Truth Farm educates public on the importance of Narcan following student overdose
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – After a Tompkins County student overdosed on fentanyl last week, Truth Pharm is educating the public on the importance of Narcan.
The Dryden Central School District released a letter to the public stating that a student overdosed on fentanyl after using what they believed was a marijuana vape. After collapsing in the hallway, the student was administered multiple doses of Narcan. The vape was not purchased at a licensed dispensary but at an independent convenience store that was not permitted to sell marijuana products.
Executive Director of Truth Pharm Alexis Pleus commended Dryden for their approach to the incident. She encourages schools to carry Narcan and train their staff because it could save a life. Pleus says it's important to use non stigmatizing language when discussing substance use, especially with children.
'Students are going to dabble and try. This is an age old thing, it's been going on for decades. What parents need to do when they have conversations with their kids is make sure that they're aware of the potential risks and dangers but recognize we can't control our kids once they leave the house. Most likely they're going to do things that we don't approve of. Their judgment center isn't fully developed. And what can they do to stay as safe as possible? Have Narcan on hand,' Pleus said.
Truth Pharm offers free Narcan kits and fentanyl testing strips as well as Narcan training, education sessions, and support services. Several Naloxboxes are installed around the community for quick access to the lifesaving medication.
Who were the victims of the shooting outside the DC Jewish Museum?
GOP campaign arm tells Republicans to 'go on offense' messaging Trump agenda bill
Megan Thee Stallion's lawyers reject Tory Lanez new evidence claims
Proposal pushes DNA testing to protect wolves mistaken for coyotes in NY
Another successful Kick It For Cans kickball tournament
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Medicaid work rules' bureaucratic nightmare
Republicans insist that Medicaid work requirements will weed out people who shouldn't be on the safety net program's rolls in the first place. The reality is that the red tape and bureaucratic hoops to jump through will have far broader effects, according to health policy experts. Why it matters: Coverage losses stemming from work rules will be a key focus in the Senate this month as lawmakers debate the sweeping GOP budget bill that contains the most significant changes to Medicaid in the program's history. What's inside: The bill, which passed the House in May, includes a new federal requirement for those ages 19 to 64 to work or participate in 80 hours of community engagement per month to keep their Medicaid coverage. The requirement was supposed to take effect in 2029, but the House Freedom Caucus insisted the timeline be moved up to Dec. 31, 2026 — which would generate around $50 billion more in savings per year. Senate Republicans, even the more moderate members, have expressed support for the work requirements, including moving up the timeline. The White House contends that 4.8 million able-bodied adults are choosing not to work and said this week that work requirements "will strengthen the system to better help those most in need of assistance." House GOP leadership this week also cited recent statistics from the American Enterprise Institute that state Medicaid recipients who don't report working say they spend 4.2 hours watching TV and playing video games (compared with 2.7 hours for recipients who work). State of play: Most able-bodied Medicaid recipients work full or part time. Some states have already imposed work requirements, resulting in thousands of people either losing their coverage or finding it very difficult to sign up. Arkansas implemented a work requirement in 2018 that lasted less than a year and left 18,000 fewer people covered, or about 25% of the eligible population, per KFF. A court eventually ruled the program violated Medicaid law. Work requirements began in Georgia as part of a Medicaid expansion in June 2023, and as of January, only 6,500 adults had enrolled — a fraction of the 25,000 the state expected would sign up in the first year, KFF says. New Hampshire also tried to launch work requirements but stopped after a month, after only 8,000 of the 25,000 people subject to the requirement had complied. The Congressional Budget Office this week estimated that 4.8 million people could become uninsured by 2034 due to the Medicaid work requirements measure in the reconciliation bill. How it works: States would have to build systems to track all of the enrollees and their work statuses, likely adding significant costs to their program budgets. Then, enrollees would have to contact states, which could be required as often as once a month, to show that they're working or participating in another eligible activity like caretaking. Enrollees would have to submit paperwork proving a disability, substance abuse disorder or other criteria to qualify for an exemption. One concern is that the envisioned system doesn't account for informal arrangements, such as whether a person is paid in cash for domestic work, seasonal jobs in agriculture or even being self-employed. It also assumes that covered people would be aware of the work requirements and would try to comply. What they're saying: "The experience in Arkansas was that the people who lost coverage because of the work requirements for the most part became uninsured," said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the Medicaid program at KFF. "There was no increase in the share of those working." "In all of these states, we see time and again that the people hurt include workers who are supposed to be exempt, including people with disabilities who are supposed to be exempt," said Leonardo Cuello, a research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The bottom line: Work requirements don't appear to encourage people to work, and the large savings in the budget bill are likely to appear because of people losing their health coverage. "The argument is that this is about waste, fraud and abuse. That's not how this bill produces savings," said Ben Sommers, a health economist at Harvard who studies work requirements. "These are savings from kicking eligible people out of Medicaid who should have that coverage, who need it for their health care, because they can't navigate this big bureaucratic mess that the bill creates," he said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Planned Parenthood provides basic health care. If they close, where will many women go?
When the Trump administration suddenly froze federal funding to more than 100 Planned Parenthood clinics this spring, the organization's Michigan branch was already deep into hard discussions about its finances. 'The leadership team and our board had been scenario planning for months to try to fill those gaps to see how we could continue providing care,' said Ashlea Phenicie, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood of Michigan. The only option was clear. Michigan's 14 Planned Parenthood clinics serve tens of thousands of women. In order to save clinics around the state that were either busier or in places where women had few other options, the team would have to close multiple clinics, including the only one in the state's Upper Peninsula, a large, isolated and mostly rural area surrounded by a stretch of Lake Michigan. In Ann Arbor, home of Michigan State University, the city's two clinics would be combined. It's a reality playing out across the country. At least 20 Planned Parenthood clinics have closed or will close within the year. For decades, the health care organization has been squeezed by the same pressures choking nearly all U.S. providers –– low insurance reimbursement rates, blocked Medicaid expansion, understaffing and rising costs of providing medical care that have forced hospitals and health clinic closures throughout the country. Uniquely, Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit that serves more than 2 million patients nationwide every year, many of them uninsured, underinsured or who qualify for Medicaid, has also become the target of pointed funding cuts that started under the first Trump administration. 'What is different this time around is that it's much more sweeping. It's a deeper and broader cut that will affect both more clinics and more people,' said Farzana Kapadia, a professor of epidemiology and population health at the New York University School of Global Public Health. In March, the Trump administration withheld funding by excluding many Planned Parenthood clinics from the Title X family planning program, a federal grant program that funds family planning and reproductive health care. Then, in late May, House Republicans delivered another enormous blow, voting to end funding for Planned Parenthood as part of the reconciliation bill. Federal law already restricts federal funds from being used for abortion, except in cases of incest, rape or if a mother's life is in danger, through a law called the Hyde Amendment. But if passed, the reconciliation bill would cut off Medicaid reimbursement to any nonprofit that primarily offers family planning or reproductive health services, provides abortions beyond the Hyde Amendment exceptions and received more than $1 million in Medicaid reimbursements in 2024. As a nationwide organization, Planned Parenthood does all three. If the bill passes in the Senate, it would block Planned Parenthood clinics from billing Medicaid for any health services at all, including cancer screenings, wellness exams and birth control. It's unclear if the new legislation would apply to Planned Parenthood nationally or on a state-by-state basis. Over half of Planned Parenthood patients are covered by publicly funded health programs like Medicaid and in 2023, about 36% of all Title X services were provided by Planned Parenthood clinics. Eliminating these sources of funding would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood's care costs every year. Targeting federal funding for any type of care for Planned Parenthood clinics is a way opponents of abortion rights can attempt to shut down clinics that do provide abortion, even if they also offer other care. Phenicie said Republican lawmakers appear to understand that cutting off Planned Parenthood from Title X and Medicaid reimbursement will put the clinics that perform abortion in peril, even if these funds can't cover the procedures. The slashed funds could affect all Planned Parenthood clinics whether they offer abortion services or not. 'They know so much of our patient base is on Medicaid or needs Title X to pay for their care, they know that cutting this off will allow them to cut off access to abortion and they are willing to make that trade,' she said. Before the cuts, Planned Parenthood was already operating on thin margins. Now, clinics are struggling to operate at a loss. 'The numbers are so devastating that there are really no options other than closing some centers and consolidating others, and then investing in our virtual health centers that can serve people across the state,' Phenicie said. At least 1 in 3 women say they have gone to a Planned Parenthood clinic for care, as well as 1 in 10 men, according to a recent KFF Health poll. Nearly half of Black women have gone to a Planned Parenthood clinic, the poll found. Abortions, the main reason the Trump administration has ended support for the clinics, account for just 4% of the services Planned Parenthood provides, according to a 2024 annual report. The vast majority of Planned Parenthood's services involve basic health care for women, including diagnosing and treating urinary tract and yeast infections and screening for cervical cancer and breast cancer. Some locations offer vaccination against HPV, hepatitis B, Covid and influenza. More than half of care is related to testing for sexually transmitted infections and treatment. Another 25% is providing access to contraception, often at low or no cost. Cancer screenings and other non-abortion services make up 18%, the report showed. Those important medical services haven't swayed opponents of the clinics. In January, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced a bill that sought to ban Planned Parenthood from federal funding in the same ways the federal reconciliation bill would. The bill is called the Defund Planned Parenthood Act. 'My commitment to protecting life isn't just personal, it's rooted in both science and principle. Life begins at conception, and I've spent my time in the Senate fighting to protect the right to life,' Paul said in a press release. About 40% of Planned Parenthood's funding comes from government health care reimbursements and grants. Many locations offer a sliding scale payment option for people who can't afford health care. That money comes, in part, from government programs that are now being cut. 'Cutting this funding is really about cutting access to care for people who are not insured or who are underinsured to allow for tax breaks for people who can afford their medical care,' NYU's Kapadia said. Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, said that even when a patient has private insurance, 'the reimbursement rates are just not meeting the costs of primary care. 'The U.S. health care system pays a tiny amount of health care dollars into primary and preventative care,' Stark said. 'We are sitting in a micro version of that.' Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood announced it was selling the building that housed its only Manhattan location. Planned Parenthood locations are also shuttering throughout the Midwest and in other states that have historically voted in favor of abortion rights, including Vermont. In late May, Planned Parenthood announced it will close four clinics in Minnesota within a year. The state was the first to codify the right to abortion into law after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, but only one of the closing clinics performed abortions. Four of the six Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa, including one in Ames, where Iowa State University is located, will also be shuttered. Four Illinois clinics, none which performed abortions, stopped operating in March. In April, three locations closed and two were consolidated in Michigan, where the right to abortion is enshrined into state law. Two Utah locations closed in May after losing a significant amount of funding as a result of the Title X freeze. 'We are subsidizing almost every visit we do, even with insurance,' Stark said. 'We also have a great deal of our patients who come who do not have insurance.' The decision to sell the Manhattan clinic was a strategic but difficult decision, she said. The revenue from the sale could help keep other clinics in the state operating. Both the patients and staff of the Manhattan clinic can be absorbed by Planned Parenthood's other New York City locations, which can minimize the impact the closure will have. 'When we consolidate in certain locations, we look at the whole area. Can we funnel patients to our next closest health center, are there other clinics that patients can be sent to?' Stark said, adding that this is more difficult to do in rural areas that already have extremely minimal health care options. 'If we face further erosion of our finances, we will have to make more hard decisions,' she said. Several state-level laws banned Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X funds in the decade preceding the sweeping federal exclusions. Robin Marty, the executive director of WAWC Healthcare, formerly West Alabama Women's Center, in Tuscaloosa, said these states can provide a picture of what health care may look like in states that have more recently faced Planned Parenthood closures. 'We exist as kind of a lesson to people of what resources are like if there is not a Planned Parenthood,' she said. Planned Parenthood operates just one brick-and-mortar clinic in Alabama, in Birmingham, but offers telehealth throughout the state. There are just two in Louisiana and one in the Florida Panhandle. There are no physical clinics in Mississippi, which has the highest teen birth rate in the nation. Alabama and Louisiana rank in the top seven, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Mississippi also has the highest maternal mortality rate. Louisiana comes in second. Alabama is fourth. 'There aren't places for people to go for free birth control or STI screenings or maternal care,' she said, referring to sexually transmitted infections. WAWC Healthcare is one of the only providers in Alabama, outside of federally qualified health centers, which are run by states or counties, that does. Already, Marty said, the clinic relies heavily on nongovernmental grants in the absence of access to Title X, though the clinic does accept Medicaid. 'Every time I apply for a grant, I know I have only about a 10% chance of getting it, but I do it anyway because that's the only way my patients can get care,' she said. Other than grants, 'we rely on donors who each donate about $50 each time we contact them.' Marty said other clinics that provide some of the same services as Planned Parenthood, which are already operating on razor-thin margins, if not at a loss, will be further strained by closures. This strain will be passed onto patients. 