Compared to other states, California is doing a relatively good job helping disabled and aging adults cope with the challenges they face living independently or in a long-term care facility, according to a new, comprehensive scorecard of long-term care services in the United States.
In some of California’s top strawberry-growing counties, levels of the banned pesticide methyl bromide remain nearly as high as they were a decade ago, despite a mandated phaseout, according to an analysis by New America Media. The fumigant was supposed to have been phased out completely by 2005, under a global pact to halt the thinning of the earth’s protective ozone layer. But in 2009, the latest year for which data is available, more than 5 million pounds of the pesticide were still in use, down just 50 percent from 2000.
Buying a more fuel-efficient cars, which tend to be more expensive than conventional cars, is a difficult decision for the everyday consumer. But the choices are even more complicated for business owners in the Central Valley. Adopting a more fuel-efficient model is better for the environment and air quality, making such a leap can be an economic challenge. In the Central Valley, home to many industrial and agriculture operations, some businesses must manage a fleet of vehicles that would be expensive to replace en masse.
Many California residents who don’t currently have health coverage will get coverage in 2014 through the federal health reform act. And now a federally-funded state program will get hundreds of thousands of low income adults coverage earlier than that through a program called the California Bridge to Reform. Under that program, patients are put into a Low Income Health Program, or LIHP.
A network of doctors, community hospitals and public health plans is proposing a new, low-cost health plan for some of California’s low-income residents. But a state agency created to implement the federal health reform law is opposing the idea, saying the low-cost plan would undercut efforts to create a new insurance exchange from which millions of Californians will begin buying their coverage in 2014.