The Trump administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — or ending their support altogether.
DOJ says that the olmstead guidance is not a legal requirement.
What this could mean is that students will not be required to be provided a least restrictive environment/integrated into classrooms and it also could mean that states won’t have to pay for in home care, only institutional care.
University of North Carolina is moving to a bid model for their nursing shifts and they’re focusing on only hiring the lowest bidders
Late stage capitalism. Uhhhh
I was reading about women’s pay inequality and grad school loan changes that are happening and I came upon this article that I think is relevant to the group
Women go into fields and then pay goes down. In sociology, there's a phenomenon called "male flight" in which, as more women enter into a specific field, men leave the field and the pay subsequently drops: "A study analyzing Census data from 1950 through 2000 found that when the number of women in an occupation increases, the pay for those jobs decreases, even when controlling for education, work experience, skills, race and geography.
The findings suggest that as more women go into historically male-dominated professions, the pay will drop.
For example, over the course of the twentieth century, as more women became professional designers, wages fell 34 percentage points, and as more women became biologists, wages fell 18 percentage points.
The study also confirmed that the reverse was true – when an occupation “professionalized” and attracted more men, wages went up.
The masculinization of the computer programming field provides an example of this phenomenon. In the first half of the twentieth century, computer programmers (known as “computers”) were primarily women. While this work often involved knowledge of advanced computations, it was considered almost clerical in nature, and women were recruited for this work. Presently, men make up the vast majority of computer programmers (82.2 percent in 2024).[22] Their pay is much better than it was when computer programming was considered “women’s work"
This is an interesting outcome. Sadly the article won’t let me read the entire thing but I’ve honestly never seen any therapist jailed.
The state of New Jersey is going to start going after employers who are not paying a living wage to people and are on state benefits.
I think this is fantastic because we can see that the community and the state and the country are already paying for these things and it’s corporate welfare when they’re not mandated to pay living wages, but they’re raking in billions every year in profits
The fees are pretty low right now, but I can see where they will eventually be raised
CPS was allowed to ban Pete Buttigieg from being alone with his 4-year-old children — after an anonymous caller claimed he confessed to "unspeakable violent crimes" in a town in Alabama he has never set foot in.
This week, a CPS team arrived at the Buttigieg home in Michigan and said an allegation had been made about the twins and he was not to be alone with the children until an interview the next day.
Pete and his husband Chasten sent their two 4-year-olds to their grandparents overnight.
They didn't know where the accusation came from. They didn't even know what it said.
"The 24 hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life," he wrote. He had consented to let strangers interview his own children, over something so serious he couldn't be alone with them, with no idea why.
Then he found out what the accusation ACTUALLY was.
An anonymous man called CPS and said he'd spoken to a woman who claimed she met Buttigieg at a conference in Alabama years ago, where he supposedly admitted to violent crimes. That was the entire basis. Buttigieg told the officer he had never even been to the town.
The officer said plainly he believed it was politically motivated, and it would not be referred to any prosecutor. The forensic interview with the children turned up nothing. Michigan State Police confirmed the report was false and condemned it, warning that fake reports pull workers away from children who actually need protecting.
I understand investigating each case, but they went too far.
This shouldn’t have ever happened where CPS was able to separate those children for 24hrs and undergo invasive questioning
DOJ just ruled that integration for disability is not required and mandating it is not lawful.
It even mentions handicapped.
So basically bring back asylums.
IDEA and FAPE could also be gone. It says least restrictive environment or maximum integration is NOT enforceable.
There are already big issues with schools refusing to provide services and many are unable to afford a lawyer to fight it
It’s about to get 10x worse.
For therapists in the school system how are you dealing with this news?
DOJ just ruled that integration for disability is not required and mandating it is not lawful.
It even mentions handicapped.
So basically bring back asylums.
IDEA and FAPE could also be gone. It says least restrictive environment or maximum integration is NOT enforceable.
I believe admin time should be reimbursed by insurance companies.
I wonder if there is a lobby group or possibly a class action lawsuit
It is part of our job requirement we should be paid for it
In the airline industry flight attendants are not paid until the flight door is closed (so all boarding time and helping passengers is unpaid time). They filed a lawsuit and it failed. The courts said nope they don’t need to be paid.
So we aren’t the only field that deals with this. But I just wonder, with no bargaining power due to the Sherman antitrust laws if maybe a lobbyist or class action would be possible
Socioeconomic factors are outweighing environmental, cultural and even parenting for children’s development
A new study of over 2300 nine and 10-year-olds finds that socioeconomics by far outweighs hundreds of other possible environmental factors in determining a child’s brain function and structure. Other factors generally thought to be important to child brain development, such as a child’s culture and overall health and their caregivers’ parenting style, didn’t rise above the fold at all.
Well this sounds like a horrible plan
It can never just be about helping people can it.
Why can’t we get universal healthcare. I’m so fed up with what is happening
House Bill Would Let Nursing Students Borrow $200K as Loan Caps Loom
* The House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill requiring that advanced nursing programs be classified as professional degrees.
* Under rules starting July 1, 2026, "professional" students can borrow $200K lifetime vs. $100K for other grad students — so the label is worth $100K in borrowing capacity.
* More than two dozen states and a coalition of nursing groups are already suing the Education Dept over the same exclusion.
Ready for us to have some sort of lobbying organization that is advocating for the PROFESSION and not pie in the sky policies that have no chance of passing.
The SEC wants to drop quarterly reporting. That means six months between disclosures. Insiders benefit, retail investors lose. Comments are open are still open.
The SEC wants to drop quarterly reporting. That means six months between disclosures. Insiders benefit, retail investors lose. Comments are open.
Alt national park discussed this today and put it well
The Trump administration’s position is that if it moves quickly enough to dismantle or alter public assets, courts may be unable to stop it after the fact. In effect, “move fast and break things” is becoming a legal defense.
During a hearing over the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s challenge to Trump’s White House ballroom project, Judge Patricia Millett asked whether anyone could successfully challenge a president who decided to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty.
DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth responded, “I think that’s right, yes,” arguing that if the government acted quickly enough, courts would be powerless to provide a remedy and that only Congress could step in. The exchange came as the administration argued that courts lack the authority to halt construction of Trump’s $400 million ballroom project, even after historic portions of the White House complex were demolished to make way for it.
So basically, Under the administration’s own legal theory, a president could destroy some of America’s most iconic landmarks and then argue that the courts are unable to undo the damage once it has been done.
I would like to hear everyone’s opinion since I think this group is very financially savvy. I keep seeing Melinda French-Gates and Mackenzie Scott really focusing on large giving
Why aren’t they requiring endowments so that the funding is sustainable long term?
On Wednesday the White House moved to strip civil service protections from about 8,000 federal workers, including many working at public health agencies.
The executive order effectively transforms these jobs—which include “epidemiologist,” “health scientist” and “toxicologist”—into “at-will” positions, meaning people in such roles can be readily fired without cause.
Basically be loyal to the king or get fired
This was posted in a mental health advocacy group and the author said people could share.
There is an organization fighting this called
Mental Health Insurance Reform Task Force and is active in 44 states.
“I wanted to make sure we are all aware of some crazy crazy shit that has been happening in our field in recent months that has insurance companies trying to siphon covered individuals away from reimbursable services and shuttle them into their own highly problematic and ineffective courses of "treatment". This is an ongoing attempt on their part to squelch out independent providers in mental health the way they have in the medical world and it's important we are reaching out to legislators and screaming this stuff from the rooftops.
In the past few weeks alone:
• BCBS Illinois began marketing a self-guided app called Learn to Live to members as a mental health benefit offering "the proven benefits of CBT." There is no therapist. There is no clinical relationship. A quiz routes members (including children as young as 13) into pre-packaged programs or "AI Coaching" for Trauma, Depression, and Substance Use. That is not CBT, nor is that an effective or safe route of "treatment" for any of those dxs.
• Aetna cut reimbursement rates for Alma-contracted therapists effective July 15. A 53-minute session will now pay the same as a 38-minute session. Doctoral-level psychologists will be paid the same rate as master's-level providers. One week after announcing those cuts, CVS/Aetna launched their own mental health platform (surprise surprise!), an AI-powered platform using single-session interventions, "predictive analytics" (wtf), and full access to session data. The same insurer that made independent practice less viable immediately announced its own competing service.
• Headway (that BCBS is heavily invested in) now requires facial recognition scanning for both clinicians and clients. They hold all credentialing, billing, and client data. The clients are not their customers, they are the product.
• They own the credentialing, the reimbursement, the platform, the data, the documentation, EVERYTHING. Confidentiality is a total thing of the past. A recent news story found that a woman's complete Talkspace therapy transcripts were subpoenaed by her former employer (who provided the access to Talkspace as an "employee benefit" and therefore were entitled to the data ) and used against her in court. Talkspace has told investors it holds one of the largest mental health data banks in the world with the goal of training an AI therapy bot.
What is happening is called vertical integration and it's been happening in the medical/pharmaceutical world for a while now. CVS is a pharmacy, a pharmacy benefits manager, a major insurer, and now they are a direct mental health provider. UnitedHealth owns Optum, which employs thousands of clinicians directly. The entity that decides what care is covered is also selling and providing the cheaper (and less effective, research-backed, and ethical) alternative it wants members to use instead.
And for those of us in Illinois: insurers are already structuring around HB 1085 before it takes effect in January 2027 by pushing employers toward self-funded plans exempt from state mandates, narrowing networks to EPOs and HMOs, and making selective exclusions that cut independent practices out of exchange markets.
I encourage everyone to contact your state and federal representatives. Tell them what you are seeing on your end as a provider. Ask them to investigate vertical integration, strengthen parity enforcement, and enact real data protections for mental health information.
You can also share or copy/paste this post - get the word out! I think people don't even know this is happening, which is what the insurance companies bank on. The more clinicians who understand what is happening, the harder it is to ignore.
Our livelihoods and the survival of independent, ethical, relationship-based mental health care are on the line. If we don't fight for our field, nobody else will.”
Not gonna lie, this bothers me.
Our country seems to be willing to do anything except invest in humans with affordable education, healthcare, family policies (like childcare).
I really appreciate multiple pathways but am also seeing the direct correlation between current US events and poor education so this just feels like another example.
Anyone know anything about this? I went on the website for the school but not finding a lot about this.