Yin on Alarming Methods for Repaying Medical Debt

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Wesley Yin, associate professor of public policy and management at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the New York Times about new options for paying off medical debt that can ultimately be more costly than using regular credit cards. Medical debt is a burden that has plagued many Americans throughout the years, with about 23 million adults owing more than $250 in health care debt. Yin said some financing plans for repaying this debt have alarming consequences. Some lenders provide small loans at a zero-percent interest rate if it is paid over the course of a few weeks. If the debt cannot be repaid by the deadline, however, high interest will be charged retroactively from the start of the loan. Other financing plans charge extremely high interest rates, with the annual percentage rate of a typical medical credit card being 27%. 

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Turner on the People’s Budget

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David C. Turner III, assistant professor of Black life and racial justice on the UCLA Luskin Social Welfare faculty, spoke to Spectrum News’ “Inside the Issues” about the history and current goals of the People’s Budget, a community-led alternative to Los Angeles’ official budget. The People’s Budget coalition surveyed Angelenos and found that they want to see funds spent with them in mind, Turner said. For example, money reallocated to grassroots violence prevention programs and gun violence education would “actually help keep us safe,” he said. “We need to make sure we are investing in those strategies.” Continued investment in law enforcement “not only hasn’t worked but statistically doesn’t necessarily help communities,” Turner said. “We could reinvest those dollars and get so much more return on our investment.” The interview begins at the program’s 21-minute mark.

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Lens on L.A.’s Unused Housing Vouchers

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to ABC7 News about unused housing vouchers in Los Angeles. The process to get a Section 8 voucher includes a long wait within a lottery system. More than 58,000 subsidized housing units and housing vouchers are available in Los Angeles, but only 85% of them are being used. Some landlords exclude tenants who use Section 8 vouchers, and city officials say this has contributed to the unhoused crisis. As Lens explained, “You have to find a rental unit at or below the fair market rent. The landlord, very importantly, has to agree to participate in the program, which means that they don’t have biases against people that are using government money. So there are these things that get in the way.”

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Shoup on the Business Sense of Paid Parking

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The San Francisco Chronicle spoke with Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, about a plan to extend hours of paid street parking from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The proposal is projected to raise $18 million in annual revenue for San Francisco, but restaurant owners argue that curtailing free parking now would stall efforts to revive the city’s COVID-battered economy. Shoup said the proposal could actually boost business, opening up spaces for customers that might currently be taken by employee cars left in the spots for hours. Shoup’s groundbreaking research on parking has recently been in the public eye, with stories in the Washington Post and Business Insider about policy shifts around the country. In addition, reviews of the new book “Paved Paradise,” which puts a spotlight on Shoup’s work, have appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, New Republic and Bloomberg’s CityLab.

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Lifting of Blood Donation Ban Will Save Lives, Address Stigma

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Ayako Miyashita Ochoa of the UCLA Luskin Social Welfare faculty wrote an article for The Conversation on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s easing of restrictions on blood donation by gay and bisexual men. The last documented HIV transmission through a U.S. donor’s blood occurred nearly 15 years ago, Miyashita Ochoa wrote. While precautions around HIV exposure were reasonable in the 1980s, “the science has changed,” she said. The lifting of the ban will lead to an estimated 2% to 4% increase in the blood supply, potentially saving more than a million lives. She added, “Removing gender and sexual orientation from the risk assessment for blood donation will take the U.S. one step further in addressing stigma and discrimination against men who have sex with men.” Miyashita Ochoa also discussed the issue on WOSU’s “All Sides” (beginning at minute 37), commenting that COVID-19-era blood shortages spurred the move toward science-based policies that ensure that supplies are safe and sufficient for the nation’s health needs.

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A Sobering Look at the Future of Public Transit

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Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to KALW’s “Crosscurrents” about the decline of public transportation in metropolitan areas around the country. “What is the future of these central cities that were the economic dynamos of the country?” Taylor asked, noting that planners and policymakers are turning their attention to how public transit can recover in a post-pandemic world. Ridership began dipping well before the arrival of COVID-19, he said, despite increased investment, service improvements and policies designed to discourage solo driving. Research by the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin determined that one key factor was that more Californians had access to cars. “Increased auto access in two forms was at the root of eroding transit ridership,” Taylor said. The number of cars per household increased at all income levels, and the rise of services such as Uber and Lyft offered people the chance to buy car trips one at a time.

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‘Powerful, Strong, Indefatigable, Courageous’

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News outlets covering the death of trailblazing Los Angeles political leader Gloria Molina spoke with Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime public servant who served alongside Molina for nearly a quarter-century. Molina was a “powerful, strong, indefatigable, courageous woman” known for her unflagging commitment to regular people, Yaroslavsky told KCAL News. She was “the greatest ally you could have when you were on the same side — and she was the worthiest of adversaries when you were on opposite sides,” he told LAist. Her fierce independence and confrontation style grated on some colleagues “because she held up a mirror to ourselves,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Molina was the first Latina to serve in the California Assembly, on the L.A. City Council and on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. Molina and Yaroslavsky left the Board of Supervisors in 2014 due to term limits, and Yaroslavsky now serves as director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin.

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Read the L.A. Times article
Read the LAist article

Alarming Racial Gap in American Road Deaths

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Research by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies was cited in a New York Times opinion piece regarding the racial gap in American road deaths. The piece brings attention to the higher rates of pedestrian deaths among Black and brown communities compared to white communities. In the city of Los Angeles, Black residents made up 8.6% of the population yet represented more than 18% of all pedestrians killed and around 15% of all cyclists killed, according to the 2020 Lewis Center policy brief authored by Madeline Brozen and Annaleigh Yahata Ekman. “For decades, the United States has prioritized the needs of people driving through cities over the well-being of the people living in them, and largely at the expense of communities with the least political clout,” the article states. It calls on cities to invest in safer road designs and speed limit enforcement to prevent pedestrian deaths.

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Cohen on the Rising Rate of Forced Psychiatric Detentions

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David Cohen, UCLA Luskin professor of social welfare, was cited in a Los Angeles Times op-ed about a California bill that would expand the state’s ability to impose psychiatric care on people. Research on involuntary psychiatric detention has shed light on the harsh realities of policies that claim to help those struggling with mental illnesses. Forced detentions have been found to have negative outcomes, with people experiencing severe trauma and distress from brutal methods such as stripping, restraints and heavy tranquilization. A landmark 2020 study by Cohen and Gi Lee found that detentions in the U.S. increased at a rate three times faster than the country’s population growth. It is estimated that the U.S. has about 1.2 million forced detentions under civil law every year. This rate is drastically higher than for countries in Europe, which have two or three times fewer forced detentions.

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Seeking a Clear, Coordinated Vision on School Safety

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UCLA Luskin Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor shared insights from his decades of research into school safety strategies on “Our Children Can’t Wait,” a UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools podcast that is a companion to the book of the same name. “I think we’re in a state of confusion in our country, not just politically but actually on what the purpose of schools is supposed to be,” said Astor, who co-authored a chapter in the book. Instead of adopting a hodgepodge of policies that satisfy competing interests, school districts should set a clear and culturally sensitive philosophy that invites participation by families and communities, he said. Astor, frequently called on by news outlets covering school safety issues, also spoke with The Hill about the rise in student misbehavior and the sometimes-traumatizing effects of active shooter drills, and with Higher Ed Dive about steps college campuses are taking to prevent mass shootings.

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