Lead poisoning, a stubborn nemesis, By Mireya Navarro, April 21, 2010, New York Times: “Nothing prepared Veronica Rodriguez for the call she got from a New York City health official last October. A blood sample taken from her 2 1/2-year-old son, Carlos Espinoza, had revealed more than double the level of lead that the federal government considers cause for concern about poisoning. ‘I was horrified,’ said Ms. Rodriguez, 26, who lives on Staten Island and vaguely recalls having heard routine prevention messages about the dangers of lead in the home. ‘I thought, oh my God, my boy is very sick.’ Lead poisoning among young children, which can cause learning and behavior problems, has decreased so sharply in recent decades that it is tempting to consider it a problem of the past. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was so confident about the decline in childhood lead poisoning that it set a goal of 2010 for eliminating it. But federal health officials now say eradication may still be years away because hazards remain in often poor urban pockets – mostly from old, badly maintained housing with lead-based paint…”
Day: April 26, 2010
Medicaid Reform – Florida
Florida Medicaid overhaul dies, By Jim Saunders, April 26, 2010, Miami Herald: “With differences remaining between the House and Senate — and a possible veto by Gov. Charlie Crist looming — an overhaul of Florida’s Medicaid system will not pass this year, legislative leaders said Sunday. ‘It looks like major reform isn’t going to happen this year,’ said Rep. Dean Cannon, a Winter Park Republican who has been a House leader on the issue. Cannon and House Health Care Appropriations Chairwoman Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid, said they expect to bring back the issue during the 2011 legislative session. The House proposed a sweeping plan that gradually would have led to almost all Medicaid recipients enrolling in managed-care plans, while the Senate proposed a smaller expansion of a pilot managed-care program. ‘I really think that what we did is good policy,’ Grimsley said. ‘But at the end of the day, if we don’t pass it this year, the sun will still rise on May 1 (the day after the legislative session ends).’ Cannon pointed to differences between the House and Senate as the main reason that a Medicaid overhaul will not pass. But Senate Ways and Means Chairman JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said aides to Crist made clear that the governor did not like parts of the House proposal and likely would veto it…”
Microlending in the US
Micro-lender bringing his vision of helping the poor to D.C., By Jonathan O’Connell, April 19, 2010, Washington Post: “In 1976, Muhammad Yunus began making loans of a dollar or less to poor farmers and textile makers in his native Bangladesh. Thirty years later, he and the nonprofit micro-lender he founded, Grameen Bank, shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. To date, Grameen has lent more than $9 billion to more than 8 million borrowers, almost all in Bangladesh. Now Yunus plans to bring low-interest credit to the poor and unemployed in Washington. Grameen America, a U.S. offshoot, is already lending in Queens and Brooklyn, N.Y., and Omaha and has lent to more than 2,500 American borrowers. Yunus says that although the United States is one of the wealthiest places in the world, the need for small, low-cost loans is evident in the number of Americans coming to Grameen to borrow money…”