A new California law requiring practitioners to disclose a probation status to their patients went into effect on July 1, 2019. Last September, then-Govenor Jerry Brown signed the “Patient’s Right to Know Act of 2018.”

To give members even more current information on bill activities in California and in Washington, D.C., CAP now offers insider information to members who choose to opt in for regular email updates.

While discussion of universal healthcare will likely continue at the national level, here in California, proposals emerging from the Governor’s Office and from legislative policymakers indicate a turn to a more measured, incremental approach toward increased healthcare accessibility, affordability, and coverage.

To describe homelessness as a “complicating factor” in healthcare is a gross understatement; the homeless die nearly three decades earlier than the general population and their health challenges are innumerable.ⁱ Addiction, mental illness, malnutrition, exposure to a host of infectious diseases related to overcrowding, poor hygiene, a lack of sanitation and IV drug use as well as the threat of violence, routinely undermine the health and wellbeing of this population.  For the homeless, healthcare access is at best-episodic and is often driven by the need for urgent treatment.

Since taking office in January, Governor Gavin Newsom has been busy appointing a team of experts to help propel his healthcare priorities for the people of California. In the governor’s first proclamation document instituting Executive Order N-02-19, he established the state’s first-ever Surgeon General position.