Advocates of a single payer state health insurance system will need to acknowledge and embrace two truths: it will eliminate private health insurers and it will be a tax.
Affordable Care Act
ACA predicted to have positive impact on insurance disparities; Medicaid expansion key to widening access for black Americans
With the second round of open enrollment now underway, the Affordable Care Act is expected to help narrow racial and ethnic disparities in insurance coverage, a new report finds. However, not all communities are predicted to benefit equally. Because nearly half of the country’s legislatures decided against expanding Medicaid eligibility, black Americans may continue to face difficulties finding quality, affordable health coverage.
As public health practitioners increasingly look upstream to identify the determinants that put people on a trajectory toward lifelong health and wellbeing, early childhood is often tapped as a pivotal intervention point. Now, a new tool is available that practitioners can use to measure neighborhood-level opportunity indicators that are fundamentally linked to children’s health.
Government
Public health labs and the Ebola response: ‘This is the type of work they do day in and day out’
Months before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in Texas, the state’s public health laboratory had begun preparing for the disease to reach U.S. shores. And while the virus itself is an uncommon threat in this country, the response of the nation’s public health laboratory system wasn’t uncommon at all — in fact, protecting people’s health from such grave threats is exactly what public health laboratorians are trained to do.
Environmental Health
Occupational health and safety leaders honored, new policies adopted at American Public Health Association annual meeting
The OHS Section’s annual meeting at APHA brings together the best of public health: solid research, community-based methods, policy and politics, social justice and solidarity.
New report chronicles the low wages of child care workers; Johns Hopkins black lung review still unfinished; California nurses go on strike; and OSHA calls on retailers to protect their workers during Black Friday.
Environmental Health
Listen in on small businesses discussing draft OSHA infection control regulation
A select group of small business representatives will meet with OSHA this week to discuss a possible new regulation to protect workers from infectious diseases. OSHA has been convening these panels since 1997, but it will be the first time that we’ll be able to listen in on the discussion.
Dangerous workplace speedups a hidden side of the economic recovery; California recycling workers vote to unionize; emergency responders in west Texas face new challenges during energy boom; and the U.S. lags in eliminating the gender pay gap.
After more than a decade, OSHA used its “general duty clause” to issue citations to a poultry processing firm for ergonomic hazards.
Article series investigates lead poisoning at the nation’s gun ranges; autopsy shows coal miner was wrongly denied black lung benefits; health care workers take part in mass protective gear training; and a Wells Fargo employee sends a big email about income inequality.