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…”

High turnover complicates study of choice schools’ progress, By Jason Stein, August 12, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A long-range study evaluating voucher schools in Milwaukee is finding little difference in academic achievement between their students and those in public schools, state auditors said Thursday. But the study is complicated by the fact that three years into the research, most of the private school students selected for it are no longer attending schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. Only 1,097, or 40.2%, of the 2,727 voucher school students selected for the study in the 2006-’07 school year were still part of the choice program by the 2008-’09 school year, according to the report by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. ‘It’s a very mobile population,’ state Auditor Jan Mueller said of Milwaukee students. The report analyzed data and results gathered by academics at the University of Arkansas to compare math and reading test scores of choice program students with those of similar students in Milwaukee Public Schools. The report looked at a representative sample of voucher students attending third through eighth grades during the 2006-’07 school year, as well as all ninth-graders…”

• No big increase in health charity with job losses, By Guy Boulton, August 8, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Tens of thousands of people in the Milwaukee area have lost their jobs since the start of the recession, yet the increase has not resulted in a surge in charity care by health care systems in the region. The amount of free and discounted care provided by the health systems has been stable when calculated as a percentage of patient revenue, even as the economy struggles through the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The amount of bad debt also has not risen noticeably. That surprises some health care executives, who expected a sharp increase in charity care and bad debt expense at the recession’s start…”
• Uninsured patients overwhelm Denver Health clinics, By Jennifer Brown, August 9, 2010, Denver Post: “A rising number of needy patients without health insurance is overwhelming community clinics in Denver, leaving some sick people to wait up to four months to see a family doctor. When new patients call one of Denver Health Medical Center’s eight clinics across the city, they are transferred to a downtown call center where they are put on a waiting list - a list that now contains 3,500 names. Patients can end up on the list ‘even if they are dying of something - that’s the horror,’ said Dr. Lara Penny, a family doctor at Denver Health’s Montbello clinic. The facility is so busy, the hospital system is setting up modular units to accommodate patients until a new building opens in January 2012 with the help of federal stimulus money. The county’s safety-net hospital, Denver Health treats anyone with an emergency, regardless of whether they can pay. That means a person injured in a car wreck or who has a heart attack will get care. But if that person also is diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease, getting a follow-up appointment with a primary-care doctor can take months…”

How Wisconsin made big Medicaid cuts with little controversy, By Jake Grovum, August 5, 2010, Stateline.org: “As Wisconsin lawmakers looked ahead to their two-year state budget early last year, the outlook was grim. As the economy continued its freefall, a projected $5.7 billion deficit ballooned to $6.6 billion, the largest in state history. Every state program was on the chopping block, but Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, was an especially big target because it makes up one-fifth of the state’s budget. Governor Jim Doyle’s initial budget prescription called for more than $400 million in cuts to Medicaid. By June, when the Legislature approved the budget, the reduction was up to $625 million - about 10 percent of Wisconsin’s total cost for the joint state-federal program. But for Wisconsin, passing a budget with such drastic cuts to Medicaid was just the beginning for state health officials, advocates and the state’s 30,000 health care providers. Doyle and the Legislature devised a novel approach: They gave agency officials a dollar amount to cut, but ceded authority over how to reach that figure. They didn’t even require final legislative or gubernatorial approval to enact the changes…”

• Governor signs bill to assist children aging out of foster care, By Doug Denison, July 20, 2010, Dover Post: ” Children aging out of the foster care system now have access to greater protections under the law thanks to legislation signed June 14 by Gov. Jack Markell. Under Senate Bill 113, former foster children between the ages of 18 and 21 will now be allowed to petition Family Court and continue to work with the Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families to get help with housing, employment, education and health care. Court-appointed child advocates, former guardians and the foster children themselves will be able to bring cases to Family Court that weren’t previously within its jurisdiction. In the last fiscal year, 94 Delaware foster children aged out of the system, putting in jeopardy their ability to continue to receive various kinds of federal- and state-funded assistance. Ten years ago, half as many children were in that position…”
• Foster kids at 18 aren’t ready to go it alone in the world, By Kathy Markeland, July 24, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Each year, more than 7,000 Wisconsin children are removed from their parents’ homes and placed in foster care. Most of these children will live with relatives or foster parents for a short time and then be reunited with their families. Sometimes families can’t be reunited and children are connected to new families through adoption. But for up to 600 young people in Wisconsin each year, their stay in foster care ends when they turn 18 and ‘age out’ of their foster home. They ‘age out’ of the system that promised to protect them. The national data on the experiences of youths that age out of the foster care system are grim. Compared to their peers in the general population, these young people have a higher incidence of physical and mental health needs, yet are less likely to have health care coverage…”

Is coverage decaying?, By Katelyn Ferral, July 3, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Going to the dentist can be a pain - but for Scott Oster, the pain came from not being able to find one. A toothache led Oster, 48, to enroll in the state’s BadgerCare program for dental care. But after calling every dental office on the agency’s list, Oster came up empty. ‘I’ve got the insurance; there’s just nobody that accepts it,’ said Oster, an unemployed welder. ‘I never dealt with the same person twice. That was one part that really drove me nuts.’ A Journal Sentinel reporter called every dental office listed for the city of Milwaukee on the BadgerCare Plus website. Of the 114 providers listed, only three were accepting new BadgerCare patients. BadgerCare is a Medicaid program jointly funded by the state and the federal government. The state has moved to expand BadgerCare so more have coverage, but doctors say the reimbursements for dental care are too low. That is keeping many from participating in the program…”

Reform leads to bigger role for community health centers, By Guy Boulton, June 2, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Community health centers more than doubled in size in the past decade. Now they’ve been given the task of doubling in size yet again. The health centers, often located in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural areas, are an overlooked component of the health care system. But they provide care to nearly 244,000 people statewide, up from 89,392 in 1999. That’s roughly 80,000 people in Milwaukee, or about one in seven residents. They also have been given a crucial role - and with it, a huge increase in funding - to help meet the expected rise in demand that will accompany health care reform. Reform legislation allocated an additional $11 billion for the community health centers over the next five years. To put that in perspective, the federal government now spends $2.2 billion a year on direct support for the centers…”

Unemployment benefits fraud soars in 2009, By Jason Stein, June 6, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Fraud in Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance program has more than tripled over the past two years to $17.7 million in 2009, according to state figures. Many of the improper payments are being recovered and they are still only a fraction of the total amount the state pays out in benefits to struggling jobless workers. But as part of a national trend, overpayments due to both fraud and honest mistakes are growing more quickly than jobless benefits as a whole and last year, in Wisconsin alone, totaled $51.1 million. The improper payments further stress a state jobless fund that has already been forced to borrow $1.4 billion from the federal government to keep making payments during a time of chronic unemployment…”

Teens facing a tough labor market this summer, By Karen Herzog, June 3, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Young people are being squeezed out of summer jobs, and seasonal employers will have to do more with less, as a dramatically increased minimum wage that went into effect last year affects summer hiring for the first time. Wisconsin’s minimum wage increased for the first time in three years last July 24, from $5.90 an hour to $7.25 an hour for minors, and from $6.50 to $7.25 for adults. The biggest hit was to the state’s agricultural sector, including produce farms that hire kids to help guide suburbanites through strawberry patches. Though an agricultural exemption previously allowed farms to pay minors $4.25 per hour, all farm employees - regardless of age - now must be paid at least $7.25 an hour. Tween and young teen workers used to be bargain employees for farms, which in turn taught them how to be good workers. But the disappearance of the agricultural exemption is shifting more of those jobs to older teens who require less supervision…”

Too few dentists, too much pain in rural Wisconsin communities, By David Wahlberg, May 23, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “When Rob Homerding’s teeth started to crumble and ache, he tried to find a dentist who would take Medicaid. He and his wife called 20 dentists around Monroe, where they live, but no one would treat him. By the time he saw a dentist two years later, a dozen teeth had to be pulled. His daughter’s friends made fun of his gap-ridden mouth. He stopped smiling. ‘It probably wouldn’t have gotten this bad if I had found a dentist earlier,’ said Homerding, 38, a butcher in New Glarus. Dental care can be difficult to find in rural parts of Wisconsin and throughout the country - especially for people on Medicaid, the state-federal health plan for the poor, and those with no insurance…”

Senate passes payday loan regulations, no rate cap, By Scott Bauer (AP), April 13, 2010, Oshkosh Northwestern: “The payday loan industry would be regulated for the first time in Wisconsin under a bill that passed the state Senate on Tuesday. However, there still would be no limit on the interest that could be charged on the loans primarily given to the working poor. Advocates for the poor, as well as a bipartisan group of state senators, pushed for a 36 percent annual rate cap as a way to stop people from being charged high interest rates and getting trapped in a cycle of debt…”

• Eligible families in need fall through the cracks, By Mary Spicuzza, April 13, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “Just two days before she was due to have a baby, a young mother said she was discouraged from applying for the state’s welfare-to-work program after being told her fiance - who’d struggled to find work - should go out and get a job. Another woman said she’d spent months looking for work but complained of rude job center employees who never mentioned the program, Wisconsin Works (W-2) to her. And a mother who has been living on nothing but food stamps said she dropped out of the W-2 program after less than a year, partly because the schedule for required job training and classes was so demanding. They were among the dozens of people who told the Wisconsin State Journal that despite living in deep poverty - many of them with no income other than food stamps - they still aren’t receiving cash payments or other benefits they could be eligible for under W-2…”
• DFL legislator says welfare policy penalizes women who have a miscarriage, By Madeleine Baran, April 13, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “A key DFL lawmaker has asked the state to change a policy that limits welfare benefits for mothers who suffer a miscarriage. State Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, proposed an amendment on Tuesday that would remove what she calls an unintended and obscure barrier to welfare benefits. Under current law, in many cases welfare officials can deny cash grants for children who are born to a mother who suffered a previous miscarriage while on welfare. ‘It’s pretty rare, but it is sad when it does happen,’ said Jessica Webster, a policy advocate with Legal Aid. The agency has represented clients who have challenged the welfare policy. Webster said that the denials are the result of a complicated and often confusing welfare system…”

• Study finds more woes following foster care, By Erik Eckholm, April 6, 2010, New York Times: “Only half the youths who had turned 18 and ‘aged out’ of foster care were employed by their mid-20s. Six in 10 men had been convicted of a crime, and three in four women, many of them with children of their own, were receiving some form of public assistance. Only six in 100 had completed even a community college degree. The dismal outlook for youths who are thrust into a shaky adulthood from the foster care system - now numbering some 30,000 annually - has been documented with new precision by a long-term study released Wednesday, the largest to follow such children over many years…”
• Report: Foster kids face tough times after age 18, By Pam Fessler, April 7, 2010, National Public Radio: “It’s hard turning 18 - moving out, finding a job, going to college. But many foster children have to do it by themselves, without the lifeline to parents and home that helps many teens ease into independence. A major report out Wednesday says that many former foster kids have a tough time out on their own. When they age out of the system, they’re more likely than their peers to end up in jail, homeless or pregnant. They’re also less likely to have a job or go to college. Life can be a struggle for these young people, even with help from the government and nonprofit agencies…”
• Crime, unemployment, homelessness dog ex-foster care youths, By Amanda Paulson, April 7, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “The vast majority of young people who age out of the foster-care system struggle to find housing and jobs and to complete their education, according to a new study released Wednesday, which tracked hundreds of foster-care youths from age 17 and 18 through age 23 or 24…”

Jobless benefits put Wisconsin in hole, By Jason Stein, March 15, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The state’s struggling insurance fund for jobless workers has already borrowed $1.2 billion from the federal government to pay record claims, but the Legislature won’t try to stanch the bleeding until next year at the earliest, officials said. Cutting benefits to the unemployed now or raising taxes that are already on the increase would threaten the state’s battered economy, labor and business leaders agree. But delaying repairs to the state’s unemployment reserve fund could lead to more borrowing and higher interest payments to the federal government to repay the debt later. Like 31 other states around the country, Wisconsin has had to borrow money from the federal government to help it keep making payments to some 250,000 out-of-work state residents…”

• Payday lenders giving advances on unemployment checks, By Robert Faturechi, March 1, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The payday loan industry has found a new and lucrative source of business: the unemployed. Payday lenders, which typically provide workers with cash advances on their paychecks, are offering the same service to those covered by unemployment insurance. No job? No problem. A typical unemployed Californian receiving $300 a week in benefits can walk into one of hundreds of storefront operations statewide and walk out with $255 well before that government check arrives — for a $45 fee. Annualized, that’s an interest rate of 459%. Critics of the practice, which has grown as the jobless rate has increased, say these pricey loans are sending the unemployed into a cycle of debt from which it will be tough to emerge. Many payday clients pay off their loans and immediately take out another, or borrow from a second lender to pay off the first, and sink ever deeper into debt. Typical customers take out such loans about 10 times a year, by some estimates…”
• Online payday loans pose new challenges for consumers, regulators, By Pat Schneider, February 22, 2010, Capital Times: “Bonnie Bernhardt is proud to have helped nearly 400 Wisconsin residents get back some of their money from an online lender that state attorneys say overstepped its bounds. The 43-year-old single mother from Verona was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed two years ago against online payday lender Arrowhead Investments. After an out-of-court settlement to the class action lawsuit was approved earlier this month, Bernhardt and the others will split $100,000 in restitution. Another $432,000 in outstanding loans will be closed out and forgiven by Arrowhead, and the Delaware-based company is also barred from doing business in Wisconsin for five years…”

Despite Madison’s relative affluence, poverty rate growing rapidly, By Mike Ivey, February 24, 2010, Capital Times: “The doors at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry on Fish Hatchery Road don’t open for another 30 minutes, but a line has already formed. They wait quietly, for the most part, this rainbow coalition of all ages: African-American grandmothers, Latino families, young women with pierced tongues, disabled seniors and working fathers. What they have in common is poverty. Once a month, with a valid photo ID, clients get enough groceries to last a week. ‘As my kids get older, I just keep having to cook more, so every bit helps,’ says Belinda Washington, 44, who has four children at home ages 4 to 17. A Chicago native, Washington moved to Madison 17 years ago and lives in the Lake Point neighborhood off West Broadway on the city’s south side. Her resume includes food service, catering and factory work but she’s been unemployed since her youngest was born. ‘I keep applying but the jobs are hard to come by,’ she says. Danny Pilgrim, 37, has a part-time job at Einstein Brothers Bagels in Madison but had his hours reduced recently. Now, he’s visiting the food pantry with his wife. ‘What can I say? We need the groceries,’ explains the father of three. Being poor, hungry or unemployed is a world far removed for many in Wisconsin’s capital city, where arguments over passenger rail, Badger sports or high-rise hotels can dominate the news. But the reality is Madison’s poverty rate is climbing - rising nine times faster than the rate of other U.S. cities, according to a new report from the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution…”

A sight all too familiar in poor neighborhoods, By Erik Eckholm, February 18, 2010, New York Times: “Shantana Smith, a single mother who had not paid rent for three months, watched on a recent morning as men from Eagle Moving carried her tattered furniture to the sidewalk. Bystanders knew too well what was happening. ‘When you see the Eagle movers truck, you know it’s time to get going,’ a neighbor said. On Milwaukee’s impoverished North Side, the mover’s name is nearly as familiar as McDonald’s, because Eagle often accompanies sheriffs on evictions. They haul tenants’ belongings into storage or, as Ms. Smith preferred, leave them outside for tenants to truck away. Here and in swaths of many cities, evictions from rental properties are so common that they are part of the texture of life. New research is showing that eviction is a particular burden on low-income black women, often single mothers, who have an easier time renting apartments than their male counterparts, but are vulnerable to losing them because their wages or public benefits have not kept up with the cost of housing. And evictions, in turn, can easily throw families into cascades of turmoil and debt…”

• Judging stimulus by job data reveals success, By David Leonhardt, February 16, 2010, New York Times: “Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked. Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs - employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now. If that had happened, what would the economy look like today? Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill. Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative…”
• Independent analysis says federal stimulus brought $2 billion to Wisconsin, By Matthew DeFour, February 17, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “In the last year, the federal Recovery Act has infused $2 billion - or about $369 per person - into the pockets of Wisconsin citizens, including $155 million in Dane County, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, a independent nonprofit advocacy group. UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky said the $800 billion stimulus may not have created jobs as swiftly as expected, but it has helped buoy the economy, as well as state and local budgets…”
• Was stimulus good for Ohio?, By Mark Niquette and Doug Caruso, February 17, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “One year after Congress passed what was intended to be a $787 billion jolt to a reeling economy, at least $2.8 billion has been spent in Ohio so far to preserve jobs and state services, build roads and accomplish a wide range of other purposes. But as Congress considers a second jobs bill, debate still rages about what this stimulus package is accomplishing. Critics question how the money is being spent at a time of growing federal deficits. They also point out that unemployment has gotten worse since the bill was passed one year ago today. According to federal statistics, Ohio has lost a net 107,800 jobs since last February, and the state’s jobless rate rose from 9.5 percent to 10.9 percent during that time…”

• Medicaid, while caring for more, faces big budget challenge, By Deborah Yetter, February 9, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “During his 20 years as an electrician, Eric Sachse never sought any type of public assistance. But then Sachse, a 38-year-old single father in Louisville, lost his job - and health insurance for him and his son, 9. So last month, Sachse signed son John up for the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program, a Medicaid program that covers children of low-income parents. Although Sachse doesn’t qualify for Medicaid himself, he said getting coverage for his son is what counts. ‘I was just really fearful of how I was going to take care of any health care situation,’ he said. As the economy has worsened in the past two years, Kentucky’s Medicaid rolls are rising faster than at any other time in the past decade, adding poor, disabled and low-income people at the rate of 3,400 a month…”
• Hawaii may delay payments to Quest health plan, By Derrick DePledge, February 7, 2010, Honolulu Advertiser: “The state Department of Human Services has warned health insurance companies that the state may not make payments for Quest - the state’s health plan for low-income families - for the last quarter of the fiscal year, leaving insurers to absorb about $300 million in medical expenses until at least July. The potential delay in payments has stunned insurers and alarmed health care providers, who worry a delay could jeopardize the ability of insurers to cover claims, which would cause cash flow problems and influence how some providers care for Quest members…”
• Tennessee hospitals push for tax to offset cuts to TennCare, By Chas Sisk, February 9, 2010, The Tennessean: “The Tennessee Hospital Association’s members will push for a temporary tax on their revenues to reduce cuts to the TennCare program proposed last week by Gov. Phil Bredesen. The association’s board voted Monday to approve a one-year ‘coverage fee’ of 1 percent to 2 percent that would raise money for hospital services scheduled to receive less funding from TennCare. The fee likely would go into effect July 1 and would not be passed along to patients, association officials said. The group also will lobby the state to dip further into reserves and to use any additional revenue that comes into the state to reduce TennCare cuts…”
• Medicaid cuts ‘devastating’ to rural hospitals, By Heather Stanek, February 8, 2010, Fond du Lac Reporter: “Rural hospitals around Fond du Lac say a proposed assessment will help them avoid cutting services or raising prices. Ripon Medical Center and Waupun Memorial Hospital are two of the 59 critical-access hospitals across the state dealing with cuts in Medicaid payments. In an effort to slash costs, the state reduced its Medicaid reimbursements by 10 percent, leaving hospitals to pick up heftier bills for caring for low-income patients. Waupun Memorial, part of Agnesian HealthCare, stands to lose $300,000 annually due to Medicaid cuts, said DeAnn Thurmer, WMH chief operating officer. About 10 percent of the hospital’s patients depend on Medicaid. The Wisconsin Hospital Association and Rural Wisconsin Hospital Cooperative are drafting a legislative bill that would help restore federal dollars to rural hospitals…”

