Health

"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."

"Fayette County Schools this school year have the opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch at school at no cost. The county is participating in a program called the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), enacted as a result of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, is an innovative universal free meal service option designed to make it easier for low-income children to receive meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. The CEP is an alternative to collecting, approving and verifying household eligibility applications for free and reduced price eligible students in high poverty local education agencies."

"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."

"School is back in session, and many impoverished parents in Alabama who struggle to keep food on the table can breathe a sigh of relief. Children once again, if needed, can eat a free or reduced-price cafeteria meal. But not all working poor families qualify for help. Alabama has one of the highest rates of food-insecure households with children. Nearly one third of the state's 1 million children often can't be sure dinner will be served. And the bad numbers on food insecurity show no sign of letting up, as unemployment creeps higher, particularly in north Alabama, where thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost in recent months."

"For the 16 million American children living below the federal poverty line, the start of a new school year should be reason to celebrate. Summer is no vacation when your parents are working multiple jobs or looking for one. Many kids are left to fend for themselves in neighborhoods full of gangs, drugs and despair. Given the hardships at home, poor kids might be expected to have the best attendance records, if only for the promise of a hot meal and an orderly classroom. But it doesn't usually work out that way. According to the education researchers Robert Balfanz and Vaughan Byrnes at Johns Hopkins, children living in poverty are by far the most likely to be chronically absent from school (which is generally defined as missing at least 10 percent of class days each year)."

"The Southbridge schools are participating in a federal government-sponsored universal meal program called the Community Eligibility Provision, the latest opportunity for schools with high percentages of low-income children to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. Qualifying schools must have at least 40 percent of their students either in foster care, Head Start, or are confirmed as homeless, migrant or living in households that receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance, or Food Distribution on Indian Reservation benefits. The meals program is a result of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, and it was phased in by the U.S. Department of Agriculture over three years."