WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and a group of senators also on the committee called on Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Bob McDonald to meet in-person to discuss the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 (VACAA) and make certain it is implemented and upheld the way it was intended and in the best interest of veterans. This includes offering non-VA care to veterans who are unable to receive healthcare services from a VA medical facility within 40 miles of where a veteran resides.
“We understood that it is your desire to carry out VACAA as it was intended and in the best interest of the veteran,” the senators wrote to Sec. McDonald. “Regrettably, the VA’s interpretation of the 40-mile eligibility criteria is inconsistent with your message and guidance. Due to numerous discussions on this issue, the VA has agreed to a review utilizing existing authorities to identify the types of non-VA healthcare services that may be offered to a veteran when the same services are not available at a VA facility within 40 miles. We are concerned that this narrow review will fail to guard against subjective determinations by bureaucrats of which medical services warrant an exception to the 40-mile rule and which do not.”
On Sept. 9, 2014, during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Hearing, Sen. Moran asked VA Sec. McDonald to clarify how the VA was going to handle care for rural veterans. Sen. Moran received a commitment from Sec. McDonald that the VA will make certain veterans receive the care they need through VACAA and will not experience the burden of travel to access that care, particularly if a VA facility within 40 miles of where a veteran resides does not offer the care and treatment the veteran is seeking. Click here to view the exchange.
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — One of the men accused of alcohol-related violations in connection with the fatal fall of an Arizona State University student has been sentenced.
A Maricopa County Superior Court spokeswoman says Commissioner Julie Newell sentenced David Siegal to 18 months of probation with a deferred jail term of 45 days.
Siegal also must complete 30 hours community service and cannot consume alcohol.
The 20-year-old Siegal pleaded guilty earlier this month to one misdemeanor count of being a minor in possession of liquor.
Naomi McClendon plunged 10 floors to her death March 30 from an apartment complex near ASU’s campus.
Tempe police say the 18-year-old woman from Manhattan, Kansas, initially attended an “all-you-can-drink” party thrown by ASU fraternity members.
Surveillance video showed her stumbling and intoxicated when she entered the residential building.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — NASCAR driver Kurt Busch has met with Delaware police investigating an allegation by his ex-girlfriend that he assaulted her.
Police say Busch and his attorneys met with investigators Tuesday afternoon. An attorney for Busch says he was cooperative and continues to deny the allegations by 36-year-old Patricia Driscoll.
Police spokesman Mark Hoffman says the investigation is continuing and that no decision on whether to file charges has been made.
Driscoll claims she was assaulted inside Busch’s motorhome at Dover International Speedway in September, just days after the couple broke up.
In court documents asking that a judge order Busch to stay away from her, Driscoll said Busch was despondent after a poor qualifying run, suggested that he wanted to kill himself, then smashed her head three times against a wall.
ERICA WERNER, Associated Press
JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — People familiar with White House planning say President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday executive action on immigration that will sidestep Congress and shield potentially millions of immigrants illegally in the United States from deportation.
The administration is considering steps that would provide work permits for up to 5 million immigrants now living illegally in the U.S. Obama planned to hold a rally Friday in Las Vegas to draw attention to his decision.
The officials who spoke about Obama’s announcement did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it on the record. TheIt’s time to fix our broken immigration system. Tomorrow night, President Obama will address the nation on new commonsense steps he’s taking to fix as much of it as he can. Tune in tomorrow at 8pm ET
Informational tables lined the entry hallway at a recent health fair held in Kansas City, Mo., for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, who are disproportionately represented among the uninsured. Outreach efforts are under way as the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins. -Photo by Mike Sherry
By Mike Sherry
Heartland Health Monitor
Alex Smith
Heartland Health Monitor
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period began Saturday, for-profit and nonprofit groups ramped up efforts to assist populations that have proven hard to reach.
In and around Kansas City, counselors, insurance brokers and insurance companies held public education events and free health fairs to reach the uninsured and underinsured among minority populations and apprise them of their coverage options.
Nancy Kelly, program director of the Missouri Foundation for Health’s Expanding Coverage Initiative-Cover Missouri Coalition, said the coalition altered its approach in the wake of the first open enrollment period last year.
“One of the things that the group learned was that it’s really important to meet the community members where they are,” she said.
Kelly said the coalition created more outreach programs aimed at addressing the high rates of the uninsured in minority communities.
In Kansas City, 20.9 percent of African Americans and 34.7 percent of Latinos remain uninsured, compared with 11.3 percent of the white population, according to the coalition.
The coalition’s outreach efforts included programs aimed at African Americans and Latinos as well as the LGBT, Vietnamese and Bosnian communities.
For-profit groups offered enrollment assistance as well. John McDaniel, head of McDaniel Hazley Group, a minority-owned insurance brokerage based in Kansas City, opened MHG Enrollment Center on the northwest corner of 18th and Vine, once the cultural hub of Kansas City’s African-American community.
“He noticed that last year during open enrollment, our community – the African American community and the Hispanic community – was very underserved, so he wanted to make a difference,” said Dana McGill-Brown, an account executive at McDaniel Hazley Group.
McGill-Brown said the center hoped to enroll between 2,000 and 3,000 individuals. The free assistance is underwritten by commissions provided by insurers.
Wariness among LGBT individuals
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, who are another group disproportionately represented among the uninsured, were also the target of outreach efforts.
The Whole Person, an organization serving individuals with disabilities, co-sponsored a health fair last weekend geared toward the LGBT community. Other sponsors were Swope Health Services and The LGBT-Affirmative Therapists Guild of Kansas City.
Dr. Matthew Heinz, who attended the fair and directs LGBT outreach for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stressed the availability of financial assistance for health insurance plans purchased through the federal marketplace. He also explained the end of once-common insurance practices such as pricing decisions based on criteria like pre-existing conditions.
Getting that message across is sometimes difficult, however, because of ingrained perceptions in the LGBT community.
“It’s really hard to just turn on a dime, and say, ‘OK, you can now get insurance, and no, you won’t be charged more because your transgender 13-year-old just came out,’” Heinz said.
According to a Gallup Poll released in August, self-identified LGBT individuals are more likely than non-LGBT Americans to report they lack health insurance – although the Affordable Care Act has helped shrink the gap.
In the fourth quarter of 2013, the last three months before the ACA required individuals to have health insurance, the percent of uninsured individuals in the LGBT community was 5.3 points higher than the rest of the population
At the start of the second quarter this year, as the initial sign-up period for health insurance through the ACA ended, the LGBT community had registered a larger drop in its uninsured population than the population at large. Yet 17.6 percent of the LGBT community remained uninsured compared with 13.2 percent of the rest of the population.
HHS report underscores advances
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services LGBT Issues Coordinating Committee issued its fourth annual report highlighting initiatives under way to improve the health and well-being of LGBT individuals.
Among other advances, the report cited a proposed rule that bars discriminatory practices at hospitals participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. And it noted that data collection efforts at HHS now include questions on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Even as outreach efforts have expanded, federal grants for health exchange enrollment assistance in Kansas and Missouri have fallen. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provided $1.59 million to health groups in Missouri, down from $1.8 million last year. Grants to Kansas groups totaled $710,145 compared with $886,085 last year.
To help fund additional enrollment assistance needs, the Cover Missouri Coalition, which consists of health organizations led by the Missouri Foundation for Health, has provided $4.5 million in grants. Those grants fund certified application counselor positions throughout the state.
Kelly, of the Cover Missouri Coalition, said she welcomes enrollment assistance from brokers and insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City. But she cautions consumers to steer clear of enrollment assisters who ask for payment.
“They should not be paying a fee,” she said. “They are not required to pay a fee. There should not be a charge for the consumer. That is one of the guidelines that has been set through the marketplace.”
Kelly said consumers also should use the official healthcare.gov website to avoid scams and ensure they receive the subsidies to which they may be entitled.
Individuals lacking health coverage will be hit with larger fines this year than last year: 2 percent of their yearly household income or $325 per person for the year, whichever is higher.
Mike Sherry and Alex Smith are reporters for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. health official says the government’s worst-case scenario forecast for the Ebola epidemic in West Africa won’t happen.
In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the number of people with Ebola could explode to as many as 1.4 million by mid-January without more help. But on Wednesday, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said, “We don’t think projections from the summer will come to pass.”
Frieden did not provide new estimates. He was speaking at a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington. So far, there have been more than 14,000 cases.
The CDC estimates were based on conditions in late August, before an international surge in medical aid. That work seems to have helped slow the epidemic in Liberia, the hardest-hit of the three countries.
BOSTON (AP) — A bow that shoots illuminated arrows its manufacturer says can fly up to 145 feet and the “Catapencil” — a pencil with a miniature slingshot-style launcher on its end — are on an annual list of unsafe toys released Wednesday by a Massachusetts-based consumer watchdog group.
World Against Toys Causing Harm, or W.A.T.C.H., issued the “10 Worst Toys” list to remind parents and consumers of the potential hazards in some toys the holiday shopping season gets underway.
Organizers, who have been compiling the lists for more than three decades, said the toys singled out this year are representative of some of the typical problems they come across, and aren’t the only potentially dangerous products on the market.
“It’s not so much about the specific toys. It’s about the hazards,” James Swartz, the group’s director, said at a news conference at the Franciscan Hospital for Children.
Many toys, he said, continue to have the same hazardous designs, including small, detachable parts that infants can choke on; strings that can cause strangulation; dangerous projectiles; and misleading or confusing warning labels and instructions.
“There’s no reason, after all these years, we should have toys like this,” Swartz said as the group displayed each of the ten toys. “We shouldn’t be finding these things for manufacturers. They should be designing them appropriately in the first place.”
Dr. Penny Norman, who developed ScienceWiz’s “Bottle Rocket Party,” said she’s surprised the company’s kit, which includes rocket tubes, stoppers and yellow “caution tape” but not other necessary or recommended items, such as a bicycle pump or safety goggles, made the list.
She said the idea for the kits, which have been on the market since about 2005 and retail for around $15, came after doing homemade bottle rocket experiments with children at summer camps and after-school programs in the Berkeley, California, area.
“It’s a time-honored event for children,” Norman said of launching the water or baking soda-and-vinegar-powered rockets. “But it isn’t about children being set loose to play with them on their own. It’s absolutely about adults running a bottle rocket party event safely.”
The Toy Industry Association said American toy safety standards “remain the most protective in the world” and that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency responsible for monitoring the safety of toys, “consistently” ranks toys among the safest of 15 consumer product categories commonly found in the home.
“As an industry that creates magical products for children, we hold ourselves to the highest possible standard of care,” the organization said in a statement. “Like WATCH, members of the toy industry are intent on assuring that the toys consumers bring into their homes are safe for their families. Unlike WATCH, we maintain our priority focus on toy safety every day of the year.”
Joan Siff, W.A.T.C.H.’s president, noted that there have been at least 17 toy recalls representing over 4.8 million units of toys in the U.S. and Canada so far in 2014. She urged parents to be extra vigilant during the holiday season, when W.A.T.C.H. says more than 65 percent of toys are sold.
“Remember: Toys are an embellishment on life,” Siff said. “They are not a necessity. If they can injure a child, they simply should not be sold.”
Here’s W.A.T.C.H.’s full list of “worst toys” for 2014:
___
—”Air Storm Firetek Bow” by Zing
—”Ziggle” four-wheeled cycle by Radio Flyer
—”Catapencil” by Toysmith
—”Alphabet Zoo Rock & Stack Pull Toy” by Skip Hop
—”SWAT Electric Machine Gun” by Junxing Toys Industrial Co.
—”Wooden Instruments” sold at Wal-Mart
—”Bottle Rocket Party” by Norman & Globus (ScienceWiz)
—”Lil’ Cutesies-Best Friends” doll by JC Toys Group
—”True Legends Orcs Battle Hammer” sold at Toys R Us
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A lead players’ lawyer pushing the estimated $1 billion settlement of NFL concussion claims says the league will pursue “scorched-earth litigation” if the case isn’t settled.
Players’ lawyer Christopher Seeger’s arguments opened a daylong “fairness hearing” on the settlement in federal court in Philadelphia.
The deal would settle thousands of lawsuits that accuse the NFL of long hiding what it knew about concussion risks.
The NFL expects about 6,000 former players to develop Alzheimer’s disease or dementia in the coming decades. They would get an average $190,000.
Some critics say that’s not enough to cover their needs. Others complain that there are no awards for depression, mood swings, dizziness and other problems they blame on concussions.
Senior U.S. District Judge Anita Brody is not expected to rule immediately on whether to accept the deal.
CADET, Mo. (AP) — An eastern Missouri man has been found safe, more than a month after he was reported missing.
The Daily Journal newspaper in Park Hills, Missouri reports that 65-year-old Gerrial Stone of Cadet was found alive and well Tuesday at an apartment complex in Branson. He had been missing since Oct. 6 when he took out the trash and never returned.
Washington County Sheriff Andy Skiles says Branson police went to the apartment and confirmed it was Stone. Skiles says Stone apparently wanted a new start.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says President Barack Obama’s executive immigration actions will be comprehensive and include border security measures.
Johnson says the administration came up with a variety of changes to the immigration system that he believes are not only legal but needed in light of inaction by Congress on immigration.
Johnson spoke briefly about the president’s plan during an event at the National Press Club on Wednesday. He didn’t provide any details about Obama’s plan, saying he didn’t want to get out ahead of the president’s announcement.
Johnson also says more clarity is needed for internal directives outlining how immigration authorities decide which immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported. He didn’t provide details.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and a group of senators also on the committee called on Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Bob McDonald to meet in-person to discuss the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 (VACAA) and make certain it is implemented and upheld the way it was intended and in the best interest of veterans. This includes offering non-VA care to veterans who are unable to receive healthcare services from a VA medical facility within 40 miles of where a veteran resides.
