Indiana ‘hybrid’ welfare program set to expand, By Niki Kelly, May 11, 2010, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “The Family and Social Services Administration announced Tuesday the next region for its new ‘hybrid’ welfare eligibility system is an 11-county area that includes Vigo, Parke and Monroe counties. The expansion is dependent on federal approval. FSSA on Monday released statistics showing that adding more local welfare workers in 10 southwestern Indiana counties under a pilot hybrid system has cut the problems that clients have had with Indiana’s privatized, automated benefits system…”
Officials: Changes in welfare cut complaints, By Mary Beth Schneider, May 11, 2010, Indianapolis Star: “Armed with evidence that the changes made to welfare delivery in a 10-county pilot project are working, the state will announce today whether it will expand the program to more areas of Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels pulled the plug on a $1.34 billion IBM contract for a centralized welfare intake system in October. The Family and Social Services Administration replaced it with a hybrid program, combining modernization and computerization of records with the face-to-face contact between caseworkers and clients that was the hallmark of past welfare systems…”
Legislators seek to expand Medicaid, By Warren Wolfe, May 10, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Legislative conferees agreed Sunday that expanding Medicaid should be part of the eventual compromise they will take to the House and Senate as early as Monday in a package of health and human service measures to cut the state’s budget deficit. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has strongly opposed expanding Medicaid to cover health care for childless adults earning less than 75 percent of the poverty guideline. Even though it would bring in about $1 billion in federal money over the next three years, he argues that the state cannot afford to provide the required $1 billion match…”
Nurses, doctors, hospitals urge shift to Medicaid, By Warren Wolfe, May 11, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Leaders of the state’s hospital, nurse and doctors’ associations added their voices to a health care debate between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL legislators Monday, urging the state to cover its poorest residents with the state-federal Medicaid health program rather than a slimmed-down state plan negotiated last month. With a week to go before the Legislature is to adjourn, the groups urged enactment of a bill supported by DFL leaders and opposed by Pawlenty that would shift about 37,000 patients from General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) to Medicaid, called Medical Assistance (MA) in Minnesota…”
Nation’s suburbs show increasing diversity, Brookings report finds, By Carol Morello, May 9, 2010, Washington Post: “Ozzie and Harriet, R.I.P. The idealized vision of suburbia as a homogenous landscape of prosperity built around the nuclear family took another hit over the past decade, as suburbs became home to more poor people, immigrants, minorities, senior citizens and households with no children, according to a Brookings Institution report to be released Sunday. Although the suburbs remain a destination of choice for families with children, nuclear families are outnumbered. Nationwide, 21 percent of American families are composed of married couples with children. Their ranks declined in more than half of the suburbs, including those surrounding Washington. Even in fast-growing Loudoun County, only 36 percent of households were married couples with children, census data show. In Fairfax County, it was 27 percent; Montgomery County, 26 percent; and Prince George’s County, 18 percent…”
Social changes shatter regional stereotypes, study finds, By David Goldstein, May 8, 2010, Seattle Times: “Forget about the Midwest, Kansas City. You’re now part of the ‘New Heartland.’ So are you, Charleston, S.C., even with all your Spanish moss and Southern charm, and you too, Portland, Ore., way out there on the Pacific Coast. These three metropolitan areas couldn’t be farther apart geographically. Demographically, however, they might have more in common than with some regional neighbors, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Social changes in the past decade, especially the increase in racial and ethnic minorities, are scrambling regional stereotypes and altering the traditional portrait of the nation…”
