As California Goes, Part 2

Today, the following issues were reported in the Thursday edition of the Los Angeles Times:

"Giving California women more access to abortion, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Wednesday that allows nurse practitioners and certain other non-physicians to perform the procedure during the first trimester of pregnancy."

As you know, while I consider myself a "Choice" person, I also feel that if a woman can avoid an abortion, it not only saves the life of a child, since it's not a chicken she is carrying, it will also avoid any possible danger to the mother. Certainly, rape and incest have been and always should be valid reasons for a woman to choose to have an abortion.

But this is not a commentary on the moral v legal debate on this subject. Instead, while I wrote in As California Goes on August 15 that Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants should be able to do more of a Doctor's workload, I don't think that NPs and PAs should be permitted to perform "vacuous aspirations", since, at least to me, this is a surgical procedure.

I know they will be trained, but while they would have additional training, I think this is just a bit too much responsibility to place on someone not schooled as much as an MD. After all, the same logic would apply for a paralegal. Would the state allow a para actually represent a client even in a civil suit? I don't think so.

"The governor also signed legislation Wednesday that requires health insurers to cover prescribed, orally administered anti-cancer medications and to limit the patient's total cost to no more than $200 per 30-day supply. The law will apply to insurance policies issued in 2015 or later."

This is legislation I can truly support and I am pleased Governor Brown signed this legislation. I can tell you that I was very fortunate my insurance company covered my chemotherapy. My chemo, while administered via a four to five hour infusion drip at the office and 48 hours at home via infusion pump, would have cost $15,000 a month for biweekly treatment.

Fortunately, I was able to be treated properly and had a reasonable, affordable co-payment. I never would have been able to pay for my treatments out of pocket, as most people would not.

Being able to take a pill rather than infusion certainly allows for greater mobility for the patient but also realistically does not have better side effects than any other chemo treatment. But, why should the patient be penalized for his convenience? Understand that until now, chemo pill patients had an out of pocket expense of up to  $4,000 a month for this treatment.

I am sure there will now be lawsuits challenging the validity of these laws and other legislation signed by the governor, by people and groups against some or all of the new laws enacted. But for now, like it or not, these are the laws in California. Should opponents fail in their legal battles, other states will look to review the positive aspects of these laws and perhaps apply some of them to their state laws.

Remember, once again, as California goes, so goes.... You know the rest!