba where the United States military housed detainees after 9/11. The violence he saw while working there traumatized him, he said. In addition to experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in jail. In the state hospital, his illness responded well to medication and treatment. He was discharged in 2018, and began the process of piecing his life back together. He moved in with his family. He started collecting disability payments. He got a part-time job at a local grocery store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He received the first bill two years later. The treatment team that worked with him in the county’s conditional release program sent the department proof of his inability to pay, he and Draznin-Nagy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year went by before Khan received another letter from the department informing him that it was updating its policies and would not pursue collection until that process was completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost three years after that, Khan received a third letter this past May. If he did not contact the department’s Patient Cost Recovery Section to request financial help within 30 days, it said, the department would resume billing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though he has reached out to the state through his attorney, Khan says anxiety about the bill keeps him awake at night. He thinks about it while he’s working and during walks through the local park that used to help him clear his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like a weight on my shoulders,” he said. “It lingers in my mind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "California State Hospitals can bill patients for the care they receive during confinement. The charges often run in the tens of thousands of dollars, putting vulnerable people in debt for years.",
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"title": "California Sent a Mentally Ill Man to a State Hospital and Charged Him Nearly $770,000 | KQED",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2024/07/state-hospital-bill/\">Jocelyn Wiener\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The first bill arrived in Sultan Khan’s mailbox two years after his release from Napa State Hospital. Khan had received psychiatric treatment there for three years after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to a criminal charge stemming from an assault.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stared in disbelief at the paper in front of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of State Hospitals wanted him to pay back the cost of that stay: $769,490.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wondering if he was being scammed, Khan phoned the department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They suggested a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department’s practice of billing patients exorbitant sums after releasing them from its care has existed for decades, attorneys and advocates say. Such billing has been required under state law since 1967, and has been allowable since the 1930s. The practice has endured even though the state has passed laws in recent years preventing other government entities from charging big fees to vulnerable populations. One example: People leaving prisons and jails no longer have to pay for many of the costs of their incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here’s (the Department of State Hospitals) quietly collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from our absolutely most, most vulnerable clients with the least ability to make any kind of payment,” said Rachel Draznin-Nagy, Khan’s public defender in Contra Costa county. “I’m so furious about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has five state mental health hospitals caring for more than 5,500 patients, the vast majority of them from the criminal justice system. Most have been charged with or convicted of offenses related to their serious mental illnesses; some, like Khan, are sick enough to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/medi-cal/\">Medi-Cal\u003c/a> does not insure people who are in state hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After they are released months or years later, few of these patients have the financial resources to pay off massive bills, Draznin-Nagy and other public defenders said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of State Hospitals refused to make anyone available to speak with CalMatters about its fee collections program. But, in an unsigned email, representatives of the department said it “recognizes the stress and concern that individuals may experience when receiving financial notifications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They pointed to \u003ca href=\"https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/welfare-and-institutions-code/wic-sect-7275/\">statutes\u003c/a> “which require (the department) to collect upon the cost of care delivered in state hospitals.” In order to be reimbursed by Medicare, they said, state agencies must bill patients for the cost of care when such billing is required by state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past May, thanks to \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB184/id/2600107\">recent changes in law\u003c/a>, the department rolled out a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.dsh.ca.gov/Financial_Assistance_Program/index.html\">financial assistance program\u003c/a> that allows it to forgive some or all of a patient’s debt. But public defenders say many of their clients do not have the wherewithal to complete the paperwork required to apply for the program in a timely manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evening before publication, the department announced it had fully forgiven the debt of its first applicant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data from a report to the Legislature in 2022 showed that the department collected $418,861 from an unspecified number of former patients between January 2018 and September 2021. The report also noted that the department had filed six lawsuits seeking collections during that time. It had not written off, reduced or canceled any patient debt in that period. The department did not provide CalMatters with more recent data. Its current budget is \u003ca href=\"https://www.dsh.ca.gov/About_Us/docs/DSH_2024-25_Budget_Act_Highlights.pdf\">$3.4 billion (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its email, the department’s representatives said it has neither sent former patients to collections agencies nor garnished their wages. But if patients have not made an effort to pay their bills or been in contact about making payment arrangements, contesting their bill, or applying for the financial assistance program, the department can forward a request to the Franchise Tax Board to collect unclaimed property, funds or tax returns to offset the cost of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Shocking’ hospital bills\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, advocates and attorneys have convinced the Legislature to overturn other policies that require billing vulnerable groups, often low-income people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, California led the way nationally in \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_201720180sb190\">abolishing fees for juvenile offenders\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the state halted the collection of fees from people in jail and prison for\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB177\"> costs associated with their incarceration\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996600\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_72-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan’s medical bills and related letters that he received from the California Department of State in Martinez, on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stephanie Campos-Bui, a Berkeley Law professor involved with those efforts, said the size of Department of State Hospitals bills, such as the one Khan received, is “shocking.” Part of what led to legislative changes banning collection of other types of fees is that the cost to the state often negates any revenue such fees might generate, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we really think it’s in our interest as a society to be placing these people in state hospitals, that should be on the general fund, the taxpayers, to do that, not on people who are involuntarily being committed to these facilities,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joseph Gocke, a public defender from Yolo County, said one of his clients received a bill in 2022 for $81,491 after spending months in a state hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We went to court. We contested it. We lost, unfortunately,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the case law that allows the department to collect such fees dates back to the 1950s and early ’60s, he said, predating even the right to an attorney, which was \u003ca href=\"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/372/335/\">established in 1963\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s bizarre that this is still allowed because these are clients of ours that the law also mandates that they go to the state hospital for treatment,” he said. “And to then turn around and give them a bill for something they’re not choosing seems fundamentally unfair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Madsen, a Placer County public defender, requested an itemized bill for one client in 2020, after he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and sent to a state hospital. The Department of State Hospitals, the bill showed, charged $520 a day for his three-month stay. State officials sent multiple bills to his parents trying to collect a total of $51,945, which included the day rate as well as the cost of medications and vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996602\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_51-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan at the Contra Costa County Public Defenders’ office in Martinez on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Madsen said this was the only such bill she was aware of any of her clients receiving over the years, leading her and other public defenders to believe such billing is unevenly implemented. She said state hospital representatives told her they sent such bills all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The email from the Department of State Hospitals earlier this month noted that, “upon any individual’s admission to the state hospital, the Hospital’s Trust Office informs the patient about their liability for the care, support, and maintenance in a state institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Khan doesn’t remember anyone telling him he’d be on the hook for so much money. He was struggling with a new diagnosis of schizophrenia and his life being upended at the time: “I had other things on my mind,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If hospital officials had explained how much debt he’d be in, he said, he might have opted to just go to prison – even though he feels the treatment he received at the state hospital ultimately helped him enormously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, $760,000, I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life,” he said recently, sitting in a conference room in downtown Martinez with his public defender, Draznin-Nagy. “It’s not a good feeling, believe me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996601\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/2024.06.27_Middleton_HospitalBill_68-2-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sultan Khan’s medical bills and related letters that he received from the California Department of State after he was involuntarily committed to Napa State Hospital by Contra Costa County in Martinez, on June 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Florence Middleton/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Khan had landed in the criminal justice system soon after he returned from a stint as a Pashto interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, the controversial detention camp in Cuba where the United States military housed detainees after 9/11. The violence he saw while working there traumatized him, he said. In addition to experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in jail. In the state hospital, his illness responded well to medication and treatment. He was discharged in 2018, and began the process of piecing his life back together. He moved in with his family. He started collecting disability payments. He got a part-time job at a local grocery store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He received the first bill two years later. The treatment team that worked with him in the county’s conditional release program sent the department proof of his inability to pay, he and Draznin-Nagy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year went by before Khan received another letter from the department informing him that it was updating its policies and would not pursue collection until that process was completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost three years after that, Khan received a third letter this past May. If he did not contact the department’s Patient Cost Recovery Section to request financial help within 30 days, it said, the department would resume billing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though he has reached out to the state through his attorney, Khan says anxiety about the bill keeps him awake at night. He thinks about it while he’s working and during walks through the local park that used to help him clear his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like a weight on my shoulders,” he said. “It lingers in my mind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:15 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following months of outcry from residents and county officials, leaders of the Regional Medical Center in East San José are backing off plans to shutter the hospital’s trauma center and cut other services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the hospital announced Friday morning that it would preserve its trauma center, severe heart attack treatment program and stroke services, they will be downgraded to less comprehensive levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes were announced with little notice to local officials and advocates, who expressed frustration on Friday and said the course change doesn’t address their concerns and instead raises more questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital’s trauma center is one of three in Santa Clara County and the only such facility on the east side of the county. The Level II trauma center had been scheduled to close on Aug. 12. Hospital officials said it would be reinstated that day as a Level III facility that “provides prompt assessment, resuscitation, surgery, intensive care and stabilization of injured patients and emergency operations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We worked closely with our emergency services partners to ensure we will meet the evolving medical needs of our patients and the East San Jose Community,” Matt Cova, CEO of Regional Medical Center, said in a press release. “We’re pleased to have found a path that supports the revisions we’re announcing today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regional Medical Center, which is owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, or HCA Healthcare, also previously planned to eliminate its ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) program, which handles severe heart attacks, and downgrade its stroke services from the “comprehensive” level — which can care for all types of stroke patients and has 24/7 availability for complex neurosurgery — to “primary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County Executive James Williams said Friday that with the new announcement, “HCA has finally acknowledged the severe impacts of its previously announced closure of trauma services and downgrading of STEMI and stroke care at Regional Medical Center.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even with the closures avoided in the new proposal, the downgrading of services “would have a very negative and permanent impact on healthcare access in our most vulnerable communities,” Williams said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents, doctors and nurses, patient advocates and elected officials had earlier decried the planned cuts as discriminatory and likely to cause more deaths and poorer health outcomes for potentially thousands of vulnerable residents in the largely working-class area. The closures could also have “cascading negative effects” on the broader county health system, a county report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates called on state officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, to intervene, though Bonta’s office has declined to comment on the situation other than to say it is reviewing the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital company said Friday that instead of eliminating its serious heart attack services, it is “revamping” its acute heart attack program “to feature around-the-clock cardiologist availability and a daytime catheterization laboratory.” The hospital currently has a full-time catheterization laboratory, where cardiologists insert catheters to help diagnose heart issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital will also operate a stroke center with “enhanced interventional capabilities to address the needs of 97% of stroke patients,” with the remaining patients expected to be transferred to other health care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital statement didn’t clarify what specific level of service would ultimately be offered in the stroke center. A source familiar with the planned changes confirmed the stroke center would be downgraded to less than the current “comprehensive” level but noted details are still being worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also will stick to a previous plan to increase its emergency department capacity from 43 to 63 beds by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996447\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1770px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996447\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1770\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed.jpg 1770w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-1020x768.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-1536x1157.