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Kris Benz, a disabled Black veteran, is no stranger to cancer. In 2012, he was diagnosed with salivary duct carcinoma, a cancer so rare it strikes only about 1 in a million people each year.” But he beat it after six weeks of radiation and removal of his right salivary gland.

“I was cancer-free after six months,” he said.

Now, a new concerning mass has appeared in his neck despite months of scans. His doctor suspects it is cancerous, but Benz, who lives near Palm Springs, will not know for certain until a biopsy.

Compounding that uncertainty is a gap in his coverage. Benz is two work credits short of qualifying for Medicare, but returning to work could jeopardize his Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability status and funding. Buying Medicare Part A would cost $568 a month, leaving him “winging it.”

Benz is also frustrated that the VA will not schedule his scan and biopsy before his consultation, which will require another round of appointments afterward.

“It’s about money,” he said. “Doctor’s appointments, they get the money. There’s no preventive medicine here anymore.”

Although he calls the VA “a great organization,” he believes it is hampered by bureaucracy. For now, he remains “in limbo” waiting to complete his appointments. 

His experience reflects one of the most persistent health equity challenges facing Black communities: access to care.

According to a UC Davis study, “The Burden of Cancer Among Black/African Americans in California,” Black cancer patients were more likely than White patients to be diagnosed at a later stage and to have multiple health conditions, making treatment more difficult. They were also far more likely to live in low-income communities and rely on public insurance—evidence that economic inequality and barriers to care are helping drive disparities in the state’s cancer crisis.

That same study reports that between 2014 and 2018, the ten cancers most frequently diagnosed among Black/African American women in California were, from one to ten, breast, lung, colorectal, uterine, pancreatic, kidney, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, thyroid, myeloma, and ovarian cancers. During the same period, the ten most commonly occurring cancers among Black/African American men in California were, from one to ten, prostate, lung, colorectal, kidney, bladder, liver, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, pancreatic, myeloma, and oropharyngeal cancers. 

Researchers attribute the gaps not to biology but to social and economic inequality connected to structural racism. An American Cancer Society analysis found educational attainment was a stronger predictor of the mortality gap than race alone.

“These disparities are not because Black people are inherently less healthy,” said Rhonda Smith, executive director of the California Black Health Network. “They are the result of decades of inequitable policies, structural racism, unequal access to quality care, and chronic underinvestment in our communities.”

Dr. Flojaune Cofer, an epidemiologist and public health policy expert, said health outcomes are shaped as much by circumstances as by biology. She traced her understanding of disparities to her father’s death from heart disease at age 47. He began smoking as a child when tobacco companies marketed cigarettes aggressively and disproportionately to Black communities.

“My father’s story is not about individual choices,” Cofer said. “My father’s story speaks to institutional and systemic harm.”

“Health is not just what happens in the doctor’s office,” she added. Social determinants include neighborhood conditions, housing stability, nutritious food, transportation, and the ability to take time off work for care.

At federally qualified health centers, tight appointment schedules can make it difficult for medical providers to detect cancer early and earn the trust patients need to discuss troubling symptoms.

“We have only 15 minutes when you are working in a federally qualified health center — you have 15 minutes to assess, diagnose, treat, and write your note per patient,” said Jamie Garcia, a registered nurse who has been certified in oncology nursing for more than a decade and works at AdventHealth White Memorial in East Los Angeles.

Garcia said the rushed pace, driven partly by billing requirements tied to federal funding, leaves little time for providers to build relationships with patients. It can also allow health care professionals’ implicit biases to go unrecognized and unchallenged.

For Garcia’s patients, who are predominantly Black and Latino residents of surrounding communities, the consequences can be immediate and alarming. Many arrive with visibly advanced tumors after going without insurance, adequate coverage, a primary care physician or routine screenings.

Garcia recalled treating one patient whose tumor had grown large enough to be visible through the skin.

“The fact that I even got to see that is a failure and an atrocity,” she said.

Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City) sought to reduce another barrier through Assembly Bill 1570, which would have eliminated out-of-pocket costs for medically necessary diagnostic and supplemental breast imaging. It passed the Assembly Health Committee 16-0 but died in the Appropriations Committee. Wilson plans to reintroduce it during the next legislative session without biopsy coverage.

Wilson announced her breast cancer diagnosis in April 2023. She received timely, quality care but “saw others with similar diagnoses face different outcomes.”

“Some people who got diagnosed at the same time as me — their timing of their surgeries and treatment was delayed in comparison to my own,” she said. “Watching people go through and suffering unnecessarily was heartbreaking to me.”

Her follow-up imaging required only a $10 copay. “I’ve had friends have to pay $1,000 to get that secondary screening,” Wilson said.

Smith warned that policy changes could further erode access. California’s Every Woman Counts screening program is losing funding and being scaled back, she said. About one in three Black Californians relies on Medi-Cal, according to the state.

Smith also cited federal Medi-Cal work requirements projected to cause 1.1 million Californians to lose coverage by 2029-30. “Health equity is no longer simply about improving outcomes,” she said. “It’s about protecting access.” 

Californians seeking low-cost cancer screening can contact a local federally qualified health center or the California Department of Public Health’s Every Woman Counts program. The California Black Health Network also offers referrals and advocacy resources.

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By Post Staff

Staff, patients’ families, and supporters held a rally recently at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland to protest the hospital’s decision to relocate specialized treatment clinics to San Francisco.

Protesters said the move is creating barriers for patients to access care and raised concerns over whether the hospital was appropriately using funds partially designated for pediatric services.

In response, hospital officials say they are concentrating resources for highly specialized procedures so patients can receive the highest quality of care.

One of the speakers at the rally, Paola Portillo, a social worker, said the hospital started transferring the clinics a year ago when UCSF Health integrated with the Children’s Hospital Oakland, located at 747 52nd St. in North Oakland.

According to Portillo, patients who need bone marrow treatments and interventional radiology are forced to travel to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, which can be dangerous, she said.

“Children who go through a bone marrow transplant are immunocompromised, meaning that their immune system has been wiped out,” and having to take public transport to San Francisco exposes patients to the risk of getting a dangerous infection, she said.

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UCSF spokesperson Kristen Bole says the move improves the hospital’s quality of care, giving bone marrow treatment (BMT) as an example.

“Inpatient BMT is a highly complex service where patient volume, specialized infrastructure, faculty coverage and 24/7 support are essential,” she said in a statement. “Concentrating non-gene therapy inpatient BMT care at Mission Bay allows us to provide the safest and most sustainable model for patients and families.”

Hospital officials also emphasized that moving care was not a one-way street. Beginning this month, patients admitted for rehabilitative treatment have been directed to the children’s hospital in Oakland, Bole said.

Speakers at the rally also claimed UCSF has not been transparent about how it has allocated funding from 2020’s Measure C, a measure that created a half-percent sales tax that partially funded pediatric health care at the children’s hospital.

“The community fought so hard for Measure C because every child deserves access to lifesaving, pediatric, high-quality care right here in Oakland,” said Agnes Cho, a policy advisor speaking on behalf of Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas. “The funding should go towards strengthening care for children right here in Oakland.”

Protesters also said UCSF’s $3.3 billion endowment has been misused. Last October, the University Professional & Technical Employees union published a report on the University of California’s spending, which highlighted projects such as the $4.3 billion UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights.

“What I have a problem with is saying the kids from the East Bay have to go to San Francisco to get care, so that UC can build a fancy hospital for its richest patients in San Francisco,” said union President Dan Russell.

The UCSF spokesperson said UCSF has been investing in its Oakland campus, explaining that upgrades that are expected to be completed in 2030 at a cost of $1.6 billion.

“Oakland is central to our pediatric health system, and we are making the largest investment in the campus’ history,” the spokeswoman said. “We do not make investments of this scale in a campus, workforce or community we plan to leave behind.”

This article includes coverage from Bay City News Service and media releases.

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By Tanya Dennis

The National Probate Reform Coalition (NPRC) has announced that Bernard ‘Bernie’ Black, a nationally respected legal scholar, will meet with California Assistant Attorney General Eleanor Blume on July 27 to discuss the urgent need for guardianship, conservatorship, and probate reform.

The meeting marks another important step in NPRC’s effort to encourage California’s governor and attorney general to take a leadership role in addressing systemic abuse, financial exploitation, and the lack of meaningful oversight within probate and guardianship courts.

Black has been a professor of law and finance at Northwestern University and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law since 2010. Before joining Northwestern, he served on the faculties of Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Texas at Austin, earning international recognition as one of America’s foremost empirical legal scholars.

Despite his legal expertise, Black says neither his knowledge nor his professional reputation protected his family from what he describes as a deeply flawed guardianship system.

Following the death of his mother in 2012, Black’s sister, Joanne, who had lived with schizophrenia for more than 35 years, became the beneficiary of approximately two-thirds of their mother’s $4 million estate through a special needs trust established to provide for her lifetime care.

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Seeking to preserve his mother’s estate plan and protect Joanne’s eligibility for public benefits, Black petitioned the Denver Probate Court for a temporary conservatorship and requested judicial approval for actions necessary to preserve assets. According to Black, the case initially appeared to proceed appropriately. Both the court-appointed counsel and a guardian ad litem supported his proposed conservatorship plan.

Black says the case later took a dramatically different turn.

According to Black, court-appointed professionals used family disagreements to seize control of the family trusts. What followed was 12 years of litigation and 96 probate court decisions, resulting in millions of dollars in professional fees.

Black says repeated settlement proposals intended to preserve assets for his sister’s benefit were rejected. He also strongly disputes adverse findings made by the probate court against him, his wife, and his son, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction over members of his family. Appeals were unsuccessful, reinforcing his concern that probate courts exercise extraordinary discretion with insufficient oversight.

Joanne Black passed away on Aug. 14, 2025. Black contends that millions of dollars that should have benefited his sister and preserved his family’s legacy have instead been consumed by litigation and administrative expenses. He continues to fight efforts to deplete the remaining family trusts.

“My sister has died, yet the Denver Probate Court and the guardianship professionals are still pursuing what is left of our family’s money,” Black said. “I’m talking millions of dollars.”

Black believes his family’s experience demonstrates that even experienced attorneys can become overwhelmed by a probate system that often lacks transparency and accountability.

Joining Black at the July 27 meeting will be Rick Black, founder of the Center for Estate Administration Reform (CEAR), who will present his organization’s proposed Victims’ Bill of Rights for individuals and families involved in probate and guardianship proceedings.

Together with the NPRC, they will urge the Attorney General’s Office to investigate fraud, financial exploitation, and predatory practices while aggressively enforcing existing laws that protect elders, disabled adults, and vulnerable families.

NPRC asserts California’s Attorney General, as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, has both the authority and responsibility to investigate fraud, public corruption, and financial exploitation occurring within probate courts.

The Coalition also hopes California will lead a national initiative by working with attorneys general across the country to develop coordinated enforcement strategies and meaningful reforms that restore integrity, transparency, and accountability to probate courts nationwide.

Bernard Black’s experience echoes hundreds of similar stories documented by probate reform advocates throughout the nation. His message to the Attorney General is both simple and sobering:

“If this can happen to one of America’s most respected law professors, it can happen to anyone.”

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