Issues

Covered California, the exchange, might not wrap up negotiations with insurers and announce 2018 premiums for its 1.4 million customers until mid-August — about a month later than usual. Similar scenarios are playing out across the country as state officials and insurers demand clarity on health care rules and funding, with deadlines fast approaching for the start of open enrollment this fall. "It's insane," said John Baackes, CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan. "Here we are in the middle of July and we don’t even know what rules we will be operating under for open enrollment. It is not how you want to run a business." more »

The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 17 million in 2018, compared with the number under current law. That number would increase to 27 million in 2020, after the elimination of the ACA's expansion of eligibility for Medicaid and the elimination of subsidies for insurance purchased through the marketplaces established by the ACA, and then to 32 million in 2026. more »

An art exhibition focusing on the train that carries up to half a million Central American migrants across Mexico toward the United States every year opens at University of California's C Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). The exhibit, by the Artist Collective Against Discrimination, is titled Riding the Beast, named for the notorious train that carries desperate Central American and Mexican migrants as it rumbles across Mexico. more »

Last December, Ohio’s Board of Pharmacy began reporting sales of gabapentin prescriptions in its regular monitoring of controlled substances. The drug, which is not an opioid nor designated a controlled substance by federal authorities, is used to treat nerve pain. But the board found that it was the most prescribed medication on its list that month, surpassing oxycodone by more than 9 million doses. In February, the Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network issued an alert regarding increasing misuse across the state. more »