For six months in 2012, about 20 passionate Californians representing interests with a stake in the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta met in an intimate discussion group to try to find common ground where decades of battle have been the norm. What they learned surprised many of them. Daniel Weintraub’s weekly essay.
When students start school in the Salinas Valley town of Bradley, they bring with them with pens, paper and notebooks. The school district provides their water bottles. That is because tap water in this south Monterey County school is undrinkable. It’s contaminated with dangerously high levels nitrates.
It’s a brilliant new idea for a rapidly aging population: a health center serving older adults that offers wraparound care spanning medical, dental, vision and mental health. Add specialties like dementia and end-of-life care. Finally, blanket patients with case management to connect them with important social services like housing, food, and other social programs for nutrition advice and abuse prevention. New? Sure, in 1976.
After a hearing in which justices strongly suggested their support for city and county discretion, patients and dispensary operators are bracing for the worst.
California voters oppose the idea of taxing sugary sodas unless proceeds of the tax are used to improve school nutrition and physical activity programs, a new polls has found.
The survey found that voters oppose such a tax by a margin of 53 percent to 40 percent when they are first asked their opinion. But when told the money raised would go to fight childhood obesity, voters take a dramatically different view, supporting the idea by a margin of 68 percent to 29 percent. Latinos, Asian Americas and African Americans support it in higher numbers than whites.
Soul food gets a bad rap, and some of it is unhealthy – but with some modifications and eaten in moderation, soul food can be good for your health, too.
Want to improve your health? Drive an electric vehicle. Ok, so maybe that is overstating it a bit. Beyond improving your psychic well being, an electric car will have a negligible impact on your individual health. However, if everyone were to start driving Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PEVs), the cumulative impact on public health would be dramatic.
California consumers got their first glimpse Wednesday at the insurance coverage that will be available later this year when the state implements the federal health reform known as the Affordable Care Act. The benefit plans and the first-year cost to consumers who will be eligible for federal subsidies were unveiled by Covered California, the agency in charge of implementing the new federal law, which Congress and President Obama adopted nearly three years ago and the US Supreme Court upheld last summer.
New data shows the need for a proposed law that makes removing a GPS ankle unit a felony punishable by prison, according to supporters of the law.
Coordination and effective use of existing resources can save money. That’s the idea behind the push for innovations built into the health care reform law, like electronic health records, pay for performance and accountable care organizations. But it’s unlikely that any of these innovations will be a silver bullet in the battle against rising health care costs, including accountable care organizations. Those familiar with the provider conglomerates say they may not be as much of a cure-all as health-care reform suggests.