State delays new child subsidy rules, By Suzanne Roig, December 11, 2009, Honolulu Advertiser: “The state will delay, by one month, a change in the child care subsidy scale to give providers and families time to work out solutions and apply for federal grants. The department has created a new 10-part scale that pays varying amounts to needy families or their providers for child care so that the parents can afford to go to work. The state will help child care providers apply for assistance from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or the Salvation Army. The one-month delay will help families make the transition from the three-level subsidy system to the 10-level system, said Christina Cox, president of KCAA Preschools of Hawai’i and liaison for the Childcare Business Coalition, which represents 44 licensed preschools…”
Day: December 11, 2009
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Grandpa does more than baby-sit, By Michael Winerip, December 10, 2009, New York Times: “In May 2006, Tom Kust discovered that his two grandchildren, Monica, then 6, and Nathan, 2, were about to be adopted by a foster-care family in Florida. He had hired a lawyer to help his daughter, the children’s mother, get the children back. But his daughter kept dropping out of rehab programs, unable to shake her addiction to cocaine and heroin. Mr. Kust wanted Monica and Nathan, but grandparents have limited custody rights, their legal status varying state to state. As a result of working full time as a machine shop manager 1,000 miles away here on Long Island, tension with his daughter over her years of drug use and the lack of coordination between social workers in two states, Mr. Kust had trouble tracking his grandchildren’s case…”
States and Health Insurance Coverage
- Despite recession, 26 states grew health coverage this year, By Phil Galewitz, December 8, 2009, Miami Herald: “Despite the economic downturn that’s busting state budgets from Sacramento to Tallahassee, 26 states this year made it easier for low-income children, parents or pregnant women to get health coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But the gains could be fleeting as most were made possible by new federal stimulus dollars, which run out at the end of 2010, along with a requirement that states maintain Medicaid eligibility levels. The report surveyed how states were handling Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). States also benefited from the federal reauthorization of the CHIP program last February, which gave them new options to expand eligibility and millions of dollars to find uninsured kids…”
- Most uninsured In Lower Hudson are working U.S. citizens, By Candice Ferrette and Tim Henderson, December 8, 2009, Journal News: “They are waiters, dental assistants, preschool teachers, hairdressers, small-business owners and recent college graduates. More than half of the uninsured people living in the Lower Hudson Valley are working U.S. citizens who stand to be affected by the national health-care reform debate. As more people become unemployed, this group of people still has jobs but no health insurance…”