- Medicaid cuts: Can Kentucky limit the pain?, By Deborah Yetter, August 8, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “State lawmakers trying to cut Medicaid costs might consider Morgan Drugs in Bedford, Trimble County’s only pharmacy. Owner and pharmacist Bob Yowler depends on business from Medicaid patients to help make ends meet. Many of his customers – especially elderly and low-income people who lack transportation – have no other good option for prescriptions and advice. And the store provides about a dozen jobs – not bad for a farm community with an unemployment rate of 14 percent, Yowler said. ‘It’s a Main Street business,’ he added. While pharmacy benefits are one of Medicaid’s most expensive programs, the services provided by Morgan Drugs show that the impact of the cuts will go well beyond the poor and disabled who receive benefits. And it provides a good example of the difficult decisions lawmakers face as they look for savings in the sprawling, $5.2 billion-a-year health plan…”
- Medicaid growth burning budget, By Catherine Candisky, August 8, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “The cost of Ohio’s largest safety-net program has nearly doubled in the past decade. Taxpayers spent $14.7 billion last year to provide health coverage to poor and disabled Ohioans as Medicaid – the largest and fastest growing segment of state government – now consumes about 26 percent of the state budget. ‘That is true of health care, period,’ Greg Moody, interim director of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, said of skyrocketing costs. “If you look at a person’s paycheck or a business’ bottom line that offers coverage, health care has been this constantly growing component and the same is true for state government…”
- Medicaid changes will hurt kids, dentists say, By Alison Knezevich, August 7, 2010, Charleston Gazette: “Fewer poor children in West Virginia will get dental care when the state changes the way it administers Medicaid later this year, a group representing dentists says. The West Virginia Dental Association believes the new set-up will burden dentists, resulting in more tax dollars being spent on administrative costs, rather than on services for needy kids, said the group’s director, Richard Stevens. The state Department of Health and Human Resources plans to contract with managed-care companies to administer benefits of patients enrolled in Medicaid, the state/federal health insurance program for the poor. These companies also are called health maintenance organizations…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty