Posts Tagged: low-income

News

A push for better dental care for low-income children

A youngster pays a visit to the dentist. (Photo: Wavebreakmedia)

California lawmakers are considering a bill that would double reimbursement rates for Denti-Cal providers in order to entice more dentists to accept the insurance that covers low-income residents. The hope is to get dental care to more people – especially children. According to recent reports by the state auditor and the Little Hoover Commission, less than 38 percent of the 5 million eligible children actually received Denti-Cal care in 2014.

Opinion

Looking ahead: Solar energy for all

Solar PV panels used to power agricultural equipment in the Central Valley. (Photo: Shippee, via Shutterstock)

This first Earth Day under the Trump administration, we’re reminded that environmental and clean energy progress at the local level – in our states and our communities – is more important than ever.

Opinion

Climate change: Pollution hits low-income communities hardest

Downtown Los Angeles seen through the smog. (Photo: Justin Dennis, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: There are a lot of questions surrounding California climate policy right now. For me, growing up in Watts, Los Angeles, the most important question is: how will state climate policies help low-income communities and communities of color?

Opinion

Broadband: The PUC, mergers and public benefits

Voluminous data displayed on a computer monitor. (Photo: Dimitri Nikolaev)

OPINION: California once again is defining a new era of public benefits from corporate consolidations in advanced communications and high-speed Internet access. Consumers and residents will be measurably better off as a result and California will move closer to closing the Digital Divide.

Opinion

Crux of Charter merger: the Digital Divide

Illustration by Kheng Guan Toh, via Shutterstock

OPINION: The California Public Utilities Commission is about to make a landmark decision about the merger of Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks that will have a generational effect on closing—or possibly making permanent—the Digital Divide.

Opinion

Clean up the air, drive electric

A VW bus converted to electric power, displayed last year in Beverly Hills. (Photo: Phil Pilosian)

If you’ve ever been behind the wheel of an electric vehicle, you know that they’re really fun to drive. Many Californians have discovered the joys of electric drive, as our state is nearing 200,000 plug-in vehicles sold, and accounted for more than half of all the EVs sold in the U.S. last year. But we need to ramp up sales of these advanced technology vehicles in order to clean up our air, reduce our dangerous dependency on petroleum, and stabilize the climate.

News

Pressure to boost Medi-Cal dental reimbursements

A youngster on a visit to the dentist. (Photo: Wavebreakmedia, via Shuttetstock.)

Jim Wood tells a story about teeth that makes him smile. Wood — a dentist and a state assemblyman from Sonoma County — remembers the time a patient of his who was an elementary school teacher told him about a student suffering from serious dental problems. The little girl’s family was poor and they lived in a rural area. They couldn’t find a dentist to treat her. The family lived too far for them to travel to Wood’s office in Cloverdale. But Wood was able to find a dentist closer to their home to treat the girl.

Opinion

Disclosure, transparency for not-for-profit hospitals

In 2015, California’s push to expand health care coverage continues at a rapid pace. Consider this statistic: 12 million of our residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal – nearly one in three Californians. This greater demand is creating new challenges for California’s hospitals, both inside and outside of their walls.

News

Audit ordered for low-income health program

A sign advertising a Los Angeles medical clinic. (Photo: JDS via Shutterstock)

A state legislative committee has ordered an audit of provider directories that are given to people in California’s low-income health program, after reports of major inaccuracies. The audit will examine the managed-care directories, whether they list enough doctors who are accepting new patients and whether state regulators have done their jobs overseeing that aspect of the Medi-Cal program.

News

State miscalculated number of Medi-Cal doctors

The California agency that oversees the state’s low-income health plan vastly overstated the number of doctors who accepted patients through the state program last year, even as the number of people enrolled in the program was set to skyrocket under the federal Affordable Care Act, the California Health Report has found.

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