Millions of Children on Medicaid Aren’t Showing Up for Free Checkups

According to a new report out of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General, millions of low-income children on Medicaid still aren’t getting the free screenings and exams they qualify for, and the government isn’t acting sufficiently to fix the problem.

The report was released Thursday, and claims that although the Obama administration has boosted participation rates in Medicaid, it still has to work harder to get children into their regular wellness and dental checkups as well as vision and hearing exams.

According to the report, 63% of children on Medicaid received at least one medical screening in 2013. While this is an improvement from the 56% who made it into the doctor’s office in 2006, it’s still far lower than the 80% goal. Iowa and California were the only states to exceed that goal last year, while Alaska and Ohio dropped under 40%, and several other states hovered between 40-45%.

A few missed doctor’s appointments may not seem like a big deal, but not taking children to the doctor on a regular basis can, in fact, have major consequences. “We end up with kids who are sicker, with more long-term, serious medical issues that are more expensive to treat,” Jennifer Clarke, the executive director of Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, told Kaiser Health News.

Child health advocates are pointing to several different causes for the low attendance rates. There aren’t enough doctors treating Medicaid patients, especially since they could end up on the OIG’s List of Excluded Individuals/Entities if they misuse federal health care programs or mistreat patients. States are also failing to support medicaid providers, and parents aren’t sufficiently aware of the importance of regular visits.

Other experts are blaming state officials for the low screening rates, since the most the federal government could do to force a change is withdraw Medicaid funding.

“The federal government is working hard on this,” Jane Perkins, legal director of the National Health Law Program, told Kaiser Health News. “But the only power they have over states is to take away their funding and that is highly unlikely.”

Professional Athletes Fall Victim to Debilitating Back Problems

They may be some of the best athletes in the world — but that doesn’t make them immune to the same back problems and spinal conditions that affect the rest of us.

Rafael Nadal, currently ranked as the third-best male tennis player in the world, suffers from chronic back pain after injuring his back during the Australian Open — and, according to the International Business Times, his back problems have kept him from playing to his full potential this season.

In the world of hockey, Columbus Blue Jackets forward Nathan Horton’s career is all but over after a degenerative back injury left him unable to stand or walk. He now faces the choice of waiting for his back to heal itself before returning to the rink, or undergoing a surgical procedure that would leave him unable to play professional sports ever again,Lighthouse Hockey reports.

Many pro athletes are able to seek out chiropractic therapy for their back ailments — in fact, back pain is what brings 35% of all patients to chiropractic therapy. But this isn’t the case for Nadal or Horton, whose conditions are too serious to be healed by a chiropractor.

According to the International Business Times, Nadal has turned to stem cell treatment for his back problems. Stem cell treatments, while not yet scientifically proven to work, are being used by some athletes to help repair damaged tissue and bone in the body.

For Horton, who at 29 has played on a Stanley Cup-winning team in 2011 and has a contract with the Blue Jackets worth $37 million, the decision to undergo a surgery that would repair his back, but end his career, seems impossible. He has yet to choose whether or not he will undergo the surgery, according to Lighthouse Hockey.

Regardless of the results for Nadal and Horton’s respective treatments, one thing is clear — failing to care for one’s spinal health can produce disastrous effects, especially when one’s entire career relies on a healthy, pain-free body.

University of Georgia Researchers to Study Declining Salmon Populations in Alaska

The health of global fish stocks is of increasing concern across the world. According to a study published in Science, popular fishing stocks will be entirely wiped out by 2048, if current fishing and environmental practices are not modified in significant ways.

For most, those findings represent only an abstract, and is too often the case, abstracts haven’t gone very far in pushing people to action. In Alaska, however, declining fish populations are of mammoth concern; the Alaskan fishing industry supports more than 78,000 jobs in the Last Frontier, generating more than $5.8 billion in revenue for the state and its people each year. Needless to say, declining fish populations mean a bit more to Alaskans.

