The number of homeless people dying in Sacramento County is up dramatically, according to a new report, reflecting a trend that’s engulfing the state as homelessness continues to rise.
Author: Claudia Boyd-Barrett
Despite the prevalence of undocumented immigrants in the state, as well as immigrants in general, disaster response for this population has been haphazard. A bill that would require all counties to translate emergency communications into the second most spoken language in their region, is now on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.
As State Weighs Pesticide Restrictions, California’s Farmworkers and Students Continue to Be Exposed
Environmental and community activists say the state is moving too slowly and not doing enough to protect children, pregnant women and farmworkers exposed to a pesticide called chlorpyrifos, a product commonly used on strawberries that is linked to developmental disabilities. They’re calling for an immediate, outright ban of the pesticide.
People living in poverty, tribal communities, immigrants and the elderly are expected to suffer disproportionately from problems caused by a changing climate.
A massive overhaul of the state’s substance abuse treatment system is making it easier for counties to help people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, a new report by the California HealthCare Foundation has found.
Statistics show kids and teens in Orange County use specialty mental health services at a lower rate than children in most other counties in the state. Fewer than 2 percent of Medi-Cal-enrolled youth under age 21 in Orange County consistently received a specialty mental health service in fiscal year 2015 to 2016.
At the other end of the spectrum are counties like San Francisco, where almost 5 percent of San Francisco’s Medi-Cal enrolled kids came into regular contact with the SMHS system in that time. While the percentage differences appear small, they represent potentially tens of thousands of kids in lower-performing counties who are missing out on mental health care.
White people enrolled in Medi-Cal access mental health treatment at about twice the rate of other ethnic groups, even though they make up fewer than a quarter of plan enrollees, new state data suggests.
Federal attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act will ratchet up California’s health insurance premiums next year, but the spike is below last year’s increase and premium hikes projected for many other states.
On average, premium increases for Covered California health insurance plans and those on the individual market will rise 9 percent in 2019, according to officials with the state’s health insurance exchange. That’s less than the 12.5 percent increase in 2018, but still more than double the region’s rate of inflation.
In California, the state’s key program for providing mental health treatment to low-income children and youth under age 21 serves just a fraction of those estimated to need help, statistics show. And while the pool of children potentially eligible for these services has expanded under the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of kids actually receiving help has declined since 2010, a California Health Report analysis has found.
The University of California often takes months to resolve sexual harassment complaints against faculty members and fails to impose consistent discipline in such cases, a state auditor’s report has found.