Day cares, parents use kids for profit, By Raquel Rutledge, February 7, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Thousands of children from low-income families in Wisconsin are being kept out of kindergarten every year, and the state’s subsidized child-care program is a driving factor, turning kids into valuable commodities, an investigation by the Journal Sentinel has found. The $350 million Wisconsin Shares program lets parents keep their 4-, 5- and even some 6-year-olds in day care centers all day - at taxpayer expense - rather than enroll them in accredited kindergarten programs. In some cases, unscrupulous parents are participating in an easy scam. They sign up their children with friends or relatives who provide child care. The state then pays the providers roughly $200 a week, and providers give parents a kickback. In other cases, child-care providers offer free gas, free rent, vacation getaways, $1,000 rebates and other incentives to encourage parents to enroll their children in day care rather than school…”

Even the poor make too much to get a public defender, By Steven Elbow, January 25, 2010, Capital Times: “So you’re scraping by on minimum wage, and your hours were cut to 25 per week. You managed to put $300 in the bank, and you drive a beater you bought for $2,000. That puts you in the federal poverty bracket. But according to the state public defender, if you’re arrested, you won’t qualify for a public defender. If your boss cuts your hours to nine, you still wouldn’t qualify. State Public Defender Nicholas Chiarkas calls the standards used to assess whether the poor can qualify for assistance from his office ‘an embarrassment.’ They haven’t been updated or adjusted for inflation since 1987 and are the most stringent in the nation, he says. You have to be dirt poor to qualify. Further, the standards force cash-strapped counties to foot the bill for appointing lawyers for defendants who would undergo substantial hardship if they were forced to pay for their own legal representation. The state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that statewide, Wisconsin counties shelled out about $6 million in 2008 - the most recent figures available - to hire attorneys for the poor…”

• Doyle proposes BadgerCare Plus Basic Plan to help uninsured, By Jason Stein, January 21, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “With federal health care reform hitting obstacles, Gov. Jim Doyle on Thursday proposed a stripped-down health plan to cover tens of thousands of financially struggling state residents. But a Republican lawmaker immediately attacked the proposal aimed at 21,000 childless adults, saying the state was backing into a government-run health plan similar to the controversial public option being debated at the federal level. The proposed BadgerCare Plus Basic Plan would serve as a stopgap for qualifying childless adults in the state on a waiting list to enroll in the state’s swamped Core Plan, Doyle said. The new plan would be funded by a $130 monthly premium paid by participants, not taxpayers, the Democratic governor said. It will require lawmakers’ approval but could be up and running by April…”
• Experts express doubts about BadgerCare Basic health insurance proposal, By Jake Miller, January 22, 2010, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: “Some health care directors who work with low-income patients are skeptical of whether the state’s proposed new health insurance program is affordable for the people it targets. The new BadgerCare Basic plan that Gov. Jim Doyle unveiled Thursday is expected to cost nearly $1,600 a year, or $130 a month. It’s targeted at the nearly 21,000 poor, childless adults who are currently on a waiting list for the popular BadgerCare Core plan…”

Study highlights effect of evictions on poor, By Georgia Pabst, January 1, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Yolanda Luckett had just finished mopping the stairs leading to the three-bedroom upper duplex flat she and her four children moved into last month. ‘I’m in the ghetto, but this is a nice place and I hope I can stay here,’ she said. But the rent is $675 a month, and it will be hard to stretch her Wisconsin Works check of $673 plus the child support she gets to pay for rent, utilities and other necessities, she said. After years of working as a certified nursing assistant and living in one place, Luckett, 36, said she started running into troubles about four years ago. The troubles included getting laid off from her job and a series of evictions from apartments that went from bad to worse. She was able to move into her new place with an emergency assistance grant from Community Advocates. According to a new study, considered the first of its kind on evictions, Luckett finds herself in an all-too-common situation among Milwaukee’s urban poor. The study found that one renter-occupied household in 20 is evicted each year in Milwaukee. In neighborhoods where blacks are the majority, the study found that number jumps to one in 10 renter-occupied households evicted every year…”

Many potential recipients aren’t getting W-2 benefits, By Patrick Marley, January 2, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Thousands of families with no income are not applying for cash benefits from Wisconsin Works, often because they don’t know about the program, a new state report shows. State Department of Children and Families investigators found 14,114 families with dependent children in October 2009 that had no income and received food stamps but did not get cash payments through W-2. Many of those families, considered to be living in ‘deep poverty,’ would likely qualify for cash payments, though the department did not estimate how many of them would. The 14,114 poor families that were not receiving cash benefits is nearly twice the size of the 8,627 families that received payments that month. Advocates for the poor have long complained that the state has discouraged people from getting cash benefits through W-2, the state’s welfare-to-work program. They won a lawsuit in 2007 to allow people to receive money even if they are considered ‘job ready…’”

• Jobless Floridians encounter delays in getting extended unemployment benefits, By Jeff Harrington, December 16, 2009, St. Petersburg Times: ” Nearly six weeks after President Barack Obama extended unemployment benefits in hard-hit states like Florida, Janet Husted of St. Petersburg is still waiting for her first check. Like thousands of Floridians, Husted can blame the waiting game on slow technology and bad timing. Floridians who happened to exhaust their unemployment benefits after Nov. 1 were automatically enrolled to receive the new round of extended benefits, so their weekly checks kept flowing. Those whose benefits had expired before November, however, had to reapply with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation…”
• State’s computers hold up extension of jobless benefits, By John Diedrich, December 13, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The federal government’s latest extension of unemployment benefits passed in early November, but jobless people in Wisconsin have yet to see the money. State officials said Friday the delay was because of computer programming requirements that come with federal funds. They expect the first checks to be mailed Wednesday. President Barack Obama signed the extension at the end of the first week of November - the sixth extension of unemployment benefits during the recession. A delay of more than 30 days is not unusual, said Chris Marschman, spokesman with the state Department of Workforce Development…”
• Bill would extend programs for unemployed, By Deb Price, December 15, 2009, Detroit News: “Congress would extend the cut-off dates for two critical programs for laid-off Michiganians by two months under a deal announced today. House-Senate conferees working on the Department of Defense appropriations bill reset the expiration dates for expanded unemployment benefits and for a federal subsidy to help laid-off workers pay the premium on COBRA health insurance. ‘It is vital that we maintain these programs for people who are unemployed and actively looking for work,’ said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak. The two-month provisions in the DOD bill are critical to Michigan, which is reeling from an unemployment rate of 15.1 percent, the highest in the nation. The national unemployment rate is 10.2 percent…”

• Medicaid faces major cuts, By Patrick Marley and Guy Boulton, December 15, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The state may be forced to cut more than $1 billion over the next 18 months from BadgerCare Plus and other health care programs for the disabled, elderly and low-income families. The shortfall comes at a time when more people are turning to BadgerCare Plus because of the state’s battered economy. About 700,000 people were enrolled in BadgerCare Plus alone on Nov. 30, an increase of more than 70,000 since the start of the year. At the same time, state tax revenues have plummeted because of the economic downturn. Since April, the Department of Health Services has been working on a plan to find an estimated $608 million over two years from an array of cost-saving moves, including rewriting contracts, increasing the use of generic drugs, reducing hospital and pharmacy reimbursements and delaying payments…”
• State health programs for the poor face new budget crisis, By Jason Stein, December 15, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “A flood of newly impoverished participants in state health programs for the poor could send those initiatives as much as $150 million into the red, a legislative report found. The projections raise fresh questions about how long the cash-strapped state can afford expanded health programs for struggling Wisconsin residents at a time of unprecedented economic crisis. To keep the programs running, state officials said they would consider tough choices including putting new rules on participants and cutting payments to the clinics and hospitals that care for them…”

• Milwaukee child welfare system can learn from Pittsburgh area, By Gina Barton, December 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ That line is repeated over and over by child welfare advocates across the country. But officials in Allegheny County, Pa., have done more than just talk. They have spent the past 13 years building that village one neighborhood at a time. ‘The first step has to be: Your child welfare agency has to build trust. You’ve got to prove you’re not simply there to take people’s kids away. Then people will be more prone to get on board and band together,’ said Richard Wexler, executive director of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Because Allegheny County - which includes Pittsburgh - has achieved that goal, the county’s child welfare system has transformed ‘from a national disgrace to a national model,’ Wexler often says. As the State of Wisconsin works to reform the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare with a focus on prevention, Pittsburgh holds lessons for how to implement effective reforms. Although the number of children in out-of-home care in Milwaukee County has dropped dramatically since the state took over child welfare in 1998, Milwaukee’s rate of removal remains relatively high, experts say…”
• $15 million computer system makes agency more accountable, By Gina Barton, December 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Eleven years ago, the computer systems used by Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services were a mess. Ninety-six different applications couldn’t ‘talk’ to each other. Workers didn’t know how to find information in any of them. Clients were entered into the systems multiple times, so officials couldn’t figure out anything about the people they served - or even how many there were…”
• Youth support partners have learned from experience, By Gina Barton, December 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Ashley Hartman was raped by her best friend’s brother when she was 13. She dropped out of school, so child welfare officials came to the house where she lived with her drug-addicted father. A year later, now a ward of the state, Hartman was addicted to drugs and living in a shelter for teens when she got pregnant - with twins. The babies’ father was 21. Today, at 19, Hartman is a high school graduate, living on her own and raising her daughters. She works full time for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. Her job is to help other teens survive the child welfare system…”
• Support centers give families a place to interact, By Gina Barton, December 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Christine Hyatt walked to the Hilltop Family Care Connection center to pick up baby formula through the federal Women, Infants and Children program. While she was there, one of the workers told her about a free play group for her 1-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn Kotvas. Now, Hyatt and Kaitlyn come to the group every week. Hyatt, 24 and pregnant with her second child, also attends a new moms support group and an early-literacy program that provides her family with free books…”
• Program empowers families to make decisions, By Gina Barton, December 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “When 14-year-old Lavante was shot and left a quadriplegic, his family started falling apart. His mother couldn’t eat, and her health declined to the point where she couldn’t get to the rehabilitation hospital to see her son. His father stopped at a bar every night after work. His three teenage siblings ran wild. To make matters worse, Lavante’s doctors called in a neglect complaint to Allegheny County’s Office of Children, Youth and Families. Lavante’s mother wasn’t visiting enough, they said. Further, they thought she was illiterate and were concerned about whether she would be able to care for her son…”

