Native Justice Center’s re-entry program helps ex-inmates fight long odds, By Michelle Theriault Boots, November 29, 2012, Anchorage Daily News: “For inmates getting out of prison in Alaska, the odds are abysmal. Two-thirds will go back into Department of Corrections custody within three years, a 2007 study by the Alaska Judicial Council found. In the same period, 44 percent of them will be jailed for a new crime, the highest rate in the nation, according to data from a 2011 Pew Center for the States report. That steep climb out of prison prompted the Alaska Native Justice Center to create a re-entry program to help people who have spent years and sometimes decades incarcerated start new lives while bearing the stigma of their pasts…”
Tag: Alaska
State Children’s Health Insurance Program – Alaska
- Alaska governor vetoes Denali KidCare expansion, By Dan Joling (AP), June 3, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “Gov. Sean Parnell announced Thursday he will veto expansion of a health insurance program for low-income families because he recently found out the program pays for abortions. ‘I oppose expanding the government’s role in funding abortions,’ Parnell said at a news conference outlining vetoes to the operating and capital budgets. An estimated 18,000 children in Alaska, about 9 percent of the residents age 18 and under, are uninsured. The Alaska version of the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, Denali KidCare, covers 7,900 Alaska children. Expansion would have added 1,277 more children and 225 pregnant women, according to state Sen. Betty Davis, the Anchorage Democrat who sponsored the bill…”
- Legislators reluctant to override governor’s KidCare funds veto, By Sean Cockerham, June 9, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens is polling the Senate to see if its members support going into special session and overriding Gov. Sean Parnell’s veto of money to expand Denali KidCare. But Stevens said he doesn’t think there’s enough support for a veto override and personally opposes having a special session. Stevens is taking the poll at the request of Anchorage Democratic Sen. Hollis French. French is a part of the bipartisan majority in the Senate and he’s also running against the Republican Parnell for governor in this year’s election. French and three other Democratic senators, Bettye Davis, Johnny Ellis and Bill Wielechowski, on Tuesday called on Parnell to change his mind about Denali KidCare and bring the Legislature into special session to override the veto. Parnell spokeswoman Sharon Leighow responded that is not going to happen…”
Enrollment of Children in Medicaid – Alaska
Increased Medicaid usage spikes cost, By Lisa Demer, March 7, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “The single biggest item in the Alaska state budget is experiencing a costly growth spurt. It’s Medicaid — the state-federal insurance program for poor and low-income people. The cost is sure to top $1.2 billion this budget year and is expected to scale $1.3 billion the next. About 11,000 more children enrolled in the last 18 months. Doctors’ rates went up. And more people eligible for the program began to use it, perhaps out of anxiety over all the talk in Congress about national health care reform. A weakened state economy is at least partly to blame, a legislative consultant told lawmakers recently. The state unemployment rate is rising, and along with it, the numbers of Alaskans turning to food stamps and Medicaid, consultant Janet Clarke, a former top official in the state Department of Health and Social Services, told the House Finance Committee recently…”