The California Nurses Association has been at the forefront of every major change in health care in California over the last three decades – – be it HMO patients' rights or safe staffing levels for patients in California hospitals. Now the nurses see our health care future clearly again.
The Medical Board of California should soon have to answer for its failure to properly investigate accusations that a doctor's negligence harmed or killed a patient.
It would be unthinkable to decide the merits of a rape case without collecting evidence and interviewing both the victim and the accused. It is equally inconceivable that the Medical Board would close a complaint involving potentially life-threatening negligence after a medical expert gets only the doctor’s side of the story. Yet that appears to be the outcome of too many patient complaints to the Board.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra has just been confirmed. Now he's got a big test in front of him. Our public interest group, together with Food & Water Watch, just wrote him, urging him to investigate unfair business practices in the manipulation of Los Angeles natural gas supplies by Southern California Gas, its parent Sempra, and pipeline manager Kinder Morgan.
AB 700, to improve disclosure in political ads and ferret out the true source of campaign funding, was killed in the legislature this week by a surprising foe: the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Consumer Watchdog submited a Public Records Act request to the FPPC today to try to get to the bottom of this mystery, asking for all communications into and out of the Commission on AB 700, and other key reform bills that were killed or watered down beyond efficacy this year.
For over a decade Bob and Carmen Pack have fought to prevent reckless opioid prescribing after losing their two young children in an accident caused by a driver high on drugs and alcohol.
The end of a two-year legislative session is a showcase of the most anti-democratic tendencies of our political system, and this year will be no different. Last-chance votes on legislative proposals loom at the same time as lawmakers do their most prolific fundraising of the year. But this end of session might also bring votes on three reforms that could shake up democracy in California.