- Medicaid managed care programs grow; so do issues, By Phil Galewitz, November 12, 2010, USA Today: “After Tonya Bauserman slipped in a grocery store and hurt her right knee last July, an emergency room doctor prescribed painkillers and told her to see an orthopedic surgeon. But Bauserman, 27, who’s insured by a Medicaid managed health care plan called HealthCare USA, says she had trouble finding an orthopedist in her plan who would see her. Finally, she drove 2½ hours to Columbia from her home in a northwestern suburb here to see a physician, who fitted her for a brace and recommended physical therapy. HealthCare USA later said it wouldn’t pay for the brace. Furious, Bauserman says her experience was ‘crazy.’ But it’s not uncommon. Primary care physicians in the area say a shortage of specialists in Medicaid managed-care networks makes it difficult sometimes to refer patients…”
- Battle lines drawn over Medicaid in Texas, By Emily Ramshaw and Marilyn Serafini, November 11, 2010, New York Times: “A week after newly emboldened Republicans in the Texas Legislature floated a radical cost-saving proposal – opting out of the federal Medicaid program – health care experts, economists and think tanks are trying to determine just how serious they are, and if it would even be possible. The answer? It is complicated. But that is not stopping some conservative lawmakers in nearly a dozen other states, frantic over budget shortfalls and anticipating new costs from the federal health care overhaul, from exploring it. ‘States feel like their backs are against the wall, so this is the nuclear option for them,’ said Christie Herrera, director of the health and human services task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association for conservative state lawmakers. ‘I’m hearing below-the-radar chatter from legislators around the country from states considering this option…'”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty