- G.O.P. in Arizona is pushed to expand Medicaid, By Fernanda Santos, March 10, 2013, New York Times: “In the battle to get the Medicaid expansion being championed by Gov. Jan Brewer approved by the state’s legislators, her closest advisers are hanging their hopes on the number eight. That is how many of the 17 Republicans in the State Senate they believe they can get on their side. They were working on an equally modest tally in the State House of Representatives, an unusual state of affairs for a staunchly conservative governor: her most reliable supporters on this issue are on the other side of the aisle, in the Legislature’s usually powerless Democratic minority…”
- Fla. Senate panel rejects Medicaid expansion, By Kelli Kennedy and Gary Fineout (AP), March 11, 2013, Miami Herald: “A Florida Senate committee voted Monday against expanding Medicaid to roughly 1 million of the state’s poorest under the federal health overhaul and instead proposed a voucher plan that would require patients to pay premiums and co-pays…”
- Medicaid expansion is rejected in Florida, By Lizette Alvarez, March 11, 2013, New York Times: “Rebuffing Gov. Rick Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion, a Florida Senate committee on Monday rejected the idea, all but ending the possibility that the state would add more poor people to Medicaid rolls. But the Senate panel debating the expansion proposed a compromise: to accept the federal money but use it to put low-income people into private insurance plans. Accepting the money would please the governor and a number of Floridians, while steering people away from Medicaid, which many lawmakers and residents view as troubled…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty