Human Services News

February 28, 2006

In Medicare Maze, Some Find They're Tangled in Two Drug Plans

From NYT > Health:

A result of "computer glitches," the situation leaves patients at risk of being charged two premiums or incorrect co-payments. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:53 PM

Veterans Report Mental Distress

From washingtonpost.com - washingtonpost.com - US government, national security, science and national news and headlines.:

More than one in three soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq later sought help for mental health problems, according to a comprehensive snapshot by Army experts of the psyches of men and women returning from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.

Iraq veterans are far more likely to have witnessed people getting wounded or killed, to have experienced combat, and to have had aggressive or suicidal thoughts, the Army report said.

Earlier research has suggested that 12 to 20 percent of combat veterans develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which produces flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts that disrupt work and home life.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:46 PM

Medical staff shortages threaten planned expansion of nation's community health centers

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Shortages of physicians may threaten the planned expansion of the nation's Community, Migrant, Public Housing, and Homeless Health Centers, concludes a study released this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Health Centers now provide medical, dental, and mental health care to more than 15 million Americans in more than 3,600 communities across the country.

There are Community Health Centers in every state and in the District of Columbia.

The problem may become worse because of recent cuts in federal funding for training family physicians, and recent declines in the number of medical students choosing to specialize in family medicine or in other primary-care fields, such as internal medicine or pediatrics.

According to a recent American College of Physicians report, the number of primary-care physicians who are retiring is greater than the number of primary-care physicians graduating from medical schools.

Attracting doctors and nurses to rural areas may require additional measures, such as increases in financial bonuses, already provided by Medicare, to rural physicians.

An accompanying editorial by Dr. Christopher Forrest, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, discusses the implications of the shortage of primary-care physicians on the nation's health-care safety net.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:28 PM

New Anti-Drug Program Shows 'Phenomenal' Success by Focusing on Positives

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

A newly released study suggests that a well-designed in-school and community communication campaign really can dramatically cut marijuana and alcohol use among young teens.

In a study of 32 schools in 16 communities around the country, researchers found that the campaign cut in half the number of students who began using marijuana and alcohol during the two years of the project, compared to students in communities without the program.

"That's a startlingly strong effect," said Michael Slater, principal investigator of the study and professor of communication at Ohio State University.

Slater said the success of the campaign was largely due to the sophisticated, well-researched theme, developed over the past 15 years by study co-author Kathleen Kelly, professor of marketing at Colorado State University.

A very similar theme was recently adopted by Office of National Drug Control Policy for its national campaign, which it calls "Above the Influence."

In half of the communities, two middle schools received the "Be Under Your Own Influence" campaign.

In addition, an area-wide communication effort was made available in these eight communities, mirroring the "Be Under Your Own Influence" theme for the in-school campaign.

In these communities, volunteers provided posters to local businesses and organizations, organized anti-drug events, and provided information to the local media, with the goal of reinforcing the in-school communication efforts at the two local schools.

The other half of the communities had no media program of any kind.

In addition, half of all participating schools (both those with and without the media campaign) also offered participating students "All Stars," a well-respected substance-abuse prevention curriculum.

We provide direct, immediate access to mainstream national media for 600 colleges, universities, medical centers, public-policy groups and other leading nonprofit organizations.

AScribe transmits news releases directly to newsroom computer systems and desktops of major media organizations via a supremely trusted channel - The Associated Press.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:21 PM

February 27, 2006

Mailman school researchers studying link between obesity and the urban environment

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health are studying the link between the urban environment and how it might contribute to the cause or origins of obesity.

Working with various city departments, Andrew Rundle, DrPH, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School, and his research team, are gathering data on neighborhood features such as land use, density of bus and subway stops, availability of nutritious food, the location and quality of parks and recreation facilities -- even the number of trees on a street and the number of buildings with elevators -- that affect a person's diet and activity levels.

Upon completion of the research, Dr. Rundle expects to have a large base of evidence linking the built environment to body size.

In some preliminary results, Dr. Rundle found that people who live in neighborhoods that have a mixture of residential and commercial uses have lower levels of obesity than people who live in neighborhoods that are closer to being 100 percent residential.

"Mixing supports walking, it supports incidental activity and it makes you independent of an automobile."

The data also indicates that as the density of bus and subway stops increases in a neighborhood, the body size of residents goes down.

With Americans in the grip of an obesity epidemic since 1975, Dr. Rundle hopes his research findings will bring a discussion of health to urban planning decisions in New York City -- and across North America, at the close of his four-year study.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:49 PM

The Search for Progress In the Quality and Equity of Student Outcomes

From MDRC:

The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC, now called Springboard Schools) in San Francisco, California, is a grant-making organization that supports districts' system-wide efforts to improve the quality and equity of student outcomes.

This report discusses the "focal strategy," which targeted six districts in the Bay Area ("focal districts"), beginning in the 2002-2003 school year.

With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit education and social policy research organization, is conducting an independent evaluation of BASRC's focal strategy.

This report, the first of two, analyzes the relationship between the focal strategy and improvements in student achievement.

It compares progress in the focal districts in the first two years of the strategy's implementation to progress in a set of carefully chosen comparison districts in the same area over the same period.

On the other hand, fifth-grade students' performance in the focal districts improved over time, slightly outpacing improvements in the comparison districts in Year 2, but the differences were not statistically significant.

The differences were most evident in reductions in the percentage of fifth-grade students performing below basic levels.

The evident lack of a substantial, pervasive association between the BASRC focal strategy and student achievement may not be surprising given that the strategy primarily targets district leadership and does not specify how reform activities may lead to changes in instruction or to instructional supports.

The BASRC focal strategy has the potential to strengthen district leadership for supporting school improvement, and it may set the stage for stronger systemic improvements that are designed to change instructional practices.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:36 PM

High-Risk Youth Grants for Communities

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) is sponsoring a $5,000 mini-grant to help community coalitions address the problems of high-risk youth.

The purpose of the six-month grant is to build community support services for children with parents or guardians who have recently finished treatment for alcohol and other drug abuse, and to have these programs serve as a model for other organizations to do the same.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:21 PM

Learning from the Youth Opportunity Experience: Executive Summary

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

This brief summary accompanies the 50-page full report detailing the experiences of 22 communities that received U.S. Department of Labor Youth Opportunity Grants to support education, work exposure, and youth development for under-served young people.

The Youth Opportunity Grants were part of the overhaul of the youth delivery system brought about by the passage of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

It required engaging all sectors of the community and pulling together multiple systems.

The grantees were required to engage a sizable proportion of the 14- to 21-year-old population, both those in and out of school, in their target areas.

Youth were to be connected to education support, workplace and career exposure, youth development activities, and case management support until they completed their academic credentials and successfully transitioned into the labor market or higher education.

Much was accomplished in a relatively short period of time in these communities.

These accomplishments are particularly notable, considering the complexities of the YO grant requirements, the challenges of the economic and budgetary environments in the local communities at the time of implementation, and the change in governance in the workforce system that was occurring at the same time.

Successful implementation requires a much longer planning and start-up time than YO sites were afforded.

Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:17 PM

Child Welfare League of America to Present Champion for Children Award to Ruth Massinga

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) will present its Champion for Children award to Ruth Massinga, former President and Chief Executive Officer the Casey Family Program, at a dinner in Washington, DC on Feb. 28. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:05 PM

Child Welfare League of America Announces 2006 Anna Quindlen Journalism Award Winners

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is pleased to announce the 2006 winners of the Anna Quindlen Award for Excellence in Journalism in Behalf of Children and Families during its National Conference. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:04 PM

February 24, 2006

Building Opportunity and Equity Into the New New Orleans

Building Opportunity and Equity Into the New New Orleans: A Framework for Policy and Action

Long before the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina or the chaos of evacuation, New Orleans' social infrastructure was failing.

News coverage of the overcrowded Superdome and the city's flooded streets exposed the poverty and vulnerability of many residents, especially African Americans.

As New Orleans begins to rebuild, can the city avoid the mistakes of the past, instead creating more effective social support for low-income and minority residents?

Innovation and experience from other U.S. cities offer promising strategies for reducing the risks of poverty and opening up opportunities for economic security and success.

This essay is from an Urban Institute collection that addresses employment, affordable housing, public schools, young children's needs, health care, arts and culture, and vulnerable populations.

All these essays assess the challenges facing New Orleans today and for years to come and recommend tested models for making the city's social infrastructure stronger and more equitable than it was before Katrina.

Long before the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the levees, or the chaos of evacuation, the social infrastructure of New Orleans was failing many of the city's residents.

Jobs and population had been leaving the city for decades; public school performance was dismal; and rates of unemployment, poverty, poor health, and hardship were high.

Conditions were especially bleak in the city's poor neighborhoods, where decades of racial segregation, disinvestment, and neglect fostered severe isolation and distress.

Certainly, many people who lived or had a business in New Orleans are experiencing uncertainty and loss.

But for families with no financial assets, little work experience, limited education or skills, poor health, or disabilities, the challenges of starting anew can seem paralyzing.

As New Orleans begins to rebuild, what are the prospects for these families and their communities?

An unprecedented opportunity will be missed if some of the investments in the city's reconstruction are not used to rebuild stronger, smarter social support systems and avenues for economic advancement.

No other city in the country---however distressed its economy or frayed its social safety net---has had to rebuild almost everything at once.

Posted by Michael at 3:16 PM

February 23, 2006

New U.S. Department of Education Study Finds Strong Link Between Challenging Studies and Degree Completion

From Education Newsfeed:

Completing academically challenging course work in high school dramatically increases the likelihood of a student earning a bachelor's degree, according to a new U.S. Department of Education study released today. The study, The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion From High School Through College, found that the academic intensity of a high school curriculum is the strongest indicator of postsecondary degree completion, regardless of a student's major course of study. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:47 PM

February TV Show to Focus on Math and Science Education, Discuss What Students Need to Compete in Global Economy

From Education Newsfeed:

What skills do students need to compete in today's global economy and how can our schools help prepare them for a work world that's becoming increasingly dependent on math and science knowledge? The U.S. Department of Education's monthly TV show, "Education News Parents Can Use," will address these and other questions, as well as provide tips for parents on how to encourage their children to learn math and science outside the classroom. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:45 PM

Tracking Poll Finds Three in Four Seniors Say They Have Reached a Decision About Whether or Not To Enroll in Medicare Drug Benefit

From The Kaiser Family Foundation:

A new tracking poll finds that 45% of seniors say they have enrolled or plan to enroll in a drug plan, 29% say they do not intend to enroll in a drug plan and another 23% say they are uncertain. The majority of those who do not plan to enroll say they have another program or plan that helps pay for their prescriptions. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:28 PM

The economic impact of local living wages

From Economic Policy Institute:

Prior to the passage of living wage laws, initial studies of their impact predicted high costs to local governments, employers, and consumers, as well as a loss of jobs for low-income earners. But the most reliable research on living wage ordinances belies these predictions, showing that these ordinances benefit working families with little or no negative effects. This Briefing Paper discusses the current research and the positive impact of living wages. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:08 PM

Bush's Tax and Budget Policies Fail to Promote Economic Growth

From Economic Policy Institute:

The economic evidence is clear: the president's tax changes have not worked to improve the health of the economy. Business investment, employment, and wages have all underperformed similar periods in the past. A new report by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that tax cuts for high-income individuals, for businesses, and for income from capital gains and dividends have not led to more investment, more jobs, or better growth. Moreover, the president's budget policies put at risk the future health of the nation by running massive deficits and by cutting back on important national investments in education, science, and energy. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:07 PM

Final 2006 Budget Bill Cuts Services to Abused and Neglected Children

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

by Casey Trupin, Vicki Turetsky, Rutledge Q. Hutson. On February 8, 2006, President Bush signed into law the 2006 federal budget bill, which includes provisions to decrease federal funding for a range of services that help children who have been abused or neglected. It also removes foster care payments for some low-income relatives caring for children at risk of abuse and neglect, and restricts access to some Medicaid services for children in foster care. The bill makes two modest improvements to child welfare funding, but they are not sufficient to offset the cuts. This brief examines the bill's impact on child welfare funding. 7 pages. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:02 PM

Reform or Dismantling? President's Workforce System Proposal Raises Serious Concerns

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

by Evelyn Ganzglass and Abbey Frank. President Bush's 2007 budget proposal calls for drastic reduction in funding for training and employment services and the consolidation of Workforce Investment Act and Employment Service programs into a single block grant to states. The proposed changes would channel most of the remaining resources into individual training vouchers thus diminishing state and local flexibility to tailor programs to meet the needs of employers and jobs seekers, especially low-income adults, hard-to-employ individuals, and disadvantaged youth. 5 pages. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:00 PM

How New Donors Are Changing the Philanthropic Equation

AEI - Short Publications

From the Gates Foundation high school initiative to the Annenberg Challenge, from the Children's Scholarship Fund to the Broad Prize for Urban Education, philanthropic efforts are playing a catalytic role in contemporary school reform.

Yet while such giving has helped define effective practice, forge school-community relationships, shape policy agendas, and redirect research, the nature of its influence remains shadowy and little understood.

U.S. taxpayers are spending upwards of $500 billion on K-12 schooling this year.

This makes it imperative that donors and recipients think long and hard about leverage.

The most visible and significant philanthropic undertaking of the 21st century is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's ambitious effort to reshape the American high school.

In February 2005, after several years of prominent Gates Foundation support for high school reform initiatives across the country, Gates delivered a keynote speech to the nation's governors at a National Governors Association conference.

Garnering headlines like "Mr. Gates Goes to Washington" on the New York Times editorial page, Gates told the assembled governors: "Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe.

Philanthropy constitutes only a fraction of 1 percent of total spending on K-12 schools, but initiatives like the Gates high school effort, Walton Family Foundation support for school choice, and the Broad Prize illustrate how such money can have a vastly disproportionate impact on the direction of America's schools.

Just four years later, in 2002, the top two givers were the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, both prominent supporters of school choice and charter schooling.

The other is that the new donors, most of whom have made their fortunes as entrepreneurs and hands-on corporate leaders in the new economy, have little patience for educational bureaucracies, traditional approaches to giving, or pleas to give the public schools more time.

In a sector where even the most generous gifts are no match for the money routinely spent on outdated and outmoded systems, the "new" education philanthropy's influence will ultimately turn on its ability to change politics and policy.

The result: a culture in which evaluation can be more about public relations than learning, and in which thoughtful criticism of new "silver bullets" is rarely delivered in a timely fashion.

Third, when confronted with the possibility that they will be assaulted for their civic efforts, there is a temptation for donors to give in conventional, inconspicuous, educator-directed ways and to soft-pedal the policy implications of their more daring efforts.

Fourth, individual schools and promising programs have long enjoyed much greater support than "pipeline" programs (like Teach for America or New Leaders for New Schools) that channel a river of energetic, entrepreneurial talent into the education sector.

Posted by Michael at 5:11 PM

The Health Disparities Myth

AEI - Short Publications

A new monograph by Jonathan Klick of Florida State University and AEI's Sally Satel, The Health Disparities Myth: Diagnosing the Treatment Gap (AEI Press, 2006) found no evidence to support the idea that racially biased doctors are a cause of poor minority health.

The notion of physician bias was popularized in 2002 by a report from the Institute of Medicine called "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care."

According to Klick and Satel, the charge of bias is divisive and siphons energy and resources from efforts to improve minority health, such as expanding access to high-quality care and facilitating changes in individuals' lifestyles and their capacity to manage chronic disease.

For the authors, a true public health solution to inadequate care would focus resources on improving the quality of care and self-care regardless of race.

Posted by Michael at 5:04 PM

Affluent, but Needy (First Suburbs)

Affluent, but Needy (First Suburbs)

As they grow and change, the nation's first suburbs, Nassau County included, show signs of stress ahead.

The problems of America's older, inner-ring first suburbs, Nassau County being among the most prominent, are finally beginning to draw national attention.

A new analysis of statistics comparing population growth and demographic changes in these areas from 1950 to 2000, to be formally released by the Brookings Institution this week, shows that across the country first suburbs are undergoing a series of changes that threaten their ability to remain vital and prosperous communities during the long term.

While still largely affluent and suburban in character, these places, which are adjacent to central cities and were identified as standard metropolitan areas by 1950, are beginning to take on some of the characteristics of urban areas.

An influx of lower-income minority and foreign-born residents means that, like cities, these first suburbs increasingly will need more state and federal aid to keep up with a growing need for social services and affordable housing.

At the moment, however, they fall through the cracks in a nation where government assistance has been directed for years at urban or rural areas.

Nassau, as we all know, possesses major assets---proximity to New York City, extensive parkland and beaches, quality neighborhoods, a large number of highly educated residents with high income levels and a highly developed transportation network for commuting to the city.

Posted by Michael at 4:38 PM

Making Sense of Charter Schools

RAND | Occasional Papers | Making Sense of Charter Schools: Evidence from California

The debate over charter schools often appears to be driven by theory and ideology, with little information on how the reform itself is affecting students.

This occasional paper adds clarity to the debate by consolidating the results from the RAND Corporation's comprehensive assessment of charter schools.

A key feature of this assessment has been the use of individual student-level data to track students from school to school over time and to measure their test scores in traditional and charter schools.

The analysis dispels many of the arguments from charter proponents or critics.

The results show that test scores for charter school students are keeping pace with comparable students in traditional public schools.

Similarly, minority students are performing no better in charter than in traditional classrooms, so charters are not affecting the achievement gap for these students.

Charter proponents have also expected that competition from charters would improve the performance of traditional public schools, but the evidence does not support this contention.

On a more positive note, charter schools have achieved comparable test score results with fewer public resources and have emphasized non-core subjects more than have traditional schools.

In addition, the evidence shows that charter schools have not created "white enclaves" or "skimmed" high-quality students from traditional public schools, as critics feared.

Finally, we discovered that school level operations varied considerably between charter and traditional schools, but these operational differences had little effect on student achievement.

RAND makes an electronic version of this publication available for free as a public service.

If you find this information valuable, please consider purchasing a paper copy of the full document to help support RAND research.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.

Posted by Michael at 4:23 PM

Wall Street Journal: We Must Change Policy Direction

Local Initiatives Support Corporation: Media Center: Wall Street Journal: We Must Change Policy Direction

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, LISC Chairman Robert E. Rubin advocates new economic policies designed to make America more solvent and competitive.

An Excerpt:

Our strategy should reaffirm market-based economics as the most effective organizing principle for economic activity, while recognizing the critical role of government in providing the many requisites for economic success that markets, by their very nature, will not provide.

Broad participation in economic well-being and growth is critical, both as a fundamental value and to realize our economic potential. Enabling all citizens to obtain adequate housing, nutrition, education, health care and much else will best promote productivity.

Broad-based participation is also the best antidote to protectionism, and to pressures for undue restrictions on our economic flexibility and immigration. For these same reasons, measures to increase security for the growing number of people dislocated in our rapidly changing economy may well be wise economically.

This can be done without creating the rigidities and excessive social benefits that have led to chronically slow growth and high unemployment in Continental Europe.

The seeming inertial tendency of our economy toward less and less broad-based participation is startling and too little discussed.

Median real wages, household incomes and family incomes have increased relatively little over the last 30 years, except during the last five years of the '90s. Thus, a study showed that in 1979 it took 44 people with average earnings in the bottom half of the population to equal each person in the top 0.1 of 1%, while in 2001, the last year in that study, that number was 160.

Our economy is not working for too many of our people, and that is a problem for all of us.

Posted by Michael at 4:14 PM

HUD Announces Nearly $25 Million in 'Sweat Equity' Grants

HUD News Release 06-021

NEW ORLEANS - More than 1,500 families will realize their American Dream with a little elbow grease and $24.8 million in grants announced today by Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary Pamela Patenaude.

HUD is awarding these so-called "sweat equity grants" to four national and regional organizations through the Department's Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP).

Patenaude made the announcement as she joined Habitat for Humanity volunteers constructing 15 affordable homes in Covington, Louisiana.

First constructed in Rockefeller Center in New York, Jackson, Mississippi, and as far away as Los Angeles, these homes are being reassembled throughout the Gulf Coast region and will eventually provide affordable homes for hurricane evacuees.

These funds are used to purchase land and make improvements on infrastructure, which together may not exceed an average investment of $15,000 per dwelling.

These non-profit organizations propose to distribute SHOP funds to several hundred local affiliates that will acquire the land, select homebuyers, coordinate the homebuyer and volunteer efforts for sweat equity, and assist in the arrangement of interim and permanent financing for the homebuyers.

Homebuyers contribute a minimum of 100 hours of sweat equity on the construction of their homes and/or the homes of other homebuyers participating in the local self-help housing program.

Labor contributed by volunteers also helps buyers who are unable to perform their sweat equity tasks due to disabilities or other reasons.

Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) is awarded a SHOP grant in the amount of $10,773,000.

HFHI is a national nonprofit organization that will use SHOP funds in rural, metropolitan, and urban areas to facilitate and encourage innovative homeownership opportunities through the provision of self-help housing.

Completed properties will be transferred to homebuyers who contribute a significant amount of sweat equity, in addition to other volunteer labor, toward the construction of the unit.

HAC is a national nonprofit organization that will use SHOP funds in primarily rural areas for land acquisition and infrastructure improvements that support new construction.

A portion of the SHOP award will be used for administration, planning and management development.

Community Frameworks is awarded a SHOP grant in the amount of $4,500,000.

ACORN Housing Corporation (ACORN) is awarded a SHOP grant in the amount of $572,000.

Posted by Michael at 3:56 PM

Tax Refund Loans Cost Low-incomeWorkers Cost $900 Million in Unnecessary, Unjust Fees

Children's Defense Fund

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Cashing in on the promise of a quick fix, millions of low-income American workers paid more than $900 million in unnecessary fees and excessive interest when they filed their taxes in 2004 to expedite collection of their tax refunds.

An analysis of IRS data by the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) found that most Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL) customers were low-income taxpayers who claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a refundable credit for low-wage earners, even though they only make up 17 percent of all taxpayers.

In Mississippi, RAL fees exceeded $25 million; in South Carolina over $26 million; in Tennessee more than $29.4 million was lost to RALs; in Ohio over $35 million.

In reducing the value of the refund taxpayers receive, RALs undermine the very purpose of the EITC, which is to help lift low-income families out of poverty.

Last year, working in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service and hundreds of faith and community groups across the country, CDF and coalition partners helped raise awareness and set up free tax preparation services to allow families to claim - and keep - more than $105 million in tax refunds.

Posted by Michael at 3:48 PM

Study: Cap Tax-Loan Fees

Community Media Workshop: Newstips - Study: Cap Tax-Loan Fees

Efforts to regulate tax refund anticipation loans are being bolstered by a new report detailing the cost of such loans to working families in Illinois.

Refund anticipation loans are marketed aggressively to lower-income families eligible for federal and state earned income tax credits, particularly in minority communities, advocates say.

According to national studies by the Consumer Federation of America and the Children's Defense Fund, a large proportion of refund loan customers are EITC recipients.

In Chicago, 43 percent of EITC recipients used refund anticipation loans, paying $30 million for loan and tax preparation fees, according to a new study by the Woodstock Institute based on 2002 figures.

"Working families throughout the city are spending hundreds of dollars to access their own money a few days earlier," said Tom Feltner, the report's author.

Throughout the United States, low-income families paid over $900 million "unnecessarily" in refund loan fees and interest, according to a recent Children's Defense Fund analysis.

"In reducing the value of the refund taxpayers receive, refund anticipation loans undermine the very purpose of the EITC, which is to help lift low-income families out of poverty," according to the report.

In addition to state regulation, the Woodstock report recommends that partnerships between tax preparers and banks to provide refund loans be "noted as a negative" in banks' performance evaluations under the Community Reinvestment Act, since they "negatively impact low- and moderate-income families" -- and that funding for free tax services should be increased.