Luckily, UGA Today, a publication from the University of Georgia, reports that a $500,000 grant will go toward studying the causes of the continued collapse of one of Alaska’s most important fish. The Chinook salmon, classically one of the state’s most popular fish, both among commercial and recreational fishers, has seen staggering decline in the last few years. Gary Grossman, professor at UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and Jason Neuswanger, a post-doctoral researcher, will investigate why Chinook aren’t surviving very long after making their way out of Alaskan streams and rivers and into the Pacific. The half-million dollar grant from the North Pacific Research Board will hopefully yield answers for Grossman and Neuswanger, not to mention the tens of thousands of Alaskans who will rely on this valuable live crop for generations to come.

Chinook Aren’t the Only Salmon in Decline
Even if UGA research yields an answer to the woes of Chinook salmon, it’s unlikely Alaskan fishers will breathe easy. The giant king salmon, the state fish of Alaska, has been banned from commercial and recreational fishing since May of this year. This ban followed emergency funding from Congress of $21 million in February to help king and Chinook stocks recover. So far, the efforts funded by that $21 million have failed to yield results. In short, Alaskan salmon stocks, like those almost everywhere else in the world, have reached a critical tipping point.

Independence Pass Officially Closed For the Season Due to Weekend Weather Forecast

With bad weather in the forecast for the next few days, the Colorado Department of Transportation has closed Independence Pass for the remainder of the season.

Authorities had contemplated keeping Highway 82, which traverses the pass, open throughout the day on Thursday, but with six inches of snow already covering the ground and more snow in the forecast, they decided to close the gates as an extra precaution.

Independence Pass is closed at some point in the fall each year and remains closed for the entirety of the winter season. This year’s closing was actually much later than it has been in the past. The pass closed on November 4 last year, November 9 in 2012, November 2 in 2011 and October 26 in 2010, according to Aspen Daily News Online.

Icy, snowy roads have made driving conditions difficult for Aspen residents so far this season, and a number of accidents have already been reported.

By rush hour on Wednesday, there had already been 11 accidents in the city. Across the county, 13 accidents were reported by early evening, including a four-car pileup. Due to the poor road conditions and high number of weather-related car accidents, authorities temporarily closed down a number of roads, including Owl Creek Road between Highway 82 and Highline Road, and Jaffee Hill where McLain Flats Road crosses Smith Hill Way.

Authorities from the Aspen Police Department blamed many of the accidents on poor car maintenance. Recent studies have shown that over 75% of cars on the road are in need of repairs or maintenance, and old, worn-out tires were responsible for several of the accidents seen on Wednesday.

“We urge everyone to winterize their vehicles. Snow tires and/or studded tires are highly recommended,” said Aspen Police Department community relations specialist Blair Weyer, according to Aspen Daily News Online.

On top of bad road conditions, many traffic lights in the city were also hard for drivers to see. Thick layers of ice and snow covered a number of traffic lights along Highway 82 earlier in the week. Even a Colorado Department of Transportation worker sent to try and de-ice some of the lights broke his scraper in the process.

According to Aspen police, the proper procedure when traffic lights are either covered or not working is to treat the intersection as a four-way stop, though they say they rarely see drivers follow this rule.

Medicine Cabinet Homework Assignment Sparks Controversy in Utah

A homework assignment at Mapleton Junior High School in Utah has sparked controversy and a social media firestorm regarding privacy and HIPAA violations, Fox 13 reported Oct. 23.

The responsible teacher and Nebo School District representatives insist that the assignment was innocent in intent, but some parents and commentators aren’t so sure.

What’s in Your Medicine Cabinet?

The assignment required students to take an inventory of their parents’ medicine cabinets, note the items on a form and return them to the teacher.

“This was an innocent mistake,” said Lana Hiskey, speaking for the school district. “It was part of a health unit. [The teacher] wanted parents to know how to clean their medicine cabinets.”

The form included spots for the name of each medication, its purpose and whether it was still being used. The top of the assignment sheet included an explanation that failing to properly dispose of medications is a leading cause of substance abuse in the county.

Outrage erupted when it was suggested that the assignment was part of Common Core standards and would be recorded as part of national data-mining.

But the school district says this was an individual assignment given by a misguided teacher.

“Sometimes we’re blindsided, we don’t know if a teacher is giving something out that they shouldn’t be doing,” Hiskey said, telling parents that they should always alert the school if an assignment seems inappropriate.

Passionate Responses

The issue was first brought to the school’s attention by a parent, Onika Nugent. “Although it may be a good idea for parents to do an inventory of their medicine cabinet, I believe it is inappropriate for students to counsel their parents, or report to the school what that inventory is. It is a complete invasion of privacy,” she said.

The issue also came across the desk of Deidre Henderson, a Utah state senator. Even as she acknowledged that there is a drug abuse problem that must be addressed in the county, she condemned this particular way of attempting to reduce it.

“They’re attaching drug abuse with, ‘Hey, tell us all the prescription drugs you may be on,'” she said. “There is a shame and a stigma that is attached to that for kids who may be taking prescription medications.”

Some responses were even more pointed, such as an Oct. 27 blog for American Thinker from Thomas Lifson that called the students “little spies” and the teacher “Big Sister.” “That is a not a request to clean the medicine cabinet,” he wrote, “it is a database on the most private aspects of parents’ lives.”

City of Stockton Will Receive Judge’s Decision on Bankruptcy Proposal

The city of Stockton, CA, will find out on October 30 whether it can continue its financial recovery after declaring bankruptcy.

Stock is due to appear in court to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein to approve its plan for reorganizing the city’s $900 million-plus in debt.

However, the city’s single creditor, Franklin Templeton Investments, argued that the city hasn’t considered using its pension fund to pay back the $32.5 million it owes. Klein ruled in October that Chapter 9 bankruptcies, like Stockton’s, could treat pension obligations like other debt.

This could spell trouble for the city’s residents and workers who depend on that pension plan, especially if it results in reduced benefits.

Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney in San Francisco, said that there haven’t been any Chapter 9 bankruptcies that have attacked pensions.

Chapter 9, which relates to municipal bankruptcies, offers the chance for the city to pay off debt, unlike a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, which liquidates all assets and can affect an individual’s credit for about a decade.

Once the city has met with Klein, they may receive an approval, end up back in negotiations with Franklin Templeton, or have their bankruptcy claim rejected.

Stockton filed for Chapter 9 protection back in 2012, after Vallejo, CA. and before San Bernardino, filed for Chapter 9. Stockton was the nation’s largest bankruptcy until Detroit filed in 2013.

So far, the city’s officials have spent nearly $16.3 million on the Chapter 9 bankruptcy and have budgeted for about $25 million more, totaling around $41.3 million in the cost of the filing. Even worse, the city is expected to have around $48 million in settlements and obligations even after recovering from the bankruptcy.

City leaders blame the bankruptcy on economic problems brought on by the recession. Before it hit, they spent millions of dollars trying to revitalize the downtown area with the purchase and construction of a new City Hall, a marina, a sports arena, and a ballpark.

The city had issued 3,000 permits annually to build new homes, and police were paid premium wages and health benefits.

After the recession, the city experienced a rash of foreclosures, and even the new City Hall couldn’t pay its bills. The police force was cut by millions of dollars and 25% in personnel, which sent crime skyrocketing.

The troubles from years before could make things worse if pensions are cut, according to David E. Mastagni, an attorney for the Stockton Police Officers’ Association. “If they impair the pensions,” he said, speaking of the police force, “you’ll see mass walk-offs.”

Former City Manager Bob Deis, who helped create Stockton’s proposal, is hopeful that the plan will receive approval from Klein.

“I can’t imagine it would be a thumbs-down scenario,” Deis commented. “I am hopeful that it’s thumbs-up. It’s time for the city to be able to move on and get this difficult chapter behind it.”

Facebook Ethics for Personal Injury Cases Spark Legal Battle in New Jersey

Facebook is bringing some complex wrinkles to modern court cases. Just last month a judge allowed a man to serve his ex-wife legal papers over Facebook when she proved impossible to contact through traditional means, and many divorce lawyers admit that they use Facebook to compile evidence against a partner in child custody cases.

