Tag Archives: health

The task seems straightforward: Make a list of health care providers that would fill the void if Louisiana succeeded in defunding Planned Parenthood. But the state, which is fighting a court battle to strip the group of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicaid funds, is struggling to figure out who would provide poor women with family planning care if not Planned Parenthood.

Nowhere is this struggle more apparent than in a recent declaration by Louisiana’s attorneys that there are 2,000 family planning providers ready to accommodate new patients. A federal judge, reviewing the list in an early September court hearing, found hundreds of entries for specialists such as ophthalmologists; nursing homes caregivers; dentists; ear, nose, and throat doctors; and even cosmetic surgeons.

“It strikes me as extremely odd that you have a dermatologist, an audiologist, a dentist who are billing for family planning services,” said the judge, John deGravelles, who will determine in the next week whether it is legal for the state to end Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid contracts. “But that is what you’re representing to the court? You’re telling me that they can provide family planning and related services?”

His harsh questioning sent the state back to the drawing board. On Tuesday, the state’s attorneys acknowledged that the dentists and other specialists didn’t belong on the list. They filed a pared-down version that lists just 29 health care providers.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican contender for the presidency, moved to cut off $730,000 in Medicaid reimbursements to the state’s two Planned Parenthood clinics in late August in response to several heavily edited, widely circulated videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal parts, which is illegal.

Planned Parenthood denies the charges and has asked for an injunction to block Jindal.

In straining to identify alternate providers, the state has added to a growing body of evidence that other health care providers would have a difficult time accommodating low-income women if Planned Parenthood were no longer able to take Medicaid. Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana do not provide abortions. Instead, the clinics provide thousands of annual cancer and STI screenings, overwhelmingly to low-income women on Medicaid. In Louisiana alone, the group last year performed 2,100 well-woman exams, 1,200 pap smears, and 11,000 STI tests, and it administered long-lasting contraceptives 4,100 times, to 5,200 patients, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast said.

Several Louisiana health care providers that would have to take over Planned Parenthood’s patients have stressed that their capacity to do so is very limited. “You can’t just cut Planned Parenthood off one day and expect everyone across the city to absorb the patients,” Stephanie Taylor, who oversees the state’s efforts to curb sexually transmitted diseases, told the New York Times. “There needs to be time to build the capacity.”

Another obstacle is the dearth of family planning clinics and doctors that accept women on Medicaid or other forms of public funding. Across the country, Planned Parenthood provides contraception to almost 40 percent of women who rely on public programs for family planning. The Times notes that four out of five Planned Parenthood patients have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty level, at a time when two-thirds of states reported difficulties ensuring there are enough health providers, especially OB-GYNs, for Medicaid patients.

On Tuesday, there was fresh evidence for what the fight to defund Planned Parenthood means for poor women. The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank, published an analysis of nearly 500 counties where Planned Parenthood operates clinics. In 103 of those counties, Planned Parenthood is the health care provider for every single woman who relies on public funding for contraception. In an additional 229 counties, Planned Parenthood clinics provide care for at least half of patients who rely on Medicaid.

“Certainly in the short term, it is doubtful that other providers could step up in a timely way to absorb the millions of women suddenly left without their preferred source of care and whether those providers could offer the same degree of accessible, quality contraceptive care offered by Planned Parenthood,” the Guttmacher researchers wrote.

But the notion that patients could turn elsewhere remains a key rationale when abortion foes attempt to strip the group of $528 million in federal funding. The argument came up frequently in a Wednesday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on the Planned Parenthood sting videos. “We often hear that if Planned Parenthood were to be defunded, there would be a health crisis among women without the services they provide,” testified Gianna Jessen, an anti-abortion activist who was born after an unsuccessful abortion. “This is absolutely false. Pregnancy resource centers are located nationwide as an option for the woman in crisis.” Abortion foes have also touted a map showing more than 13,500 clinics that could replace Planned Parenthood.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the junior Republican from Louisiana, has said there were more than 100 community health care centers “scattered all over the state” that could accept Planned Parenthood’s patients.

Lawyers for the state appeared to contradict him after they whittled down their list of capable providers to 29. And even among those providers, their ability to pick up Planned Parenthood’s slack is questionable. In Baton Rouge, the site of one of two Louisiana Planned Parenthood clinics, the state lists five alternate providers. But only three of those offer contraception, according to the state’s filing, and two of those have wait times ranging from two to seven weeks. One of the Baton Rouge clinics the state suggested is not accepting any new patients for STI, breast cancer, or cervical cancer screenings.

The state did not withdraw its original list without a fight. When pressured by Judge deGravelles, an attorney for Louisiana stood by the list, saying it represented every provider in the state that had used a family-planning billing code for insurance reimbursement. Here is an excerpt of the transcript:

The judge is set to rule on Planned Parenthood’s call for an injunction before September 15, when the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood would expire and Medicaid reimbursements would stop flowing.

