New Laws for the New Year; RIP Shecky Greene–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 1, 2024

Indy Digest: Jan. 1, 2024

Happy New Year, everyone!

Every new year brings along with it a bunch of new laws. Our friends at CalMatters have done a fantastic job of explaining some of these new laws—and how they may (or may not) affect various Californians (such as yourself!).

Here are links to some of these explainers CalMatters has published in recent days:

• “Nursing homes must provide more information before evictions.” The gist: “Threat of eviction is one of the biggest problems facing California’s nursing home residents. Residents often don’t even know why they’re being forcibly discharged. A new state law taking effect today seeks to rectify this with a simple change: nursing homes are now required to offer residents copies of any information that explains why they’re being evicted. That includes providing copies of the discharge plan and the date, place and names of witnesses to any incidents related to the discharge. In some places, it could also include information about why the facility can not meet the resident’s needs.”

• “Surprise ambulance bills put these families in debt. A new California law bans the practice.” Key quote: “A new California law taking effect Jan. 1 targets the kind of ‘surprise’ ambulance bills that put (families) in debt even though they had medical insurance. These bills take the form of out-of-network charges for commercially insured patients who have no control over which ambulance company responds to a call for help. Under the new law, patients will only have to pay the equivalent of what they would have paid for an in-network service. Health insurance and ambulance companies will have to settle the bill directly even if they don’t have an existing contract.”

• This a controversial one: “California becomes first state to offer health insurance to all eligible undocumented adults.” A snippet: “Beginning Jan. 1, for the first time, undocumented immigrants of all ages will qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for extremely low-income people. It makes California the only state to fund comprehensive health care for undocumented immigrants.”

• “New California housing laws aimed to streamline building process take effect in 2024.” The lede: “If California wants to build its way out of its long term housing shortage, plenty of things stand in its way in 2024: high interest rates, sluggish local approval processes and a persistent shortage of skilled construction workers, among others. But a slew of housing bills from the 2023 legislative session going into effect on Jan. 1 promise to ease or eliminate some of the other burdens. Among the batch of fresh housing laws are an especially high profile set by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener: Senate Bill 423 re-ups and expands a law that speeds up the approval of apartment buildings in which some units are set aside for lower income Californians, while SB 4 does something similar for affordable housing on property owned by religious institutions and non-profit colleges.”

• “California new laws for 2024: Cheaper vasectomies and birth control.” The lede: “Family planning will be less expensive for millions of Californians under a new law taking effect Jan. 1. Women will be able to go to their local pharmacy, pick up over-the-counter birth control and have insurance pay for it — no prescription needed. Meanwhile, more people will be able to access vasectomies with no out-of-pocket costs. The Contraceptive Equity Act of 2022 authored by former Sen. Connie Leyva, a Democrat from Chino, requires private health insurance plans to cover birth control products, including condoms and spermicide, without a prescription and no co-pays. This portion of the law applies only to women and is allowed only in in-network pharmacies. Men will have the option of cheaper vasectomies.”

There are even more of these fantastic pieces at CalMatters.org; I recommend you check them out.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Related to above: SFGate offers up quick hits on yet more new laws, with the headline “New California laws in 2024 include Airbnb refunds and a state mushroom.” Yes, a state mushroom: “In perhaps the strangest piece of legislation of the year, California now has an official state mushroom (‘Mushrooms are important for both wildlife and people,’ the bill’s text reads). Joining the poppy, redwood and bear flag is the California golden chanterelle.”

• Just a friendly reminder that if you live in or near the Coachella Valley, you live in serious earthquake country. Close-ish to home, a magnitude 4.1 shaker off the coast of San Pedro hit earlier today—but the big and awful news is out of Japan, where the New Year brought with it a deadly, destructive magnitude 7.5 quake. Here’s CNN’s live-updates page. As of this writing, four people are confirmed dead; 33,000 households are dealing with power outages; and “at least 1,400 passengers (were) stranded inside high-speed bullet trains more than 10 hours after the earthquake shook the region.” Eek.

• What airlines have been the best in terms of being on time in 2023? NerdWallet has the info: “Based on (Bureau of Transportation Statistics) data from January to August 2023, only one airline topped an 80% on-time percentage — and just barely. Delta Air Lines had an 80.8% on-time percentage. Alaska slipped in at 79.9% for second place. The worst performers were Frontier Airlines, with just 62.1% of flights arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time, and JetBlue Airlines, with a 65.4% on-time percentage. That means more than 1 of every 3 JetBlue flights and nearly 2 in 5 Frontier flights was delayed by more than 15 minutes during the period reviewed.”

• While I am petrified at what 2024 may bring (due to the election and all the drama that could surround it, for starters), the folks at The Conversation are here to point out that 2024 could bring some very cool space exploration: “Several new missions under NASA’s Artemis plan and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will target the moon. The latter half of the year will feature several exciting launches, with the launch of the Martian Moons eXploration mission in September, Europa Clipper and Hera in October and Artemis II and VIPER to the moon in November—if everything goes as planned.”

• And finally … a comic great who called Palm Springs home part of the time has died. The Associated Press reports via ABC News: “Shecky Greene, the gifted comic and master improviser who became the consummate Las Vegas lounge headliner and was revered by his peers and live audiences as one of the greatest standup acts of his generation, has died. He was 97. His widow, Marie Musso Green, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that her husband died early Sunday at their home. She said her husband of 41 years died of natural causes. Those who saw Greene in his decades of comedy dominance on the Vegas Strip in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s said that with a mic in his hand he could roam a room and work a crowd like no other.”

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