Yahoo!News.com
In response to the killing of schoolchildren in Connecticut, the federal government should consider California's strategy for dealing with mental illness, experts and lawmakers said Thursday. The Mental Health Services Act passed by voters in 2004 levied a special tax on high-income residents to pay for housing, medication, therapy and other services. The tax has helped more than 60,000 Californians. A fifth of the money is dedicated to prevention and early intervention, though The Associated Press reported in August that tens of millions of dollars had gone to general wellness programs for people who had not been diagnosed with any mental illness. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the act that he championed has been effective in promoting early and broad-ranging intervention.
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Friday, December 21, 2012
Silver tsunami of substance abuse
Town & Country Magazine
IN HER 46th year, Isabella's life began to disintegrate. First, her father died, and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Then, without warning, her husband died of an aneurism. ''I just took to alcohol,'' she says. ''I didn't even really like it, I don't think. It was just to numb the pain and get out of the reality.'' And so it was for the next two decades of Isabella's life. Until that catastrophic string of events, she had been a social drinker. Then began a dark, double life of finding refuge in the booze, punctuated by episodes of getting on top of things. ''It's 20 years of like a revolving door,'' says the grandmother of four, whose experience is typical of an emerging crisis among older people who are turning to substance abuse in growing numbers.
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IN HER 46th year, Isabella's life began to disintegrate. First, her father died, and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Then, without warning, her husband died of an aneurism. ''I just took to alcohol,'' she says. ''I didn't even really like it, I don't think. It was just to numb the pain and get out of the reality.'' And so it was for the next two decades of Isabella's life. Until that catastrophic string of events, she had been a social drinker. Then began a dark, double life of finding refuge in the booze, punctuated by episodes of getting on top of things. ''It's 20 years of like a revolving door,'' says the grandmother of four, whose experience is typical of an emerging crisis among older people who are turning to substance abuse in growing numbers.
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Belly up: Despite research, state cautions ‘no safe level of alcohol’ for pregnant women still holds true
Anchorage Press
Over the summer, the results of a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control dropped like a bomb in the online publication of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Ganaecology. The study’s authors concluded that although there is no established safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant women, “the present study suggests that small volumes consumed occasionally may not present serious concern.” The researchers gathered self-reports of average weekly drinking and binge drinking episodes during pregnancy, from women whose children of those pregnancies were about to turn five years old. Researchers then tested the five-year-olds on measures of intelligence and executive function, to determine what impact the consumption had on the children’s cognitive and behavioral performance.
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Over the summer, the results of a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control dropped like a bomb in the online publication of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Ganaecology. The study’s authors concluded that although there is no established safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant women, “the present study suggests that small volumes consumed occasionally may not present serious concern.” The researchers gathered self-reports of average weekly drinking and binge drinking episodes during pregnancy, from women whose children of those pregnancies were about to turn five years old. Researchers then tested the five-year-olds on measures of intelligence and executive function, to determine what impact the consumption had on the children’s cognitive and behavioral performance.
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Can Washington learn from Californian budget compromise?
BBC News
Four years ago, the state of California was on the brink of bankruptcy. It had been hit hard by the financial crisis. Unemployment was higher than the national average, as was the rate of mortgage repossessions. Tax revenues were in steady decline, while expenditure had ballooned. California's budget deficit stood at $11.2bn (£7bn) and in the state legislature Republicans and Democrats were at loggerheads over whether to cut services or raise taxes. A budget was finally signed off by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger three months late. That included tough measures. State employees were asked to stay at home without pay for two days each month to reduce expenditure. State offices were closed on the first and third Friday of each month. But the situation did not improve. By the middle of 2009, the state government began issuing IOUs to meet its short term financial obligations. The rating agencies downgraded its bond-rating. Yet four years on, California is projecting a budget surplus of more than $1bn for the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
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Four years ago, the state of California was on the brink of bankruptcy. It had been hit hard by the financial crisis. Unemployment was higher than the national average, as was the rate of mortgage repossessions. Tax revenues were in steady decline, while expenditure had ballooned. California's budget deficit stood at $11.2bn (£7bn) and in the state legislature Republicans and Democrats were at loggerheads over whether to cut services or raise taxes. A budget was finally signed off by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger three months late. That included tough measures. State employees were asked to stay at home without pay for two days each month to reduce expenditure. State offices were closed on the first and third Friday of each month. But the situation did not improve. By the middle of 2009, the state government began issuing IOUs to meet its short term financial obligations. The rating agencies downgraded its bond-rating. Yet four years on, California is projecting a budget surplus of more than $1bn for the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
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Brown: Medi-Cal expansion could hit California Budget
Mercurynews.com
Expanding the state's Medi-Cal program to meet new federal guidelines could add up to $4 billion a year in costs at the same time California is implementing federal health reform, potentially putting its budget "right out of whack," Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Brown said his administration is seeking federal waivers for some of the proposed expansions toCalifornia
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Expanding the state's Medi-Cal program to meet new federal guidelines could add up to $4 billion a year in costs at the same time California is implementing federal health reform, potentially putting its budget "right out of whack," Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Brown said his administration is seeking federal waivers for some of the proposed expansions to
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DHHR Agrees to Medicaid System
After a months-long saga, the state Department of Health and Human Resources agreed this week to pay up to $248 million over the next decade for a complex Medicaid computer system. The contract goes to the lowest bidder, California-based Molina Medicaid Solutions, which handles the existing system for the state. The deal, signed earlier this week, apparently ends a DHHR bidding process that created unflattering headlines for much of the year. (Losing bidders have a few days to challenge the bid, but it was unclear Thursday if any would choose to do so.) The contract had already been rebid twice. DHHR has never given a public reason for the first failure. The second bid was scrapped in March after it became tainted by a conflict of interest.
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State Senate leader backs Medi-Cal expansion
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