National Healthcare

SACRAMENTO - As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients. Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare. They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

SACRAMENTO - As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients. Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare. They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

CHELMSFORD, Mass. - It's hard work being one of Dr. Damian Folch's diabetic patients. If a lab test shows high cholesterol, Folch is quick to call or email. No patient can leave the office without scheduling an annual eye exam, a key preventive test. A missed exam or an appointment leads to another call. "We are a real pain in their necks," joked Folch, a primary care physician in suburban Boston. "We track them down. " That kind of attention has always been good medicine.

Darden Restaurants Inc.'s second quarter was far from appetizing, as the owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster watched its net income plunge 37%. The Orlando, Fla., restaurant company saw the sour numbers coming. Earlier in December, citing a litany of factors including negative blow-back over its response to the new national healthcare law, ineffective promotions and Superstorm Sandy -- for its decision to lower expectations for the quarter. The prophesies came to pass: On Thursday, Darden executives said same-store sales at U.S. restaurants open at least a year tumbled a disappointing 2.7% for its three main chains for the period ended Nov. 25. At Olive Garden, which has struggled for months to counteract disappointing sales with refreshed stores and national specials, sales sank 3.2%.

Just off the trendy Melrose strip, on the western edge of Hollywood, is a refuge of tree-lined streets where neighbors greet each other by name and young couples start families and stick around into their golden years. Lately, it has also become a battlefront in a broader clash of conflicting imperatives: how to balance a government push to keep the aging and disabled out of institutions against community desires to protect the character and value of residential neighborhoods, particularly in a shaky housing market.

National Healthcare & Hospital Supply in Orange agreed Tuesday to be acquired by Owens & Minor, a large eastern hospital supply distributor, in a deal worth about $40 million. Officials of the companies said they were not prepared to discuss plans for the future of National Healthcare's local operations or the status of the firm's 360 employees, including 100 who work in Orange County. "I do know there are some mighty fine people in this company, and a mighty fine computer system here," said Owens & Minor President G. Gilmer Minor III. National Healthcare, which said it had revenue of more than $250 million last year, supplies needles, syringes, catheters, gloves and other medical supplies to health-care hospitals and other health-care facilities, mostly in western states.

The deal that ended the two-day strike against General Motors Corp. on Wednesday won't necessarily put GM back in the driver's seat, but unloading some of its massive healthcare obligations will help GM compete with nonunion Japanese rivals -- while sending the United Auto Workers into new territory.

After the collapse of a deal with hospital chain Providence Health & Services, officials from the Motion Picture & Television Fund are close to finalizing an agreement with another national healthcare provider that would keep Hollywood's most famous nursing home afloat. In February, the fund announced that it had reached an agreement with Providence to manage the hospital and nursing home in Woodland Hills. But the arrangement fell apart this summer after Providence, a Renton, Wash.-based nonprofit health services provider, balked at assuming financial responsibility for the operations.

CAIRO - The mother, barely past girlhood, was the first to die in Dr. Ahmed Eldin's care. Her heart would not stir beneath his compressions. He walked, distraught, out of the intensive care unit that day, past the mother's child, only a week old, sleeping in the lap of a relative in a dirty corridor of a public hospital, where patients often buy their own syringes, doctors run out of surgical gloves and the pharmacy sometimes lacks medicines that...

The whispers started right away: Was Patrick Soon- Shiong , a Los Angeles billionaire-doctor-philanthropist-businessman, on the shortlist of potential buyers for entertainment giant AEG ? Soon after the company put itself on the block Tuesday, Soon- Shiong representative Chuck Kenworthy confirmed that the mogul “is keenly aware that AEG is in play” and is “interested.” Here, a look into the life of the founder of Abraxis BioScience Inc. who, as of Wednesday, was the 47th- richest person in America and the wealthiest in Los Angeles . Soon- Shiong was raised in apartheid Sou th Africa by his Chinese immigrant parents; his father fled China during World War II and practiced traditional Asian medicine.

CHELMSFORD, Mass. - It's hard work being one of Dr. Damian Folch's diabetic patients. If a lab test shows high cholesterol, Folch is quick to call or email. No patient can leave the office without scheduling an annual eye exam, a key preventive test. A missed exam or an appointment leads to another call. "We are a real pain in their necks," joked Folch, a primary care physician in suburban Boston. "We track them down. " That kind of attention has always been good medicine.

Nearly every day, worried Californians call a Pacoima hotline asking what lies ahead in healthcare reform: Do I have to get private insurance? Will I lose my Medi-Cal? How much will it cost? When does it start? "There's mass confusion already," said Katie Murphy, managing attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, which runs the call line. With the presidential election over and the nation's healthcare overhaul moving forward, California officials have less than a year to clear up widespread uncertainty about future medical coverage options.

CAIRO - The mother, barely past girlhood, was the first to die in Dr. Ahmed Eldin's care. Her heart would not stir beneath his compressions. He walked, distraught, out of the intensive care unit that day, past the mother's child, only a week old, sleeping in the lap of a relative in a dirty corridor of a public hospital, where patients often buy their own syringes, doctors run out of surgical gloves and the pharmacy sometimes lacks medicines that...

The whispers started right away: Was Patrick Soon- Shiong , a Los Angeles billionaire-doctor-philanthropist-businessman, on the shortlist of potential buyers for entertainment giant AEG ? Soon after the company put itself on the block Tuesday, Soon- Shiong representative Chuck Kenworthy confirmed that the mogul “is keenly aware that AEG is in play” and is “interested.” Here, a look into the life of the founder of Abraxis BioScience Inc. who, as of Wednesday, was the 47th- richest person in America and the wealthiest in Los Angeles . Soon- Shiong was raised in apartheid Sou th Africa by his Chinese immigrant parents; his father fled China during World War II and practiced traditional Asian medicine.

Mitt Romney established universal health coverage in Massachusetts with an individual mandate to buy insurance. But he says he'll overturn an identical system at the federal level. He also has dismissed the idea of a Medicare-for-all insurance system in the United States. Yet the presumptive Republican nominee-to-be is hailing Israel's healthcare system as a model of efficiency and effectiveness. And what do you know - Israel has something like a Medicare-for-all system. Romney praised Israel for spending just 8% of its gross domestic product on healthcare while still remaining a "pretty healthy nation.

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans, who once promised to "repeal and replace" President Obama's healthcare law, for now have all but given up pushing alternatives to the sweeping legislation the president signed in 2010. In the last year and a half, House Republicans have sent the Senate just one 36-page bill designed to limit medical malpractice lawsuits, despite pledging to develop detailed legislation to slow rising healthcare costs, help Americans keep their health plans and broaden access to insurance.

Darden Restaurants Inc.'s second quarter was far from appetizing, as the owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster watched its net income plunge 37%. The Orlando, Fla., restaurant company saw the sour numbers coming. Earlier in December, citing a litany of factors including negative blow-back over its response to the new national healthcare law, ineffective promotions and Superstorm Sandy -- for its decision to lower expectations for the quarter. The prophesies came to pass: On Thursday, Darden executives said same-store sales at U.S. restaurants open at least a year tumbled a disappointing 2.7% for its three main chains for the period ended Nov. 25. At Olive Garden, which has struggled for months to counteract disappointing sales with refreshed stores and national specials, sales sank 3.2%.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the third-largest purchaser of health benefits in the country, approved a 9.6% increase in health premiums next year for its nearly 1.3 million members. The new rate takes effect Jan. 1. The hike represents a sharp rise over the 4.1% increase in premiums this year and topped 2011, when premiums rose 9.1%. CalPERS said the 2013 increase amounts to an additional $30 a month per member. Some health-policy experts were surprised at the size of the increase given CalPERS' purchasing power and the slowdown in healthcare spending nationally during a weak economy.

Re the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act, June 28 The three-plus years of the Obama administration have marked a lot of changes in our lives. For the first time in 15 years I had to look for a job; our daughter was born with a heart condition that requires three operations; several years of savings were wiped out; and my wife was laid off after eight years of teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2010, my employer's healthcare plan excluded coverage for preexisting conditions until President Obama's Affordable Care Act passed.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the third-largest purchaser of health benefits in the country, approved a 9.6% increase in health premiums next year for its nearly 1.3 million members. The new rate takes effect Jan. 1. The hike represents a sharp rise over the 4.1% increase in premiums this year and topped 2011, when premiums rose 9.1%. CalPERS said the 2013 increase amounts to an additional $30 a month per member. Some health-policy experts were surprised at the size of the increase given CalPERS' purchasing power and the slowdown in healthcare spending nationally during a weak economy.