An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. UPDATE November 20, 2024 — The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania the Court ruled that Firearm Preemption laws are not unconstitutional. In its opinion, the Court acknowledged the unacceptable state of gun violence, and the tragic ways it has impacted many Pennsylvania residents. […]
An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. UPDATE July 8, 2021 — Prisoners in FDC Philadelphia have concluded their case. The agreement to end the case comes after the FDC has made COVID-19 vaccination freely available to all prisoners and staff and has agreed to show all prisoners a video […]
An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. In Philadelphia, gun violence is an epidemic. In 2018, in addition to the 249 Philadelphians killed in shootings, over 1,100 people were shot and survived, leaving many with lifelong disabilities. This violence does not affect everyone in the city equally: nearly 85 […]
An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. In 2016, the FDC instituted a new visitation policy for inmates being held while awaiting trial or sentencing. Pre-trial inmates are the majority of those held at the facility, and they may remain at the FDC for months or years. The new […]
Adequate dental health care is essential to overall health and well-being, and yet too many children are denied dental care every year due to a number of economic, structural, and geographic issues. According to a research brief published by the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute in December 2015, Pennsylvania has the seventh largest gap in the country between Medicaid-enrolled children and privately insured children for the utilization of dental care. While Pennsylvania’s statistics have somewhat improved, a large number of children are still not receiving dental care.
Beginning in 2011, the Law Center filed two requests under Pennsylvania’s new Right to Know Law for financial information about how much money the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) pays for each child enrolled in Medicaid for dental services in the Philadelphia area — a number that has a direct effect on whether or not children have access to the care they need.
Nearly two million children living in poverty in Florida face serious obstacles getting basic medical and dental care, even though federal Medicaid law requires states to provide prompt and effective treatment services. State Medicaid programs often fail to pay the doctors and dentists who see low income children enough to make it economically feasible for them to participate. For more than a decade, we have litigated to increase access to services for these kids.
In 2001, Oklahoma’s Medicaid program served the smallest percentage of low income children in the country. Only 40% of Oklahoma’s 500,000 children enrolled in Medicaid received a comprehensive medical examination each year, and only 10% received any dental care.
In 1999 the Law Center filed Westside Mothers v. Olsezewski, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of one million low-income children that challenged the state of Michigan’s Medicaid system, which paid doctors and dentists too little to ensure that they would be willing to treat patients on Medicaid.
In California in the late 1990s, over 180,000 people with disabilities relied on Medicaid to provide services, but this funding disparity seriously compromised the quality of care they received and left almost 2,000 people unnecessarily stuck in institutions. In 2000, the Law Center filed Sanchez v. Johnson, a class action lawsuit on behalf of seven individuals with developmental disabilities and six organizations.
