Articles by Kristen Hwang

April 2024

A New California Rule Tries to Hold Down Your Health Care Costs. Here’s How It Works

An ‘Impossible Situation’: Why California Hospitals Are Suing a Major Health Insurer

California Hospitals Keep Closing Their Labor Wards. Can Lawmakers Do Anything About It?

They Work 80 Hours a Week for Low Pay. Now, California’s Early-Career Doctors Are Joining Unions

March 2024

Will California Re-Up Its Empty Reserve of Abortion Pills After Today’s Supreme Court Hearing?

Californians Are Voting on Prop. 1, Gavin Newsom’s Mental Health Plan. Here’s What It Does

February 2024

California Gives New Moms Extra Medi-Cal Benefits. It Can’t Say Who’s Using Them

She Opened a Business to Deliver Babies. California Policies Drove Her Out of the Country

December 2023

Surprise Ambulance Bills Put These Families in Debt. A New California Law Bans the Practice

October 2023

Families Fume Over Newsom’s Veto of Children’s Hearing Aid Bill, Call His Plan ‘A Nightmare’

September 2023

California Sues Crisis Pregnancy Centers Over ‘Abortion Pill Reversal’ Claims

Gavin Newsom’s Mental Health Plan Is Going to Voters. Here’s What You Need to Know

California COVID Cases Are Increasing, Again. Here’s the Latest on Boosters and More

August 2023

Some of California’s Best-Paid Public Employees Say They’re Ready to Strike

July 2023

California Needs Thousands of Nurses, but Leaders Can’t Agree on How to Fill Jobs

Covered California Announces Biggest Increase in Premiums Since 2018. Here’s How Much

Gavin Newsom’s Mental Health Plan Could Strip More Than $700 Million From Services, Report Says

June 2023

Why ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Will Be California’s Next Abortion Battleground

May 2023

California Has Tried to Cut the Cost of Insulin for Years. Why It Might Finally Succeed

The State Approved Money to Lower the Cost of Covered California Insurance. Now Pressure Is Mounting to Make Sure It Happens

April 2023

Long COVID in California: ‘A Pandemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation and Rejection’

The California Mask Mandate Is Gone. Now Some Patients Fear for Their Health.

California May Change Its Mental Health Funding. Why That Might Cut Some Services

February 2023

COVID Disparities Grow as California Ends State of Emergency

Is California Breaking Its Promise to Cut Health Care Costs?

January 2023

State COVID Testing Sites Begin to Close

December 2022

More Street Medicine Teams Tackle the Homeless Health Care Crisis

October 2022

California to End the COVID State of Emergency

September 2022

As State Sets Higher Medi-Cal Contract Standards, Some Providers Predict Major Disruptions

June 2022

California Will Require Health Facilities to Start Sharing Patient Data With Each Other

March 2022

Overdue: State Owes Community Clinics Millions for COVID Vaccinations

February 2022

COVID-19 Has Turned Deadlier for Black Californians, Who Have the State’s Lowest Vaccination Rate

California Launches Ambitious Effort to Transform Medi-Cal to ‘Whole Person Care’

January 2022

California Hospitals Predict COVID Crisis Will Last Four to Six Weeks

December 2021

First US Omicron Infection Found in San Francisco

October 2021

Hospitals Brace for Strikes as California Workers Protest Staff Shortages

September 2021

California Vaccine Mandate: Most Health Care Workers Are Complying, Hospitals Say

Rapid COVID-19 Tests in Short Supply in California

August 2021

Nurse Shortages in California Reaching Crisis Point

COVID Hospitalizations Break Records in Six California Counties