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Public health is a necessity in a City as large as ours. All of us from infants to seniors should have access to quality health care. We must support our health institutions and provide preventative health care services such as immunizations to lower expensive treatment costs. Cutting vital health care services from our budget has historically only increased treatment costs in the long term. Through proper support and preventative health care services we can make our City a healthier place to live.

Potomac TechWire The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it has teamed with financial software maker Intuit by Editorial Board

http://www.potomactechwire.com/

(Washington, DC) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servicessaid it has teamed with financial software maker Intuit to release the company's Benefit Assist software as free, open source code on GitHub. The move will allow anyone to freely use, share and improve upon Benefit Assist. The goal is to help people more easily determine eligibility and apply for income-based government benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)/Food Stamps and free mobile phone service.
https://github.com/CMSgov/BenefitAssist

Issue: 
Health

GCN Open source software matches benefits to eligible recipients by Amanda Ziadeh

https://gcn.com/articles/2016/10/18/benefit-assist.aspx

State agencies can now leverage an open source tool to help ensure that individuals eligible for income-based human service benefits actually receive them.

The software is Benefit Assist, and it was first launched in 2015 by Intuit for that company’s TurboTax users. Benefit Assist sifts through tax information to help determine a person’s eligibility for benefits from programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid and Medicare.

Now, Intuit has partnered with New York City Council Member Ben Kallos and the federal government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to make its eligibility software free and open source code, according to the company.

Issue: 
Health

ABC7 1 dead, 6 others ill from Legionnaires' disease cluster on Upper East Side by Darla Miles

http://abc7ny.com/health/1-dead-6-others-ill-from-legionnaires-disease-cluster-o...

 LENOX HILL, Manhattan (WABC) -- One person has died and six others have been sickened from Legionnaires' disease on Manhattan's Upper East Side, health officials announced Friday.

The New York City Health Department announced the community cluster of the disease Friday. All seven cases have been confirmed in the last seven days. The area impacted is the Lenox Hill neighborhood, which runs from East 60th Street to East 77th Street.

Four of those infected with the disease are still hospitalized, two have been discharged and the person who died was in his/her 90s and had significant underlying health conditions.

Legionnaires' disease is caused when water tainted with Legionella bacteria is inhaled into the lungs. It's a severe form of pneumonia in which the lungs become inflamed due to infection.

The health department said symptoms include fever, cough, chills, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, confusion and diarrhea. Symptoms usually appear two to 10 days after significant exposure to Legionella bacteria.

Issue: 
Health