Sometimes, good legal help is the best medicine, By Anna Gorman, March 12, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Maria Perez’s fever had climbed to 103, her body ached and she had trouble breathing. After being told in the emergency room that she had pneumonia, Perez went to a clinic in South Los Angeles for a follow-up appointment. The doctor asked Perez about her housing situation. Her apartment had cockroaches and mice, Perez said, and rain came through a broken window and filled the walls with mold. The doctor wrote prescriptions to treat the pneumonia and an asthma flare-up and then did something that he hoped would prevent her from getting even sicker: He sent her down the hall to talk to a lawyer. The attorney, Dennis Hsieh, contacted both the landlord and the Los Angeles Housing Department. The living conditions improved, and so did Perez’s health…”
Day: March 16, 2010
Unemployment and Health Insurance Coverage – California
About 1 in 4 in California lack health insurance, a UCLA study finds, By Duke Helfand, March 16, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Nearly 1 in 4 Californians under age 65 had no health insurance last year, according to a new report, as soaring unemployment propelled vast numbers of once-covered workers into the ranks of the uninsured. The state’s uninsured population jumped to 8.2 million in 2009, up from 6.4 million in 2007, marking the highest number over the last decade, investigators from UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research said. People who were uninsured for part or all of 2009 accounted for 24.3% of California’s population under age 65 — a dramatic increase from 2007 driven largely by Californians who lost employer-sponsored health insurance, particularly over the last year…”
Unemployment Insurance Fund – Wisconsin
Jobless benefits put Wisconsin in hole, By Jason Stein, March 15, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The state’s struggling insurance fund for jobless workers has already borrowed $1.2 billion from the federal government to pay record claims, but the Legislature won’t try to stanch the bleeding until next year at the earliest, officials said. Cutting benefits to the unemployed now or raising taxes that are already on the increase would threaten the state’s battered economy, labor and business leaders agree. But delaying repairs to the state’s unemployment reserve fund could lead to more borrowing and higher interest payments to the federal government to repay the debt later. Like 31 other states around the country, Wisconsin has had to borrow money from the federal government to help it keep making payments to some 250,000 out-of-work state residents…”