Latest From California Healthline:

A Biden Win and Republican Senate Might Lead to Gridlock on Health Issues

If Democrat Joe Biden is successful in his bid for the presidency but the Senate remains in GOP control, Democrats plans for major changes in health care may be curbed. The federal role in those policies is at stake as is Californias ambitious health care agenda. (Julie Rovner, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: Prop. 23, Which Would Have Imposed New Regulations On Dialysis Industry, Fails A $100-million effort to impose new regulations on the dialysis industry was defeated Tuesday. Proposition 23 would have required dialysis clinics to employ at least one doctor who would be on site whenever patients are receiving treatment. Supporters of the measure, including the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, said dialysis clinics were putting profits over patient care by not having a doctor available in the event of complications or an emergency. (Gutierrez, 11/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Prop. 23: California Measure To Stiffen Regulations At Dialysis Clinics Fails California voters have rejected Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that would have created new safety regulations for kidney dialysis clinics that serve 80,000 patients. The initiative sought to require that clinics always have a doctor on site during treatments, which patients with kidney failure must receive routinely to stay alive. Prop. 23 was behind by a wide margin in unofficial returns, with a simple majority needed for passage. (Gardiner, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: Prop. 14 Leading In Early Results On Stem Cell Bond A ballot measure to authorize $5.5 billion in new funding for stem cell research was leading in early returns Tuesday. Proposition 14 asked voters to approve an infusion of cash for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, known as CIRM, for stem cell studies and trials. California voters created CIRM in 2004 after approving a bond measure that year for $3 billion. CIRM used that bond money for research grants, new laboratories and training programs, but unallocated funds ran out last year, prompting supporters of the agency to return to taxpayers for additional money. (Gutierrez, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: A Close Race On Proposition 15 To Loosen Californias Business Property Tax Rules The fate of Proposition 15, an effort to remove high-value business properties from the low-tax protections enacted by California voters more than four decades ago, was unclear in early election returns Tuesday, after an expensive and fierce campaign over how much to spend on government services and the economic effects of raising taxes. The ballot measure was opposed by a razor-thin majority with more than 9.5 million ballots counted, a shortfall that was far from certain with millions of votes left to count. (Myers, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: California Voters Approve Prop. 22, Allowing Uber And Lyft Drivers To Remain Independent Contractors Californians sided with the $200-million Proposition 22 campaign led by Uber and Lyft, voting to pass the measure and grant ride-hail and delivery companies an exemption from California employment law to continue treating workers as independent contractors. The fight was one of the most closely watched ballot measure contests in the country and the costliest in state history. A win for the app-based companies has the potential to create a new campaign paradigm, with companies sidestepping government and spending large sums of money to sway voters with traditional advertisements and more unconventional direct marketing to customers. The measures passage also deals a blow to Californias powerful labor unions, underdogs in the race with far fewer financial resources than their foes. (Luna, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: Californians Once Again Reject Bid To Expand Rent Control In The State The failure of Proposition 21 means that, once again, landlord groups have convinced voters that stricter limits on rent hikes are not a solution to Californias housing affordability problems. A statewide ban on most new forms of rent control will remain in effect. Yet again, California voters clearly understood the negative impacts Prop. 21 would have had on the availability of affordable housing in our state by clearly rejecting this radical ballot measure, said Tom Bannon, chief executive of the California Apartment Assn., in a statement. It is now time to move from ballot-box battles and enact policies through the Legislature that allow the state to build more affordable housing that will once again make California an affordable place to live for our families. (Dillon, 11/3)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Measure O: Sonoma County Voters Backing Tax Measure For Mental Health, Homeless Services Voters early Wednesday were supporting a ballot measure that would raise sales taxes in Sonoma County to boost local spending on mental health and homelessness services by $25 million annually. (Silvy, 11/4)

AP VoteCast: California Voters Sour On State Of Nation Voters in California made their pick for president while holding negative views about the countrys direction, according to an expansive AP survey of the American electorate. The race between President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden concluded Tuesday as the nation remains in the throes of a global public health crisis and mired in the economic downturn it brought on. AP VoteCast found that almost three-fourths of California voters said the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction and about a quarter of voters said it is on the right track. (Keller, 11/4)

AP: California Chooses Biden, State GOP Hoping For US House Wins California delivered a strong rebuke to Donald Trumps presidency on Tuesday as Democrat Joe Biden ran up the score in the liberal state with a victory of 4 million votes in an election upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Bidens supersized victory didnt derail the state GOPs hopes of clawing back some of the seven U.S. House seats he party lost two years ago. Republican candidates had narrow leads over two Democratic incumbents in Orange County while another GOP incumbent clung to a small lead in the Central Valley. (Beam, 11/4)

AP: Some California Legislative Incumbents Fighting To Survive California Democrats were hoping to expand their supermajorities in the state Legislature as votes were tallied Tuesday. Several Republican incumbents in the 80-member Assembly and 40-member Senate were in danger of defeat. And with Californias top-two balloting, voters in some cases set up contests within the same political party by advancing the two highest vote-getters from the March primary election. Several in Orange County, the greater Los Angeles area and in the San Francisco Bay Area face challengers and have drawn high spending from interest groups. (Thompson, 11/4)

Bay Area News Group: Californias COVID-19 Cases Continue To Rise COVID-19 cases are continuing to climb, furthering a pattern thats trending in the wrong direction following two months where the numbers were stagnant. The seven-day average for the state increased for the second straight day, from about 4,162 cases per day through Sunday to 4,306 on Monday. It had decreased for four straight days following an eight-day stretch in which the number went up each day. The seven-day average no longer reflects the artificial increase of 6,300 backlogged tests in Los Angeles that were added in late October. (Hurd, 11/3)

Modesto Bee: Announcement Delayed For States Coronavirus Tier System. Stanislaus Cutting It Close Citing Tuesdays national election, California health officials postponed an update on coronavirus tier assignments until Wednesday. The weekly updates assigning counties to different levels of COVID-19 restrictions are usually released on Tuesdays. Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, health officer for Stanislaus County, told the Board of Supervisors the countys daily case rate was right at the key metric of 7 per 100,000 population. The county needs to stay below that limit to meet criteria for the red tier, which places lighter restrictions on restaurants, retail shopping areas, fitness centers and worship services. (Carlson, 11/3)

Sacramento Bee: 11 Dead Of COVID-19 At Woodland Skilled Nursing Home A skilled nursing facility in Northern California has been ravaged by two separate coronavirus outbreaks, with at least 11 residents dead and dozens still sick. Nearly 100 combined residents and staff at Alderson Convalescent Hospital in Woodland have tested positive for COVID-19 in two waves of infection occurring three months apart, according to Yolo County health officials. In early July, 17 residents and 10 staff members at the 140-bed facility contracted the respiratory disease, and three of the residents died, Yolo officials said. (McGough, 11/3)

Fresno Bee: If Fresno-Area COVID-19 Cases Spike Again, These Local Schools Could Still Reopen Classrooms Fresno County has remained in the red-tier according to Californias color-coded Blueprint for a Safer Economy, meaning schools can start to re-open. Many schools continue to apply for re-opening waivers as a safety measure if the area falls back into the most restrictive purple tier. A 14-day rolling average shows the county continues to report an average of at least 100 new coronavirus cases per day. Health professionals are also concerned with rising COVID-19 cases as winter approaches in lockstep with cold and flu season. (Dieppa, 11/3)

The Bakersfield Californian: Housing Project For Homeless Women, Children Slated For Panorama Bluffs Draws Opposition From Neighbors Plans to convert a single-family home overlooking the bluffs of northeast Bakersfield into a transitional residence for homeless women and children has drawn opposition from neighbors but received an endorsement from the city's planning department last week to proceed.(Shepard, 11/2)

The Bakersfield Californian: Please Don't Burn Wood At Home, Air Officials Beseech Residents In 'Worst Wildfire Season' "To protect the health of their families and their neighbors, we encourage residents to not burn wood this winter and instead choose to upgrade to natural gas devices through our grant program," he said. (Mayer, 11/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: One Bay Area Hospital Is Prepping For A Rise In Heart Attacks Caused By Election Stress Regional Medical Center in San Jose put extra staff on call Tuesday to handle what doctors believe could be a 15% increase in patients experiencing an array of cardiac issues caused by the stress of election day. These kind of stresses cause a well-documented increase in cardiovascular events, said Dr. Paul Silka, director of the emergency room at Regional Medical Center of San Jose. The 45-bed emergency room usually sees 185 patients a day. Because of the election, Silka expects that to go up to 210 patients or so. (Rubenstein, 11/3)

Becker's: California Health System To Lay Off 31 Workers NorthBay Healthcarewill lay off31 full-time workers as part of its pandemic recovery plan, the system said Nov. 2.The Fairfield, Calif.-based nonprofit health system said it needs to adjust operations to fit a new healthcare reality brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.(11/3)

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Daily Edition for Wednesday, November 4, 2020 - California Healthline