Health and Welfare

The state spent $148,000 on a racial equity group to offer advice on how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid settlement funds. But after issuing recommendations, the group said it was ‘silenced.’

Community health workers focus on people who, due to low incomes or other inequities, tend to have poorer health outcomes. The state is now expanding Medicaid to cover more of this work.

Too many people in a mental health crisis end up in a hospital ER, where they rarely get the one-on-one or follow-up care they need. New mobile vans are designed to bring better care to people in distress before they spiral further.

Michigan is six months into a one-year Medicaid eligibility review. Roughly 1-in-3 cases reviewed have resulted in residents being dropped from the medical insurance program for low-income people.

Michigan is in the middle of a one year review of Medicaid cases after enrollment grew to 3.2 million during pandemic. About a third of the 992,000 people reviewed so far have lost coverage.

Experts say people should avoid crowded public spaces if they contract the disease and to quarantine themselves if they do get it. 

A first-ever immunization against RSV for babies was approved with much fanfare in July; already, there’s not enough to go around, according to the state’s pediatricians’ group. That, and a flagging interest in flu and COVID vaccines, have some doctors worried.