No car, no care? Medicaid transport program faces cuts in some states, By Jonel Aleccia, January 27, 2018, National Public Radio: “Unable to walk or talk, barely able to see or hear, 5-year-old Maddie Holt of Everett, Wash., waits in her wheelchair for a ride to the hospital. The 27-pound girl is dressed in polka-dot pants and a flowered shirt for the trip, plus a red headband with a sparkly bow, two wispy blond ponytails poking out on top of her head. Her parents can’t drive her. They both have disabling vision problems; and, besides, they can’t afford a car. When Maddie was born in 2012 with the rare and usually fatal genetic condition called Zellweger syndrome, Meagan and Brandon Holt, then in their early 20s, were plunged into a world of overwhelming need — and profound poverty…”
Category: Health
Medicaid Work Requirements
- Medicaid patients sue over Trump administration’s new work requirement policy, By Noam N. Levey, January 24, 2018, Los Angeles Times: “Kicking off what will likely be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s push to reshape Medicaid, 15 low-income Kentucky residents sued the federal government Wednesday, challenging the recent move to allow states to impose work requirements on some Medicaid enrollees. The lawsuit — spearheaded by three public-interest legal groups — accuses the federal Department of Health and Human Services of violating the core purpose of the half-century-old government health plan for the poor by granting a request from Kentucky to impose the work mandate…”
- Kentucky’s new idea for Medicaid access: Pass health literacy course, By Austin Frakt, January 22, 2018, New York Times: “If you’re on Medicaid in Kentucky and are kicked off the rolls for failing to meet the state’s new work requirements, Kentucky will be offering a novel way to reactivate your medical coverage: a health or financial literacy course you must pass…”
- Work requirements may prompt more states to expand Medicaid, By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (AP), January 23, 2018, Seattle Times: “In an ironic twist, the Trump administration’s embrace of work requirements for low-income people on Medicaid is prompting lawmakers in some conservative states to resurrect plans to expand health care for the poor. Trump’s move has been widely criticized as threatening the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. But if states follow through, more Americans could get coverage…”
- Missouri is looking at work requirements for Medicaid, By Sky Chadde, January 26, 2017, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Missouri appears headed toward requiring Medicaid recipients find jobs to receive their benefits. On Jan. 11, President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would allow states to implement work requirements for adults under the age of 65 on Medicaid who don’t have disabilities or who are pregnant. The next day, Kentucky was granted a waiver to its Medicaid program that allowed work requirements…”
Maternal Mortality – Texas
Dangerous deliveries, By Marissa Evans and Chris Essig, January 16, 2018, Texas Tribune: “In the photos flashing on the projector screen, Michelle Zavala had a look of serenity. In one, her eyes were closed as she smiled with her newborn daughter Clara nestled under her chin. Another showed her kissing her husband Chris on vacation. Another captured her laughing while stomping grapes at a vineyard, radiating the positivity that people loved about her. Below the screen, Michelle lay in a casket, surrounded by bouquets of flowers. The Pflugerville woman died in July — just nine days after giving birth to Clara — from a blood clot in her heart. She was 35. Across the United States, maternal mortality — when a mother dies from pregnancy-related complications while pregnant or within 42 days of giving birth — jumped by 27 percent between 2000 and 2014, according to a 2016 study published in the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology…”