- Medicaid could be scaled back sharply under GOP plans, By Noam N. Levey, July 30, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “Nearly half a century after President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicaid into law, conservative critics of the massive government health insurance program for the poor are readying a new push to dramatically scale it back if Republicans control the White House and Congress next year. GOP governors, emboldened by the Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s healthcare law, are already balking at expanding Medicaid to meet the goals of the Affordable Care Act. Some are rolling back coverage now, arguing that the program is ineffective and unaffordable. At the same time, congressional Republicans, backed by influential conservative activists, are renewing calls to convert Medicaid into a series of smaller grants to states, reprising the successful GOP strategy that cut cash welfare programs in the mid-1990s…”
- Obama administration says states will join Medicaid expansion, By David Morgan, July 30, 2012, Chicago Tribune: “The Obama administration on Monday said it expects that U.S. states will eventually join its planned expansion of the Medicaid healthcare program as they evaluate the benefits of providing health coverage to more low-income people. U.S. Medicaid director Cindy Mann said states will likely spend the next several months analyzing the plan, which under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, would extend health coverage to about 16 million uninsured people based on new criteria that broadens eligibility to people with incomes of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty