Samantha Young, Author at ��ϳԹ�� News

California Speeds Up Indoor Heat Protections Amid Sweltering Summer Weather

Samantha Young — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:45:28 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Californians working indoors are getting immediate protections from extreme heat as much of the state bakes in triple-digit temperatures this week.

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , but the state announced Wednesday that a set of rules for indoor workers had been finalized following an expedited review. The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved the regulation last month, but it needed to be vetted for legal compliance.

“This regulation provides protections for workers across California and helps prepare employers to deal with the challenges of rising temperatures in indoor environments,” said Debra Lee, chief of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

California is among a responding to the growing impacts of climate change and extreme heat with worker safety standards. Earlier this month, the Biden administration to protect indoor and outdoor workers from heat exposure as extreme heat, already the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., becomes even more dangerous.

California’s standards require indoor workplaces to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Worksites that don’t have air conditioning may use fans, misters, and other methods to bring the room temperature down.

The rules allow workarounds for businesses if they can’t cool their workplaces sufficiently. In those cases, employers must provide workers with water, breaks, areas where they can cool down, cooling vests, or other means to keep them from overheating.

But even with workarounds, businesses are concerned about the cost of complying with the regulation, especially small businesses that don’t own their storefronts or are in old buildings, said Robert Moutrie, a senior policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.

“The simplest answer to this regulation is AC, and that’s a costly investment,” Moutrie said. “If you’re a small business and you don’t own your structure, you can’t make changes like creating a new space to cool down.”

The rules have been in development since 2016 — delayed, in part, because of the covid pandemic. The worker safety board requested the regulations be expedited. A standard review would have delayed the regulation taking effect until the fall, leaving workers largely unprotected from the summer heat.

The regulation applies to most indoor workplaces, including classrooms and even delivery vehicles. But state regulators and local correctional facilities after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration projected it could cost the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation billions of dollars to implement.

The board intends to draft a separate regulation for the tens of thousands of workers at the state’s 33 state prisons, conservation camps, and local jails. That could take a year, if not longer.

In 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services reported, occurred nationally, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. In 2023, HHS reported, 2,302 heat-related deaths occurred. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

Meanwhile, global temperatures in June were a record high for the 13th straight month.

“This is really one of the biggest safety issues we see workers experiencing across California in many different industries,” said Tim Shadix, legal director at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, which lobbied for the protections. “And the problem is only getting worse with climate change and hotter summers.”

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California Health Care Pioneer Goes National, Girds for Partisan Skirmishes

Samantha Young — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO — When then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for nearly all Californians to buy health insurance or face a penalty, Anthony Wright slammed the 2007 proposal as “unwarranted, unworkable, and unwise” — one that would punish those who could least afford coverage. The head of Health Access California, one of the state’s most influential consumer groups, changed course only after he and his allies extracted a deal to increase subsidies for people in need.

The plan was ultimately blocked by Democrats who wanted the state to adopt a single-payer health care system instead. Yet the moment encapsulates classic Anthony Wright: independent-minded and willing to compromise if it could help Californians live healthier lives without going broke.

This summer, Wright will assume the helm of the health consumer group , taking his campaign for more affordable and accessible health care to the national level and a deeply divided Congress. In his 23 years in Sacramento, Wright has successfully lobbied to outlaw , require companies to report , and for uninsured patients — policies that have spread nationwide.

“He pushed the envelope and gave people aspirational leadership,” said Jennifer Kent, who served as Schwarzenegger’s head of the Department of Health Care Services, which administers the state Medicaid program. The two were often on opposing sides on health policy issues. “There was always, like, one more thing, one more goal, one more thing to achieve.”

Recently, Wright co-led a to provide comprehensive Medicaid benefits to all eligible California residents regardless of immigration status. The state funds this coverage because the federal government doesn’t allow it.

His wins have come mostly under Democratic governors and legislatures and when Republican support hasn’t been needed. That will not be the case in Washington, D.C., where and the Senate , which has made it extremely difficult to pass substantive legislation. November’s elections are not expected to ease the partisan impasse.

Though both Health Access and Families USA are technically nonpartisan, they tend to align with Democrats and lobby for Democratic policies, including abortion rights. But “Anthony doesn’t just talk to his own people,” said David Panush, a veteran Sacramento health policy consultant. “He has an ability to connect with people who don’t agree with you on everything.”

Wright, who interned for Vice President Al Gore and worked as a consumer advocate at the Federal Communications Commission in his 20s, acknowledges his job will be tougher in the nation’s capital, and said he is “wide-eyed about the dysfunction” there. He said he also plans to work directly with state lawmakers, including encouraging those in the states that have not yet expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to do so.

In an interview with California Healthline senior correspondent Samantha Young, Wright, 53, discussed his accomplishments in Sacramento and the challenges he will face leading a national consumer advocacy group. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

Wright is leaving Sacramento to lead Families USA, a health consumer group, where his national campaign for more affordable and accessible health care will face a deeply divided Congress. (Samantha Young/��ϳԹ�� News)

Q: Is there something California has done that you’d like to see other states or the federal government adopt?

Just saying “We did this in California” is not going to get me very far in 49 other states. But stuff that has already gone national, like the additional assistance to buy health care coverage with state subsidies, that became something that was a model for what the federal government did in the American Rescue Plan [Act] and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those additional tax credits have had a huge impact. have coverage because of them. Yet, those additional tax credits expire in 2025. If those tax credits expire, the average premium will spike $400 a month.

