By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN, Sacramento Bee

On national television, President Obama contended this week that his plan to overhaul the country's health care system wouldn't spend a single federal dime on undocumented immigrants.

As he spoke, a Republican congressman called the president a liar -- once again bringing the incendiary issue of illegal immigration to the forefront of the national debate on health care.

Recession-battered California hospitals are asking state lawmakers to provide relief from seismic safety rules that could prompt closure of facilities that don't meet impending deadlines.

In retirement, Susan Frye looked forward to cruising the high seas, spending more time in her garden and resting her weary body from two demanding decades of work as a registered nurse.

Nearly a million Californians, perhaps hundreds of thousands more, cross the border to Mexico every year because they cannot afford the rising cost of health care in the United States, according to researchers.

Jacky Bruglia is on the front lines in the battle against a baffling new strain of influenza, and she takes an odd delight in being part of what she calls "something big."

When Daniel Jones ended his stint in the U.S. Air Force seven years ago, he had few job prospects. He returned to school, thought about a writing career and pursued a major in English at the University of California-Davis.

The dawn of electronic prescribing was supposed to end the head scratching and second-guessing from indecipherable handwritten prescriptions.
But Dr. Greg Bensch, a Stockton allergy specialist who takes pride in his penmanship, isn't ready to drop his pen and prescription pad.

Dr. Javeed Siddiqui, an infectious-disease physician, was at work when his iPhone rang with an urgent call. A colleague's niece was in distress. Her right eye was swollen from a dog bite.

Millions of Californians with limited English proficiency now have the right to an interpreter from their medical and dental plans -- made possible by a first-in-the-nation law aimed at dismantling the language barriers that get in the way of good medicine.

Hospitals continue hiring and new medical offices are opening, providing a glimmer in a gloomy economy. But jitters over the economy are putting retirements on hold and forcing hospitals to rethink once-aggressive expansion plans.