California has become a model for ensuring schools can provide nutritious breakfast and lunch for all students without accruing district debt and stigmatizing students whose families can’t afford to pay.
Students in Upland Unified School District, where I work, not only get to grow and taste their own food in our school gardens, they also get to taste new fruits and veggies through a Harvest of the Month program.
Amid the federal debt ceiling talks, some lawmakers have their eyes set on cutting Medicaid funding.
That would be an ill-advised and costly mistake for everyone, not just for the vulnerable populations who are beneficiaries of the government-funded program.
For families like mine, California’s In-Home Supportive Services program is a lifeline.
But the IHSS lifeline is fraying as the cost of living soars. The IHSS pay rate for caregiving has barely inched above minimum wage in most parts of the state. The pay I receive as my father’s caregiver is not enough to support my family, so I have to work a second full time job.
Among the thousands of patients Dr. Donald Rebhun has seen at his primary care practice in the San Fernando Valley, stories that stand out in his memory include cases where he was able to make a timely impact on patients because of a simple electronic alert sent by the hospital, letting him know his patient had been treated.
But this kind of follow-up doesn’t always happen.
For far too long, missing and murdered Native people haven’t received the attention they deserve from law enforcement and government agencies across the state. Instead, their cases have often been ignored and California has failed to bring justice to the victims and their families.
The number of missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP) is staggering. It is a public health crisis.
Too many families must fight health plans to get mental health care for their children. The process to get care is often time-consuming, confusing and burdensome.
That is why we are sponsoring Senate Bill 238. Under this bill, parents will no longer have to appeal health plan decisions through the arduous Department of Managed Health Care process.
This winter, the U.S. experienced a dramatic increase in the number of children needing emergency medical care for respiratory infections.
These events should renew attention to factors we can control to keep demand for routine pediatric emergency medical care to a minimum, such as food access.
A woman dies every minute of heart disease in America. Yet the stereotypes about heart disease tend to suggest it is something that only affects men.
Think back to the last time you saw a heart disease-related commercial in a glossy magazine. It featured a white man in his 60s, right? It’s not a coincidence. After all, older men still run the country, when you look at the numbers in Congress.
As a physician, when a patient comes to me with an issue or illness that can be treated or even cured, my priority is to make sure they receive the correct and most effective treatment or medication.
Unfortunately, I am often forced to include another consideration in what I prescribe: a patient’s ability to afford the medication.
Health systems must acknowledge racism’s role in patient harm and medical errors.
That starts with more systematically collecting race, ethnicity and other data on both patient health and patient safety — which, incredibly, is not required today.