Q: You said you will find yourself playing defense if former President Donald Trump is elected in November. What do you mean?

Our health is on the ballot. I worry about the Affordable Care Act and the protections for preexisting conditions, the help for people to afford coverage, and all the other consumer patient protections. I think reproductive health is obviously front and center, but that’s not the only thing that could be taken away. It could also be something like Medicare’s authority to negotiate prices on prescription drugs.

Q: But Trump has said he doesn’t want to repeal the ACA this time, rather “.”

We just need to look at the record of what was proposed during his first term, which would have left millions more people uninsured, which would have spiked premiums, which would have gotten rid of key patient protections.

Q: What’s on your agenda if President Joe Biden wins reelection?

It partially depends on the makeup of Congress and other elected officials. Do you extend this guarantee that nobody has to ? Are there benefits that we can actually improve in Medicare and Medicaid with regard to vision and dental? What are the cost drivers in our health system?

There is a lot we can do at both the state and the federal level to get people both access to health care and also financial security, so that their health emergency doesn’t become a financial emergency as well.

Q: Will it be harder to get things done in a polarized Washington?

The dysfunction of D.C. is a real thing. I don’t have delusions that I have any special powers, but we will try to do our best to make progress. There are still very stark differences, whether it’s about the Affordable Care Act or, more broadly, about the social safety net. But there’s always opportunities for advancing an agenda.

There could be a lot of common ground on areas like health care costs and having greater oversight and accountability for quality in cost and quality in value, for fixing market failures in our health system.

Q: What would happen in California if the ACA were repealed?

When there was the big threat to the ACA, a lot of people thought, “Can’t California just do its own thing?” Without the tens of billions of dollars that the Affordable Care Act provides, it would have been very hard to sustain. If you get rid of those subsidies, and 5 million Californians lose their coverage, it becomes a smaller and sicker risk pool. Then premiums spike up for everybody, and, basically, the market becomes a death spiral that will cover nobody, healthy or sick.

Q: California expanded Medicaid to qualified immigrants living in the state without authorization. Do you think that could happen at the federal level?

Not at the moment. I would probably be more focused on the states that are not providing Medicaid to American citizens [who] just happen to be low-income. They are turning away precious dollars that are available for them.

Q: What do you take away from your time at Health Access that will help you in Washington?

It’s very rare that anything of consequence is done in a year. In many cases, we’ve had to run a bill or pursue a policy for multiple years or sessions. So, the power of persistence is that if you never give up, you’re never defeated, only delayed. Prescription drug price transparency took three years, surprise medical bills took three years, the hospital fair-pricing act took five years.

Having a coalition of consumer voices is important. Patients and the public are not just another stakeholder. Patients and the public are the point of the health care system.

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Heat Rules for California Workers Would Also Help Keep Schoolchildren Cool

Samantha Young — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Proposed rules to protect California workers from extreme heat would extend to schoolchildren, requiring school districts to find ways to keep classrooms cool.

If the standards are approved this month, employers in the nation’s most populous state will have to provide relief to indoor workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot job sites. The rules will extend to schools, where teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, and other employees may work without air conditioning — like their students.

“Our working conditions are students’ learning conditions,” said Jeffery Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 120,000 teachers and other educational employees. “We’re seeing an unprecedented change in the environment, and we know for a fact that when it’s too hot, kids can’t learn.”

A state worker safety board is scheduled to vote on the rules June 20, and they would likely take effect this summer. The move, which marks Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest effort to respond to the growing impacts of climate change and extreme heat, would put California ahead of the federal government and much of the nation in setting heat standards.

The standards would require indoor workplaces to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Schools and other worksites that don’t have air conditioning could use fans, misters, and other methods to bring the room temperature down.

The rules allow workarounds for businesses, including the roughly 1,000 school districts in the state, if they can’t cool their workplaces sufficiently. In those cases, employers must provide workers with water, breaks, areas where they can cool down, cooling vests, or other means to keep employees from overheating.

“Heat is a deadly hazard no matter what kind of work you do,” said Laura Stock, a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board. “If you have an indoor space that is both populated by workers and the public, or in this case by children, you would have the same risks to their health as to workers.”

Heat waves have historically struck outside of the school year, but is making them longer, more frequent, and more intense. Last year was the and closed sporadically during spring and summer, unable to keep students cool.

Scientists say this year . School officials in Vicksburg, Mississippi, last month when air conditioners had issues. And California’s first heat wave of the season is hitting while some schools are still in session, with temperatures in the Central Valley.

Several states, including and , require schools to have working air conditioners, but they aren’t required to run them. Mississippi but doesn’t say to what temperature. Hawaii schools must have classrooms at a “temperature acceptable for student learning,” without specifying the temperature. And Oregon schools must try to cool classrooms, such as with fans, and provide teachers and other employees ways to cool down, including water and rest breaks, when the heat index indoors .

When the sun bakes the library at Bridges Academy at Melrose, a public school in East Oakland with little shade and tree cover, Christine Schooley closes the curtains and turns off the computers to cool her room. She stopped using a fan after a girl’s long hair got caught in it.

“My library is the hottest place on campus because I have 120 kids through here a day,” Schooley said. “It stays warm in here. So yeah, it makes me grouchy and irritable as well.”

A 2021 analysis by the Center for Climate Integrity suggests nearly 14,000 public schools across the U.S. that did not need air conditioning in 1970 now do, because they annually experience 32 days of temperatures more than 80 degrees — upgrades that would cost more than . Researchers found that same comparison produces a cost of to install air conditioning in 678 California schools.

It’s not clear how many California schools might need to install air conditioners or other cooling equipment to comply with the new standards because the state doesn’t track which ones already have them, said V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California-Los Angeles.

And a school district in the northern reaches of the state would not face the same challenges as a district in the desert cities of Needles or Palm Springs, said Naj Alikhan, a spokesperson for the Association of California School Administrators, which has not taken a position on the proposed rules.

An commissioned for the board provided cost estimates for a host of industries — such as warehousing, manufacturing, and construction — but lacked an estimate for school districts, which make up one of the in the state and already face a of needed upgrades. The state Department of Education hasn’t taken a position on the proposal and a spokesperson, Scott Roark, declined to comment on the potential cost to schools.

Projections of a multibillion-dollar cost to state prisons were the reason the Newsom administration refused to sign off on the indoor heat rules this year. Since then, tens of thousands of prison and jail employees — and prisoners — .

It’s also unclear whether the regulation will apply to school buses, many of which don’t have air conditioning. The Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the worker safety board, has not responded to queries from school officials or ��ϳԹ�� News.

Libia Garcia worries about her 15-year-old son, who spends at least an hour each school day traveling on a hot, stuffy school bus from their home in the rural Central Valley community of Huron to his high school and back. “Once my kid arrives home, he is exhausted; he is dehydrated,” Garcia said in Spanish. “He has no energy to do homework or anything else.”

The is pushing state lawmakers to pass a that would require the state to develop a master plan to upgrade school heating and air conditioning systems. Newsom last year , citing the cost.

Campaigns to cool schools in other states have yielded mixed results. Legislation in and failed this year, while a bill in passed on June 7 and was headed to the governor for approval. A proposal was pending as of last week. Last month, a teachers union in New York brought a portable sauna to the state Capitol to demonstrate how hot it can get inside classrooms, only a quarter of which have air conditioning, said Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers.

“We have these temperature limits for animal shelters. How is it that we don’t have it for classrooms?” said Democratic New York Assembly member Chris Eachus, whose bill would require schools to take relief measures when classrooms and buildings reach 82 degrees. “We do have to protect the health and safety of the kids.”

Extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S. — deadlier than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. Heat stress can cause heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported occurred in 2021, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and rules for indoor workplaces have been in development since 2016 — delayed, in part, because of the covid pandemic.

At the federal level, the Biden administration has been slow to release a to protect indoor and outdoor workers from heat exposure. Although an official said a draft is expected this year, its outlook could hinge on the November presidential election. If former President Donald Trump wins, it is unlikely that rules targeting businesses will move forward.

The Biden White House held a and climate change in April, at which top officials encouraged districts to apply an infusion of new federal dollars to upgrade their aging infrastructure. The administration also unveiled an for school districts to tap federal funds.

“How we invest in our school buildings and our school grounds, it makes a difference for our students’ lives,” Roberto Rodriguez, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, said at the summit. “They are on the front line in terms of feeling those impacts.”

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Biden Wants Hospitals To Report Data on Gunshot Wounds

Samantha Young — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:45:37 +0000

The Biden administration is enlisting America’s doctors to help combat gun violence.

About 160 health-care executives and officials have been invited to the White House today and Friday to promote public health solutions to the epidemic. A top priority, I’m told: The White House wants hospital emergency departments to collect more data about gunshot injuries their physicians treat, as well as routinely counsel patients about the safe use of firearms.

It’s part of the president’s strategy to build support for gun-safety measures outside the Capitol, where legislation to more strictly regulate firearms can’t overcome mainly Republican opposition. Biden’s already recruited educators to talk to parents about safe gun storage and community workers to help at-risk youth.

“The president has been clear: This is a public health crisis. So, to solve it, we need the leaders from the health-care sector,” Rob Wilcox, a deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told me in a phone interview. “Those are the leaders that run the health systems and hospitals that we go to for treatment, and it’s those doctors, nurses, practitioners on the front lines.”

Health experts have long described gun violence as a public health crisis, one that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic residents in poor neighborhoods. Biden’s election opponent, former president Donald Trump, has assailed his gun policies and that “if the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns.”

In 2022, more than in the United States, or about 132 people a day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 200-plus Americans are injured each day,.

Surveys show most Americans — — support policies that could reduce violence.

Biden’s initiative isn’t just about messaging. It’s also about money. Unlike America’s other deadly health threats — such as cancer, HIV and automobile crashes — limited federal dollars fund gun violence research, in part because of politics.

In 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress cut federal funding for gun safety research at the CDC, essentially shifting the burden to the private sector and academia — with a fraction of the previous budget. In 2019, Congress reversed course and has since agreed every year to allocate $25 million to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health for gun research.

Health researchers say more timely and comprehensive data about gun injuries and deaths would give them a better understanding of trends behind gun violence — and what policies might prevent it.

The White House is asking state and local health departments, health systems and hospitals to increase timely data collection on emergency department visits for firearm-related injuries to “support state and local jurisdictions in identifying and responding to emerging public health problems,” Wilcox said.

