Category: Social Services and Entitlements
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Don’t Abandon Medicaid Work Requirement
By Steve Haner To Republicans who supported the 2018 decision to expand Medicaid services to more Virginians – and encouraged yes votes from reluctant colleagues — the promise to couple those benefits with pathways toward gainful employment was a key reason. The compromise has worked in other states as well.
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Medicaid Expansion Cost Still Off-Budget, Elusive
By Steve Haner All the signs point to trouble. The next state budget, a two-year plan to be proposed in December, adopted by March and implemented in July, may be caught between stagnant revenue and soaring spending. The spending charge will be led once again by Medicaid. Just how much the decision to expand Medicaid…
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Does the Left Have an Understandable Position on Immigration and How Much Does It Matter?
by Don Rippert Debate: The debate on immigration in America continues to rage. People who hold right-of-center political beliefs seem to think that the U.S. immigration laws should be vigorously enforced. There may be some “wiggle room” on the right. For example, some conservatives believe there should be exceptions to deportation for those illegally in…
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Unpaid Bills, Debt Collection, and Hospital Profits
Carlos Ortiz underwent tests last year at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg for dizziness stemming from an inner-ear problem. When the 65-year-old uninsured gardener couldn’t pay his $15,000 bill, the nonprofit institution took him to court. Mary Washington was suing so many patients that day that the circuit court had cleared the docket to hear…
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A Nonprofit Insider’s View on Child Nutrition
Last week I asked the question how, given our nation’s’ extensive social safety net, it is possible that children in Virginia go hungry and suffer from malnutrition. Are government support payments deficient? Are food deserts to blame? Do people squander their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) stipends? Is something else going on? The explanations we…
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If Kids Are Going Hungry, Does Anyone Care Why?
No one wants to see children go hungry, so one’s natural instinct is to sympathize with a new initiative like No Kid Hungry, which is helping parents and caregivers locate free meals in their communities with a simple text message. But a Richmond Times-Dispatch article profiling the program makes a startling statement: The school year…
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A Horrible Abuse Case. The Daily Reality Behind It.
The news today is horrifying – the death, possibly from sexual abuse, of a 17-month-old. Our distracted minds are focused, for a while, and we all go into a collective shudder and wonder what monster could do such a thing. The daily reality is worse and doesn’t get enough attention. In the fiscal year ending…
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Foster Care Reform: This Just Might Work
In the Age of Donald Trump and the Resistance, it’s hard to find anything that most Americans agree upon. But one is that society — working through government and nonprofits — can do a better job of helping kids removed from the custody of unfit parents. In Virginia, unfortunately, the state’s foster care system is…
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The Push for EITC Cash Grants Accelerates
With the 2019 General Assembly now a handful of weeks away, the main advocacy group for a new cash welfare entitlement in Virginia is ramping up its efforts with various appeals, perhaps testing themes for later use. On Wednesday on its website the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis was arguing that the state Earned Income…
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Medicaid Expansion’s Achilles Heel: the Doctor Shortage
The Northam administration sold Medicaid expansion to the public in part by claiming that the net cost to Virginia taxpayers would be minimal. Uncle Sam would pay for 90% of the cost of extending medical coverage to up to 400,000 Virginians, and the state’s 10% share would be offset by savings in prisons, mental health,…
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Medicaid: the Program that Ate the Budget
Budget forecasters have under-estimated the cost of the Medicaid program by $202 million this year and $260.3 million next year, a total of $462.5 million in the biennial budget, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne was at pains to explain that the added costs were not related to Medicaid expansion covering an estimated…
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Caution: These Links Will Ruin Your Sleep
A campaign pitch for an incumbent member of Congress you will not hear: You are getting $4 worth of government for every $3 you pay in taxes and fees, and the other buck is piled on as debt for your kids and grand kids to pay! You should vote me back in! The Treasury Department’s…
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The Hidden Costs of Medicaid Expansion
This column, originally published by the Chesterfield Observer back in June, is a bit dated. I neglected to re-post it on Bacon’s Rebellion at the time. But, what the heck, with the new debate about how to dish out Virginia’s windfall from federal tax reform, it never hurts to remind middle-class taxpayers how they continue…
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Being Dealt A Losing Hand That Lingers
There are times in life when four aces is a tough hand to hold. Common themes on this public policy forum include poverty and its causes and cures, school failure and related discipline matters, health problems and the difficulty understanding why these conditions remain so widespread in this great nation and commonwealth. I invite you…
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Seven Years and Counting…
Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (HI) will be depleted in seven years — three years sooner than forecast previously, according to the 2018 Annual Report of the Medicare Boards of Trustees. By 2026, Medicare Part A, which covers hospital payments, will be running a $52 billion annual deficit, a gap that will increase rapidly in…