- Florida Gov. Rick Scott supports Medicaid expansion, By Tia Mitchell and Steve Bousquet, February 21, 2013, Miami Herald: “Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday he supports expanding Medicaid and funneling billions of federal dollars to Florida, a significant policy reversal that could bring health care coverage to 1 million additional Floridians. ‘While the federal government is committed to pay 100 percent of the cost, I cannot, in good conscience, deny Floridians the needed access to health care,’ Scott said at a hastily called news conference at the Governor’s Mansion. Scott, a former hospital executive, spoke with unusual directness about helping the ‘poorest and weakest’ Floridians — a stunning about-face for a small-government Republican who was one of the loudest voices in an aggressive, and ultimately unsuccessful, legal strategy to kill a law he derided as ‘Obamacare…'”
- McDonnell urges no Medicaid expansion, By Laura Vozzella, February 21, 2013, Washington Post: “Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is urging state budget negotiators not to open the door to Medicaid expansion until reforms to the federal program have been approved and implemented. In a letter to the heads of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations committees, McDonnell (R) said Medicaid spending, which has grown 1,600 percent in Virginia in the past 30 years, presents a huge burden to the state even without expansion…”
Tag: Virginia
Student Homelessness – Washington DC
Homeless student population to crest 2,500 in Fairfax County for first time, By T. Rees Shapiro, October 20, 2012, Washington Post: “The number of homeless students in Fairfax County public schools is likely to surpass 2,500 by the end of this school year, according to school officials, what would be a new record for one of the most affluent communities in the nation. Experts say the increase in homelessness among students, from kindergarten to high school, is related to the lingering effects of the recession. This year’s total will be nearly 10 times the number of homeless students counted in county schools just 15 years ago…”
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
- Va. to stagger food-stamp payouts to ease crowding, By Jennifer Jiggetts, July 2, 2012, Virginian-Pilot: “The first of every month, about 440,000 households in the state get their monthly allotment of food stamps – now known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits – and many promptly head to their local grocery stores. Checkout lines can be much longer. Items such as Cheerios and broccoli can disappear from shelves. Some stores bring in extra staff. Only nine states do business this way. Now, that’s about to change in Virginia, as the state Department of Social Services will begin to alter the way it issues SNAP benefits in September. By October the benefits will be dispersed on the 1st, 4th, 7th and 9th of the month, based on the last digit of the recipient’s case number…”
- Funds at risk: Once known as food stamps, SNAP provides food to poor, By Melissa Miller, July 1, 2012, Southeast Missourian: “She used to work two jobs and made good money. Now a health condition keeps her from working full-time. So a 32-year-old Cape Girardeau single mom depends on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, to help her take care of her 3-year-old son. The $342 a month the woman, who asked not to be named, receives from the SNAP program could be cut as part of a plan to save taxpayer dollars and reduce fraud under the 2012 Farm Bill approved in June by the U.S. Senate. The bill, known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, provides subsidies to farmers and funds the USDA’s nutrition assistance programs for low-income Americans…”