Everyday People Matter
Housing, nutrition and healthcare are basic human needs. Medicaid is a government-funded program that provides healthcare coverage to low-income individuals and families. While it primarily focuses on medical care, Medicaid can also cover other services that are...
Reports of Long Covid diagnoses and symptoms in patients have dropped since the beginning of the pandemic. The percentage of people who have had COVID and currently report long COVID symptoms declined from 19% in June 2022 to 11% in January 2023. That...
Recently House Republicans, specifically The Freedom Caucus, proposed capping discretionary spending to 2022 levels and remaining at that level for the next decade in an effort to balance the federal budget in 10 years without raising taxes. The plan involves...
Abortions are banned in Georgia after six weeks. Exceptions to this rule are to save the mother’s life; if the fetus is not expected to live; if the preganancy threatens the mother’s physical health and/or if the pregnancy arose from rape or incest. Patients are...
More and more Georgians are dying of drug overdoses. Drug overdoses have become a growing epidemic both in Georgia and nationally, increasing to skyrocketing rates since the COVID-19 pandemic. The Georgia Department of Public Health reports from 2019-2021, the total...
The Social Security Administration proposed a rule change to its regulations in February 2023. SSA proposes to remove food from the calculation of In-kind Support and Maintenance (ISM). Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applicants and recipients would no longer...
Last year Wellstar Health System closed its 450 bed Atlanta Medical Center, one of only two Level 1 trauma centers in metro Atlanta. A Level 1 Trauma Center provides the highest of trauma care to critically ill or injured patients and can provide complete care for...
Mass incarceration takes its toll on the health of inmates and former inmates. At any one time in this country more than 6.9 million people are on probation, in jail, in prison or on parole. Each year more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal...
In 2021, The American Rescue Plan (ARP) implemented a One Year Child Tax Credit Expansion. The ARP increased the credit from $2000 per child and it raised the age limit from 16 to 17 years. The plan provided a credit for all working families earning up to $150,000...
Medicaid is the federal government health insurance program for people in poverty. Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) individuals qualified for this program if they lived at about 64% of the federal poverty level. In 2023 the federal poverty level is $13,590 for...