Best ESG Stocks in India Daily Stock Market Updates – Free Stock Movement Tracking PrintWeekIndia
source
Get Affordable Health Insurance for Your Growing Family with Covered California – Black Voice News
Your support helps the Black Voice News shine a light on systemic inequities and disparities giving “voice” to the community through advocacy, solutions-oriented, and data-driven journalism empowering informed action in Black Californian communities.
Thanks for your contribution!
Never miss a BVN beat. Stay up to speed on the latest BVN news.
Register today to stay up-to-date with the latest news.
By signing up, you agree to our terms and conditions
Thank you for registering!
An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.
Black Voice News
The Voice of the Black Community in California
Last Updated on July 24, 2025 by BVN
Overview: Covered California is offering a special-enrollment period for parents who have recently had a child or adopted. Having health insurance is crucial to protect families from financial hardship, and Covered California offers a variety of plans with free preventive care and access to different networks and doctors. Financial help is available to lower monthly premiums, and eligibility for special enrollment can be determined by visiting CoveredCA.com or calling (800) 300-1506.
Ellen Perrault
Never miss a BVN beat. Stay up to speed on the latest BVN news.
Congratulations, you’ve just brought home a new addition to the family, a truly life-changing event that brings unlimited joy to go along with limited sleep in those early days.
You’re probably thinking a lot about your future, and those plans should start with making sure you have quality health insurance for your growing family.
“As a parent of a toddler myself, I know firsthand the immense joy a new child brings to your life, while also worrying about how to keep them healthy and safe,” said Covered California Executive Director Jessica Altman. “Whether you gave birth to or adopted your new child, you may qualify to enroll during Covered California’s ongoing special-enrollment period.”
Children are expensive but getting them quality health insurance through Covered California doesn’t have to be. You may qualify for financial help to lower your monthly premium payment. And more importantly, having health insurance helps protect you from financial hardship if you or your child need healthcare, but don’t have insurance.
Join the Black Voice News Publisher’s Circle and help sustain the vital work of local journalism. Your support powers impactful stories and community-driven initiatives that drive real change. Together, we can amplify voices, inspire solutions, and build a more equitable future.
Thanks for your contribution!
“As a parent of two, I know how important those early doctor visits are to protect your child’s health and give them the best start in life,” said Covered California’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Monica Soni. “Take advantage of the special-enrollment period to get your child on a health insurance plan and get them set up with a pediatrician or family physician as soon as possible.”
With Covered California, you can choose from a variety of plans, all with free preventive care for you and your child, with access to different networks and doctors, including pediatricians and specialists. You can shop and compare plans easily online, or with the help of a certified enroller.
In addition to having a baby or adopting a child, there are also more common reasons people become eligible for special enrollment. They include losing or changing jobs; getting married or entering a domestic partnership; graduating from college; turning 26 and coming off your parent’s health insurance plan; losing health care coverage; moving and gaining access to new health plans through Covered California that were not available where you previously lived; or becoming a citizen, a U.S. national or a lawfully present individual.
If you qualify under any of these conditions, you are eligible to get the health insurance you need to keep your family covered. For more information on special-enrollment rules, please visit our website. Those who qualify for Medi-Cal may enroll on CoveredCA.com year-round.
Learn more about your options by visiting CoveredCA.com, where you can easily find out if you qualify for financial help and see the coverage options in your area. You can also get free confidential assistance by having a certified enroller call you and help you for free or by calling Covered California at (800) 300-1506.
Ellen Perrault is retired and works occasionally as a freelance writer who contributes to publications in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. Her primary focus is preparing/reformatting press releases and other public announcements–both municipal and nonprofit–for publication.
As a newspaper that publishes in the spirit of the Black Press, the Black Voice News has given voice to the voiceless and shined a light on systemic inequities and disparities since 1972.
Learn More
Sign in by entering the code we sent to , or clicking the magic link in the email.
By signing up, you agree to our terms and conditions. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Leave a Comment
SRU wins 10 national digital marketing awards – Slippery Rock University
Alert: It would appear that you are running an outdated browser. Please download a modern browser.
Jan. 7, 2019
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. — Slippery Rock University’s Communication and Public Affairs Office closed the decade with a bang, earning 10 Educational Digital Marketing Awards. The EDMAs recognize the best educational websites, digital content, electronic communications, mobile media and social media.
The UCPA division’s Athletic Communication department scored a trio of Gold Awards for:
• The official website of Rock Athletics, www.rockathletics.com, in the athletic website category.
• Athletic game day event promotion in the social media category.
• Athletic game day coverage in the social media category.
UCPA also earned Silver Awards for:
• The University’s official website, www.sru.edu, in the website category.
• The 2018 holiday video card in the digital video category.
• The 2019 College Colors Day video in the digital video category.
• The Rock Athletics Digital Network in the streaming content category.
• The “Let’s Taco ‘Bout It” first-year student taco party with the president campaign in the miscellaneous media category.
The division also earned a Bronze Award for the University website’s policies index microsite and a Merit Award for Athletic Communication’s football national signing day campaign.
Higher Education Marketing Report sponsors the EDMAs.
Judges for the EDMAs consisted of a national panel of higher education marketers, advertising creative directors, marketing and advertising professionals and the editorial board of HEMR.
“Because we see their work every day, sometimes it’s easy to forget how talented our staff is at SRU. These awards take on greater significance because they were earned while competing against work that in many cases was produced for institutions by professional agencies. I’m incredibly proud of the entire team’s contributions to taking our products to a higher level,” said Rita Abent, chief communication and public affairs officer.
For the complete list of EDMA winners, click here.
MEDIA CONTACT: Robb King | 724.738.2199 | robb.king@sru.edu
© Slippery Rock University 1 Morrow Way, Slippery Rock, PA 16057, USA800.778.9111
Leave a Comment
Leave a Comment
Leave a Comment
Congress explores reforms in Medicare program at center of DOJ probe into UnitedHealth – Star Tribune
Health Care
The Medicare Advantage program pays insurers more to cover sicker patients, but critics say the documentation process is being abused.
By Christopher Snowbeck and
Christopher Vondracek
UnitedHealth Group’s confirmation of a federal probe into its Medicare business comes as Washington lawmakers call for reforms to the sprawling Advantage program, which covers most of the program’s beneficiaries.
Medicare Advantage (MA) has for years been a lucrative line of business for private health insurers. Yet questions about an arcane, technical process called “risk adjustment” have ensnared UnitedHealth.
Scrutiny of risk adjustment practices has spurred a series of scolding federal audits and at least one large financial settlement between another insurer and the federal government.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat and ranking member of the House Ways & Means Health subcommittee, called UnitedHealth’s confirmation of a Justice Department investigation “hardly shocking.”
“What has been shocking is the health conglomerate’s business practices edging out competitors, denying and delaying necessary care, retaliating against critics and pressuring providers,” Doggett said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Calls for change to Medicare Advantage came earlier this week as subcommittees on Health and Oversight at the House Ways and Means Committee held a joint hearing to examine lessons learned over more than two decades.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration in May rolled out what it called an aggressive strategy to enhance and accelerate Medicare Advantage audits.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said in a statement at the time: “While the administration values the work that Medicare Advantage plans do, it is time CMS faithfully executes its duty to audit these plans and ensure they are billing the government accurately for the coverage they provide to Medicare patients.”
The pressure for reform is undeniable, and could drive changes that curtail what critics have described as a taxpayer-funded party for health insurers.
Yet MA has been hugely popular with seniors and any changes made for Medicare program integrity could raise concern about the financial consequences for beneficiaries.
“I wouldn’t say the party’s over — I think people are just getting rid of the open bar,” said Michael Chernew, a professor of health care policy at Harvard University who studies the economics of Medicare, during an interview earlier this summer.
Health Care
Health Care
Health Care
In the MA program, seniors elect to receive their standard Medicare benefits for doctor and hospital care, plus prescription drugs, from a private health insurer.
These private insurers can set rules for where seniors get their covered services and determine if payments for recommended treatments are justified and meet Medicare standards.
Risk adjustment is the process in which insurers submit data on the health status of their MA enrollees. The more complex their health care, the higher the payments from the government.
It’s a key part of the program because health insurers otherwise would have a financial incentive to avoid covering patients who need expensive care. But it’s also where UnitedHealth Group and other industry players are now being scrutinized.
Last year, a report from the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found UnitedHealth Group stood out from its peers — but wasn’t alone — in using questionable diagnosis data to boost MA risk adjustment payments by billions of dollars.
In September 2023, the Connecticut-based health insurance giant Cigna agreed to pay $172.2 million to resolve allegations it violated federal law. The U.S. government alleged Cigna submitted and failed to withdraw “inaccurate and untruthful” diagnosis codes for its MA enrollees to increase payments from the federal government.
MA was launched in the 1990s and expanded in the mid-2000s with bipartisan legislation that established the Medicare Part D drug benefit. It now covers a majority of Medicare beneficiaries. Some lawmakers have zeroed in on the program’s risk adjustment funding.
“The most effective step the [Trump] Administration can take in cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in federal health care programs is by reining in the wasteful practices of corporate health insurers in the MA program,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in a March letter co-signed by Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and six other Democratic senators.
The letter did not name UnitedHealth, but the company is the nation’s largest MA insurer. Senators asked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to further crack down on alleged “upcoding,” in which insurers are thought to manipulate diagnosis data to make patients look sicker and gain more federal dollars.
“The challenge is: Anything you do to tighten up risk adjustment can have an impact on the benefits that people get,” Chernew said. “The questions are: By how much, and which benefits are affected? Program integrity is an important goal, but I don’t think anybody wants to destroy the Medicare Advantage program.”
UnitedHealth Group, which runs UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, has long defended the MA program and continues to do so.
“MA plans do a much better job of identifying and documenting health risks than traditional fee-for-service Medicare,” the company said in a December statement.
Insurers argue the large MA market share, which has built steadily over the past two decades, speaks to its popularity. It has been chosen by nearly 35 million seniors and individuals with disabilities nationwide, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade group for health insurance companies.
At Tuesday’s congressional hearing, Doggett quoted the viral video of a Texas plastic surgeon who said a patient was on the operating table when a message arrived from UnitedHealthcare with a question on coverage for the procedure.
“Stories like hers are why I’ve asked the Justice Department to expand its investigation into United,” said Doggett.
Rep. David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican who has introduced legislation to reform aspects of MA, noted some insurers resisted providing information on coding data for Medicare beneficiaries.
In advance of the House hearing, AHIP argued MA plans deliver coordinated care, substantial cost savings and comprehensive benefits that far exceed what’s provided under Medicare’s original fee-for-service program.
Medicare doesn’t have a cap on out-of-pocket spending, AHIP noted, whereas MA plans limit expenses annually. People in original Medicare often handle this risk by buying “Medicare supplement” policies, but premiums often far exceed the cost of an MA plan.
“It is clear that Medicare Advantage is working for the beneficiaries who choose it,” AHIP said in a statement.
Christopher Snowbeck covers health insurers, including Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group, and the business of running hospitals and clinics.
Christopher Vondracek covers Washington D.C. for the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Nation
Nation
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership at Health and Human Services has led to changes in vaccine recommendations and access, sparking concerns among medical experts.
Health Care
Health Care
The Medicare Advantage program pays insurers more to cover sicker patients, but critics say the documentation process is being abused.
Health Care
Health Care
The Eden Prairie-based health insurance company confirmed Thursday morning that is cooperating with federal investigators.
Nation
Nation
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership at Health and Human Services has led to changes in vaccine recommendations and access, sparking concerns among medical experts.
© 2025 StarTribune.All rights reserved.
Leave a Comment
Leave a Comment
Leave a Comment
Leave a Comment
Retirement may be true source of famous ‘happiness curve’ of life – USC Dornsife
The commonly held belief that people become happier after 50 appears to apply mainly to unemployed men.
At age 50, unemployed men were more than twice as likely to report symptoms of depression as those who had lost a spouse.
By age 65, when retirement becomes the norm, the mental health gap between employed and unemployed men disappears entirely.
The findings suggest this improvement stems not from biology or lifestyle, but from easing social expectations around work.
Many believe that happiness rebounds after midlife — a view supported by the widely cited “U-shaped curve of well-being” popularized by the book The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50. But a new study suggests the story is more complicated. Rather than a universal rise in mental health after age 50, researchers found that the rebound is concentrated among one group in particular: unemployed men.
To investigate, scientists from USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, working with colleagues at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and Erasmus University Rotterdam, analyzed data on unemployed men 50 and older across 10 European countries.
The findings, recently posted online ahead of publication in the Journal of Labor Economics and presented at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, reveal a stark mental health gap. At age 50, when most men are still working, unemployed men were 23 percentage points more likely to report symptoms of depression than their employed peers. For context, the study suggests unemployed men in midlife were more than twice as likely to report symptoms of depression as those who had lost a spouse.
By age 65, however, when most men are retired and the societal expectation to work has faded, that mental health gap disappears entirely.
“It’s a striking shift,” said Titus Galama, director of the Center for the Study of Human Capital based at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR). “It shows how powerful social expectations around work are — and how much mental health can improve when those expectations lift.”
Work norms — not biology — fuel the midlife slump
Mental health improves for unemployed men as they approach retirement — not because of aging or more leisure time, but because of shifting social expectations. In midlife, joblessness often carries stigma. But as more peers stop working, that stigma fades and mental health improves.
The study suggests that the U-shaped curve of well-being may not be a universal feature of aging, but rather a psychosocial phenomenon shaped by social roles and identity. For unemployed men, the expectation to work appears to weigh more heavily on mental health than financial hardship.
Galama and his co-authors, including lead author Coen van de Kraats of Erasmus University Rotterdam, weren’t initially studying retirement norms. They were analyzing trends in health, mental well-being and socioeconomic factors over the course of life when they noticed something unexpected: a distinct U-shape in the mental health of unemployed men — with a sharp decline in midlife followed by a rebound near retirement.
That pattern may help explain why the well-being curve appears in some datasets but not others. The rise in mental health after age 50, the researchers argue, is driven largely by this relatively small subgroup. When averaged into the general population, their improvement can create the illusion of a broader, universal rebound.
Earlier theories suggested the rebound was biological — linked to brain chemistry or how people report emotions as they age. But the researchers argue it’s psychosocial. The mental health recovery in later life appears to stem from easing social expectations around work, not biology or leisure time.
“Being jobless in midlife isn’t just about lost income,” van de Kraats said. “It’s about lost identity.”
How they tracked men’s mental well-being
To understand what drives shifts in mental health, the scientists analyzed data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), a long-running study that tracks health, economic status and social trends across the continent. They measured symptoms of depression using the EURO-D scale, a clinically validated tool.
The team also took advantage of a natural experiment created by differences in retirement laws across 10 European countries, age groups and time periods. These policy variations allowed them to isolate the effects of retirement expectations from other factors such as age or income.
Their findings were striking: Mental distress among unemployed men dropped by 18 percentage points in the year after reaching their country’s early retirement age — and by 37 points five years later. This improvement wasn’t tied to better finances, health or increased leisure time. It coincided with a shift in self-perception: As more peers retired, these men began to see themselves as retired, too.
“As society’s expectations shift with age,” van de Kraats said, “some men find emotional relief not by changing their employment situation, but by no longer feeling they’ve failed to meet it.”
By contrast, the team found little or no mental health improvement among employed men, unemployed women, or those receiving disability benefits — suggesting the effect was unique to unemployed men redefining themselves as retired.
Rethinking the happiness curve
To test their theory, the researchers compared their European findings to data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study. The American results echoed the European ones, reinforcing the idea that the so-called U-shaped curve of well-being may not be universal.
Because the curve reflects population averages, it can mask meaningful differences across subgroups. In fact, the dramatic mental health gains among unemployed men after age 50 skew the average upward, creating the impression of a general rebound.
Next steps in studying happiness and aging
“I am excited that our analyses have led to a theory that can be empirically tested,” Galama said.
Next, the researchers plan to explore whether unemployment affects mental health differently in countries with high versus low unemployment rates, or where formal retirement institutions are absent.
They also plan to expand their research to other groups, including younger unemployed adults, to determine whether shifting work norms contribute to rising levels of distress.
One area of particular interest: the potential connection between work-related social pressure and rising rates of suicide and substance abuse among unemployed men, a phenomenon known as “deaths of despair.” The team plans to examine this trend more closely in the U.S.
About this study
In addition to Galama and van de Kraats, the study’s co-authors include Maarten Lindeboom at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Monash University, the Tinbergen Institute and the IZA Institute of Labor Economics as well as Zichen Deng at the University of Amsterdam.
The paper is available at IZA (Discussion Paper No. 17586, December 2024) the Tinbergen Institute (2022), and the Center for Health Economics at Monash University (2023–2025).
The research was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program and the Dutch National Science Foundation.
Copyright © 2025 University of Southern California