I was recently removed from medi-cal due to “potential fraud”. Long story short, I didn’t commit fraud. I have had zero income in over a year, have something like $1500 total, and receive no other benefits.

However, I’m currently dealing with bureaucratic confusion as the trail of who is responsible has dead ended and no one seems to be clear on what happened or why.

The medi-cal coordinator at the county social services office thinks it’s best if I just reapply but while I wait for my new application to be processed I am uninsured. Of course, if it goes through then I should have coverage dating back to the 1st of April.

Yet, given that there’s no good reason for it to have been canceled in the first place I’m wary of placing all my eggs in that basket. And would prefer to have some sort of catastrophe insurance if at all possible.

Is this even possible in California? It seems like short term health insurance might be banned here? Any ideas would be welcome. The whole situation is frustrating to say the least.

Hey Tildoes, my partner and I have been navigating a broad, government level health challenge and I was hoping to pick the hivemind for help on navigating it.

As some of you may have seen in articles posted here, there was a massive fire at the lithium ion battery plant in Moss Landing a few months ago. It ended up spewing a slough of nasty chemicals into the air, which inevitably landed in the surround agricultural fields and waterways. My partner was in Australia when the fire occured, thank god, but was still freaking out about downstream effects. There have been studies from a 3rd party group from UC Davis and San Jose State - that found elevated levels of heavy metals - however those have been downplayed by local agencies claiming there are not major impacts and that distribution was surface level. With everything we know about state and federal agencies oversight, sometimes they are less than transparent about reporting toxic impact factors - like what happened in Hinkley and was popularized by the movie Erin Brockovich. However today the California Certified Organic Farmers put out their own update and press release. They summarized what has happened and seem to be endorsing the safety of the farms they have certified in the area.

So here is the rub: Federal, state, county, and local agencies have determined there is not significant contamination, the CCOF has agreed with these agencies, and my partner is still uncomfortable eating local produce. It feels a bit like we're back in covid times, and she is looking for cherry picked studies to justify strict behavioral and consumption restrictions within our household. We have always agreed to "shift our risk tolerance according to data" and now - with the Trump administration and a general distrust of our fed/state agencies - she's advocating we continue to avoid these foods until there is "definitive proof" that the food is safe.

I'm kind of at a loss of what do to. On one hand, it's a minor thing to change where we get our food. Food systems are complex and we can kind of get it from anywhere. On the other hand, I love my time at our farmers markets, experimenting with new foods, and supporting our local community. I also think the more obscure the process from farm to shelf, the more possibility for health/employee/environmental shenanigans by the producers. To me buying broadly "American" or "Mexican" kale doesn't mean we aren't going to have similar or worse impacts to our food.

I'm trying to find a reasonable middle ground or a bellwether indicator we can use as a go/no-go, but every time I think we've agreed on one it feels like the goal posts have been moved. Do any of you have similar issues or possible navigated differences in risk tolerance during Covid well? If so, how did you do so? I know this is a bit of a random thread, but I'd love to hear what you think!

The 2028 Summer Olympics are slated to be in LA. I'm curious if we will come full circle and this will be the second time in history we do not have the Olympics.

That being said, the IOC has never really been non-corrupt so I don't exactly expect change. We saw that there was very little disruption when the Olympics were held in Sochi, for example. I'm curious what others think.

PS. Wasn't sure whether to post this in society or sports, please move if appropriate, and thank you to our kind facilitators.