'You are talking about individuals who are living at or below the poverty level who already can't afford health care on their own and then you are eliminating a major source of their health care,' Kapadia said. The GOP megabill, which blocks Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed with Medicaid dollars, among other Medicaid cuts, is awaiting its fate in the Senate this week. For now, Title X funding is frozen for Planned Parenthoods in 20 states. If the 'Big Beautiful Bill' passes, another 200 of the roughly 600 Planned Parenthoods will be in danger, according to Planned Parenthood. When Title X funding was cut off to Michigan Planned Parenthood between 2019 and 2021, the number of people seeking preventative care at its locations dropped 75%, Phenicie said. Although there are other health centers that can pay for visits using Title X funds, they could not absorb the patients Planned Parenthood could no longer see, she added. In the month leading up to this year's closures, Planned Parenthood Michigan kept the four closing clinics open to honor all the appointments that had already been made, and spent hours trying to help patients line up care at other clinics or through telehealth with Planned Parenthood. 'Even if they would like to continue care, if they can't be covered under Title X and they can't use Medicaid, their options will be limited,' Phenicie said. This article was originally published on
CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
Why millions of Americans would lose health insurance under House GOP megabill
The House tax and spending bill would push millions of Americans off health insurance rolls, as Republicans cut programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to fund priorities from President Donald Trump, including almost $4 trillion of tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan legislative scorekeeper, projects about 11 million people would lose health coverage due to provisions in the House bill, if enacted in its current form. It estimates another 4 million or so would lose insurance due to expiring Obamacare subsidies, which the bill doesn't extend. The ranks of the uninsured would swell as a result of policies that would add barriers to access, raise insurance costs and deny benefits outright for some people like certain legal immigrants. The legislation, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," may change as Senate Republicans now consider it. Health care cuts have proven to be a thorny issue. A handful of GOP senators — enough to torpedo the bill — don't appear to back cuts to Medicaid, for example. More from Personal Finance:How debt impact of House GOP tax bill may affect consumers3 key money moves to consider while the Fed keeps interest rates higherHow child tax credit could change as Senate debates Trump's mega-bill The bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over a decade, CBO estimates. That's after cutting more than $900 billion from health care programs during that time, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The cuts are a sharp shift following incremental increases in the availability of health insurance and coverage over the past 50 years, including through Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, according to Alice Burns, associate director with KFF's program on Medicaid and the uninsured. "This would be the biggest retraction in health insurance that we've ever experienced," Burns said. "That's makes it really difficult to know how people, providers, states, would react." Here are the major ways the bill would increase the number of uninsured. Federal funding cuts to Medicaid will have broad implications, experts say. "No population, frankly, is safe from a bill that cuts more than $800 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, because states will have to adjust," said Allison Orris, senior fellow and director of Medicaid policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The provision in the House proposal that would lead most people to lose Medicaid and therefore become uninsured would be new work requirements that would apply to states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to Orris. The work requirements would affect eligibility for individuals ages 19 to 64 who do not have a qualifying exemption. Affected individuals would need to demonstrate they worked or participated in qualifying activities for at least 80 hours per month. States would also need to verify that applicants meet requirements for one or more consecutive months prior to coverage, while also conducting redeterminations at least twice per year to ensure individuals who are already covered still comply with the requirements. In a Sunday interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said "4.8 million people will not lose their Medicaid coverage unless they choose to do so," while arguing the work requirements are not too "cumbersome." The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the work requirements would prompt 5.2 million adults to lose federal Medicaid coverage. While some of those may obtain coverage elsewhere, CBO estimates the change would increase the number of people without insurance by 4.8 million. Those estimates may be understated because they do not include everyone who qualifies but fails to properly report their work hours or submit the appropriate paperwork if they qualify for an exemption, said KFF's Burns. Overall, 10.3 million would lose Medicaid, which would lead to 7.8 million people losing health insurance, Burns said. While states have used health care provider taxes to generate funding for Medicaid, the House proposal would put a stop to using those levies in the future, Orris noted. Consequently, with less revenue and federal support, states will face the tough choice of having to cut coverage or cut