- McCrory plan would open state’s Medicaid business to private companies, By Lynn Bonner, April 4, 2013, News & Observer: “Gov. Pat McCrory wants to overhaul the state’s Medicaid program by having managed care companies offer health care plans for poor, elderly and disabled people. The overhaul, unveiled by administration officials Wednesday, would diminish the role of a nationally recognized nonprofit agency while opening the state’s Medicaid business to private companies that now provide such services in more than half the states in the country. McCrory said Wednesday that the change would benefit health care providers and the state by bringing predictability to Medicaid expenses, which the state has trouble estimating from year to year…”
- States saying ‘no’ to Medicaid expansion, but low-income citizens, patients worried, By Halimah Abdullah, April 5, 2013, CNN: “Bettina Cox battled cervical cancer in 2012. A year later, the Texas native feels that narrowly qualifying for a Medicaid-sponsored program for low-income and uninsured female cancer patients saved her life. She now wants her governor and state legislature to support an expansion of Medicaid — part of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act — that she feels could save the lives of thousands of other women in her state by helping them detect diseases much earlier. But if Texas lawmakers have their way — as well as governors and legislatures in Florida, South Carolina and nearly a dozen other states — low-income Americans like Cox may not have expanded access to funds needed for such procedures. Those states feel the expansion is an unnecessary government overreach at a time when spending should be limited, not expanded…”
Day: April 5, 2013
USDA Rural Poverty Initiative – Utah
StrikeForce aims to help reduce rural poverty in Utah, By Whitney Evans, April 3, 2013, Deseret News: “Gilbert Harris, 70, and his wife manually watered their 10 acres of alfalfa and Native American corn for most of his farming career. It took them five days every two weeks. Through funding provided by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Harris installed gated irrigation a little more than five years ago and reduced the time he spent watering by one to two days. ‘All these people are here to help you, but you have to put it together. We found out that is the secret,’ Harris said in a video created by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Utah is one of 10 states selected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to participate in the StrikeForce initiative, created in an effort to boost economic development and job creation…”
March 2013 US Unemployment
- U.S. job growth slows as jobless face benefit cuts, By Marilyn Geewax, April 5, 2013, National Public Radio: “The 11.7 million Americans searching for work got discouraging news Friday morning when the Labor Department said employers created only 88,000 jobs in March. The weak job growth comes at the same time benefits for the long-term unemployed are shrinking. The smaller-than-expected increase in payrolls was a big disappointment, coming after a long stretch of much better results. Over the past year, employment growth has averaged 169,000 jobs a month…”
- Hiring slowed to 88K jobs in March; unemployment rate drops to 7.6 percent, By Ylan Q. Mui, April 5, 2013, Washington Post: “The U.S. economy will face the brunt of massive federal spending cuts just as growth in private sector jobs is plunging, according to government data released Friday. Businesses created a paltry 88,000 jobs in March — less than half what Wall Street had expected. The news sent stock markets tumbling by more than 1 percent during morning trading. The disappointing job growth is the result of weaker performance in critical industries and the steady decline in the government workforce…”
- Hiring in U.S. tapers off as economy fails to gain speed, By Catherine Rampell, April 5, 2013, New York Times: “It looks as if the ‘spring swoon’ is back. American employers increased their payrolls by 88,000 last month, compared with 268,000 in February, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. It was the slowest pace of growth since last June, and less than half of what economists had expected. It also was the start of a third consecutive spring in which employers have tapered off their hiring, even after the Labor Department adjusted the numbers for the usual seasonal changes…”