As funds increase, review finds nearly 1 in 8 weatherization jobs flawed, By Ben Poston, November 29, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As stimulus money doubles Wisconsin’s weatherization budget for the next two years, a review of state records since 2007 found weatherization work done on hundreds of low-income homes failed to meet federal standards. A $141.5 million infusion of federal stimulus dollars is to be used to weatherize more than 36,000 homes and apartments through 2011 - from installing new furnaces to adding attic insulation. But a Journal Sentinel review of three years of state records showed that inspectors with the Division of Energy Services found 12.3% of the performance measures they spot-checked were below standard. Inspectors flagged projects when done in a way that could threaten the safety of residents or if the project didn’t save enough energy…”

Wisconsin failing to approve Medicaid and food stamps applications in timely manner, By Jason Stein, November 2, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “Socked by tens of thousands of childless adults applying for a new state health plan, Wisconsin is failing to meet requirements in federal law for timely approvals of applications for both the Medicaid health coverage and food stamps. Since June 15, more than two-thirds of childless applicants with virtually no income - the highest priority cases - haven’t received food stamps within the federally required seven days, state figures show. Nearly two-thirds of all the childless adults seeking food stamps haven’t received them within the required 30 days. The same process is used to check whether applicants are eligible for both Medicaid and the federal FoodShare, or food stamps, program. Officials from the state Department of Health Services met Monday with federal officials to brief them on the delays and said they would seek to resolve the most pressing backlogged food stamp cases by the end of this week…”

More of state’s poor may soon get public defender, By Bruce Vielmetti, October 11, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Seven years after a Journal Sentinel investigation revealed how outdated eligibility criteria prevent hundreds of poor residents charged with crimes from getting a public lawyer, those same 1987 standards remain in effect. The criteria essentially say that anyone earning $7.25 an hour, with a $2,000 car and $300 cash isn’t poor enough for a public defender. The paper’s 2002 series “Unequal Justice” examined hundreds of cases in which defendants were denied a public defender and found dozens who were forced to defend themselves, including the nearly illiterate, a mentally impaired senior and a first-time defendant who thought the prosecutor was his lawyer. Everyone in the criminal justice system agreed in 2002 that the practice violates the U.S. Constitution and often leads to injustice. But year after year, legislative attempts to change the standards have failed…”

• State faces explosion of schoolkids qualified for subsidized meals, By Jacob Kushner and Kryssy Pease, September 20, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “Nearly four in 10 Wisconsin elementary students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch last school year, and the proportion of such students has climbed every year of this decade, according to state Department of Public Instruction data analyzed by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The center found the proportion of Wisconsin elementary students eligible for subsidized lunches hit 37.6 percent last year, compared with 30.3 percent in 2000…”
• Green Bay district gains most low-income elementary students in state, By Kelly McBride, September 20, 2009, Green Bay Press-Gazette: “The Green Bay School District has gained more low-income elementary school students than any other district in the state since 2000, a new analysis shows. The district’s low-income population grew by 2,398 elementary school students during that time, more than the Milwaukee, Madison or Kenosha school districts, according to a report released today by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that produces regular investigative projects…”
• Economic downturn reflected at Southwest Florida schools, By Christopher O’Donnell, September 21, 2009, Sarasota Herald-Tribune: “Hit hard by layoffs and paycuts, more Florida families than ever are turning to federal aid to feed their children at school. Even in Southwest Florida, long seen as an area of affluence, the number of children qualifying for the federal government’s free or reduced lunch program has risen sharply this year. For the first time, more than half of Manatee County students — some 22,000 children — meet income guidelines that qualify them for government assistance…”

In dour economy, more indigent burials get public funds, By Laurel Walker, September 8, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Recent elaborate funeral services for the likes of Sen. Edward Kennedy or Michael Jackson may grab the public’s attention. But among the ranks of the impoverished, the number of indigents who need publicly financed burials has been quietly growing. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has recorded a nearly 15% increase in indigent burials qualifying for public subsidy between 2006 and 2008, when the number jumped from 3,169 to 3,629. Department spokeswoman Stephanie Smiley said the state spent just over $6.1 million in general purpose funds in 2006 to reimburse funeral homes and cemeteries for those services. The figure grew to $7.4 million last year. Through August of this year, the total is $6.1 million. Anecdotal evidence from news stories around the country, from California to West Virginia, suggests a common theme - that more people are needing government help to bury their loved ones…”

