New welfare time limit cuts thousands from rolls, heightens focus on work programs, By Robert Long, September 28, 2012, Bangor Daily News: “The number of Maine households receiving welfare benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program decreased by more than 3,000 between January and July of this year. State welfare officials and advocates agree that the approximately 26 percent drop in Maine’s TANF caseload since January results directly from the implementation this year of a 60-month limit on how long each household can receive benefits. They also agree that what happens to families whose benefits expire must be monitored closely — and that the system will have to change to better meet their needs…”
Month: September 2012
Census Homelessness Report
Report: Children lean on homeless services, By Cheryl Wetzstein, September 27, 2012, Washington Times: “A new snapshot of American homelessness finds that some 209,000 people visited soup kitchens, missions and emergency shelters in March 2010, the Census Bureau said Thursday. About half of these people were young or middle-aged men. Adult women represented about a quarter of the population, and 1 in 5 — about 42,000 — were children. New York and California had the highest number of people using homeless services, while the District was one of 10 cities with the largest number. The Census Bureau clarified that its special report, ‘The Emergency and Transitional Shelter Population: 2010,’ is not a tally of the U.S. homeless population…”
States and Medicaid Expansion
- Medicaid expansion rejected by Louisiana may be pursued in New Orleans, By Bruce Alpert, September 25, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “With Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration opting out of the Medicaid expansion offered in the federal Affordable Care Act, New Orleans officials say they are looking for ways to go it alone. Jindal announced his decision after the Supreme Court in June upheld the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul legislation but ruled that states can’t be compelled to expand Medicaid, a key component of President Barack Obama’s goal of providing near universal health coverage by 2014…”
- Report: Medicaid boost would save Arizona money, By Mary Reinhart, September 26, 2012, Arizona Republic: “Expanding Medicaid under federal health reform would save state tax dollars, create thousands of jobs and provide government-paid health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income Arizonans, according to a new report from a bipartisan think tank. Research from the Grand Canyon Institute, whose board includes former Republican and Democratic state lawmakers, shows that with a $1.5 billion investment over the first four years the state would collect nearly $8 billion in federal funding and insure an additional 435,000 people by 2017…”
- In Arkansas, governor changes course on health care to help uninsured, struggling Democrats, Associated Press, September 25, 2012, Washington Post: “President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has never been popular in Arkansas, a state where even most Democrats regard the law as politically toxic. But with a quarter of the state’s working-age population uninsured, a governor who once said he would have voted against the law now wants to use it to widen government-funded coverage to thousands of additional families. And he’s relying on the move to help prevent a Republican takeover of the state Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Gov. Mike Beebe, the first Southern governor to back the law’s expansion of Medicaid, has become an unlikely advocate for a central part of the overhaul that would expand Medicaid, a position made easier by the fact that he’s not seeking re-election…”