The goal is “to inform prevention efforts,” he said.

The data will cover fatal and nonfatal injuries. Existing CDC data focuses on deaths, while its data on injuries is limited. For instance, one person was killed in the Feb. 14 shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade, but the CDC data probably will not count the roughly two dozen other people who were injured.

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White House Enlists Doctors and Hospitals To Combat Gun Violence

Samantha Young — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:15:00 +0000

The White House is calling on hospital executives, doctors, and other health care leaders to take bolder steps to prevent gun violence by gathering more data about gunshot injuries and routinely counseling patients about safe use of firearms.

Biden administration officials are hosting back-to-back events Thursday and Friday at the White House for about 160 health care officials, calling gun violence a “public health crisis” that requires them to act.

The strategy also reflects a stark political reality: Congress has been deadlocked on most gun-related legislation for years, with a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats. If Democratic President Joe Biden wants to get anything done quickly, he will need to look outside the Capitol. He has already enlisted educators to talk to parents about safe gun storage and community workers to help at-risk youth.

“The president has been clear: This is a public health crisis. So, to solve it, we need the leaders from the health care sector,” Rob Wilcox, a deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told ��ϳԹ�� News. “Those are the leaders that run the health systems and hospitals that we go to for treatment, and it’s those doctors, nurses, practitioners on the front lines.”

Health experts have long described gun violence as a public health crisis, one that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic residents in poor neighborhoods.

In 2022, more than 48,000 people in the U.S., or about 132 people a day, and suicides accounted for more than half of those deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 200-plus Americans are injured each day, from Johns Hopkins University research.

Guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens.

Gun violence prevention advocates applauded the Biden administration for attempting to depoliticize the issue by focusing on its health impacts. The health-centric message also resonates with the public, said Fatimah Loren Dreier, executive director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, who planned to attend the June 6 event.

“The idea that there can be a bipartisan-driven, apolitical way to address the gun violence problem has created tremendous opportunity,” she said.

But the initiative isn’t just about messaging. It’s about numbers and statistics. Relative to America’s other deadly threats — such as cancer, HIV, and automobile crashes — fewer federal dollars fund gun violence research, mostly because of politics.

In 1996, Congress cut federal funding for gun control research by the CDC, essentially shifting the responsibility for funding and conducting the research to the private sector and academia — and with a fraction of the previous budget. In 2019, Congress reversed course and has since agreed every year to allocate $25 million to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health for gun research, but public health experts say it’s not nearly enough. By comparison, roughly three times that amount was on the prevention and treatment of underage drinking in fiscal year 2023, and 10 times as much to Parkinson’s disease research.

Slashing CDC research funding for firearms created decades-long gaps in data — and hamstrung efforts to respond to the crisis, researchers and health officials say. For instance, there’s little government data available to researchers on firearms, even basic statistics such as firearm ownership by city and which guns are used in shootings.

More timely and comprehensive data could give researchers a better understanding of the trends behind gun violence — and the steps to take to prevent it, said Bechara Choucair, an executive vice president and the chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente, who planned to attend the June 6 White House event.

“Anytime you want to address a problem with a public health lens, you have to understand the data,” he said. “You have to understand the data at a granular level so you can design interventions and test interventions and see if it works or if it doesn’t work.”

The White House is asking state and local health departments, health systems, and hospitals to boost timely data collection on emergency room visits for firearm-related injuries to “support state and local jurisdictions in identifying and responding to emerging public health problems,” Wilcox said.

The goal is “to inform prevention efforts,” he said.

The data will cover fatal and nonfatal injuries. Existing CDC data focuses on deaths, while its data on injuries is limited. For instance, one person was killed in the Feb. 14 shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade, but the CDC data likely will not count the roughly two dozen other people who were injured.

Collecting more detailed data could be costly for hospitals, whose ERs see most gunshot injuries, said Garen Wintemute, an ER physician and the head of a violence prevention program at the University of California-Davis. Right now, hospitals gather medical information about gunshot wounds and usually don’t get into other details, such as what type of gun or ammunition might have been used.

It’s not clear exactly what data hospitals will be asked to collect.

“It’s an intensive process,” Wintemute said. “The clinicians are going to gather the data that they need in order to treat the patient, and that may not include all the data that a researcher later would want to know about what happened.”

Some of this data is already being collected on a limited basis. The CDC collects of gunshot injuries from ERs in about a dozen states. The White House wants data from across the nation.

Wilcox added that federal grant dollars are available to health systems to conduct gun data collection through the , which Biden signed in 2022.

This year, Biden asked Congress to again boost funding for CDC firearm research in his proposed fiscal 2025 budget, but his previous efforts have failed in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

Lawmakers have yet to release a draft of their spending proposal for the Department of Health and Human Services.

“We should focus our CDC resources on infectious diseases, transmittable diseases, and certainly chronic diseases rather than controversial, political-charged activities,” of Biden’s 2024 funding proposal.

Surveys show most Americans — across political affiliations and regardless of gun ownership — that could reduce violence.

At this week’s meetings with health leaders, White House officials will also encourage doctors to talk with patients and the public about gun safety and securing guns.

When Wintemute talks with patients in the ER, he sits beside them and asks about their safety and the safety of others in their home, a practice he said many doctors already use to address an array of potential risks in a person’s life. The White House’s call for physicians to talk about gun violence legitimizes that, he said.

