- Positive trends in Factbook on RI’s kids, By Jen Rodrigues, April 18, 2014, Warwick Beacon: “Rhode Island KIDS COUNT released its 2014 Factbook this week, celebrating 20 years of providing data in nearly 70 different areas related to children. The annual report is often used to craft legislation and policy changes affecting youth. The report – an inch-thick volume packed with charts and graphs – was released during a breakfast at the Crowne Plaza attended by about 500 policy makers and community leaders from government and the areas of education, health and human services…”
- Report: 90% of W.Va. kids lack early educational opportunities, By Lydia Nuzum, April 16, 2014, Charleston Gazette: “More than nine out of 10 West Virginia children aren’t receiving the early childhood education that would help them excel later in life, according to a report released by one of the state’s largest child-advocacy organizations. According to the 2013 data released by West Virginia KIDS COUNT, 93 percent of children under 6 are receiving unknown or minimum-quality child care, and only one in five of those children is enrolled in preschool. West Virginia ranks 45th in the nation for the number of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool, despite ample evidence to suggest early education has high returns for kids down the road, according to Margie Hale, executive director of KIDS COUNT…”
Day: April 18, 2014
ACA and Medicaid Coverage
- Progress, challenges as Medicaid rolls swell in state, By Lisa Stiffler, April 17, 2014, Seattle Times: “Washington state has blown past its targets for signing up new Medicaid participants under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The program’s ranks have grown roughly 25 percent in the past six months, helping fulfill one of the act’s key goals to provide health care to nearly all Americans. By the end of March, more than 285,000 adults who are newly eligible to participate in Medicaid had signed up for coverage. That’s twice the number officials had hoped to reach by then, and a target they hadn’t expected to hit for three more years. But with enrollment success comes the challenge of serving more people in a $10 billion program that’s already stretched thin in places…”
- Health law push brings thousands into Colo. Medicaid who were already eligible, By Eric Whitney, April 16, 2014, Washington Post: “The big marketing push to get people enrolled in health coverage between October and March resulted in 3 million people signing up for Medicaid. Hundreds of thousands of those people were already eligible and could have signed up even before the Affordable Care Act made it much more generous. They came ‘out of the woodwork’ to get enrolled, analysts say, thanks to the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and publicity around its new marketplaces. In Colorado, nearly 23,000 such people are now getting Medicaid. Their numbers grew Colorado’s Medicaid rolls by 3 percent over last year…”
Food Insecurity in the US
Hunger is a ‘silent crisis’ in the USA, By Marisol Bello, April 16, 2014, USA Today: “Tianna Gaines Turner can’t remember the last time she went to bed without worrying about how she was going to feed her three children. She can’t remember the last time she woke up and wasn’t worried about how she and her husband would make enough in their part-time jobs to buy groceries and pay utilities on their apartment in a working-class section of Philadelphia. And she can’t remember the last time she felt confident she and her husband wouldn’t have to skip meals so their children could eat…”