Santa Cruz County mental health staff and patient advocates in California predict that many children enrolled in the state’s Healthy Families Program, an insurance program for low-income families that will be phased out in 2013, should actually have better access to mental health services once they start transitioning to Medi-Cal in January.
The Affordable Care Act excludes undocumented immigrants from buying health insurance on state health benefit exchanges. But healthcare providers in the Salinas Valley are weaving safety nets of their own for medically vulnerable farm and migrant workers who are essential to the country’s food production.
Low income children in Santa Cruz County already have a tough time getting in to see a dentist. As the state prepares to start transitioning 6,791 Santa Cruz County children covered under the state’s Healthy Families Program to Medi-Cal in 2013, dental options for those kids could get even slimmer.
A small town in the Salinas Valley has turned several downtown buildings into art exhibits to promote peace on the streets.
As part of a national campaign to find housing for 100,000 homeless people, Santa Cruz government agencies, businesses and community organizations are trying to house 180 chronically homeless people in their community. Programs in Los Angeles and elsewhere have shown that investing in programs to house the homeless can save taxpayers more than they cost.
A pilot program in Santa Cruz helps low-income patients navigate the health care system. “We need to provide these services because we’re a compassionate community, but we also can’t afford not too,” said Eleanor Littman, Executive Director of the Health Improvement Partnership.
Across the country, doctors, hospitals and insurers are forming new healthcare entities to increase the efficiency and quality of healthcare, and lower the cost of it. Called accountable care organizations (ACOs), these groups are gaining ground, even though critics consider them a repackaging of HMOs—some of which have given managed care a bad name.
Brian Warth was behind the wheel in a drive-by shooting in 1992. At 16 years old, he was tried as an adult and spent 16 years in prison. He made the most of his life on the inside, taking college and trade classes and spending 10 years as a prison pastor. Today, he’s also advocating for the California Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, which would give prisoners who were sentenced as juveniles to life without parole a small chance of release.