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"A federal waiver critical to the efforts in Massachusetts to pursue universal health-care coverage, rein in cost increases and deploy payment delivery reform is hung up in secret talks between outgoing Gov. Deval Patrick's administration and the Obama administration. In late 2011, when Patrick announced the current $26.7 billion, three-year waiver, he said more than 98 percent of Massachusetts residents were insured and predicted the waiver would help the state tame health-care cost growth. Now, as his time in office winds down and with the state's Medicaid rolls growing, negotiating details of a new waiver represents one of his biggest remaining responsibilities."

"For the past two years, Lynch and other Georgia doctors have received more money for treating Medicaid patients as part of a program created by the Affordable Care Act. Its goal: increase access to primary care services for the poor. The pay bump has enabled some doctors to see greater numbers of people on Medicaid, which doesn't pay enough to cover the actual cost of care. But the reimbursement hike --- fully paid for by the federal government for two years --- is set to end on Dec. 31 unless the state opts to extend the increase with its own money. Six states plan to do that, including Alabama and Mississippi. Like Georgia, both Southern states have refused to expand Medicaid as called for by the health care law. But Georgia leaders have not yet decided whether to continue the pay increase. Maintaining it would cost the state an estimated $70 million annually, state legislators say."

"Fewer benefits, a reduction in the number of plans offered through the state's existing Medicaid program and moving about 59,000 Medicaid recipients into private coverage should produce about $4.5 billion in savings over eight years, Branstetter said. Pennsylvania spends 27 percent of its budget on Medicaid, which costs state taxpayers and the federal government a combined $19 billion annually. Critics of Corbett's Healthy PA plan called attention to the cuts, saying they would harm the health of the most vulnerable people in the state."

"There were 880 students identified as homeless or without a stable home in the Durham Public Schools last year. DPS has a growing homeless student population. Buses can't always find children who move around a lot or have no stable address. Absence letters and automated phone calls may go unanswered. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act requires districts to ensure homeless students have access to education and other services they need to meet the same high academic achievement standards as all students."

"Pennsylvania will become the 27th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration announced Thursday, using federal funds to buy private health insurance for about 500,000 low-income residents starting next year. Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, had proposed the plan as an alternative to expanding traditional Medicaid under the health care law, which he opposes. Now that federal officials have signed off, Pennsylvania will join Arkansas and Iowa in using Medicaid funds to buy private coverage for the poor."

"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."