New Death With Indignity Law Lets Terminally Ill Be Crushed By Falling Vending Machines
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Mass. Gov. Healey plans to sign reproductive, transgender shield law
Massachusetts will gain a new layer of defense against out-of-state intrusion into reproductive and transgender care under legislation that Gov. Maura Healey plans to sign into law Thursday. At a time of enhanced federal scrutiny and legal threats largely led by Republicans in other states, lawmakers last week moved to update a 2022 state law intended to protect providers and patients of reproductive care, including abortions, and transgender care. Supporters have warned that the additional steps are needed to plug gaps in existing law in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The measure Healey will sign would limit the release of sensitive data, allow prescription labels to display a practice name instead of an individual physician's name, and codify a state requirement for abortion care to be provided in emergencies when medically necessary. Healey on Thursday plans a signing ceremony at the State House. House Judiciary Committee Chair Michael Day said last week that the urgency of the effort to update the shield law 'has been dictated by the wild rhetoric as well as the acts taken by both this presidential administration, as well as several of our sister states, in the field that this bill covers, the right for a woman to control her body and the right for transgender individuals to be treated as equals here in the commonwealth.' 'Sadly, that urgency is also present because some of the dangerous and, frankly, plainly ignorant rhetoric I've seen emanating from some individuals here in our own commonwealth in the wake of our initial passage of this bill. Rhetoric saying things that legislators voting in favor of this legislation care only about killing babies and castrating children,' Day, a Stoneham Democrat, said. 'I once again remind the more rabidly angry and cruel of our residents that we in the House work every day to protect your rights to voice your opinions no matter what they may be, including that type of tripe. But we also work every day in these halls to ensure that all of our residents, even -- and this might be the part that sticks in people's craws -- even our residents who might not look like you or talk like you or act like you or live their lives in a way that you don't like. Yep, even for those people, we in the House have the temerity to work to protect their rights to live peacefully with equal rights under the law here in Massachusetts, and we will always do so.' The product of an informal compromise between House and Senate committee chairs, the final product passed the House 132-24, with Democrat Reps. Colleen Garry of Dracut, Francisco Paulino of Lawrence, Alan Silvia of Fall River and Jeffrey Turco of Winthrop voting alongside most Republicans in opposition. Republican Sens. Kelly Dooner of Taunton, Ryan Fattman of Sutton and Peter Durant of Spencer were the only votes of dissent in that chamber. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Solve the daily Crossword
The Onion
7 hours ago
- The Onion
New Death With Indignity Law Lets Terminally Ill Be Crushed By Falling Vending Machines
BOISE, ID—In what is being hailed as a victory for advocates of the right to end one's life in total humiliation, the Idaho Legislature passed a new death with indignity law Thursday that will allow the terminally ill to be crushed by falling vending machines. 'Across our state, people dying of incurable diseases will now have the right to choose a slow, painful, and really embarrassing death,' House Speaker Mike Moyle said of the bipartisan measure that is expected to be signed into law today, remarking that the option to die in the manner of a person who has rocked a vending machine back and forth, perhaps when it failed to dispense change or release a desired food item, had been legal in Switzerland for many decades. 'If they're too sick to travel to an office break room, hotel hallway, or bowling alley, a vending machine–assisted death can be carried out in a patient's home, where they can be crushed to death while surrounded by deeply ashamed loved ones.' At press time, a 33-year-old Pocatello man had become the first Idaho resident to die with his hands around a bag of Famous Amos cookies as two large male nurses pushed a snack machine over on top of him.
Los Angeles Times
13 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Millions of Californians may lose health coverage because of new Medicaid work requirements
The nation's first mandated work requirement for Medicaid recepients, approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump, is expected to have a seismic effect in California. One estimate from state health officials suggests that as many as 3.4 million people could lose their insurance through what Gov. Gavin Newsom calls the 'labyrinth of manual verification,' which involves Medi-Cal recipients proving every six months that they are working, going to school or volunteering at least 80 hours per month. 'It's going to be much harder to stay insured,' said Martha Santana-Chin, the head of L.A. Care Health Plan, a publicly operated health plan that serves about 2.3 million Medi-Cal patients in Los Angeles County. She said that as many as 1 million people, or about 20% to 40% of its members, could lose their coverage. The work requirement will be the first imposed nationwide in the six-decade history of Medicaid, the program that provides free and subsidized health insurance to disabled and low-income Americans. It's relatively uncharted territory, and it's not yet clear how the rules will shake out for the 5.1 million people in California who will be required to prove that they are working in order to qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid. After the 2026 midterm elections, millions of healthy adults will be required to prove every six months that they meet the work requirement in order to qualify for Medicaid. The new mandate spells out some exceptions, including for people who are pregnant, in addiction treatment or caring for children under age 14. Democrats have long argued that work requirements generally lead to eligible people l osing their health insurance due to bureaucratic hurdles. Republicans say that a work requirement will encourage healthy people to get jobs and preserve Medicaid for those who truly need it. 'If you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. 'And you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day.' Only three U.S. states have tried to implement work requirements for Medicaid recipients: New Hampshire, Arkansas and Georgia. One study found that in the first three months of the Arkansas program, more than 18,000 people lost health coverage. People can lose coverage a variety of ways, said Joan Alker, a Georgetown University professor who studies Medicaid. Some people hear that the rules have changed and assume they are no longer eligible. Others struggle to prove their eligibility because their income fluctuates, they are paid in cash or their jobs don't keep good payroll records. Some have problems with the technology or forms, she said, and others don't appeal their rejections. Of the 15 million people on Medi-Cal in California, about one-third will be required to prove they are working, the state said. Those people earn very little: less than $21,000 for a single person and less than $43,000 for a household of four. The state's estimate of 3.4 million people losing coverage is a projection based on what happened in Arkansas and New Hampshire. But those programs were brief, overturned by the courts and weren't 'a coordinated effort among the states to figure out what the best practices are,' said Ryan Long, the director of congressional relations at the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank that has become influential among congressional Republicans. Long said advancements in technology and a national emphasis on work requirements should make work verification less of a barrier. The budget bill includes $200 million in grants for states to update their systems to prepare, he said. Arguments from liberal groups that people will lose healthcare are a 'straw man argument,' Long said: 'They know that the public supports work requirements for these benefits, so they can't come out and say, 'We don't support them.'' A poll by the health research group KFF found this year that 62% of American adults support tying Medicaid eligibility to work requirements. The poll also found that support for the policy drops to less than 1 in 3 people when respondents hear 'that most people on Medicaid are already working and many would risk losing coverage because of the burden of proving eligibility through paperwork.' In June, Newsom warned that some Californians could be forced to fill out 36 pages of paperwork to keep their insurance, showing reporters an image of a stack of forms with teal and gold accents that he described as 'an actual PDF example of the paperwork that people will have to submit to for their eligibility checks.' Many Californians already are required to fill out that 36-page form or its online equivalent to enroll in Medi-Cal and Covered California, the state's health insurance marketplace. Experts say it's too soon to say what system will be used for people to prove their work eligibility, because federal guidance won't be finalized for months. Newsom's office directed questions to the Department of Health Care Services, which runs Medi-Cal. A spokesperson there said officials are 'still reviewing the full operational impacts' of the work requirements. 'The idea that you are going to get a paper submission every six months, I'm not sure people have to do that,' Long said. Georgia is the only state that has implemented a lasting work requirement for Medicaid. Two years ago, the state made healthcare available to people who were working at least 80 hours per month and earned less than the federal poverty limit (about $15,000 for one person or $31,200 for a household of four). More than 100,000 people have applied for coverage since the program's launch in July of 2023. As of June of this year, more than 8,000 people were enrolled, according to the state's most recent data. The Medicaid program has cost more than $100 million so far, and of that, $26 million was spent on health benefits and more than $20 million was allocated to marketing contracts, KFF Health News reported. Democrats in Georgia have sought an investigation into the program. The Inland Empire agency that provides Medi-Cal coverage for about 1.5 million people in San Bernardino and Riverside counties estimated that 150,000 members could lose their insurance as a result of work requirements. Jarrod McNaughton, the chief executive of the Inland Empire Health Plan, said that California's 58 counties, which administer Medi-Cal, 'will be the ones at the precipice of piecing this together' but haven't yet received guidance on how the eligibility process will be set up or what information people will have to provide. Will it be done online? Will recipients be required to fill out a piece of paper that needs to be mailed in or dropped off? 'We don't really know the process yet, because all of this is so new,' Naughton said. In the meantime, he said, the health plan's foundation is working to make this 'as least burdensome as possible,' working to improve community outreach and connect people who receive Medi-Cal insurance to volunteer opportunities.
