Wired Homes Keep Tabs On Aging Parents
July 17, 2011
The Value of Medicaid
Medicaid is under assault these days from nearly every direction. Governors complain that they cannot afford to put up their share of the money. Congressional Republicans led by Paul Ryan want to reduce the federal contribution by $771 billion over the next decade and shift more costs to the states and low-income Americans. President Obama has expressed willingness to cut Washington’s contribution by $100 billion over that period to help reduce the deficit.
Meanwhile, conservative critics of Medicaid — and of health care reform’s requirement to expand it — have made the outlandish claim that it provides such poor care that enrollees would be better off having no coverage.
Koch Brothers Spread Influence Via Blueberry Farmer
By William McQuillen and Jonathan D. Salant. - Jul 15, 2011
Gordon Colby, who manages 5,000 acres of Maine blueberries, says he’d never heard of any billionaire brothers being involved when he decided to join a group lobbying for less government regulation.
“I don’t even know who the hell David and Charles Koch are,” Colby, 63, said in an interview. “I don’t know about the Kochs, don’t know who is funding Americans for Prosperity. But I like what they are doing on the local level.”
Maine residents like Colby may not know it, but the Koch brothers have arrived in their state and in most others, moving well beyond their publicized involvement in Wisconsin and Ohio. Under the auspices of Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have become one of the fastest-growing lobbying forces in U.S. politics, spreading the gospel of low taxes, no unions and small government one state at a time.
LePage pushes for Medicaid eligibility changes
By Mal Leary, Capitol News Service
Posted July 17, 2011, at 2:00 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage says he will push for a significant change in Maine’s version of the Medicaid program,MaineCare, by reducing eligibility to the level in place in most states, a move that opponents say will throw about 30,000 Mainers off the program.
“This is what the level is in 47 other states,” LePage said in an interview. “We should not be more generous than these other states, but we are and we have been and it needs to stop.”
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