Immigration Crackdowns Upend Caregiving Industry, Leaving Families Struggling
Families, nursing facilities, and home health agencies rely on foreign-born workers to fill health care jobs that are demanding and do not attract enough American citizens. The Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies threaten to cut a key source of labor for the industry, which was already predicting a surge in demand. (Vanessa G. Sánchez and Daniel Chang, 4/4)
Proposed Legislation Aims to Expand Health Care Access for Undocumented Immigrants
A new bill in California aims to expand health care options for people who are undocumented. That comes as the state borrows money in part to fund Medi-Cal for undocumented residents. People who are undocumented in California have had limited access to Medi-Cal since 2014. The state extended coverage to all undocumented residents last year. Assembly Bill 4 would also allow them to enroll in Covered California — the state’s health insurance marketplace that was established through the Affordable Care Act. (Myscofski, 4/2)
Potential Deportation of Healthcare Workers Raises Concerns
More than 350,000 noncitizen healthcare workers in the U.S. may be at risk of deportation as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, researchers estimated. Based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) from March 2024, there were over 20 million individuals making up the workforce across formal and informal healthcare settings nationwide, of whom an estimated 16.7 million were U.S.-born citizens, 2.3 million naturalized citizens, nearly 700,000 documented noncitizens, and over 366,500 undocumented immigrants. (Lou, 4/3)
Schools Face Funding Threats Over DEI Policies
The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on K-12 schools in California and across the nation to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices by giving districts and states a deadline of 10 days to certify their compliance or risk losing all federal funding. Although federal funding for education is challenging to calculate and arrives through multiple channels, some tallies put the figure at $16.3 billion per year in California — including money for school meals, students with disabilities and early education Head Start programs. (Blume, 4/3)
Federal Funding Threats Put School Meal Programs at Risk
More than 80% of L.A. Unified students qualify for a free or reduced-price school meal — mainly funded by $363 million per year in federal food aid that the district receives. But this food aid appears to have become be another chess piece in the joust between California and the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure state and local officials to follow its edicts. (Blume, 4/3)
Pa. Senator Calls For Flexible Milk Options In School
A bipartisan trio in the Senate unveiled a proposal Wednesday to require schools to offer nondairy milk options at lunch to accommodate students who are lactose intolerant or have other dietary restrictions. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has long required school lunches to include milk on all trays in order for schools to be reimbursed for the meals. (Fortinsky, 4/2)
Federal Scrutiny Intensifies Over California's Educational Policies
The Trump administration is reviewing the curriculum of a sex education program in California for medical accuracy and age appropriateness, a move that has sparked backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates worried about queer and transgender sexual health information being censored. Last week, California was asked to submit all educational materials from its federally funded Personal Responsibility Education Program to the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to a news release from the administration. (Harter, 4/3)
Helping Homeless Students Stay In School: What Schools Can Do
A quiet place to complete homework, free and stable transportation options, and not immediately being penalized for missed work are among the things that Te’yana Brown said could have helped her as she faced homelessness at different points between elementary and high school. Instead, Brown spent most mornings trying to figure out how to get to her high school. Sometimes, a family member could drive her the 45 minutes to an hour to school, while on other days she took the bus. She missed so much school at one point that she was deemed chronically absent, meaning she’d missed at least 10% of the school year. (Rosales, 4/1)
Senate Confirms Dr. Mehmet Oz to Lead Medicare and Medicaid Services
In a party-line vote of 53-45, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz’s confirmation was expected; he is not as controversial as Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or some other Trump picks to run health agencies within the HHS. (Wilkerson, 4/3)
Newsom Administration Loses Out On Medi-Cal Dollars: Officials for Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration blew past a federal deadline Monday for doctors to get paid more to see low-income patients, effectively leaving millions of dollars unclaimed. Read more from CalMatters.
