#KFF Health News

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Hundreds of thousands of poor Floridians have been kicked off Medicaid in recent weeks as their Republican Governor, Ron DeSantis, travels the country for his 2024 presidential bid and rakes in campaign cash from big donors.

Florida is among the states that have begun unwinding pandemic-era rules barring states from removing people from Medicaid during the public health emergency. Late last year, Congress reached a bipartisan deal to end the so-called continuous coverage requirements, opening the door to a massive purge of the lifesaving healthcare program.

A dozen states have released early data on the number of people removed from Medicaid as they restart eligibility checks, a cumbersome process that many people fail to navigate.

So far, the statistics are alarming: More than 600,000 people across the U.S. have been stripped of Medicaid coverage since April, according to a KFF Health News analysis of the available data, and "the vast majority were removed from state rolls for not completing paperwork" rather than confirmed ineligibility.

Nearly 250,000 people who have been booted from Medicaid live in Florida, whose Governor is a longtime opponent of public healthcare programs. As HuffPost's Jonathan Cohn wrote Sunday, DeSantis "has refused to support the ACA's Medicaid expansion for the state, which is the biggest reason that more than 12% of Floridians don't have health insurance."

"That's the fourth-highest rate in the country," Cohn noted.

But DeSantis, who has said he wants to "make America Florida," appears unmoved by the staggering number of people losing Medicaid in his state as he hits the campaign trail. The Governor relied heavily on large contributors to bring in more than $8 million during the first 24 hours of his presidential bid.

Prior to formally launching his 2024 campaign, DeSantis traveled the country in private jets on the dime of rich and sometimes secret donors, and he is currently facing a Federal Election Commission complaint for unlawfully transferring more than $80 million from a state committee to a super PAC supporting his White House bid.

Late last month, DeSantis' administration insisted it "has a robust outreach campaign" aimed at ensuring people are aware of the hoops they have to jump through to keep their Medicaid coverage, such as income verification.

In Florida, a four-person household must make less than $39,900 in annual income to qualify for Medicaid.

The state's early data indicates that 44% of those who have lost coverage in recent weeks were removed for procedural reasons, like a failure to return paperwork on time.

The figures have drawn outrage from local advocates, who urged DeSantis late last month to pause the Medicaid redetermination process after hearing reports of people losing coverage without receiving any notice from Florida's chronically understaffed Department of Children and Families (DCF).

"One of these individuals is a seven-year-old boy in remission from Leukemia who is now unable to access follow-up—and potentially lifesaving—treatments," a coalition of groups including the Florida Policy Institute and the Florida Health Justice Project wrote to DeSantis. "Families with children have been erroneously terminated, and parents are having trouble reaching the DCF call center for help with this process. Additionally, unclear notices and lack of information on how to appeal contribute to more confusion."

Citing Miriam Harmatz, advocacy director and founder of the Florida Health Justice Project, KFF Health News reported last week that "some cancellation notices in Florida are vague and could violate due process rules."

"Letters that she's seen say 'your Medicaid for this period is ending' rather than providing a specific reason for disenrollment, like having too high an income or incomplete paperwork," the outlet noted. "If a person requests a hearing before their cancellation takes effect, they can stay covered during the appeals process. Even after being disenrolled, many still have a 90-day window to restore coverage."

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that around 15.5 million people—including 5 million children—are likely to lose Medicaid coverage nationwide over the next year and a half as states resume eligibility checks made necessary by a system that doesn't guarantee healthcare to all as a right.

"Many people don't realize that they've been disenrolled from Medicaid until they show up at the pharmacy to get their prescription refilled or they have a doctor's appointment scheduled," Jennifer Tolbert, director of state health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told The Washington Post last week.

#us politics #news #common dreams #2023 #florida #gov. ron desantis #medicaid #affordable care act #KFF Health News #Jonathan Cohn #huffington post #Federal Election Commission #misuse of campaign funds #campaign finance laws #campaign funding #campaign fundraising #2024 republican primaries #2024 presidential race #2024 elections #Department of Children and Families #Florida Policy Institute #Florida Health Justice Project #Miriam Harmatz #Congressional Budget Office #Jennifer Tolbert #Kaiser Family Foundation #the washington post #medicare for all #healthcare is a human right

[pleasespellchimerical]

So I knew that one of the rules of Wild Mushroom Safety is to cook all wild mushrooms before consumption, but I didn't know quite how vital this was:

And it turns out, scientific literature doesn't know much either. Apparently uncooked morels can be /super/ toxic, and there's not a ton of awareness.

Anyway the Rules of Wild Mushroom Safety as I was taught them:

ID every specimen you plan to consume.

