- Health Reform, the States and Medicaid, Editorial, January 9, 2010, New York Times: “The country needs health care reform, and Congress should move quickly to pass legislation. But as House and Senate leaders work to forge a consensus bill for final approval, they should look for ways to lessen the Medicaid burden on hard-pressed state budgets – and ensure that relief is fairly apportioned. One of the important goals is to extend coverage to more low-income Americans. The bills quite sensibly require the states to expand Medicaid and offer them generous federal support to do so. Even then, the states – whose Medicaid budgets are already badly stretched – will have to put up substantial money of their own…”
- Wary of health care reform, Gibbons weighs rejecting federal Medicaid funds, By David McGrath Schwartz, January 15, 2010, Las Vegas Sun: “In the latest in a series of conservative policy initiatives released by the Republican governor, Jim Gibbons is considering whether Nevada should drop out of the federal Medicaid program, one of the cornerstone safety net programs that provide health care to the poor, disabled and elderly and that cover thousands of Nevadans. Health and Human Services Director Mike Willden was asked to ‘take a serious look’ at opting out of the massive federal program this week. Triggering the interest is concern about the health care reform bill being debated in Congress, said Stacy Woodbury, Gibbons’ deputy chief of staff. The state has estimated that the federal requirement to expand Medicaid under the bill will cost Nevada $636 million from 2014 to 2019, when the 100 percent federal subsidy in the health care reform bill expires…”
- Governor suggests state exit Medicaid, By Ed Vogel, January 15, 2010, Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked staff members to explore whether the state can drop out of the Medicaid program, which provides free health care to more than 233,000 Nevadans. A Gibbons spokesman said Thursday that because of the bad economy, the state can no longer cover most Medicaid recipients, though the federal government provides most of the funding. He said things will only get worse if Congress approves the health care bill. Under the health care legislation being considered by a Senate-House conference committee, Nevada would pay an additional $613 million between 2014 and 2019, to provide health care through Medicaid for another 328,000 residents. It would pay no additional Medicaid costs in the three years before 2014. Daniel Burns, the governor’s communications director, said if the idea of dropping Medicaid proves feasible, the state would use its own money to continue to provide care for those who might otherwise be left behind, including the seriously ill and disabled…”
- Rising costs make Arizona’s health care program a budget challenge and a political football, By Paul Davenport (AP), January 12, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Arizona’s Medicaid program has become both a budget headache and a political football, with its costly burgeoning enrollment and the possibility that national health care legislation will add even more red ink on the deficit-plagued state’s bottom line. Enrollment in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment Program has soared in the past decade, thanks to the recession and an earlier voter-mandated lowering of income eligibility thresholds. One in six Arizonans now is enrolled in AHCCCS, or one of every six state residents…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty