Study makes concerning connection between risk for Parkinson's disease and living near golf courses: 'Cases are exploding'

Medicaid handouts only create dependency. Able-bodied adults should work.

USA Today

an hour ago

USA Today

Medicaid handouts only create dependency. Able-bodied adults should work.

Does Medicaid need an overhaul? Does Republicans' proposed $800 billion cuts go too far – or not far enough? Readers respond in USA TODAY's Opinion Forum. With the deadline for President Donald Trump and Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on the horizon, Americans are turning their attention to a major provision of the budget bill: changes to Medicaid. The bill calls for sweeping changes, including cuts of nearly $800 billion to the program, a mandatory work requirement of 80 hours per month, and an overhaul of the current Medicaid and Medicare systems – consolidating them for the purpose of centralized enrollment. Additional changes include banning federal funding for gender-affirming care and transitioning procedures and reducing the amount of federal funding allotted to states for noncitizens. As Congress debates these provisions before a final vote in the Senate, Americans are sounding off – largely in support of the program. More than 71 million Americans benefit from Medicaid, and new polls from KFF Health found 83% of respondents have a favorable view of Medicaid. More than half of respondents who are enrolled in Medicaid say changes to the program will make it "very difficult" to afford medications (68%), see a health care provider (59%) or get alternate insurance coverage (56%). A June 11 Quinnipiac University poll found half of American voters polled said funding for Medicaid should go up, not down, while an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released June 16 found that 50% of Americans think we spend too little on Medicaid. But we wanted to hear from you, our USA TODAY readers, directly. We asked what changes, if any, you want to see to the program and how Medicaid has impacted your life or the lives of those you know. Do the proposed cuts go too far? Or not far enough? Here's what you told us for our Opinion Forum. I couldn't have made it as a mom ‒ or cancer survivor ‒ without Medicaid As a Stage 3 breast cancer survivor, mother to a son with profound disabilities and a full-time working member of society, I've had to navigate the unimaginable. Without Medicaid, I could not have managed any of it. The program covers our son's in-home care, and it gave me the ability to focus on both my treatment and career. For families like mine, Medicaid is not a luxury ‒ it is the foundation that holds everything together. Proposed cuts threaten the care millions rely on. We must protect Medicaid so parents are not forced to choose among their health, their job and their children's needs. — Caroline Johnson, Louisville, Kentucky Able-bodied people should be working. Entitlements weren't meant to last forever. As I understand it, the only people who would be cut from Medicaid are able-bodied adults who would need to work a minimum number of hours a week to keep receiving it. I don't believe that disabled people, older folks and children would be affected. Also, illegal migrants would be kept off, because American taxpayers are not responsible for paying their way. We have enough American citizens who need help. Those who are not supposed to get these entitlements should be cut. These entitlement programs were never meant to be a way of life. They were supposed to be a safety net only for those who really needed them. Able-bodied adults should work. There is pride in working for what you need or want. Handouts only cause dependency, which is not good for anyone. Every citizen who is able should strive to be independent. The same should go for food stamps. It should only be for the really needy disabled, elderly and children with low incomes. — Renee Bertoni, Holley, New York Real government waste is MAGA's excess I am a retired Health and Human Services Department worker. I think this administration is so shortsighted about Medicaid and food assistance cuts for working families and individuals. If low-income people and working families have inadequate food and no medical coverage, it hinders their ability to work and function in society. All people deserve medical coverage and nutritious foods! I don't think I will ever support Republicans again. This is supposed to be a government for the people, by the people and of the people. These MAGA supporters are all lacking in human decency. Yes, I believe they will cut more and more because they are focused on self-indulgence. Increase taxes for the wealthy who have too much and know that "trickle-down economics" is just a buzz phrase. It doesn't work. Big cuts were made to the federal work force with no strategy and no concern for talented and dedicated employees, along with lots of publicity for fake fraud claims that didn't exist. The minions are hard at work trying to sell the public on their distorted strategy: more for them and less for everyone else. Let's think about the waste of the Trump military parade. That's what's shameful. — Joyce Schulz, Tawas City, Michigan As an ER doctor, I saw what cuts to Medicaid would cost us all As an emergency physician, I cared for uninsured patients who were signed up for Medicaid insurance in the emergency department. Medicaid health insurance allowed these patients to follow up with primary care doctors and providers who otherwise could not afford to care for uninsured people. Studies show that adding Medicaid insurance saves lives. And taking away Medicaid insurance leads to worse health outcomes. I am very concerned that any cuts to Medicaid insurance would lead to avoidable illness and even death for newly uninsured patients. Primary care physicians and specialists cannot afford to care for patients who lose their Medicaid health care coverage. Also, rural hospitals and rural clinics would lose a significant portion of their financial support from Medicaid. Primary care providers and rural hospitals would be forced to close their doors, leaving uninsured patients without access to care. I am afraid that Republican politicians will choose tax cuts for the rich over Medicaid health insurance for the poor. I think that Republican politicians should have their own government health insurance taken away from them. Why should taxpayers pay for the health insurance of these well-off Republicans who are voting to take away Medicaid from poor people? — Gary Young, Sacramento, California I've worked hard to get everything I have. Democrats don't seem to see people like me. I don't see the problem with having work requirements. If you can work, why not? As a taxpayer, I pay for my own medical insurance. I am single and have no dependents. I have no fault with us having a Medicaid program for the elderly, children and disabled, but that should be it unless you are working and need a short-term helping hand. I have been working full-time since I was 22, so I don't understand people having an issue with a work requirement to get medical coverage. I think we have to cut spending across the board. I hear Democrats talking about taking things away, but I don't seem to hear anything from them about how to cut spending. We are over $36 trillion in debt. If spending is not controlled, our country could go bankrupt, and then no one would have any programs to use. What is the Democrats' plan to get the debt under control? They had the past four years to do it, and you see where we are. I'm tired of the talk about these cuts going to the billionaires. We don't know for sure where it's going, and you can't understand how tired of this rhetoric people are. Additionally, I would like to see the cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and Department of Education all codified so these programs do not exist. There seems to have been a bit of waste and abuse over many years that needs to be dealt with. I make under $70,000 a year, so I have worked hard to get where I am. I was a Democrat for over 35 years, and about five years ago, I went Republican, as parties seem to have switched. I believe that the Democrat Party is full of elitists who feel we poor peons will do what they tell us, rather than realizing a lot of peons can think for ourselves and should not be condescended to and not told we are bad peons if we disagree with them. — Teresa Loy, Tucson, Arizona My brother was saved by Medicaid. Many more would die without it. My brother had AIDS/HIV and AIDS-related cancer. He was too sick to work and relied on Medicaid for all his medical benefits, both physical and mental. He eventually worked for the nonprofit Hope and Help in Orlando. He was a mentor to others, a champion, an activist, an orator and a published writer. He died in August 2020. All his efforts and the efforts of many would die in vain without their medication that was available through Medicaid. I'm extremely worried. The effects aren't self-contained, and the negative effects would permeate into an already strained system. Medical insurance is unaffordable in this country's economy, and it only gets worse. The Republicans need to vote according to the wants and needs of their constituents and reinstall empathy in their party. Maybe that will resonate and 'trickle down.' We have to limit tax cuts for the wealthiest. And here's a novel idea: Let's go back to a time when employers paid for employees' health care and pensions. Those two items can't be supported by today's salaries. — Karen O'Donnell, Lake Mary, Florida

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Yahoo

an hour ago

Yahoo

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Americans are fed a lot of information about what counts as healthy food. We wanted to know if these nutritional values are really as important to Americans as the headlines suggest, so, with the help of YouGov, we polled more than 1,500 U.S. adults in April 2025. The results: Most people agree that protein is important, and food dyes should be banned. And yet, a much smaller share of Americans are checking food labels for these ingredients. So what gives? We spoke to experts about whether Americans really value the nutritional concerns that make headlines, and what you can do to better align your ideals with your dietary habits. We asked Americans about whether they consider nutritional information when they choose what to eat and, if so, what factors they prioritize (meaning: calories, sodium, etc.). Then we zoomed in on two nutritional topics that have gotten a lot of buzz lately: protein and red dyes. Protein has been having a moment, partly because it's what some experts have dubbed 'the last macronutrient standing' amid the bad raps of fats and carbs. Its connection to muscle building and weight loss — especially in conjunction with GLP-1 medications like Ozempic — has been a further boon to protein. Americans seem to have taken note. A large majority (85%) of respondents to the Yahoo News/YouGov poll said that protein is very or somewhat important to them when choosing what to eat. Yet among the two-thirds of respondents who said they check nutritional labels, only 13% said that protein is the factor they pay most attention to when choosing what to eat. And only about a quarter of respondents said they're eating more protein now than they were a year ago. We found the same pattern when it comes to food dyes. More than two-thirds (65%) of respondents to our poll said they approve of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s move to ban many artificial colorings. But only 37% of respondents said they actively avoid food dyes, and just 27% said they always or usually check food labels for the ingredients (another 24% said they sometimes check). If we're so aware of what we should be including or avoiding in our food, but don't necessarily act on it, are we just too lazy to make healthy choices? Not exactly. For example, 66% of the respondents to our survey make the effort to check nutritional information. But the most commonly considered factor was calorie content (16%), which isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether a food is healthy, according to recent research. While it might seem fairly easy to check foods for their content of other nutrients, calculating out how much we need of each of these (protein, vitamins, etc.) gets complicated, fast. 'There's a lot of evidence that people don't take actions that are in their best interests based on their knowledge,' says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts University's Food Is Medicine Institute. 'People have an aspirational image of what they would like to do, and then [there's] what they do in real life.' This phenomenon is known as the intention-action gap. 'And for nutrition, it's doubly or triply complicated by the beliefs and intentions and knowledge also being a huge source of confusion for people,' says Mozaffarian. Picture yourself at the grocery store or in the drive-through line. What's on your checklist? Protein? Food dyes? Calories? Whole grains? And how much is enough, or too much, and what even qualifies as a whole grain anyway? Does a Whopper meal count as paleo? 'That confusion dramatically increases the gap between aspirations and actions,' says Mozaffarian. It also takes time — a lot of it. 'Our lives are all busy, and just because we would like to do something doesn't mean we will actually get around to doing it,' Teresa Fung, an adjunct professor of nutrition at Simmons University and Harvard University, tells Yahoo Life. And with new diet trends and hyped ingredients and priorities cropping up all the time, it can be hard to stay focused on the things that really matter for your personal diet. Fung is glad that people are aware of issues like food additives, 'but hopefully it's not at the expense of other things,' she says. 'If it's just for a few months that I'm paying attention to [any one food issue] and then a year from now I'm not,' that's not helpful, she adds. However, some public health experts, including Mozzaffarian, believe that certain foods 'just shouldn't be on the shelf,' he says. Specifically, he notes that poor quality diets and ultra-processed foods are linked to health conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome (a collection of related health problems common among overweight and obese people). 'It's not an information problem, it's a product problem,' Mozzaffarian says. Until food is better regulated, nutrition labels are still key to making healthy choices, says Mozaffarian. Grocery shopping and cooking at home go a long way to help you take control of your health, instead of eating packaged, restaurant or fast foods. And, perhaps counterintuitively, 'if you want to eat healthier, buy more products without labels,' Mozaffarian says, meaning whole foods like fruits, vegetables and eggs. When it comes to protein, most people actually don't need to stress too much about whether they're eating enough of it. 'The typical American diet already has enough protein, so if people are already doing it, they don't really need to take the additional action' of checking labels for protein content, she says. Fung also suspects that, like most single-nutrient eating trends, the protein obsession will fade. 'It happens all the time: There are always new discoveries, and people focus on them until they're no longer new, then we wait for the next shiny new thing,' she says. That's another strategy: If the food rules you're trying to follow are super trendy, they probably aren't that sustainable, or essential, Fung adds. However, in some cases, there's a grain of truth to nutritional trends, and some exceptions are worth making. For example, perimenopausal and menopausal women really do need to up their protein intake. And the majority of Americans don't eat enough fiber, so the ongoing fibermaxxing trend actually is dietitian-approved. Fung and Mozaffarian acknowledge that, even if you aren't trying to keep up with the latest food fad, it takes a lot of time and energy to eat the way you aspire. 'It's like another job you have to do after you come home from your job,' says Fung. She says that if you can afford it, buying precut vegetables that are bagged and washed can save time and make it just a little easier to cook at home. She also advises making one or two simple changes at a time if you're trying to improve your diet. 'Pick two things you want to change, and they have to be things that are changeable within your resources and that you can change for the long haul,' says Fung. 'Healthy dietary habits are never extreme.' She adds: 'Health is a long-term project.'

Yahoo

an hour ago

Yahoo

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Americans are fed a lot of information about what counts as healthy food. We wanted to know if these nutritional values are really as important to Americans as the headlines suggest, so, with the help of YouGov, we polled more than 1,500 U.S. adults in April 2025. The results: Most people agree that protein is important, and food dyes should be banned. And yet, a much smaller share of Americans are checking food labels for these ingredients. So what gives? We spoke to experts about whether Americans really value the nutritional concerns that make headlines, and what you can do to better align your ideals with your dietary habits. We asked Americans about whether they consider nutritional information when they choose what to eat and, if so, what factors they prioritize (meaning: calories, sodium, etc.). Then we zoomed in on two nutritional topics that have gotten a lot of buzz lately: protein and red dyes. Protein has been having a moment, partly because it's what some experts have dubbed 'the last macronutrient standing' amid the bad raps of fats and carbs. Its connection to muscle building and weight loss — especially in conjunction with GLP-1 medications like Ozempic — has been a further boon to protein. Americans seem to have taken note. A large majority (85%) of respondents to the Yahoo News/YouGov poll said that protein is very or somewhat important to them when choosing what to eat. Yet among the two-thirds of respondents who said they check nutritional labels, only 13% said that protein is the factor they pay most attention to when choosing what to eat. And only about a quarter of respondents said they're eating more protein now than they were a year ago. We found the same pattern when it comes to food dyes. More than two-thirds (65%) of respondents to our poll said they approve of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s move to ban many artificial colorings. But only 37% of respondents said they actively avoid food dyes, and just 27% said they always or usually check food labels for the ingredients (another 24% said they sometimes check). If we're so aware of what we should be including or avoiding in our food, but don't necessarily act on it, are we just too lazy to make healthy choices? Not exactly. For example, 66% of the respondents to our survey make the effort to check nutritional information. But the most commonly considered factor was calorie content (16%), which isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether a food is healthy, according to recent research. While it might seem fairly easy to check foods for their content of other nutrients, calculating out how much we need of each of these (protein, vitamins, etc.) gets complicated, fast. 'There's a lot of evidence that people don't take actions that are in their best interests based on their knowledge,' says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts University's Food Is Medicine Institute. 'People have an aspirational image of what they would like to do, and then [there's] what they do in real life.' This phenomenon is known as the intention-action gap. 'And for nutrition, it's doubly or triply complicated by the beliefs and intentions and knowledge also being a huge source of confusion for people,' says Mozaffarian. Picture yourself at the grocery store or in the drive-through line. What's on your checklist? Protein? Food dyes? Calories? Whole grains? And how much is enough, or too much, and what even qualifies as a whole grain anyway? Does a Whopper meal count as paleo? 'That confusion dramatically increases the gap between aspirations and actions,' says Mozaffarian. It also takes time — a lot of it. 'Our lives are all busy, and just because we would like to do something doesn't mean we will actually get around to doing it,' Teresa Fung, an adjunct professor of nutrition at Simmons University and Harvard University, tells Yahoo Life. And with new diet trends and hyped ingredients and priorities cropping up all the time, it can be hard to stay focused on the things that really matter for your personal diet. Fung is glad that people are aware of issues like food additives, 'but hopefully it's not at the expense of other things,' she says. 'If it's just for a few months that I'm paying attention to [any one food issue] and then a year from now I'm not,' that's not helpful, she adds. However, some public health experts, including Mozzaffarian, believe that certain foods 'just shouldn't be on the shelf,' he says. Specifically, he notes that poor quality diets and ultra-processed foods are linked to health conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome (a collection of related health problems common among overweight and obese people). 'It's not an information problem, it's a product problem,' Mozzaffarian says. Until food is better regulated, nutrition labels are still key to making healthy choices, says Mozaffarian. Grocery shopping and cooking at home go a long way to help you take control of your health, instead of eating packaged, restaurant or fast foods. And, perhaps counterintuitively, 'if you want to eat healthier, buy more products without labels,' Mozaffarian says, meaning whole foods like fruits, vegetables and eggs. When it comes to protein, most people actually don't need to stress too much about whether they're eating enough of it. 'The typical American diet already has enough protein, so if people are already doing it, they don't really need to take the additional action' of checking labels for protein content, she says. Fung also suspects that, like most single-nutrient eating trends, the protein obsession will fade. 'It happens all the time: There are always new discoveries, and people focus on them until they're no longer new, then we wait for the next shiny new thing,' she says. That's another strategy: If the food rules you're trying to follow are super trendy, they probably aren't that sustainable, or essential, Fung adds. However, in some cases, there's a grain of truth to nutritional trends, and some exceptions are worth making. For example, perimenopausal and menopausal women really do need to up their protein intake. And the majority of Americans don't eat enough fiber, so the ongoing fibermaxxing trend actually is dietitian-approved. Fung and Mozaffarian acknowledge that, even if you aren't trying to keep up with the latest food fad, it takes a lot of time and energy to eat the way you aspire. 'It's like another job you have to do after you come home from your job,' says Fung. She says that if you can afford it, buying precut vegetables that are bagged and washed can save time and make it just a little easier to cook at home. She also advises making one or two simple changes at a time if you're trying to improve your diet. 'Pick two things you want to change, and they have to be things that are changeable within your resources and that you can change for the long haul,' says Fung. 'Healthy dietary habits are never extreme.' She adds: 'Health is a long-term project.'

Study makes concerning connection between risk for Parkinson's disease and living near golf courses: 'Cases are exploding'

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Medicaid handouts only create dependency. Able-bodied adults should work.

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Study makes concerning connection between risk for Parkinson's disease and living near golf courses: 'Cases are exploding'

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Try Our AI Features

Comments

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Medicaid handouts only create dependency. Able-bodied adults should work.

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

Americans say they care about getting enough protein and avoiding food dyes. Their eating habits say otherwise.

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