• State Medicaid programs face $141 million shortfall, report says, By Jason Stein, January 31, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Wisconsin’s health programs for the poor have a $141 million shortfall in state money over the next year and a half, new estimates show. So far, GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has saving plans that would more that cover that potential deficit in the state’s Medicaid health programs. But a new report by the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office questions whether all of the saving will materialize. With costs in the program still substantial and the saving uncertain, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau found in its new report that the finances of the health programs will need careful monitoring. The report comes ahead of new estimates expected next week that should shed more light on the overall condition of the state’s strained budget…”
• Medicaid rolls rose even as Pa. disqualified many, new calculation shows, By Don Sapatkin, January 26, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare’s stepped-up efforts over the summer to target waste, fraud, and abuse quickly bore fruit in the fall. Adult Medicaid enrollment alone was down 109,000 through November. Cause and effect seemed clear. Advocates for the poor and disabled were outraged. Now, DPW has suddenly changed its reporting method. Revised calculations show a decline of just 6,000 participants for the same period. And when December is added in, enrollment is up by 23,000 since August - a time when officials agree that tens of thousands of people lost benefits after overdue reviews found they were ineligible. DPW says the new reporting method is just as accurate as the old one, merely different. But it will not disclose its new method or recalculate the latest Medicaid data using the old formula…”
• Medicaid copays could increase in South Dakota, By Megan Luther, January 31, 2012, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “Medicaid recipients in South Dakota will face larger copays for their medication if the federal government signs off on a state plan designed to drive down costs in the program that provides health care to poor people. Requiring the larger copays is one of 11 recommendations put forth by the Medicaid Solutions Work Group, an assembly of health care providers, lawmakers and state employees assigned with finding savings the the program. The group began work last year at the request of Gov. Dennis Daugaard…”
• Medicaid change to cut pharmacy payments in Texas, By Jim Fuquay, January 28, 2012, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “When Marwan Hattab opened Wedgwood Pharmacy just over a year ago, he knew from his previous years in the business how much it costs to fill a prescription. And he knows it’s quite a bit more than he’ll be paid under a new reimbursement system for Texas’ Medicaid program. The state’s move to managed care for Medicaid prescriptions goes into effect March 1, and Hattab and other independent pharmacists say they stand to lose money on every prescription they write for the federal/state healthcare program for the poor. A coalition of Texas pharmacies said last week that the dispensing fee that pharmacists receive for filing a Texas Medicaid prescription will plunge from about $6.50 to as little as $1.35. The change is part of legislation passed last year that aims to save the state an estimated $100 million over the next two years…”

Investigator finds overpayments in food-stamp system, By Jason Stein, January 15, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In just two months, private investigators found nearly a half-million dollars in overpayments and cost savings in two state aid programs for the needy in Milwaukee County, with much more expected to be added up in the coming weeks. The findings of fraud in public food assistance and health care programs come after budget cuts left such investigations painfully neglected in many parts of the state, including Milwaukee County - the state’s largest urban area. For the past year, the Journal Sentinel has been reporting about fraud and other problems in the FoodShare program. The contractor looked at 111 suspicious cases in FoodShare and Medicaid health programs such as BadgerCare Plus and found overpayments in every case. So far, the total overpayments have been tallied up in only 62 of those cases, or just over half. But the total overpayments and future cost savings will likely come close to $1 million when it’s all added up, with most of that due to fraud, said Ed O’Brien, who heads the investigative firm O’Brien & Associates…”

• Jobless benefits change to start this week, By Josh Lintereur and Chad Dally, January 2, 2012, Wausau Daily Herald: “A new state budget provision requiring a one-week waiting period before unemployed workers can begin collecting unemployment benefits takes effect this week. The new provision will affect the newly unemployed and those already collecting benefits. In some cases, it will result in a laid-off worker receiving one less check than he or she would have in the past. State lawmakers made the change as part of the 2011-13 biennial budget, meaning Wisconsin will join more than three dozen states that already have instituted waiting periods. State labor officials said the delay will save an estimated $45.2 million a year by allowing additional time to determine eligibility and reduce improper payments, and by pushing the payment schedule back…”
• Many of state’s jobless struggle: No benefits, no job and no luck finding one, By Scott Davis, December 29, 2011, Lansing State Journal: “Thousands of Michigan’s unemployed have a renewed lifeline with last week’s extension of federal jobless benefits. But Virona Brown could be among the thousands who will begin the New Year with no job prospects, unreturned calls on employment applications and no unemployment check to pay basic necessities. Though Michigan’s unemployment rate dipped to 9.8 percent last month, the Lansing woman and several others say they are still struggling to find employment in the region…”

• State scales back Medicaid shortfall by $300 million, By Jason Stein, January 3, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In a bit of good news for the state’s strained budget, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is scaling back by more than $300 million the two-year shortfall projected for state health programs for the poor. But a state health department spokeswoman said that to ensure the state health programs remain affordable, the Walker administration will still seek to proceed with a half-billion dollars in proposed cuts affecting tens of thousands of recipients. In a letter to lawmakers Tuesday, the head of the Department of Health Services said that the shortfall through June 2013 is now expected to be $232 million in state and federal money, down from the $554 million that was projected in September. The change in the projections amounts to about 2% of the funding in the program, Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith wrote in a letter to members of the Joint Finance Committee…”
• Medicaid payment backlog cripples supportive living centers, By Dean Olsen, January 3, 2012, State Journal-Register: “Medicaid payment delays of up to six months are causing fits for supportive living centers throughout Illinois, and some owners are worried they may have to close if the situation doesn’t improve soon. ‘It’s a crisis for us because reserves and lines of credit are being exhausted,’ Wayne Smallwood, executive director of the Springfield-based Affordable Assisted Living Coalition, said last week. ‘This is the worst we’ve seen, and there’s no relief in sight.’ Illinois’ festering budget problems, the sagging economy and the end of the federal economic stimulus program in June have contributed to growing payment delays that also hamstring nursing homes, hospitals, doctors and other medical providers…”
• Nowhere to go, patients linger in hospitals, at a high cost, By Sam Roberts, January 2, 2012, New York Times: “Hundreds of patients have been languishing for months or even years in New York City hospitals, despite being well enough to be sent home or to nursing centers for less-expensive care, because they are illegal immigrants or lack sufficient insurance or appropriate housing. As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost…”

Wisconsin one of few states that will raise taxes on poor, By Michael Louis Vinson, December 28, 2011, Appleton Post-Crescent: “As Wisconsinites await W-2 forms and related tax documents, hundreds of thousands of low-income families are bracing for a state budget change that will mean less money in their wallets next year. Last summer, the state Legislature reduced the amount of money low- income families can receive in tax credits by $56.2 million. That places Wisconsin among only a handful of states that will effectively raise taxes on their poorest residents in 2012, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank…”

• Private contractors play increasing role in Medicaid, audit finds, By Jason Stein, December 20, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As the state’s health programs for the poor have ballooned in recent years, the state relied increasingly on private contractors to run its health programs for the poor and completed fewer investigations into potential fraud, a new audit has found. The report released Tuesday by the Legislative Audit Bureau found that as of June there were at least three times as many contract workers working on Medicaid health programs as there were state workers. Over the past four years, payments to private vendors for Medicaid have nearly doubled, the audit found…”
• Utah’s budget debate: transportation and Medicaid, By Kirsten Stewart, December 19, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Unveiling his budget for next year, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert last week bemoaned the growing share flowing to Medicaid. The health insurance program for low-income people consumes 17.6 percent of Utah’s budget, hurting the state’s ability to fund other priorities such as public schools, said Herbert, sounding a theme popular among conservatives. But advocates for the poor say the national strategy of pitting Medicaid against public schools doesn’t reflect reality in Utah. They point to another familiar budget boogeyman: transportation…”

