Medical Care

The battle over California prison inmates' constitutional rights has come down to this: finger-pointing over who dreamed up the idea of giving convicted criminals taxpayer-funded bingo and yoga rooms. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown have lambasted efforts by J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed overseer of prison healthcare, to spend $8 billion on a "gold-plated utopian hospital plan" for 10,000 inmates.

As community clinics increasingly provide healthcare for the poorest of the poor, many are becoming more financially unstable, according to a new report released this week. In 2004, 63% of California community clinics were breaking even or running a deficit.

Hope and despair have always resided side by side in South Los Angeles, and the hospital complex named for Martin Luther King Jr. has evinced both. It was forced into existence in the tense aftermath of the Watts riots, and nothing has been easy since.

President Obama on Wednesday abandoned a proposal to bill veterans' private insurance companies for the treatment at VA hospitals of combat-related injuries amid an outcry from veterans' service organizations and members of Congress. The proposal would have authorized the Department of Veterans Affairs to charge private insurers for treating injuries and other medical conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, that are related to military service.

Faced with mounting budget deficits and the enormous cost of overhauling the nation's healthcare system, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are expressing increasing openness to an idea that once seemed unthinkable: putting taxes on some healthcare benefits. The idea of taxing medical insurance benefits has long worried many lawmakers, who are concerned that new taxes could jeopardize the employer-based health system most Americans rely on.

I was more than a little concerned about Pete, age 11. His mother had brought him to see me one Friday afternoon; he was limping and complaining about a few days of bad ankle pain. Examining him, I found that his left ankle was tender, swollen and warm, but he hadn't remembered injuring it. I ordered an X-ray and blood work, trying to ascertain whether he had developed septic arthritis -- an infection deep in his ankle joint -- the worst-case scenario.

Civilian workers who suffered devastating injuries while supporting the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan have come home to a grinding battle for basic medical care, artificial limbs, psychological counseling and other services. The insurance companies responsible for their treatment under taxpayer-funded policies have routinely denied the most serious medical claims.

Officials in the governor's office say a politically powerful union may have had inappropriate influence over the Obama administration's decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group's workers.

A rising number of women, stung by job losses and dropped insurance coverage, are turning to clinics and family planning agencies for routine gynecological exams, contraceptives and abortions. As the economy worsens, some Planned Parenthood clinics are reporting a record number of abortions. Other women's health agencies say they are experiencing heavier call volumes, more visits and more requests for abortion funding.

California officials are considering significant cuts to major programs to close the state's budget deficit. Among them: Healthy Families, which provides youth medical coverage; CalWorks, which serves poor families with children; and Cal Grants college loans.