Poverty rate among Hispanics in Nebraska soars, By Henry J. Cordes, January 5, 2015, Omaha World-Herald: “Maria Benitez’s husband brings home $80 a day from his job painting houses. She supplements that by selling Mexican candies in South Omaha from a cart she pushes down the street. But after paying rent and other bills, there’s often not much money left to feed the couple and their three children. That’s why the 50-year-old Benitez recently stood in a light snow outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Church accepting free sack lunches handed out by James Parsons, who runs a street ministry assisting Omaha’s needy…”
Tag: Nebraska
Free School Lunch Program
Free lunch pilot program lets districts feed everyone at high-poverty schools, By Erin Duffy, December 15, 2014, Omaha World-Herald: “Omaha Public Schools officials hope a new free lunch pilot program being launched in six schools will speed up lunch lines, cut paperwork and fill more rumbling tummies. Starting Jan. 20, six high-poverty schools in north Omaha will start serving free meals to all students, regardless of income, no questions asked. Only one other school district in the state — Santee Community Schools, a reservation school in Niobrara with fewer than 200 students — has opted in for the program, a piece of the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010…”
Medicaid Expansion – Maine, Nebraska
- Maine House takes up struggling Medicaid expansion bill, By Mario Moretto, March 18, 2014, Bangor Daily News: “About a week after it passed the Senate, but with less than the two-thirds support needed to muscle past a certain gubernatorial veto, the Maine House of Representatives on Tuesday will consider a bill aimed at expanding Medicaid to more than 70,000 low-income Mainers as part of the federal Affordable Care Act…”
- Nebraska lawmakers won’t expand Medicaid this year, By Christine Scalora (AP), March 19, 2104, Centre Daily Times: “A proposal to expand health care coverage to low-income Nebraskans won’t make it out of the Legislature this year. Lawmakers fell six votes short of stopping the filibuster on the bill Wednesday after debating the measure for eight hours. It will not be taken up again in this legislative session. The ‘Wellness in Nebraska Act,’ laid out a plan to help cover health care costs for about 54,000 residents by mid-2015 through a combination of Medicaid and subsidized private health insurance. It would cost an estimated $62 million between July of this year and June 2020…”