Karen Rago of UC-San Francisco had an important task: help lower readmission rates of older heart failure patients. It's one of the targets for health care reform, and the medical center wanted to see how hard it would be to do it. Read the Article>

Gov. Jerry Brown's veto of services designed to keep senior citizens in their homes could force elderly Californians to seek help in nursing homes, mental health facilities or hospital emergency rooms, advocates predicted yesterday. Read the Article>

The board of the California Health Benefit Exchange voted last week to oppose a bill that would establish a basic health plan and to urge the lawmakers behind AB 52, which would regulate rate increases by insurers, to exempt the exchange from that law. Read the Article>

Leading autism and consumer advocacy organizations in California are calling a settlement agreed to last week between the state and Blue Shield of California to expand coverage for autism treatment a "sham" that will not result in more therapy for people with the condition. Read the Article>

The Legislature passed Blumenfield's bill, AB 96, which would set up the Keeping Adults Free from Institutions program, at about half the cost of the previous adult day health care program. If Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs it this week, $85 million would be spent trying to keep a good number of the 300 ADHC centers across the state open, and could keep thousands of seniors out of nursing homes. If Brown doesn't sign it, and if the courts don't reverse the elimination, almost all the ADHC centers will close and about 35,000 seniors and the disabled will need to find other services. Read the Article>

President Obama and congressional Democrats have been put in a tough spot by California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) request to cut Medicaid spending by 10 percent. Read the Article>

The fate of about 300 centers that serve tens of thousands of frail, elderly and disabled Californians remains uncertain more than six months after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed eliminating the $169 million-a-year program to help solve the budget crisis. Read the Article>

It's a little like the Monty Python skit where the guy keeps hopping out of the wheelbarrow during the Black Plague, saying, "I'm not dead yet." Well, adult day health care isn't quite dead yet in California. Read the Article>

Two of California's largest health insurers have agreed to pay for costly behavioral therapy for thousands of autistic children — services the companies have long resisted covering. Read the Article>

This week, the Assembly Committee on Health approved a bill to establish low-cost health coverage for as many as 800,000 low-income Californians. For a program that could pull a substantial number of expected participants out of the California Health Benefit Exchange, there has been surprisingly little resistance to it. Read the Article>