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1770px) 100vw, 1770px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Darcie Green, executive director of Latinas Contra Cancer, speaks at a rally urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta to intervene in planned cuts to trauma services at Regional Medical Center in San José on May 24, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dr. Raj Gupta, the head of neurology and stroke services at the hospital, who has spoken out previously against the cuts, criticized the changes Friday, including the reduction in catheterization lab hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Between nine to five, there may be some cath lab, but at 5 p.m., if a patient shows up, they have no cath lab. They have to transfer all the patients (who arrive) at off times, as well as on weekends,” Gupta said. “Without real, modern cardiology services, this is just lip service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also raised concerns about the lessening of trauma services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think this community’s needs are met by a Level III,” Gupta said during a press conference outside the hospital. “This is a big downgrade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Regional’s statement said the decision to make these changes came “after extensive coordination with local agencies, internal discussions, community outreach and analysis of the county’s impact report of the initial changes,” county officials and advocates countered that narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams, the county executive, noted in his statement Friday that Santa Clara County “has not received any formal proposal from Regional related to these changes, and there is a process it must first follow to propose, obtain approval, and then implement these service changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who has been one of the leading critics of Regional Medical Center, said the company did not submit a formal request about the changes to the Santa Clara County emergency medical services agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not even a letter saying, ‘Here’s the things we’d like to work on, here’s how we’d like to work on them with you.’ So the idea that they are collaborating with the county is just untrue; they are having conversations, but that is absolutely not the same thing,” Chavez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes announced by Regional “feel like a good press move” but don’t help with “moving our communities forward in terms of their health,” Chavez added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I take big issue with the fact that in their release today, they claim to be working with community,” Darcie Green, head of health nonprofit Latinas Contra Cancer, said. “I can find nobody that HCA and Regional Medical Center have been working within the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green said the community’s fight with the hospital chain is not over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will continue organizing community and patients to hold HCA Healthcare accountable to being responsive to the community, to being present in the community and to not divesting from East San José.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Regional Medical Center will preserve its trauma center but downgrade its services, frustrating residents and officials who say the changes will have a negative impact on the community.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital’s trauma center is one of three in Santa Clara County and the only such facility on the east side of the county. The Level II trauma center had been scheduled to close on Aug. 12. Hospital officials said it would be reinstated that day as a Level III facility that “provides prompt assessment, resuscitation, surgery, intensive care and stabilization of injured patients and emergency operations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We worked closely with our emergency services partners to ensure we will meet the evolving medical needs of our patients and the East San Jose Community,” Matt Cova, CEO of Regional Medical Center, said in a press release. “We’re pleased to have found a path that supports the revisions we’re announcing today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regional Medical Center, which is owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, or HCA Healthcare, also previously planned to eliminate its ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) program, which handles severe heart attacks, and downgrade its stroke services from the “comprehensive” level — which can care for all types of stroke patients and has 24/7 availability for complex neurosurgery — to “primary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County Executive James Williams said Friday that with the new announcement, “HCA has finally acknowledged the severe impacts of its previously announced closure of trauma services and downgrading of STEMI and stroke care at Regional Medical Center.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even with the closures avoided in the new proposal, the downgrading of services “would have a very negative and permanent impact on healthcare access in our most vulnerable communities,” Williams said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents, doctors and nurses, patient advocates and elected officials had earlier decried the planned cuts as discriminatory and likely to cause more deaths and poorer health outcomes for potentially thousands of vulnerable residents in the largely working-class area. The closures could also have “cascading negative effects” on the broader county health system, a county report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates called on state officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, to intervene, though Bonta’s office has declined to comment on the situation other than to say it is reviewing the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital company said Friday that instead of eliminating its serious heart attack services, it is “revamping” its acute heart attack program “to feature around-the-clock cardiologist availability and a daytime catheterization laboratory.” The hospital currently has a full-time catheterization laboratory, where cardiologists insert catheters to help diagnose heart issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital will also operate a stroke center with “enhanced interventional capabilities to address the needs of 97% of stroke patients,” with the remaining patients expected to be transferred to other health care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital statement didn’t clarify what specific level of service would ultimately be offered in the stroke center. A source familiar with the planned changes confirmed the stroke center would be downgraded to less than the current “comprehensive” level but noted details are still being worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also will stick to a previous plan to increase its emergency department capacity from 43 to 63 beds by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11996447\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1770px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11996447\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1770\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed.jpg 1770w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-1020x768.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/PXL_20240524_182334712_qed-1536x1157.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1770px) 100vw, 1770px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Darcie Green, executive director of Latinas Contra Cancer, speaks at a rally urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta to intervene in planned cuts to trauma services at Regional Medical Center in San José on May 24, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dr. Raj Gupta, the head of neurology and stroke services at the hospital, who has spoken out previously against the cuts, criticized the changes Friday, including the reduction in catheterization lab hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Between nine to five, there may be some cath lab, but at 5 p.m., if a patient shows up, they have no cath lab. They have to transfer all the patients (who arrive) at off times, as well as on weekends,” Gupta said. “Without real, modern cardiology services, this is just lip service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also raised concerns about the lessening of trauma services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think this community’s needs are met by a Level III,” Gupta said during a press conference outside the hospital. “This is a big downgrade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Regional’s statement said the decision to make these changes came “after extensive coordination with local agencies, internal discussions, community outreach and analysis of the county’s impact report of the initial changes,” county officials and advocates countered that narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams, the county executive, noted in his statement Friday that Santa Clara County “has not received any formal proposal from Regional related to these changes, and there is a process it must first follow to propose, obtain approval, and then implement these service changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who has been one of the leading critics of Regional Medical Center, said the company did not submit a formal request about the changes to the Santa Clara County emergency medical services agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not even a letter saying, ‘Here’s the things we’d like to work on, here’s how we’d like to work on them with you.’ So the idea that they are collaborating with the county is just untrue; they are having conversations, but that is absolutely not the same thing,” Chavez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes announced by Regional “feel like a good press move” but don’t help with “moving our communities forward in terms of their health,” Chavez added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I take big issue with the fact that in their release today, they claim to be working with community,” Darcie Green, head of health nonprofit Latinas Contra Cancer, said. “I can find nobody that HCA and Regional Medical Center have been working within the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green said the community’s fight with the hospital chain is not over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will continue organizing community and patients to hold HCA Healthcare accountable to being responsive to the community, to being present in the community and to not divesting from East San José.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-overdose-deaths-are-at-nearly-2-year-low-whats-behind-the-decline",
"title": "San Francisco Overdose Deaths Are At Nearly 2-Year Low. What’s Behind the Decline?",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco saw its lowest monthly number of fatal overdoses in nearly two years in June, officials announced Monday, offering slight good news as the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991538/san-francisco-attributes-lower-drug-deaths-to-microdosing-addiction-medication\">battles a severe overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to preliminary data \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/2024%2007_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">from the medical examiner’s office\u003c/a>, 48 people died of accidental overdoses last month. That’s down more than 15% from 57 deaths in June of last year, and it represents the lowest monthly total since July 2022, when the city reported 43 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also show a decrease in overdose deaths in the first half of the year compared to 2023. While public health officials say the “heartening” numbers could result from citywide programs, a policy expert said wider drug use trends are likely making the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, spoke about the city’s increased access in recent months to the overdose-reversing medicine Narcan, as well as more street care teams and both telehealth and in-person treatment while announcing the June overdose data on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor at Stanford University, believes that the downward trend likely has little to do with citywide policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certainly some sensible things going on — the biggest one: making anti-overdose medication widely available to as many people as possible,” he told KQED. “We’ve been doing that for years at a pretty high level — the good that did was baked in already, so I don’t think that would explain a change like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Humphreys said, the trajectory mirrors \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm#:~:text=Provisional%20data%20from%20CDC's%20National,111%2C029%20deaths%20estimated%20in%202022.\">national data\u003c/a> and likely suggests that more people who are using fentanyl are doing so knowingly rather than suffering “surprise overdoses” when they thought they were using another drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a spike in overdose deaths that began around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the city saw a then-record 726 deaths, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. That number dipped a bit in 2021 and 2022, though overdoses remained above pre-pandemic levels, and last year surpassed 2020 as the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year\u003c/a> on record with 810 deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SF drug overdose deaths, Jan.-June 2023/2024 \" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-tGJps\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tGJps/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"547\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there have been 374 overdose-related deaths in 2024. The figure is slightly lower than the number of deaths recorded during the same period in 2023, but it is still on track to come close to the year’s staggering total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphreys said that the small reduction was not surprising, given that pandemic restrictions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973108/how-long-to-isolate-with-covid-in-2024-california-now-says-that-depends-on-symptoms\">though not COVID-19 infections\u003c/a> — have all but completely wound down. Nationwide, annual overdose deaths decreased last year for the first time since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the pandemic, we had increases [in overdoses] beyond anything we’ve had in the history of our country,” he said. “Which I think said a lot about the impact of isolation, stress, the destruction of social opportunities, the loss of jobs, all those kinds of things. Now, we’re getting the other side of it … the restoration of all those things is going to be good for human health,” including drug use and overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins agreed that the pandemic led to a spike in overdose deaths and “worsened health outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hopeful trajectory is also likely a reflection of heroin’s diminished presence in the illicit drug market, according to Humphreys. High numbers of heroin users suffered accidental fentanyl overdoses in recent years, according to Humphreys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When heroin is completely gone, people will know that what is being bought and sold is fentanyl,” he told KQED, noting that San Francisco is not at that point yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of surprise overdoses three years ago in San Francisco, a lot of people who didn’t think they were going to be exposed but were. Now we’re getting to a point where almost no one is surprised, and that should reduce overdoses.”[aside postID=news_11991538 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-955608454-1020x680.jpg']Fentanyl entered the drug market on the West Coast just before the pandemic, Kunins said. In the following years, heroin has made up a shrinking portion of overall overdose deaths. In 2020, 93 of the overdoses reported by the city involved heroin, nearly 12%. So far, in 2024, 20 overdoses included opioids, making up only about 5% of the total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the slight downturn in overall deaths, Kunins said overdose “is very much a crisis in our city and our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How officials want to handle the crisis is expected to play a large role in city elections this fall. Three leading mayoral candidates — Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie — have all supported tougher policies surrounding drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell previously called for California National Guard members to be deployed in highly trafficked areas, like the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods, and Lurie has expressed support for compelling drug users to enter treatment. In March, Breed placed two measures on citywide ballots expanding police powers and increasing screening and treatment requirements for drug users receiving welfare and touted increased drug-related arrests in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Humphreys and Kunins cautioned against implementing harsher policies. Humphreys said bringing in outside law enforcement likely wouldn’t be effective, while Kunins said that DPH’s priority is expanding treatment, not limiting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the regulations and structures surrounding access to medications for addiction treatment that are at the federal and state level really serve to limit access to treatments,” Kunins said. “Our goal is to decrease barriers into care, make it easier and more appealing for people to get into treatment, and to reach our overall goal of saving lives and supporting people to get into recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco saw its lowest monthly number of fatal overdoses in nearly two years in June, officials announced Monday, offering slight good news as the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991538/san-francisco-attributes-lower-drug-deaths-to-microdosing-addiction-medication\">battles a severe overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to preliminary data \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/2024%2007_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">from the medical examiner’s office\u003c/a>, 48 people died of accidental overdoses last month. That’s down more than 15% from 57 deaths in June of last year, and it represents the lowest monthly total since July 2022, when the city reported 43 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also show a decrease in overdose deaths in the first half of the year compared to 2023. While public health officials say the “heartening” numbers could result from citywide programs, a policy expert said wider drug use trends are likely making the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, spoke about the city’s increased access in recent months to the overdose-reversing medicine Narcan, as well as more street care teams and both telehealth and in-person treatment while announcing the June overdose data on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor at Stanford University, believes that the downward trend likely has little to do with citywide policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certainly some sensible things going on — the biggest one: making anti-overdose medication widely available to as many people as possible,” he told KQED. “We’ve been doing that for years at a pretty high level — the good that did was baked in already, so I don’t think that would explain a change like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Humphreys said, the trajectory mirrors \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm#:~:text=Provisional%20data%20from%20CDC's%20National,111%2C029%20deaths%20estimated%20in%202022.\">national data\u003c/a> and likely suggests that more people who are using fentanyl are doing so knowingly rather than suffering “surprise overdoses” when they thought they were using another drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a spike in overdose deaths that began around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the city saw a then-record 726 deaths, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. That number dipped a bit in 2021 and 2022, though overdoses remained above pre-pandemic levels, and last year surpassed 2020 as the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year\u003c/a> on record with 810 deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SF drug overdose deaths, Jan.