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"With the long-awaited deal to expand Medicaid finally struck last week between Pennsylvania and the Obama administration, 27 states and the District of Columbia have adopted a key coverage plank of the Affordable Care Act. And the momentum continues to grow in Republican-led states as Tennessee and several others look to expand coverage to low-income residents in 2015. Indiana has an expansion plan pending with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services."

"North Carolina taxpayers could spend more than $10 billion by 2022 to provide medical care for low-income residents of other states while getting nothing in return, a McClatchy Newspapers analysis shows. The Affordable Care Act tried to expand Medicaid to millions of low-income, uninsured adults. But many Republican-led states, including both Carolinas, opted out of the plan championed by President Barack Obama. If the 23 states still rejecting Medicaid expansion stick with that decision, they'll contribute $152 billion over 10 years to states that take the federal money, the analysis shows. North Carolina would be one of the top five contributors."

"The poverty rate in Steuben County is 16.2 percent; over 5,600 children (25.2 percent) in Steuben County live in poverty. Forty-eight percent of public school children in Steuben County are eligible for free or reduced lunch. A Poverty Simulation is a realistic portrayal of living in a low-income household for one month. Participants face the challenges that millions of Americans face as they attempt to keep their home safe, the utilities on, their medications current, their kids in school and fed. The simulation helps participants understand that poverty is about a lack of resources such as support systems, positive relationships, and role models, having the mental abilities and acquired skills to deal effectively with everyday life."

"As attorney general and now as governor, Gov. Tom Corbett has continually fought against Obamacare. That's why, when states were given the choice to expand Medicaid, an entitlement program, he said no. Expansion would have put 1 in 4 Pennsylvanians on public welfare, which is simply not sustainable for our taxpayers. Obamacare has significantly increased government bureaucracy and served only to drive up costs for families and small businesses. There is a better way to achieve true health care reform for Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvanians deserve more than a Washington, D.C., one-size-fits-all approach. Healthy Pennsylvania is an innovative, Pennsylvania-specific plan to reform Medicaid, protect taxpayers and increase access to quality, affordable health care on the private, commercial market."

"Every school building in the poor-performing districts is full of children who come to school hungry, with as many as 90 percent of them in some cases qualifying for the federal free-and-reduced-cost lunch program. In the high-performing school districts, only a handful of school buildings have even a third of children living in that level of poverty. Over the decades in St. Louis, we deliberately concentrated our poverty in specific geographic clusters and allowed school districts in those areas to bear the burden of dealing with the massive challenge of educating children dealing with the most difficult of life's circumstances. In some cases - not all - we have devised a system that requires them to get by on less."

"President Obama on Monday renewed his call to raise the federal minimum wage and to protect the right to equal pay for women as the midterm elections come into sight. In spite of opposition from Republicans, Mr. Obama said, addressing a crowd of about 6,000 people gathered in Milwaukee at a festival hosted by the local A.F.L.-C.I.O., his goal is to make sure all Americans can meet simple goals, like being able to pay their bills and send their children to school."

"Democratic gubernatorial candidate Donald Berwick has laid out some ambitious goals, among them ending chronic homelessness and eliminating childhood poverty. But his most sweeping proposal arguably the most sweeping proposal of the political season is moving Massachusetts to a single-payer or "Medicare for all" health care system. Eight years after the state became the first in the country to establish near-universal coverage, Berwick is reaching for an even bigger prize sought by liberals: shifting from privately financed care to a system funded by the government."

"In Pottstown, the obstacles Taylor faces in keeping her household together are hardly unique. Social-service agencies estimate as many as 30 percent of students in the Montgomery County town have to cope with what they call "housing insecurity." It is marked by frequent moves during the school year, doubling up on couches, living in motels, or occasional slides into homelessness. The new school year has brought a new social-services campaign to better identify families such as Taylor's and find creative ways to bring them stability, such as helping parents find work or deal with landlord issues and overdue bills."

"In spite of the numerous college access programs like 'I Have a Dream,' poverty remains the single largest determinant of whether a framed college degree will hang on the wall. Six-year bachelor's degree completion rates for students coming from poverty are lower today than they were in the 1970s, according to data from the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education. In 2012, 51 percent of low-income high school students enrolled in college in the fall after graduation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, compared with 81 percent of students in the top third of the income scale."

"Medicaid expansion is nothing new in the commonwealth. The General Assembly has been expanding Medicaid almost every year for decades. What has resulted is an unsustainable Medicaid program that consumes over 20 percent of our state budget, an amount that continues to grow. Studies show that the cost to Virginia taxpayers for low-income, uninsured Virginians not only includes over $1.2 billion in the past decade, but is also responsible for up to 10 percent of their health insurance premiums. Continuing with our current Medicaid system is no longer an option. Further expansion doesn't make sense. What is needed is reform. Everything from the expectations of those in the system, to how services are delivered, to creating a path off Medicaid, needs to be addressed and reformed."

"Mr. Shanker argued that charter schools could help reinvigorate the twin promises of American public education: to promote social mobility for working-class children and social cohesion among America's increasingly diverse populations. There is considerable research to back up this vision. Richard M. Ingersoll, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has found that where teachers have more say in how their school is run, the school climate improves and teachers stay longer -- trends that have been independently associated with increased student learning. And data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Mathematics show that low-income fourth graders who attend economically integrated schools are as much as two years ahead of low-income students stuck in high-poverty schools."

"Last year Idaho lawmakers wisely decided that our state should roll up its sleeves and build its own health insurance exchange rather than defer to the federal exchange. The staterun marketplace has forced insurance companies to compete in a fair way and given 76,000 Idahoans access to affordable coverage. Many received tax credits to help pay for their premiums. Unfortunately, some Idahoans were left out. When they shop for coverage through the exchange, they learn that their incomes are "too low" for them to qualify for help. Meanwhile those with slightly higher incomes receive help with their premiums. Approximately 70,000 Idahoans fall into the "coverage gap." They earn too little to qualify for discounted coverage, but earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid."