Nevada

‘Tremendous contributions:’ Southern Nevada’s top health official is retiring

Published

1 year ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

‘Tremendous contributions:’ Southern Nevada’s top health official is retiring

Dr. Fermin Leguen’s family had expected him to become physician since he was a child growing up in Cuba.

He initially thought that he might study aviation technology. He wanted travel the world.

“Honestly, medicine wasn’t one of my top things to do,” he said in a recent interview. “But at the same time — like every other kid — you really have no idea about what any career is about.”

Leguen, 71, eventually made a choice he said he’s never regretted.

“Finally, I decided to go with medicine,” Leguen said.

Southern Nevada’s Health District top official is retiring at the beginning of March, marking an end to a decades-long career that dispatched him across the globe to serve in public health.

“I have never (spent) a long period of time doing nothing, so I don’t know what to expect,” he said about his upcoming retirement.

Leguen — who became the face of the valley’s COVID-19 response as acting chief health officer— said he will miss his team and their dedication.

He will simply miss “just being here.”

Leguen said he believes the Health District will remain in good hands, supported with a “very strong team.”

“We have very professional people here with a lot of skills, highly trained,” he said. “Regardless of who’s leading the organization, the biggest strength we have is the people we have here. And they are fully capable of responding to multiple public-health threats that we could face.”

The Health District board appointed Dr. Cassius Lockett — deputy district health officer — to succeed Leguen.

‘Tremendous contributions’

Leguen, who speaks softly and has a shy demeanor, was honored at Las Vegas City Hall earlier this month.

Shortly after the room cleared from the festivities that welcomed new Mayor Shelley Berkley and Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong, Councilwoman Olivia Diaz took the microphone to issue a proclamation honoring Leguen for his “tremendous contributions.”

“Dr. Leguen, gracias,” Diaz said. “I just want to say ‘thank you’ for everything that you have done.”

Leguen joined the health district in 2016 as director of clinical services. In October 2019 — a few months before the global pandemic broke out, he was named acting chief health officer.

“Little did we know when we selected him… what we were going to be reeling and dealing with as the world and as a community,” Diaz said. “I don’t think this man would get a shut eye.”

As the health district searched for a permanent agency head, “the board leadership just decided Dr. Leguen has already proven himself as the right leader for this agency.”

Leguen was officially promoted in early 2021.

During his tenure, he spearheaded the opening of two community health hubs that offer immunizations and primary health services for patients with no health insurance, Diaz noted.

He said he’s proud of his administration’s program that helps address a congenital syphilis crisis that’s “devastating” children.

During the pandemic, Leguen led the rollout of a bilingual education campaign for Spanish speakers at a time when Latinos accounted for 25 percent of COVID-19 deaths, Diaz said.

When Clark County commissioners faced backlash in the fall of 2021 over a resolution declaring vaccine misinformation a source of increased demand for unsafe treatments, Leguen supported the motion.

“While it is essential for public agencies to provide a forum for people to comment and give input on issues that impact them, it is critical that information impacting the health and safety of the public be based on proven science and accurate data,” he said at the time.

“He’s made it a priority for the Southern Nevada Health District to reflect the community it serves,” Diaz said. “And to forge partnerships with diverse community organizations in order to better reach and serve underserved residents.”

Diaz said Leguen headed the region’s response to other public health emergencies, such as the opioid epidemic and the West Nile virus.

“I wish COVID was the only one,” Diaz said.

A life of service

Leguen was born in Guantanamo, Cuba. His parents moved the family to the capital city of Havana when he was a toddler.

He studied medicine at the University of Havana.

Leguen worked for Cuba’s social services. He fled the communist country in 1991, eventually migrating to the U.S. where he began a residency in Puerto Rico before completing a pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Throughout his career, he was a vaccination consultant in Africa, Caribbean countries and South America.

He credits vaccinations for saving lives during the pandemic.

“When you’re seeing the number of deaths increasing day by day and there is nothing telling you that this is going to get better, it’s very, very depressing,” he said.

While nobody can fully prepare for a future pandemic, Leguen said that the agency has learned lessons to hamper the impact. Community in Southern Nevada collaboration was crucial, he added.

“We must be ready to learn every single day,” he said. “Nobody has the 100 percent answer for anything. We must be willing to communicate with our peers and the public our concerns, our limitations. And also make sure our community is aware of the multiple threats that could be there.”

Leguen, who has a wife and a daughter, said he’s looking forward to having more time to read fiction and watch Korean movies.

Asked to reflect about being an immigrant of color in the U.S. with a life of service under his sleeve, Leguen spoke generally about living out a dream.

“What I would say to anybody is that you have to follow your dreams,” he said. “You must be consistent with your beliefs. You must be able to sacrifice yourselves and be confident.”

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

Source link

Nevada

2026 lunar eclipse visible in Nevada. How to watch

Published

1 hour ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

2026 lunar eclipse visible in Nevada. How to watch

A lunar eclipse will be in Nevada skies late Monday night — or, more accurately, early Tuesday morning, March 3.

The downside is the hour: you’ll have to be up very late or very early, depending on your perspective.

Unlike a solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, a lunar eclipse happens when Earth casts its shadow on the moon, creating a rusty red hue.

If you’re looking to see the lunar eclipse, here’s everything you need to know about viewing it in Nevada.

What eclipse is in 2026?

If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the lunar eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026, according to NASA. During the night, you’ll see the moon in a reddish hue, or a blood moon.

Totality lasts for a little more than an hour before the moon begins to emerge from behind Earth’s shadow, according to the popular site timeanddate.com. As the moon moves into Earth’s shadow, also known as the umbra, it appears red-orange or a “ghostly copper color,” hence its name: blood moon, NASA says.

“During a lunar eclipse, the moon appears red or orange because any sunlight that’s not blocked by our planet is filtered through a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere on its way to the lunar surface,” NASA says. “It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon.”

Countdown clock to the 2026 total lunar eclipse

If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

The entire eclipse will last about six hours. People in Nevada can see the lunar eclipse during the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 3, 2026. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.

Everything will be over by 6:23 a.m. PST on March 3, 2026. Below is a countdown clock for the 2026 total lunar eclipse.

Where are the best places to see the lunar eclipse near Reno?

Though the Biggest Little City has an abundance of light pollution, darker skies are less than an hour from Reno.

Fort Churchill State Park: The park provides a dark night sky ideal for evening astronomical events among the ruins of Fort Churchill. Park entrance costs $5 for Nevada residents and $10 for nonresidents.
Pyramid Lake: A popular spot for Renoites seeking a night of stargazing, the lake is less than an hour from The Biggest Little City. It offers beautiful natural wonders and dark skies that give a clear view of the lunar eclipse.
Lake Tahoe: Multiple locations around the lake are excellent for stargazing that are less than an hour from Reno.
Cold Springs or Hidden Valley still get light pollution from the Biggest Little City, but have clearer skies than the middle of town.
Driving down the road on USA Parkway will likely also give you the dark skies to see the lunar eclipse without having to make a significant drive outside of town.

Carly Sauvageau with the Reno Gazette Journal contributed to this report.

Source link

Nevada

How the strikes on Iran could impact gas prices in northern Nevada

Published

13 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

How the strikes on Iran could impact gas prices in northern Nevada

The United States and Israel launched targeted attacks on Iran on Saturday. The move brought new uncertainty into global energy markets, as northern Nevadans could be paying more at the pump in the coming weeks.

Following the strikes, oil prices increased. Brent crude, the international benchmark, jumped to roughly $73 a barrel, while the national benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, traded above $67.

Much of the concern centers around the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. which carries about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies.

Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, a price tracking company, spoke on the current questions in the region.

“The known would reduce oil prices if there becomes clarity, but it’s the unknown that is stoking fears…. If there is some sort of clarity in the days ahead, whether from Iran, the United States, or Israel, on how long this would last. We’d be able to put potentially an end date for the potential impacts that we’re seeing,” said de Haan.

Experts say for every $5 to $10 increase in oil prices, drivers could pay 15 to 25 cents more per gallon.

According to Triple-A, the average price of a gallon of gas in Nevada on Sunday comes in at $3.70, which comes in above the national average of roughly $2.98.

Over at the Rainbow Market on Vassar Street, prices sat just below four dollars a gallon on Sunday. Reno resident Abran Reyes talked about gas prices potentially going up.

“Whether it’s to work, to maybe run errands, to do stuff that helps you, gas is essential…. That gas price really hits, especially in today’s economy, where gas prices are extraordinary…. I just hope everyone’s safe. I hope our soldiers and all of our troops can be okay,” said Reyes.

Source link

Nevada

Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts

More than 10,000 people have enrolled in Nevada’s new public option health plans, which debuted last fall with the expectation that they would bring lower prices to the health insurance market.

Those preliminary numbers from the open enrollment period that ended in January are less than a third of what state officials had projected. Nevada is the third state so far to launch a public option plan, along with Colorado and Washington state. The idea is to offer lower-cost plans to consumers to expand health care access.

But researchers said plans like these are unlikely to fill the gaps left by sweeping federal changes, including the expiration of enhanced subsidies for plans bought on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The public option gained attention in the late 2000s when Congress considered but ultimately rejected creating a health plan funded and run by the government that would compete with private carriers in the market. The programs in Washington state, Colorado, and Nevada don’t go that far — they aren’t government-run but are private-public partnerships that compete with private insurance.

In recent years, states have considered creating public option plans to make health coverage more affordable and to reduce the number of uninsured people. Washington was the first state to launch a program, in 2021, and Colorado followed in 2023.

Washington and Colorado’s programs have run into challenges, including a lack of participation from clinicians, hospitals, and other care providers, as well as insurers’ inability to meet rate reduction benchmarks or lower premiums compared with other plans offered on the market.

Nevada law requires that the carriers of the public option plans — Battle Born State Plans, named after a state motto — lower premium costs compared with a benchmark “silver” plan in the marketplace by 15% over the next four years.

But that amount might not make much difference to consumers with rising premium payments from the loss of the ACA’s enhanced tax credits, said Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute.

“That’s not a lot of money,” Mueller said.

Three of the eight insurers on the state’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, offered the state plans during the open enrollment period.

Insurance companies plan to meet the lower premium cost requirement in Nevada by cutting broker fees and commissions, which prompted opposition from insurance brokers in the state. In response, Nevada marketplace officials told state lawmakers in January that they will give a flat-fee reimbursement to brokers.

The public option has faced opposition among state leaders. In 2024, a state judge dismissed a lawsuit, brought by a Nevada state senator and a group that advocates for lower taxes, that challenged the public option law as unconstitutional. They have appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Federal Policy Impacts

Recent federal changes create more obstacles.

Nevada is consistently among the states with the largest populations of people who do not have health insurance coverage. Last year, nearly 95,000 people in the state received the enhanced ACA tax credits, averaging $465 in savings per month, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

But the enhanced tax credits expired at the end of the year, and it appears unlikely that lawmakers will bring them back. Nationwide ACA enrollment has decreased by more than 1 million people so far this year, down from record-high enrollment of 24 million last year.

About 4 million people are expected to lose health coverage from the expiration of the tax credits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. An additional 3 million are projected to lose coverage because of other policy changes affecting the marketplace.

Justin Giovannelli, an associate research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said the changes to the ACA in the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, will make it more difficult for people to keep their coverage. These changes include more frequent enrollment paperwork to verify income and other personal information, a shortened enrollment window, and an end to automatic reenrollment.

In Nevada, the changes would amount to an estimated 100,000 people losing coverage, according to KFF.

“All of that makes getting coverage on Nevada Health Link harder and more expensive than it would be otherwise,” Giovannelli said.

State officials projected ahead of open enrollment that about 35,000 people would purchase the public option plans. Of the 104,000 people who had purchased a plan on the state marketplace as of mid-January, 10,762 had enrolled in one of the public option plans, according to Nevada Health Link.

Katie Charleson, communications officer for the state health exchange, said the original enrollment estimate was based on market conditions before the recent increases in customers’ premium costs. She said that the public option plans gave people facing higher costs more choices.

“We expect enrollment in Battle Born State Plans to grow over time as awareness increases and as Nevadans continue seeking quality coverage options that help reduce costs,” Charleson said.

According to KFF, nationally the enhanced subsidies saved enrollees an average of $705 annually in 2024, and enrollees would save an estimated $1,016 in premium payments on average in 2026 if the subsidies were still in place. Without the subsidies, people enrolled in the ACA marketplace could be seeing their premium costs more than double.

Insights From Washington and Colorado

Washington and Colorado are not planning to alter their programs due to the expiration of the tax credits, according to government officials in those states.

Other states that had recently considered creating public options have backtracked. Minnesota officials put off approving a public option in 2024, citing funding concerns. Proposals to create public options in Maine and New Mexico also sputtered.

Washington initially saw meager enrollment in its Cascade Select public option plans; only 1% of state marketplace enrollees chose a public option plan in 2021. But that changed after lawmakers required hospitals to contract with at least one public option plan by 2023. Last year the state reported that 94,000 customers enrolled, accounting for 30% of all customers on the state marketplace. The public option plans were the lowest-premium silver plans in 31 of Washington’s 39 counties in 2024.

A 2025 study found that since Colorado implemented its public option, called the Colorado Option, coverage through the ACA marketplace has become more affordable for enrollees who received subsidies but more expensive for enrollees who did not.

Colorado requires all insurers offering coverage through its marketplace to include a public option that follows state guidelines. The state set premium reduction targets of 5% a year for three years beginning in 2023. Starting this year, premium costs are not allowed to outpace medical inflation.

Though the insurers offering the public option did not meet the premium reduction targets, enrollment in the Colorado Option has increased every year it has been available. Last year, the state saw record enrollment in its marketplace, with 47% of customers purchasing a public option plan.

Giovannelli said states are continuing to try to make health insurance more affordable and accessible, even if federal changes reduce the impact of those efforts.

“States are reacting and trying to continue to do right by their residents,” Giovannelli said, “but you can’t plug all those gaps.”

Are you struggling to afford your health insurance? Have you decided to forgo coverage? Click here to contact KFF Health News and share your story.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Source link