Trump Green Card Proposal Triggers Troubling Health Care Trend Among Some Immigrants
Immigrants at one Oakland clinic are worried that being enrolled in Medicaid will stall their efforts to gain citizenship.
San Francisco Chronicle:
California Immigrants Worried About Health Care Under Trump Green Card Plan
Patients at La Clinica de la Raza have caught wind of a recent Trump administration proposal that could make it harder for legal immigrants to get a green card if federal immigration officials think they’re likely to use Medicaid or other public benefits in the future. And they’ve been asking [clinic employee Laura] Plasencia if they should drop their Medicaid coverage, or not apply, for fear that receiving the benefit could imperil their chances at permanent residency. (Ho, 10/28)
In other health news around the state —
Sacramento Bee:
With STD Rates Skyrocketing In Sacramento, County Funds Treatment At Community Colleges
A pilot program beginning in November at two campuses of the Los Rios Community College system hopes to curb some of that alarming growth in STDs by providing free access to treatment and education. The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors recently approved a $25,000 grant to pay for a nurse to work twice a week at the health centers at Cosumnes River College and Sacramento City College to offer free screenings and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea and HIV. (Yoon-Hendricks, 10/28)
Los Angeles Times:
Here’s What Happened After California Got Rid Of Personal Belief Exemptions For Childhood Vaccines
Health authorities in California have more power to insist that a dog is vaccinated against rabies than to ensure that a child enrolled in public school is vaccinated against measles. That’s just one of the frustrations faced by health officials in the first year after California did away with “personal belief exemptions” that allowed parents to send their kids to school unvaccinated, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. (Kaplan, 10/29)
The California Health Report:
People Of Color Face Higher Rates Of Hep C, More Deadly Cases Of Liver Cancer
In California, liver cancer incidence and death rates have also declined among APIs since 2000. Yet rates among Latinos and African-Americans have increased over that same period, according to data from the California Cancer Registry. Just over half of liver cancer cases arise from well-established risk factors, like viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, according to Salma Shariff-Marco, a UCSF professor who works on the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry. Researchers, health care professionals and advocates are doing their best to screen, prevent and treat for those risk factors. (Matthews, 10/25)