-June 2023/2024 \" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-tGJps\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tGJps/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"547\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there have been 374 overdose-related deaths in 2024. The figure is slightly lower than the number of deaths recorded during the same period in 2023, but it is still on track to come close to the year’s staggering total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphreys said that the small reduction was not surprising, given that pandemic restrictions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973108/how-long-to-isolate-with-covid-in-2024-california-now-says-that-depends-on-symptoms\">though not COVID-19 infections\u003c/a> — have all but completely wound down. Nationwide, annual overdose deaths decreased last year for the first time since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the pandemic, we had increases [in overdoses] beyond anything we’ve had in the history of our country,” he said. “Which I think said a lot about the impact of isolation, stress, the destruction of social opportunities, the loss of jobs, all those kinds of things. Now, we’re getting the other side of it … the restoration of all those things is going to be good for human health,” including drug use and overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins agreed that the pandemic led to a spike in overdose deaths and “worsened health outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hopeful trajectory is also likely a reflection of heroin’s diminished presence in the illicit drug market, according to Humphreys. High numbers of heroin users suffered accidental fentanyl overdoses in recent years, according to Humphreys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When heroin is completely gone, people will know that what is being bought and sold is fentanyl,” he told KQED, noting that San Francisco is not at that point yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of surprise overdoses three years ago in San Francisco, a lot of people who didn’t think they were going to be exposed but were. Now we’re getting to a point where almost no one is surprised, and that should reduce overdoses.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fentanyl entered the drug market on the West Coast just before the pandemic, Kunins said. In the following years, heroin has made up a shrinking portion of overall overdose deaths. In 2020, 93 of the overdoses reported by the city involved heroin, nearly 12%. So far, in 2024, 20 overdoses included opioids, making up only about 5% of the total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the slight downturn in overall deaths, Kunins said overdose “is very much a crisis in our city and our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How officials want to handle the crisis is expected to play a large role in city elections this fall. Three leading mayoral candidates — Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie — have all supported tougher policies surrounding drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell previously called for California National Guard members to be deployed in highly trafficked areas, like the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods, and Lurie has expressed support for compelling drug users to enter treatment. In March, Breed placed two measures on citywide ballots expanding police powers and increasing screening and treatment requirements for drug users receiving welfare and touted increased drug-related arrests in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Humphreys and Kunins cautioned against implementing harsher policies. Humphreys said bringing in outside law enforcement likely wouldn’t be effective, while Kunins said that DPH’s priority is expanding treatment, not limiting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the regulations and structures surrounding access to medications for addiction treatment that are at the federal and state level really serve to limit access to treatments,” Kunins said. “Our goal is to decrease barriers into care, make it easier and more appealing for people to get into treatment, and to reach our overall goal of saving lives and supporting people to get into recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'A Catastrophic Occurrence': Rep. Eshoo Urges Bonta to Scrutinize Temporary ER Closure in Moss Beach",
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"headTitle": "‘A Catastrophic Occurrence’: Rep. Eshoo Urges Bonta to Scrutinize Temporary ER Closure in Moss Beach | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#anchor\">This report contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is stepping up her calls for the state to take action against a hospital corporation that closed an emergency room near Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since April, just days after AHMC Healthcare shut down its Seton Coastside facility in Moss Beach, citing a need to make repairs after storm damage, Eshoo has been raising alarms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 10, Eshoo wrote a letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta asking him to step in and hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the closure, which could last through the end of the year, violates contractual obligations, leaves residents in the lurch and forces the county to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and fill the void.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a catastrophic occurrence,” Eshoo told KQED about the closure. “My constituents lost that level of service, which could mean life or death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo previously wrote two letters to the California Department of Public Health in April to share her concerns but was rebuffed. The agency responded in a letter that it cannot compel a hospital to offer emergency services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency also said it anticipated the impact of the temporary closure would be “minimal” because the coastside emergency department was used as a standby facility, “which assessed fewer than five patients a day, who were then either released or transferred to the Daly City campus for additional care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her letter to Bonta, Eshoo said the agency saying the impact would not be significant is offensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the only facility providing emergency services for 55 miles along the Pacific Coastline, Seton Coastside has been a lifeline for acute medical emergencies, and CDPH’s assertion suggests to me that the Department had no understanding of the area and made a decision lacking a knowledge of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wrote that she had a “highly unsatisfactory” call with Dr. Tomás Aragón, the head of the CDPH, in June, where he told her his hands were tied, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo has cast doubt on whether any repair work is actually happening, noting her staff have been to the site multiple times this year since April and saw no work taking place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993828\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993828\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A security guard walks around the grounds of the temporarily closed Seton Coastside medical facility in Moss Beach on April 11, 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rep. Anna Eshoo's Office)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>AHMC bought the coastside facility along with Seton Medical Center in Daly City from nonprofit Verity Health in 2020, and in doing so, agreed to a list of conditions from the attorney general’s office at the time. Chief among those conditions was that it would keep running the facility through mid-December 2025, including the 24-hour standby emergency department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I certainly hope that the AG of California chooses to pursue the actions that need to be taken to bring a suit against them because I believe that they have walked away from the responsibilities that are contained in the contract,” Eshoo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo isn’t alone in her concerns. San Mateo County supervisors earlier this month approved spending nearly $500,000 to have Dignity Health Medical Foundation open a temporary urgent care facility in its existing clinic in Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Services are set to begin on Oct. 1 and run through March 2025 as a pilot program, with the option to extend the contract by another six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the closure of Seton Coastside, “residents have expressed concern that getting timely access to urgent care services requires going ‘over the hill’ via a two-lane highway subject to frequent traffic jams and stoppages,” a county memo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county memo also noted concerns about “the large number of seniors” that might be challenged by long drives to get urgent care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Ray Mueller added that during the summer, the roads serving the coastal area often have “horrendous traffic” that could force someone seeking emergency medical care to be in the car more than an hour to reach another facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the temporary urgent care facility won’t fill the entire gap left by Seton’s closure, because it won’t operate 24 hours a day, and will only be open six days a week. The county is also looking into funding a vehicle with emergency room capabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s been unhappy with what he described as a lack of transparency around the closure, including whether the storm damage actually affected the emergency department, and what kind of vetting of AHMC’s reasoning for the closure has been done by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noted a skilled nursing facility at the coastside building was closed for repairs much earlier than the emergency department and said he hasn’t received clear answers from Seton officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want this information verified, and the only entity that can verify it for us is going to be the Attorney General’s office,” Mueller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Someone has to look at it and say whether or not it was appropriate. “We have to step into the void, provide taxpayer money, provide for the public health, when there’s a contract that’s supposed to do that,” Mueller said. “And no one is investigating whether or not this contract is being enforced appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta’s office and Seton Medical Center’s associate chief operating officer, Tim Schulze, did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta is also being asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11987665/advocates-urge-state-to-intervene-in-closure-of-san-jose-trauma-center\">by local and state leaders to intervene in a similar situation in East San José\u003c/a>, where the only trauma center on that side of Santa Clara County is planned to be shuttered Aug. 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>American Hospital Corporation, or AHC Healthcare, cited declining patients as a reason to close the facility at its Regional Medical Center, along with a reduction in the quality of its stroke services and the elimination of its serious heart attack services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, doctors, nurses and patient advocates have called on Bonta to step in to prevent the closure, which they say puts residents’ lives at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"anchor\">\u003c/a>\u003cem>July 15: The original version of this report incorrectly spelled San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller’s first name. We have since updated this story to reflect the correct spelling.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "US Rep. Anna Eshoo contends AHMC Healthcare is obligated to keep the emergency room open after the company agreed to a list of conditions from the attorney general’s office during its purchase of Seton Medical Center in 2020.",
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"title": "'A Catastrophic Occurrence': Rep. Eshoo Urges Bonta to Scrutinize Temporary ER Closure in Moss Beach | KQED",
"description": "US Rep. Anna Eshoo contends AHMC Healthcare is obligated to keep the emergency room open after the company agreed to a list of conditions from the attorney general’s office during its purchase of Seton Medical Center in 2020.",
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"headline": "'A Catastrophic Occurrence': Rep. Eshoo Urges Bonta to Scrutinize Temporary ER Closure in Moss Beach",
"datePublished": "2024-07-12T13:25:04-07:00",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#anchor\">This report contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is stepping up her calls for the state to take action against a hospital corporation that closed an emergency room near Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since April, just days after AHMC Healthcare shut down its Seton Coastside facility in Moss Beach, citing a need to make repairs after storm damage, Eshoo has been raising alarms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 10, Eshoo wrote a letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta asking him to step in and hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the closure, which could last through the end of the year, violates contractual obligations, leaves residents in the lurch and forces the county to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and fill the void.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a catastrophic occurrence,” Eshoo told KQED about the closure. “My constituents lost that level of service, which could mean life or death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo previously wrote two letters to the California Department of Public Health in April to share her concerns but was rebuffed. The agency responded in a letter that it cannot compel a hospital to offer emergency services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency also said it anticipated the impact of the temporary closure would be “minimal” because the coastside emergency department was used as a standby facility, “which assessed fewer than five patients a day, who were then either released or transferred to the Daly City campus for additional care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her letter to Bonta, Eshoo said the agency saying the impact would not be significant is offensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the only facility providing emergency services for 55 miles along the Pacific Coastline, Seton Coastside has been a lifeline for acute medical emergencies, and CDPH’s assertion suggests to me that the Department had no understanding of the area and made a decision lacking a knowledge of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wrote that she had a “highly unsatisfactory” call with Dr. Tomás Aragón, the head of the CDPH, in June, where he told her his hands were tied, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo has cast doubt on whether any repair work is actually happening, noting her staff have been to the site multiple times this year since April and saw no work taking place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993828\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993828\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240712-SETON-MOSS-BEACH-JG-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A security guard walks around the grounds of the temporarily closed Seton Coastside medical facility in Moss Beach on April 11, 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rep. Anna Eshoo's Office)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>AHMC bought the coastside facility along with Seton Medical Center in Daly City from nonprofit Verity Health in 2020, and in doing so, agreed to a list of conditions from the attorney general’s office at the time. Chief among those conditions was that it would keep running the facility through mid-December 2025, including the 24-hour standby emergency department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I certainly hope that the AG of California chooses to pursue the actions that need to be taken to bring a suit against them because I believe that they have walked away from the responsibilities that are contained in the contract,” Eshoo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eshoo isn’t alone in her concerns. San Mateo County supervisors earlier this month approved spending nearly $500,000 to have Dignity Health Medical Foundation open a temporary urgent care facility in its existing clinic in Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Services are set to begin on Oct. 1 and run through March 2025 as a pilot program, with the option to extend the contract by another six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the closure of Seton Coastside, “residents have expressed concern that getting timely access to urgent care services requires going ‘over the hill’ via a two-lane highway subject to frequent traffic jams and stoppages,” a county memo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county memo also noted concerns about “the large number of seniors” that might be challenged by long drives to get urgent care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Ray Mueller added that during the summer, the roads serving the coastal area often have “horrendous traffic” that could force someone seeking emergency medical care to be in the car more than an hour to reach another facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the temporary urgent care facility won’t fill the entire gap left by Seton’s closure, because it won’t operate 24 hours a day, and will only be open six days a week. The county is also looking into funding a vehicle with emergency room capabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s been unhappy with what he described as a lack of transparency around the closure, including whether the storm damage actually affected the emergency department, and what kind of vetting of AHMC’s reasoning for the closure has been done by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noted a skilled nursing facility at the coastside building was closed for repairs much earlier than the emergency department and said he hasn’t received clear answers from Seton officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want this information verified, and the only entity that can verify it for us is going to be the Attorney General’s office,” Mueller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Someone has to look at it and say whether or not it was appropriate. “We have to step into the void, provide taxpayer money, provide for the public health, when there’s a contract that’s supposed to do that,” Mueller said. “And no one is investigating whether or not this contract is being enforced appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta’s office and Seton Medical Center’s associate chief operating officer, Tim Schulze, did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta is also being asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11987665/advocates-urge-state-to-intervene-in-closure-of-san-jose-trauma-center\">by local and state leaders to intervene in a similar situation in East San José\u003c/a>, where the only trauma center on that side of Santa Clara County is planned to be shuttered Aug. 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>American Hospital Corporation, or AHC Healthcare, cited declining patients as a reason to close the facility at its Regional Medical Center, along with a reduction in the quality of its stroke services and the elimination of its serious heart attack services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, doctors, nurses and patient advocates have called on Bonta to step in to prevent the closure, which they say puts residents’ lives at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"anchor\">\u003c/a>\u003cem>July 15: The original version of this report incorrectly spelled San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller’s first name. We have since updated this story to reflect the correct spelling.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-long-to-isolate-with-covid-in-2024-california-now-says-that-depends-on-symptoms",
