Medicaid bill would require ‘able-bodied’ Iowa adults to work or study, By Tony Leys, February 7, 2018, Des Moines Register: “In order to qualify for Medicaid health insurance, ‘able-bodied’ Iowans would have to work at a job or attend school or job training under a bill introduced recently in the Legislature. Under the bill, Iowa would join several other states in seeking federal permission to implement such work requirements on Medicaid, which is jointly financed and run by federal and state governments…”
Medicaid work requirement wouldn’t change much in Louisiana, February 7, 2018, New Orleans Times Picayune: “Even though requiring Medicaid recipients to work is one of the few areas in which Gov. John Bel Edwards and Republican legislators agree, experts say implementing the rules may not have much of an impact…”
Iowa’s foster care system pushes to reunite children with their birthparents, By Molly Duffy and Michaela Ramm, November 27, 2017, The Gazette: “Breanne French had been caring for the baby boy, whose bloodcurdling screaming fits finally had started to dissipate, for nine months when the Iowa Department of Human Services gave him back to his birth mother. The 11-month-old child had spent most of his life in one of two places: with Breanne, a licensed foster parent, and in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. His birth mother was in a rehabilitation facility for heroin use when she went into labor, and for the first two months of his life, doctors and nurses were weaning him off the drug…”
Unknowns of temporarily caring for children in foster care means Iowa’s foster parents feel ‘every emotion’, By Molly Duffy, November 27, 2017, The Gazette: “When children like Nicolas are removed from their birth families, the Iowa Department of Human Services often places them with adults who are, to the children, little more than strangers. But by the time a child is given to licensed foster parents, state agents have spent months digging into their pasts…”
Iowa’s social workers see growing foster care caseloads, By Michaela Ramm, November 27, 2017, The Gazette: “As a social worker and a foster parent, Emily Steeples sees foster care’s shortcomings up close. Steeples is a foster and adoptive family connections specialist for Four Oaks in Cedar Rapids, which provides support for families across most of the state. She and her spouse, Krista Kronstein, 36, also have been foster parents since 2015…”
Most children in Iowa’s foster care system reunite with their birthparents, some never find their way back, By Molly Duffy, November 27, 2017, The Gazette: “After the state moved Nicolas back into the care of his birth mother, Breanne French tried to accept he wasn’t hers to keep. After nine months of taking care of the baby boy as a foster care placement, his birth mother was in recovery from drug addiction and passing drug tests. Although the Iowa Department of Human Services had returned Nicolas to her, social workers still were involved with the birth mother and her baby, but they were making progress together…”
Medicaid cuts to roughly 40,000 Iowans approved by the feds, By Clark Kauffman, October 31, 2017, Des Moines Register: “Over the protests of hospitals and medical providers, Iowa has received federal approval to reduce coverage for new Medicaid beneficiaries. An estimated 40,000 Iowans are expected to be affected by the change, which will reduce their coverage for medical care delivered in the days and weeks before they are officially declared eligible for Medicaid…”
Maine voters to decide if state will expand Medicaid, By Casey Leins, November 1, 2017, US News & World Report: “On Nov. 7, Maine voters will be the first in the nation to determine the fate of Medicaid expansion in their state. The issue has been a contentious one in Maine since the 2012 Supreme Court ruling granting states the power to decide whether to expand the program to more low-income Americans. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed the legislature’s five attempts to expand Medicaid, arguing that it is a measure of ‘pure welfare’ that would significantly impact taxpayers, according to The New York Times…”