“A health professional can do what we do about tobacco and alcohol and other sorts of potentially risky behaviors, and talk with patients about how do we minimize the risk,” Wintemute said.

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After a Child’s Death, California Weighs Rules for Phys Ed During Extreme Weather

Samantha Young — Wed, 15 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000

LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. — Yahushua Robinson was an energetic boy who jumped and danced his way through life. Then, a physical education teacher instructed the 12-year-old to run outside on a day when the temperature climbed to .

“We lose loved ones all the time, but he was taken in a horrific way,” his mother, Janee Robinson, said from the family’s Inland Empire home, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles. “I would never want nobody to go through what I’m going through.”

The day her son died, Robinson, who teaches phys ed, kept her elementary school students inside, and she had hoped her children’s teachers would do the same.

The Riverside County Coroner’s Bureau ruled that Yahushua died on Aug. 29 of a heart defect, with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors. His death at Canyon Lake Middle School came on the second day of an excessive heat warning, when people were and limit their time outdoors.

Yahushua’s family is supporting in California that would require the state Department of Education to create guidelines that govern physical activity at public schools during extreme weather, including setting threshold temperatures for when it’s too hot or too cold for students to exercise or play sports outside. If the measure becomes law, the guidelines will have to be in place by Jan. 1, 2026.

Janee Robinson says the cards and messages given to the family after Yahushua Robinson died last August are mementos of the 12-year-old’s spirit and warmth. (Samantha Young/��ϳԹ�� News)

Many states have adopted protocols to protect student athletes from extreme heat during practices. But the California bill is broader and would require educators to consider all students throughout the school day and in any extreme weather, whether they’re doing jumping jacks in fourth period or playing tag during recess. It’s unclear if the bill will clear a critical committee vote scheduled for May 16.

“Yahushua’s story, it’s very touching. It’s very moving. I think it could have been prevented had we had the right safeguards in place,” said state Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Bakersfield), one of the bill’s authors. “Climate change is impacting everyone, but it’s especially impacting vulnerable communities, especially our children.”

Last year marked the planet’s warmest on record, and extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe, according to the . Even though most heat deaths and illnesses are preventable, about every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Young children are especially susceptible to heat illness because their bodies have more trouble regulating temperature, and they rely on adults to protect them from overheating. A person can go from feeling dizzy or experiencing a headache to passing out, having a seizure, or going into a coma, said , a physician and the division chief of general pediatrics at Loma Linda University Health.

“It can be a really dangerous thing,” Vercio said of heat illness. “It is something that we should take seriously and figure out what we can do to avoid that.”

Eric Robinson remembers his son Yahushua Robinson, 12, who died in August after a physical education instructor told him to run outside on the blacktop during the sweltering heat. (Samantha Young/��ϳԹ�� News)

It’s unclear how many children have died at school from heat exposure. Eric Robinson, 15, had been sitting in his sports medicine class learning about heatstroke when his sister arrived at his high school unexpectedly the day their brother died.

“They said, ‘OK, go home, Eric. Go home early.’ I walked to the car and my sister’s crying. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe that my little brother’s gone. That I won’t be able to see him again. And he’d always bugged me, and I would say, ‘Leave me alone.’”

That morning, Eric had done Yahushua’s hair and loaned him his hat and chain necklace to wear to school.

As temperatures climbed into the 90s that morning, a physical education teacher instructed Yahushua to run on the blacktop. His friends told the family that the sixth grader had repeatedly asked the teacher for water but was denied, his parents said.

The school district has refused to release video footage to the family showing the moment Yahushua collapsed on the blacktop. He died later that day at the hospital.

Melissa Valdez, a Lake Elsinore Unified School District spokesperson, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

SB 1248 would require the California Department of Education to create guidelines that govern physical activity at public schools during extreme weather. (Samantha Young/��ϳԹ�� News)

Schoolyards can reach on hot days, with asphalt sizzling up to 145 degrees, according to findings by researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Some school districts, such as and , have hot weather plans or guidelines that call for limiting physical activity and providing water to kids. But there are no statewide standards that K-12 schools must implement to protect students from heat illness.

Under the bill, the California Department of Education must set temperature thresholds requiring schools to modify students’ physical activities during extreme weather, such as heat waves, wildfires, excessive rain, and flooding. Schools would also be required to come up with plans for alternative indoor activities, and staff must be trained to recognize and respond to weather-related distress.

California has had heat rules on the books for outdoor workers since 2005, but it was a latecomer to , according to the at the University of Connecticut, which is named after a Minnesota Vikings football player who died from heatstroke in 2001. By comparison, Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, this spring preventing cities and counties from creating their own heat protections for outdoor workers, has the best protections for student athletes, according to the institute.

Douglas Casa, a professor of kinesiology and the chief executive officer of the institute, said state regulations can establish consistency about how to respond to heat distress and save lives.

“The problem is that each high school doesn’t have a cardiologist and doesn’t have a thermal physiologist and doesn’t have a sickling expert,” Casa said of the medical specialties for heat illness.

In 2022, California released an that recommended state agencies “explore implementation of indoor and outdoor heat exposure rules for schools,” but neither the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, nor lawmakers have adopted standards.

Lawmakers last year failed to pass legislation that would have required schools to implement a heat plan and replace hot surfaces, such as cement and rubber, with lower-heat surfaces, such as grass and cool pavement. , which drew opposition from school administrators, stalled in committee, in part over cost concerns.

Naj Alikhan, a spokesperson for the Association of California School Administrators, said the new bill takes a different approach and would not require structural and physical changes to schools. The association has not taken a position on the measure, and no other organization has registered opposition.

The Robinson family said children’s lives ought to outweigh any costs that might come with preparing schools to deal with the growing threat of extreme weather. Yahushua‘s death, they say, could save others.

“I really miss him. I cry every day,” said Yahushua’s father, Eric Robinson. “There’s no one day that go by that I don’t cry about my boy.”

Yahushua Robinson’s friends sent cards, drawings, and messages after the 12-year-old died last August with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors. (Samantha Young/��ϳԹ�� News)

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In Oregon, Medicaid Is Buying People Air Conditioners

Samantha Young — Thu, 02 May 2024 13:06:15 +0000

Oregon has started providing air conditioners, air purifiers and power banks to help some of its Medicaid recipients cope with soaring heat, smoky skies and other dangers of climate change.

It’s a first-in-the-nation experiment that expands a Biden administration strategy to take Medicaid beyond traditional medical care and into the realm of social services.

“Climate change is a health-care issue,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told me, adding that states should be encouraged to experiment with ways to improve people’s health.

But Medicaid’s expansion into social services could lead to abuse, especially when government pays for equipment or services that everyone wants, said Sherry Glied, dean of New York University’s graduate school of public service.

“The challenge here is that air conditioners are something that both healthy people and people who have your really serious condition benefit from,” Glied said. “Most people have air conditioners for reasons that have nothing to do with their health.”

Many states are already spending��on services like helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for people with diabetes. But Oregon is the first to spend Medicaid money explicitly on climate-related equipment to help its most vulnerable residents — an estimated��200,000��enrollees.

Recipients must meet federal guidelines that categorize them as “facing certain life transitions,” a stringent that disqualify most enrollees. For example, a person with an underlying medical condition that could worsen during a heat wave, and who is also at risk for homelessness or has been released from prison in the past year, could receive an air conditioner. But someone with stable housing might not qualify.

“Each person is going to be looked at as what they need for their particular circumstance,” said Dave Baden, deputy director for programs and policy at the Oregon Health Authority, which administers the state’s Medicaid program, with about . The program, part of a five-year $1.1 billion effort that includes housing and nutrition services, also pays for mini fridges to keep medications cold, portable power supplies to run ventilators and other medical devices during outages, space heaters for winter and air filters to improve air quality during wildfire season.

Scientists and public health officials say climate change poses a growing health risk. The federal government’s projects that more frequent and intense floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme temperatures and storms will cause more deaths, cardiovascular disease from poor air quality and other problems.

The mounting health effects disproportionately hit low-income Americans and people of color, who are often covered by Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people.

Most of the 102 Oregonians who died during a deadly heat dome that settled over the Pacific Northwest in 2021 “were elderly, isolated and living with low incomes,” a found.

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AC, Power Banks, Mini Fridges: Oregon Equips Medicaid Patients for Climate Change

Samantha Young — Wed, 01 May 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Oregon is shipping air conditioners, air purifiers, and power banks to some of its most vulnerable residents, a first-in-the-nation experiment to use Medicaid money to prevent the potentially deadly health effects of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and other climate-related disasters.

The equipment, which started going out in March, expands a Biden administration strategy to move Medicaid beyond traditional medical care and into the realm of social services.

At least 20 states, including California, , and Washington, already direct billions of Medicaid dollars into programs such as helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for people with diabetes, according to KFF. Oregon is the first to use Medicaid money explicitly for climate-related costs, part of its five-year, $1.1 billion effort to address social needs, which also includes housing and nutrition benefits.

State and federal health officials hope to show that taxpayer money and lives can be saved when investments are made before disaster strikes.

“Climate change is a health care issue,” so helping Oregon’s poorest and sickest residents prepare for potentially dangerous heat, drought, and other extreme weather makes sense, said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on a visit to Sacramento, California, in early April.

Becerra said the Biden administration wants states to experiment with how best to improve patient health, whether by keeping someone housed instead of homeless, or reducing their exposure to heat with an air conditioner.

But Medicaid’s expansion into social services may duplicate existing housing and nutrition programs offered by other federal agencies, while some needy Americans can’t get essential medical care, said , director of the Medicaid and Health Safety Net Reform Initiative at the Paragon Health Institute.

“There are intellectually disabled people in the United States waiting for Medicaid services. They’re on a waitlist,” said Alexander, who oversaw state health agencies in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. “Meanwhile Medicaid has money for housing and food and air conditioners for recipients. Seems to me that we should serve the intellectually disabled first before we get into all of these new areas.”

Scientists and public health officials say climate change poses a growing health risk. More frequent and intense floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme temperatures, and storms cause more deaths, cardiovascular disease from poor air quality, and other problems, according to the federal government’s .

The mounting health effects disproportionately hit low-income Americans and people of color, who are often covered by Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people.

Most of the 102 Oregonians who died during the deadly heat dome that settled over the Pacific Northwest in 2021 “were elderly, isolated and living with low incomes,” according to a , which administers the state’s Medicaid program, with about . The OHA’s analysis of urgent care and emergency room use from May through September of 2021 and 2022 found that 60% of heat-related illness visits were from residents of areas with a median household income below $50,000.

“In the last 10-plus years, the amount of fires and smoke events and excessive heat events that we’ve had has shown the disproportionate impact of those events on those with lower incomes,” said Dave Baden, the OHA’s deputy director for programs and policy.

And, because dangerously high temperatures aren’t common in Oregon, many residents don’t have air conditioning in their homes.

Traditionally, states hit by natural disasters and public health emergencies have asked the federal government for on back-up power, air filters, and other equipment to help victims recover. But those requests came after the fact, following federal emergency declarations.

Oregon wants to be proactive and pay for equipment that will help an estimated 200,000 residents manage their health at home before extreme weather or climate-related disaster hits, Baden said. In addition to air conditioning units, the program will pay for mini fridges to keep medications cold, portable power supplies to run ventilators and other medical devices during outages, space heaters for winter, and air filters to improve air quality during wildfire season.

In March, the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program, began asking health insurers to who might need help coping with extreme weather. Recipients must meet federal guidelines that categorize them as “facing certain life transitions,” a stringent set of requirements that disqualify most enrollees. For example, a person with an underlying medical condition that could worsen during a heat wave, and who is also at risk for homelessness or has been released from prison in the past year, could receive an air conditioner. But someone with stable housing might not qualify.

“You could be in a housing complex, and your neighbor qualified for an air conditioner and you didn’t,” Baden said.

At the offices of insurer AllCare Health in Grants Pass, Oregon, air conditioners, air filters, and mini fridges were piled in three rooms in mid-April, ready to be handed over to Medicaid patients. The health plan provided equipment to 19 households in March. The idea is to get the supplies into people’s homes before the summer fire season engulfs the valley in smoke.

Health plans don’t want to find themselves “fighting the masses” at Home Depot when the skies are already smoky or the heat is unbearable, said Josh Balloch, AllCare’s vice president of health policy.

“We’re competing against everybody else, and you can’t find a fan on a hot day,” he said.

Oregon and some other states have already used Medicaid money to buy air conditioners, air purifiers, and other goods for enrollees, but not under the category of climate change. For example, to help asthma patients and New York to provide air conditioners to asthma patients.

Baden said Oregon health officials will evaluate whether sending air conditioners and other equipment to patients saves money by looking at their claim records in the coming years.

If Oregon can help enrollees avoid a costly trip to the doctor or the ER after extreme weather, other state Medicaid programs may ask the federal government if they can adopt the benefit. Many states haven’t yet used Medicaid money for climate change because it affects people and regions differently, said Paul Shattuck, a senior fellow at Mathematica, a research organization that has surveyed state Medicaid directors on the issue.

“The health risks of climate change are everywhere, but the nature of risk exposure is completely different in every state,” Shattuck said. “It’s been challenging for Medicaid to get momentum because each state is left to their own devices to figure out what to do.”

A California state lawmaker last year introduced legislation that would have required Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to add a climate benefit under its existing social services expansion. The program would have been similar to Oregon’s, but , by Assembly member Lisa Calderon, died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which questioned in a whether “climate change remediation supports can be defined as cost-effective.”

The cost savings are clear to Kaiser Permanente. After the 2021 heat wave, it sent air conditioners to 81 patients in Oregon and southwest Washington whose health conditions might get worse in extreme heat, said Catherine Potter, community health consultant at the health system. The following year, Kaiser Permanente estimated it had prevented $42,000 in heat-related ER visits and $400,000 in hospital admissions, she said.

“We didn’t used to have extreme heat like this, and we do now,” said Potter, who has lived in the temperate Portland area for 30 years. “If we can prevent these adverse impacts, we should be preventing them especially for people that are going to be most affected.”

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Newsom Offers a Compromise to Protect Indoor Workers from Heat

Samantha Young — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 23:15:57 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has compromised on long-sought rules that would protect indoor workers from extreme heat, saying tens of thousands of prison and jail employees — and prisoners — would have to wait for relief.

The deal comes a month after the administration unexpectedly for workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot job sites. The rules had been years in the making, and a state worker safety board voted to adopt them March 21. But in a controversial move, the administration upended the process by saying the cost to cool state prisons was unclear — and likely very expensive.

So the Democratic administration said the rules can proceed but must exempt tens of thousands of workers at 33 state prisons, conservation camps, and local jails, “in recognition of the unique implementation challenges,” said Eric Berg, of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, at a Thursday hearing. A separate regulation will be drafted for correctional facilities, which could take a year, if not longer.

It’s unclear if the standards will become law in time to protect millions of other workers from summer’s intensifying heat. The compromise rules must go through a 15-day public comment period, and legal reviews within 100 days, which could push implementation well into summer. But that can’t even happen until the original regulation is rejected by the Office of Administrative Law, which has until next month.

“Summer is arriving, and many workers, unfortunately, are going to suffer heat conditions,” said , legal director at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. “Some will likely get really sick, potentially even die from heat illness, while we continue to wait for the standard.”

Berg told members of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board on April 18 that Cal/OSHA would try to accelerate the timeline and get protections in place for summer.

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and rules for indoor workplaces have been in the works since 2016. The would require work sites to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Buildings could be cooled with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods.

The rules allow workarounds for businesses that can’t cool their workplaces sufficiently, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens.

