New report on Oregon’s foster care system charts solutions, failures, By Hillary Borrud, August 25, 2016, The Oregonian: “An unsparing report spurred by Oregon’s latest foster care scandal identifies fairly obvious remedies for the state’s troubled child welfare system. But those recommendations, released Thursday and first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, also highlight the Department of Human Services’ ongoing failure to adopt solutions identified year after year in previous reviews…”
Foster care children aging out of Arizona system need transitional help, By Selena Makrides, August 27, 2016, Arizona Republic: “Jasmine Flores entered the Arizona foster care system when she was 13 years old. She stayed in the system, moving from group home to group home to group home and changing schools along the way. When she approached her 18th birthday, she began to think about life outside of the state care system. She’s now 19, the proud owner of a car and a thriving college student, after participating in the transitional programs for aging foster youth. Flores’s transition story, though, is not typical for the roughly 800 young adults expected to “age-out” of the foster care system in Arizona in 2016…”
How expanding Medicaid can lower insurance premiums for all, By Margot Sanger-Katz, August 25, 2016, New York Times: “The Obama administration for years has been pleading with states to expand their Medicaid programs and offer health coverage to low-income people. Now it has a further argument in its favor: Expansion of Medicaid could lower insurance prices for everyone else. A new study published by in-house researchers at the Department of Health and Human Services compared places that have expanded their Medicaid programs as part of Obamacare with neighboring places that have not. They found that, in 2015, insurance in the marketplace for middle-income people cost less in the places that had expanded Medicaid…”
Controversial parts of Medicaid plan remain, By Tom Loftus and Deborah Yetter, August 25, 2016, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration unveiled its long-awaited plan to reshape the state’s Medicaid program Wednesday, and while it restores some benefits Bevin proposed be cut two months ago, it retains the most controversial components of the governor’s approach to overhauling the federal-state health plan for low-income and disabled Kentuckians. Taking aim at the Medicaid expansion launched by his predecessor, Democrat Steve Beshear, under the federal Affordable Care Act, Bevin, a Republican, has said he wants to create a different program that includes more cost-sharing by consumers, encourages more personal responsibility, and brings the state’s soaring costs of Medicaid under control…”
Food stamp use on the rise in Nebraska, unlike in Iowa and rest of U.S., By Barbara Soderlin, August 23, 2016, Omaha World-Herald: “The recession is in the rearview mirror, and the state’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the nation, but the number of Nebraskans who rely on government assistance for groceries has been on the rise — heading in the opposite direction of Iowa and the rest of the country. People who work with poor families say they don’t expect the number of Nebraskans on food stamps to fall anytime soon: Low wages are driving the need for benefits, those people say. And better outreach is helping more people access benefits than in the past…”
Why food stamp fraud is ‘fairly rampant’ at corner stores in some Chicago neighborhoods, By Greg Trotter, August 19, 2016, Chicago Tribune: “Food stamp trafficking often begins with an innocuous question. ‘Can I talk to you?’ Sami Deffala, who’s managed a corner store in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood for 13 years, said he hears that every day from customers vying for a private moment in hopes of using their Link cards to exchange SNAP benefits, the modern-day version of food stamps, for cash — an illegal practice called trafficking by federal regulators. And every day, Deffala said, he hears them out but refuses to take part in the scheme…”
