Month: April 2013

Drop-out rate contributes to jobs-education mismatch

As California heads into a future dominated by technology, a skilled workforce is going to be more important than ever. But despite recent gains, the state is still not producing enough educated workers to fill all the jobs that are open — a cruel paradox in a time of persistently high unemployment. Only 78.5 percent of the students who started high school with the class of 2012 left with a diploma four years later, according to the latest figures released by the state Department of Education, up from 77.1 in the class of 2011. Daniel Weintraub’s weekly essay.

The limits of Obamacare

Kalwis Lo, 24, says Obamacare saved his life. But his story is also a cautionary tale about the limitations of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act — especially as it applies to young people.

Incentives paying off for non-profit practices

Pay for performance was the next big idea in improving patient care – until studies suggested that it wasn’t working especially well to reduce costs and improve health care. But one plan in the Central Valley is offering inventives that work. What’s their secret?

Faith-based organizations help step up ACA enrollment efforts

By the time national health-care reform takes effect next year, Los Angeles County health officials expect to enroll 300,000 people in an expanded Medi-Cal program. But some estimates put the number of people eligible for the low-income insurance coverage countywide at more than half a million. To help make up the difference, a coalition of churches, synagogues and nonprofits has launched an enrollment drive that invites people to sign up at the neighborhood church.

Preventing another Steubenville

“Coaching Boys Into Men” works with athletic coaches nationwide who then talk with their players — on the bus, in the weight room or during practice, among other places — about respect and healthy relationships, especially with the opposite sex.

Will reform of care for aging help or hurt?

Amid all the recent worry about people lacking health insurance, one vulnerable group of Californians appears to be suffering from too much, not too little coverage. Low-income older adults qualify for both Medicare and Medi-Cal. That might sound like a good thing. But the lack of coordination between the federal program for seniors and the state-federal program for the poor may be hurting their health. It is also costing the taxpayers a ton of money. Now the state is trying to fix the problem by combining all of the services available to these people under one administrative roof. That will include not only their health care but social services too, such as in-home workers who bathe and feed patients who can’t take care of themselves but don’t need to be in a nursing home. Daniel Weintraub’s weekly essay.

The Vibrant Brain: A User’s Guide

Three recent stories about brain health and dementia spotlight a frequent conundrum in the world of health: sometimes pills just don’t have the answers. In an eye-opening March report, the Alzheimer’s Association claimed that one in three adults over 65 will die while suffering from dementia – Alzheimer’s Disease in its most pernicious form. Another study, by the RAND Corporation, tallied the annual costs of dementia at between $157 billion and $215 billion – more than heart disease or cancer.

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