Public Health Practice | The Pump Handle

Affordable Care Act We’re close to universal insurance coverage for kids. The GOP health care bills would reverse that.

June 23, 2017 Kim Krisberg 2Comment

The House and Senate health care bills are overflowing with proposals that will strip Americans of access to quality, affordable health care. But perhaps the cruelest part is what they do to children — the most vulnerable and powerless among us. Children can’t show up at the ballot box to protect their health and so it truly is up to the rest of us.

Affordable Care Act Worth reading: “Sabotage, speed and secrecy”

June 16, 2017 Liz Borkowski, MPH

Important pieces to read as the Senate considers the AHCA, plus articles on addiction, hate crime, and more.

Department of Labor Occupational Health News Roundup

June 14, 2017 Kim Krisberg

Indonesian workers who make Ivanka Trump’s clothing line report poverty wages and unjust working conditions; Colorado lawmakers adopt law providing workers’ comp for injured workers; Trump administration rescinds more Obama-era labor rules; and Walmart workers report being punished for taking sick leave.

Affordable Care Act Zika remains a serious threat. Federal funding cuts will make the problem even worse.

June 13, 2017 Kim Krisberg 1Comment

Last year’s emergency Zika funding is about to run out and there’s no new money in the pipeline. It’s emblematic of the kind of short-term, reactive policymaking that public health officials have been warning us about for years. Now, as we head into summer, public health again faces a dangerous, highly complex threat along with an enormous funding gap.

Affordable Care Act Trump’s budget is a disaster for public health: ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu’

June 6, 2017 Kim Krisberg 1Comment

When you ask public health advocates about President Trump’s recent budget proposal, you typically get a bewildered pause. Public health people don’t like to exaggerate — they follow the science, they stay calm, they face off against dangerous threats on a regular basis. Exaggerating doesn’t help contain diseases, it only makes it harder. So it’s concerning when you hear words like this about Trump’s budget: “devastating,” “not serious,” “ludicrous,” “unfathomable.”

Agriculture Occupational Health News Roundup

May 30, 2017 Kim Krisberg

Congressional lawmakers propose protections for undocumented farmworkers; the Trump administration takes aim at workplace civil rights enforcement; federal legislation would provide benefits for gig economy workers; and poultry workers get nearly $600,000 in back wages.

Affordable Care Act More research that defunding Planned Parenthood simply leaves women without needed health care

May 26, 2017 Kim Krisberg

To the surprise of literally no one, President Trump’s 2018 budget proposed stripping all federal funds, including Medicaid dollars, from Planned Parenthood. Proponents of this argue that if Planned Parenthood clinics end up shuttered, women can simply access care elsewhere. But growing research shows that’s the opposite of what actually happens.

Environmental Health The PRIDE Study is open for enrollment: People are ‘hungry to be heard and represented’

May 23, 2017 Kim Krisberg 4Comment

Last week, researchers officially opened enrollment in the nation’s first decades-long study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer health — an effort they hope will transform our understanding of the health challenges LGBTQ people face and begin narrowing a giant data gap on their physical, mental and social well-being.

Environmental Health Study: U.S. Zika burden could cost billions in medical care, lost productivity

May 18, 2017 Kim Krisberg 1Comment

A Zika attack rate of just 1 percent across the six states most at risk for the mosquito-borne disease could result in $1.2 billion in medical costs and lost productivity, a new study finds. That’s more than the $1.1 billion in emergency Zika funding that Congress approved last year after months of delay and which is expected to run out this summer.

Public Health Practice Open letter to President Trump from prison-released coal baron Blankenship

May 16, 2017 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 2Comment

Former coal executive Don Blankenship is appealing to President Trump to get to “the truth” about the Upper Big Branch disaster. He’s holding tight to his alternative facts in lieu of bearing responsibility for the death of 29 coal miners.