- Supreme Court to decide on health care payments for poor people, By David G. Savage, January 18, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “The Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will decide whether to give California and other cash-strapped states more freedom to reduce how much they pay to doctors, hospitals and other providers under the Medicaid program for poor people. The case, which involves about $1 billion in Medicaid cutbacks adopted by the California legislature in 2008 but blocked by federal courts, could greatly complicate the national debate over the funding of health care, as the states try to cut back on their Medicaid spending, while the Obama administration tries to hold the line. Gov. Jerry Brown, in his initial budget plan this year, proposed to slash by 10% what the state pays to these health care providers, which would save the state nearly $719 million…”
- U.S. Supreme Court to take Medi-Cal lawsuit case, By Bob Egelko, January 19, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle: “The U.S. Supreme Court granted California’s request Tuesday to decide whether the state can be sued for cutting fees to doctors and hospitals that treat poor people, a case that will affect Gov. Jerry Brown’s ability to reduce spending for social services. Federal courts in the last two years have blocked attempts by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to lower Medi-Cal payments and in-home care workers’ wages by hundreds of millions of dollars, saying federal laws require states to maintain poor people’s access to basic health care. On Tuesday, the high court agreed to decide whether the lower courts should have even considered those cases. The state denies it is violating the law and argues that only the federal government can enforce the laws governing Medicaid, the federal-state program known as Medi-Cal in California. Medi-Cal providers and their patients have no right to sue a state for allegedly violating federal Medicaid rules, lawyers for California told the Supreme Court…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty