- Arizona Medicaid cuts seen as a sign of the times, By Kevin Sack, December 4, 2010, New York Times: “With enrollments exploding, revenues shrinking and the low-hanging fruit plucked long ago, virtually every state has had to make painful cuts to its Medicaid program during the economic downturn. What distinguishes the reductions recently imposed in Arizona, where coverage was eliminated on Oct. 1 for certain transplants of the heart, liver, lung, pancreas and bone marrow, is the decision to stop paying for treatments urgently needed to ward off death. The cuts in transplant coverage, which could deny organs to 100 adults currently on the transplant list, are testament to both the severity of fiscal pressures on the states and the particular bloodlessness of budget-cutting in Arizona…”
- Study: Millions could lose health coverage if Texas opts out of Medicaid, By Robert T. Garrett, December 3, 2010, Dallas Morning News: “Up to 2.6 million Texans could lose health coverage if the state opts out of Medicaid, but rising costs make the program very hard to maintain, a new state study warns. Texas faces ‘a no-win dilemma’ because withdrawing from Medicaid would mean a loss of about $15 billion in federal funds a year, representing about one-tenth of the state’s health care sector, said the report released by two state agencies Friday. And that would allow other states to siphon off that money, some of it from Texas taxpayers…”
- Redefine federal-state relationship with Medicaid, report says, By Tim Eaton, December 3, 2010, Austin American-Statesman: “If Texas were to opt out of Medicaid, as Gov. Rick Perry and other politicians have suggested, medical providers would lose about $15 billion in federal money, and the state would be hard-pressed to provide health care for poor people, according to a new report Friday. As the report circulated, Perry backtracked on his earlier suggestions, and he and other officials talked about hopes of reinventing the federal-state health care program for 3.2 million mostly poor, young and disabled Texans…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty