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PI's Media Digest: Juneteenth becomes a federal holiday; states restrict access to food assistance; ACA survives another challenge

Sarah Mittermaier
June 18, 2021

Welcome to our media digest for the week ending June 18, 2021! Each week, PI compiles a round-up of the latest public health-related news, with an eye toward media framing and language, particularly as they relate to the role of primary prevention. The views expressed in these articles do not reflect those of Prevention Institute.

The Washington Post reports on efforts underway in multiple states to restrict access to food assistance. “States around the country are attempting to make it harder for needy families to access federal food-assistance programs. Republican lawmakers in Ohio, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Montana and others have proposed more restrictive policies to qualify for food assistance, cutting off benefits to those who have saved a little money or who drive a halfway decent car, or adding paperwork requirements to document tiny changes in income and efforts to find work. The moves come even as more than 20 million adults reported their households sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the week ending June 7, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Federal food assistance for low-income Americans was expanded during the pandemic, with broad bipartisan support for removing barriers to programs such as SNAP (food stamps), WIC (for mothers and young children) and the benefit-card program that took the place of free and reduced-price school meals when schools were not in session. But even as the Biden administration and the Agriculture Department, which administers these food-assistance programs, discuss extending additional benefits beyond the pandemic and recession, Republican-controlled state legislatures are balking.” 

Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday this week. And in case you missed it, PI’s La’Quana Williams wrote about the meaning of Juneteenth Day: “The story of Juneteenth’s origins makes clear why we need to work for our communities even on our days off. It took war and civil war amendments to make Juneteenth a reality. General Order #3 informed the people of Texas in 1865 that all enslaved people were now free… It read, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves…” We are still in the fight for “absolute equality” over a century later.” 

The Affordable Care Act on Thursday survived another Supreme Court challenge this week, as the Court rejected attempts to overturn the law over the removal of the ACA’s insurance penalty. “The legislation, President Barack Obama’s defining domestic legacy, has been the subject of relentless Republican hostility. But attempts in Congress to repeal it failed, as did two earlier Supreme Court challenges, in 2012 and 2015. With the passing years, the law gained popularity and became woven into the fabric of the health care system. On Thursday, in what Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called, in dissent, “the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy,” the Supreme Court again sustained the law. Its future now seems secure and its potency as a political issue for Republicans reduced.” 

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