Court’s decision could widen Medicaid gap, By Noam N. Levey, June 29, 2012, L.A. Times: ” President Obama, in his drive for a national healthcare overhaul, strove to provide a new guarantee that all Americans, no matter where they live, would have basic protection against sickness and disease, ending decades of variation among states. The Supreme Court did not dismantle that guarantee Thursday. But while upholding the Affordable Care Act, the court opened the door to something the president and other champions of the law sought to avoid — widening disparities between red and blue states in who gets healthcare. Under the court’s ruling, states will be free to elect not to cover all of their poor residents through their Medicaid programs. That may mean liberal states that have embraced the healthcare law such as California, Illinois and Maryland will effectively offer all of their residents health coverage. . .”
Health Care ruling clears path for Colo. exchanges, By Ivan Morenokristen Wyatt, June 29, 2012, Businessweek: “Colorado Republicans who decried Thursday’s health care ruling said the state did the right thing by beginning to create insurance exchanges required under the law, rather than waiting for the federal government to create one. Democrats said that the decision clears the path for Colorado’s health plans and that Colorado more than other states would have been tripped up if the health law had been axed. State lawmakers last year created the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange, which forms a virtual marketplace to allow individuals and groups the ability to purchase health insurance at discounts like those in larger risk pools. About 13 percent of the state, or 656,000 state residents, had no health insurance as of 2011. . .”
U.S. Supreme Court health care ruling leaves Medicaid expansion up to individual states, By Bill Barrow, June 28, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “In a defining moment in U.S. Supreme Court history, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal bloc Thursday to announce a 5-4 decision upholding the most hotly debated provision of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul. To do so, the Roberts majority framed the requirement for all Americans to purchase health insurance, along with an IRS penalty for not complying, as a tax, not the argument the administration preferred but enough to leave in place the linchpin of the insurance market changes. . .”
Uncertainty over whether states will choose to expand Medicaid, By Robert Pear, June 28, 2012, New York Times: “After the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a huge expansion of Medicaid in the 2010 health care law was an option and not a requirement for states, experts disagreed on whether states would take the option. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who is an opponent of the health law, predicted that many states would choose not to expand Medicaid. Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University professor who supports the law, predicted that ‘only a small number of states’ would pass up the expansion, given the generous financial terms of the deal authorized by Congress. And Matt D. Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, which represents state officials, said his initial sense was that many states would accept the expansion…”
Supreme Court ruling to aid poor, uninsured — and California’s budget, By Chad Terhune, June 28, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “With the federal healthcare law upheld, California stands to receive as much as $15 billion a year to extend coverage to millions of the poor and uninsured starting in 2014, and efforts will now intensify to get ready for that influx of new patients. ‘It’s a huge undertaking ahead of us,’ said Peter Lee, executive director of the California Health Benefit Exchange, which plans to start enrollment in October 2013. ‘The biggest challenge is getting reliable information out to the uninsured.’ The state has nearly 7 million uninsured, or about 20% of the population, according to the California HealthCare Foundation…”
Justices uphold individual mandate, set limits On Medicaid expansion, By Jordan Rau and Julie Appleby, June 28, 2012, Kaiser Health News: “The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday upheld nearly all of the landmark federal health law, affirming its mandate that most everyone carry insurance, but complicating the government’s plan to extend coverage to the poorest Americans. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined the court’s four liberals in upholding the mandate, the best-known and least popular part of the law. The court also upheld hundreds of other rules embedded in the law designed to help millions more Americans obtain insurance and to refashion the health care industry. But a majority of the justices voted that the government could not compel states to expand Medicaid, the federal and state program for the poor, by threatening to withhold federal money to existing Medicaid programs…”
Mystery after the health care ruling: Which states will refuse Medicaid expansion?, By Charles Ornstein, June 28, 2012, ProPublica: “For many people without insurance, a key question raised by the Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the Affordable Care Act is whether states will decline to participate in the law’s big Medicaid expansion. Although the court upheld the law’s mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance, the justices said the act could not force states to expand Medicaid to millions by threatening to withhold federal funding. Republican leaders of some states already are saying they are inclined to say thanks, but no thanks…”
Health ruling won’t cure states’ ills, By Louise Radnofsky, Thomas M. Burton and Jennifer Levitz, June 28, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “No matter how the Supreme Court rules Thursday on the federal health-care law, states will face huge struggles paying for ballooning health expenses and swelling uninsured populations-a problem that has prompted some states to draft their own overhaul plans. In its most highly anticipated decision in years, the court is expected to determine the fate of President Barack Obama’s 2010 law by Thursday morning. The historic ruling could reshape the health-care industry, shift legal precedent and amplify the already-divisive role health care has played in this year’s elections. But for states, any outcome still leaves them poorly equipped to tackle an issue that has become one of their biggest financial headaches. The Medicaid program for low-income Americans takes up twice as large a share of their state budgets as it did 25 years ago and is crowding out education spending in places…”
Iowa’s costs for defending poor rise, By Vanessa Miller, June 28, 2012, Cedar Rapids Gazette: “Just a handful of basic questions stand between accused criminals claiming to be indigent and trained attorneys willing to fight for them in court. Do you have a job? How much do you earn? How much are your monthly bills? Most of the time, according to legal experts and court officials, accused offenders applying for court-appointed attorneys answer truthfully – they are signing the paperwork under penalty of perjury after all. But, according to officials within the state’s judicial system, there is no systematic procedure in place to verify that recipients of court-appointed counsel are being honest about their finances. That means some of the accused could be taking advantage of an indigent defense system that is largely supported by taxpayers and already spread thin, with the gap between what is spent on public defense and what is paid back by accused offenders widening…”
Poor people aren’t getting equal shake in court, governor’s panel warns, By Pat Shellenbarger, June 26, 2012, MLive.com: “Fridays in Ottawa County’s courts — when criminal defendants often are arraigned without legal representation — are referred to as ‘McJustice Days.’ In Sault Ste. Marie, attorneys representing the poor have little time to prepare and wait in line to meet with their clients in the courthouse’s unisex bathroom. In Wayne County, court-appointed attorneys haven’t received a raise in decades and say they often take on more cases than they can handle. And in a report approved June 22, the Michigan Advisory Commission on Indigent Defense urged the Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder to increase funding and implement statewide standards for the state’s system of providing attorneys for indigent criminal defendants — a system that has been criticized as one of the worst in the country…”