Because the rules would have a sweeping economic impact, state law requires Newsom’s Department of Finance to sign off on the financial projections, which it refused to do last month when it was unclear how much the regulations would cost state prisons. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said implementing the standards in its prisons and other facilities could cost billions, but the pegged the cost at less than $1 million a year.

Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer couldn’t promise that the compromise rules would be signed off on, but “given that the earlier correctional estimates were the issue before, not having them in the revised package would appear to address that issue,” he said.

Business and agricultural groups complained repeatedly during the rulemaking process that complying with the rules would burden businesses financially. At the April 18 hearing, they highlighted the administration’s lack of transparency and questioned why one sector should be given an exemption over another.

“The massive state costs that are of concern, specifically around prisons in the billions of dollars, are also costs that California employers will bear,” said Robert Moutrie, a senior policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.

Labor advocates asked board members not to exempt prisons, saying corrections workers need protection from heat, too.

“It’s a huge concern that prison workplaces all over are being excluded from the heat standard, leaving out not just guards, but also nurses, janitors, and the other prison workers across California unprotected from heat,” said AnaStacia Nicol Wright, an attorney with Worksafe, a workplace safety advocacy nonprofit. “California needs to prioritize the safety and well-being of their workers, regardless of whether they work in corrections, a farm, or a sugar refinery.”

Prisons will continue to provide cooling stations in air-conditioned areas, and make water stations, fans, portable cooling units, and ice more available to workers, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Prison housing units, which house roughly as of April 17, all can be cooled, usually with evaporative coolers and fans. The department has 58,135 staff members, spokesperson Terri Hardy said.

Only have adopted heat rules for indoor workers. Legislation has , and even though the Biden administration has initiated the long process of establishing national heat standards for outdoor and indoor work, they may take years to finalize.

in California from indoor heat between 2010 and 2017. Heat stress can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, occurred nationally, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

“These are not overly cumbersome things to implement, and they are easy ways to keep people safe and healthy,” said Jessica Early, patient advocacy coordinator at the National Union of Healthcare Workers. “Now is the urgent time to make our workplaces safer and more resilient in the face of rising temperatures.”

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Heat Protections for California Workers Are in Limbo After Newsom Abandons Rules

Angela Hart — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has abandoned proposed protections for millions of California workers toiling in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot workplaces — upending a regulatory process that had been years in the making.

The administration’s eleventh-hour move, which it attributed to the cost of the new regulations, angered workplace safety advocates and state regulators, setting off a mad scramble to implement emergency rules before summer.

But it’s unclear how, when, or if the emergency rules will come down, and whether they’ll be in place in time to protect workers from the intensifying heat.

“It’s the administration’s moral obligation to fix this,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state lawmaker and the chief officer of the California Labor Federation, which represents more than 1,300 unions. “There needs to be emergency regulations or legislation quickly, because we can’t stop summer.”

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and indoor workplaces were supposed to be next. The proposed standards would have required work sites to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Buildings could be cooled with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods.

The rules would have allowed workarounds for businesses that couldn’t cool their workplaces sufficiently, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens.

Despite concerns from the administration, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved the rules at its March 21 meeting, prompting a tense political standoff between workplace safety advocates and Newsom, the second-term Democratic governor who has sought to elevate his national profile and claim progressive leadership on climate change and worker rights — key platforms for the Democratic Party.

State Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said the issue isn’t the state’s ballooning budget deficit — estimated between and — but a to nail down the cost of the rules to the state government.

“It wasn’t, ‘We’re trying to sink these regulations,’” Palmer said.

Palmer said the administration received a murky cost estimate from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation indicating that implementing the standards in its prisons and other facilities could cost billions. The , on the other hand, pegged the cost at less than $1 million a year.

“Without our concurrence of the fiscal estimates, those regulations in their latest iteration will not go into effect,” he said.

According to Corrections spokesperson Albert Lundeen, the rules would entail major spending that could require the legislature to fund “extensive capital improvements.” He added that the agency is committed to discussing “how these regulations could be implemented cost-effectively at our institutions to further bolster worker safety.”

Board members argue the state has had years to analyze the cost of the proposed standards, and that it must quickly impose emergency regulations. But it’s not clear how that might happen, whether in days by the administration or months via the state budget process — or another way.

“This is a public health emergency,” said Laura Stock, a board member who is also an at the University of California-Berkeley.

Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon defended the move to halt permanent regulations, saying approving them would be “imprudent” without a detailed cost estimate.

“The administration is committed to implementing the indoor heat regulations and ensuring workplace protections,” she said in a statement. “We are exploring all options to put these worker protections in place, including working with the legislature.”

The process to adopt California’s indoor head standards started in 2016 and involved years of negotiations with businesses and labor advocates.

Several board members acknowledged that they were frustrated by the administration’s lack of support when they adopted the regulations in March — after their meeting was temporarily halted by angry, chanting warehouse workers — knowing they would not go into effect. Instead, they said, they wanted to amplify pressure on Newsom.

“Every summer is hotter than the last, and workers who aren’t protected are going to suffer heat illness or death,” said Dave Harrison, a board member and with Operating Engineers Local 3. “Our hope was that the vote would be symbolic in sending a message to the state government that, listen, this is important, so we decided to vote on it anyway and put it back into the state’s court.”

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