Cook.

Try a little and wait a bit, because people can have allergies to random mushrooms.

Do not mix with alcohol, adverse reactions can occur.

#mycology

[don-lichterman]

KFF’s Kaiser Health News and NPR Launch Diagnosis: Debt, a Yearlong Reporting Partnership Exploring the Scale, Impact, and Causes of the Health Care Debt Crisis in America

KFF’s Kaiser Health News and NPR Launch Diagnosis: Debt, a Yearlong Reporting Partnership Exploring the Scale, Impact, and Causes of the Health Care Debt Crisis in America

KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN) and NPR today launched a yearlong investigative project that explores the scale, impact, and causes of the health care debt crisis in the United States. Drawing upon a special KFF poll conducted for the project, original data analysis, and hundreds of interviews, the investigation reveals a problem far more pervasive than previously reported. That’s because much of…

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#America #Care #crisis #debt #Diagnosis #exploring #Health #impact #Kaiser #KFFs #Launch #News #NPR #partnership #reporting #scale #Yearlong

[acwellness]

KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: Views On The Pandemic At Two Years

KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: Views On The Pandemic At Two Years

The KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor is an ongoing research project tracking the public’s attitudes and experiences with COVID-19 vaccinations. Using a combination of surveys and qualitative research, this project tracks the dynamic nature of public opinion as vaccine development and distribution unfold, including vaccine confidence and acceptance, information needs, trusted messengers and messages,…

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#AC Wellneess #COVID19 #health updates #KFF #latest health news #Monitor #Pandemic #Vaccine #Views #Years

[autisticadvocacy]

"In all, an estimated 795,000 patients a year die or are permanently disabled because of misdiagnosis, according to a study...Women and racial and ethnic minorities are 20% to 30% more likely than white men to experience a misdiagnosis.”

[spnscripthunt]

In Their Own Words: What is the most difficult sacrifice you’ve made to pay down your medical debt?“

“Had to move into rental place from home and not able to buy a house. Cut in some household or good food for kids.” -35 year old woman with $5,000-$10,000 in medical debt, Texas

“Quality of life. We’ve never been able to ‘get ahead’ because we have a 35 year old disabled daughter. We’ve had medical debt for 35 years varying from 30k down to $500.” -60 year old woman with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, Tennessee

“Not paying bills on time, creating larger bills due to late fees. Depleted savings.” -38 year old man with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, North Carolina

“Cutting out any expenses/services I can. No job, fixed income and chemo. Even with insurance, no one can afford cancer.” -67 year old woman with more than $25,000 in medical debt, Nebraska

“Limiting birthday/Christmas gifts for children and grandchildren.” -83 year old woman with $1,000-$2,500 in medical debt, New Jersey

“Getting a second job. I’m exhausted and I don’t see a way out.” -44 year old woman with $1,000-$2,500 in medical debt, Ohio

“I can’t do anything; I literally stay at home. Never taken my kids on vacation. I’m a single mother and all my money supports the household. So, there are not a lot of extras in my house.” -55 year old woman, with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, Missouri

“Strain on relationship with [my] father due to asking for help to pay medical expenses; negative impact on mental health issues (e.g., significant increase in anxiety symptoms).” -35 year old woman with $10,000-$25,000 in medical debt, New York

“This was medical debt for my (now deceased) husband — my credit cards are maxed-out, savings is gone, I will need to relocate to afford rent and pay down bills.” -67 year old woman with $10,000-$25,000 in medical debt, Illinois

Source: Lopes L, Kearney A, Montero A, Hamel L, Brodie M. Health care debt in the U.S.: the broad consequences of medical and dental bills [Internet]. San Francisco (CA): Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; 2022 Jun 16 [cited 2023 Oct 11]. Available from: https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-care-debt-survey-main-findings/

—

So far we've raised $3,196.20 [2:11 PM Eastern; Sun Oct 15] for RIP Medical Debt toward our $5,000 goal.

With what we've raised so far RIP can wipe out over $300,000 in medical debt (nationwide).

Our goal is to wipe out $500,000 in medical debt (nationwide) and, as an incentive for donating $10+ we're doing an (optional) raffle of the last of our server (group) purchased scripts.

Key raffle scripts:

$1000 - signed Walker & Gotham Knights pilots

$2000 - Wayward Sisters (by Kim, Briana, Kathryn)

$3000 - The Winchesters (signed by so many)

$4000 - Stranger in a Strange Land (Jensen & Danneel)

$5000 - Lebanon (JDM, Sam Smith, J2, Misha)

Our fundraising page:

#thank you #walker #walker independence #supernatural #gotham knights #jericho #the winchesters #the x files #rip medical debt #admin: lets-steal-an-archive #tnx 🟩❄️ for tweeting tldr script summary

[theculturedmarxist]

Eugenics is still the rule of the fucking day.

