Aging

"The legal dispute centers on TennCare's decision to stop staffing state offices with personnel to help people fill out Medicaid applications that went directly to the stage agency. Instead, TennCare last year began requiring that all applications go through the federal health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov. A behind-schedule $35.7 million state computer system was supposed to accept and process application files transferred from the marketplace, but the system is still not operating. The Tennessee Justice Center, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center and National Health Law Program, is asking the court to force the state to set up a better system for processing Medicaid applications and deciding eligibility."

"Like many Republican governors, Haslam so far has declined to accept hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that became available on Jan. 1, 2014, absent a special waiver of federal rules that he says will save money and result in better health outcomes. Eighteen months ago he outlined a Tennessee Plan.' It would allow the state to use the federal money to buy private insurance through the federal law's health coverage. But Haslam has yet to submit a formal request. Instead, state officials and sometimes the governor himself quietly sounded out their federal counterparts on what might be acceptable."

"As the city prepares to dole out $446,000 in grants to combat homelessness, one City Council member wants to widen the focus to allow groups aiding the elderly or youth to compete for money. Wengay Newton said homelessness is important but already receives money from other sources in the city's $216 million dollar budget. He would like nonprofits like Neighborly Care Network, which provides Meals on Wheels and other services to elderly clients, to be eligible for the grants, which can be as large as $40,000."

"The Affordable Care Act has paved the way for a vast expansion of mental health coverage in America, providing access for millions of people who were previously uninsured or whose policies did not include such coverage before. Under the law, mental health treatment is an essential' benefit that must be covered by Medicaid and every private plan sold through the new online insurance marketplaces."

"The South Carolina Progressive Network plans to focus its get-out-the-vote efforts this year on the 176,530 people who didn't get health care coverage because the state's political leaders turned down federal Medicaid expansion. Using voter registration information and census data, the network came up with estimates on the number of registered voters in each county denied government-provided health care because the state turned down Medicaid expansion. The 176,530 statewide includes 12,018 in Richland County, 2,888 in Lexington County and 1,914 in Kershaw County."

"Gov. Mike Beebe's spokesman, Matt DeCample, called the preliminary rates great news for the state.' He credited the so-called private option, which uses Medicaid dollars to buy coverage for low-income adults on the insurance exchange, with adding more young, healthy people to insurance companies' plans, thus lowering the insurers' risk. Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson agreed. About 65 percent of private option enrollees are younger than age 44, compared with 38 percent of those in non-Medicaid plans, he said. Thompson said the preliminary rates show that insurance companies overshot what they thought the risk was' in setting their initial rates for this year."

"A potentially game-ending crisis for our nation is the growing number of people dependent on welfare - now at epidemic levels. The Census Bureau reports that in 2012, nearly 110 million Americans lived in a household that received some sort of means-tested aid. A whopping 35 percent of our population is on welfare. These figures don't include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment or veterans benefits.It does include 82 million people on Medicaid, with an additional 9 million expected to enroll this year due to Obamacare. In 2000, there were only 17 million people with EBT cards. That's up to 51 million now - 300 percent larger. Then there are 22 million on WIC; 13 million in public housing; 20 million on supplemental security income; 5 million on temporary assistance for needy families; and 4 million with other forms of tax-funded assistance."

"New data on federal public assistance programs show we've reached an ignominious milestone: More than 100 million Americans are getting some form of means-tested" welfare assistance. The Census Bureau found 51 million on food stamps at the end of 2012 and 83 million on Medicaid, with tens of millions of households getting both. Another 4 million were on unemployment insurance. The percentage of American households on welfare has reached 35%. If we include other forms of government assistance such as Medicare and Social Security, almost half of all households are getting a check or other form of government assistance."

"Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer has filed a lawsuit accusing Glendale Adventist Medical Center of dumping mentally ill and disabled homeless patients on L.A.'s skid row over the last four years. The six-page complaint, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, said the hospital improperly transported elderly and dependent patients to the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood, a 50-block area known for extreme poverty, homelessness, rampant sale and use of illegal drugs and violent crime.'"