This month California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued H&R Block, charging deceptive marketing, unfair debt collection, and privacy violations, and seeking an injunction blocking debt collection for refund loans.

Posted by Michael at 3:40 PM

Initial Health Policy Responses to Hurricane Katrina and Possible Next Steps

Initial Health Policy Responses to Hurricane Katrina and Possible Next Steps

News coverage of the overcrowded Superdome and the city's flooded streets exposed the poverty and vulnerability of many residents, especially African Americans.

As New Orleans begins to rebuild, can the city avoid the mistakes of the past, instead creating more effective social support for low-income and minority residents?

This essay is from an Urban Institute collection that addresses employment, affordable housing, public schools, young children's needs, health care, arts and culture, and vulnerable populations.

All these essays assess the challenges facing New Orleans today and for years to come and recommend tested models for making the city's social infrastructure stronger and more equitable than it was before Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the New Orleans health care system.

With more than a dozen hospitals damaged and thousands of doctors dislocated, virtually all New Orleanians lost access to their usual health care providers.

The devastation of New Orleans' health care system was especially profound for the low-income uninsured, most of whom depend heavily on a handful of providers, especially Charity Hospital, one of the nation's oldest health facilities dedicated to treating the poor and disadvantaged.

Although the immediate crisis has subsided, state and national officials, employers, and insurers must confront a wide array of difficult health care challenges in Katrina's aftermath.

Posted by Michael at 3:02 PM

Grassroots and Groundwork - Call for Presentations

Call for Presentations / NWAF

Poverty is complex. Working to reduce poverty is tough and complicated. That’s why communities all across the country are using systemic approaches to attack poverty at its roots.

In September 2006, the Northwest Area Foundation will sponsor the region’s second conference devoted to showcasing the innovative models and tools communities are developing to get out and stay out of poverty.

The goal is to ‘identify, share, and advocate for what works.’ The purpose of the conference is to provide a place and time for attendees to roll up their sleeves and examine practical models at work in communities all across the country.

You are invited to share your model with conference attendees – community private citizens, policy makers, business leaders, service providers, and researchers interested in poverty reduction. Your presentation will contribute to the body of systems and tools conferees can consider as they work to reduce poverty and increase wealth in their home communities.

Posted by Michael at 2:36 AM

February 16, 2006

Medicare at Forty

Medicare at 40: Looking Back, Moving Forward

When Medicare was enacted in 1965, more than half of elderly Americans were uninsured. Seniors lost their health insurance when they retired, and private insurance companies were reluctant to provide coverage to them.

Since that time, Medicare---now in its 40th year---has achieved its two basic goals: protecting elderly and disabled Americans from burdensome medical care bills and ensuring they get needed health care.

In "Medicare at Forty," (Health Care Financing Review, Winter 2005--06), Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, Ph.D., and Senior Program Officer Sara R. Collins, Ph.D., look back at Medicare's successes, describe its challenges as health care costs rise and waves of baby boomers face retirement, and suggest policy options to ensure health and financial security for all Americans.

Beneficiaries Satisfied with Quality, Access to Care Medicare beneficiaries report a high level of satisfaction with the program, and with the care they receive.

They are less likely to go without needed care because of costs or to report access problems, like skipping a medical test or not seeing a specialist when needed.

The most common access problem for aged Medicare beneficiaries---not filling a prescription---is likely to change with the implementation of the new prescription drug legislation.

Challenges to Providing Care: Racial Disparities and Rising Costs Although Medicare was instrumental in desegregating U.S. hospitals---due to requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act---racial and ethnic disparities persist.

Medicare has had somewhat slower spending growth than have private health insurers, mainly due to the structured payment systems and regulatory controls of the program.

Future Policy Options With increasing costs and an expanding pool of enrollees straining the federal budget, new strategies are needed to encourage people to save for health care expenses in retirement.

These accounts, managed by Medicare and invested in government securities, would give working-age adults the option of setting aside a portion of wages to meet expenses not covered by Medicare, like premiums or long-term care expenses.

Such coverage, dubbed Medicare Extra or Part E, could help eliminate confusion for beneficiaries, as well as cut expenses by reducing duplicated and unnecessary administrative expenses.

For the sickest Medicare patients, innovations in care management, like advance practice nurses who provide follow-up care to high-risk patients, could reduce costs and improve outcomes.

Posted by Michael at 11:04 PM

Young People to Mobilize Against Failed Abstinence-Only Programs

Young People to Mobilize Against Failed Abstinence-Only Programs at Home and Abroad

WASHINGTON, DC (February 13, 2006) At a time when the President's FY2007 budget requests significant increases for failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs at home and abroad, Advocates for Youth is launching two new campaigns to mobilize young people across the country in opposition to these ineffective and dangerous programs that censor information about condoms.

The Rights.Respect.Responsibility.® Keep It REAL campaign and the Rights.Respect.Responsibility.® Fix the Gap campaign both build upon Advocates' Youth Activist Network (YAN), a group comprised of more than 15,000 youth from communities across the country.

These young people work together to fight for accurate sexual health information and services so that they can prevent unintended pregnancy and STDs, including HIV.

The Keep It REAL campaign empowers youth to become part of the policy process by demanding honest and accurate information about sexual and reproductive health and supporting the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act.

The REAL Act, introduced by Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), would provide federal money to support responsible sex education in schools -- science-based, medically accurate, and age appropriate information about both abstinence and contraception.

The Fix the Gap campaign takes aim at the exportation of abstinence-only programs by the U.S. to other countries around the world, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa.

"I couldn't agree more with Mr. Gillespie's sentiments," said Fix the Gap campaign coordinator Charis Goff, age 21.

Posted by Michael at 10:50 PM

Confronting Censorship of Condom Education with Nationwide Contest

Advocates for Youth and Sex, Etc. Confront Censorship of Condom Education with Nationwide Contest

WASHINGTON, DC (February 14, 2006) Marking both Valentine's Day and Condom Awareness Week, Advocates for Youth and Sex, Etc. announced the winners of the first Respect Yourself.

contest -- a youth-driven, nationwide campaign promoting open, honest discussion about the vital role condom education should play in this country's fight against unwanted pregnancy and STDs, including HIV.

The contest, based on a highly successful campaign in Germany, asked youth to use an online 'tool' to create and submit design concepts, using the image of a condom as the primary visual for materials that promote responsible prevention.

The winning entries can be found at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/condom/.

"We were very impressed by the creativity and number of entries we received for this contest," said Danene Sorace, Director of the Network for Family Life Education and Sex, Etc. "The creativity and enthusiasm showed once again young people's willingness to encourage their peers to stay safe."

contest comes at a critical time as conservatives in Congress and the administration promote a sexual health agenda based far more on ideology than on public health science.

Pushed the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for condom labeling that would emphasize condom 'failure' instead of condom effectiveness.

"Research indicates that young people who are educated about the health benefits of condoms are more likely than other young people to use condoms when they first have sex," concluded Wagoner.

Advocates for Youth is a national, nonprofit organization that creates programs and supports policies that help young people make safe, responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.

Posted by Michael at 10:47 PM

HUD creates new, expanded hurricane Disaster Voucher Program

HUD News Release 06-017

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has used the $390 million supplemental appropriation President Bush signed recently to replace and expand its current rental assistance program that aided families who lost their homes to hurricane Katrina.

The Disaster Voucher Program (DVP) extends eligibility for assistance to families who lost their homes to both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"There are still families who desperately need housing," said HUD Assistant Secretary Orlando Cabrera, who heads HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing.

Families who were eligible for KDHAP - former public housing residents, Section 8 voucher holders and multifamily projects - are eligible for DVP through September 30, 2007 to provide housing anywhere in the U.S. Families who were homeless prior to Katrina or Rita are also eligible for this assistance.

HUD is the nation's housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among minorities; creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans; and supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS.

Posted by Michael at 10:38 PM

HUD awards $29 million to improve housing and service programs for low-income families, the homeless and persons with HIV/AIDS

HUD News Release 06-020

WASHINGTON - Local communities around the country will be better able to house and serve low-income persons because of nearly $29 million in technical assistance grants announced today by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

HUD's Community Development Technical Assistance grants will assist local communities to produce more affordable housing, better serve persons who are homeless, and more effectively assist persons living with HIV/AIDS.

"This is about making government work better and smarter," said Jackson.

"These technical assistance grants will give local housing and service providers the tools they need to do what they do best---help people."

Aid public and nonprofit organizations receiving funding under HUD's Youthbuild Program to construct affordable housing while training at-risk young people in the construction trades - $ 3.0 million.

Four national community development organizations will receive funding to assist more than a thousand communities to better management their Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) programs.

Over the past 30 years, CDBG has awarded approximately $112 billion to state and local governments to target their own community development priorities.

The funding announced today will help nearly 700 communities to design and implement strategies that lead to increased affordable housing in their areas.

These strategies include making lower income homes more energy efficient, promoting employer-assisted housing and encouraging private sector involvement in the development of affordable housing.

These community-based nonprofit CHDOs work closely with local jurisdictions receiving HOME funding and further promote affordable housing opportunities to lower income persons and families living in those communities.

This technical assistance will further support the Bush Administration's goal of ending chronic homelessness.

Posted by Michael at 10:35 PM

Lowered Expectations for Seniors' Participation in Medicare Part D Program

Families USA: Bush Administration Lowers Expectations for Seniors’ Participation in Medicare Part D Program

Washington, D.C. -- A report released today found that the vast majority of new Medicare Part D beneficiaries already had prescription drug coverage before the program started earlier this year and, in an effort to downplay this situation, the Administration has significantly lowered its own enrollment projections.

The analysis, released by the consumer health organization Families USA, shows that---according to the Administration's original estimates---the program's performance is falling well short of expectations.

The report shows that through mid-January 2006, only 3.6 million new beneficiaries had enrolled in stand-alone Part D plans.

3. The program is reaching too few of the people in greatest need of prescription drug coverage---seniors and people with disabilities who qualify for the low-income subsidy (or "Extra Help") that accompanies the Part D program.

A key objective in the creation of the Medicare drug benefit was to ensure that low-income seniors and people with disabilities would be able to afford the prescriptions they need.

Other beneficiaries with limited incomes and assets qualify for a separate subsidy program for which they must apply.

So far, only one out of five of those who need to apply for this separate program have actually signed up, and fewer than 5 percent of those eligible have completed the process and enrolled in a Part D plan to receive prescription drug coverage.

Some of the reasons point to the complexity of the program and the considerable costs for most beneficiaries.

"It is truly disappointing to see such a large number of seniors not get the benefits to which they are entitled," said Pollack.

Posted by Michael at 10:29 PM

February 15, 2006

Children in the South face higher health risks

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Children living in the South are up to three times more likely to battle poor health and its consequences - including obesity, teen pregnancy and death - than those in all other regions of the United States, even if they receive the same medical care, a new University of Florida study reveals.

"Hurricane Katrina gave the world a glimpse of the disparities in the South," says Jeffrey Goldhagen, M.D., M.P.H., the study's lead author and an associate professor of community pediatrics at the UF College of Medicine - Jacksonville.

"Our research documents just how profoundly these disparities impact the health of children in the region."

The study, published recently in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to statistically relate region of residence to measures of child health, Goldhagen says.

The poor health outcomes researchers documented included low birthweight, teen pregnancy, death and other problems such as mental illness, asthma, obesity, tooth decay and school performance.

The remaining Deep South states, Kentucky and Florida, are in the lowest quarter.

The reasons for these risks are complex and are related to social, economic and other public policies in the South, he says.

"For the first time, disparities in race, gender, education, income and poverty are not the critical issues here," he adds.

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Posted by Michael at 11:13 PM

Learning from the Youth Opportunity Experience

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

This brief summary accompanies the 50-page full report detailing the experiences of 22 communities that received U.S. Department of Labor Youth Opportunity Grants to support education, work exposure, and youth development for under-served young people.

It was the final project of a 300-hour mural training curriculum designed by MOCAH and WorkSource Youth Opportunity Centers.

Grants to 36 high-poverty urban, rural, and Native American communities.

The Youth Opportunity Grants---ranging from $3.1 to $43.8 million over five years---provided the resources to put in place comprehensive approaches at considerable scale.

The Youth Opportunity Grants were part of the overhaul of the youth delivery system brought about by the passage of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

Board (WIB) directors expressed considerable pride---as individual communities and as a collective movement---in their successful outreach to youth and establishment of community and systems connections.

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Posted by Michael at 10:25 PM

National Organizations Expose Lack of Planning for Children Struggling in Katrina's Aftermath

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

Today, four national organizations held a press conference to expose the unmet needs of children affected by Hurricane Katrina and to call on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to establish an office which will be responsible for anticipating and meeting the unique needs of children in times of emergency and recovery.

The four national organizations, with affiliates throughout the country, include Voices for America's Children (Voices), the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) and the National Mental Health Association (NMHA).

"Our nation has endured two horrific disasters in the last five years, September 11th and Hurricane Katrina," said Tamara Lucas Copeland, president of Voices.

"We have learned we must be better prepared to protect our children during the immediacy of a natural or manmade disaster, but also be prepared to address their long-term needs.

For some, Katrina was a fast moving storm that lasted only 24 hours.

Press conference speakers exposed the overall lack of infrastructure and coordination of relief efforts to displaced children across the country and addressed the lack of preparedness to assess unmet child care, child welfare and mental health needs of affected children.

According to NACCRRA, much of the child care infrastructure in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast was destroyed by Katrina.

During today's press conference, Dr. Raymond Crowel of NMHA addressed the lack of appropriate services and resources to support children affected by Katrina.

"The psychological impact of Katrina is unparalleled to any disaster America has yet experienced.

According to CWLA, there is an immense need to improve communication and collaboration among the many agencies that serve these children.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies is the national network of more than 850 child care resource and referral centers located in every state and most communities across the U.S. CCR&R centers help families, child care providers and communities find, provide and plan for affordable, quality child care.

The National Mental Health Association is the country's oldest and largest non-profit organization addressing all aspects of mental health and mental illness.

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Posted by Michael at 10:17 PM

Learning from the Youth Opportunity Experience: Building Delivery Capacity in Distressed Communities

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded significant Youth Opportunity (YO) Grants to 36 high-poverty urban, rural, and Native American communities. The grants were designed to serve all young people in these areas, regardless of income or connection to school or work.

Communities were required to assess and integrate existing youth-serving systems and agencies to support education, work exposure, youth development, and other services for young people. Despite evidence of considerable community accomplishments, the YO grants were ended in 2005.

This report, based on a survey of 22 of the 36 sites, examines the approaches' strengths, challenges, and lessons learned, and offers recommendations for policy and practice. The 4-page Executive Summary is also available separately. 50 pages.

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Posted by Michael at 10:15 PM

February 14, 2006

Administration's Rural Housing Budget Disappointing

Housing Assistance Council: Information and Publications - Press Room

Washington, Feb. 14, 2006 - The federal budget released on February 6 is disappointing for those who believe that the lowest income rural Americans deserve decent, affordable housing, according to a national rural housing organization.

Rural renters are seriously shortchanged, however, and the budget would end two useful programs that aid rural community-based housing organizations, while cutting several other important housing programs.

"The Administration has worthy housing goals - to increase homeownership and to reduce homelessness," said Housing Assistance Council Executive Director Moises Loza.

"For example, increased funding for the Department of Agriculture's Section 502 single-family direct loan program will help more low-income families to buy homes.

"HAC has long recommended that priority go to people with the greatest needs," Loza continued.

Research shows also that renters in both rural and urban areas have some of the worst housing problems in the country."

The budget would also eliminate two programs that help community organizations convert federal dollars into local homes: the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Rural Housing and Economic Development program and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Community Development Initiative.

"These programs, in different ways, help community groups fill the gaps in their knowledge."

In addition, like nearly all housing and community development organizations, HAC is disappointed by the budget's proposals to reduce Community Development Block Grant funding by 20 percent and to cut funding for public housing, Native American housing, programs that produce homes for elderly people and people with disabilities, fair housing, and lead hazard control.

HAC's programs focus on local solutions, empowerment of the poor, reduced dependency, and self-help strategies.

Posted by Michael at 2:24 PM

San Francisco-Based Nonprofit Develops Students' Academic Skills and Social Responsibility

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- On Saturday March 18, from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., students from 35 Northern California middle and high schools will converge on San Francisco State University for the Bay Area's fourth annual World Affairs Challenge.

More than 850 people are expected to attend the 2006 World Affairs Challenge, including almost 450 students, 250 parents, and 180 volunteers from the community.

The World Affairs Challenge is an innovative and exciting educational program, designed to ignite interest in global issues among students ages 12 to 18, and encourage them to explore their world and their role in solving the world's most intractable problems.

Numerous local businesses and community leaders have extended support for the upcoming Challenge.

The impact of the program has been demonstrated numerous times through the statements of participating students, teachers, parents and volunteers.

Education Week notes that there is an increasing "demand from business and political leaders that schools produce graduates with knowledge to understand global economic and political issues" (Education Week, Geography Makes Comeback In U.S. Classrooms, July 10, 2002).

Understanding the complexities of local and national conflict is important for young people and vital in our increasingly globalizing world.

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Posted by Michael at 12:33 AM

Many new immigrants to US change diet -- and not for the better

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Coming to the land of milk and honey can be hazardous to new immigrants' diet and health.

So says Ilana Redstone Akresh (pronounced AY-kresh), a visiting professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of a new analysis of dietary assimilation and immigrant health.

In her study, Akresh considered the changes in immigrants' diets after coming to the United States and the subsequent relationship between those changes and Body Mass Index (BMI) and health status.

The most commonly reported dietary changes were an increased consumption of junk food and meat, according to her findings in the not-yet published study.

A third focuses on immigrant intentions and mobility.

For the latter two analyses, Akresh used data from the New Immigrant Survey Pilot study, which followed immigrants who received their green cards in 1996 for one year.

For her examination of dietary change, Akresh used the full New Immigrant Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

The first cohort of the survey was interviewed in 2003.

Immigrants who eat more meat in the United States have been here longer, have more children and live in younger households.

They also have fewer years of education, a lower proportion of them are able to speak English well and they have lower rates of English language use with friends and at work than those who do not consume more meat.

Individuals reporting increased meat consumption also have higher household incomes and higher average BMI.

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Posted by Michael at 12:23 AM

Civil partnerships likely to boost health of gay and lesbian people

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Gay marriage could boost the mental and physical health of gay and lesbian people, suggests an analysis in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Denmark was the first country to introduce civil partnerships for same sex couples in 1989, since when several European Union countries, some US states, Australia and Canada have followed suit.

The authors point to evidence, which suggests that gay men and lesbians do not receive the same standard of health care as straight people.

They suggest that civil partnerships are likely to break down some of this prejudice and promote greater understanding, including among staff working in the health service.

Despite the high divorce rates, there is a considerable wealth of evidence to suggest that married couples have better mental and physical health and tend to live longer than single people.

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Posted by Michael at 12:08 AM

February 13, 2006

A Little Household Help May Reduce Health-Care Costs Among Elderly

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Feb. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- Older people who do not have help for daily tasks such as dressing and bathing are much more likely to be hospitalized for acute illness than older adults who receive the help they need, a Purdue University study indicates, suggesting that reducing health-care costs for older adults may be as simple as providing them with a little household help each day.

A research team, including Purdue nursing professor Laura P. Sands, has found evidence that older adults who qualify for nursing-home care because of their disabilities in daily tasks can continue to live in their homes provided they receive assistance with fundamental needs such as bathing, dressing and preparing food.

Elders who lived alone without such needed assistance were more likely to require hospitalization.

After a few weeks of help with daily tasks, however, the need for health care dropped off, implying that a little help with the basics goes a long way.

"While such essential care would not include the cost of visits to the doctor, our data suggest that people who receive additional assistance would be less likely to be hospitalized, and that could conceivably allow us to keep our health care-costs down while still providing for our frail elders," said Sands, who is an associate professor of nursing in Purdue's College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences.

"Nearly 30 percent of adults aged 75 and older have one or more disabilities in performing basic activities of daily living," Sands said.

Sands said that while the concept would not eliminate older people's need for regular medical attention, it could reduce preventable illness, which would improve the quality of life for the generation of baby boomer Americans, many of whom will need some form of care within the next decade.

"That's what many elderly people and their younger family members desire."

Sands also said that $132 billion is spent yearly in the U.S. on long- term medical care, about 73 percent of which goes to nursing homes.

AScribe Newswire distributes news from nonprofit and public sector organizations.

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Posted by Michael at 11:49 PM

Doing What Counts - Teacher Quality in Student Success

From MDRC:

The most significant factor affecting students' learning in the classroom is the quality of their teachers.

Yet a central paradox of American education is that students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who arguably most need well-qualified and experienced teachers, are least likely to get such teachers.

Research indicates both that the skills and backgrounds of teachers are among the most important determinants of students' academic success and that "teacher quality" is inequitably distributed across schools serving students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Doing What Counts project is a collaborative effort of the Laboratory for Student Success at Temple University and MDRC to design and execute rigorous research that will develop reliable evidence about the use of financial and non-financial incentives to recruit and retain high-quality teachers for underperforming schools --- with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement.

This paper reviews the research on teacher quality and the use of incentives, describes incentive programs in seven urban school districts, and outlines design principles for an exploratory study on the use of incentives.

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Posted by Michael at 11:32 PM

Rules of Medicare Drug Plans Slow Access to Benefits

From NYT > National:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 --- Doctors and pharmacists say many drugs theoretically covered by the new Medicare drug benefit are not readily available because of insurers' restrictions and requirements.

Drug plans require doctors and patients to obtain "prior authorization" for certain drugs on their formularies.

The prescription drug plans are playing a dangerous game.

"That can't be right," Francis S. Soistman Jr., executive vice president of Coventry Health Care, said when asked about the forms on his company's Web site.

The site has 39 forms for doctors to use when prescribing certain drugs for Coventry Medicare plans, marketed under the name AdvantraRx.

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Posted by Michael at 11:32 PM

Hotel Aid Ends; Katrina Evacuees Seek Housing Again

From NYT > National:

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 13 --- Thousands of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina became transients again on Monday, wheeling their entire lives onto the street on luggage carts or dragging bulging garbage bags through hotel lobbies, when the federal government stopped paying their hotel bills.

In the largest single step in its phaseout of emergency housing assistance for victims of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ended the hotel payments for 12,000 families across the country, including 4,400 now living in New Orleans.

Many evacuees who have returned to New Orleans have begun to rebuild, enroll their children in school or, like Dominique Handy, get a job.

She had $1,800 from FEMA, which was supposed to pay for three months' rent --- an impossibility in a city so strapped for housing that officials could not even find a place to serve as an emergency shelter.

The phaseout of hotel rooms is the end of an aid program that cost more than a half-billion dollars and at its peak housed 85,000 families on a single night.

FEMA, which is ending the program over the strenuous protests of Louisiana officials, says it is time for families to find a more permanent situation.

Of the 12,000 families whose benefit ended Monday, 10,500 have received rental assistance or a trailer, said Libby Turner, head of the Hurricane Katrina/Rita Transitional Housing Unit at FEMA.

Houston, Atlanta and other cities with large populations of evacuees passed the deadline with little incident, but in New Orleans several hotels called private security squads armed with rifles after employees were threatened.

The agency's critics say it is unfair to ask destitute families to make long-term housing decisions when little progress has been made on restoring homes in New Orleans.

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Posted by Michael at 11:26 PM

Poverty trumps race to explain poor prostate cancer outcomes

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Socioeconomic factors predominantly explain racial and ethnic disparities in prostate cancer outcomes, according to a new study.

Whether these differences are due to race, racial or other factors, such as socioeconomic status and treatment, remain poorly explored.

Disparities in survival were explained by socioeconomic factors, including level of education, level of poverty in the community, and income.

Confirming other reports, Hispanics had a lower risk compared to African-Americans and Caucasians after controlling for other factors.

The researchers "found that in men with local or regional stage prostate cancer, lower socioeconomic status was significantly associated with decreased survival, even after controlling for other patient/tumor characteristics and treatment."

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Posted by Michael at 11:19 PM

Medicare Drug Benefit: Enrollment Update, New State-Specific Data, Webcast

From The Kaiser Family Foundation:

This enrollment update breaks down and explains the statistics related to enrollment under the new Medicare drug benefit and the separate low-income subsidy program that provides additional assistance.

The enrollment update summarizes the latest enrollment figures released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration and compares them with earlier enrollment projections.

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Posted by Michael at 11:07 PM

February 11, 2006

Women and Children Last - Again: An Analysis of the President's FY2007 Budget

National Women's Law Center

The Administration's budget moves in a direction that decreases economic security and reduces opportunity, especially for already vulnerable Americans such as low-income women, children and the elderly, the National Women's Law Center said today.

NWLC has closely examined the budget released this week by President Bush.

The analysis, Women and Children Last - Again: An Analysis of the President's FY2007 Budget, looks at how program cuts disproportionately fall on women and their families, especially single mothers and elderly women; highlights how the proposed budget would exacerbate the deficit through proposals for additional tax cuts for the wealthy; and examines proposed budget rules that would cement these warped priorities for years to come.

"Six years ago, the President told Americans that the nation could afford to have tax cuts and continue to meet its domestic priorities," said Joan Entmacher, NWLC Vice President for Family Economic Security.

"The President's budget would leave more women and families without access to adequate food, health care and housing and without the child care, education and training they need to succeed in school and on the job," Entmacher added.

"At the same time, the budget would expand tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy few."

Posted by Michael at 7:19 PM

Why Problems Like Homelessness may be Easier to Solve than to Manage

The New Yorker: PRINTABLES

Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.

Murray Barr was a bear of a man, an ex-marine, six feet tall and heavyset, and when he fell down---which he did nearly every day---it could take two or three grown men to pick him up.

On the streets of downtown Reno, where he lived, he could buy a two-hundred-and-fifty-millilitre bottle of cheap vodka for a dollar-fifty.

If he was flush, he could go for the seven-hundred-and-fifty-millilitre bottle, and if he was broke he could always do what many of the other homeless people of Reno did, which is to walk through the casinos and finish off the half-empty glasses of liquor left at the gaming tables.

In the fall of 2003, the Reno Police Department started an initiative designed to limit panhandling in the downtown core.

He and Johns spent at least half their time dealing with people like Murray; they were as much caseworkers as police officers.

O'Bryan and Johns called someone they knew at an ambulance service and then contacted the local hospitals.

In those six months, he had accumulated a bill of a hundred thousand dollars---and that's at the smaller of the two hospitals near downtown Reno.

The first of those people was Murray Barr, and Johns and O'Bryan realized that if you totted up all his hospital bills for the ten years that he had been on the streets---as well as substance-abuse-treatment costs, doctors' fees, and other expenses---Murray Barr probably ran up a medical bill as large as anyone in the state of Nevada.

For those hard-core few who did need help, meanwhile, the medicine that helped the middle wouldn't be nearly strong enough.

It was an assumption that bred despair: if there were so many homeless, with so many problems, what could be done to help them?

Then, fifteen years ago, a young Boston College graduate student named Dennis Culhane lived in a shelter in Philadelphia for seven weeks as part of the research for his dissertation.

It's a matter of a few hard cases, and that's good news, because when a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about solving it.

The bad news is that those few hard cases are hard.

They are falling-down drunks with liver disease and complex infections and mental illness.

They need time and attention and lots of money.

But enormous sums of money are already being spent on the chronically homeless, and Culhane saw that the kind of money it would take to solve the homeless problem could well be less than the kind of money it took to ignore it.

Murray Barr used more health-care dollars, after all, than almost anyone in the state of Nevada.

The leading exponent for the power-law theory of homelessness is Philip Mangano, who, since he was appointed by President Bush in 2002, has been the executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a group that oversees the programs of twenty federal agencies.

In the past two years, he has crisscrossed the United States, educating local mayors and city councils about the real shape of the homelessness curve.

So far, Mangano has convinced more than two hundred cities to radically reëvaluate their policy for dealing with the homeless.

They had a very difficult group of people they couldn't reach no matter what they offered.

So I said, Take some of your money and rent some apartments and go out to those people, and literally go out there with the key and say to them, 'This is the key to an apartment.

" Power-law homelessness policy has to do the opposite of normal-distribution social policy.

We don't give only to some poor mothers, or to a random handful of disabled veterans.

We give to everyone who meets a formal criterion, and the moral credibility of government assistance derives, in part, from this universality.

Being fair, in this case, means providing shelters and soup kitchens, and shelters and soup kitchens don't solve the problem of homelessness.

Solving problems that have power-law distributions doesn't just violate our moral intuitions; it violates our political intuitions as well.

It's hard not to conclude, in the end, that the reason we treated the homeless as one hopeless undifferentiated group for so long is not simply that we didn't know better.

Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis.

There are some people who can be very successful members of society if someone monitors them.

Posted by Michael at 7:02 PM

February 10, 2006

Close-Knit Neighborhoods May Help Prevent Childhood Obesity

RAND | News Release | RAND Study Finds Close-Knit Neighborhoods May Help Prevent Children from Becoming Overweight

Adolescents living in close-knit neighborhoods where adults provide social support -- such as watching out for youngsters and seeking to correct their misbehavior -- are just half as likely to be overweight or nearly overweight as other children, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

"There is an obesity epidemic in this country and treatment has focused on diet and exercise with relatively little success," said Dr. Deborah Cohen, a RAND Health researcher and lead author of the study.

"These findings suggest that providing more social support to children at the neighborhood level, which was more common in the past, is a potentially successful strategy for reducing the incidence of obesity in young people in the future."

Neighborhoods with high levels of social support have been found to play a role in health problems related to obesity among adults, including premature death and cardiovascular disease.

The new RAND study, published in the February edition of the journal Social Science & Medicine, takes the premise a step further and examines the role that a neighborhood may have on adolescents' weight.

RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care quality, costs and delivery, among other topics.

Posted by Michael at 12:50 AM

President Requests $27 Million Budget Boost for Failed Abstinence-Only Programs Amidst Deep Cuts for Essential Programs

President Requests $27 Million Budget Boost for Failed Abstinence-Only Programs Amidst Deep Cuts for Essential Programs

In the context of a budget that slashes spending for essential programs, from nutrition to health care to education, the $27 million increase for failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is dumbfounding.

Making the request even more astounding is that it follows just 32 days after the Society for Adolescent Medicine, in one of the most exhaustive reviews to date of government-funded abstinence-only programs, rejected current administration policy that promotes abstinence as the only sexual health prevention strategy for young people.

federal abstinence-only-until-marriage policy is ethically problematic, as it excludes accurate information about contraception, misinforms by overemphasizing or misstating the risks of contraception, and fails to require the use of scientifically accurate information while promoting approaches of questionable value....

At a time when the budget deficit is soaring, Medicare is being slashed, and essential programs for the poor and disabled are being terminated, shouldn't the President instead be cutting programs that have no proven effectiveness?

At the very least, the federal government should be in the business of providing medically accurate information to the youth of this country.

Posted by Michael at 12:45 AM

Lower Costs of Medicare Drug Coverage to Help States Save $700 Million in 2006

2006.02.09: Lower Costs of Medicare Drug Coverage to Help States Save $700 Million in 2006

The states will send more than $700 million less to the federal government in 2006 because lower drug costs and strong competition have reduced the price tag for Medicare's new drug coverage, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt announced today.

The competitive marketplace is working to help federal and state governments, and most of all, Medicare beneficiaries, drive down costs," Secretary Leavitt said.

