Author: Avisoscuba
Eloisa Mendoza has spent 18 years helping people who aren’t fluent in English navigate complex legal documents. She guides them through stressful events and accompanying dense paperwork, such as citizenship applications, divorces, and birth certificate translations. Mendoza works in Elko, Nevada, situated in a remote region in the state’s northeastern corner. Her work has become increasingly important as the town’s Hispanic or Latino population has grown to about 26%. The share of people age 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home increased to 18% as of 2022, while Spanish is the language spoken in nearly…
La disponibilidad de vacunas seguras y eficaces contra covid a menos de un año del inicio de la pandemia marcó un hito en los tres siglos de historia de la vacunación: comenzaba, aparentemente, una era de protección contra las enfermedades infecciosas. Sin embargo, una reacción generalizada contra las intervenciones del estado en la salud pública permitió que el presidente electo Donald Trump nombrara a Robert F. Kennedy, el más conocido activista antivacunas del país como máximo responsable del área de Salud. Ahora, expertos afirman que una confluencia de factores podría causar el resurgimiento de epidemias mortales de enfermedades como el…
Judith Graham Jeff Kromrey, de 69 años, se sentará con su hija la próxima vez que lo visite y le enseñará cómo acceder a sus cuentas en Internet en caso que sufra una crisis de salud inesperada. Gayle Williams-Brett, también de 69, planea empezar un proyecto que lleva meses posponiendo: organizar toda su información financiera. Michael Davis, de 71, va a redactar un testamento y va a pedirle a un amigo íntimo que sea su representante para asuntos de salud y albacea de su patrimonio. Estas personas mayores se han inspirado para emprender estas y otras acciones en un curso…
Jeff Kromrey, 69, will sit down with his daughter the next time she visits and show her how to access his online accounts if he has an unexpected health crisis. Gayle Williams-Brett, 69, plans to tackle a project she’s been putting off for months: organizing all her financial information. Michael Davis, 71, is going to draft a living will and ask a close friend to be his health care surrogate and executor of his estate. These seniors have been inspired to take these and other actions by an innovative course for such “solo agers”: Aging Alone Together, offered by Dorot,…
Veteran California public servant Will Lightbourne has stepped in as interim executive director of the state’s mental health commission after its previous executive director resigned following conflict of interest allegations. Lightbourne served as head of the state’s Department of Social Services for seven years before retiring in 2018 and had already returned to service once, as interim head of the Department of Health Care Services at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. On Nov. 4, he was tapped to lead the state’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission after executive director Toby Ewing announced he would step down. Documents…
KFF Health News senior correspondent Arthur Allen discussed the fragility of our vaccine infrastructure on The Atlantic’s “Radio Atlantic” on Dec. 5. Click here to hear Allen on “Radio Atlantic” Read Allen’s “Scientists Fear What’s Next for Public Health if RFK Jr. Is Allowed To ‘Go Wild’” KFF Health News contributor Andy Miller discussed U.S. obesity rates on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on Nov. 29. Click here to hear Miller on “The Georgia Health Report” KFF Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed how Wisconsinites can get health insurance from the federal marketplace on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Wisconsin Today”…
In recent decades, the Justice Department has sued several states for unnecessarily confining people with disabilities in places such as state psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and segregated workspaces. Such treatment violates a key part of the Americans With Disabilities Act — as affirmed in the 1999 Olmstead decision from the Supreme Court: that people with disabilities have a legal right to receive care at home or in other community settings. Some states — Delaware and Oregon — addressed the problems after settling with the DOJ. Others have struggled. Georgia was among the first DOJ targets for an enforcement lawsuit (and…
KINGSPORT, Tenn. — Jerry Qualls had a heart attack in 2022 and was rushed by ambulance to Holston Valley Medical Center, where he was hospitalized for a week and kept alive by a ventilator and blood pump, according to his medical records. His wife, Katherine Qualls, said his doctors offered little hope. In an interview and a written complaint to the Tennessee government, she said doctors at Holston Valley told her that her husband would not qualify for a heart transplant and shouldn’t be expected to recover. Defiant, she insisted he be transferred hours away to a hospital in Nashville.…
The availability of safe, effective covid vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases. Now, after backlash against public health interventions culminated in President-elect Donald Trump’s nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s best-known anti-vaccine activist, as its top health official, infectious disease and public health experts and vaccine advocates say a confluence of factors could cause renewed, deadly epidemics of measles, whooping cough, and meningitis, or even polio. “The litany of things that will start to topple is profound,” said…
The Host President-elect Donald Trump has continued naming out-of-the-box choices to lead key federal health agencies. Three of those picks — Marty Makary, who would lead the FDA; Jay Bhattacharya, who would head the National Institutes of Health; and Dave Weldon, chosen to administer the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — have something notable in common: All have proposed major changes to the organizations they would oversee. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court heard a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on transgender health care for minors, with the conservative justices seeming likely to support the state’s law. This week’s panelists are Julie…
ATLANTA — Deegant Adhvaryu completed his parents’ applications for Medicaid and food benefits in June. Then the waiting and frustration began. In July, his parents, Haresh and Nina Adhvaryu, received a letter saying their applications would be delayed, he said. In August, the Adhvaryus started calling a Georgia helpline, he said, but couldn’t leave a message. It wasn’t until September, when they visited state offices, that they were informed their applications were incomplete. The couple were mystified. They had Medicaid coverage when they lived in Virginia, before their recent move to metro Atlanta. While they waited, Adhvaryu’s parents — ages…
In 2017, the Republicans who controlled Congress tried mightily to slash federal spending on Medicaid, the government-funded health program covering low-income families and individuals. California, like other states, depends heavily on federal dollars to provide care for its poorest residents. Analyses at the time showed the GOP’s proposals would cut Medicaid funds flowing from Washington by tens of billions of dollars, perhaps even more, forcing state officials to rethink the scope of Medi-Cal. But the GOP efforts ended in failure — iconically crystallized by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, sick with terminal brain cancer, issuing his decisive early-morning thumbs-down. More…
Dan Weissmann Federal law requires that all nonprofit hospitals have financial assistance policies — also known as “charity care” — to reduce or expunge people’s medical bills. New research from Dollar For, an organization dedicated to helping people get access to charity care, suggests that fewer than one-third of people who qualify for charity care actually receive it. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann talks with Dollar For founder Jared Walker about its recent work, and how new state programs targeting medical debt in places like North Carolina may change the way hospitals approach charity care. Plus, a…
It seems no one is taking covid-19 seriously anymore, said Mollee Loveland, a nursing home aide who lives outside Pittsburgh. Loveland has seen patients and coworkers at the nursing home where she works die from the viral disease. Now she has a new worry: bringing home the coronavirus and unwittingly infecting her infant daughter, Maya, born in May. Loveland’s maternity leave ended in late June, when Maya wasn’t yet 2 months old. Infants cannot be vaccinated against covid until they are 6 months old. Children younger than that suffer the highest rates of hospitalization of any age group except people…
Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News With Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Republicans taking full control of Congress in 2025, the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion is back on the chopping block. More than 3 million adults in nine states would be at immediate risk of losing their health coverage should the GOP reduce the extra federal Medicaid funding that’s enabled states to widen eligibility, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News, and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. That’s because the states have trigger laws that would swiftly end their…
Días después de la victoria electoral de Donald Trump, el empresario de salud Calley Means recurrió a las redes sociales en busca de consejos. “Primeros 100 días”, escribió Means, ex consultor de la industria farmacéutica que utiliza la plataforma social X para enfocar la atención en las enfermedades crónicas. “¿Qué se debería hacer para reformar la FDA (Administración de Drogas y Alimentos)?”. La pregunta no era meramente retórica. Means forma parte de un grupo de líderes del sector salud y médicos no convencionales que están influyendo en el enfoque de Donald Trump sobre políticas de salud. El regreso de Trump…
Después de perder y recuperar las mismas 20 libras en más ocasiones de las que podía contar, Anita Blanchard concluyó que las dietas no le funcionaban. Así que cuando esta profesora de la Universidad de Carolina del Norte-Charlotte se enteró de que Ozempic —desarrollado para tratar la diabetes tipo 2— ayudaba a las personas a perder peso, y mantenerlo, Blanchard supo que tenía que probarlo. El seguro de salud para empleados estatales inicialmente cubrió la receta, y Blanchard solo tuvo un copago de $25. Dijo que en los siguientes siete meses perdió 45 libras y bajó su presión arterial y…
Noam N. Levey Worried that President-elect Donald Trump will curtail federal efforts to take on the nation’s medical debt problem, patient and consumer advocates are looking to states to help people who can’t afford their medical bills or pay down their debts. “The election simply shifts our focus,” said Eva Stahl, who oversees public policy at Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that has worked closely with the Biden administration and state leaders on medical debt. “States are going to be the epicenter of policy change to mitigate the harms of medical debt.” New state initiatives may not be enough to…
California’s new initiative to compel treatment for some of the state’s most severely mentally ill residents — many of whom are living on the streets — is falling short of its initial objectives. But with the program expanding from 11 counties to all 58 on Dec. 1, state officials are projecting confidence that they can reach their goal to help 2,000 adults by the end of the year. In the first nine months of CARE Court, 557 petitions were filed by first responders, families, or local health officials, all of whom can now request help for individuals who are ill.…
Jordan Rau, KFF Health News Covid’s rampage through the country’s nursing homes killed more than 172,000 residents and spurred the biggest industry reform in decades: a mandate that homes employ a minimum number of nurses. But with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the industry is ramping up pressure to kill that requirement before it takes effect, leaving thousands of residents in homes too short-staffed to provide proper care. The nursing home industry has been marshaling opposition for months among congressional Republicans — and some Democrats — to overrule the Biden administration’s mandate. Two industry groups, the American…
Carolyn Dickens, 76, was sitting at her dining room table, struggling to catch her breath as her physician looked on with concern. “What’s going on with your breathing?” asked Peter Gliatto, director of Mount Sinai’s Visiting Doctors Program. “I don’t know,” she answered, so softly it was hard to hear. “Going from here to the bathroom or the door, I get really winded. I don’t know when it’s going to be my last breath.” Dickens, a lung cancer survivor, lives in central Harlem, barely getting by. She has serious lung disease and high blood pressure and suffers regular fainting spells.…
After losing and regaining the same 20-plus pounds more times than she could count, Anita Blanchard concluded that diets don’t work. So when the University of North Carolina-Charlotte professor learned that Ozempic — developed to treat Type 2 diabetes — helped people lose weight and keep it off, Blanchard was determined to try it. The state employee’s health insurance initially covered the prescription with Blanchard kicking in a $25 copayment. Over the next seven months, she said, she lost 45 pounds and lowered her blood pressure and cholesterol. The most significant benefits, though, were psychological. “It stopped the food noise…