Indiana reinstates time limits for some food stamp recipients, By Maureen Groppe, October 20, 2014, Indianapolis Star: “Indiana will begin cutting off food stamp benefits next year to tens of thousands of people who fail to get a job or train for work. Beginning in the spring, the state will limit benefits to no more than three months during a three-year period for able-bodied adults without children who don’t work or participate in job training for at least 20 hours a week. The time limit is a requirement for the federally funded program, but states can ask for a waiver if jobs are scarce in all or part of the state. Although Indiana is among the majority of states that qualify for a waiver, the state plans to reinstate the requirement…”
Tag: Indiana
Affordable Care Act and Medicaid
- In rural Kentucky, health-care debate takes back seat as the long-uninsured line up, By Stephanie McCrummen, November 23, 2013, Washington Post: “On the campaign trail, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was still blasting the new health-care law as unsalvageable. At the White House, President Obama was still apologizing for the botched federal Web site. But in a state where the rollout has gone smoothly, and in a county that is one of the poorest and unhealthiest in the country, Courtney Lively has been busy signing people up: cashiers from the IGA grocery, clerks from the dollar store, workers from the lock factory, call-center agents, laid-off coal miners, KFC cooks, Chinese green-card holders in town to teach Appalachian students…”
- Medicaid expansion’s tale of two states: Kentucky ‘haves’ vs. Indiana ‘have-nots’, By Laura Unger, December 1, 2013, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Lorinda Fox of New Albany, Ind., hasn’t been to a doctor since her last child was born 21 years ago. Poor and uninsured, she treats her illnesses with over-the-counter remedies. At age 58, she knows she’s taking chances with her health, especially since she recently began having heart palpitations and chest pain. ‘I’ll do the same thing I always do — gut it out,’ said Fox, who lives with her hearing-impaired daughter and earns about $12,000 a year working in retail. ‘I don’t know what else I can do.’ If Fox lived in Kentucky, she would qualify for expanded Medicaid next year under the Affordable Care Act. But she lives in a state where she makes too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, and politicians have chosen not to expand Medicaid as Obamacare intended, contending that Indiana taxpayers can’t afford it…”
- Michigan embraces Medicaid expansion to help inmates, By Guy Gugliotta, November 30, 2013, Washington Post: “When Medicaid expands next year under the federal health-care law to include all adults living close to the poverty line, one group of eligible beneficiaries will be several million men and women who have spent time in state and federal prisons and jails. The Justice Department estimates that former inmates and detainees will constitute about 35 percent of the people who will qualify for Medicaid coverage in the states expanding their programs to anyone earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $15,000 for an individual in 2013. The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that 9 million people will get the new coverage next year…”
States and Medicaid Expansion
- Working poor losing Obamacare as states resist Medicaid, By Alex Wayne and David Mildenberg, June 24, 2013, Bloomberg: “Rose Ruiz collects $8 an hour cooking, cleaning, checking the oxygen tanks and changing the diapers for a 67-year-old diabetic confined to a studio apartment on the south side of Austin, Texas. Ruiz, a home health aide to Medicaid patients, has no medical insurance herself. Her best shot at getting access to doctors and medicines for her own needs was through President Barack Obama’s expansion of the federal-state Medicaid programs. That hope was scuttled for Ruiz and thousands of other health-care workers across Texas when the state opted out of the Medicaid expansion earlier this month. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the U.S…”
- Pence team not working on Medicaid expansion alternative, By Dan Carden, June 25, 2013, Times of Northwest Indiana: “With just three months until millions of low-income Americans start signing up for an expanded Medicaid program, the Pence administration revealed Tuesday it has yet to begin talking with the federal government about creating an Indiana alternative. Debra Minott, Indiana’s secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, told the General Assembly’s Health Finance Commission the governor believes preserving the Healthy Indiana Plan, which covers 37,316 participants, is a higher priority than negotiating a Medicaid alternative, which would cover some 400,000 Hoosiers…”
- Despite rejection of Medicaid expansion, next steps in Obamacare set to begin in Wisconsin, By David Wahlberg, June 24, 2013, Wisconsin State Journal: “Though the Legislature last week approved Gov. Scott Walker’s rejection of an optional Medicaid expansion under federal health care reform, the next steps in carrying out the rest of the law are expected to unfold this summer. ‘Navigators’ will be hired to help people enroll in coverage for next year, and details of the private insurance plans to be offered will be released. Outreach campaigns will pick up, including a ‘Get Covered America’ effort launched last week by former campaign staffers for President Barack Obama and ‘Time for Affordability,’ organized by America’s Health Insurance Plans…”