"People 65-plus and people who are immunocompromised should strongly consider masking during flu, RSV, COVID season while in indoor public spaces," said Dr. Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News. "And for everyone else — it all depends on what their risk tolerance is."

"Depends on what their risk tolerance is." Are you fucking kidding me?

CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook says he likes to use the "weather report analogy" for the general public. "What's the weather out today? If it's raining, you will probably want to bring an umbrella. If you are in an area where there is an uptick in airborne respiratory infections like COVID, flu or RSV, you may want to take extra precautions, such as wearing a high-quality mask in indoor public spaces," he said.

People should be masking up before there's a fucking "uptick." That's how you prevent a fucking "uptick". Especially considering testing isn't the metric the people in power are going by any more, but hospitalizations, which are always going to be lagging indicators. By the time the "uptick" is registered these diseases are going to have been present and active for days or even weeks.

After COVID hospitalizations climbed nearly 22% this week, the CDC is predicting further increases over the coming month as new variants spread. This replaces previous projections from the agency that admissions would "remain stable or have an uncertain trend."

Oh, cool, so things are already bad and the are predicting that things are going to get worse, but the decision is being made to not do a fucking thing about it.

In a 2021 "60 Minutes" interview, virologist Paul Duprex explained the current (and future) emergence of new variants — a concept applicable to the current situation. "Is there anything we can do to stop the virus from mutating so much?" LaPook asked Duprex at the time. "We can certainly stop it making as many mutations by stopping it infecting as many people - if we block its transmission, if we wear a mask, if we get vaccinated, if we do social distancing," Duprex said.

None of which will be happening because "Covid Is Over" and doing any of the necessary things to prevent it are voluntary at best.

After news broke about the BA.2.86 variant earlier this month, the CDC said the agency's advice on protecting yourself from COVID-19 — which includes wearing a high-quality mask among other recommendations listed on its website — "remains the same."

Oh alright let's see what the CDC recommends

In addition to basic health and hygiene practices, like handwashing, CDC recommends some prevention actions at all COVID-19 hospital admission levels, which include:

Ugh. At least its recommendations implicitly admit that covid is airborne.

Still, some experts fear it could be hard to convince Americans to don masks again even if COVID cases continue to rise. Dr. Danielle Ompad, an epidemiologist at the NYU School of Global Public Health, said "It's a bit like putting the genie back in the bottle." Still, she has personally started wearing a mask again recently in crowded places, where the risk of exposure is greater.

Huh, I wonder why it would be hard to convince people to mask up again. Who's responsible for letting the genie out of the fucking bottle? Maybe they should be taken to task for this fucking decision?

"If I were with people who aren't public health-trained, I would wear a mask, particularly in crowded situations, because I really don't have time for COVID. Mask mandates are challenging because they make people really bent out of shape out of proportion to the ask."

What people are getting "really bent out of shape" by mask mandates? Just "people" huh? No specific people at all? Okay then.

"Who wants to get sick while on vacation?" she says. "If you're going to be in a crowded public place — the subway, an airplane, a crowded theater — those are the kind of places I would at least consider wearing a mask."

Hey maybe these fucking super-spreader places shouldn't be open especially with multiple variants spreading across the country with no mask mandates in place.

Though increased cases and hospitalizations are prompting precautions, Gounder says she doesn't see another lockdown in our future. "That ship has sailed. Has sailed for years now," she said. 

"That ship" just sailed itself, huh? Another development with no cause and no active participant? Just up and sailed on its own, did it? And there's no one to sail it back? Man, that's crazy.

#covid 19 #covid is airborne #pandemic

[lifewithchronicpain]

Ron Irby expected the artificial knee implanted in his right leg in September 2018 would last two decades — perhaps longer.

Yet in just three years, the Optetrak implant manufactured by Exactech in Gainesville, Florida, had worn out and had to be replaced — a painful and debilitating operation.

“The surgery was a huge debt of pain paid over months,” said Irby, 71, a Gainesville resident and retired medical technologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Irby is one of more than 1,100 patients suing Exactech after it began recalling artificial knees, hips, and ankles, starting in August 2021. A letter Exactech sent to surgeons blamed a packaging defect dating back as far as 2004 for possibly causing the plastic in a knee component to wear out prematurely in about 140,000 implants.

Many patients argue in hundreds of lawsuits that they have suffered through, or could soon face, challenging and risky operations to replace defective implants that failed.

Although Exactech does not offer an express warranty on its products, the company stresses the durability of its implants in advertising, even suggesting they likely will outlive their human recipients. (Read more at link)

#chronic pain #medical devices #surgery #medical malpractice #knee replacement surgery #hip replacement surgery #article

[gumjrop]

The Weather

While not in the US, an article from CBC News in Canada offers a look into the upcoming respiratory illness season. Data from Internal Alberta Health Services shows that patients hospitalized with COVID passed 900 and “roughly doubled” in a month. Accurate data are hard to find, however, as the provincial government changed how COVID statistics are reported. Cameron Westhead, second vice-president with United Nurses of Alberta, commented, “This government likes to talk about personal responsibility and making decisions that are best for yourself and your family. But we don’t have the data to make those kinds of decisions.” In addition, an outbreak in the community has the potential to overwhelm hospital systems again. Isolation requirements, PPE needs, and healthcare worker burnout are all major concerns with COVID patients. Rather than stripping healthcare of the precautions we need to control the ongoing pandemic, we must advocate for more support for healthcare workers, masks in healthcare, and acknowledgment of the severity of COVID infections.

Wastewater

We continue to wait for Verily, the organization taking over the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) contract from Biobot, to provide a readable Nationwide representation of the current wastewater levels. According to WastewaterSCAN, COVID wastewater concentration is medium nationally, apart from high levels in the Northeast. As of October 16, 2023, the national average of wastewater levels is 216.9 PMMoV Normalized. Regionally, the Midwest is 317.0 PMMoV Normalized, the Northeast is 589.82 PMMoV Normalized, the South is 152.3 PMMoV Normalized, and the West is 164.7 PMMoV Normalized. We emphasize that Wastewater SCAN has fewer wastewater sites represented as compared to Biobot. Combined with some other caveats, including the difficulty of interpreting their plots, we remain skeptical of Wastewater SCAN’s data.

The above graphic shows the overall trend for the United States. The y-axis is a scale for the quantity of nucleic acids, PMMoV Normalized (x1 million). While concentrations have been trending downward–with a possible recent uptick–we urge the importance of layers of protection. As the Northern Hemisphere enters winter and many folks celebrate holidays, please protect yourself and others with masking, distancing, clean air, vaccines, and other layers of protection. For more on layers of protection, refer to this writeup on PeoplesCDC.org.

Vaccines

NPR reports that parents are finding it difficult to find pediatric doses of the new COVID vaccines for their children. The CDC reports that pediatric doses are available, but several factors are limiting their spread. Faulty websites or outdated information from public and private organizations, shipping delays or errors in the number of doses shipped, and issues with public and private insurance all contribute to a lackadaisical approach to public health. Parents are frustrated at the situation and scared for their kids, especially as we enter flu season. We hope that if you haven’t been able to receive an updated 2023-2024 COVID vaccine, you are able to access a dose soon. If you have questions about insurance coverage, visit the KFF information page here. For children covered under state insurance, see information about the Vaccines for Children program. Uninsured adults may receive assistance through the Bridge Access Program. Please note not every pharmacy or clinic participates in this important program.

Long COVID

An article from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) argues that Long COVID studies in children are lacking. Estimates of prevalence of Long COVID in children range from 1% to 70%. Children may have different experiences with Long COVID from adults, as well as having limited vocabulary to describe their symptoms. Poor study design also contributes to artificially low numbers. Hannah Davis, co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, suggests that further studies could use a prepandemic cohort or electronic health record data to serve as controls rather than a cohort defined by negative PCR tests, which could contain false negatives. Additionally, more longitudinal studies are needed. The article highlights a huge range of uncertainty reflecting a lack of research. Children with Long COVID deserve recognition, care, and support.

Take Action

Reminder to either submit a written comment or register to give an oral comment to the CDC’s HICPAC meeting on November 2-3, 2023. National Nurses United provided some guidance on talking points one can use during the oral comments. You can submit written comments to [email protected] starting November 1, 2023, with the deadline at 11:59 pm on November 6, 2023. To request time for an oral comment during the webcast, submit your request to the oral comment submission form no later than 11:59 p.m., EST, October 23, 2023.  As the CDC is poised to weaken protections for patients and healthcare workers, please sign on with National Nurses United and demand the CDC be transparent. At the link, you can fill out a form to send an email to CDC/HICPAC leaders that emphasizes the need to post the updated guidelines in full for public review, make meetings and comments open to the public, and use a science-based approach to aerosol transmission.

Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 10/20/2023. 2) Changes in testing access as well as data reporting have led many federal data sources to become less reliable. 3) Wastewater data are being sourced from WastewaterSCAN and no longer from BioBot due to the end of the contract with the CDC. 3) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more!

#op #covid #covid 19 #covid isn't over #covid19 #coronavirus #pandemic #pcdc #people's cdc #long covid #public health #covid vaccine #covid-19 #medical #img #described in alt text

[corporationsarepeople]

Why not? Because $$.

#us politics #cdc

[covidsafehotties]

#mask up #covid #covid 19 #covid isn't over #pandemic #covid conscious #Public health failure

[spooniestrong]

#spooniestrong #spoonie #disability #chronic illness #chronic pain #autoimmune disease

[acwellness]

COVID-19 preventable mortality | KFF

COVID-19 preventable mortality | KFF

This updated analysis estimates that nationally at least 234,000 deaths from COVID-19 between June 2021 and March 2022 could have been prevented with a primary series of vaccinations. These vaccine-preventable deaths represent 60% of all adult COVID-19 deaths since June 2021, when vaccines first became widely available to adults across the country, and a quarter (24%) of the nearly 1 million…

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#AC Wellneess #COVID19 #health updates #KFF #latest health news #mortality #preventable

[autisticadvocacy]

“It’s not just bad, but worse than people can imagine. This unwinding has not been about determining who is eligible by all possible means, but how we can kick people off by all possible means.” https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/medicaid-unwinding-disenrollment-redetermination-state-delays/

[contentment-of-cats]

#medical care #religion #the most toxic fandom ever

[anotherkinnity]

Hey so I've had a peak at the inside of your server and the discussion of psychological alterhumans. I see that you edited one of your posts to say you're specifically open to spiritual alterhumans, but all of your other posts and even your bio still say it's open to all alterhumans. It's strange when a lot of members within your server talk about psychological alterhumans as if they're somehow not as valid as spiritual alterhumans, going so far to call them "kinnies". I don't think that behavior should be perpetuated.

I also noticed that when you edited that post, you edited out the word "serious" and replaced it with "spiritual". Was just really interesting to me after hearing some of the experiences from inside the server and seeing how members and staff talk about psychological alterhumans, talking about therians on TikTok calling them "KFF" or calling them fake, or even eluding to the mindset that all psychological alterhumans are somehow delusional and painting actual delusional folks as if they're bad.

I might be wrong about some things here, but definitely not all of them. If your server is exclusive to spiritual alterhumans, make that more clear, but it doesn't give you the go ahead to talk about psychological and delusional alterhumans in a bad light.

Hello! We are currently in a transitional phase to move from a server for all alterhumans to a server based in spiritual alterhumanity. As most of the staff are adults with jobs or in college, we may not have had time to fully update our advertisements and rules everywhere. Thanks for the heads up - we will make sure our verbiage everywhere reflects this. As for old posts others have reblogged, we unfortunately cannot edit those.

We do believe psychological alterhumans are valid! The issue comes when people have conflated psychological kin with things like copinglinks, cameo shifts, or flickers. We believe that words have meaning, and being kin means to identify as something, not with. People have asked if they can join mem jams with no memories, just to discuss fandom, or cut off conversations about identity to say they only find their kins relatable and nothing else. As for the use of the term “kinnies,” we use this term to refer to anyone, including ourselves. We are aware of the terms origins but prefer to both reclaim it and use it as shorthand, and it has not been used derogatorily.

As far as tiktok therians go, the discussion in question was centered around people claiming therian identity while only identifying furries or quadrobics enthusiasts. We believe conflating a genuine community like therians with a hobby is wrong and waters down the whole community.

Lastly, our server is for alterhumanity, not mental health. We are not equipped to help someone through a delusion, nor do we plan to encourage them. The point of a delusion is that it’s an aspect of psychosis that actively causes harm to the person believing it. That’s the difference between delusion and a personal belief. Additionally, many of the members here have been called delusional for our spiritual beliefs in other places, and would rather have a space to discuss our beliefs freely without them being medicalized as such. The IRL community is notorious as a whole for taking historically kin terminology and saying kin aren’t allowed to use them. They have also claimed kin can’t have memories or are only relating to their kintypes. We prefer to distance ourselves from people like this that refuse to acknowledge the past significance of terms and experiences in a community.

In short, we found people decide to misuse and abuse our welcoming of “serious” alterhumans and have narrowed the scope of the server to reduce stress on both staff and members. We aren’t saying serious psychological kin don’t exist, but rather that we don’t have the bandwidth to question every new member on basic definitions that we’ve seen get misused frequently.

-warren