"title": "Got COVID (Again)? Here's What the CDC Says About 2024 Isolation Guidelines",
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"headTitle": "Got COVID (Again)? Here’s What the CDC Says About 2024 Isolation Guidelines | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the fifth year of the COVID-19 pandemic and still \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11987343/covid-bay-area-wastewater-variant-symptoms-isolation-guidance\">the virus continues to spread,\u003c/a> with \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-currentlevels.html\">California currently in the “Very High” category\u003c/a> for levels of the virus in wastewater. And after several years of evolving guidelines and best practices from public health officials, if you’re unclear on the current recommendations on what anyone with COVID-19 should actually \u003cem>do\u003c/em> when it comes to what we all used to call “quarantine,” you’re definitely not alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially revised their national guidance for how long people with COVID-19 should isolate from others — saying that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0301-respiratory-virus.html\">COVID-positive people can now return to work or regular activities\u003c/a> once their symptoms are “improving overall,” and they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without use of a fever-reducing medication. The CDC’s new isolation guidelines have been in effect since March 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previously, the CDC advised that people who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home and isolate from other people for at least five days, regardless of the severity of their symptoms — or whether they had symptoms at all. Now, the CDC says that the number of days you isolate for instead depends on how long you have symptoms, which could be longer (or shorter) than five days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#covidguidelines\">\u003cstrong>I tested positive. How do the CDC’s latest COVID isolation guidelines work?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#asymptomaticcovid\">\u003cstrong>Why do officials think it’s safe for asymptomatic COVID-positive folks to be in public?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for a breakdown of the CDC’s 2024 COVID-19 isolation guidelines, how they’re different to the recommendations you may have become used to over the past few years and how to think about the risk your positive COVID-19 test still poses to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And remember, if you get COVID-19 there’s nothing stopping you — if you’re able — from continuing to use at-home antigen testing and leaving isolation only when you get that negative result. (In fact, t\u003ca href=\"http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/acd/ncorona2019/covidcommunity/\">he Los Angeles County Department of Public Health still recommends that you “test negative\u003c/a> before leaving isolation.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, this option has become a lot more difficult for many people in 2024, due to limited sick days and how it’s become far harder to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11940562/how-to-find-a-free-covid-test-near-you-in-2023-because-its-getting-harder\">find free COVID-19 tests\u003c/a> to do that repeat testing. Remember, you can still \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11902122/at-home-covid-test-reimbursement-from-blue-shield-to-kaiser-how-to-get-your-health-insurance-to-pay-you-back\">get your health insurer to reimburse you\u003c/a> for the costs of up to eight antigen tests per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"covidguidelines\">\u003c/a>I just tested positive. How do the CDC’s latest COVID isolation guidelines work?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>According to the CDC, you should isolate from other people for as long as you’re experiencing COVID-19 symptoms that aren’t improving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When can I start to consider leaving isolation, according to the CDC?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your symptoms start improving, \u003cem>and\u003c/em> any fever you’ve had has been gone for 24 hours without the aid of fever-reducing medication, the CDC says that you can exit isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you’ll need both of these things — symptoms improving for at least 24 hours \u003cem>and\u003c/em> the absence of fever for at least 24 hours — to happen before you can leave isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if your fever has been gone more than a day but your other symptoms haven’t improved, you still need to keep isolating until they do improve, says the CDC. And if your other symptoms get better but you get a new fever, you need to keep isolating (or go back into isolation) until that fever has been gone for 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Remember, there’s growing evidence that\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972313/negative-covid-test-incubation-period\"> some people take longer to get a positive test on an at-home antigen test.\u003c/a> If you have symptoms but have tested negative, don’t assume it means you’re COVID-free. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html\">The CDC recommends that you take another antigen test 48 hours later\u003c/a> and then test again after another 48 hours. (You can also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957790/the-new-covid-eris-variant-and-rising-cases-what-you-need-to-know#freecovidtests\">seek out a PCR test\u003c/a>, which is more sensitive.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993742\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993742\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1912\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-800x797.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-1020x1016.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-1536x1530.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A visualization of the CDC’s 2024 guidelines around isolating with COVID \u003ccite>(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What should I do when I leave isolation, according to the CDC?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your COVID-19 symptoms are mild and improving for at least 24 hours, and any fever has been gone without the aid of medication for that period of time, the CDC says that you should still take “added precaution over the next 5 days.” These precautions include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Wearing \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/masks.html\">a mask around others.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Taking additional \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/air-quality.html\">steps for cleaner air.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/hygiene.html\">Taking additional steps for hygiene.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Maintaining \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/physical-distancing.html\">physical distance \u003c/a>around others.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/testing.html\">Testing \u003c/a>when you will be around other people indoors.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The CDC recommends that you “keep in mind that you may still be able to spread the virus that made you sick, even if you are feeling better.” How much less contagious you actually are during this time “depend[s] on factors like how long you were sick or how sick you were,” says the CDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">See the CDC’s visualizations of different isolation timelines for people who test positive for COVID.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What if I test positive but don’t have any symptoms?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You may be contagious,” says the CDC, so assume that you are, for the safety of those around you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC recommends that for five days after you test positive without symptoms, you should take those same added precautions they advise for symptomatic people once they leave isolation: masking, creating cleaner air, enhanced hygiene and physical distancing. This is, the agency says, “especially important to protect people with factors that increase their risk of severe illness from respiratory viruses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are California’s isolation guidelines any different from the CDC’s?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Respiratory-Viruses/Home.aspx\">California’s own online resources around COVID-19\u003c/a> and other respiratory viruses now recommend that Californians with COVID-19 refer directly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">the CDC’s guidelines around isolation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you feel like the state’s quarantine guidance used to be different to the CDC’s, you’re not imagining it — they were. Back in January, when the CDC was still recommending that people who test positive should stay away from other people for at least five days regardless of whether or not they had symptoms, the California Department of Public Health announced it was softening those guidelines for Californians — and was instead advising a move away from the five-day rule in favor of “instead focus[ing] on clinical symptoms to determine when to end isolation.” Then in March, the CDC’s own update isolation guidance almost exactly resembled the policy California had adopted a few months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest difference between \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">California’s January guidelines\u003c/a> and the CDC’s revised advice was what people who test positive for COVID but do \u003cem>not\u003c/em> have symptoms — known as asymptomatic infections — should do when it comes to isolation and avoiding infecting others. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">The state said that asymptomatic people with COVID should wear a mask indoors around others for 10 days\u003c/a> and avoid higher-risk people for the same duration. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">The CDC’s update noted that asymptomatic people “may be contagious”\u003c/a> and should only take “added precautions[s],” including possible masking, for five days — advice that California’s public health officials have now also adopted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s January guidelines also recommended that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">COVID-positive people with symptoms should mask \u003c/a>around other people indoors for a full 10 days after their positive test or symptom onset. Now that California public health officials are directing state residents to the CDC’s own advice, this 10-day requirement is no longer mentioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The March 1 update represented the first time during the pandemic that the CDC had moved away from set periods of isolation for people with COVID. At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the CDC stipulated a 10-day period of isolation for COVID-positive patients —\u003ca href=\"https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2021/s1227-isolation-quarantine-guidance.html\"> a period shortened to five days in December 2021\u003c/a>. This update was still accompanied by guidance to wear a well-fitted mask for another five days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#tellus\">Tell us: What else do you need information about right now?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why did public health officials make this change to COVID isolation guidelines?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The CDC says that this latest guidance “brings a unified approach to addressing risks from a range of common respiratory viral illnesses,” bundling guidance on COVID into that for other viruses like flu and RSV as \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/guidance/respiratory-virus-guidance.html\">one set of Respiratory Virus Guidance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doing this, said the agency, “makes recommendations easier to follow and thus more likely to be adopted and does not rely on individuals to test for illness, a practice that data indicates is uneven.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDPH says that in 2024, the agency’s “policies and priorities for intervention are now \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">focused on protecting those most at risk for serious illness while reducing social disruption \u003c/a>that is disproportionate to recommendations for the prevention of other endemic respiratory viral infections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"asymptomaticcovid\">\u003c/a>Why does the state now think it’s safe for asymptomatic COVID-positive folks to be in public?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After over four years of public health policy at the federal and state levels that’s emphasized “If you’re COVID-positive, stay the heck away from other people,” the 2024 update might seem jarring to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also the fact that since 2020, we’ve been told that not only can asymptomatic people be contagious with COVID-19, they might be responsible for fueling a lot of the spread of COVID-19 — because those folks are so often unaware they even have the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that you can be contagious without symptoms,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Stanford University. “We also know that symptomatology can increase the risk of transmission. So if you’re coughing and sneezing, you’re probably emitting more viral particles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11968709 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1447896208-1020x680.jpg']This latest guidance focuses on symptomatic people as posing the \u003ci>most \u003c/i>risk to others, noted Karan — hence the continuing recommendation that those people stay home until those symptoms get milder.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What are the concerns over this latest guidance?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Karan says he’d have liked to have seen California public health officials give the public more information about “the rationale behind why they were doing it,” so that the public could understand that this guidance wasn’t a green light to go out into the world with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’d said, ‘People that are not symptomatic can be contagious, but it’s less likely, and people without symptoms are likely going to be shedding less virus, so if you wear a high filtration mask, your risk of infecting others is quite low, and that’s why we’re doing it’? I think that would have made a lot of sense,” Karan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/01/california-covid-rule-isolation/\">Calmatters has reported that disability and equity advocates particularly criticized the latest guidelines when they were first announced by California health officials\u003c/a>, saying the guidance could increase the risk of infection for Californians most vulnerable to severe illness or death from the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This policy is not based in science, equity or public health,” Lisa McCorkell, cofounder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative that studies the impacts of long COVID, told CalMatters. “It devalues the lives of immunocompromised and disabled people and completely ignores \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11950643/screaming-into-a-void-long-covid-patients-have-waited-in-vain-for-years-for-treatments\">the risk of long COVID\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Gutierrez Vo, a registered nurse with Kaiser Permanente and a president of the California Nurses Association, echoed these concerns back when CDPH announced their guidelines relaxing isolation requirements, calling them “a step backwards from protecting public health” and “very dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“High risk people do not walk around with a flag saying ‘I am high risk,’ so then the people that are COVID-positive can identify them and stay away from them,” said Gutierrez Vo. “It doesn’t work that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So therefore, if you cannot be selective of who you need to be getting away from, then there just has to be a general understanding or a mandate — which is what we had — to make sure to protect the general public. It is the Department of Public Health’s responsibility to uphold public health, and they are not doing that with this new guidance,” said Gutierrez Vo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the risks of long COVID, Gutierrez Vo said that California’s relaxing of isolation protocol\u003cem> “\u003c/em>puts everyone in danger.” COVID, she said, “is not like any other respiratory illness. When you have flu and you get over it, it doesn’t have long term effects. When you have RSV, or any other respiratory illness like a viral syndrome, it doesn’t damage your kidney or it doesn’t damage your heart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story contains reporting by KQED’s Lesley McClurg. An earlier version of this story originally published on March 4.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"tellus\">\u003c/a>Tell us: What else do you need information about?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At KQED News, we know that it can sometimes be hard to track down the answers to navigate life in the Bay Area in 2024. We’ve published \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/coronavirus-resources-and-explainers\">clear, practical explainers and guides about COVID-19\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11936674/how-to-prepare-for-this-weeks-atmospheric-river-storm-sandbags-emergency-kits-and-more\">how to cope with intense winter weather\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11821950/how-to-safely-attend-a-protest-in-the-bay-area\">how to exercise your right to protest safely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So tell us: What do you need to know more about? Tell us, and you could see your question answered online or on social media. What you submit will make our reporting stronger and help us decide what to cover here on our site and on KQED Public Radio, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[hearken id=\"10483\" src=\"https://modules.wearehearken.com/kqed/embed/10483.js\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "California's latest isolation guidelines for people who test positive for COVID-19 includes the guidance that people without symptoms no longer have to isolate. Here's what you need to know.",
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"title": "Got COVID (Again)? Here's What the CDC Says About 2024 Isolation Guidelines | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the fifth year of the COVID-19 pandemic and still \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11987343/covid-bay-area-wastewater-variant-symptoms-isolation-guidance\">the virus continues to spread,\u003c/a> with \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-currentlevels.html\">California currently in the “Very High” category\u003c/a> for levels of the virus in wastewater. And after several years of evolving guidelines and best practices from public health officials, if you’re unclear on the current recommendations on what anyone with COVID-19 should actually \u003cem>do\u003c/em> when it comes to what we all used to call “quarantine,” you’re definitely not alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially revised their national guidance for how long people with COVID-19 should isolate from others — saying that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0301-respiratory-virus.html\">COVID-positive people can now return to work or regular activities\u003c/a> once their symptoms are “improving overall,” and they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without use of a fever-reducing medication. The CDC’s new isolation guidelines have been in effect since March 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previously, the CDC advised that people who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home and isolate from other people for at least five days, regardless of the severity of their symptoms — or whether they had symptoms at all. Now, the CDC says that the number of days you isolate for instead depends on how long you have symptoms, which could be longer (or shorter) than five days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#covidguidelines\">\u003cstrong>I tested positive. How do the CDC’s latest COVID isolation guidelines work?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#asymptomaticcovid\">\u003cstrong>Why do officials think it’s safe for asymptomatic COVID-positive folks to be in public?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for a breakdown of the CDC’s 2024 COVID-19 isolation guidelines, how they’re different to the recommendations you may have become used to over the past few years and how to think about the risk your positive COVID-19 test still poses to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And remember, if you get COVID-19 there’s nothing stopping you — if you’re able — from continuing to use at-home antigen testing and leaving isolation only when you get that negative result. (In fact, t\u003ca href=\"http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/acd/ncorona2019/covidcommunity/\">he Los Angeles County Department of Public Health still recommends that you “test negative\u003c/a> before leaving isolation.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, this option has become a lot more difficult for many people in 2024, due to limited sick days and how it’s become far harder to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11940562/how-to-find-a-free-covid-test-near-you-in-2023-because-its-getting-harder\">find free COVID-19 tests\u003c/a> to do that repeat testing. Remember, you can still \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11902122/at-home-covid-test-reimbursement-from-blue-shield-to-kaiser-how-to-get-your-health-insurance-to-pay-you-back\">get your health insurer to reimburse you\u003c/a> for the costs of up to eight antigen tests per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"covidguidelines\">\u003c/a>I just tested positive. How do the CDC’s latest COVID isolation guidelines work?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>According to the CDC, you should isolate from other people for as long as you’re experiencing COVID-19 symptoms that aren’t improving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When can I start to consider leaving isolation, according to the CDC?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your symptoms start improving, \u003cem>and\u003c/em> any fever you’ve had has been gone for 24 hours without the aid of fever-reducing medication, the CDC says that you can exit isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you’ll need both of these things — symptoms improving for at least 24 hours \u003cem>and\u003c/em> the absence of fever for at least 24 hours — to happen before you can leave isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if your fever has been gone more than a day but your other symptoms haven’t improved, you still need to keep isolating until they do improve, says the CDC. And if your other symptoms get better but you get a new fever, you need to keep isolating (or go back into isolation) until that fever has been gone for 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Remember, there’s growing evidence that\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972313/negative-covid-test-incubation-period\"> some people take longer to get a positive test on an at-home antigen test.\u003c/a> If you have symptoms but have tested negative, don’t assume it means you’re COVID-free. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html\">The CDC recommends that you take another antigen test 48 hours later\u003c/a> and then test again after another 48 hours. (You can also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957790/the-new-covid-eris-variant-and-rising-cases-what-you-need-to-know#freecovidtests\">seek out a PCR test\u003c/a>, which is more sensitive.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993742\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993742\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1912\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-800x797.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-1020x1016.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/covid-isolation-1536x1530.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A visualization of the CDC’s 2024 guidelines around isolating with COVID \u003ccite>(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What should I do when I leave isolation, according to the CDC?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your COVID-19 symptoms are mild and improving for at least 24 hours, and any fever has been gone without the aid of medication for that period of time, the CDC says that you should still take “added precaution over the next 5 days.” These precautions include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Wearing \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/masks.html\">a mask around others.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Taking additional \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/air-quality.html\">steps for cleaner air.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/hygiene.html\">Taking additional steps for hygiene.\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Maintaining \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/physical-distancing.html\">physical distance \u003c/a>around others.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/testing.html\">Testing \u003c/a>when you will be around other people indoors.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The CDC recommends that you “keep in mind that you may still be able to spread the virus that made you sick, even if you are feeling better.” How much less contagious you actually are during this time “depend[s] on factors like how long you were sick or how sick you were,” says the CDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">See the CDC’s visualizations of different isolation timelines for people who test positive for COVID.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What if I test positive but don’t have any symptoms?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You may be contagious,” says the CDC, so assume that you are, for the safety of those around you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC recommends that for five days after you test positive without symptoms, you should take those same added precautions they advise for symptomatic people once they leave isolation: masking, creating cleaner air, enhanced hygiene and physical distancing. This is, the agency says, “especially important to protect people with factors that increase their risk of severe illness from respiratory viruses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are California’s isolation guidelines any different from the CDC’s?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Respiratory-Viruses/Home.aspx\">California’s own online resources around COVID-19\u003c/a> and other respiratory viruses now recommend that Californians with COVID-19 refer directly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">the CDC’s guidelines around isolation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you feel like the state’s quarantine guidance used to be different to the CDC’s, you’re not imagining it — they were. Back in January, when the CDC was still recommending that people who test positive should stay away from other people for at least five days regardless of whether or not they had symptoms, the California Department of Public Health announced it was softening those guidelines for Californians — and was instead advising a move away from the five-day rule in favor of “instead focus[ing] on clinical symptoms to determine when to end isolation.” Then in March, the CDC’s own update isolation guidance almost exactly resembled the policy California had adopted a few months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest difference between \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">California’s January guidelines\u003c/a> and the CDC’s revised advice was what people who test positive for COVID but do \u003cem>not\u003c/em> have symptoms — known as asymptomatic infections — should do when it comes to isolation and avoiding infecting others. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">The state said that asymptomatic people with COVID should wear a mask indoors around others for 10 days\u003c/a> and avoid higher-risk people for the same duration. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html\">The CDC’s update noted that asymptomatic people “may be contagious”\u003c/a> and should only take “added precautions[s],” including possible masking, for five days — advice that California’s public health officials have now also adopted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s January guidelines also recommended that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">COVID-positive people with symptoms should mask \u003c/a>around other people indoors for a full 10 days after their positive test or symptom onset. Now that California public health officials are directing state residents to the CDC’s own advice, this 10-day requirement is no longer mentioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The March 1 update represented the first time during the pandemic that the CDC had moved away from set periods of isolation for people with COVID. At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the CDC stipulated a 10-day period of isolation for COVID-positive patients —\u003ca href=\"https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2021/s1227-isolation-quarantine-guidance.html\"> a period shortened to five days in December 2021\u003c/a>. This update was still accompanied by guidance to wear a well-fitted mask for another five days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#tellus\">Tell us: What else do you need information about right now?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why did public health officials make this change to COVID isolation guidelines?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The CDC says that this latest guidance “brings a unified approach to addressing risks from a range of common respiratory viral illnesses,” bundling guidance on COVID into that for other viruses like flu and RSV as \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/guidance/respiratory-virus-guidance.html\">one set of Respiratory Virus Guidance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doing this, said the agency, “makes recommendations easier to follow and thus more likely to be adopted and does not rely on individuals to test for illness, a practice that data indicates is uneven.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDPH says that in 2024, the agency’s “policies and priorities for intervention are now \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx#\">focused on protecting those most at risk for serious illness while reducing social disruption \u003c/a>that is disproportionate to recommendations for the prevention of other endemic respiratory viral infections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"asymptomaticcovid\">\u003c/a>Why does the state now think it’s safe for asymptomatic COVID-positive folks to be in public?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After over four years of public health policy at the federal and state levels that’s emphasized “If you’re COVID-positive, stay the heck away from other people,” the 2024 update might seem jarring to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also the fact that since 2020, we’ve been told that not only can asymptomatic people be contagious with COVID-19, they might be responsible for fueling a lot of the spread of COVID-19 — because those folks are so often unaware they even have the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that you can be contagious without symptoms,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Stanford University. “We also know that symptomatology can increase the risk of transmission. So if you’re coughing and sneezing, you’re probably emitting more viral particles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This latest guidance focuses on symptomatic people as posing the \u003ci>most \u003c/i>risk to others, noted Karan — hence the continuing recommendation that those people stay home until those symptoms get milder.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What are the concerns over this latest guidance?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Karan says he’d have liked to have seen California public health officials give the public more information about “the rationale behind why they were doing it,” so that the public could understand that this guidance wasn’t a green light to go out into the world with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’d said, ‘People that are not symptomatic can be contagious, but it’s less likely, and people without symptoms are likely going to be shedding less virus, so if you wear a high filtration mask, your risk of infecting others is quite low, and that’s why we’re doing it’? I think that would have made a lot of sense,” Karan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/01/california-covid-rule-isolation/\">Calmatters has reported that disability and equity advocates particularly criticized the latest guidelines when they were first announced by California health officials\u003c/a>, saying the guidance could increase the risk of infection for Californians most vulnerable to severe illness or death from the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This policy is not based in science, equity or public health,” Lisa McCorkell, cofounder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative that studies the impacts of long COVID, told CalMatters. “It devalues the lives of immunocompromised and disabled people and completely ignores \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11950643/screaming-into-a-void-long-covid-patients-have-waited-in-vain-for-years-for-treatments\">the risk of long COVID\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Gutierrez Vo, a registered nurse with Kaiser Permanente and a president of the California Nurses Association, echoed these concerns back when CDPH announced their guidelines relaxing isolation requirements, calling them “a step backwards from protecting public health” and “very dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“High risk people do not walk around with a flag saying ‘I am high risk,’ so then the people that are COVID-positive can identify them and stay away from them,” said Gutierrez Vo. “It doesn’t work that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So therefore, if you cannot be selective of who you need to be getting away from, then there just has to be a general understanding or a mandate — which is what we had — to make sure to protect the general public. It is the Department of Public Health’s responsibility to uphold public health, and they are not doing that with this new guidance,” said Gutierrez Vo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the risks of long COVID, Gutierrez Vo said that California’s relaxing of isolation protocol\u003cem> “\u003c/em>puts everyone in danger.” COVID, she said, “is not like any other respiratory illness. When you have flu and you get over it, it doesn’t have long term effects. When you have RSV, or any other respiratory illness like a viral syndrome, it doesn’t damage your kidney or it doesn’t damage your heart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story contains reporting by KQED’s Lesley McClurg. An earlier version of this story originally published on March 4.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"tellus\">\u003c/a>Tell us: What else do you need information about?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At KQED News, we know that it can sometimes be hard to track down the answers to navigate life in the Bay Area in 2024. We’ve published \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/coronavirus-resources-and-explainers\">clear, practical explainers and guides about COVID-19\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11936674/how-to-prepare-for-this-weeks-atmospheric-river-storm-sandbags-emergency-kits-and-more\">how to cope with intense winter weather\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11821950/how-to-safely-attend-a-protest-in-the-bay-area\">how to exercise your right to protest safely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So tell us: What do you need to know more about? Tell us, and you could see your question answered online or on social media. What you submit will make our reporting stronger and help us decide what to cover here on our site and on KQED Public Radio, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When a shortfall of several hundred thousand dollars almost derailed new homeless housing in Bakersfield, the savior that swooped in to salvage the project wasn’t an affordable housing nonprofit, state housing grant or other traditional source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it was a health care company that had never before built a single home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That unorthodox move is part of a broader effort to commingle California’s health care and homeless services agencies, as providers in both areas increasingly acknowledge a glaring truth: It’s nearly impossible to be healthy if you’re living on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health care company Akido Labs, which runs clinics and street medicine teams in Southern and Central California, covered about 10% of the cost to build that 16-unit project in Bakersfield. Health insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is funding homeless housing projects in Alameda, Kings and Tulare counties. And Los Angeles County’s biggest health plan is paying to lease properties for its homeless clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the unhoused, housing is medicine,” said Karthik Murali, head of public health at Akido Labs. “Providing stable housing can alleviate more health conditions than taking them to the ICU and the hospital and providing street medicine. … Knowing that fact, we wanted to be part of the solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/\">homeless\u003c/a> have higher rates of illness, and die an average of 12 years younger than the general U.S. population, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/homelessness-and-health.pdf\">National Health Care for the Homeless Council (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom set the marriage between housing and health care in motion in 2022, via his \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2022/02/california-medi-cal-reform/\">massive overhaul\u003c/a> of the state’s Medicaid system. With the launch of CalAIM, the state allows \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/medi-cal\">Medi-Cal\u003c/a> to fund things not traditionally covered as health care — such as helping \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/category/housing/homelessness/\">homeless\u003c/a> clients find housing, paying for security deposits and preventing evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an incentive for health care plans to ramp up these new services, the state also provided $1.3 billion in additional funding under the \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource-center/homelessness-health-care/medi-cal-and-homelessness/housing-and-homelessness-incentive-program/\">Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program\u003c/a>. Managed care plans can earn those funds by investing in solutions to homelessness. It’s that money Akido and other health care providers are using to build and lease new homeless housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993619\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993619\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a hat sits down next to bags of medicine and equipment in a vineyard.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Rishi Patel from the Akido street medicine team checks on a homeless man living in a vineyard in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s still a relatively rare use of the money — it’s more likely to pay for services for unhoused people, such as case managers or safe RV parking sites. That’s partly because creating housing is so expensive in California, and partly because most health care providers don’t know much about homebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, Murali said the new funds made a big difference. Recognizing that it could only do so much to help its homeless patients as long as they were living on the street, Akido had long wanted to get into the business of developing housing. The incentive program gave it the funds to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could not have been possible before, and it’s possible now,” Murali said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Housing as medicine\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles-based Akido Labs got its start as a health tech company out of Y Combinator, the startup incubator that grew big-name companies such as Airbnb and Dropbox. It later launched medical clinics and street medicine teams in Central and Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Kern County Housing Authority found itself over budget on the Bakersfield homeless housing project — in part because the housing authority underestimated the cost of an expensive retaining wall — Akido jumped in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993622\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg\" alt=\"Men wearing bright safety uniforms and hard hats look up near a construction site.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We would have been stalled, and who knows where it would have been now if we hadn’t had that money come in,” said Stephen Pelz, executive director of the housing authority, who said Akido funded about 10% of the roughly $3 million project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993620\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993620\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg\" alt=\"The inside of a building under construction.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The two-story development, where tenants will pay 30% of their income in rent, sits on a formerly vacant lot next to what used to be a large homeless encampment. Each apartment is a small one-bedroom, one-bath — about 500 square feet — and you can see the Sierra Nevada from the upstairs windows on a clear day. It’s a big deal to complete a project in that area, where most of the street doesn’t even have a sidewalk and new construction is rare, Pelz said. You’re more likely to see something here catch fire and then be torn down than you are to see something new get built, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akido also took on a second, 40-unit homeless housing project in Bakersfield. That development, now set to open in 2025, would have fallen apart without the health care company’s funding. The county had applied for a state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2023/12/california-homeless-developer-investigation/\">Homekey\u003c/a> grant, but that wasn’t enough to buy the property or fund the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akido paid about 20% of the project’s total $10 million cost, and it’s now working with the county housing authority. Akido is advocating for features it knows will help its clients, such as wheelchair accessible outdoor spaces, suicide prevention designs (such as shelves in closets instead of rails) and semigloss paint that makes cleaning easier. The health care company is learning to navigate the complicated world of housing production as it goes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s been an interesting process,” Murali said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Homeless housing from Sacramento to LA\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Other counties are using the money to secure housing units without putting shovels in the ground. Sacramento County won $3.2 million for its Landlord Engagement and Assistance Program, which gives unhoused clients rental subsidies and places them with private landlords, while also working with landlords to prevent evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money will allow the county to expand that program by about 30%, said human services program manager Neil Kurtz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s everything,” Kurtz said. “We’re going to be able to make a significant impact, I think, in reducing homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A tarp and other debris forming a living structure underneath an overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A homeless encampment on W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento on April 11, 2023. \u003ccite>(Rahul Lal/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County’s largest health plan, LA Care, is using the incentive funds to help open 1,700 homes to homeless residents by 2027. Working with the county, the health plan is funding programs to buy and lease those units, or pay for security deposits and other expenses. As of the end of last year, 600 of those homes were available, said Dr. Sameer Amin, chief medical officer for LA Care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield recently put money into a 42-unit homeless housing project in Tulare County, helped fund two more projects in Kings County, and contributed to a fund in Alameda County that’s building additional units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking at other opportunities,” said Kris Kuntz, program director for housing and homeless strategy at Anthem. ”We’re looking at: Do we go purchase single family homes that are on the market? Things like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can the housing-health care partnership be sustainable?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blurring the line between housing and health care has been confusing for many involved, said Carolina Reid, faculty research advisor at the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health care providers don’t know what organizations to partner with in order to get housing built, or how to enter their clients’ information into the state’s homelessness data system. Housing providers don’t know how to navigate strict patient privacy laws. The Terner Center is \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CalAIM-Brief-February-2024.pdf\">researching (PDF)\u003c/a> ways to help both sides adjust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state paints this health-care-meets-housing experiment as a success so far. Health care providers using the Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program money reported they now are more frequently screening their patients for homelessness, while also offering them more housing-related services. According to the state Department of Health Care Services, 48,172 patients have received housing — and 81% of them have remained housed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the problem with this money is that it’s a one-time grant, and Newsom has given no indication that he’ll replenish the coffers when it runs out. After Newsom and legislators \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/06/california-budget-deal-4/\">scrambled to close\u003c/a> a multibillion-dollar budget deficit this year, there’s little state funding up for grabs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One question I have that I can’t answer is: Are these efforts sustained after the HHIP funds run out?” Reid said. “There needs to be a sustained source of funding to help managed care plans do this type of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993623\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads "Golden Empire Affordable Housing SWPPP's Strictly Enforced" with bullet points and text on a fence in front of a building and vehicle.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Murali hopes Akido can drum up private equity to replace the state funding in future projects, but whether investors can be convinced it’s a good business move remains to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, when up against the steep cost of building or buying housing in California, the money the state allocated doesn’t amount to that much, Reid said. That’s why, she said, we haven’t seen more health care providers using the money to create new housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuntz agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it comes to housing and homelessness,” he said, “you think it’s a large amount of money, but per county, it’s still … not huge, per say, given the need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, the housing authority typically receives anywhere from 500 to 1,000 applications for each new project, Pelz said. The project set to finish next month in Bakersfield has room for just 16 households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means, if you get chosen, Pelz said, “It’s kind of like winning the lottery.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"headline": "California Health Care Providers Tackle Homelessness Crisis With New State Funds",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/marisa-kendall/\">Marisa Kendall\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When a shortfall of several hundred thousand dollars almost derailed new homeless housing in Bakersfield, the savior that swooped in to salvage the project wasn’t an affordable housing nonprofit, state housing grant or other traditional source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it was a health care company that had never before built a single home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That unorthodox move is part of a broader effort to commingle California’s health care and homeless services agencies, as providers in both areas increasingly acknowledge a glaring truth: It’s nearly impossible to be healthy if you’re living on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health care company Akido Labs, which runs clinics and street medicine teams in Southern and Central California, covered about 10% of the cost to build that 16-unit project in Bakersfield. Health insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is funding homeless housing projects in Alameda, Kings and Tulare counties. And Los Angeles County’s biggest health plan is paying to lease properties for its homeless clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the unhoused, housing is medicine,” said Karthik Murali, head of public health at Akido Labs. “Providing stable housing can alleviate more health conditions than taking them to the ICU and the hospital and providing street medicine. … Knowing that fact, we wanted to be part of the solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/\">homeless\u003c/a> have higher rates of illness, and die an average of 12 years younger than the general U.S. population, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/homelessness-and-health.pdf\">National Health Care for the Homeless Council (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom set the marriage between housing and health care in motion in 2022, via his \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2022/02/california-medi-cal-reform/\">massive overhaul\u003c/a> of the state’s Medicaid system. With the launch of CalAIM, the state allows \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/medi-cal\">Medi-Cal\u003c/a> to fund things not traditionally covered as health care — such as helping \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/category/housing/homelessness/\">homeless\u003c/a> clients find housing, paying for security deposits and preventing evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an incentive for health care plans to ramp up these new services, the state also provided $1.3 billion in additional funding under the \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource-center/homelessness-health-care/medi-cal-and-homelessness/housing-and-homelessness-incentive-program/\">Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program\u003c/a>. Managed care plans can earn those funds by investing in solutions to homelessness. It’s that money Akido and other health care providers are using to build and lease new homeless housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993619\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993619\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a hat sits down next to bags of medicine and equipment in a vineyard.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Injectable-LV_13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Rishi Patel from the Akido street medicine team checks on a homeless man living in a vineyard in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s still a relatively rare use of the money — it’s more likely to pay for services for unhoused people, such as case managers or safe RV parking sites. That’s partly because creating housing is so expensive in California, and partly because most health care providers don’t know much about homebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, Murali said the new funds made a big difference. Recognizing that it could only do so much to help its homeless patients as long as they were living on the street, Akido had long wanted to get into the business of developing housing. The incentive program gave it the funds to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could not have been possible before, and it’s possible now,” Murali said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Housing as medicine\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles-based Akido Labs got its start as a health tech company out of Y Combinator, the startup incubator that grew big-name companies such as Airbnb and Dropbox. It later launched medical clinics and street medicine teams in Central and Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Kern County Housing Authority found itself over budget on the Bakersfield homeless housing project — in part because the housing authority underestimated the cost of an expensive retaining wall — Akido jumped in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993622\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg\" alt=\"Men wearing bright safety uniforms and hard hats look up near a construction site.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_06-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We would have been stalled, and who knows where it would have been now if we hadn’t had that money come in,” said Stephen Pelz, executive director of the housing authority, who said Akido funded about 10% of the roughly $3 million project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993620\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993620\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg\" alt=\"The inside of a building under construction.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_04-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The two-story development, where tenants will pay 30% of their income in rent, sits on a formerly vacant lot next to what used to be a large homeless encampment. Each apartment is a small one-bedroom, one-bath — about 500 square feet — and you can see the Sierra Nevada from the upstairs windows on a clear day. It’s a big deal to complete a project in that area, where most of the street doesn’t even have a sidewalk and new construction is rare, Pelz said. You’re more likely to see something here catch fire and then be torn down than you are to see something new get built, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akido also took on a second, 40-unit homeless housing project in Bakersfield. That development, now set to open in 2025, would have fallen apart without the health care company’s funding. The county had applied for a state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2023/12/california-homeless-developer-investigation/\">Homekey\u003c/a> grant, but that wasn’t enough to buy the property or fund the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akido paid about 20% of the project’s total $10 million cost, and it’s now working with the county housing authority. Akido is advocating for features it knows will help its clients, such as wheelchair accessible outdoor spaces, suicide prevention designs (such as shelves in closets instead of rails) and semigloss paint that makes cleaning easier. The health care company is learning to navigate the complicated world of housing production as it goes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s been an interesting process,” Murali said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Homeless housing from Sacramento to LA\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Other counties are using the money to secure housing units without putting shovels in the ground. Sacramento County won $3.2 million for its Landlord Engagement and Assistance Program, which gives unhoused clients rental subsidies and places them with private landlords, while also working with landlords to prevent evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money will allow the county to expand that program by about 30%, said human services program manager Neil Kurtz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s everything,” Kurtz said. “We’re going to be able to make a significant impact, I think, in reducing homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A tarp and other debris forming a living structure underneath an overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/04112023-Homeless-Encampment-Enforcement-RL-05-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A homeless encampment on W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento on April 11, 2023. \u003ccite>(Rahul Lal/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County’s largest health plan, LA Care, is using the incentive funds to help open 1,700 homes to homeless residents by 2027. Working with the county, the health plan is funding programs to buy and lease those units, or pay for security deposits and other expenses. As of the end of last year, 600 of those homes were available, said Dr. Sameer Amin, chief medical officer for LA Care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield recently put money into a 42-unit homeless housing project in Tulare County, helped fund two more projects in Kings County, and contributed to a fund in Alameda County that’s building additional units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking at other opportunities,” said Kris Kuntz, program director for housing and homeless strategy at Anthem. ”We’re looking at: Do we go purchase single family homes that are on the market? Things like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can the housing-health care partnership be sustainable?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blurring the line between housing and health care has been confusing for many involved, said Carolina Reid, faculty research advisor at the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health care providers don’t know what organizations to partner with in order to get housing built, or how to enter their clients’ information into the state’s homelessness data system. Housing providers don’t know how to navigate strict patient privacy laws. The Terner Center is \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CalAIM-Brief-February-2024.pdf\">researching (PDF)\u003c/a> ways to help both sides adjust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state paints this health-care-meets-housing experiment as a success so far. Health care providers using the Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program money reported they now are more frequently screening their patients for homelessness, while also offering them more housing-related services. According to the state Department of Health Care Services, 48,172 patients have received housing — and 81% of them have remained housed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the problem with this money is that it’s a one-time grant, and Newsom has given no indication that he’ll replenish the coffers when it runs out. After Newsom and legislators \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/06/california-budget-deal-4/\">scrambled to close\u003c/a> a multibillion-dollar budget deficit this year, there’s little state funding up for grabs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One question I have that I can’t answer is: Are these efforts sustained after the HHIP funds run out?” Reid said. “There needs to be a sustained source of funding to help managed care plans do this type of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11993623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11993623\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads "Golden Empire Affordable Housing SWPPP's Strictly Enforced" with bullet points and text on a fence in front of a building and vehicle.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/053124-Bakersfield-Rural-Homelessness-LV_08-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction site for an affordable housing apartment complex in Bakersfield on May 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Murali hopes Akido can drum up private equity to replace the state funding in future projects, but whether investors can be convinced it’s a good business move remains to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, when up against the steep cost of building or buying housing in California, the money the state allocated doesn’t amount to that much, Reid said. That’s why, she said, we haven’t seen more health care providers using the money to create new housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuntz agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it comes to housing and homelessness,” he said, “you think it’s a large amount of money, but per county, it’s still … not huge, per say, given the need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, the housing authority typically receives anywhere from 500 to 1,000 applications for each new project, Pelz said. The project set to finish next month in Bakersfield has room for just 16 households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means, if you get chosen, Pelz said, “It’s kind of like winning the lottery.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After a Supreme Court’s decision this week jeopardized a massive nationwide settlement over Purdue Pharma’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic, hundreds of millions of dollars that the deal earmarked for addiction treatment in California could be in limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the funds allocated for the state would go to services in San Francisco, which previously brought its own lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, best known as the manufacturer of OxyContin, and the billionaire Sackler family that owns it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s case was put on pause when Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 — launching settlement negotiations between the company and thousands of plaintiffs, including California. Under the settlement deal that was eventually struck in bankruptcy court, Purdue was dissolved, the Sacklers agreed to pay billions toward addressing the opioid crisis, and members of the family — among the wealthiest in the U.S. — were shielded from future liability. It was that last provision underpinning the deal that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124new_nkp1.pdf\">Supreme Court majority took issue with (PDF)\u003c/a>, given that the Sacklers had never filed for bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would have only been eligible for funds through the state, which was in line for $486 million, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta. How those funds would be distributed to cities like San Francisco had not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What comes next for San Francisco and the thousands of cities, states, tribes and individuals with cases against Purdue and the Sacklers is still up in the air, according to UC Davis law professor John Hunt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bankruptcy court’s stay on these cases appears to still be in place, he said, and a renegotiation process could happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If these negotiations fall apart, Hunt said, the Sackler family might declare bankruptcy themselves, which would allow them to enter into a new settlement negotiation with plaintiffs. Otherwise, cases like San Francisco’s could be handled individually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would expect that if they’re facing 2,600 individual plaintiffs, plus large cities, I think it’s pretty likely they would go into bankruptcy — that’s kind of what bankruptcy is to deal with,” he said. “On the other hand, they might fight it; they have the means.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether entities would get larger payouts from individual cases could vary, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco city attorney’s office is figuring out what will come next for its case, according to spokesperson Jen Kwart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are still evaluating the decision, but it is unlikely to have an immediate impact on San Francisco’s case against Purdue Pharma or the Sackler defendants,” she said. “San Francisco’s case against Purdue and the Sacklers is pending before Judge Charles Breyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, money allocated to California in other major opioid settlement cases has been \u003ca href=\"https://californiaopioidresponse.org/opioid-settlements/state-funded-projects/\">used for \u003c/a>distributing naloxone, opioid education training and overdose prevention and harm reduction efforts, among other initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco has approved opioid abatement \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcityattorney.org/2023/05/17/san-francisco-city-attorney-announces-230-million-settlement-with-walgreens-after-victory-in-opioid-litigation/\">settlements\u003c/a> with other drug manufacturing and distributing companies totaling more than $350 million. In 2023, the city won a $230 million settlement from Walgreens after a federal judge ruled the pharmacy chain could be held liable for filling hundreds of thousands of “red flag” prescriptions without investigation. The funds gained through that settlement are set to go to addressing the city’s opioid crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Supreme Court’s decision means settlement negotiations in the Purdue Pharma case could continue and money to plaintiffs will be further delayed, Bonta said the ruling could be a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s decision will allow those that have suffered at the hands of the Sacklers to hold them accountable for their greed and willful misconduct,” the attorney general said in a statement on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last September, he and the attorneys general of Oregon and Connecticut filed a \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/23-124%20Letter%20of%20California%20et%20al.pdf\">letter (PDF)\u003c/a> with the Supreme Court saying they believed nonconsensual third party releases in the Purdue case would be unlawful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a Supreme Court’s decision this week jeopardized a massive nationwide settlement over Purdue Pharma’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic, hundreds of millions of dollars that the deal earmarked for addiction treatment in California could be in limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the funds allocated for the state would go to services in San Francisco, which previously brought its own lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, best known as the manufacturer of OxyContin, and the billionaire Sackler family that owns it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s case was put on pause when Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 — launching settlement negotiations between the company and thousands of plaintiffs, including California. Under the settlement deal that was eventually struck in bankruptcy court, Purdue was dissolved, the Sacklers agreed to pay billions toward addressing the opioid crisis, and members of the family — among the wealthiest in the U.S. — were shielded from future liability. It was that last provision underpinning the deal that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124new_nkp1.pdf\">Supreme Court majority took issue with (PDF)\u003c/a>, given that the Sacklers had never filed for bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would have only been eligible for funds through the state, which was in line for $486 million, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta. How those funds would be distributed to cities like San Francisco had not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What comes next for San Francisco and the thousands of cities, states, tribes and individuals with cases against Purdue and the Sacklers is still up in the air, according to UC Davis law professor John Hunt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bankruptcy court’s stay on these cases appears to still be in place, he said, and a renegotiation process could happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If these negotiations fall apart, Hunt said, the Sackler family might declare bankruptcy themselves, which would allow them to enter into a new settlement negotiation with plaintiffs. Otherwise, cases like San Francisco’s could be handled individually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would expect that if they’re facing 2,600 individual plaintiffs, plus large cities, I think it’s pretty likely they would go into bankruptcy — that’s kind of what bankruptcy is to deal with,” he said. “On the other hand, they might fight it; they have the means.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether entities would get larger payouts from individual cases could vary, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco city attorney’s office is figuring out what will come next for its case, according to spokesperson Jen Kwart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are still evaluating the decision, but it is unlikely to have an immediate impact on San Francisco’s case against Purdue Pharma or the Sackler defendants,” she said. “San Francisco’s case against Purdue and the Sacklers is pending before Judge Charles Breyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, money allocated to California in other major opioid settlement cases has been \u003ca href=\"https://californiaopioidresponse.org/opioid-settlements/state-funded-projects/\">used for \u003c/a>distributing naloxone, opioid education training and overdose prevention and harm reduction efforts, among other initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco has approved opioid abatement \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcityattorney.org/2023/05/17/san-francisco-city-attorney-announces-230-million-settlement-with-walgreens-after-victory-in-opioid-litigation/\">settlements\u003c/a> with other drug manufacturing and distributing companies totaling more than $350 million. In 2023, the city won a $230 million settlement from Walgreens after a federal judge ruled the pharmacy chain could be held liable for filling hundreds of thousands of “red flag” prescriptions without investigation. The funds gained through that settlement are set to go to addressing the city’s opioid crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Supreme Court’s decision means settlement negotiations in the Purdue Pharma case could continue and money to plaintiffs will be further delayed, Bonta said the ruling could be a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s decision will allow those that have suffered at the hands of the Sacklers to hold them accountable for their greed and willful misconduct,” the attorney general said in a statement on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last September, he and the attorneys general of Oregon and Connecticut filed a \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/23-124%20Letter%20of%20California%20et%20al.pdf\">letter (PDF)\u003c/a> with the Supreme Court saying they believed nonconsensual third party releases in the Purdue case would be unlawful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, June 27, 2024:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>LA County supervisors have voted unanimously to approve\u003ca href=\"https://hahn.lacounty.gov/la-county-will-launch-pilot-program-to-eliminate-low-income-residents-medical-debt/\"> a pilot program to forgive millions of dollars in medical debt for hundreds of thousands of residents\u003c/a>. Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the measure, has said that medical debt exceeds $2.9 billion for L.A. County residents, affecting as many as one in 10 adults throughout 2022.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986871/california-promised-health-care-workers-a-higher-minimum-wage-but-will-newsom-delay-it\">Hundreds of thousands of California healthcare workers who have not yet received their pay raise can expect it by mid-October, due to the state’s new budget deal.\u003c/a> That’s as long as the state’s fiscal situation improves or if the state is able to secure additional federal funding.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992142/how-this-classroom-on-wheels-is-meeting-oaklands-unhoused-kids-where-they-are\">In Oakland, nearly 20 percent of young children enrolled in Head Start are going through housing insecurity.\u003c/a> That makes it hard for their families to get to the preschool program consistently and on time, causing some to have to drop out. Now, the city has invested a half-million dollars on a mobile classroom to reach these children.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://hahn.lacounty.gov/la-county-will-launch-pilot-program-to-eliminate-low-income-residents-medical-debt/\">LA County Votes Unanimously to Forgive Medical Debts\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Hahn’s office estimates the program’s $5 million dollar investment will help \u003ca href=\"http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/hccp/docs/Medical_Debt_Update_Jan24_English.pdf\">150-thousand residents\u003c/a> and wipe $500 million dollars in debt.\u003cbr>\nThe county will partner with a national organization that buys the debt for pennies on the dollar before canceling it. In addition to identifying funding, the approved motion allows the Department of Public Health to enter into an agreement with Undue Medical Debt to design and execute the pilot program. Details regarding the pilot program, partnerships with the hospital association and other key stakeholders, and the timeline will be worked out and announced in the coming months.\u003cbr>\nDetails are still being worked out about who will be eligible and when the program will start.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986871/california-promised-health-care-workers-a-higher-minimum-wage-but-will-newsom-delay-it\">Wage Increase for California Healthcare Workers Delayed\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under the new budget deal, workers who have not yet received their pay raise can expect it by mid-October. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/06/health-care-minimum-wage/\">That’s as long as the state’s fiscal situation improves or if the state is able to secure additional federal funding.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nIf the money doesn’t come through, health workers will have to wait until Jan. 1 for their wage increases.\u003cbr>\nOriginally, the new minimum wage law for health workers mandated that employers begin raising wages by June 1. Newsom asked for a delay because of the state’s budget deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992142/how-this-classroom-on-wheels-is-meeting-oaklands-unhoused-kids-where-they-are\">Oakland Program Invests in Mobile Classroom for Homeless Students\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mobile classrooms are increasingly being deployed in places short on accessible and affordable preschools. Since launching in November, this preschool on wheels has been going to homeless shelters and city parks in Oakland, in an effort to keep more children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs, which serve children from lower-income families. Programs like Head Start offer a range of support for unhoused families, from free diapers to access to educators who are trained in caring for children affected by trauma.\u003cbr>\nPreviously, many children weren’t showing up consistently or on time, and a significant number inevitably dropped out, particularly those who didn’t have a stable place to live.\u003cbr>\nThis most recent school year, 78 out 423 Oakland families – or more than 18% – who qualified for Head Start, experienced homelessness, Oakland’s $530,000 investment in its mobile classroom is helping the city meet the growing demand for Head Start. There are more than 400 families on the waitlist for the program, according to the city’s Head Start program director, who said the program has wrestled with finding enough workers and facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, June 27, 2024: LA County supervisors have voted unanimously to approve a pilot program to forgive millions of dollars in medical debt for hundreds of thousands of residents. Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the measure, has said that medical debt exceeds $2.9 billion for L.A. County residents, affecting as many as one in 10 adults throughout 2022. Hundreds of thousands of California healthcare workers who have not yet received their pay raise can expect it by mid-October, due to the state's new budget deal. That’s as long as the state’s fiscal situation improves or",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, June 27, 2024:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>LA County supervisors have voted unanimously to approve\u003ca href=\"https://hahn.lacounty.gov/la-county-will-launch-pilot-program-to-eliminate-low-income-residents-medical-debt/\"> a pilot program to forgive millions of dollars in medical debt for hundreds of thousands of residents\u003c/a>. Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the measure, has said that medical debt exceeds $2.9 billion for L.A. County residents, affecting as many as one in 10 adults throughout 2022.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986871/california-promised-health-care-workers-a-higher-minimum-wage-but-will-newsom-delay-it\">Hundreds of thousands of California healthcare workers who have not yet received their pay raise can expect it by mid-October, due to the state’s new budget deal.\u003c/a> That’s as long as the state’s fiscal situation improves or if the state is able to secure additional federal funding.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992142/how-this-classroom-on-wheels-is-meeting-oaklands-unhoused-kids-where-they-are\">In Oakland, nearly 20 percent of young children enrolled in Head Start are going through housing insecurity.\u003c/a> That makes it hard for their families to get to the preschool program consistently and on time, causing some to have to drop out. Now, the city has invested a half-million dollars on a mobile classroom to reach these children.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://hahn.lacounty.gov/la-county-will-launch-pilot-program-to-eliminate-low-income-residents-medical-debt/\">LA County Votes Unanimously to Forgive Medical Debts\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Hahn’s office estimates the program’s $5 million dollar investment will help \u003ca href=\"http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/hccp/docs/Medical_Debt_Update_Jan24_English.pdf\">150-thousand residents\u003c/a> and wipe $500 million dollars in debt.\u003cbr>\nThe county will partner with a national organization that buys the debt for pennies on the dollar before canceling it. In addition to identifying funding, the approved motion allows the Department of Public Health to enter into an agreement with Undue Medical Debt to design and execute the pilot program. Details regarding the pilot program, partnerships with the hospital association and other key stakeholders, and the timeline will be worked out and announced in the coming months.\u003cbr>\nDetails are still being worked out about who will be eligible and when the program will start.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986871/california-promised-health-care-workers-a-higher-minimum-wage-but-will-newsom-delay-it\">Wage Increase for California Healthcare Workers Delayed\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under the new budget deal, workers who have not yet received their pay raise can expect it by mid-October. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/06/health-care-minimum-wage/\">That’s as long as the state’s fiscal situation improves or if the state is able to secure additional federal funding.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nIf the money doesn’t come through, health workers will have to wait until Jan. 1 for their wage increases.\u003cbr>\nOriginally, the new minimum wage law for health workers mandated that employers begin raising wages by June 1. Newsom asked for a delay because of the state’s budget deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992142/how-this-classroom-on-wheels-is-meeting-oaklands-unhoused-kids-where-they-are\">Oakland Program Invests in Mobile Classroom for Homeless Students\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mobile classrooms are increasingly being deployed in places short on accessible and affordable preschools. Since launching in November, this preschool on wheels has been going to homeless shelters and city parks in Oakland, in an effort to keep more children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs, which serve children from lower-income families. Programs like Head Start offer a range of support for unhoused families, from free diapers to access to educators who are trained in caring for children affected by trauma.\u003cbr>\nPreviously, many children weren’t showing up consistently or on time, and a significant number inevitably dropped out, particularly those who didn’t have a stable place to live.\u003cbr>\nThis most recent school year, 78 out 423 Oakland families – or more than 18% – who qualified for Head Start, experienced homelessness, Oakland’s $530,000 investment in its mobile classroom is helping the city meet the growing demand for Head Start. There are more than 400 families on the waitlist for the program, according to the city’s Head Start program director, who said the program has wrestled with finding enough workers and facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 4:45 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state budget deal that delays gradually increasing the minimum hourly wage in health care to $25 will have a greater impact outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to economic experts. That’s because some large health care employers already pay workers higher wages, especially in the state’s most expensive regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t lessen the sting for those who currently earn much less than $25 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to a compromise deferring the first programmed wage hikes until mid-October, if state revenues exceed projections by at least 3% for the next three months. If they don’t, the raises would be effective no later than January 1, 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democrats had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986998/first-of-californias-healthcare-minimum-wage-hikes-likely-to-be-delayed\">already delayed\u003c/a> the health care wage boost once from June 1 to July 1 due to concerns that costs would exacerbate the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit. The legislation outlining the increases, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB525\">SB 525\u003c/a>, was approved last year to try to ease labor shortages in the industry and improve patient care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers led the way in this victory for wages that will lift 400,000 workers out of poverty,” said state Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), who authored SB 525, in a statement after the latest delay was announced. “The impact of this community win will be greatest in our most underserved communities, a critical step forward for health care for all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier figures by the Department of Finance pointed to $4 billion in costs to the state in the first year of implementing the legislation, which worker advocates criticized as too high. The department has since revised its cost estimates to $1.4 billion in 2025, and more later on, including increased pay for 26,000 state employees and higher Medi-Cal reimbursements for providers that will also be required to raise salaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where health care workers are paid less\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Large health care employers in the Bay Area tend to offer higher wages for their lowest-paid workers than smaller hospitals in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire and northern rural counties, said Joanne Spetz, an economist who directs the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State \u003ca href=\"https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/hospital-annual-financial-data-selected-data-pivot-tables\">hospital data\u003c/a> reviewed by Spetz for KQED show that medical assistants and other aides at the Walnut Creek Medical Center, a Kaiser hospital, for instance, earned on average $40.73 in 2022, compared to $16.99 at an Adventist Health hospital in Tulare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11986998,news_11986871,news_11984163\"]“The Bay Area definitely has among the highest average wages that you see across California for the jobs that tend to have the lowest wages in the hospital,” Spetz said, adding that employers in the Bay Area and other pricey regions face more competitive labor markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you are in San José or Santa Barbara, you’ve got a limited talent pool that you are competing against all these other employers to get, so you are going to have to raise your wages,” she added. “In areas like the Central Valley, you’ve got a combination of the housing being cheaper, in general, the cost of living is lower, so wages tend to be lower.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/ca-health-care-minimum-wage-new-estimates-feb2024/\">426,000 people\u003c/a> statewide — or about 36% of the health care workforce — will benefit from the minimum wage hike, said Laurel Lucia, who directs the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Some workers disappointed with the delay\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Workers who are set to get higher pay include clerical and food service staff, medical and nursing assistants, and hemodialysis technicians. Some, like Tessa Tuliao, who works at a dialysis clinic in San José, said the delay saddened them. Tuliao, 23, said her plans to become more financially independent and help support her parents, so they don’t have to work two jobs, will have to wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I found out, it was very, very disappointing because many private hospitals, which is a majority of California’s health care system, have the money to implement that minimum wage,” said a crestfallen Tuliao, who expected her hourly wage to jump from $19.75 to $23 on July 1. “And actually, many hospitals and clinics already have. So there’s no reason that others like ours shouldn’t start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuliao believes the higher pay would help retain workers in the industry and attract new ones, easing the staffing shortages that make her job more difficult and stressful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11990963\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11990963\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Satellite Healthcare dialysis clinic in San José on June 17, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She often has to take on more patients during her shifts at a dialysis clinic, while patients with kidney disease face longer wait times for the life-saving treatment they need, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson with Satellite Healthcare, Tuliao’s employer, said the nonprofit company had already increased its minimum wage to $23 an hour — which is also the first change outlined for dialysis clinics under SB 525 — but only for workers who are not part of ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. The raise excluded Tuliao and other employees at 11 Satellite Healthcare clinics who SEIU United Healthcare Workers said it has represented in contract negotiations that began in September 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A small portion of our employees have chosen to be represented by SEIU and we continue to bargain in good faith,” the Satellite Healthcare spokesperson said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Kidney Care Alliance and California Hospital Association confirmed some of its members have also raised employee pay while others are working to meet the new requirements when they go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dialysis providers in California value their caregivers and are following the requirements laid out in SB 525, and in the new state budget deal, to establish a health care minimum wage,” said Jaycob Bytel, spokesperson for California Kidney Care Alliance. “In fact, many providers have already increased wages well ahead of the requirements of the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 4:45 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state budget deal that delays gradually increasing the minimum hourly wage in health care to $25 will have a greater impact outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to economic experts. That’s because some large health care employers already pay workers higher wages, especially in the state’s most expensive regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t lessen the sting for those who currently earn much less than $25 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to a compromise deferring the first programmed wage hikes until mid-October, if state revenues exceed projections by at least 3% for the next three months. If they don’t, the raises would be effective no later than January 1, 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democrats had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986998/first-of-californias-healthcare-minimum-wage-hikes-likely-to-be-delayed\">already delayed\u003c/a> the health care wage boost once from June 1 to July 1 due to concerns that costs would exacerbate the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit. The legislation outlining the increases, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB525\">SB 525\u003c/a>, was approved last year to try to ease labor shortages in the industry and improve patient care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers led the way in this victory for wages that will lift 400,000 workers out of poverty,” said state Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), who authored SB 525, in a statement after the latest delay was announced. “The impact of this community win will be greatest in our most underserved communities, a critical step forward for health care for all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier figures by the Department of Finance pointed to $4 billion in costs to the state in the first year of implementing the legislation, which worker advocates criticized as too high. The department has since revised its cost estimates to $1.4 billion in 2025, and more later on, including increased pay for 26,000 state employees and higher Medi-Cal reimbursements for providers that will also be required to raise salaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where health care workers are paid less\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Large health care employers in the Bay Area tend to offer higher wages for their lowest-paid workers than smaller hospitals in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire and northern rural counties, said Joanne Spetz, an economist who directs the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State \u003ca href=\"https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/hospital-annual-financial-data-selected-data-pivot-tables\">hospital data\u003c/a> reviewed by Spetz for KQED show that medical assistants and other aides at the Walnut Creek Medical Center, a Kaiser hospital, for instance, earned on average $40.73 in 2022, compared to $16.99 at an Adventist Health hospital in Tulare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The Bay Area definitely has among the highest average wages that you see across California for the jobs that tend to have the lowest wages in the hospital,” Spetz said, adding that employers in the Bay Area and other pricey regions face more competitive labor markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you are in San José or Santa Barbara, you’ve got a limited talent pool that you are competing against all these other employers to get, so you are going to have to raise your wages,” she added. “In areas like the Central Valley, you’ve got a combination of the housing being cheaper, in general, the cost of living is lower, so wages tend to be lower.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/ca-health-care-minimum-wage-new-estimates-feb2024/\">426,000 people\u003c/a> statewide — or about 36% of the health care workforce — will benefit from the minimum wage hike, said Laurel Lucia, who directs the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Some workers disappointed with the delay\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Workers who are set to get higher pay include clerical and food service staff, medical and nursing assistants, and hemodialysis technicians. Some, like Tessa Tuliao, who works at a dialysis clinic in San José, said the delay saddened them. Tuliao, 23, said her plans to become more financially independent and help support her parents, so they don’t have to work two jobs, will have to wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I found out, it was very, very disappointing because many private hospitals, which is a majority of California’s health care system, have the money to implement that minimum wage,” said a crestfallen Tuliao, who expected her hourly wage to jump from $19.75 to $23 on July 1. “And actually, many hospitals and clinics already have. So there’s no reason that others like ours shouldn’t start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuliao believes the higher pay would help retain workers in the industry and attract new ones, easing the staffing shortages that make her job more difficult and stressful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11990963\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11990963\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/240617-HEALTHCAREMINWAGE-14-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Satellite Healthcare dialysis clinic in San José on June 17, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She often has to take on more patients during her shifts at a dialysis clinic, while patients with kidney disease face longer wait times for the life-saving treatment they need, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson with Satellite Healthcare, Tuliao’s employer, said the nonprofit company had already increased its minimum wage to $23 an hour — which is also the first change outlined for dialysis clinics under SB 525 — but only for workers who are not part of ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. The raise excluded Tuliao and other employees at 11 Satellite Healthcare clinics who SEIU United Healthcare Workers said it has represented in contract negotiations that began in September 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A small portion of our employees have chosen to be represented by SEIU and we continue to bargain in good faith,” the Satellite Healthcare spokesperson said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Kidney Care Alliance and California Hospital Association confirmed some of its members have also raised employee pay while others are working to meet the new requirements when they go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dialysis providers in California value their caregivers and are following the requirements laid out in SB 525, and in the new state budget deal, to establish a health care minimum wage,” said Jaycob Bytel, spokesperson for California Kidney Care Alliance. “In fact, many providers have already increased wages well ahead of the requirements of the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
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"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
},
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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