other parts of their state budget in order to maintain their Medicaid program, Orris said. For example, home and community-based services could face cuts to preserve funding for mandatory benefits like inpatient and outpatient hospital care, she said. The House proposal would also delay until 2035 two Biden-era eligibility rules that were intended to make Medicaid enrollment and renewal easier for people, especially older adults and individuals with disabilities, Burns said. States would also have their federal matching rate for Medicaid expenditures reduced if they offer coverage to undocumented immigrants, she said. More than 24 million people have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They're a "critical" source of coverage for people who don't have access to health insurance at their jobs, including for the self-employed, low-paid workers and older individuals who don't yet qualify for Medicare, according to researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. The House legislation would "dramatically" reduce ACA enrollment — and, therefore, the number of people with insurance — due to the combined effect of several changes rather than one big proposal, wrote Drew Altman, president and chief executive of KFF, a nonpartisan health policy group. "Many of the changes are technical and wonky, even if they are consequential," Altman wrote. ACA enrollment is at an all-time high. Enrollment has more than doubled since 2020, which experts largely attribute to enhanced insurance subsidies offered by Democrats in the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and then extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. Those subsidies, called "premium tax credits," effectively reduce consumers' monthly premiums. (The credits can be claimed at tax time, or households can opt to get them upfront via lower premiums.) Congress also expanded the eligibility pool for subsidies to more middle-income households, and reduced the maximum annual contribution households make toward premium payments, experts said. The enhanced subsidies lowered households' premiums by $705 (or 44%) in 2024 — to $888 a year from $1,593, according to KFF. The House Republican legislation doesn't extend the enhanced subsidies, meaning they'd expire after this year. About 4.2 million people will be uninsured in 2034 if the expanded premium tax credit expires, according to the Congressional Budget Office. "They might just decide not to get [coverage] because they simply can't afford to insure themselves," said John Graves, a professor of health policy and medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Coverage will become more expensive for others who remain in a marketplace plan: The typical family of four with income of $65,000 will pay $2,400 more per year without the enhanced premium tax credit, CBPP estimates. More than 3 million people are expected to lose Affordable Care Act coverage as a result of other provisions in the House legislation, CBO projects. Other "big" changes include broad adjustments to eligibility, said Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. For example, the bill shortens the annual open enrollment period by about a month, to Dec. 15, instead of Jan. 15 in most states. It ends automatic re-enrollment into health insurance — used by more than half of people who renewed coverage in 2025 — by requiring all enrollees to take action to continue their coverage each year, CBPP said. The bill also bars households from receiving subsidies or cost-sharing reductions until after they verify eligibility details like income, immigration status, health coverage status and place of residence, according to KFF. Graves says adding administrative red tape to health plans is akin to driving an apple cart down a bumpy road. "The bumpier you make the road, the more apples will fall off the cart," he said. Another biggie: The bill would eliminate repayment caps for premium subsidies. Households get federal subsidies by estimating their annual income for the year, which dictates their total premium tax credit. They must repay any excess subsidies during tax season, if their annual income was larger than their initial estimate. Current law caps repayment for many households; but the House bill would require all premium tax credit recipients to repay the full amount of any excess, no matter their income, according to KFF. While such a requirement sounds reasonable, it's unreasonable and perhaps even "cruel" in practice, said KFF's Altman. "Income for low-income people can be volatile, and many Marketplace consumers are in hourly wage jobs, run their own businesses, or stitch together multiple jobs, which makes it challenging, if not impossible, for them to perfectly predict their income for the coming year," he wrote. The House bill also limits marketplace insurance eligibility for some groups of legal immigrants, experts said. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, many lawfully present immigrants such as refugees, asylees and people with Temporary Protected Status would be ineligible for subsidized insurance on ACA exchanges, according to KFF. Additionally, the bill would bar Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients in all states from buying insurance over ACA exchanges. DACA recipients — a subset of the immigrant population known as "Dreamers" — are currently considered "lawfully present" for purposes of health coverage. That makes them eligible to enroll (and get subsidies and cost-sharing reductions) in 31 states plus the District of Columbia.
