Archive for May 26th, 2011 (older external links may be broken)
Thursday, May 26th, 2011 at 21:50
| Categories: Health, Poverty
| Tags: Arizona, Health care costs, Health insurance coverage, Kentucky, Medicaid, States
- AHCCCS cutbacks get legal challenge, By Howard Fischer, May 24, 2011, Arizona Daily Star: “An attorney wants the Arizona Supreme Court to block Gov. Jan Brewer from eliminating health care for more than 100,000 Arizonans. A lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of some who would be affected by the change contends the state is violating the requirements of a 2000 voter-approved measure mandating free care for anyone below the federal poverty level. Attorney Tim Hogan of the Center for Law in the Public Interest said the initiative makes Brewer’s plan to stop enrolling childless adults and some others in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System illegal…”
- Kentucky moves step closer to new Medicaid plan, By Deborah Yetter, May 25, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “With the bid deadline past, Kentucky has moved closer to turning most of its Medicaid program over to outside managed care organizations - a move the state hopes will improve efficiency and cut costs in the $6.5 billion-a-year health plan for the poor and disabled. Officials refused to identify any of the bidders who met the 3:30 p.m. Wednesday deadline, citing confidentiality of the bidding process. Don Speer, who is overseeing the bids for the state Finance and Administration Cabinet, declined even to say how many companies entered bids…”
Thursday, May 26th, 2011 at 21:37
| Categories: Assistance Programs, Food and Nutrition
| Tags: Connecticut, Enrollment, Florida, SNAP/Food Stamps
- Food stamp use explodes in the suburbs, By Janice Podsada, May 18, 2011, Hartford Courant: “Nhan Do, a supervisor at Five Star Farmers Market in Hartford, says she always schedules extra people to work the first three days of the month. Those are ‘big shopping days’ for people who use food stamps. Despite modest job gains, Do and other area merchants say they haven’t seen a reduction in the number of customers using food stamps. On the contrary, the number of Connecticut people enrolled in the federal food stamp program has been climbing for 28 consecutive months in a steady progression during and after the officially declared national recession…”
- 1 in 6 getting food stamps in Volusia, By Anne Geggis, May 25, 2011, Daytona Beach News-Journal: “More than one of out every six Volusia residents got government help buying food in March, according to statistics released this week that show a dramatic increase in assistance in the past four years. In Flagler County, three of every 20 residents got help. That translates into nearly 100,000 people in the two counties. Comparing data from before the recession began, in March 2007 to March of this year, the latest statistics available, the number of area residents getting food stamps increased by nearly 189 percent…”
Thursday, May 26th, 2011 at 21:26
| Categories: Education, Poverty
| Tags: New Jersey, School funding, Schools
- N.J. high court’s Abbott ruling means other school districts will still be short funding, By Jeanette Rundquist and Jessica Calefati, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling means the state’s 31 poorest districts get to share $500 million in additional state aid. But it also means some 550 districts will go without. ’Once again, districts like Woodbridge and Piscataway have been left out in the cold,’ said John Crowe, the superintendent in Woodbridge. He said it is ‘disheartening to think a student who is born into poverty in Woodbridge somehow requires less assistance than a student born into poverty in another district.’ Crowe, along with other suburban superintendents, said Tuesday’s ruling short-changed their district despite the fact they, too, may educate at-risk children…”
- Tracing the history of rulings on school funding in poor N.J. cities, By Jeanette Rundquist, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “In 1875, in an effort to get control of a patchwork public school system, the New Jersey state Legislature amended New Jersey’s constitution and made it the state’s responsibility to provide a ‘thorough and efficient system of free public schools.’ For more than 100 years since, the state’s courts and elected officials have wrestled with those eight words. The participants and dollar amounts have changed over the years, but the issue has largely been the same: how to give children in New Jersey’s poorest cities the same level of education as those in its wealthiest communities. The state Supreme Court took another stab at the issue Tuesday, ordering the state to increase school funding to poor districts by $500 million. Here is a look back at decisions leading up to Tuesday…”
- N.J. high court orders more school funding, By Rita Giordano, May 25, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the state to come up with $500 million more to aid certain poor and largely urban school districts next year, finding that the state did not enforce its own law or live up to promises made to the court. However, the justices, in their highly anticipated decision, declined to restore the full amount of the state’s aid shortfall - about $1.6 billion - that could have benefited many districts, including others with low-income children. The strongly worded, 3-2 ruling requires the additional funds for only the 31 former Abbott districts, which through more than two decades of corrective court orders had come to receive a large share of state aid. They still do, but the state funding formula, enacted under Gov. Jon S. Corzine, sought to spread money more evenly to other districts with poor children…”
