SACRAMENTO
California lawmakers are considering legislation that would require hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities to pay medical professionals $10,000 in “hero pay” for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But some employers and business groups have bristled at the $7-billion price tag, calling the bill “dangerous and costly.”
Assembly Bill 650 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) would award bonuses in four equal payments of $2,500 during 2022, with smaller bonuses for those who work part time. The pay would be spread out in hopes that the cash would entice healthcare workers to remain in their jobs, said the bill’s main proponent, the Service Employees International Union California, a labor union whose membership includes healthcare workers.
Assembly Bill 650 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) would award $10,000 bonuses to California healthcare workers. The pay would be spread out in hopes that the cash would entice healthcare workers to remain in their job.
SACRAMENTO
California lawmakers are considering legislation that would require hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities to pay medical professionals $10,000 in “hero pay” for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But some employers and business groups have bristled at the $7-billion price tag, calling the bill “dangerous and costly.”
Assembly Bill 650 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) would award bonuses in four equal payments of $2,500 during 2022, with smaller bonuses for those who work part time. The pay would be spread out in hopes that the cash would entice healthcare workers to remain in their jobs, said the bill’s main proponent, the Service Employees International Union California, a labor union whose membership includes healthcare workers.
California’s Rural Counties Endure A Deadly Covid Winter Patch 2/6/2021
Kaiser Health News
Covid-19’s fierce winter resurgence in California is notable not only for the explosion in overall cases and deaths in the state’s sprawling urban centers. This latest surge spilled across a far greater geographic footprint, scarring remote corners of the state that went largely unscathed for much of 2020.
In the past two months, covid-related infection and death rates have jumped exponentially in California’s least populated counties.
From March through November, the state’s 25 least populated counties collectively reported 235 covid-related deaths, a per-capita death rate about 60% lower than that of the rest of the state. (California has 58 counties.) From Dec. 1 through Jan. 29, those same rural counties reported 427 covid deaths. That is nearly twice as many deaths in 60 days as in the preceding 250.