Health Care Policy

"Trance": Danny Boyle Follows Up the Olympics

One Million Kids in California Are Uninsured, and Most Qualify for Subsidized Programs

More than one million children in California do not have health insurance coverage, according to a report released this month by the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. The figure represents around 11 percent of the states minors. That rate, 1.5 percent higher than the nat ... More >>

Obama Officially Wins Health Care Debate

Now is the time to take back all the really mean things you have said about Justice John Roberts. The very conservative Supreme Court Justice gave us a reason to think that thing just might be okay when he not only sided with the liberal justices on Obamacare, but wrote the majority opinion upholdin ... More >>

Mitt Romney Visits Bay Area to Get as Far Away from Obamacare Debate As He Can

​While the U.S. Supreme Court debates the constitutionality of Obamacare over in D.C., GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made sure to keep his distance from the debate -- literally. The former Massachusetts governor, who has been criticized himself over "Romneycare," traveled some 3,000 mil ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Cancer Patient Booted from UCSF

​Angel Raich is busy dying. The famous marijuana activist -- who took the federal government to the Supreme Court of the United States for the right to use medical cannabis -- was, earlier this year diagnosed with an inoperable terminal brain tumor, a condition that causes frequent seizures as wel ... More >>

Free-Market Biological Warfare

Medical Marijuana Patients Opposing Federal Approval of ... Medical Marijuana

umpp.orgStanding Up Against... Medical Marijuana​Medical marijuana can be good for the brain. No less an authority than the federal government's Department of Health and Human Services says so: HHS awarded to a group of doctors in 2003 a patent titled "Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotect ... More >>

LGBT Equality: Bay Area Hospitals Are Leading the Country

Human Rights Commissioner Cecilia Chung stars in the video on LGBT healthcare equality. ​Here is some good news coming on the heels of Gay Pride: Hospitals in the Bay Area -- San Francisco in particular -- are way ahead of the curve when it comes to how they treat LGBT patients, according to a Hum ... More >>

Nancy Pelosi Didn't Help S.F. Restaurants Get Health Care Reform Waivers

Republicans are just paranoid​Washington Republicans say they're shocked --  shocked that San Francisco restaurants obtained healthcare reform waivers handed out last month by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. They've even spun a conspiracy theory that says Congresswoman Na ... More >>

SF Barometer: Construction Spending Up, Muni Complaints Down

Muni riders stopped grousing, and started adapting to shoddy service​Is the recession over in San Francisco? There are still some 40,000 people without jobs, business is slow, and yes, food stamps are increasing. But here's a ray of hope. In December, the value of construction projects in the city ... More >>

Government lets fraudulent drug companies deal with Medicare

List: Longevity Is the Best Revenge

Grub and Citizen's Band try to reinvent comfort food

Patients Must Wait Month For Health Clinic Appointments

Bring a magazine. It's going to be a while. ​New patients now wait 30 days for an appointment at San Francisco public health clinics. That marathon delay is thanks in part to challenges incorporating new patients added to the government system as a result of Healthy San Francisco, the 2006 program ... More >>

What Do MEN Want?

City Analysts Want to Target Healthy SF, Overtime Pay, Golf in New Round of Audits

How healthy is Healthy San Francisco?​Officials in the office of the Board of Supervisors' Budget and Legislative Analyst have suggested that San Francisco's universal health-care program -- along with such topics as excessive overtime pay and the future of the city's public golf courses -- receiv ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Supreme Court Won't Hear Challege to Healthy San Francisco

​The U.S. Supreme Court this morning delivered a major victory for gun ownership rights -- and also denied to hear a challenge to San Francisco's universal health care plan. So if you're uninsured and shot within city limits, this is your lucky day.

What the City's Furloughs Mean for Health Care: Don't Get Sick

As in, 'Dr. No, He's Not In; He's Furloughed.'​Mayor Gavin Newsom's pending deal with unions to give workers 12 yearly unpaid days off could mean reduced staffing for everything from guarding swimming pools to issuing marriage certificates. But the effect might be most obvious at city-run clinics, ... More >>

Healthy San Francisco's Long Lines Slim Down

Yours, sooner...​No sooner did SF Weekly report that the city's universal health care program Healthy San Francisco had contributed to long lines at public clinics, than a new city report came out this week showing that waits had been reduced during recent months.According to the the San Francisco ... More >>

Matt Smith: S.F.'s universal health care program creates long lines

'Truth' Takes Back Seat in Health Care Debate

Yes, Virginia, she's infected -- with socialism! ​Health care, undoubtedly, is the subject du jour. We are in the midst of a crescendo of health care coverage so overpowering and unrelenting -- well, it could make you sick. But are we learning anything via the nonstop written and televised coverag ... More >>

Will Hipsters Drag Down U.S. Health Care System?

