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(04/13/11 4:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an effort to reduce a $1.5 million deficit in Arizona’s Medicaid program and promote healthiness among patients, Gov. Jan Brewer proposed an annual $50 fee for certain recipients. “State spending on Medicaid has increased 65 percent in the past four years,” Brewer said. “We simply can’t afford it.”The fee would be applied to those who smoke, have diabetes or are considered obese, according to a press release. Of that group, only childless adults currently on Medicaid who do not abide by a doctor’s guidelines to improve overall health would be fined. The proposed fee would not affect eligibility for Medicaid, the press release detailed.In Indiana such a proposal to cut the costs of Medicaid is not being considered, said Marcus Barlow, communications and media director for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. He said alternative ways to reduce expenses have been taken into consideration.“In this legislative session we’re looking to cut some optional services, so we’re constantly looking for ways to save money,” Barlow said.With a 40 percent increase in Medicaid recipients in the past five years, controlling costs is a constant need, Barlow said.However, doing something similar to the proposal in Arizona to reduce these costs might not reap the same benefits or bring about the same consequences, he said.“I would say that our population is a little different than Arizona’s, so it would probably have a different effect depending on the state,” Barlow said. “That’s not even something we’ve considered yet.”Christopher Holly, elder law attorney with Medicaid Solutions in Bloomington, said he worries such a fee would hurt Hoosier Medicaid recipients.Holly said recipients of Medicaid typically must fit into a particular category to be eligible for the benefits. He also said the majority of applicants for Medicaid are 65 or older, blind or disabled. Currently, there are no restrictions on acceptance into Indiana’s Medicaid program based on whether a person smokes, is obese or is considered diabetic. While proponents of the Arizona proposal view the fee as a means of saving money and promoting the seriousness of healthier lifestyles, Holly said the initial eligibility process is already complicated enough financially.He said imposing a fee based on further medical issues is not something patients should have to worry about when all other factors are considered.“I think that would be extremely costly to the people that can least afford it, would be penalizing people for particular health conditions, and singling them out based on a misguided sense of morality,” Holly said. “It would be a traumatic mistake if they tried to do something so silly in Indiana.”
(04/07/11 3:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>March 25 started like any other Friday for graduate student Joe Pecorelli. He headed to the stacks in the Herman B Wells Library to get some work done before beginning his weekend. After setting his bag at his desk, he stepped a few feet away between bookshelves to search for a book he needed. He suddenly heard rapid footsteps near him that gradually grew quieter, yet thought nothing of it until he returned to his carrel and found his bag missing.Immediately, he went to the circulation desk, where the police were called and janitors were notified so they could search the garbage cans. After much time spent searching and talking with the police, Pecorelli did eventually find his bag yet expressed his concern about the possible dangers of the stacks and the chances of crime in general. It was not so much that his bag was stolen, he said, as it was that much worse things might be likely to occur. “I think that those are potentially dangerous areas, and I think that there should be some measure of security up there,” Pecorelli said. Across campus, thefts, vandalism and other petty crimes similar to Pecorelli’s situation happen on a regular basis. Vandalism, for example, is quite common among the residence halls, said Justin Brown, who is an assistant to the dean of students as a case coordinator and is also involved in Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs. Of the 121 vandalism or harassment situations reported between July 2009 and June 2010 to incident teams, the majority occurred within the residence halls. Brown said it is difficult to determine what is or is not considered vandalism.“Vandalism is defined differently by different people,” Brown said.It might range from harming property, which would result in a case being sent through the campus or residential judicial systems, to messages written or words tossed around that could be potentially threatening, Brown said.After an incident is reported, the action then taken by the incident teams and Student Ethics varies from case to case, Brown said.“The consequences for an act of vandalism, whether it is motivated or not, can be severe if there are prior incidents or the damage is really extensive or the victim (is) really hurt,” Brown said.Generally, residence halls handle most situations that take place on their own through floor meetings and warnings while the incident teams “are informal means of responding,” Brown said. Their main goal is to educate those involved in certain situations so as to prevent any further harm being done. “For the most part anything that we can do to try to educate the person (who committed the crime) is helpful,” Brown said. Residence halls respond to certain other situations by issuing necessary information to all residents in the specific building. Signs plastered around Read Center this past fall warned residents of thefts that had been occurring regularly around the building. The IU Police Department also promotes personal knowledge and prevention of crime through statistics presented online and classes offered throughout the school year, according to its website. These implications came about “in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act,” the website details, which made it necessary to offer this kind of crime prevention knowledge to the public.Whatever the crime might be, however minor it might seem, Pecorelli said he feels that the University must maintain some sort of protection. “The University has an obligation to protect its belongings, its investments and, more importantly, its students,” Pecorelli said.
(03/11/11 1:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Detection dogs won’t let the bed bugs bite — literally.Carol and Ryan Cobine promote early detection of and education about bed bugs through their business, The Dog Knows Detection. They utilize their dog Dixie, along with a handler, to identify the presence of the insects. “We really want to educate people so that they understand what they can do, and we want to give people one more tool that they can use to monitor,” Carol Cobine said. “You don’t understand how much an infestation can turn your life upside down until you actually have one.”The key to using dogs for inspections is the teamwork between the dog and its handler, Carol Cobine said. She said the inspection process typically entails an initial walk-through of the site by the handler, followed by a walk-through with Dixie.The handler then chooses a starting point for the dog in each room being examined and gives a search command. It is the handler’s job to keep the dog on task during this. If a bed bug is scented, Dixie will sit and put her nose on the strongest source of the odor — a passive alert, Carol said.This dog and handler team is an improvement from purely visual inspections as it speeds up the process, President of the National Bed Bug Association Micah Nix said.“A human inspection can take anywhere from a half hour, to do it properly, and we can go in there and do it in just a few minutes using the dogs and a visual inspection,” Nix said.Since bed bugs are difficult to detect due to their small size and elusive nature, Nix said using a dog’s sense of smell improves a bed bug inspection significantly. “Because of the nature of the insect, they hide in various crevices, and they’re just not presented for visual inspection. Using the olfactory senses of a dog magnifies your inspection many, many times over,” Nix said.In addition, many people are unaware of bed bug detection methods, making it more difficult to determine whether or not bed bugs are present in a room or building. “Only about a third of humans react to a bed bug bite, so two-thirds of us can be fed on and never even know it,” said Marc Lame, entomologist with the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. In any case, detecting bed bugs early, prior to an infestation, is crucial, Carol Cobine said.“If you detect them early, then you have a greater chance of remediation because bed bug infestations, once you have them, they are very difficult to remediate and they’re very hard to get rid of. If you catch them early, the dog can help determine the scope,” Carol Cobine said.
(03/02/11 12:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Finite help is just a click away thanks to a website created by two IU students.Finitehelp.com was created by math, economics and finance major Stephen Leung and entrepreneurship and informatics major Justin Tallant as a means of offering a fresh, technologically based source for students to find assistance.After having experienced difficulty in finite math himself and turning to Leung for tutoring, Tallant said he wishes he would have had access to something more.“I was not a math whiz of any kind, so I met up with (Leung),” Tallant said. “I happened to be into web entrepreneurship, and he’s very good at what he does so we’re like, ‘Let’s just do this.’”Leung, an experienced tutor, repeatedly shared the same information among histutoring clients. “I meet with many students, and I tell them all the same thing more or less so I figured, well, what if there is a way to just do it once and then hundreds or thousands of people can see the exact same thing?” Leung said.From there, finitehelp.com was established. The site features video explanations that cover specific topics from the class itself along with practice problems, including video-recorded solutions, which correspond with these topics, according to the website’s homepage. The site also features a listing of local tutors if a student needs further assistance.Students have the ability to fast-forward, rewind and pause these videos should they not completely understand the material. Unlike in a classroom setting, where a teacher might continue on without the students gaining full comprehension, here the students have full control, Tallant said. “This is your own pace 100 percent,” Tallant said. The lecture videos also include short quizzes that test the student’s retention of the information being presented. “I really like the idea that (Leung) has where when you pause the lecture, you’ll do the quiz problem,” Tallant said. “If you don’t know how to do it well, you can continue on with the lecture but below that is a video of the quiz being worked out digitally. He works it out and talks you through it.” The display of the quizzes being worked out is a result of utilizing a digital chalkboard technology that allows the voice-over and work to occur simultaneously, Tallant said.Although a lot of time has been put into the site and a lot of material has been added to it, Leung and Tallant said they still continue to work on it. “Most people don’t know about it yet. It’s still small. It’s still not done, and it’s going to get better,” Tallant said. “By next fall we hope to have all the kinks and everything worked out.”As for the future, sites similar to this one depend on the success of finitehelp.com, Tallant said.“If people use it and people like it and it’s a little bit of a hit at least, then we could think about doing another one,” Tallant said.
(02/23/11 4:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Entry into competitive employment is being made possible for individuals with disabilities in Indiana due to the growth of Project SEARCH.This program, a yearlong school-to-work system for high school students and young adults with disabilities, originated in 1996 at Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital as a means of filling entry-level jobs in the hospital’s emergency department. The model has now spread across 39 states and four countries, according to the Project SEARCH website. The state of Indiana was no exception. Teresa Grossi, director of IU’s Center on Community Living and Careers, heard about Project SEARCH through colleagues in Ohio. From there, she said she considered a replication of the national model in Indiana and made a proposal to the state.“In order for Indiana to replicate the Project SEARCH model, the Center on Community Living and Careers here at IU’s Institute on Disability and Community was contracted (by) the State of Indiana to coordinate the effort and provide the technical support necessary to uphold the hallmark standards of National SEARCH and meet the licensing requirements with them,” said Margaret Gilbride, leader of Project SEARCH Indiana, in an e-mail.What became of this affiliation between the CCLC and Project SEARCH are nine high school transitional sites across Indiana and one site geared toward young adults in Bloomington. These sites range from hospitals to government buildings, Gilbride said.Each site fosters an educational, hands-on experience for the participants in the program in an effort to expand their skills and build a résumé. The morning begins in a classroom setting with an internship rounding out the remainder of the day. By the end of the yearlong program, the participant should have rotated through at least three internships, Grossi said. “The intention at the end is that they will be hired by the businesses they are at or by businesses similar to them,” Grossi said.The first interns began during the 2008-09 school year. Since then, 74 individuals have successfully completed and graduated the Project SEARCH program in Indiana, and 37 have become employed, Gilbride said. “Since all Project SEARCH Indiana students have significant disabilities and only two earned high school diplomas (as opposed to certificates of attendance), these early outcomes are significant since this population tends to have a 75 to 80 percent unemployment rate nationally (depending on the study),” Gilbride said.