• Despite fixes, unemployment department still tough to reach for many, By Denis C. Theriault, September 7, 2009, San Jose Mercury News: “Despite an infusion of money and workers in recent months, the phone number that most out-of-work Californians rely on for questions about their unemployment benefits or missing checks remains swamped by millions of calls. Officials say it still takes about 17 tries before a live operator is reached at the state Employment Development Department and that nearly two-thirds of the 18.9 million calls received last month were rejected because the phone service was too busy…”
• Wisconsin unemployment phone line dropped 86% of calls, By Ellen Gabler, September 6, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The voices taunt thousands of Wisconsin’s unemployed. Here’s what happens: Unemployed people call a hotline run by the Department of Workforce Development to check on their claims for unemployment benefits or to answer agency questions about their application. The calm, recorded voice of a woman says: ‘To speak with the next available claims specialist, press 0.’ But about 86% of the time, the caller is soon disconnected with a simple ‘Goodbye’ from the calm, recorded voice of a man. The callers still don’t know why their unemployment checks haven’t hit their bank account, and they can’t ask a live person any questions…”

A Milwaukee clinic fills a need but faces failure, By Kevin Sack, September 1, 2009, New York Times: “Like many low-income neighborhoods, the north side of Milwaukee has seen a gradual depletion of its primary care doctors over the last two decades. One by one, they have retired or surrendered to financial reality, rarely to be replaced. At the few remaining practices, the wait for an appointment can make it almost purposeless to seek one. When Martha Brown’s 3-year-old daughter, Loverree, woke up with a runny nose last Thursday, her doctor’s office told her it would be a week. ‘I couldn’t wait,’ Ms. Brown said. ‘I had to see what was wrong with my baby. I think she’s got an infection.’ Rather than heading to an emergency room, Ms. Brown took her three children to the Milwaukee Immediate Care Center, a small nonprofit clinic that has treated the north side’s largely African-American community since 1986. The clinic, which keeps hours at night and on weekends, is the only full-time operation in the neighborhood that provides urgent care, luring patients with a sign that reads, ‘When You Need a Doctor Today…’”

Poverty’s punch still packs power, By Stacy Vogel, August 30, 2009, Janesville Gazette: “Mike and Cheryl Easton have struggled over the past year. The Janesville couple moved in with Mike’s dad after a stint at the House of Mercy homeless center. They’ve taken care of sick parents while dealing with their own health and family problems. On top of all that, they can’t find full-time, steady work. They deliver newspapers to pay for necessities for them and their 3-year-old son, David, and contribute toward household bills. ‘I’ve been applying everywhere,’ Mike said. ‘It’s insane.’ The Eastons’ story is typical in Janesville since the economy crashed in fall 2008. Jobs just aren’t available, local experts and those looking for work said. The Gazette addressed Janesville’s growing poverty rate in a three-day series one year ago. It pointed to U.S. Census data showing that Janesville’s population living below the federal poverty rate nearly doubled, from 6.5 percent to 12.7 percent, between 1999 and 2006. Since then, the national economy has collapsed. The situation is even worse in Janesville, where a host of companies, most notably General Motors, have laid off workers or moved out all together…”

Government extends SeniorCare through 2012, By Stacy Forster, August 18, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The federal government will extend SeniorCare, the state’s popular prescription drug program, through 2012, Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday. SeniorCare is an alternative to the federal Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage plan for low-income residents aged 65 and older, and it is the only program of its kind in the country. The state program was to end Dec. 31. Doyle and Wisconsin’s congressional delegation had asked President Barack Obama’s administration to extend the program for three years…”

BadgerCare Plus Core has huge enrollment backlog, By Diana Montaño, August 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The overwhelming demand for BadgerCare Plus Core, the new Medicaid-funded insurance program for low-income childless adults, has the state struggling to process the large number of applications filed in the program’s first two months. The lag is frustrating applicants, community health workers and health officials alike. ‘I feel like it’s $60 down the drain,’ said Cassandra Fier, 23, of the $60 application fee she paid June 15. She has not heard anything since. ‘If the state’s going to be slow, they need to be sending something to individuals letting them know what’s going on.’ From June 15 to Aug. 7, the state Department of Health Services received 37,211 applications for the Core program, of which only 5,000 were processed. Under program guidelines, the state has 30 days to process an application and, if approved, coverage is to begin on the following 1st or 15th of the month…”

Payday lenders giving lobbyists big paydays to stop interest cap, By Cary Spivak and Patrick Marley, August 2, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The latest bid to regulate Wisconsin’s payday lending industry is turning into a big bonanza for the Madison lobbying corps, as more than two dozen influence-peddlers fight a proposed 36% cap on interest rates. At stake is the future of the much-maligned industry that provides small short-term loans with double-digit interest rates. Those rates can skyrocket - quickly hitting 400% or more yearly - as borrowers unable to pay off their debts repeatedly roll over the loans…”

• BadgerCare Plus expansion means adults without children are eligible, By Stacy Forster, July 14, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Hundreds of Wisconsin residents who have previously been without health insurance will be covered Wednesday with the start of an expanded state health program, while thousands more are poised to be enrolled in coming weeks.  The expansion of the BadgerCare Plus program to adults without dependent children comes at a time when enrollment in state health care programs has exceeded 1 million participants for the first time. That’s about 18% of the state’s population…”
• Massachusetts takes a step back from health care for all, By Abby Goodnough, July 14, 2009, New York Times:  “The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system.  The affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, are now covered under Commonwealth Care, a subsidized insurance program for low-income residents that is central to the groundbreaking health care law enacted here in 2006…”