In the September 2 hearing, deGravelles expressed reluctance to allow the contract to expire, since the state hadn’t articulated a good reason for doing so. “You have 5,200 women who are getting their care at these facilities,” he said. “If these contracts are terminated that care is going to be disrupted…for no reason related to the health care they’re getting.…They’re going to have to get other doctors, they’re going to have to seek out other places to get their health care. Correct?”

“They will have to do that,” a lawyer for the state replied. “Correct.”

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Louisiana: Women Don’t Need Planned Parenthood. They Have Dentists.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged abortion, anchor, coast, health, lai, list, medicaid, Ona, parenthood, reproductive rights, times, venta | Comments Off

Kids Who Breathe More Pollution Have Lower Grades

by ShawnaWeston Posted on September 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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A growing body of evidence suggests pollution can do a number on the brain. The July/August Mother Jones cover story chronicled the research connecting neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to the dirty air we breathe; studies have found that pollution may also age the brain prematurely. And according to new research from the University of Texas-El Paso, pollution’s damage to the brain may start even sooner than was previously thought: Fourth and fifth graders exposed to exhaust emissions, researchers found, don’t do as well in school as their peers who breathe cleaner air.

Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Air Toxics Assessment, researchers estimated how often children were exposed to air pollution in their homes. They then compared that data with the academic performance of close to 1,900 kids enrolled in the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD)—an area prone to high levels of pollution.

Adjusting for other factors that can influence school performance, like socioeconomic status and parents’ education levels, the researchers found that students exposed to more emissions had lower grade-point averages. Areas included in the study were ranked by the amount of air pollution, and students living in areas with the highest levels (in the top 75 percent) had GPAs that were 0.031 points below those who lived where the air was cleaner.

The researchers also found that pollution from “non-road mobile sources”—such as airports, construction vehicles, and trains—had the greatest impact on GPA, even though factories and vehicle emissions often receive the most attention from policymakers.

The American Lung Association reports that some 139 million people—close to half of the nation’s population—live in areas with air that the group deems “too dangerous to breathe,” and the UTEP researchers highlighted that low-income families are more likely to live in the most polluted areas. Poverty alone has been connected to adverse affects on childhood brain development, but the new findings suggest poor students might be at an even greater disadvantage because of pollution levels near their homes.

“This study and this body of literature about air pollution is demonstrating one more negative effect of air pollution in our environment,” says researcher Sara Grineski. “There are many studies that show that higher levels of air pollution are associated with so many negative effects, from asthma, respiratory infections, cardiovascular disease, and autism, to reduced school performance.”

Grineski and her coauthor believe their findings indicate an even greater urgency to implement policies that will curb emissions. “The finding that there is a significant association between residential exposure to air toxins and GPA at the individual level is both novel and disturbing,” they write. “These findings provide another piece of evidence that should inform advocacy for pollution reduction in the USA and beyond.”

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Kids Who Breathe More Pollution Have Lower Grades

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, Eureka, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged anchor, citizen, Eureka, gpa, health, homes, independent, Ona, pollution, radius, research | Comments Off

This Map Shows Who Wants To Move To Your Country

by CleoYanezbx Posted on September 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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As the migration crisis in Europe continues to unfold, the images of dead children, crowded train platforms, and people trying not to be sent to migrant camps have triggered worldwide concern. Those jammed in Hungarian train stations or washing up on the shores of Greece each have very specific stories, but they are also a part of a long history of displacement. As long as there has been starvation and war, there has been migration to countries of peace and economic opportunity.

What is new, however, is the ability to look for information about a potential destination before going there. And all over the world, people are clicking on Google searches to learn more about lands of opportunity, especially the prosperous G-8 countries—France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Canada, and Russia.

In the map below, the Google News Lab has come up with a way to chart comparative levels of curiosity about the G-8 countries from others all over the world. For instance:

And here is the interest of Syrians in France:

Check out Google’s full map below:

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This Map Shows Who Wants To Move To Your Country

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged canada, health, hungarian, japan, king, kingdom, peace, police, russia, syrians, united | Comments Off

Why You Should Ditch Your Scented Cosmetic Products

by JuanitaJiminez Posted on August 30, 2015

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Why You Should Ditch Your Scented Cosmetic Products

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This GOP Presidential Candidate Is Trying to Destroy Planned Parenthood. Now Planned Parenthood Is Fighting Back.

by FinlayBales Posted on August 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Planned Parenthood in Louisiana is asking a federal judge to halt presidential candidate and state Gov. Bobby Jindal’s efforts to cut Medicaid funding for the health care organization, arguing that the cut would hurt nearly 6,000 low-income women, men, and teens who access the group’s services each year.

Referencing the series of attack videos that depict Planned Parenthood officials in California and other states discussing fetal tissue donation, Jindal earlier this month directed the state’s department of health to terminate Planned Parenthood’s contract with Medicaid, saying the organization was not “worthy of receiving public assistance from the state.”