• Low Medicare, Medicaid rates shift costs to insurers, study finds, By Guy Boulton, December 17, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “An estimated $851 million is added to the cost of commercial health insurance to make up for the lower fees that Medicare and Medicaid pay hospitals in southeastern Wisconsin, according to a study released last week. The study, commissioned by the Greater Milwaukee Business Foundation on Health, supports the long-standing position of the hospital industry that the government health programs don’t cover their share of costs and that the shortfall is passed on to employers and individuals through higher prices for commercial health plans. Yet that contention - widely held in the business community and among elected officials - is challenged by most health economists…”
• Medicare penalties for readmissions are likely to hit hospitals serving the poor, By Jordan Rau, December 19, 2011, Washington Post: “James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital for heart problems. ‘It’s been so many,’ said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled former truck driver from Northeast Washington. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can’t afford the medications his doctor prescribes, ’so I have to do without.’ Another is that he fears exercising outside because of neighborhood violence. Medicare is preparing to penalize hospitals with frequent potentially avoidable readmissions, which by one estimate costs the government $12 billion a year. Medicare’s aim is to prod hospitals to make sure patients get the care they need after discharge. But this new policy is likely to disproportionately affect hospitals that treat the most low-income patients, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services…”

Feds OK some Medicaid changes, but thousands could lose coverage, By Patrick Marley and Jason Stein, December 9, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Federal officials on Friday gave preliminary approval to some of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to Wisconsin health-care programs for the poor but said they likely couldn’t decide on other cuts before the new year - an outcome that could force tens of thousands of people off BadgerCare Plus next year. On Nov. 10, the state asked President Barack Obama’s administration to sign off on spending cuts to Medicaid programs like BadgerCare Plus to relieve a $554 million deficit in state and federal money through June 2013. State lawmakers this summer gave the Walker administration broad authority to balance the health-care budget but said if the federal government didn’t approve the state’s plan by Dec. 31 the state must remove 53,000 childless adults from the program by July to save money…”

• Brownback’s administration rolls out Medicaid reform package, November 8, 2011, Wichita Eagle: “Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration unveiled a major Medicaid reform package Tuesday that will shift thousands of disabled, elderly and low-income residents into a managed care system that aims to reduce hospital visits and slow the growth of Medicaid spending over five years without reducing benefits. The ‘person-centered’ integrated care program is called KanCare. It will be managed by three companies that win state-issued three-year contracts. They will be evaluated and paid based on their outcomes, such as reduced emergency room visits…”
• Brownback seeks $850M in Medicaid savings, By Tim Carpenter, November 8, 2011, Topeka Capital-Journal: “Gov. Sam Brownback took a step Tuesday toward formation of a managed-care system for all Kansans on Medicaid that emphasizes coordination of services to improve health outcomes and cut costs by more than $850 million over a five-year period. Brownback said the cornerstone of the overhaul was an integrated care system - to be called KanCare - intended to improve the lives of 350,000 disabled, elderly and low-income Kansas. KanCare would take effect in January 2013 and begin to bend the cost curve of Medicaid down by engaging new partnerships with the state’s Medicaid provider community…”
• Lawmakers OK changes that could drop 65,000 from Medicaid, By Jason Stein, November 10, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office projects 65,000 people - nearly half of them children - would leave or be turned away from the state’s health programs for the poor, under a proposal passed by lawmakers Thursday. The Joint Finance Committee approved 11-4 a proposal by GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to bridge the final part of a more than half-billion dollar budget gap in the rapidly growing health plans. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats against. The proposal must still win federal approval from President Barack Obama’s administration by the end of the year - a significant hurdle. The Medicaid health plans cover about one in five state residents - almost 1.2 million people - and provide everything from doctor visits for poor families to nursing home care for the elderly. To help control rapidly increasing costs in the programs, Walker’s administration wants to decrease benefits for a quarter of a million recipients, increase premiums for tens of thousands of others by up to tenfold, and drop coverage for adults and children for at least a year if the premiums aren’t paid…”

Medicaid cost cuts planned, By Guy Boulton, November 6, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Wisconsin is not alone in dealing with the thorny task of trying to lower the cost of its health care programs for low-income residents. Massachusetts no longer pays for restorative dental care and dentures. Washington no longer covers eyeglasses and hearing aids. Minnesota no long covers chiropractic care. Illinois, Iowa and other states planned to require a $50 co-payment for unnecessary visits to emergency departments. And California has proposed a $50 co-payment for all visits to emergency departments and a co-payment of $100 for hospital stays that last one day and $200 for longer stays. Every state plans to implement at least one policy to control Medicaid spending this fiscal year, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In Wisconsin, the Department of Health Services has proposed dozens of changes in the BadgerCare Plus and Medicaid programs to close a $500 million gap in their budget…”

• U.S. approves managed care for Kentucky Medicaid, By Tom Loftus, October 31, 2011, Lousiville Courier-Journal: “Federal authorities have given final approval to the state’s new Medicaid managed care plans, allowing the program to be launched on Tuesday. The Beshear administration announced Monday that the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services notified Kentucky Friday that it was satisfied that Kentucky is prepared for the transition…”
• Walker adjusts plan to close $554 million gap in Medicaid programs, By Jason Stein, October 31, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Gov. Scott Walker’s administration tweaked its proposals Monday to close a half billion-dollar budget hole in the state’s health plans for the poor as a deadline approaches for deciding whether the state will drop the health coverage of tens of thousands of state residents. The state Department of Health Services made the changes in a 238-page plan being sent for review to the Legislature’s budget committee, which is expected to take up the proposal next week. But a Democratic lawmaker said Monday he was concerned that there still wouldn’t be enough time for lawmakers and President Barack Obama’s administration to review the plan - action that is required to keep more than 50,000 state residents from losing their state coverage altogether at the end of the year…”

• In western Wisconsin, homelessness moves out to the suburbs, By Andy Rathbun, October 1, 2011, Pioneer Press: “The Conde family never expected to be homeless. The family moved from western Wisconsin to Oregon in June 2009 with hopes that Robert Conde could find more jobs painting and drywalling. The work wasn’t there, and to add to the family’s hardships, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It wasn’t long before they packed their belongings and made a cold January drive back to Wisconsin. ‘Within a month’s time, it was like everything was crashing down on us,’ said Shana Conde, Robert’s wife. ‘We got back with nothing. We had no money, and our vehicles were falling apart.’ The couple and their three young children entered Grace Place, an emergency shelter in Somerset, Wis., where they stayed for five months before spending nearly a year in transitional housing. In western Wisconsin’s Pierce, Polk and St. Croix counties, the number of people staying in emergency shelters has risen 56 percent in four years, according to the Wisconsin Division of Housing, which began formally collecting the data in 2007…”
• Initiative to end chronic homelessness in Utah successful, By Marjorie Cortez, September 29, 2011, Deseret News: “The success of a 10-year initiative to end chronic homelessness could mean the eventual closure of the emergency overflow shelter in Midvale. Last winter, there were excess beds available each night in The Road Home’s downtown emergency shelter, which officials attribute to the success of rapid rehousing programs that place homeless families and individuals into permanent supportive housing. Once they settle into housing, they can begin work on the issues that have contributed to their homelessness. There have been as many as 100 open beds on some nights. Chronic homelessness in Utah has fallen 69 percent since 2006. Since 2010, the number of people considered ‘chronic homeless’ - people who have experienced homelessness once within the past year or have had three episodes of homelessness in four years - has dropped 26 percent, according to the 2011 Comprehensive Report on Homelessness released Wednesday…”

• Studies: Medicaid vital to kids, seniors, By David Gulliver, September 28, 2011, Bradenton Herald: “More than a half-million Floridians rely on Medicaid to pay for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses, and that federal safety net may be crucial as private health insurance costs rise far faster than wages. That picture comes from a pair of separate studies released Tuesday. Families USA examined Medicaid usage in major states, and found that in Florida, seniors and children are among its biggest recipients. The Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed employers and found that annual premiums for their family health plans increased 9 percent from the prior year, to about $15,073, greatly outpacing the 2.1 percent rise in workers’ pay…”
• State wants to shift some Medicaid recipients to lower-cost plans, By Jason Stein, September 30, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “To help address a half-billion dollar shortfall in the state’s health programs, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is seeking to shift hundreds of thousands of state residents to lower-cost state plans or to private plans but not to leave them without coverage altogether, officials said. State officials said that there is now a $554 million estimated deficit - $110 million more than previously projected - through June 2013 in state Medicaid health programs, which provide everything from doctor’s visits for poor families to nursing home care for the elderly. That deficit could still grow further going forward, they warned. To close that gap and control fast-growing costs, state Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith said that the state would avoid dropping state residents with no other options for coverage and look instead at efforts like shifting 230,000 state Medicaid recipients into a lower-cost plan with fewer benefits…”

• State decides what’s not an emergency, By Jordan Schrader, September 26, 2011, Tacoma News Tribune: “State government is about to start refusing to pay for repeat visitors to emergency rooms whose conditions don’t truly rise to the level of emergencies. The trouble is all in how you define an emergency. Starting Saturday, Medicaid won’t pay for more than three ER visits in a year for a patient’s nonemergency conditions as defined by the state. A list of more than 700 diagnoses put into that category has drawn fire from hospitals and doctors’ groups over inclusions whose symptoms seem awfully similar to emergencies…”
• Wisconsin starts publishing Medicaid cut proposals, By Scott Bauer (AP), September 27, 2011, Sheboygan Press: “Gov. Scott Walker’s administration unveiled a website Monday that includes a handful of Medicaid cost-savings proposals intended to help it reach required cuts of about $444 million over the next two years. But there’s a long way to go. Most of what was released was either already known about or would make little progress toward what needs to be cut. Only three of the six areas of savings detailed Monday had not been previously announced. Those three total $6 million in savings in state money, just 3 percent of the $181.8 million that must be found under the two-year budget that took effect in July. The total amount of unspecified cuts that must be found, including federal funding and other sources, is $444 million…”

State to tie some child-care subsidies to attendance, By Jason Stein, August 23, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is tying child-care subsidies for the poor to whether the children are actually attending day care. State officials said the change should save money for the state by cutting waste and might help reduce fraud in the Wisconsin Shares program, which has struggled with scammers. But some child-care advocates criticized the change that takes effect Sunday as a backdoor pay cut for family child-care providers, who can’t always ensure that the children they care for will show up…”

Milwaukee-based researchers study prenatal exposure to toxins, By Kelly Hogan, August 15, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Scientists are learning that health is the function of genes and environment. The work of Milwaukee-based researchers suggests that this principle also applies to the health of a growing fetus and a premature infant. Michael Laiosa, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Public Health, and neonatologist Venkatesh Sampath, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, want to understand how genetics and the environment affect the health of humans during the most vulnerable stages of development. In Milwaukee, there were 807 infant and fetal deaths between 2005 and 2008, according to the city’s Fetal Infant Mortality Review. A disproportionate number were African-American. Of the 499 who were not stillborn, nearly 54% died from complications of being born too soon…”

• State will switch to public workers for FoodShare program, By Jason Stein, August 12, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In a deal that preserves millions of dollars in federal aid to Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration will drop hundreds of private contractor employees who work for the state’s food assistance program and hire scores of public workers as replacements. The agreement comes after federal officials had threatened in recent months to withhold some money for the state’s FoodShare program because of what they said were improper privatization efforts that were started by the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and initially intensified by the administration of Walker, a Republican…”
• Local use of food stamps doubles, By Kathleen Foody, August 13, 2011, Wausau Daily Herald: “The number of residents receiving food stamps in Marathon and Lincoln counties nearly doubled during the last four years as the recession forced more people into poverty and stretched family paychecks. In the first six months of 2011, a monthly average of 14,784 Marathon County residents received food stamps, up from 7,936 in 2007. Almost 3,700 Lincoln County residents used the program in the same time frame, up from 1,587 in 2007. Tammy Beranek, a 44-year-old Wausau resident who has used the program for three years, said it allowed her to make ends meet when she was diagnosed with epilepsy and couldn’t continue working as a housekeeper…”

Senate leaves in place one-week wait for jobless benefits, By Patrick Marley, August 1, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Republicans in the state Senate agreed to a deal Monday that would require those who are laid off to wait a week before collecting unemployment compensation, while giving the long-term jobless an additional 13 weeks of benefits. Republicans praised the bill as one that would help those struggling to find a job, while Democrats said it would hurt laid-off workers at a dire time. The vote held high stakes because it came just a week before six Republican senators face recall elections…”

Dispute on jobless benefits puts unemployed in a bind, By Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, July 21, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Kathleen Bonchek raised a family and then worked for decades before her job at an insurance company fell victim to the financial crisis. For the first time in her life, the 61-year-old South Milwaukee resident took state jobless benefits and now stands just three weeks away from exhausting them. The federal government is offering an estimated $88 million in extended benefits for unemployed Wisconsin workers like Bonchek, but a dispute between GOP lawmakers has blocked their approval in the Legislature. ‘I’ve worked for 35 years. Is it OK for me to lose my home and everything I’ve worked for?’ Bonchek asked Thursday. ‘We need to act on this, and I don’t know what more we can tell these people.’ On Thursday, the Senate adjourned until at least next week without resolving the dispute over jobless benefits or giving a clear timeline for doing so…”

State Senate votes to extend jobless benefits, By Patrick Marley and Jason Stein, July 19, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to capture an estimated $88 million in federal money to extend jobless benefits to tens of thousands of out-of-work state residents. In a surprising reversal, most GOP senators joined Democrats in voting to drop a one-week waiting period to get jobless benefits that they adopted just a month ago - a change that put the bill’s future in the Republican Assembly in doubt. The flip-flop came as recall elections loomed for six Republican and three Democratic senators, including one election being held Tuesday. Extending the benefits an additional 13 weeks with federal money would not touch the state’s struggling unemployment insurance trust fund. But ending the waiting period would add $41 million to $56 million a year in additional costs for the fund. There was no immediate word on whether Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) and Gov. Scott Walker supported the revised bill…”

Jobless benefits backed by state panel, By Jason Stein and Paul Gores, June 23, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A state advisory council voted unanimously Thursday to endorse legislation to make available $89 million in federally funded jobless benefits for more than 10,000 unemployed workers in the state. The federal money would extend benefits for qualifying workers by 13 weeks, giving a total of 86 weeks of coverage. It would not add to some $1.3 billion in debt weighing down the state’s unemployment fund. That debt, however, still presents great challenges. The state Department of Workforce Development is mailing letters to businesses notifying them of a special assessment that will be used to pay nearly $50 million of interest on the money that the state has borrowed from the federal government for jobless claims made in the midst of the recession. That underscored the need for a comprehensive plan to pay down the state’s debt, members of the state Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council said…”

• Extra jobless aid is cut in Mass., By Kaivan Mangouri, June 21, 2011, Boston Globe: “Thousands of Massachusetts residents will lose jobless benefits beginning next month as the state’s steadily declining unemployment rate disqualifies it for the extra federal assistance provided earlier in the recession. Unemployed workers will lose seven weeks of benefits under the rules of a federal program that extends eligibility based on state unemployment rates. Residents in states with rates above 8 percent are eligible to collect 20 weeks of additional benefits under this program; once the three-month average is below 8 percent, residents are eligible for 13 weeks…”
• Economists debate impact of Arizona’s unemployment-aid cut, By Ronald J. Hansen, June 21, 2011, Arizona Republic: “Arizona could be turning itself into an economic laboratory of sorts by declining to extend unemployment benefits for those out of work for months. Last week, the Legislature did not enact a technical change needed to accept federal cash that would extend unemployment checks from 79 to 99 weeks for at least 15,000 Arizonans. Some lawmakers argued that the extension of benefits, worth up to $240 weekly in Arizona, is a disincentive to find another job. Others disagree, noting that the scarcity of jobs means many people will struggle to find work regardless of whether they receive an unemployment check, and some argue that jobless aid has other positive economic effects. Arizona’s lack of extended aid helps put the theories to the test…”
• Extension of aid to jobless goes unused, By Jason Stein, June 20, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “More than 10,000 out-of-work Wisconsin residents are no longer receiving an estimated $89 million in federally funded jobless benefits because state officials have not acted to renew them. The change to state law would not touch the state’s struggling unemployment insurance trust fund and would provide 13 more weeks of benefits to workers who have been without employment for roughly a year and a half. The change in state law, which has tepid support from Gov. Scott Walker, could come before a state advisory panel Thursday. However, the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has done nothing, despite knowing about the issue for months. The Legislature could have gone ahead on its own. It did pass in the state budget a cost-saving proposal to stop paying workers the first week of unemployment insurance benefits - a difference to both the state and the workers of tens of millions of dollars a year. But with some Republicans and business leaders wary that benefits are actually a disincentive to work, there’s been no action. As a result, the extended benefits ran out on April 16…”

• Uptick in Kentucky high school dropout rate helps fuel debate on raising age, By Mike Wynn, June 12, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Kentucky’s high school dropout rate edged up last year as lawmakers continue to spar over ways to make sure more students graduate. The Kentucky Department of Education reported recently that the statewide dropout rate increased from 2.89 percent in 2009 to 3.19 percent in 2010, marking the eighth consecutive year that the rate has hovered around 3 percent. While enrollment dipped 0.6 percent from 2009 - to slightly more than 195,000 - the number of students who quit school between the ninth and 12th grade rose from 5,673 to 6,225, an increase of nearly 10 percent. Legislators have debated raising the minimum dropout age for years. Doing so, proponents say, would help bring those numbers down and should be coupled with alternative education programs…”
• State leads U.S. with 90.7% graduation rate, By Cindy Hodgson, June 11, 2011, Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: “Wisconsin has one of the highest graduation rates in the country - the highest, according to one method of calculation - and many of the school districts in Manitowoc County have even higher rates than the state. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows Wisconsin leading the nation with a graduation rate of 90.7 percent, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Wisconsin has been first or second in each of the last five years in that report, which uses the Public High School Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate from the Common Core of Data at the U.S. Department of Education, according to a news release from the DPI. Two other methods of calculation, which also provide results for individual districts, put the state’s graduation rate a bit lower…”

Feds threaten state with loss of FoodShare funds over privatization, By Jason Stein, May 20, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Federal officials are threatening to withhold new money and take back previous funds for Wisconsin’s food assistance if state officials don’t scale back efforts to privatize the program. The letter from federal officials follows an April visit to Wisconsin by USDA staff and goes a step further than similar past warnings by saying the state FoodShare program is already in violation of federal rules because of the privatization efforts by two governors. Federal officials are also separately questioning a new privatization proposal put forward by Republican Gov. Scott Walker for FoodShare, the successor program to food stamps…”

Census shows big jump in women-led families in Wisconsin, By Dan Simmons and Nick Heynen, May 12, 2011, Wisconsin State Journal: “When Ally Moll had her daughter three years ago, she felt isolated. Her family lives in Florida and New York, and the girl’s father was out of the picture. So the Madison woman took her plight to an online classifieds board: ‘I’m a new mom and I’m alone. Does anyone want to hang out?’ It led to connections with many other moms in her situation and monthly social gatherings that continue today, perhaps not surprising given that the last decade brought a dramatic increase in women-led families here and across Wisconsin. In the state, the number of families headed by women with children and no husband increased 13 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census figures released Thursday. In Dane County, they’re up 23 percent. In Madison, it’s 22 percent. The data show a further decline in the traditional nuclear family approach, with married couples with kids comprising 19 percent of total Wisconsin households in 2010, down from 24 percent in 2000…”

Walker wants private sector to run assistance programs, By Jessica VanEgeren, May 11, 2011, Capital Times: “Vivian Colon is often the first point of contact for Dane County’s most vulnerable residents when they find themselves in desperate situations. From parents seeking emergency medical care for a sick child to those who live paycheck to paycheck and have little money left for food, Colon treats everyone the same when they walk through the doors of the Dane County Job Center on Aberg Avenue. She greets them with a smile. ‘A lot of people need help when they first come in,’ says Colon, who has worked for the county for nearly four years. ‘For some people, it’s their first time applying for benefits. Other people aren’t computer-friendly. They don’t know how to use a mouse or they can’t type. It’s my job to help them if they get stuck during any part of the process - beginning, middle or end.’ Every county across the state has a center like the one where Colon works. The centers function as one-stop shops where people can apply for food and medical assistance at the same time. Applications can be filled out online, over the phone or on paper. Whichever way applicants choose to go, county and state workers are there to help them through any stumbling blocks. But a provision in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget would change all that by creating an ‘income maintenance administrative unit’ to centralize and largely privatize the operation of the food assistance, or FoodShare program, and Medicaid programs in Wisconsin…”

Milwaukee infant mortality rate still high, despite years of effort, millions spent, By Crocker Stephenson and Ben Poston, May 7, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As other communities around the country have found ways to reduce infant mortality, Milwaukee’s rate has remained all but stagnant for nearly two decades, the result of a vacuum of leadership and a scattershot approach to tackling the problem. In Central Harlem, babies once died at a rate twice that of Milwaukee. But through a unified effort, the community has slashed its infant mortality rate by 78% since 1990. The rate there is now about 6 deaths per 1,000 births, lower than the state of Wisconsin as a whole. In Milwaukee - where tens of millions of tax dollars have been spent in the past decade - 11 out of every 1,000 infants die before their first birthday. The city continues to have one of the worst infant mortality rates in the nation, especially for African-Americans, whose babies die at a rate about 2.5 times that of whites. Year after year, the city continues its rudderless and fragmented approach, with over 100 health initiatives that, lacking collective impact, fail to generate communitywide results…”

Government programs help cushion poverty in Wisconsin, By Bill Glauber, May 4, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Government programs designed to help the poor and unemployed helped cushion Wisconsin’s poorest residents from the worst effects of the Great Recession in 2009, according to the third Wisconsin Poverty Report. Expanded tax credits and food assistance were key drivers to holding down poverty in the state, according to the report issued Wednesday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty. ‘What is glaringly obvious, we had a bad recession and anti-poverty efforts were very successful in making sure that the recession did not hurt the most vulnerable, especially children,’ said Timothy Smeeding, director of the research institute. The report comes amid the state’s great debate over the size and role of government. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed reducing a tax-credit program for the poor and hiring a private contractor to help determine who is eligible for food assistance. He is also seeking more flexibility from the federal government in running the state’s health insurance program for the poor…”

Walker plan brings warning from USDA, By Jason Stein, April 28, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to privatize work determining who is eligible for food assistance in the state would violate federal law and could expose the state to a loss of more than $20 million in federal money, federal officials say. In an April 14 letter to state Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith and Children and Families Secretary Eloise Anderson, Ollice Holden, a Midwest administrator for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, warned that the work of interviewing applicants and deciding who is eligible for the Wisconsin FoodShare program needs to be done by public workers who are essentially civil servants. If not, he said, the state could lose some of the federal funds supporting FoodShare, the successor in Wisconsin to the food stamp program…”

• Report: Fewer NJ residents in poverty getting legal aid, By Susan Loyer, April 26, 2011, MyCentralJersey.com: “Fewer low-income residents are receiving the legal representation they are entitled to receive in civil cases, according to a report released by Legal Services of New Jersey. ‘The Civil Justice Gap,’ released Tuesday, examines the shortfalls in legal aid for New Jerseyans living in poverty, its consequences and offers solutions. ‘There are many more people in poverty because of the recession,’ said Melville D. Miller Jr., president of Legal Services of New Jersey. ‘The newly poor, who lost jobs and were middle class, are dealing for the first time with things like foreclosures, evictions and domestic violence, all of which is induced by the new poverty. As a result, the demand for our services is up sharply.’ With a 20 percent to 45 percent increase in the demand for free legal services statewide and funding down by 35 percent during the past few years, Legal Services i forced to turn people away, Miller said…”
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan cuts legal services for poor, By Paul Srubas, April 25, 2011, Green Bay Press-Gazette: “A proposed funding cut to the state’s computerized court records system is part of a larger plan that would eliminate funding of a program that provides free legal aid to the poor. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed reallocating money collected as a fee when certain documents are filed in circuit courts around the state. The $21.50 filing fee currently pays for a variety of state programs. Under law, the amount is divided up, with each portion going to a specific program, such as $6 of every $21.50 going to the Consolidated Court Automation Program. The program, called CCAP, serves as the information technology department for the court systems throughout the state and makes court records available online through the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access database. A program providing civil legal services for the poor receives $4 from each $21.50 fee…”

Fraud taints state’s FoodShare program, By Raquel Rutledge and Jason Stein, April 23, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Thousands of people who receive publicly funded food assistance report losing their benefits card routinely - a sign investigators say shows many are cheating the state’s $1 billion program. Some sell their Quest cards for cash. Others trade them for drugs. And that’s not the only way the state’s FoodShare program is being abused, an investigation by the Journal Sentinel has found. Instead of using the cards as intended - as a tool to keep the poor from going hungry - participants who aren’t hungry can use the cards to profit. Unscrupulous recipients sometimes buy steaks, seafood and other expensive items with their subsidized benefits and then sell the food to friends at a discount to get cash. Other times they approach strangers in grocery stores, offering to use their Quest cards in exchange for cash - completing the deal in the parking lot and pocketing $50 for every $100 they spend in Quest funds for the strangers’ groceries. In other cases, recipients fail to report all their income or that a working spouse lives in the home. Some collect money from multiple states. Lax rules and oversight make the program susceptible to fraud…”

• Is stress to blame for preterm births?, By Mark Johnson and Tia Ghose, April 16, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A tight, persistent pain in the lower abdomen chased Jasmine Zapata from class that morning, forcing her upstairs to rest on a couch at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. It was Sept. 20, and Zapata was in her 25th week of pregnancy, just past the midpoint. She neither smoked nor drank. She knew the importance of proper prenatal care - of course she did - and had followed the doctor’s orders to the letter. Zapata, after all, was in her second year of medical school. The 23-year-old Milwaukee native had carried her first pregnancy to term and had a beautiful son to show for it: MJ, now 18 months old. At her last doctor visit the week before, all had been fine. But on this morning when Zapata rose from the couch and went into the bathroom, she saw she was bleeding. By the time the ambulance got to the hospital, she was completely dilated and in fear for her baby daughter. ‘When they were doing an ultrasound, I was mentally preparing myself,’ Zapata said. ‘What if they tell me she’s dead?’ Educated, married, with no chronic illnesses or family history of prematurity, Zapata was not, in most respects, a high risk for premature delivery, the No. 1 cause of infant mortality in Milwaukee. Only one factor suggested risk: Zapata is African-American…”
• Understanding the risks, Editorial, April 16, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “African-American babies in Milwaukee are dying before their first birthday at more than twice the rate of white infants. This tragic trend line has widened despite years of effort. Poverty, unhealthy environments, lack of prenatal care, smoking or drinking alcohol and chronic diseases such as diabetes all play a role. But researchers now believe that something else is behind these cruel numbers: the accumulated stress of a life lived as a racial minority. This insight argues for approaches that help black women understand the multiple risks they face and that give them tools to cope with these risks. Milwaukee’s black infant mortality rate was 15.7 deaths per 1,000 live births between 2005 and 2008, one of the worst rates in the country and double the rate for white babies…”

• Bill voiding sick leave law sent to Walker, By Patrick Marley, April 12, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee’s ordinance requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave would be voided under a bill Assembly Republicans sent Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday. Walker said he is likely to sign the measure. The city’s sick leave ordinance was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008 but has never gone into effect because of legal challenges. The Assembly voted 59-35 to ensure it would never be implemented. ‘This bill is a slap in the face to the people of the City of Milwaukee,’ said Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee). ‘This was not just some fluke referendum. This was a hard-fought campaign. People were well educated on both sides.’ But Republicans said the sick leave ordinance would cost Milwaukee business. Changing state law would allow employers to expand and hire more workers, they said…”
• Patrick aide gives backing to proposal for paid sick days, By Kyle Cheney, April 13, 2011, Boston Globe: “Governor Deval Patrick’s top labor adviser threw the administration’s weight behind a proposal yesterday that would require employers to allow workers to earn seven paid sick days a year, calling the proposal a ‘basic right.’ Joanne Goldstein, secretary of labor and workforce development, argued that the plan would enhance workplace productivity, and rejected assertions that sick leave policies should be left up to individual businesses. But at a State House briefing on the issue, flanked by members of the Paid Leave Coalition and supportive lawmakers, Goldstein went further…”

