California’s zigzag on welfare rules worries experts, By Erik Eckholm, October 6, 2009, New York Times: “As he pressed state lawmakers over the summer to close a record budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lathered scorn on the state’s welfare-to-work program. He called it too lenient on the work requirement and overly generous in its benefits. At one point, he proposed eliminating it, then compromised to make it tougher. So Anna Zendejas, a welfare recipient in a farm town 50 miles west of here, was more than a little surprised to get a letter recently saying that she did not need to work to collect her check – in effect, a return to the much-derided welfare approach that existed before a national overhaul in the 1990s. It was no fluke. This fall, tens of thousands of Californians will be given a similar choice as the state embraces a startling reversal in some of its welfare policies for the next two years…”
Day: October 7, 2009
States and Proposed Medicaid Expansion
- Governor lobbies for Medicaid expansion, By Michelle Saxton, October 6, 2009, Charleston Daily Mail: “A proposed expansion of Medicaid has some governors voicing concern about how states will afford greater coverage in a challenging economy, but Gov. Joe Manchin argues that an expansion focused on prevention will help reduce costs from uncompensated care. ‘You have to expand that to get people more involved in the system,’ Manchin said Monday. ‘We’re paying for them now anyway. People will wait and go to the emergency room when they get deathly ill or seriously ill at the highest cost,’ he said. ‘But if you get them into more of a managed type of care, showing them how to take action on the preventive side, you can really cut down the costs on the most expensive side. That’s the debate that’s going on…'”
- Expansion of Medicaid could impose costs on Ohio, By Jack Torry and Jonathan Riskind, October 7, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “As Ohio officials try to close an $850 million budget hole, the key U.S. Senate health-care overhaul package could cost Ohio $922 million in additional Medicaid spending in the plan’s first five years. The health-care bill, which is expected to win the Senate Finance Committee’s approval this week, would add nearly 800,000 Ohio residents to the state’s Medicaid roll. The bill would do so by allowing a family of four with an annual income of up to $29,300 to be eligible for Medicaid coverage instead of the current limit of $22,050 for such a family…”
- Levine: Health bill hurts Medicaid, By Gerard Shields, October 7, 2009, Baton Rouge Advocate: “Louisiana’s top health official is criticizing a provision in the U.S. Senate’s health-care bill that would give four states, including that of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, full federal funding for increases in the Medicaid rolls. Louisiana would have to pay a 5 percent match for any new federal money for expansion of Medicaid amounting to $614 million over five years, said Alan Levine, secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals. ‘The cost to Nevada?’ Levine said. ‘Zero.’ The news of the provision comes at a time when Louisiana is struggling to get control of its Medicaid budget…”
Food Stamp Application Process – Texas
- Federal officials: Texas needs food stamp czar, By Corrie MacLaggan, October 6, 2009, Austin-American Statesman: “Federal officials say Texas should appoint a food stamp czar to take charge of fixing the application backlogs and high error rates plaguing the program. ‘All states are feeling the pinch right now because of the economic recession, but I’m not aware of any state that is having it to the degree that Texas is,’ said William Ludwig, a Dallas-based regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. Ludwig, who rarely gives interviews, oversees food stamps for Texas and four other states. He attributed the state’s problems last week to a “whole series of missteps, mismanagement over the last four years,” starting with thousands of state workers getting pink slips in advance of a massive privatization effort…”
- Too many Texans are waiting too long for food stamps, Editorial, October 7, 2009, Austin American-Statesman: “It is scandalous that Texas is letting so many of its residents go hungry when the resources exist to feed them. But those resources – food stamps – are being processed at a snail’s pace because the state has not been able to get its act together. Texans deserve a better, more compassionate solution than state leaders have proposed so far. The massive backlog that has left low-income families hungry and waiting for weeks and months for government food assistance has reached a critical level. In September 2009, Texas processed 58.6 percent of new applications on time…”