As religious leaders and members of congregations in California we affirm our support for SB 277 which requires California's children to be vaccinated against communicable diseases. Our religious traditions teach us that the highest value is saving lives and we believe that the mandatory vaccination bill will do just that – save the lives of children and adults who otherwise might succumb to diseases that can easily be cured.

My 16 month old nephew just died, with inconsolable crying, siezures and fever after a vaccine. He was totally healthy before.

Florida needs to expand Medicaid, and the governor needs to stop being an obstacle to helping Florida's working poor.

Currently, recreation therapists are not being held accountable in the same way as other allied health and human services professionals in the State. There is no regulating entity to insure that properly prepared professionals are practicing in the State of New York.

Washington, DC and the Ward 1 community cannot afford to lose this key healthcare center for low-income families and refugees, especially with so little dental care in the community. 6,500 people stand to lose access to a comprehensive range of health services: medical, dental, and behavioral health care, plus patient navigation, health education, and many other services. Nearly 100 new patients join the medical and dental practices each month. There are so many great aspects of Community of Hope’s Marie Reed Health Center – including a strong partnership with the Marie Reed Elementary School and awards for ranking in the top 10% of health centers in the United States. It is not just a health center; it is a home.

Most of these patients and their families didn't choose to be under insured or to have life changing circumstances place them in such a financial position. During normal working hours, patients are still convalescing, recuperating, sleeping or medicated to a greater extent, and this will disrupt the quality of patient care. After the physical trauma patients have experienced comes the financial trauma, which is the last thing visiting family members want to witness, let alone be a part of or to be asked to be a guarantor for their relations. Send Paul Viviano a message - leave under insured patients alone during the hours when they are convalescing, recuperating, medicated or sleeping. Do you really want to be bothered with a UCSD Patient Access employee collecting a high dollar deductible from you while lying on a table in the middle of the ER after a drunk driver hit you or your loved one, since their employee can't cover a catastrophic health event?

Expand Medicaid for the 200,000 people who need health care, which will bring more money to our state.

We must stop the blockade. Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do.

Tulare County ranks third in pesticide use in California, with more than 14 million pounds of active ingredients used in 2012 (latest data available from California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation). Current protection against restricted material pesticides, the most dangerous type, only prohibits aerial application within a 1/4-mile of schools that are in session, labor camps, and neighborhoods. This leaves a loophole for dangerous pesticides to be used in close proximity to mentioned sites—if applied non-aerially. For this reason, farm working parents have begun to ask for stronger protection zones against restricted material pesticides. The research is there. There are studies that highlight the following among other potential harms: community susceptibility to pesticide in agricultural areas (1), the detrimental impacts of pesticides on kids’ health (2), and exposure to agricultural pesticides as not a good thing (3). Stronger protection is possible and realistic. With the signing of AB 947 in 2002, California agricultural commissioners were authorized to apply regulations to agricultural use of pesticides within a quarter-mile of a school. With this supportive legislation in place, protection around school sites can be a great start. On behalf of concerned families in Tulare County, we ask for your support to better protect the health of Tulare County children and communities by signing our petition to urge the Tulare County Ag Commissioner to include all applications of restricted material pesticides onto established quarter-mile protection around schools that are in session and other sensitive areas. 1. Quirós-Alcalá L, Bradman A, Nishioka M, Harnly ME, Hubbard A, McKone TE, Ferber J, Eskenazi B. "Pesticides in house dust from urban and farmworker households in California: an observational measurement study." Environ Health. 2011 Mar 16; 10:19.doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-10-19. 2. Schafer KS, Marquez EC, Chandra M, Hutchens K, Reeves M, 1. Watts M; Pesticide Action Network North America. "A generation in jeopardy: how pesticides are undermining our children’s health and intelligence." http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/KidsHealthReportOct2012.pdf. Published October 2012. Accessed April 13, 2015. 3. Shelton JF, Geraghty EM, Tancredi DJ, Delwiche LD, Schmidt RJ, Ritz B, Hansen RL, Hertz-Picciotto I. 2014. "Neurodevelopmental disorders and prenatal residential proximity to agricultural pesticides: the CHARGE study." Environ Health Perspect 122:1103–1109; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1307044.

Heroin is killing not only our town, but our state. We have very little affordable treatment for addicts and almost none of this treatment is available. The waiting lists are way too long, and our number of overdoses and deaths rise daily. This needs to change. The epidemic has gone too far for too long.

This is for the thousands of people who will die, needlessly, if Rick Scott is allowed to back track on his promise to expand Medicaid.

In July of 2014, 6-year-old Luz Vasquez ran out of the medication she needs for her asthma. Because she is insured by Medi-Cal, Luz had to wait for an appointment to see a doctor and renew her prescriptions. Nine months later, Luz is still waiting and unable to play outside like other children because of the risk of triggering a serious asthma attack. California’s Medi-Cal system is broken. Patients like Luz are unable to get the care they need, doctors actually lose money when they take in Medi-Cal patients, our state gets sicker, and we all pay for it with higher healthcare costs. Our state legislators can fix it. California pays one of the lowest rates in the nation for Medicaid services, known as Medi-Cal in California. We’re 47th in the country, behind states like Mississippi and Kentucky. In fact, California’s Medi-Cal program covers only about 50% of the cost of providing care. Medi-Cal rates have been repeatedly cut in recent years, but if legislators fully fund it, we can help protect patients like Luz. More than forty state legislators have already stepped up to support statewide legislation (AB 366 and SB 243) to fix the system by fully funding Medi-Cal. Sign the petition and urge your state legislators to join on.