Justice Department Investigating Abbott Baby Formula Plant
Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Laboratories facility is engaging in unsanitary practices similar to those that led it to temporarily shut down just three years ago, sparking a nationwide formula shortage. Current and former employees told ProPublica that they have seen the plant in Sturgis, Michigan, take shortcuts when cleaning manufacturing equipment and testing for microbes. The employees said leaks in the factory are sometimes not fixed, a dangerous problem that can promote bacterial growth. They also said workers at the facility do not always take required swabs to check for pathogens while performing maintenance during production. Supervisors have urged workers to increase production and have retaliated against workers who complained about problems, the employees said. (Vogell, 4/4)
Recent Pertussis Outbreaks and Rising Cases Just weeks after two state surgeons general said they will no longer promote vaccinations, state officials announced that two Louisiana children have died of pertussis, or whooping cough—a vaccine-preventable disease—in the past 6 months, CNN reported yesterday. The news comes as Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, MD, confirmed 110 pertussis cases in Louisiana as of last week, compared with 154 for all of 2024. (Wappes, 4/3)
Federal Judge Halts Major Cuts to Public Health Funding A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration's move to cut over $11 billion in public health funding to states after 23 states and the District of Columbia sued to keep the funding intact. The coalition of states sued the Health and Human Services Department and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arguing that the money is used for many "urgent public health needs," including tracking diseases, funding access to vaccines and mental health and addiction services, and improving health infrastructures. (Rosen and Tin, 4/3)
HHS Faces Scrutiny Over Workforce Reductions and Program Cuts Some personnel and programs affected by sweeping reductions at federal health agencies on Tuesday will be reinstated, including a program at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that monitors lead in kids, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday. (Goodman and Tirrell, 4/3)
CDC Faces Major Overhaul Amidst Significant Staff Reductions The layoffs at CDC this week hit global and environmental health as well as HIV prevention programs especially hard, according to an overview document obtained by POLITICO. The document, shared during an agency meeting Tuesday, paints a picture of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that will be more narrowly focused on infectious disease, with a significantly less holistic view of public health. The job cuts include the elimination of about a fourth of the staff at the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention and about a third of the workers at the CDC’s Injury Center. (Gardner, 4/3)
Trump Administration's Impact on LGBTQ Health Funding and Research The nation’s LGBTQ research field is collapsing. In recent weeks, academics who focus on improving the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans have been subjected to waves of grant cancellations from the National Institutes of Health. More than 270 grants totaling at least $125 million of unspent funds have been eliminated, though the true sum is likely much greater, researchers told NBC News. (Ryan and Bendix, 4/3)
Recent Developments in U.S. Measles Outbreak Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico reported new measles cases this week, with the outbreak expanding for the first time into central Texas. Already, the U.S. has more measles cases this year than in all of 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. ... The multi-state outbreak confirms health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization said last week that cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak. (Shastri, 4/3)
Nurses Continue Advocacy for Labor Rights and Improved Working Conditions Taylor Crittenden still feels “righteous rage” when she thinks about her experiences at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Crittenden, a nurse at a hospital in Texas, remembers staffing shortages, limitations on personal protective equipment like heavy-duty masks, and long hours as health facilities were being overrun with COVID patients. (Rodriguez, 4/3)
California Moves to Enforce Staffing Standards in Psychiatric Hospitals: Calling the dangerous conditions in for-profit psychiatric hospitals an emergency, California’s top lawmaker on the state Senate Health Committee has proposed legislation to quickly impose stricter staffing requirements in the facilities that treat tens of thousands of residents experiencing mental health crises every year. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Cost-Adjusted RN Pay In Best, Worst States For Healthcare
California has the highest hourly mean wage for registered nurses in the U.S., and Oregon has the highest hourly mean wage for RNs after adjusted for cost of living, according to data published April 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Gooch, 4/2)
Impact Of Trump Administration's Health Research Cuts
The Trump administration has gutted two small federal agencies filled with researchers who study how the health care system functions and how to improve it. More than half of employees at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality — both part of the Department of Health and Human Services — have been laid off, according to several current and former employees. The two agencies operate on less than $600 million combined, or about 0.04% of what the federal government spends on health care. (Herman and Bannow, 4/2)
Scientists Challenge NIH Grant Cancellations In Federal Lawsuit
A group of scientists and health groups sued the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, arguing that an “ideological purge” of research funding is illegal and threatens medical cures. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, hundreds of NIH research grants have been abruptly canceled for science that mentions the words diversity, gender and vaccine hesitancy, as well as other politically charged topics. (4/2)
Impact of Trump Administration's Policies on Disability Rights For years, White House press conferences included sign language interpreters for the deaf. No longer. Interpreters have been noticeably absent from Trump administration press briefings, advocacy groups say. Gone, too, are the American Sign Language interpretations that used to appear on the White House’s YouTube channel. A White House webpage on accessibility, whitehouse.gov/accessibility, has also ceased working. (Armour, 4/3)
The Master Plan for Developmental Services — Let Your Ideas Be Known!: Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced the release of California’s Master Plan for Developmental Services, which works to better serve those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The plan outlines 167 recommendations for improvements, such as reducing barriers to service statewide. “California succeeds when ALL communities succeed,” Newsom said. Read more from Times of San Diego.