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which operates clinics in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, does not offer abortion services in Louisiana. It does, however, provide physical exams, breast cancer screenings, and testing for sexually transmitted infections to 10,000 people each year, 60 percent of whom are enrolled in Medicaid.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, lawyers for the health care organization wrote that those patients will be cut off from health care access as early as next week, causing them “significant and irreparable harm,” unless the court blocks Jindal’s decision. Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which totaled nearly $730,000 last year, are set to end September 2 unless the court steps in.

A key issue is whether cutting off Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding is legal. This month, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) warned Louisiana that terminating Medicaid provider agreements likely violates a federal rule requiring Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any qualified provider.

The point of that provision, according to CMS, is to “allow Medicaid recipients the same opportunities to choose among available providers of covered health care and services as are normally offered to the general population.”

Louisiana isn’t the only state to cut funding for Planned Parenthood: Alabama, Arkansas, New Hampshire, and Utah have taken similar steps. And Republicans in Congress tried, but failed, to push through a bill to slash $500 million in federal funding.

Jindal is also one of a handful of Republican governors who have launched investigations into state Planned Parenthood affiliates in the hopes of finding criminal activity related to the sale of aborted fetal tissue. Those investigations, many of which are taking place in states that don’t have fetal tissue donation programs, have so far turned up nothing. The investigation in Louisiana, however, has put on hold the construction of a third Planned Parenthood clinic, which was approved by the department of health earlier this year after months of pushback.

But coming out swinging against the country’s largest women’s health care organization hasn’t translated to a more successful presidential campaign for Jindal. He was one of two sitting governors who did not get to participate in the first prime-time Republican debate this year because the forum was limited to the top-polling candidates. National polls have consistently put him in the low single digits.

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This GOP Presidential Candidate Is Trying to Destroy Planned Parenthood. Now Planned Parenthood Is Fighting Back.

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged anchor, congress, construction, health, judge, medicaid, organic, radius, reproductive rights, republican, venta | Comments Off

11 Surprising Uses for Fruit Peels

by CelesteGrasby Posted on August 25, 2015

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I Read Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan So You Don’t Have To

by RobynKirwin Posted on August 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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It’s health care day for Scott Walker. Today he released “The Day One Patient Freedom Plan,” a title that’s apparently designed to give the impression that his plan would start on Day One of his presidency. Yuval Levin comments that Walker’s proposal “will be familiar to health wonks,” and it’s true. It’s the usual conservative mish-mash of HSAs, high-risk pools, tax credits, interstate insurance sales, tort reform, and block-granting of Medicaid.

Oh, and Walker’s plan won’t require any tax revenue. This is….a little hard to believe since a quick swag suggests that the gross cost of Walker’s tax credits will run about $200 billion per year. I figure the net cost, once you account for the end of Obamacare subsidies and other current outlays, is still in the neighborhood of $100 billion or so.¹ That’s a lot, so I assume Walker explains pretty carefully how he’s going to pull this off without any new taxes.

Indeed he does. Here’s the answer: “We would simplify and reform how the federal government helps people access health insurance.” Gee, I wonder why no one’s thought of that before?

So far, there’s nothing very interesting here. Every Republican candidate is going to release a plan very similar to this. But there is one other thing I was curious about. It turns out that protecting people with pre-existing conditions is really popular, and this means that Republicans all feel like they have to support the idea. But how? Apologies for the long excerpt, but I want to make sure you see Walker’s whole answer:

No individual should fear being denied coverage, or face huge premium spikes when they get sick and then try to change jobs or insurance plans. My plan would address these concerns. It would make additional reforms to insurance coverage laws to ensure individuals with pre-existing conditions would be protected, not only when moving from employer-based plans to the individual market, but also when switching between plans. This would make insurance coverage more portable, permitting individuals to own their coverage, regardless of how or where they purchase it.

Provided individuals maintain continuous, creditable coverage, no one would see their premiums jump because of a health issue or be shut out of access to affordable health insurance because of a new diagnosis or a pre-existing medical condition. Newborns, as well as young adults leaving their parents’ insurance plans and buying their own, would have these same protections. Unlike the ObamaCare approach, my plan would protect those with pre-existing conditions without using costly mandates. By relying on incentives rather than penalties, individuals would be free to choose.

This is literally a non-answer. We do know a couple of things: (a) if you let your insurance lapse, you’re screwed, and (b) Walker will somehow prevent insurance companies from raising your rates if you maintain continuous coverage. He provides no clue just what kind of insurance regulation would accomplish this, and for a good reason: I doubt there is one. Obamacare accomplishes it via community rating, which requires insurance companies to cover all comers at the same price, but Walker surely rejects this approach. What he replaces it with remains a mystery.

One other thing worth noting: Walker’s tax credits would, at best, pay only for catastrophic coverage. Maybe not even that. Nor will his plan cover everyone. Nor is it likely to cost nothing. Nor does it have any concrete proposals to reduce the cost of health care. If you think that’s OK, then Walker is your guy. If you think everyone should be able to receive affordable routine health care, and you’re willing to pay for it honestly, you might want to stick with Obamacare.

¹Don’t worry about the numbers. They’re just illustrative guesses on my part. I’m sure experts will weigh in eventually with better estimates.

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I Read Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan So You Don’t Have To