- For governors, Medicaid looks ripe for slashing, By Kevin Sack, January 28, 2011, New York Times: “Hamstrung by federal prohibitions against lowering Medicaid eligibility, governors from both parties are exercising their remaining options in proposing bone-deep cuts to the program during the fourth consecutive year of brutal economic conditions. Because states confront budget gaps estimated at $125 billion, few essential services – schools, roads, parks – are likely to escape the ax. But the election of tough-minded governors, the evaporation of federal aid, the relentless growth of Medicaid rolls and the exhaustion of alternatives have made the program, which primarily covers low-income children and disabled adults, an outsize target…”
- Medicaid cuts could lead to higher taxes, insurance premiums, By Tim Eaton, January 28, 2011, Austin American-Statesman: “Even if you don’t rely on Medicaid, Texas lawmakers’ proposed cuts in the health care program could cost you money. Cutting Medicaid could have outcomes beyond fewer services for the poor, several local officials in the health care industry said. Notably, taxpayers in Central Texas could end up with increased local taxes and higher insurance premiums, according to several Central Texas health care professionals. Tom Banning, the CEO for the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, said the proposed cuts don’t equate to savings. Rather, there is simply a shuffling of expenses. ‘This has the potential to be the biggest cost shift to local governments that Texas has ever seen,’ Banning said. The two largest hospital groups in Austin echoed those concerns…”
Day: January 31, 2011
Exhaustion of Jobless Benefits
An uncertain future after jobless benefits expire, By Cristina Silva (AP), January 29, 2011, Washington Post: “The portraits of his dead father are among the few mementoes Bud Meyers is certain he will take with him when he is forced from his home of five years next month because he cannot pay the rent. His prized collection of mystery novels, the bedroom set he was once proud to purchase new and anything else that can’t fit into the trunk of a car must be left behind. More than two years after Meyers lost his job as a Las Vegas Strip bartender and nearly eight months after he exhausted his unemployment benefits, it has come to this: a careful inventory of a life’s possessions and the hopeless embrace of a future as a middle-aged homeless man. ‘I can’t believe this is happening to my life,’ Meyers, 55, said on a recent afternoon, as he surveyed the one-bedroom apartment he must soon abandon. ‘It’s a social holocaust.’ Meyers, who is single and childless, is among a growing number of men and women who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits because they have been out of work for so long…”
Child Care Subsidies – Washington
Washington welfare cuts get reprieve, By Jordan Schrader, January 29, 2011, Tacoma News Tribune: “Turea Ducharme has been on welfare before. She has no interest in going back. The South Tacoma single mom said she worked hard to move herself and her two children off of a government check and onto a paycheck. She became first a teller, now an assistant manager, at a Moneytree payday-lending office. Finding work left Ducharme in need of another form of public assistance: Day care subsidies that helped pay for someone to watch Niya, 4, and Devon, 10, while she worked. But state budget cuts have yanked that help away, and she worries about ending up back on the welfare rolls. ‘I’ll lose my job if I get to the point where I don’t have anyone to watch my kids,’ Ducharme worries. Thousands more parents could be placed in that situation in the next two-year budget period as further cuts to welfare programs loom, including the $725 million Working Connections Child Care program…”