News of the Month — August
Our Sodexo workers were honored with the Dolores Huerta Award Saturday during the Orange County Democratic Party’s 24th Annual Harry Truman Awards Dinner, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Assemblyman Richard Bloom accused SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan of shoving him at a Sacramento Restaurant, the Sacramento Bee reports. Bloom reported the incident to the Assembly Rules Committee.
Workers won a landmark and lopsided victory this month as Missourians voted by referendum to overturn the state’s new right-to-work law, HuffPost reported. Proposition A asked voters whether or not they would like to enact the right-to-work statute that the state legislature passed and former Gov. Eric Greitens (R) signed early last year. The “no” votes defeated the “yes” by a 2-1 margin, with 937,241 against the proposition and 452,075 for, according to returns released Tuesday night by the secretary of state.
Prime Healthcare’s CEO and 10 Prime Hospitals including West Anaheim Medical Center have agreed to pay $65 million to resolve allegations that the company overbilled Medicare, the San Bernardino Sun reports. The settlement agreement resolves allegations that 14 Prime hospitals in California knowingly submitted false claims to Medicare by admitting patients who required less costly, outpatient care and by billing for more expensive patient diagnoses, a practice known as up-coding, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.
The Times of San Diego reports that backers of a proposed initiative that could dramatically increase taxes on commercial and industrial properties by undoing some protections imposed by 1978’s Proposition 13 submitted thousands of petition signatures Tuesday in hopes of getting the issue before voters in 2020.
Drug overdoses killed about 72,000 Americans last year, a record number that reflects a rise of around 10 percent, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. The New York Times reports that the death toll is higher than the peak yearly death totals from H.I.V., car crashes or gun deaths.
The Trump administration is preparing to let conservative-led states impose additional restrictions on the nation’s health program for the poor that could push tens of thousands of people off coverage, Politico reports. The high-stakes changes, involving work requirements and questions about illegal drug use, have been the subject of intense behind-the-scenes lobbying in recent months by federal and state lawmakers in the latest chapter of the GOP’s long-running efforts to reshape Medicaid — a policy priority extending back to the Reagan era.