- Some states weigh unthinkable option: ending Medicaid, By Janet Adamy and Neil King Jr., November 22, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “Huge budget shortfalls are prompting a handful of states to begin discussing a once-unthinkable scenario: dropping out of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor. Elected and appointed officials in nearly a half-dozen states, including Washington, Texas and South Carolina, have publicly thrown out the idea. Wyoming and Nevada this year produced detailed studies of what would happen should they withdraw from the program. Wyoming found that Medicaid accounts for 63% of the state’s nursing-home revenue. The idea of abandoning Medicaid as a solution is so extreme that even proponents don’t expect any state will follow through, but officials are floating the discussions because dire budgetary pressures have forced them to at least look at even the most drastic options…”
- Cuts to Medicaid threaten real pain, By Kathie Durbin, November 21, 2010, The Columbian: “Debb Snyder’s slender lifeline to independent living is her government-paid prescription for Klonopin, the expensive anti-seizure drug that controls her grand mal seizures and allows her to remain in her small apartment off St. Johns Road. She’s been taking 0.5 grams of the drug six times daily for 20 years. That’s why it was intensely personal for Snyder when she saw the list of cuts to Medicaid programs the Washington Department of Social and Health Services is preparing to implement between Jan. 1 and March 1 to achieve its share of 6.27 percent across-the-board cuts in state agency budgets. The department will eliminate coverage for outpatient prescription drugs provided by retail pharmacies to an estimated 277,000 clients, effective March 1. As a ‘discretionary’ program under Medicaid, the prescription drug program is one the state has the option to discontinue while still maintaining its partnership with the federal government in providing health coverage to the poorest of the poor under Medicaid…”
Day: November 22, 2010
Poverty Alleviation in Latin America
Want to slash poverty? Look to Latin America, By David Francis, November 22, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “One in 10 South Americans – about 38 million people – escaped poverty during the past decade. That’s remarkable progress by any measure. Contrast that with the United States, where poverty has been growing due to a decade-long stagnation of income for the middle class and the Great Recession. In 2009, the US had more poor people than in any of the 51 years since poverty levels have been estimated. Of course, America’s poor are far better off than South America’s poor. And the US still has a much lower poverty rate (14.2 percent versus around 70 percent). South America remains infamous for huge income gaps between a tiny elite and masses of people making, often, just $1 or $2 a day…”
Poverty and Diabetes
Poverty a leading cause of Type 2 diabetes, studies say, By Andrea Janus, November 21, 2010, CTV News: “For years, Canadians have heard that obesity, a lack of physical activity and a family history are the top risk factors for developing Type 2 diabetes. But new Canadian research says that, in fact, it is living in poverty that can double or even triple the likelihood of developing the disease. ‘What we know about Type 2 diabetes is not only are low-income and poor people more likely to get it, but they’re also the ones that, once they get it, are much more likely to suffer complications,’ Prof. Dennis Raphael, one of the researchers, told CTV.ca in a telephone interview. ‘And the complications from Type 2 diabetes when they’re bad are really bad, whether it’s amputations, or blindness, or cardiovascular disease.’ Researchers from York University analyzed two sets of data: the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) for a study published in the journal Health Policy…”