Latest News On Prescription Drugs

Latest California Healthline Stories

Evolving Overdose Crisis Shakes Previously Effective Treatments

The prevalence of synthetic drugs is undercutting a previously effective and widely embraced opioid use disorder treatment tactic. Now, the model pioneered in Vermont a decade ago and adopted at sites nationwide, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas, is being forced to evolve.

California Expands Paid Sick Days and Boosts Health Worker Wages

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation expanding paid sick leave to five days, extending bereavement leave to miscarriages and failed adoptions, and approving an eventual $25-an-hour health care minimum wage. Still, in a possible sign of national ambitions, the Democrat vetoed free condoms in schools and refused to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Health Funding in Question in a Speaker-Less Congress

A bitterly divided Congress managed to keep the federal government running for several more weeks, while House Republicans struggle — again — to choose a leader. Meanwhile, many people removed from state Medicaid rolls are not finding their way to Affordable Care Act insurance, and a major investigation by The Washington Post attributes the decline in U.S. life expectancy to more than covid-19 and opioids. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Victoria Knight of Axios, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews physician-author-playwright Samuel Shem about “Our Hospital,” his new novel about the health workforce in the age of covid.