May 10, 2012
[VIDEO] By Sammy Mack – A network of Florida facilities that supports people with disabilities will lose nearly $1.6 million this year – just as the social services provided by the network are needed most. Florida’s Centers for Independent Living, or CILs, help people with disabilities navigate job placement, housing, transportation, health care and other services.
May 1, 2012
By Sammy Mack – A Miami-Dade Schools task force investigating why its kindergartners had an alarmingly low completion rate of vaccines has concluded that a form filled out incorrectly by health care providers led to the problem.
April 25, 2012
By Sammy Mack – An outbreak of whooping cough in Tampa has sickened 36 people since January of this year – most of them children. Epidemiologists have traced two-thirds of the cases in the outbreak of the highly contagious infection back to seven families in Hillsborough County.
April 23, 2012
[VIDEO] By Sammy Mack – At age 21, Jeff has legs like broomsticks under his nylon basketball shorts and his cheeks are hollow. Sitting at a table outside the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine with two friends of about the same age, he looks young and fragile. Jeff doesn’t like telling people what’s wrong. He doesn’t like what they say when they learn he was born HIV-positive.
April 18, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Gov. Rick Scott signed Florida’s budget Tuesday – and more than three dozen health-related programs across the state were casualties of the governor’s veto pen. Health programs represented more than a quarter of Scott’s $142 million in line-item vetoes to the $70 billion state budget. Among the cuts: medical school projects, rape crisis centers, devices for people with epilepsy and childhood vaccination programs.
April 16, 2012
[VIDEO] By Sammy Mack – We don’t necessarily need research to confirm what most of us realize on some level: music has incredible healing powers. Music therapists are trained to use music to stimulate and repair certain neurophysical functions that were lost due to injury. But even with just basic use, music can help calm and soothe patients who may be feeling anxious, scared or sad by their health situations. Enter a program named Musicians on Call which brings music to patients in hospitals. It started more than ten years ago in New York. Since then, the program has expanded across the country and brought music to more than a quarter million people.
[AUDIO] By Sammy Mack – Lo! What news is this? April is National Poetry Month and poets across Florida have been celebrating our lives in verse. Not to be left out of the festivities, HealthyState.org brings you this story about the relationship between health and poetry.
April 11, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Florida could lose out on more than $189 billion in federal health funds under House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan, according to an analysis from Families USA.
April 3, 2012
By Sammy Mack – The journalism awards season has arrived, and HealthyState.org is pleased to announce that our stories and reporters are finalists in six categories of the 2012 Florida Associated Press Broadcasters Contest. From the connection between a woman’s hair and her exercise plan to the troubled relationship between doctors and insurers, we had it covered. You can revisit all the finalist stories here:
March 29, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Last year, Florida legislators passed a bill privatizing the state’s Medicaid program, moving recipients into managed care plans – a model patterned on a pilot program that’s been running in five counties since 2006. The statewide change still needs federal approval – and for one family already living in a pilot county, it’s a troubling prospect. HealthyState.org visits this Broward County family to find out why one mother has decided to leave so her son can get better access to health care.
March 8, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Bishop Robert Lynch told parishioners that “2,300 employees of the Diocese of St. Petersburg will lose their health care coverage” if President Obama doesn’t widen exemptions to the Affordable Care Act, at a special mass for lawyers and judges in Tampa last November. At issue: a requirement that health insurance plans cover contraception. Reprinted from Dec. 2, 2011, HealthyState.org goes back in time and reminds us how the debate began.
February 29, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Inspirational. That’s the word most commonly used to describe Toby Davidow in the nearly two dozen Healthiest Person nominations she received. After eating a sweet, crunchy snap pea straight off the vine in Davidow’s yard, we have to agree.
February 27, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Every morning at 10:00 a.m., congestive heart failure patient Marilyn Yeats of Naples conducts her own health checkup with the help of a computer. Call it a virtual visit. She uses a home health guide to send her vitals to her nurse in Tampa Bay via the internet. “This program is having your own private nurse,” says Yeats. HealthyState.org follows Yeats through her checkup and visits the behind-the-scenes of what happens to Yeats’ data.
February 6, 2012
[VIDEO] By Sammy Mack – Medicaid recipient Patrina Williams is a single mom with seven kids, ages 19 to 4. Due to the economy, her full-time job was cut to part-time, and now she earns $960 a month. But if state lawmakers have their way and impose a $10 per person per month premium, $70 a month would devastate her family – and likely force them out of the program. To get a sense of what $10 is worth to a person on Medicaid, HealthyState.org followed Williams and her family.
January 12, 2012
By Sammy Mack – Abortion, plastic surgery, nursing homes and minority health – these are just a few of the issues addressed in bills proposed for Florida’s 2012 legislative session. As things heat up in Tallahassee, we’ve compiled a list of the health-related bills to watch:
December 30, 2011
By Sammy Mack – In Friday’s rounds, trusting other people to make new year resolutions for you; gun safety on New Year’s Eve; gunshots ruin holiday parties; and changing public hospitals in Florida.
December 29, 2011
By Sammy Mack – In Thursday’s rounds, portable x-rays are a popular cover for Medicare fraud; tattoo artists get a license to ink; brain food is good for memory and thinking; and Build-A-Bear recalls hundreds of thousands of teddies over choking hazard.
December 28, 2011
By Sammy Mack – In Wednesday’s rounds, a debate rages over a new painkiller that isn’t even available yet; states tighten rules on what and where doctors can practice; and healthy snacks at high altitude in Miami.
December 27, 2011
By Dalia Colón – Health care isn’t the sexiest topic. It’s easy to get bogged down in data, forgetting that health issues affect real people. It’s their stories–not statistics and jargon–that bring health topics to life and make them relevant. So as 2011 draws to a close, we thought we’d check in with some of the Floridians who kept you talking throughout the year.
December 19, 2011
By Sammy Mack – Public transit is pedaling forward in South Florida. Despite its reputation for being an unfriendly place for bicyclists, Broward County has launched the first county-wide bicycle sharing program in the country. Twenty bike sharing stations with 200 bicycles have been spread out across the county – giving residents and visitors a healthy and green alternative to transit.