Will Yo Mama Care cover my tatoos?​Except for the hipster provision, extending to 26 the age brakeless track bike-riders get to stay on their parents' health insurance, most of the effects of the federal health-care legislation on its way to final passage won't be seen for several years.So for a v ... More >>

Gays Fed Up With Ineffective Queer Leadership

Dan Choi's not gonna take it anymore ... and neither is Uppity Fag​ The raucous events of last week -- protests at Nancy Pelosi's offices and the arrest of Dan Choi and Jim Pietrangelo at the White House - indicate that the LGBT community is no longer willing to abdicate its power to advocacy grou ... More >>

Ever-Articulate Palin Disses ObamaCare Over Whine of Snowmobile

Alaskan street cred​Sarah Palin, Least Intelligent Megalomaniac of All Time, reacts to the House's passage of landmark health-care reform. A teaser: "Next will be the cap-and-tax energy restrictions, and amnesty for illegals, and, um, uh, things, like, uh, card-check that union bosses will allow t ... More >>

East Bay Congressman Jerry McNerney Still Waffling on Health Care Vote -- But Not For Reasons You'd Expect

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, might soon have some explaining to do​With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco promising to deliver enough votes to pass landmark federal health care legislation by the end of the week, one of her Democratic colleagues to the east continues to keep observ ... More >>

Hardball: SEIU Sends Out Newsom-Emblazoned Mailers

Of course you know, this means war​In anticipation over today's pending battle at the Board of Supervisors meeting over whether or not to spend $8 million to save 40, 100, or 500 SEIU jobs at the Department of Public Health, the union has sent out a glossy, campaign-style mailer. And Gavin Newsom ... More >>

Gavin Goes Hollywood

Aide: Congressmen Stark, Miller 'Very, Very, Very Strongly Support' Strong Public Option In Health Care Bill

Yesterday we wrote about a "Whip List" leaked to the media of Congressional Progressive Caucus members who had confidentially promised party leadership to only vote for a health care proposal that included "a robust public option." Scanning the names on the list, most of the Bay Area representatives ... More >>

Has Gavin Newsom Found a New Bright Idea (Hatched By Someone Else)?

Those of you who grew up here in the Bay Area may feel a nostalgic tear run down your cheek when you view the above video: A 1970s-era KTVU "Charlie and Humphrey" Bits & Pieces short culminating with the message "1,002 stupid things to do: borrowing without asking!" Perhaps Gavin Newsom didn't w ... More >>

Supreme Court Sends S.F. Restaurateurs' Order Back -- No Emergency Order For You!

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy today informed San Francisco restaurant owners that he found their legal petition to be cold, undercooked, and full of gristle -- before sending it back. Kennedy spurned the Golden Gate Restaurant Association's application for an emergency order that would have ... More >>

Ammiano: Gavin Newsom has 'Tainted' Healthy San Francisco

Assemblyman Tom AmmianoAssemblyman Tom Ammiano knows you're angry -- he's angry too! But as many members of the progressive community, his natural base, begin to gripe about the city's plan to plow ahead full-bore with Healthy San Francisco -- the city's universal health care plan -- while slashing ... More >>

Nurses, Public Health Advocates: What Good Is Universal Health Care if You Have to Sit All Day in the Waiting Room?

The doctor will be seeing you ... sometimeTo many, the city's aggressive adoption of the Healthy San Francisco universal health care plan while simultaneously applying draconian cuts to the Department of Public Health's workforce and budget feels a bit like giving everyone a free pass to the amuseme ... More >>

Obama Gives Shout-Out to Newsom on Universal Health Care

The president told Gavin Newsom that universal health care is a capital ideaIn our story about the city's plastic bag ban, this paper said it best: San Francisco is a city that likes to be scratched behind the ears by an adoring world.  The city got its adoration from high places today: Preside ... More >>

Mayor's Answer to Budget Crisis: Expand Universal Health Care!

This man wants to sell you health insurance. More of it.Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced an unexpected new initiative -- the expansion of San Francisco's universal health care program, Healthy San Francisco, to cover all city residents with incomes below five times the federal poverty level. Call ... More >>

MarketWatch on Healthy SF: A Dollar Fee? You Gonna Eat That?

Supervisors play "You cut WHAT?" with the Mayor while city code gets tighter, and tighter. It's ...

SF Health Care Facing Severe Budget Cuts

Judge Orders ISP to Freeze WikiLeaks' Domain Name

Obama opens SF office: Craig Newmark blesses it, midwest hating hipsters suddenly support crossover appeal

Carbon offsets for all! Supes take 3 week vacation (and counting) while Newsom goes into productivity overdrive - either way we're screwed. It's ...

Double Payer

SF is out of the health-care business if the governor's new plan goes through.

Unhealthy Union

Could there be a secret deal with Arnold on health care that will inflate union rolls?

SEIU's Rosselli Resigns as State Boss -- Sac Bee

Security Guards Turn Financial District Over to Cat Burglars: "Meow."

Letters to the Editor

Week of June 11, 2003

Big Doctor Is Watching

As of April 14, the national security police can monitor your medical records without your knowledge. So can the local police.

Give Me Your Healthy

The immigration crackdown has Latinos fleeing mainstream medicine

Bed Sores

Laguna Honda Hospital's troubled times