Study: Selling health insurance at Christmas is bad idea, By Louise Radnofsky, June 26, 2014, Wall Street Journal: “Tax preparers and some other advocates have complained for a while that the health law’s insurance sign-up period is timed wrong. Now they have a paper in the journal Health Affairs to back them up. Asking lower-income people to contemplate buying coverage around the holiday season is a bad idea, because their decision-making capacity is stretched too thin, say two health policy professors. Crafters of the Affordable Care Act originally envisaged the open enrollment period as a fall activity that would coincide with the sign-up periods for Medicare and also the time when many Americans who get coverage through their jobs have to renew their elections. . .”
Tag: Applicants
TANF Applicants – Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania denies 75 percent of welfare applicants, By Kate Giammarise, April 20, 2014, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The vast majority of applicants for welfare benefits in Pennsylvania are rejected every month, data from the state show, and some blame a 2012 change in state law for sharply increasing the rate at which people are rejected from the program. About 75 percent or more applicants for cash assistance are turned down every month — leaving needy families without aid, advocates say. The change? Beginning in July 2012, state law required applicants to apply to at least three jobs a week — including while their application for assistance is still pending, which can be several weeks. Previously, an applicant would be required to fulfill the program’s work requirement after being approved for assistance, rather than prior to approval…”
Assistance Programs and Drug Testing
Some states still pushing drug testing for welfare, By Jake Grovum, March 6, 2014, Stateline: “From written tests designed to flag drug users to singling out people with recent drug convictions, state lawmakers across the country are pursuing novel strategies to deny welfare benefits to drug users without running afoul of a recent federal court ruling. In December, a federal judge in Florida struck down the state’s drug-test requirement. But almost half the states are considering drug-testing bills designed to withstand legal scrutiny. In Alabama, Indiana and Mississippi, such measures already have advanced by overwhelming majorities…”