But the integration of Facebook into legal affairs is being met with some resistance in a New Jersey appeals court, which is embroiled in a legal battle after a friend request during a personal injury lawsuit brought ethics into question.

The original case began after then 18-year-old plaintiff, Dennis Hernandez, was doing push-ups in his driveway and was hit by police officer Brian Coughlan’s cruiser. The impact fractured his femur, which only recovered after multiple surgeries.

Allegedly, Coughlan’s defense lawyers assigned a paralegal to friend Hernandez on Facebook in order to view information on his profile, which court documents claim was not available to the public.

The social media prying came to light during the deposition, at which point the defense lawyers asked Hernandez about dancing, travel and other activities he posted about on Facebook that would have brought the severity of his injuries into question.

Photos and video from Hernandez’s Facebook page were later used as evidence against him, but since the Facebook evidence was produced after the discovery deadline, Bergen County Superior Court Judge Rachelle Harz barred its use, and the case was settled for $400,000 in 2010.

But Hernandez and his lawyer weren’t done. In light of the questionable Facebook snooping, they filed an ethics grievance. It was dismissed by the district ethics committee, but the Office of Attorney Ethics later found basis to investigate and filed a formal complaint in 2011.

The complaint alleges that the paralegal who sent the friend request to Hernandez did so in violation of his privacy settings, which he’d recently upgraded. Both defense lawyers are being charged, but they claim they never told their paralegal to friend him, just to perform a general internet search.

“We have long instructed clients to not post on Facebook or other social media about their case and to be really cautious about what others post,” explains Gary Burger, Partner and Attorney at Canton & Burger, LLC. “If a person claims serious injuries to their neck or back due to an injury caused by the Defendant, and they post on Facebook images of them carrying heavy loads, doing handstands or other strenuous activity, then they are disproving the extent of their injuries and harming their claim to compensation. Defendants regularly ask about Facebook and social media posts and subpoena those records.”

With the intervention of the OAE, the problem has become one of jurisdiction, not social media. A panel will convene this week to determine whether or not the OAE can file ethics grievances against lawyers even after district ethics committees have turned them down.

Since social media is still a fairly new phenomena, it’s likely that many precedents like this will need to be set, to determine how Facebook and court matters can be allowed to intersect.

Monterey County Begins Compliance with California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act for Overdrafted Basins

Monterey County, CA, officials have begun a move that will balance groundwater basins in Salinas Valley, after facing a state mandate to meet this goal over the next 20 years.

The county’s Board of Supervisors and water resources agency urged county staff in a meeting to develop a proposal for the establishment of a local groundwater agency and a sustainability plan for the next few years.

The proposal will be reviewed by the county water board by next month, before receiving final direction from the Board of Supervisors in early December.

Groundwater comprises 95% of available fresh water for the United States, including for agricultural use, with around 50% of U.S. residents getting their drinking water from these resources. Because the Salinas Valley well has overpumped, or overdrafted, the Salinas River for several years, many in the region’s agriculture sector called these actions unsustainable back in September.

The push for the proposal comes from California’s recently adopted Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, signed into law last month by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The act states that local communities with vulnerable groundwater supplies must have a local agency for sustainability by mid-2017, formed either from an existing agency or a brand new one. That agency must have a solid groundwater sustainability plan no later than 2022 to assure long-term water supply and quality, or else the state takes over.

Some state officials are wary of the act’s potential costs, as the state does not provide funding for these projects.

Supervisor Simon Salinas, who represents the Salinas Valley, said the focus is on meeting the act’s requirements by the deadline in order to maintain control of local water supplies.

The legislation only targets water basins of high or medium priority rather than all of the state’s groundwater supply. Salinas Valley, Carmel, and Pajaro basins are affected by the legislation.

The Carmel basin will be taken over by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, and the Pajaro basin’s lead agency is the Pajaro Valley Water Management District.

In the Salinas Valley, however, no agency has yet been chosen as of yet. When one is chosen, it will have the ability to adopt rules and regulations, conduct investigations, levy fines and impose taxes, regulate and suspend groundwater extractions, and build new and expanded wells, according to a report from Chief Assistant County Counsel Les Girard.

Groundwater plans must have measurable objectives, including five-year milestones, and provisions to monitor and manage groundwater levels and quality. The plans must include descriptions of monitoring systems and plans for halting overdraft seawater intrusion, among other criteria.

Red Wine May Hold the Key to Creating More Effective Acne Treatments

Acne affects an estimated 40 million to 50 million Americans, regardless of age, health and other factors. For this reason, there are hundreds of acne treatment products and methods on the market today which promise to reveal smooth, healthy skin. However, new research shows that you may be more likely to find an effective cure for your acne in your glass of wine than in your local drugstore: an antioxidant found in red grapes, which are often used in the popular alcoholic beverage, has been shown to kill off the bacteria that causes breakouts.

Previous studies have found that resveratrol, the antioxidant in question, has been successful in preventing free radicals from forming and can also kill off the P. acnes bacteria, which causes pimples. However, scientists were unsure exactly how this happened. To gather data, a team at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles applied concentrations of resveratrol, benzoyl peroxide (a popular ingredient in many acne treatments), and combinations of both to colonies of P. acnes. The researchers also cultured human skin and blood cells from volunteers with and without acne.

The results were interesting: while benzoyl peroxide was able to effectively kill off the bacteria, the effects lasted no longer than 24 hours. In comparison, concentrations of at least 50 ug/mL of resveratrol were able to kill off P. acnes by weakening the outer membrane of the bacterial cells. These doses were also able to last for 48 hours. However, the most effective compound was the combined benzoyl peroxide and resveratrol: all concentrations killed the bacteria, and the results lasted longer than either product on its own.

One of the researchers, Dr. Emma Taylor, stated that the team was surprised by their findings: because benzoyl peroxide is an oxidant, they had initially hypothesized that the two opposing ingredients would cancel each other out. Instead, their data showed that benzoyl peroxide has a higher toxicity level, which may be why many patients report developing skin irritation and dryness when they use products with this ingredient. The resveratrol reportedly neutralized this toxicity, allowing the combination to treat acne more effectively with fewer side effects.

This finding has the potential to improve non-invasive acne treatments, creating better products that can be used by a greater number of patients. However, the research team is calling for further study, including tests on actual patients with acne, to see how the compounds actually work together before these ingredients can be paired in treatments.

Updated Google App Allows Users to Search Past and Upcoming Bills

Search engine use is currently one of the two most popular internet activities worldwide, and it’s easy to see why. Where an old-fashioned Google search used to require careful phrasing and involved punctuation techniques, smartphone users can just hit a mic button and ask their phones a question. Even if a query is poorly phrased, Google can usually still come up with a good answer.

Google has evolved to become the mobile equivalent of an extremely brainy personal assistant, with access to all the information the internet has to offer. As users get more and more used to getting information with a single question, Google’s next move shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The newest update to the mobile app will allow users to check the status of their bills, right from their search engines.

Once users download the newest version of the Google app, they just have to tap the mic and say “Show me my bills” or “my bills due this week.” The Google app will quickly search your Gmail account for any billing notifications, and a quick summary will pop up in your search results. Google hopes that the new feature will help users pay bills on time and maintain good credit standing.

The feature also requires users to enable Google Now, Google’s virtual personal assistant app that can also notify users of weather reports and traffic conditions, among other things. This will actually be advantageous to users concerned about privacy: they won’t be automatically opted into this feature, since they would have to manually enable Google Now and give it access to Gmail.

The new Google feature comes with a subtle re-branding: the Google Search app is now simply called Google, as part of the search engine app’s transition into an all-in-one tool. It’s a smart move on Google’s part, since the bill function is also an incentive for people to switch email functions to Gmail.

At the moment, there are no plans to introduce a desktop equivalent to the Google app, and it remains unavailable to Windows and Windows Phone users.