Paying for Health Care

How Medicare Fraud Became the Nation's Most Lucrative Crime

It costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. But the feds say they're finally trying to crack down

Protesters Deliver Petition Urging Antonio Villaraigosa To Quit Fix the Debt

Protesters delivered a petition to City Hall today calling on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to step down from the Committee to Fix the Debt.Angela Garcia Combs, who launched the petition last week through MoveOn.org, printed out about 14,000 signatures and dropped them off at the mayor's office at ... More >>

Gail Anderson, Ex-Chief at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Sues County for Humiliating Him in the Times

Well, this is bizarre: The former chief medical officer of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (a giant Torrance hospital run by the county) was paid over $400,000 to sit in his lavish Manhattan Beach home for the last year. That's because Gail Anderson was unofficially fired by the L.A. County Department o ... More >>

L.A. Effect Of Healthcare Ruling: 1.7 Million County Residents Will Have Access to Insurance

The Supreme Court's ruling today upholding the healthcare reform law will have a major effect close to home. In Los Angeles County, some 2.2 million people do not have health insurance. Thanks to the ruling, 1.7 million of them will have access to coverage, according to a statement from Mitchell Kat ... More >>

Occupy L.A. Is Mad About Supreme Court's Obamacare Ruling

Who knew? Occupy Wall Street (and its Los Angeles faction) hates Obamacare. That's because, though your run-of-the-mill Westside liberal is likely to applaud the "health care for all!" initiative, the more skeptical end of the 99 percent sees it as just another victory for corporate America:

African American Men Have 7 Fewer Years to Live Than Whites

Sure, history has turned a corner for African Americans. There's that one president. (And he might just get reelected if gas stays below $8 a gallon). There's multimillionaire Hollywood mogul Tyler Perry. And basketball sensation Jeremy Lin. Wait. He's what now? Oh, you get the picture. But UCLA ... More >>

[Updated:] Deal Reached in Grocery Store Labor Feud

L.A. County Federation of Labor​ Update:9/26, 10 a.m. On Sunday night, workers voted and approved a new contract, ending an eight-month dispute with Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions and Albertsons. According to insiders, workers will pay $7 a week for health insurance, or $15 per week for a family. The ... More >>

Laugh & Cover

Los Angeles: Broke and Broken

City Council clueless about vast, hidden costs in Villaraigosa's $6.9 billion budget

L.A.'s Library Measure L

There's lots of hidden City Hall fat to fuel the 73 shuttered libraries

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

10 In L.A. Indicted In $163 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme Said To Be Run By Armenian-American Organized Crime Syndicate

Google MapsThe Glendale home of Davit Mirzoyan, alleged to be a West Coast ringleader of the Medicare-fraud syndicate.​Ten of 73 people indicted in a huge scheme to bilk taxpayers out of $163 million were indicted this week in Los Angeles, federal authorities said. The mostly Armenian-America ... More >>

City Budget: Mayor Villaraigosa Touts Concessions By Engineers And Architects Union

​The Engineers and Architects Association, a union representing 5,000 city workers, ratified a contract that would have the employees pay about five percent of their monthly health-care premiums, up from zero. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraiogosa's office hailed it as an unprecedented and m ... More >>

UCLA: More Angelenos Without Health Insurance

​Nearly 29 percent of residents of L.A. County younger than 65 didn't have health insurance at some point last year, according to a new UCLA study. That's a staggering 2.7 million people and was significantly higher than the statewide average of 24.3 percent. Researchers blame the recession, ... More >>

L.A. City Union Will Get A Re-Vote After It Turns Down Deal To Pitch In For Health-Care

Paying five percent of your health-care premium when you used to pay zero doesn't sound like such a good deal. But if you're represented by the city's engineers and architects union, it might be the best deal you're going to get, especially at a time when Los Angeles City Hall is trying to hold toge ... More >>

Engineers And Architects Could See Another Vote On Contract With L.A. City Hall After It Rejects Deal That Would Raise Health-Care Costs

​The board of governors of the city Engineers and Architects Association planned to meet Monday night to discuss its members' rejection of a tentative deal with the City of Los Angeles that would have its workers pay five percent of the cost of their monthly health-care premiums. The deal, neg ... More >>

Emergency Room Blues: My Own Private Public Option

About eight or nine years ago a colleague at the Weekly mentioned that she went to see a doctor at her HMO because of a headache. She left hours later after being given an MRI and a thorough examination for what was basically a cold. That, she said, was why health-care costs were so high. At the tim ... More >>

Man Bites Off Protester's Finger at Health Care Rally

KTLAAftermath: Blood on a sidewalk​Call it a case of bite and run, but a 65-year-old man opposed to health care reform struck another man who was trying to reach a MoveOn.org-backed pro-reform rally of 100 participants -- and had half his pinky finger bitten off in return. And, in a dramatic tour ... More >>

Abortion "Holocaust Survivors" to Protest at Corn Field Rally

​When Congress members and others opened the doors of town hall meetings to hear constituents' views on health care reform, they never dreamed of what was waiting for them on the doorstep. By now we're familiar with the images of red-faced elders shouting down meek Congressmen, or of gun-toting ac ... More >>

Southland's Sickest Patients: Its Hospitals

Forget King-Drew Medical Center, the inner city hospital long regarded as the sick man of California's health care facilities. A recent spate of news reports shows that even the most suburban hospitals are rife with health-threatening incidents or financial difficulties. Today's L.A. Times reports t ... More >>

The Greatest Good for the Smallest Number

The Republican Congress doesn’t like to legislate, and it shows

Kerry Speaks!

Why this election is far from over

The Lost President

Can Karl Rove help this man find his way?

Les Moonves’ Hole Keeps Getting Deeper and Deeper

Ideologues Amok!

Right-wing zealots and our very own DiFi destroy Medicare, adjourn for turkey

Recall's Side Effects

The frantic push to get a health insurance bill to Davis in what could be his final days in office

Dr. G’s Hard Medicine

Will L.A. County’s top public doctor be remembered as the man who resuscitated health care for the poor or left it gasping for air on the operating table?

The Bad Doctor

Bill Frist’s long record of corporate vices

Cruel Priorities

DHS's right paw doesn't know what its left is doing

A Man and His Message

Government’s not the problem; it’s Gore (but not as much as before)

Liberty and Justice for All

The Democratic Party platform you won’t see

Bill and Al's Excellent Adventure

How Bill Bradley Learned to be a Principled Liberal, but not how to Campaign, and how Al Gore Learned to be a Terrific Campaigner, while Trashing his Party's Historic Principles.