Reading, Pa., knew it was poor. Now it knows just how poor., By Sabrina Tavernise, September 26, 2011, New York Times: “The exhausted mothers who come to the Second Street Learning Center here – a day care provider for mostly low-income families – speak of low wages, hard jobs and an economy gone bad. Ashley Kelleher supports her family on the $900 a month she earns as a waitress at an International House of Pancakes. Louri Williams packs cakes and pies all night for $8 an hour, takes morning classes, and picks up her children in the afternoon. Teresa Santiago takes complaints from building supply customers for $10 an hour, not enough to cover her $1,900 in monthly bills. These are common stories in Reading, a struggling city of 88,000 that has earned the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, barely edging out Flint, Mich., according to new Census Bureau data. The count includes only cities with populations of 65,000 or more, and has a margin of error that makes it difficult to declare a winner – or, perhaps more to the point, a loser…”
Day: September 27, 2011
State Foster Care Programs
New law to benefit state’s foster care program, By Paris Achen, September 27, 2011, The Columbian: “A bill awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature would give new federal support to state programs like Washington’s that help keep children out of foster care, according to the bill’s sponsors. Senate Bill 1542 would reform rules that now prohibit states from using federal foster care funding on programs that help keep children at home with their families. States that reduce the number of case- loads now lose federal dollars for foster care, called Title 4-E funds. Under the bill, those states could tap that stream of money for programs that help keep children at home or reduce the duration of their stay in foster care. The changes could significantly benefit Washington, which wasn’t able to claim about $2.7 million in federal appropriations between 2008 and 2010 because it reduced its caseload by 13.8 percent…”
State Medicaid Programs – Washington, Wisconsin
- State decides what’s not an emergency, By Jordan Schrader, September 26, 2011, Tacoma News Tribune: “State government is about to start refusing to pay for repeat visitors to emergency rooms whose conditions don’t truly rise to the level of emergencies. The trouble is all in how you define an emergency. Starting Saturday, Medicaid won’t pay for more than three ER visits in a year for a patient’s nonemergency conditions as defined by the state. A list of more than 700 diagnoses put into that category has drawn fire from hospitals and doctors’ groups over inclusions whose symptoms seem awfully similar to emergencies…”
- Wisconsin starts publishing Medicaid cut proposals, By Scott Bauer (AP), September 27, 2011, Sheboygan Press: “Gov. Scott Walker’s administration unveiled a website Monday that includes a handful of Medicaid cost-savings proposals intended to help it reach required cuts of about $444 million over the next two years. But there’s a long way to go. Most of what was released was either already known about or would make little progress toward what needs to be cut. Only three of the six areas of savings detailed Monday had not been previously announced. Those three total $6 million in savings in state money, just 3 percent of the $181.8 million that must be found under the two-year budget that took effect in July. The total amount of unspecified cuts that must be found, including federal funding and other sources, is $444 million…”