#dental-care-access

#dental-care-access

"This argues for the need to sustain such policies and shows that it is possible to right the wrongs retroactively, which is a powerful idea," said Kenneth Michelson, MD, MPH, associate professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Emergency Medicine and a co-author of the study.

Congress has kept key drug assistance funding at $900.3 million annually since 2014. New enrollments for state programs jumped 30% from 2022 to 2024, in part because states cut off pandemic-era Medicaid assistance. As of January, at least 18 states have pulled back their Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, known as ADAPs, in some way.

Nearly 90% of the land in the United States is rural and about one in five people, or some 60 million, live throughout it according to the U.S. Census.

Because of budget cuts, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has ended clinical services at seven of its public health clinic sites. As of Feb. 27, the county is no longer providing services such as vaccinations, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, or tuberculosis diagnosis and specialty TB care at the affected locations, according to county officials and a department fact sheet.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones says about 275,000 people have been attached to primary care so far in the first year of the government's plan. More than half of that progress is due to moving people off the Health Care Connect wait list.

Doctors told us my grandson wouldn't live past three months, but they didn't know Elijah was capable of. Today he's 7 years old, stubborn as ever and fighting every day to prove them wrong. Elijah was born with cerebral palsy. Caring for him is a full-time, all-hands-on-deck operation that includes in-home nurses, physical and occupational therapy, school support and a small pharmacy's worth of medications.

When I came into this world and met her, I never really saw her smile. Having a focus in rural areas is really important because sometimes they're scared to go to the dentist. I'm not able to restore my grandmother's smile, but with my patients, I treat them like they're my own family members. Just showing them love and care-having that small interaction-can really change their trajectory.

A big part of our faith is charity. The center donates annually to numerous causes such as natural disaster aid, libraries, teacher organizations and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley food bank, demonstrating commitment to broader community support beyond immediate congregational needs.

The issue is particularly critical right now for people who have insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Prices for those plans have skyrocketed this year after Congress failed to extend critical tax credits. Without those credits, monthly premiums for ACA plans have, on average, more than doubled. Early data on ACA enrollments for 2026 not only suggests that fewer people are signing up for the plans, but also that those who are enrolling are often choosing bronze plans, which are high-deductible plans.

If you're smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, should you expect society to pay when you get sick?" He added that while Americans would always have the right to "eat donuts all day," nevertheless, "should you then expect society to care for you when you predictably get very sick at the same level as somebody who was born with a congenital illness?

Adult literacy advocate Toni Cordell recounts the story of feeling comforted when her doctor told her that her medical concern could be solved with an easy surgery. She agreed to proceed without asking further questions and didn't understand the medical consent forms because she didn't read well. At a follow-up office visit a couple of weeks after the procedure, Cordell was shocked when the nurse asked, "How are you feeling since your hysterectomy?"

States like Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia saw the most significant dips. "People have less access to care, and that tends to translate into worse health outcomes," said Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He added that many households' financial security is at risk: "People will face big bills that they either can't pay, and that hurts their credit. Or they do pay, but it requires them to skimp in other areas."