First Edition: June 6, 2011
April 24, 2017
The Wall Street Journal: Liberal Washington State Tries To Kiss Medicaid GoodbyeMedicaid has plunged Washington state into fiscal crisis. This fact was recognized by legislators from both sides of the aisle during a contentious special session that concluded last week. The result was Senate Bill 5596, a Medicaid block-grant bill. The block-grant concept was remarkably nonpartisan: The bill, requiring the state to apply to the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a waiver that would replace its current Medicaid program with a block grant, passed with unanimous support. On Tuesday, Gov. Christine Gregoire, previously an opponent of block grants, signed the bill. Now the waiver request will go to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (Malin, 6/4).
The New York Times: Cuomo Health Adviser Absolved In Ethics InquiryA health care consultant with close ties to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo did not violate state lobbying regulations when he contacted state officials on behalf of a Queens hospital seeking more Medicaid financing, a confidential investigation by the state ethics commission has determined (Confessore, 6/5).
The New York Times: Abused And Used: A Disabled Boy's Death And A System In DisarrayO. D. Heck is one of nine large institutions in New York that house the developmentally disabled, those with cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome and other conditions. These institutions spend two and a half times as much money, per resident, as the thousands of smaller group homes that care for far more of the 135,000 developmentally disabled New Yorkers receiving services. But the institutions are hardly a model: Those who run them have tolerated physical and psychological abuse, knowingly hired unqualified workers, ignored complaints by whistle-blowers and failed to credibly investigate cases of abuse and neglect, according to a review by The New York Times (Hakim, 6/5).
Kaiser Health News also tracked health policy developments over the weekend, including press coverage of the ongoing Medicare debate and how it is playing out among different age groups.
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.