Disparities

Connecticut Lags In Kids’ Mental Health Screening; Reforms Considered

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Selenia Velez remembers the near-daily phone calls from the pre-school, alerting her that her 2-year-old son had acted out aggressively and needed to be picked up immediately. The calls went on for months, as Velez, 27, of Hartford, and her husband bounced between the pre-school and their son’s pediatrician, who recommended that they take him to a psychiatrist for an evaluation. But the psychiatrist was booked and held them at bay, as Velez watched her son’s behavior deteriorate. “We just felt hopeless,” the mother of four recalls of her oldest son, now 7. “It was one of the most heartbreaking things you can go through as a mother.

Women's Health

Families On The Financial Brink Fundraise To Pay Medical Bills

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Since June 2012, this has been Farmington attorney Kristen Garlans’ life: her boss died, which eventually resulted in her losing her job; a drunk driver killed a close friend; and a beloved aunt died. And then a nagging health concern turned out to be non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Without a job, Garlans, 33, qualified for Medicaid. She’s still waiting to hear about SSI. Meanwhile, she’s received notice that she could lose her house to foreclosure, and while she finishes her multiple rounds of chemo and follows up with radiation, she can’t work.

Disparities

New Benefits, Taxes Under The Affordable Care Act

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For consumers, the new year brings changes in the Affordable Care Act ranging from limits on itemized deductions and flexible spending accounts to Medicare-related tax increases and standardized forms that describe benefits in plain English. In many ways, Connecticut leads the nation in implementing reform from establishing an online marketplace to purchase health insurance and expanding Medicaid coverage to low-income adults to generating millions of dollars in savings for consumers with coverage issues. Changes coming in 2013 and 2014 include:

Limits On Itemized Tax Deductions: The rules for itemizing deductions on federal income tax returns have changed. Beginning 2013, taxpayers can claim deductions for medical expenses not covered by health insurance when they reach 10 percent of adjusted gross income, up from 7.5 percent. The law waives the increase for those 65 years and older for tax years 2013 through 2016.

Affordable Care Act

CT Is “Hell-Yes’’ On Medicaid

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Governors in some of the states with the highest rate of uninsured people – including Louisiana, Texas, and Florida – insist they’ll opt out of the Medicaid expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act – or Obamacare. One political website (Politico.com) calls them the “hell-no” states.

Disparities
Yanisha Claudio, 15, cuddles her son, Jordan. Jennifer Colon of the Nurturing Families Network looks on.

Teen Births: Nearly One-Half To Hispanics

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While teen pregnancy rates have declined nationwide and in Connecticut, statistics and interviews show an intergenerational cycle of children-bearing-children puts Hispanic teens in Connecticut at risk of giving birth once, or even twice, before their twenties.

I-Team In-Depth
Hospital Pneumonia Readmission Rates

Hospitals To Face Penalties For High Readmissions

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Patients treated for pneumonia at four Connecticut hospitals have ended up readmitted to the hospital within 30 days at rates significantly higher than the national average—a lapse that the federal government considers costly and potentially harmful, and that could lead to Medicare penalties beginning in 2012.