California Healthline: Spring Recess Gives Way to Spring Work
by David Gorn The California Legislature yesterday returned to work after a 10-day spring recess. A small mountain of bills is in front of lawmakers who have until May 31 to pass bills off the floor. Health care legislation up for discussion includes: Medi-Cal simplification. AB 50 by Assembly member Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) would instruct the Department … Read more
The Hill: Senate Dems unveil changes to House bill funding government
By Erik Wasson - 03/07/13 03:30 PM ET Senate Democrats plan to significantly alter legislation from the House to avoid a government shutdown by tacking on three appropriations bills. Among other changes, their version of the continuing resolution (CR) would give the Obama administration greater flexibility to carry out this year’s $85 billion spending cut from … Read more
The Washington Post: House Republicans introduce bill to keep government running
By Rosalind S. Helderman, House Republicans on Monday introduced a bill that would avoid a government shutdown at the end of March but that also could mitigate some of the most striking effects of the across-the-board federal spending cuts enacted last week. But even though the proposed shifts would make the sequester slightly less indiscriminate — particularly for the military … Read more
USA Today: Obama, congressional leaders: No deal on sequester
David Jackson, USA TODAY3:55p.m. EST March 1, 2013 President Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal Friday ahead of the deadline for the sequester, $85 billion in automatic budget cuts that both sides say will be bad for the economy. WASHINGTON – Preparing to leap into the fiscal unknown, President Obama and congressional Republicans … Read more
Kaiser Family Foundation: Medicaid’s Role in Meeting the Long-Term Care Needs of America’s Seniors
This brief examines Medicaid’s key role in meeting the long-term care needs of seniors in the United States, particularly those with limited incomes. Medicaid is the nation’s primary payer of long-term services and supports, and state Medicaid programs provide a range of long-term care services. The brief includes state-by-state data on Medicaid enrollment and expenditures … Read more
NPQ: Sequestration Threatens Access at Community Health Centers
WRITTEN BY RUTH MCCAMBRIDGE CREATED ON WEDNESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2013 14:42 February 22, 2013; Source: San Antonio Business Journal According to the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), budget cuts triggered by sequestration pose the risk of a potential loss of $120 million to the nation’s health centers. That could result in 900,000 patients without access to regular … Read more
The Hill: Poll finds 15-point drop in Dem support for health law
By Elise Viebeck – 02/27/13 12:01 AM ET Democratic support for President Obama’s healthcare law has dropped 15 points since November, contributing to a rise in negative attitudes toward the reform, according to a new poll. Opponents of the Affordable Care Act currently outnumber supporters (42 percent to 36), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest … Read more
The Hill: GAO: Health law will increase deficit if cost-cutting steps stop
By Elise Viebeck - 02/26/13 03:12 PM ET The Affordable Care Act’s long-term deficit impact depends on the law’s cost-cutting measures and whether they survive over the next several decades, government auditors said Tuesday. In a new report, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that President Obama’s signature law could increase or decrease the deficit over … Read more
California Healthline: 5.3M Californians Drew Government Assistance in 2011, Report Finds
About 5.3 million California residents in 2011 received income-based government assistance — including health insurance benefits through Medi-Cal — according to a Census Bureau report, the Sacramento Bee‘s “Capitol Alert” reports (Walters, “Capitol Alert,” Sacramento Bee, 2/26). Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program. National Findings The report found that about 46 million U.S. residents received income-based government assistance in … Read more
NPQ: Governance, Anyone? The Stupidity of Sequestration
WRITTEN BY RICK COHEN CREATED ON TUESDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2013 13:20 February 19, 2013; Source: Washington Post The nation is peering into the abyss of the sequester, which is scheduled to take effect on March 1st and which would come with potentially devastating consequences to the domestic human needs programs that many nonprofits deliver in partnership with or on … Read more
