For Governors, Medicaid Looks Ripe to Slash
By KEVIN SACK
Hamstrung by federal prohibitions against lowering Medicaid eligibility, governors from both parties are exercising their remaining options in proposing bone-deep cuts to the program during the fourth consecutive year of brutal economic conditions.
Because states confront budget gaps estimated at $125 billion, few essential services — schools, roads, parks — are likely to escape the ax. But the election of tough-minded governors, the evaporation of federal aid, the relentless growth of Medicaid rolls and the exhaustion of alternatives have made the program, which primarily covers low-income children and disabled adults, an outsize target.
Democrats: Maine Medicaid head wrongly fired
Critics fear the MaineCare chief was replaced because he told the truth about stable spending.
AUGUSTA — Some Democrats are upset with the LePage administration's decision to fire the state's Medicaid director, saying it sends a message to other senior staffers not to distribute facts that challenge Republican ideology.
Anthony Marple, 63, who oversaw Maine's $2.6 billion-a-year Medicaid program for four years, was fired on Jan. 13, one day after he appeared before the Legislature's powerful Appropriations Committee.
A Democratic committee member, Rep. David Webster of Freeport, said Marple gave a presentation showing that the amount of money Maine has spent on Medicaid from its general fund has been stable or declined each year since 2006, even as enrollment has grown because of the recession.
Webster said the presentation may have surprised some of the committee's newly elected Republican members because it didn't line up with their campaign rhetoric.
Barack Obama Fires Up The Health Team - Kate Nocera And Jennifer Haberkorn
President Barack Obama may have said “let’s fix it and move on” in his State of the Union address, but the president is sending messages that he is ready to roll up his sleeves and keep fighting the health care battle as long as he needs to.
Obama will address the annual conference of Families USA today, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will release a new report that shows health insurance premiums will be 14 percent to 20 percent lower in 2014 than they would have been without the law, POLITICO has learned.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48333.html#ixzz1CQquYtZO
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48333.html
Posted on Fri, Jan. 28, 2011
GOP pushes to dismantle health law, Obama shoves back
David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: January 28, 2011 06:33:06 PM
WASHINGTON — The congressional battle over health care entered a new, more sharply partisan phase this week, as Republicans began building a case for dismantling the law while Democrats and President Barack Obama fought back hard.
And though Obama said Friday he'd consider a "tweak" or two, he also sent strong signals he won't accept major changes.
GOP lawmakers pressed their points at the first hearings of the new 112th Congress, and Friday, Obama answered with a rousing defense of the 10-month-old law.
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