California has become the first state to launch a pilot program that will treat low-income and at-risk Medicaid patients with specially tailored meals that are proven to offer relief from chronic illnesses and diseases.
The “Food is Medicine” 3-year program draws on how certain illnesses require special diets that can be hard to orchestrate, especially for poorer patients. Congestive heart failure, for instance, requires people to consume less than one teaspoon of salt per day. While this can already be hard to actually measure throughout your daily meals, it can also be hard for low-income patients to find cheap foods that are low in sodium.
Over the course of the next three years, the state will be giving funding to hunger relief charities in San Francisco, the North Bay Area, Santa Clara County, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The charities and pantries, all of which are a part of the Food is Medicine coalition, will be providing specially prepared meals to 1,000 state Medicaid patients who suffer from congestive heart failure, cancer, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and renal disease.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) first approved the program back in June 2017, but legislators celebrated the actual launch of the program last Sunday.
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