Audit finds progress at Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, By Crocker Stephenson, March 13, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Some good news: The number of children neglected or abused while in out-of-home care in Milwaukee’s child welfare system is at a historic low. Some more: The raw number of children in out-of-home care has declined. Staff turnover has begun to stabilize. Caseloads are down. And more: Monthly face-to-face contacts between caseworkers and foster children are up. Health care services have improved. Following public outrage ignited by the murder of a small boy two years ago, officials vowed to revamp Milwaukee’s child welfare system. In particular, they promised to make it a safer place for the city’s abused and neglected children. While significant challenges remain - most significantly, too many children still spend too long churning through too many homes while in state care - many of the promises made then have been kept…”

Low-income elderly could lose drug plan, By Guy Boulton, March 13, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed two-year budget would effectively end the state’s SeniorCare prescription drug program in its current form, forcing tens of thousands of people to enroll in more-expensive private plans available through Medicare Part D. The SeniorCare program, introduced in 2001, provides low-cost prescription drug coverage to low-income people over 65. About 91,000 people are in the program, and for most of them, switching to private coverage could cost hundreds of dollars more per year. ‘Most people now in SeniorCare will not be better off in Medicare Part D,’ said John Hendrick, governmental affairs director for the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups. The least expensive prescription drug plan through Medicare Part D in Wisconsin this year costs $177.60 and has a $310 annual deductible as well as co-pays. Most cost more: The average plan costs $43.96 a month, or $527 a year, based on estimated enrollment, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In contrast, almost 40,000 of the people in the SeniorCare program - those with household incomes below $17,424 for one person and $23,536 for two people - pay only a $5 co-pay for generic drugs and $15 for branded drugs, plus a $30 annual enrollment fee…”

• Walker’s budget slashes tax credits that aid poor, By Dee J. Hall, March 6, 2011, Wisconsin State Journal: “Low-income taxpayers in Wisconsin would lose hundreds of dollars in tax credits a year under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget - at the same time the governor wants tax cuts for businesses and investors to boost jobs. Walker proposes cutting about $16 million a year from the program, which in 2009 paid 273,939 low-income Wisconsin residents a total of $133 million. Under Walker’s proposed biennial budget, a single mother with two children earning about minimum wage - $15,000 a year - would lose $302 of her $704 Earned Income Tax Credit next year, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. A two-parent household with two children earning $30,000 a year would see its tax credit cut by $194 to $258, the alliance said…”
• Bill seeks to cut EITC percentage, By Matthew Clark, March 11, 2011, Pittsburg Morning Sun: “A bill spearheaded by a Kansas House committee has been proposed to decrease Kansas’ Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) from its current 18 percent to 5 percent over the next four years. State Rep. Terry Calloway, a Pittsburg Republican, introduced the measure to the House Taxation Committee and it has already drawn sharp attacks from Democrats and other opponents who call the measure ‘counter-productive.’ The bill will generate an additional $56.3 million to the state’s General Fund initially in fiscal year 2012 and increase to $64.5 million by fiscal year 2016. It will reduce the amount of the tax credit - which is meant to benefit low-income individuals and families and also takes out a provision making the tax credit refundable. That means, if a family’s tax credit was higher than their tax liability, they would have the liability paid off, but would not get a check for the difference…”

• 41% of state students eligible for meal subsidies, By Amy Hetzner, March 11, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “About two of every five Wisconsin school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals because of low family incomes, according to data released Thursday by the state’s education agency. The proportion of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch has rapidly increased over the past seven years, climbing from 29.5% in the 2003-’04 school year to 41.4% this school year. The rising number of children who meet the standard for subsidized meals reflects increasing economic hardships among Wisconsin families as well as a push among schools to have qualifying students registered for the lunch program, which often is used to calculate government grants. In a news release announcing the new figures, the Department of Public Instruction noted that 95 of the state’s 424 school districts now have at least half their students receiving subsidized lunches. Milwaukee Public Schools had the second highest percentage of students in the state qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch at 82.6% in the 2010-’11 school year. The Lac du Flambeau School District had 90.3% of its students qualify for subsidized meals…”
• Number of Green Bay students living in poverty rises, By Patti Zarling, March 10, 2011, Green Bay Press Gazette: “More than half the schoolchildren in the Green Bay School District qualify for free or reduced-price meals - an indicator of poverty - and that number is growing. Figures released Thursday by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction show 56.5 percent of Green Bay students qualify for the special meal prices this school year, up from 52.9 percent for the 2009-10 school year…”

• Budget would make benefits cuts to Medicaid, W-2, Wisconsin Shares, By Steve Schultze and Rick Romell, March 1, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “About 55,000 people could lose their health insurance under the state’s BadgerCare program, under Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan released Tuesday. Walker’s budget also would shrink aid to Wisconsin Works participants and could mean reduced state child care subsidies to low-income families. In an effort to slow the growth in spending on Medicaid, Walker says he will seek permission from the federal government to tighten eligibility standards and would cut off people faster who are found no longer eligible. If the federal government does not give the state permission to toughen its standards in determining who gets Medicaid, the state would eliminate coverage to families that earn more than 133% of the federal poverty level on July 1, 2012. That threshold currently is $24,352 a year for a family of three. Wisconsin is among states providing health insurance to adults with children under 19 and household income up to 200% of the poverty line, or $36,620 for a family of three…”
• Advocacy groups decry proposed Medicaid changes, By Guy Boulton, March 1, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Advocacy groups ranging from Disability Rights Wisconsin to Mental Health America of Wisconsin to AARP Wisconsin are opposing Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to give his administration the freedom to revamp BadgerCare Plus and other Medicaid programs with minimal oversight from the Legislature. The provision in Walker’s budget-repair bill would allow the secretary of the Department of Health Services to make sweeping changes in the program with approval from just the Joint Finance Committee instead of the full Legislature. ‘This provision is going to radically change the way decisions are made about Medicaid,’ said Barbara Beckert, the Milwaukee office director for Disability Rights Wisconsin. The Walker administration hasn’t indicated what changes it is considering for the programs, which provide health care for roughly 1 million state residents…”

• For Milwaukee’s children, an early grave, By Crocker Stephenson, January 22, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “On a bitter January afternoon, a 22-year-old mother sits on the edge of her bed and feeds her infant daughter. The child, Rashyia, born in December, is healthy. She coos, eyes closed. She touches her mother’s cheek with her perfect hand. Rashyia and her mother, Lakisha Stinson, live in a small attic apartment on Milwaukee’s near north side. Three modest rooms. The kitchen has just three chairs and a table that is missing its glass top. The living room has no furniture. The bedroom has a bed and a Pack ‘n Play crib, a gift from Wheaton Franciscan-St. Joseph’s Hospital, whose staff, nurses and doctors brought Rashyia through a high-risk pregnancy and into the world. Rashyia and her mother live in a neighborhood where the rate at which African-American babies, such as Rashyia, die during their first year of life is worse than Botswana. Public health experts have long considered the infant mortality rate to be an essential indicator of a community’s well-being…”
• It takes a community to keep babies alive, Editorial, January 22, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee’s littlest children are dying at appalling rates - rates that are among the worst in the country; rates that rival the world’s poorest nations. These are babies who never live to blow out their first birthday candle - three-quarters of them dead before they are a month old. They are babies such as the little boy born prematurely to Denelle McManus in January 2007. Denelle was in good health; she had good prenatal care; she didn’t smoke or drink. She was 32 years old when she lost her child. The boy, named Tavion, lived eight days before dying of a heart condition. Denelle’s mother, Patricia McManus, is chief executive of the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin. An expert in urban issues, McManus has worked 30 years to reduce Milwaukee’s infant mortality rate and now believes that it will take a communitywide effort to save these children, an effort that is beginning to take shape with McManus as one of the leaders…”

New faces of homelessness, series homepage, November, 2010, Racine Journal Times: “Racine has a large homeless student population. This series examines what those students face and how they cope…”

• GOP puts BadgerCare, federal health care law in the cross hairs, By Mary Spicuzza, December 2, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “After rate hikes made paying for private health insurance impossible, Jim Phillips spent four uninsured years avoiding trips to the doctor’s office. Last year, the Monona small-business owner signed up for one of the state’s health insurance plans, known as BadgerCare Plus. Phillips, a 58-year-old hair stylist, has since had stomach problems he says would have left him $10,000 to $15,000 in debt if he had no insurance. ‘It would affect everything,’ he said. ‘It would affect how I pay my rent, buy groceries, work at the salon. It would be difficult to pay all the medical bills.’ Now Phillips worries he will lose his insurance if Gov.-elect Scott Walker and the Legislature’s majority Republicans, who frequently railed against ‘government-run health care’ during their campaigns, follow through on plans to make changes to BadgerCare and stop implementation of federal health care reforms in the state. For years, Wisconsin has been considered a national health care leader, expanding services and Medicaid programs far beyond federal requirements under Democratic and Republican governors alike. But in the face of a budget deficit that could top $3 billion over the next two years, Republican leaders say everything needs to be on the table for cuts - including the 9 percent of the budget that goes toward Medical Assistance programs…”
• Rising Medicaid costs mean service cuts likely, By Ken Kusmer (AP), December 1, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “Indiana lawmakers likely will cut some Medicaid-provided services in the upcoming legislative session after learning Wednesday that the state’s share of government health insurance program costs will balloon by $1.1 billion over the next two years unless checked. The federal government pays about two-thirds of Indiana’s Medicaid costs, but human services chief Michael Gargano told the State Budget Committee that the state’s share has been growing by more than 10 percent each year. He said that’s because the recession has made more people eligible for Medicaid, which serves those who are needy and disabled. Gargano, secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, asked for an additional $900 million in state Medicaid funds over the two-year period starting next July 1. He recommended the General Assembly rein in the costs by cutting some optional services the state currently provides…”

City’s teen birthrate heading downward, By Karen Herzog, October 28, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee’s teen birthrate - the second highest in the nation less than a decade ago- is dropping at a pace that could put it near the much lower state average by 2015, according to data released Wednesday by public health officials.
‘We know there’s much work to get done, but we should all feel encouraged this trend is going in the right direction,’ said Bevan Baker, Milwaukee’s health commissioner. Baker is co-chair of a United Way of Greater Milwaukee advisory committee that set a goal in 2008 of reducing the city’s teen birthrate, which hovered in 2006 at 52 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 17. By 2015, the goal is 30 births per 1,000 teens in that age group. The committee targeted new pregnancy prevention efforts starting with fourth-graders because they would turn 17 in 2015…”

• Mental health providers grapple with Medicaid expansion, By Darryl Fears, October 12, 2010, Washington Post: “For District health officials, it was an easy decision. The federal government handed them an opportunity to save $56 million over four years by expanding Medicaid this summer and they jumped at it. They switched 35,000 low-income residents from the city -funded D.C. Health Care Alliance insurance plan to a Medicaid plan and reaped the reward. It looked like a win-win: The city got some financial relief and the new Medicaid beneficiaries got mental health coverage, which was not part of the Alliance plan. But it creates a problem for the city’s mental health-care providers, who said this week that they are faced with serving thousands of new clients they are not prepared to manage…”
• Medicaid among Wisconsin’s fastest-rising costs, By Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, October 11, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In hospital birthing rooms across Wisconsin in 2008, state health programs covered 45% of all deliveries. That’s just one example of the breadth of the state’s health care safety net, which has grown even larger in recent years. Today, more than 1.1 million people in Wisconsin depend on Medicaid health programs for the poor. Medicaid provides health care for one in five Wisconsin residents; the group of programs has expanded faster here over the past nine years than in any state except Arizona. That has placed health care among the state’s fastest-rising costs for taxpayers. ‘States do have few easy and good options left to control spending in the program,’ said Robin Rudowitz, associate director with the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, who has written about nationwide increases in Medicaid amid the downturn. To keep up, the state Department of Health Services is requesting $675 million more for Medicaid and other programs over the next two years, a huge part of the more than $3 billion shortfall in the two-year state budget that awaits the next governor…”
• Tennessee’s bold leap in care for the aged and disabled, By Christine Vestal, October 12, 2010, Stateline.org: “After lagging behind the rest of the country for years, Tennessee is catching up fast when it comes to changes in its health care system aimed at elderly and disabled residents. More of them are getting the assistance they need in their homes - at a much lower cost than at a nursing home. A lot of this change is the direct result of efforts by Governor Phil Bredesen. Nearing the end of his eight years in office (he is required to leave due to term limits this year), Bredesen decided to focus on getting Tennessee off the bottom rung in rankings of states that offer consumers choices in long-term care. Just a few years earlier, only a few hundred Tennesseans were able to get Medicaid funding for anything but a nursing home. Now, it is one of a handful of bellwether states that offer a broad range of alternatives to nursing home care…”

Wisconsin’s free health care clinics might emulate Kentucky program, By David Wahlberg, September 27, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “In Lena and Ralph Burnette’s modest but tidy home, Pollyanna Gilbert opened a catalog for a store called Dr. Comfort. It was time for the Burnettes, who have diabetes, to order diabetic shoes. Gilbert is a lay health worker with Kentucky Homeplace, a state-funded program that helps people in a region with the worst life expectancy in the country navigate the complicated health care system. Organizers of Wisconsin’s rural free clinics are paying attention to the program, saying they could develop a similar navigator role if the new health care reform law reduces demand for free care…”

When family fails | A child’s stability, a parent’s rights, By Crocker Stephenson, September 19, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

