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"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."

"While some of the consequences of poverty are obvious -- those ramifications hit schools the hardest. A 2013 report, "A New Majority: Low Income Students in the South and the Nation," showed that 138 of Georgia's 159 school systems have a majority of low-income students. This brings stresses to schools that they weren't designed to address."

"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."

"Independent candidate for governor Eliot Cutler joined the campaign debate on welfare reform Wednesday with a plan that calls for public assistance recipients to repay some of the benefits they receive and for the state to provide cash incentives for recipients who complete their high school education or ensure the educational success of their children. Welfare reform is a hot issue in the gubernatorial campaign, much as it was during this year's legislative session, due in no small part to Republican Gov. Paul LePage's hammering of the issue since last fall."

"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."

"Certainly, poverty has a large impact on the conditions in which children grow up, and how they perform in school. Gains in education are positively correlated with income. Studies of Michigan in particular examine the bottom half of this relationship, with reports on the State of the Detroit Child annually showing that those who never graduated high school are much more likely to live in poverty than those with at least a high school diploma. With nearly a quarter of Michigan's children living in poverty and with even higher rates in urban areas like Detroit, the challenges posed by socioeconomic disparities are real and relevant to the conversation surrounding education in our state."

"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."

"Louisiana's high-profile school voucher program made a C on a national report card Wednesday, ranking seventh among 15 states. The report by the Center for Education Reform faulted Louisiana for imposing "excessively burdensome" financial requirements and state tests on schools, and for restricting eligibility to low-income students from low-performing school systems. Louisiana tied with Florida in the rankings. Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin earned an A; North Carolina, Arizona and the District of Columbia, B."

"In the results of the 30-year study and in his new book based on it, 'The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood,' Alexander finds that things that were supposed to be great equalizers like economic opportunity and education weren't proving to be so equalizing."