New study shows access to Medicaid lowered risk of death for low-income adults

Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Wednesday, June 25th.

A nationwide study shows the life-saving impact of Medicaid.More on that next. But first... the headlines….#######

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an 8-point-63 billion dollar budget for the next fiscal year.

The revised budget was increased by 18-point-3 million dollars over the original proposal, with most of that going toward public safety.

During yesterday’s (Tuesday) deliberations, Supervisor Jim Desmond praised the county's Chief Administrative Officer, Ebony Shelton, for creating a balanced budget.

“There's a lot I like about this $8.6 billion budget, for example, the largest increase of 149 million going to public safety, as it should for sheriff's services, jail improvements and for opioid, enforcement.”

There are also cuts.

The budget decreases county staffing by 191 positions … mostly through attrition, eliminating vacant spots and streamlining operations.

#######

Grocery Workers at Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions and Ralphs are expected to return to the negotiating table today (Wednesday).

This morning, workers will be handing out leaflets outside the Vons on Santa Fe Drive in Encinitas, ahead of bargaining.

Talks are scheduled to continue through Friday.

Previously, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if deemed necessary.

########

The San Diego Humane Society is urging owners to take steps to protect their pets ahead of the 4th of July!

They’re offering free microchipping through July 3rd.

You can make an appointment at S-D Humane dot org slash microchip.

The organization is also waiving fees to reclaim lost pets through July 8th

#########

From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.

##########

A new nationwide study shows Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans, isn’t just about health coverage. It actually saves lives.

But, with lawmakers pushing massive cuts, Health reporter Heidi de Marco says, the life-saving safety net could unravel for the more than 880,000 San Diegans who rely on Medi-Cal.

New research shows when people gain access to medicaid they are less likely to die. Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research tracked 37 million low-income adults who gained access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. They found a 21% reduction in the risk of death for those who enrolled.

Co-author Bruce Meyer co-authored the study.

“We looked at what we thought of as the most pronounced, most grave outcome when you cut health insurance, and that's mortality.”

The U.S. Senate is debating a federal bill that would slash Medicaid funding by more than $800 billion. Meyers warns the cuts could leave millions uninsured. 

“That's going to lead to increased deaths.”

Meyer says the choice isn’t just about balancing budgets.

“You have to decide whether the cost savings are worth the increased mortality, and that's a judgment that Congress is implicitly making.”

Experts say if the cuts go through, the effects will show up in clinics, in ERs, and in the lives of people who could lose access to care proven to save them.

Heidi de Marco, KPBS News.

##########

A city council committee is considering a new proposal to raise the minimum wage for tourism and hospitality workers in the city of San Diego. Video Journalist Matthew Bowler heard from both sides about the proposal.

According to the San Diego Tourism Authority, their industry has a $22 billion impact on our region, and one out of every eight San Diegans works in it. Now Sean Elo Rivera is proposing a 25 dollar an hour minimum wage for those workers. Councilmember Elo Rivera says this is not an original idea. “LA just raised their minimum wage to $30. The goal of $30 an hour for tourism workers in Long Beach, as a higher one” But tourism industry leaders say this is bad for their business.  Chris Cate, President & CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce says this could cripple San Diego’s economy. “At some point in time, you're going to see the negative impacts of these mandates.” Steve Pinard owns Action Sports Rentals. Pinard says if he’s forced to pay his employees 25 dollars an hour, he’ll close. “My business will shut down under this proposal. I can not absorb that” Elo-Rivera says this argument is old and doesn’t hold water. “San Diego is better than the sky will fall arguments. Whenever we begin talking about paying workers a fair wage, every single time, workers ask for a decent wage to keep a roof over their heads and food on their family's plates.” According to a 2022 Tourism Authority study, the average wage for a tourism worker is 28 an hour, three dollars more than the proposed minimum wage. The proposal will be brought before the Select Committee on Addressing Cost of Living tomorrow. Matthew Bowler, KPBS News.

##########

When the U.S. bombed Iran over the weekend, thousands of San Diego-based troops were already on station in the Middle East.

Military reporter Andrew Dyer says deployments to the region have again become routine.

“They , uh , possess considerable tactical capability” Vice Admiral Brad Cooper tells the Senate Armed Services Committee today (Tuesday)  about the threat Iran’s military poses to U.S. forces in the Middle East. Cooper is the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region. He’s been nominated to become its commander. Six San Diego-based Navy warships are now under Cooper’s authority in the region. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson deployed seven months ago. Its deployment was extended in March when it was redirected to the Middle East. The Navy’s maintained a steady carrier presence in the region since October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel. The Vinson’s been involved in strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen but were not part of the weekend bombing inside Iran – that was Air Force B-2 bombers. The San Diego littoral combat ship USS Canberra is also now in the region  That’s notable because it’s the first LCS to deploy with a long-delayed mine countermeasure mission package.

That’s something Cooper says is needed.. “Iran has thousands of sea mines . It's a very fairly narrow area . We do have a sufficient and the largest mine force in the world presently in the Middle East .” It’s not clear when the Vinson might return home, carrier deployments average about six months. Relief could be on the way. The East Coast-based carrier USS Gerald Ford left Norfolk today for its own scheduled deployment.

Andrew Dyer, KPBS News. 

##########

Parents in La Mesa and Spring Valley have been getting help with their kids’ behavioral challenges through a public school program.

Education reporter Katie Anastas says the Trump administration is ending the grant program that pays for it.

“Noah’s here today, we’re so glad to see you here, Noah’s here today…” Twice a week, a group of three- to six-year-olds and their parents gather in a small classroom in Spring Valley. There’s story time… “This is the color monster. Today he woke up feeling confused…”

A switch from the carpet to a desk…“Danny, you can go to the table…Emilia, wonderful…” And individual activities. Parents and caregivers take notes on kids’ progress and where they need help. It’s called the Parent Empowerment Program, or PEP. The goal is to give families the tools they need to overcome behaviors like tantrums, aggression and separation anxiety. Teachers in the district connect families with the program. Chelsea Gould leads it. “We talk to the school team and what they've tried and what challenges they're seeing, and then from there, we're able to mimic those scenarios here at PEP.” For four-year-old Bertie Davis, just getting to school used to be a challenge. Grindl McMahon is her mom. “We could not get her from the car to the classroom. And it was like to a point that she would kick, scream, run away, and just completely refuse.” Activities like grocery shopping or taking a walk had become nearly impossible. Bertie is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum. “You really do lose, like, the village or a community when you have a special needs child.”

Four months in the Parent Empowerment Program, and…“It's totally changed my life. We can, like, take her out, and we don't feel like we're prisoners in our own home, because that's kind of how it was before.” Now, McMahon is helping lead classroom time. While she reads stories and hands out puzzles, parents and staff use a strategy called specific positive attention. “I like how Bertie’s staying at the table, Noah’s at the table…” It involves describing and praising a certain behavior. “Even like one of the first days that we were here, one of the other boys was outside and Bertie was trying to run away from me in the parking lot, which she loves to do. And I said, ‘Oh, wow. Danny's holding his mom's hand,’ and she was like, grabbed my hand. So things like that, they're very small tweaks, but it's like the way that you talk to your kid.” Bertie has come a long way since February. But there are some skills she’s still working on, like trading. “Five, four, three, two, one… “(Bertie cries) Kids and their parents work on specific skills and get feedback in an observation room. “Time to clean up….she cleaned up without having another turn.” A staff member watches through a one-way mirror…keeping track of what works and what doesn’t. Along with teaching parents about tools to use at home, the program shares information with kids’ teachers. “When we're able to bridge that gap between home and school, to make sure everyone in that child's life are all on the same page, doing the same things with the same words, we really start to see powerful change across settings, which is really, really exciting.”

Federal funding for the program comes from school-based mental health grants…part of a bill passed after a gunman killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022. The Department of Education awarded the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District more than $12 million over the course of five years. In May, the Trump administration told school districts it would stop funding the grant program two years early. Deann Ragsdale is a deputy superintendent in the district. “To have nobody come in to even look at the work that we were doing, to talk about what we were doing or to see what we were doing and how it's changing lives and have that just be stripped from us. It was shocking. It was sad. It made me angry.” A Department of Education spokesperson said grant recipients were using the funds to QUOTE “implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas.”

“We were going to hire bilingual social workers so that we could communicate better with our families and our communities where we had bilingual families. And to me, that's about partnering with families. It's not about excluding anyone.” The grant funding will end in December. Ragsdale says the district has enough funding to keep staff on through the end of next school year, but they’ll need to find another funding source if they want the program to continue after that. “Bertie, your job is to work on this puzzle.

Puzzle.” McMahon says she’s worried families might miss out on life-changing help. “If we didn't have this program, I feel like we would be really excluded from, you know, daily life. And this program has really made it possible for Bertie to attend a public school.” The district is appealing the department of education’s decision. They’re not sure when – or if – they’ll hear back. Katie Anastas, KPBS News.

##########

That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.