IN THIS EDITION:
"Capped" Medicaid funding scenarios affect most vulnerable
The Trump administration's intent to reform Medicaid includes financing changes that would save hundreds of billions in federal dollars over time, but at the expense of cutting significant health care benefits to tens of millions of the program's most vulnerable recipients -- the disabled, children and elderly Americans, according to a  new policy brief  from the  UCLA Center for Health Policy Research .

None of three “capped” financing systems — block grants, capped allotments and per capita caps — discussed in previous health proposals guarantees benefits for those who qualify for the low-income health program. All of them shrink real funding over time because the proposed growth formulas set the growth to a lower rate than what would be expected under current law. In contrast, the current Medicaid system guarantees benefits to all eligible enrollees and grows in response to increases in enrollment and health care costs.

"These are great plans for federal accountants. It's a terrible plan for everyone else," said Center Director  Gerald Kominski , co-author of the policy brief. 
Three questions for the expert
 
Mager-Mardeusz

Haleigh Mager-Mardeusz: "Capped funding will force states to make hard choices about who 'deserves' health care coverage."
Haleigh Mager-Mardeusz is a co-author of the new policy brief on how GOP changes to Medicaid could affect health care for tens of millions of low-income Americans. In this brief interview, she discusses why Republicans favor "capped" financing, the political risk of undoing the ACA, and the likelihood of caps being enacted. 
Get the latest ACA repeal and replace news
Get a succinct summary of the latest efforts to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act or otherwise restructure the U.S. health system on a new "reform" area of the Center's website.

The weekly update is compiled by a "rapid response" team of UCLA graduate student researchers hired to monitor and analyze breaking news on health care policy and the ACA. Working under Center Director Gerald Kominski , the team has produced weekly ACA reports, and current and past Center policy briefs. Team members are Andrea Sorensen, Bryce Henderson, Cosima Lenz, Haleigh Mager-Mardeusz, Julie Son, and Petra Rasmussen. 
Free, live-streamed AskCHIS and AskCHIS NE workshops start today

Learn how to quickly and easily find a California health statistic through the easy-to-use web query tools of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). Starting today, the Center's Health DATA Program will conduct a series of free, live-streamed workshops on the  easy-to-use web query tools, AskCHIS© and AskCHIS Neighborhood Edition© NE.

Today's class at 1:30 PDT teaches basic AskCHIS skills. May classes will cover advanced AskCHIS and AskCHIS NE .

Dhannya V. Sasi , Ask CHIS community workshop project manager, will answer questions and help participants with data searches during the class. Workshops are supported by Kaiser Permanente .   
Recap: April 25 Grand Rounds
Proposed EPA cuts biggest in agency's history
The Environmental 
Protection Agency's budget could be cut by 31 percent under Trump  ―
the largest cut in the history of the EPA, said Michael Jerrett, chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, at the April 25 Public Health Grand Rounds lecture.

Ying-Ying Meng, co-director of the Center's Chronic Disease Program, discussed air quality regulations as an investment in health.  The event was co-sponsored by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health  and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Ying-Ying Meng, Timothy Malloy, Michael Jerrett and Yifang Zhu discuss implications of the proposed EPA budget cuts April 25. 
Breast cancer rates up among women in most Asian American ethnicities

With the exception of Japanese women, breast cancer rates among all groups of Asian American women in California increased between 1998 and 2013, according to a study that used CHIS data. The largest increases were among Koreans in 1988–2006 and Southeast Asians in 1988–2013.
Register now! RCMAR/NIA workshop is July 23

The Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) workshop will be held July 23 as a preconference session at the IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics meeting in San Francisco.

The National Institute on Aging -supported workshop,   "Reversibility and Mutability Research:Approaches to Reducing Health Disparities,"  provides a forum for junior and senior researchers to discuss the complex issues and potential benefits of reversibility research. 
In the media

Center data and researchers were featured this month in dozens of media stories: Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, Christian Science Monitor, California Healthline, Vox, El Español, Bustle, American Conservative, and more.

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS : Center Director Gerald Kominski said that response to Bernie Sanders' campaign showed broader support for a single-payer health care system "than a lot of people understood."
SACRAMENTO BEE:  Ying-Ying Meng , co-director of the Center’s Chronic Disease Program, discussed the effects of asthma in a story about rates of the disease among children in the Salton Sea area. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:  Mark A. Peterson , Center faculty associate, said that although the proposed GOP health care plan is shelved for now, Democrats should be improving and strengthening the ACA. 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH:  UCLA Fielding School  professors Susan Cochran  and  Vickie Mays  said in an April editorial that surveys such as  CHIS  uncover health disparities and inform policies specific to LGBT health. 

See all our recent media in the Center's  Newsroom.
News and notes

ISRAEL PUBLIC HEALTH: Center Director Gerald Kominski is on a committee that will evaluate the Public Health and Health System Management in Israel May 7-19.

FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE: Kominski participated in a Santa Monica Democratic Club panel discussion about the future of health care March 29 in Santa Monica.

ACA REPEAL, ELDER HEALTH: Center Associate Director Ninez Ponce is a panelist for "Impact of an ACA Repeal" at the ACO Coalition meeting May 5 in Scottsdale.

ELDER HEALTH: Ponce spoke on health care and aging at the KEIRO Grants Program Luncheon April 22 in Los Angeles. 
"Hidden Poor" book festival panelists, from left, Steven P. Wallace, Susan Straight, moderator Steve Lopez, Susan B. Geffen
"HIDDEN POOR" IN CALIFORNIA: Associate Center Director Steven P. Wallace discussed California’s ‘’hidden poor’’ elder population with LA Times columnist Steve Lopez at the LA Times Book Festival at USC April 23. 

MIGRATION INSTITUTE: Wallace will speak at the Summer Institution on Migration and Global Health June 26-28 in Los Angeles.
CDC SURVEYS: Rachel Hornstein, health policy analyst at the CDC/National Center for Health Statistics and alumna of the UCLA Fielding School, presented on innovations in federal health care data collection April 13 at the Center.

CUTTING SUGAR:  Susan Babey , Center research scientist, and  William McCarthy, professor at the  UCLA Fielding School , will co-host May 3 a roundtable on strategies to cut sugar consumption at the UCLA Luskin Center. Kaiser Permanente and the American Heart Association are co-sponsors of the event.

OPIOID ADDICTION:  Shana Alex Charles , Center faculty associate, will be a panelist tonight at the Paul Torrens Health Forum on "The Opioid Addiction Epidemic: A Public Health Crisis."

WE ARE HIRING : The  UCLA Fielding School  has a tenured faculty position open for an associate/full professor of health equity. Find more information  here .
VISITING SCHOLAR: Yannis Pappas, Head of PhD School and Chair of the Research Ethics Committee at the Institute for Health Research, University of Bedfordshire Putteridge Bury Campus, is visiting the Center April 24-May 3 to collaborate on health care delivery research. 
Pappas
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One of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health-related information on Californians. Browse our free publications on health insurance, health care reform, health economics, chronic disease, health disparities and more: www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu

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CHIS is the nation's largest state health survey and one of the largest health surveys in the United States. Each year, CHIS interviews up to 50,000 or more Californians on a range of health topics. Visit us at healthpolicy.ucla.edu/chis
 
A free, easy-to-use online tool that enables journalists, health experts, policymakers and others to quickly search for health statistics on their county, region or statewide. Visit us at www.askchis.com.