• How we reported this: “To help people gain a clearer understanding of how the child welfare system works in Milwaukee County, reporter Crocker Stephenson and photojournalist Kristyna Wentz-Graff received unprecedented access to two cases that reveal how the parties involved try to balance child safety with parents’ rights and the goal of a stable home life. The journalists spent more than eight months tracking three families - two mothers seeking to be reunified with their children and a foster couple hoping to adopt a child they have cared for since shortly after her birth…”
• Struggle to reunite families can hurt children: “Brandy remembers that night, in early spring 2009, settling a $5 chunk of crack on the tip of her pipe. The pipe is a metal tube, blackened by frequent use on one end. The other end, which she places to her lips, is wrapped for protection with a torn matchbook cover and a piece of duct tape. She sits at her kitchen table in a public housing complex on the city’s north side. On the table is a black plate. On the plate are two more $5 pieces of crack. The black plate helps Brandy see them: nickel rocks, the size of peas. A fluorescent light hums above her head. Above the sink behind her is a plaster relief of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.’ Brandy started smoking crack in her late teens. Thought she could control it. Thought it would keep her thin. Now she’s a heavyset 40-year-old addict, a pipe in her right hand, a lighter in her left. She is alone. Two sons - their father uninvolved - in foster care. Another son living with Brandy’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. A daughter living with another father’s relatives. Another daughter, yet another father, grown and with a child of her own…”
• Lives tipped upside down: “Brandy’s vow in the spring of 2009 to regain custody of her two sons would require not only that she quit using drugs but that she also display an ability to keep the boys safe and provide for their well-being. Her most recent attempt at reunification had been a crashing failure. After nearly a year of sobriety, Brandy had been reunited with Tae and Shakiem in November 2006. At the time, Brandy was 39 years old and pregnant with her third son, who would be born in January 2007. In April 2007, Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare caseworker Kelly Smith, believing the boys, after years of moving from foster home to foster home, had successfully found permanency with their mother, filed a request to end bureau services to the reunified family by the year’s end. ‘Brandy recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy and the new addition and transition has been successful,’ Smith noted in the boys’ court files. In truth, Brandy was barely holding on…”
• Motherhood put to the test: “It is early spring 2010. In a few minutes, Tae and Shakiem will arrive for an extended unsupervised visit with their mother.  They will be with Brandy for a week. She says she is exhausted already. A drug addict for more than two decades, Brandy has been clean for about a year - since March 2009 - but lately, night after night, she says, she dreams she is using again. ‘Nightmares,’ she says. Brandy’s sons - Tae is 12 and Shakiem is 10 - are among the more than 2,000 Milwaukee County children who, because of abuse or neglect, have been removed from their families and placed in out-of-home care by the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare. The brothers have been in and out of foster care for most of their lives and have moved from one home to another more than a dozen times. The bureau is moving Tae and Shakiem toward reunification with their mom. They’ve been reunified with their mother before. Twice. Both times, the reunification failed. ‘Insanity,’ Brandy says before the boys arrive, ‘is repeating the same thing and expecting different results. Here I am. Repeating.’ Not quite, though, she hopes…”

• 11% of Wisconsin residents live in poverty, By Bill Glauber, September 1, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “More than 11% of Wisconsin’s residents - including one in seven children - lived in poverty in 2008, according to the second Wisconsin Poverty Report. Authors of the report, to be published Thursday, said they created a new Wisconsin-specific measure of poverty. ‘There are a lot of forces that can push poverty up or down,’ said Timothy M. Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, which produced the report. ‘This is a new poverty threshold that better reflects the cost of living in Wisconsin,’ Smeeding said. The new measure set the Wisconsin poverty line of $24,842 for a family of four. That figure was well above the official U.S. poverty line of $21,834 for a family of four. The overall poverty rate was slightly increased using the Wisconsin-specific measure…”
• State poverty rate worsens, By Mike Ivey, September 2, 2010, Madison Capital Times: “No surprise here but Wisconsin’s poverty rate worsened in 2008, with more than 11 percent of the state’s population living in need, including one in seven children and one in 10 elderly residents, according to a new report. Produced by the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the UW-Madison, the report issued Thursday used direct interviews and a more complete accounting of the state poverty rate than traditional measures. Under that matrix, the state poverty rate was 11.2 percent vs. 10.2 percent according to the U.S. government figures. The national poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent. ‘This 11 percent number in Wisconsin more accurately reflects what people told us,’ says Tim Smeeding, director of the IRP and La Follette School of Public Affairs faculty member. Milwaukee County was the poorest in the state, with a poverty rate of 18.8 percent, according to the IRP report. La Crosse (13.9%) and Dane (13.1%) percent were next poorest…”

Milwaukee County evictions fell with stimulus, study shows, By Georgia Pabst, August 30, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “With a 2-year-old and a baby on the way, Jenny Furne said she started to worry that she and her growing family would be homeless. She said she moved to Milwaukee last year from another state to escape from a domestic violence situation and found a job in sales. But after she lost her job and couldn’t find another one, she fell a month behind in the rent on her north side apartment. Although she signed up for W-2, the state’s welfare-to-work program, she initially received a partial payment of $300, not enough to cover her rent of $510 a month. ‘Two weeks before having my baby, I got an eviction notice,’ said Furne, 24. ‘I was freaking out because I didn’t know if I would have a home to come back to with the baby.’ She went to Community Advocates and explained her predicament. Using federal stimulus money designed to stem evictions and prevent homelessness, the agency paid the $510 rent owed, buying Furne the time she needed to get her W-2 check and get on track. Furne isn’t the only one who has been helped from the brink of homelessness. According to a Harvard University study that looked at local eviction records, the influx of federal stimulus money to help stem homelessness coincided with 836 fewer evictions filed in Milwaukee County from August 2009 to March 2010, compared with the same period the previous year…”

At these clinics, income no object, By David Wahlberg, August 29, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “They assembled in a parking lot on a hot afternoon: diabetics, men with toothaches and chest pain, a woman with torn cartilage, workers whose low wages or job losses left them uninsured. Mary Lyons waited for the free clinic to open so she could refill her nine medications. A diabetic with heart disease and a persistent cough, she works nights cleaning meat processing machines, making enough to get by but not enough to buy insurance, she said. She relies on the clinic for medical care. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without it,’ said Lyons, 61. Free clinics have become a prominent safety net in rural Wisconsin, especially in the southwest part of the state, where clinics have opened in the past four years in Boscobel, Dodgeville and Richland Center. Another, in Prairie du Sac, has been around for more than a decade. Volunteer doctors at the clinics care for the uninsured without charge and offer drugs at deep discounts. The need for free care around the state and the country could drop once the new federal health care reform law fully kicks in by 2014, some say. But Robin Transo, who opened Boscobel’s free clinic in the walk-out basement of a hearing clinic run by her husband, isn’t so sure…”

FoodShare program expands reach in Brown County, By Malavika Jagannathan, August 27, 2010, Green Bay Press Gazette: “Northeastern Wisconsin residents continue to need and use federal assistance to help buy groceries through the FoodShare Wisconsin program, a trend not likely to change soon as the economy continues to falter. FoodShare Wisconsin supplemented 10,032 households in Brown County last month, according to the most recent data compiled by the state’s Department of Health Services. That’s a 45 percent increase of households using the benefit, formerly known as food stamps, compared with July 2008. The funding disbursed through the program has almost doubled from about $1.4 million in July 2008 to $2.8 million last month, thanks partially to an influx of cash from federal stimulus legislation that took effect last year. The number of participants is increasing, but many more people could be receiving the assistance and are not because they don’t know they are eligible, said Jim Jones, the state’s FoodShare director…”

Wisconsin makes push on free birth control, By Janet Adamy, August 18, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “Wisconsin is pushing to expand a controversial program that uses federal Medicaid funds to provide free birth-control pills, vasectomies and other forms of contraception to low-income people, an effort made possible by the federal health-care overhaul. It and 26 other states already provide free contraception and other reproductive-health services through a Medicaid pilot project to lower-earning women who otherwise wouldn’t qualify. Among other things, the women get access to prescription birth control, Pap smears, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and, in some states, infertility treatments. Women qualify for Wisconsin’s program if they make up to $21,600 a year for single people-twice the federal poverty level…”