- States with expanded health coverage fight bill, By Kate Zernike, December 26, 2009, New York Times: “States that have already broadly expanded health care coverage are pushing back against the Senate overhaul bill, arguing that it unfairly penalizes them in favor of states that have done little or nothing to extend benefits to the uninsured. With tax revenues down and budgets breaking, the states – including Arizona, California, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin – say they cannot afford to essentially subsidize other states’ expansion of health care. The bill passed by the Senate on Thursday would move toward universal health insurance coverage in large part by expanding Medicaid, a program whose costs have traditionally been shared by the states and the federal government…”
- Health-policy experts say there is little basis for Sen. Nelson’s concerns about Medicaid expansion, By Alec MacGillis, December 19, 2009, Washington Post: “Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the final Democratic holdout on health-care legislation, said Thursday he is concerned not only about the use of federal dollars for abortion coverage, but also about the impact that expanding Medicaid would have on the finances of his home state. A Medicaid expansion would ‘create an underfunded federal mandate for the state of Nebraska,’ Nelson told a Nebraska radio station. He said states should be permitted to ‘opt out’ of the expansion and find other means of covering low-income residents. But Nelson’s concerns have little basis, according to health-care policy experts. In fact, over the next decade, such an expansion could benefit Nebraska more than it would many other states…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty