Lawmakers debate ending child welfare privatization, By Martha Stoddard, February 29, 2012, Omaha World-Herald: “Nebraska lawmakers launched into debate Tuesday about whether to put the brakes on the state’s experiment in child welfare privatization. At issue is whether the state should take back responsibility for managing child welfare cases from the last remaining private contractor. Legislative Bill 961, introduced by the Health and Human Services Committee, would require the change. The bill was introduced before state officials announced that Kansas-based KVC was dropping out of the picture as one of the last two child welfare contractors. KVC stops managing child welfare cases for the state as of Wednesday, leaving the Omaha-based Nebraska Families Collaborative as the state’s only private contractor. Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood of Norfolk warned colleagues to think hard before moving forward on the proposal…”
Senators advance four child welfare bills but question returning case management to state, By JoAnne Young, February 27, 2012, Lincoln Journal Star: “The Legislature focused Tuesday on repairing the state’s child welfare system. Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell set the tone for two days of debate on a set of five bills to overhaul child welfare reform. ‘Today, we begin the process of building a stable foundation and a bridge to the future for the benefit of the children and families of the state of Nebraska,’ she said. The Legislature proceeded to advance four of the bills — with no senator voting against them — and then, late in the day, started debate on a bill that would return all child welfare case management to the state. That last bill (LB961) could prove to be one of the toughest…”
Emergency dental care up 16%; lack of insurance cited, By Guy Boulton, February 27, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Preventable dental conditions resulted in an estimated 890,000 emergency department visits nationally in 2009, a 16% increase from 2006, according to a report from the Pew Center on the States. The problem can be seen in Wisconsin and is a long-standing frustration for the Wisconsin Hospital Association. The association has estimated that 32,000 patients with dental problems, such as an infected tooth, are seen by hospital emergency departments each year. Many of the visits stem from the limited access to dental care for people who are uninsured or who are covered by state health programs. The fees paid to dentists by the state’s health programs, such as BadgerCare Plus, are the fifth-lowest in the country, according to a separate report released last year by the Pew Children’s Dental Campaign, a national effort to increase access to dental care for low-income children…”
More Americans seek dental treatment at the ER; costs can be 10 times more than checkups, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), February 28, 2012, Chicago Tribune: “More Americans are turning to the emergency room for routine dental problems – a choice that often costs 10 times more than preventive care and offers far fewer treatment options than a dentist’s office, according to an analysis of government data and dental research. Most of those emergency visits involve trouble such as toothaches that could have been avoided with regular checkups but went untreated, in many cases because of a shortage of dentists, particularly those willing to treat Medicaid patients, the analysis said. The number of ER visits nationwide for dental problems increased 16 percent from 2006 to 2009, and the report released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States suggests the trend is continuing…”
World’s extreme poverty cut in half since 1990, By Sudeep Reddy, February 29, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “The share of people living in extreme poverty around the world continued to decline in recent years despite financial crises and surging food prices, the World Bank said today. The bank said preliminary estimates for 2010 showed that the world’s extreme poverty rate – people living below $1.25 a day – had fallen to less than half of its 1990 value. That meets the first Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty from its 1990 level, before its 2015 deadline, the Washington-based development institution said…”
WB sees progress against extreme poverty, February 29, 2012, The Himalayan: “In every region of the developing world, the percentage of people living on less than $1.25-a-day and the number of poor declined between 2005-2008, according to estimates released today by the World Bank (WB). This across-the-board reduction over a three-year monitoring cycle marks a first since the bank began monitoring extreme poverty. Similarly, South Asia witnessed the $1.25-a-day poverty rate fall from 61 per cent to 36 per cent between 1981 and 2005 and fell a further 3.5 percentage points between 2005 and 2008. The proportion of the population living in extreme poverty is now the lowest since 1981, the global agency said, adding that its methodology is based on consumption and income, adjusted for inflation within countries and for purchasing power differences across countries…”
