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Navah Paskowitz knows that her 4-year-old son, Edwin, is long overdue for a dental checkup, but she’s terrified to take him for one.
They’ve weathered five years of economic crisis, relentless state budget cuts and growing demand for their services. Now, social service providers for seniors in the Los Angeles area are bracing for a new slew of challenges in 2013.
JTA reviews the positions of presidential candidates Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney on some issues of importance to the Jewish community.
It shouldn't have taken Todd Akin's crackpot contraception comment to alert us that Paul Ryan thinks rape is just another "method of conception."
If you're like most health consumers, you probably don't know what osteopaths are, let alone what sort of medicine they practice. However, osteopathic doctors (DOs) and schools of osteopathic medicine are playing a little known but critical role in stemming the nation's need for primary care doctors, according to experts at Touro University of California's College of Osteopathic Medicine in the Bay Area city of Vallejo.
"My son, the doctor." Why does every Jewish mother have to have a doctor in the family? It might be because the immigrant mentality desperately desires a secure and well-paid profession, but in fact, there is a deeper reason why Jewish mothers want a doctor son.
If Barack Obama is re-elected as president, the overriding purpose of his second term will be the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Implementation and the use of executive power have not been Obama’s strengths, but he is going to have to get better very quickly. A powerful presidency mixes the “bully pulpit” with a maximum use of the president’s authority, from conception of a policy to its implementation.
David Suissa compellingly observes that the principal motivator of anti-Israel sentiment is the charge of “occupier”...
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act is far more than a narrow legal decision. It is a decisive affirmation of what is right. Health care surely is right -- and a right.
From antiquity to the 20th century, preventive medicine was not bad. The Torah (Leviticus 12-13) already knows about quarantine as a method to contain communicative diseases, and the Talmud knows about such things as the importance of fruits and vegetables in one’s diet, the dangers of obesity, and many other aspects of taking care of our health that our doctors still recommend today.
American Jewish groups -- with the notable exception of the Republican Jewish Coalition -- were largely satisfied with the U.S. Supreme Court’s vote to uphold President Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 vote.
Today is a bright day for our nation, and, especially, for those whose access to health care is fragile. Today's historic ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a victory for those whose believe, as we do, that health care is a fundamental right, and, especially given the lead opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, a victory for the court itself.
"The US Supreme Court's decision to uphold the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a huge victory for women and families across the country.
American individualism, at the root of some of the great blessings of freedom and pluralism of our country, is also the ultimate cause over the last half century of our inability as a nation to come together to provide health care for us all, in shameful contrast to all the other Western democracies.
Rabbi Hershy Ten, president of Bikur Cholim Jewish Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles, never thought the health care system needed much reform.
Beverly Hills cardiologist and internist Dr. Reed Wilson — a former member of the Republican Jewish Coalition who helped found its Los Angeles chapter — called the mandate "an amazing breach of the American trust." Moreover, he said, the law's finer print contains "rules and regulations" pertaining to doctor reimbursement rates that will threaten physicians' private practices and health care quality.
Skip Koenig, a Temple Judea congregant and co-chair of the community organizing group One LA's health strategy team. Koenig said he is "thrilled" and "excited" about the court's decision to uphold the mandate that requires all Americans to buy health insurance.
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles CEO Paul Castro lauded the announcement of the Supreme Court's decision this morning to uphold President Obama's Affordable Care Act, saying it will benefit JFS's target population.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted to uphold President Obama's landmark Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts voting in the majority.
Last week, many of us followed with much anxiety the Supreme Court debate about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, referred to in some circles as “Obamacare.”
I broke a bone in my foot several weeks ago, and I’ve been limping around in an expensive, ugly boot and shlepping to doctors ever since. A simple slip costs lots of money — happily, not entirely to me. I have health insurance; I’m lucky.
Intense cooperation among health care plans and physicians can improve health care, according to a new study that looks toward Israel’s health care system. The study -- “What The United States Could Learn From Israel About Improving The Quality Of Health Care,” published Thursday by the peer-reviewed Health Affairs magazine -- suggests that increased coordination can improve monitoring standards in such areas as colon cancer screening and flu immunization.
As a loyal Jewish Democrat and longtime advocate of social justice, she never thought she would find herself fighting Jerry Brown, a man she voted for three times for governor. Yet the 94-year-old is suddenly on the wrong side of Brown’s proposed budget cuts that would slash state spending by $12.5 billion, ripping a hole in numerous social service programs and eliminating others entirely.
OneLA, a community-organizing group, launched an effort to implement changes locally in access to health care during a public event at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills on Jan. 30.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will consult with Jewish leaders on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
Jewish federation officials lobbied in Washington for health care funding and programs.
In the always lively Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Rabbi Elliot Dorff writes in a cover essay that "support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law." Is it now? On health care reform, Rabbi Dorff has his classical sources all lined up -- most having to do with obligations on the community to rescue its needy, the captive, and those otherwise endangered. The communal court system can compel a person to give charity in support of the poor. Proper medical services are a necessity in a Jewish community. And so on. Whether through socialized medicine or government health insurance, something must be done: the fact of there being 40 million uninsured Americans is "intolerable."
Whether or not we are believers in the Obama plan, or any of the particular plans for universal health care currently winding their way through Congress, support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law. Although what is available in medicine and its cost have changed radically, particularly over the past century, the fundamental right to receive good care — and to be compensated for giving it — goes very far back in our heritage, though perhaps, ironically, not all the way to the Torah or even the Mishnah.
Nearly a dozen eldercare professionals and paraprofessionals spent three days in January on a whirlwind tour of Jerusalem, Beersheva and Dimona, visiting day-care centers, sheltered housing arrangements and full-service facilities; listening to lecturers addressing such topics as how different ethnic groups care for their elderly and innovations in Alzheimer's care, and learning about new developments in aging-related services.
Rising costs, crowded waiting rooms and decreasing access to doctors are among the reasons medical patients in Southern California and across the nation use words like "headache" and "frustration" to describe America's health care system. And with declining insurance reimbursements, rising malpractice premiums, claims frustrations and growing paperwork, individual practitioners are often forced to increase the volume of patients they see as they decrease time spent in the examination room.
An Israeli treatment that could alleviate discomfort for a quarter of women over 60 years old is currently undergoing clinical trials. Pelvic organ prolapse is a weakening of the hammock of muscles in the pelvic floor, caused by childbirth or simply due to aging. Endogun, a young high-tech start-up in Israel has identified the need, pinpointed the problem, and is providing a solution.
Briefs
What will it take to convince politicians that Jewish voters care about a wide range of issues, not just Israel?
Asking the 100,000 uninsured residents of South Los Angeles to take an hourlong bus ride for medical services they may not receive is hardly a solution to the current health-care
crisis.
With many health care programs threatened because of cutbacks in government funding, Jessica Toledano and other members of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles' advocacy arm have redoubled their work on behalf of the elderly, immigrants and other vulnerable groups. In at least three recent instances, those efforts have paid off and saved imperiled programs from debilitating cuts or untimely demises.
I set out to write about the presidential election, but I changed my mind when I ran into Eric Gordon, the director of Workmen's Circle.
Following is an abridged version of the address given by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky at the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences commencement ceremony on June 13.
Angelenos in need of emergency care are facing the threat of longer journeys to fewer facilities. Faced with a projected deficit in excess of $700 million in 2005, the L.A. County Department of Health Services has proposed to shut down two of its hospitals, increasing the burden on remaining hospitals countywide.
here are some 39 million refugees and displaced persons in the world today, and Angelenos can get a hint of how they live and survive at "A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City" exhibition, now in Exposition Park through Oct. 22.
Eighty-eight years after Henrietta Szold founded Hadassah in 1912, the 306,000-member Zionist and social service organization will gather in Los Angeles for its first national convention of the 21st century. From July 16-19, more than 2,500 leaders and guests will mingle at the Century Plaza Hotel, where speakers will range from actor Richard Dreyfuss to political commentators Mary Matalin and James Carville. Hadassah is the largest women's and Jewish group in the U.S., but president Bonnie Lipton admits membership is down from its high of more than 350,000 in the 1980s. More than half of current membership is over 61, so the group is working to reinvent itself and draw younger women. Besides its historic focus on health care in Israel, for example, the organization is now championing women's health in the U.S, among other issues.
When Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced last Monday that itplans to take over management of two smaller West Los Angeleshospitals, the headlines could easily have read, "Man Bites Dog."