The Medicare Modernization Act requires the federal government to pay prescription drug costs for people in Medicaid who had previously been covered, in part, by the states.

The actual or "net" costs to the federal government, accounting for Medicaid savings, are also significantly lower over 10 years, dropping from last year's estimated $737 billion to $678 billion.

For the 10-year period from 2006-2015, the "total" Medicare drug benefit cost, without accounting for Medicaid savings, is now estimated to be about $130 billion less -- $797 billion compared to an estimated $926 billion last year.

Posted by Michael at 12:40 AM

Welfare Reform Reauthorized

2006.02.08: Welfare Reform Reauthorized

Today, President George W. Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which reauthorizes the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program administered by HHS' Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

"The reauthorization of the TANF program takes the next step in welfare reform by strengthening work requirements and providing the assistance families need to climb the career ladder," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said.

"A key component of welfare reform is supporting healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood," Dr. Horn added.

The Healthy Marriage Initiative, administered by ACF, was created in 2002 by President Bush to help couples who have chosen marriage gain greater access to marriage education services, on a voluntary basis, where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage.

Funding for responsible fatherhood includes initiatives to help men be more committed, involved and responsible fathers, and the development of a national media campaign to promote responsible fatherhood.

The welfare reauthorization provisions also made several improvements to the child support enforcement program, including a change that will provide more support directly to families, especially those who have left welfare.

Posted by Michael at 12:38 AM

HHS Proposes $689 Billion Budget for Fiscal Year 2007

2006.02.06: HHS Proposes $689 Billion Budget for Fiscal Year 2007

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt released today details of President Bush's FY 2007 budget request to Congress for the department, which meets the agency's most important priorities while exercising fiscal discipline to help meet the President's deficit reduction goals.

The budget unveiled today proposes $698 billion in spending, representing an increase of more than $58 billion from FY 2006, or more than 9.1 percent.

"We have developed a responsible budget for 2007 that sets out a hopeful agenda for the upcoming fiscal year, one that strengthens America against potential threats, heeds the call of compassion, follows wise fiscal stewardship and advances our nation's health," Secretary Leavitt said.

In FY 2007 HHS is requesting $4.4 billion for bioterrorism-related spending next year, which is a $178 million increase over FY 2006 spending.

In addition, the department is seeking an additional $2.6 billion in funding next year for pandemic planning and preparedness.

To continue our effort towards achieving the President's goal for most Americans to have secure personal electronic health records by 2014, the budget requests $169 million for health information technology initiatives, an increase of $59 million over FY 2006.

The budget provides an increase of $181 million for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to fund more than 300 new or expanded health center sites that will provide health care to an additional 1.2 million individuals in medically underserved communities throughout the nation.

Funding for Medicare benefits -- which assist 43.7 million Americans -- is estimated to be nearly $450 billion in FY 2007.

The budget also proposes specific reforms to help sustain Medicare in the long term.

Thus, the proposed 2007 HHS budget includes a comprehensive set of Medicare legislative proposals to encourage efficient and appropriate payment for services; foster competition; and promote beneficiary involvement in their health care decisions.

The budget proposes reductions in funding or elimination of several programs that have failed to receive acceptable performance ratings and whose purposes are covered by other HHS programs.

Posted by Michael at 12:36 AM

HUD budget increases in programs will help homebuyers, renters and homeless

HUD News Release 06-013

WASHINGTON - Expanding programs to increase homeownership, to provide rental assistance, and to assist the homeless are among the highlights of President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2007 budget unveiled today by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

Jackson said the $33.6 billion spending blueprint will support the Department's core priorities while expanding the Administration's efforts toward establishing an ownership society and caring for those who might otherwise be living on the streets.

"The President's proposed budget is a real investment in building a society based on ownership and reaching out to those people and places in need to make sure every American has a place to call home," said Jackson.

In June 2002, President Bush challenged the nation to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million by the end of this decade.

Since the President issued his challenge, 2.4 million minority families have joined the ranks of homeowners.

HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) Program - HOME is the largest federal block grant program dedicated to creating affordable housing for low-income families.

Formula changes will be proposed to direct more of the program's base funding to communities that cannot meet their own needs; bonus funds will be available to communities that demonstrate the greatest progress in expanding homeownership and opportunity for their residents.

Housing Counseling - The proposed budget requests $45 million (a $3 million increase) to support hundreds of housing counseling programs across the country.

Continuum of Care - The President is proposing a record level of funding to house and serve homeless persons and families.

Through formula grants to states and local communities, as well as competitively awarded grants, these resources will provide critically needed housing assistance to more than 75,000 families.

This significant increase to the voucher program, in addition to a $639 million increase to Section 8 Project-Based rental assistance, will allow HUD to renew all existing rental housing assistance contracts, with an opportunity to help even more low-income families to afford decent rental housing.

Posted by Michael at 12:32 AM

Nutrition Program Changes in the President's Budget

FRAC News - Nutrition Program Changes in the President's FY 2007 Budget

The President's FY 2007 budget proposals fall far short of the investments required to meet the health, education and nutrition needs of America's vulnerable families, children and elderly.

In the nutrition program area, the budget takes one very positive step forward in allowing individuals and families to obtain food stamps even if they have retirement savings (a five-year $589 million program increase; about 100,000 people would be added to the program when fully implemented in FY 2008); but it takes several steps backward.

Under current federal law, states have the option to treat as categorically eligible for food stamps those families which are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program services.

Although the families may have modest savings or "gross income" that slightly exceeds the Food Stamp Program's regular rules, if the state takes this option they may receive benefits.

The President would make these families ineligible for food stamps.

In addition, by eliminating their food stamp eligibility, the proposal would raise school lunch fees or keep from eligibility for free school meals many needy children in those families whose food stamp status now results in direct certification for the school meals.

Lowering the spending limit for WIC's Nutrition Services and Administrative Funding will have a negative impact on the quality of WIC nutrition education and on participant access by forcing reductions in WIC clinic hours and possibly clinic closings in rural and other hard-to-serve areas.

The President's budget proposes to eliminate all funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP).

Posted by Michael at 12:27 AM

Children's Defense Fund Partners with Local Faith and-Community-Based Organizations and Coalitions to Provide Free Tax Filing Sites

Children's Defense Fund

The VITA sites are part of the D.C. Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) campaign --- a citywide, cross-sector initiative that educates D.C. taxpayers, particularly those with low incomes, about issues related to income taxes and economic security.

As tax season approaches, many of the country's working poor are unaware that they are eligible for the EITC, a refundable federal tax credit for people who work full- or part-time but earn low wages.

Some unscrupulous commercial paid tax preparers target these individuals, offering them "rapid refunds" through Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs), deceptive high-interest loans that typically carry exorbitant preparation fees and are secured by the taxpayers' refund.

Low- to moderate-income D.C. working families lost $2.6 million of their earned refunds during the 2004 tax season in exchange for collecting those refunds about 10 days sooner in some instances.

Posted by Michael at 12:23 AM

Early Look at Restructuring in California

WrestlingDetails.pdf (application/pdf Object)

WASHINGTON -- February 9, 2006 -- The vast majority of California districts with schools facing restructuring -- the No Child Left Behind Act's ultimate sanction for struggling schools -- are forgoing the law's more radical options, such as converting these schools into charter schools or turning the operation of the schools over to an outside entity.

Instead, districts are engaging in internal reforms that improve the schools, according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Education Policy (CEP).

The study, Wrestling the Devil in the Details: An Early Look at Restructuring in California, tracks the initial steps of 271 schools in mostly urban areas in California that have missed Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward state achievement targets for five or more consecutive years, placing them in restructuring and subjecting them to a variety of major, school-wide reform strategies intended to revive failing schools.

While it is too early to say whether the processes for restructuring are effective in California, it is clear that the most popular improvement strategies for districts and schools stop short of dissolving a school or turning it into a charter school.

The report, along with additional information on CEP, its publications and its work, is available on the web at www.cep-dc.org.

Posted by Michael at 12:19 AM

Catholic Charities USA Troubled by President's Budget Impact on Nation's Poor and Vulnerable