Nursefriendly.com: State Budget Deficits

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Friday, April 1, 2011

Cuts Leave Patients With Medicaid Cards, but No Specialist to See - NYTimes.com

Eight-year-old Draven Smith was expelled from school last year for disruptive behavior, and he is being expelled again this year. But his mother and his pediatrician cannot find a mental health specialist to treat him because he is on Medicaid, and the program, which provides health coverage for the poor, pays doctors so little that many refuse to take its patients.

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Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Dr. Rachel Chatters, right, with Ana Smith, says she begs specialists to see Medicaid patients.

Related

Arizona Asks to Set Fines for Health Risks (April 2, 2011)

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Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Ms. Smith said she has tried for more than a year to find a psychiatrist to treat her son Draven, 8, who is on Medicaid.

The problem is common here and across the country, especially as states, scrambling to balance their budgets, look for cuts in Medicaid, which is one of their biggest expenditures. And it presents the Obama administration with a major challenge, since the new federal health care law relies heavily on Medicaid to cover many people who now lack health insurance.
“Having a Medicaid card in no way assures access to care,” said Dr. James B. Aiken, an emergency physician in New Orleans.

via nytimes.com

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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Two-thirds of states cut mental healthcare funds: advocacy group | Reuters

Two-thirds of states cut mental health funding from their general fund budgets over the last two years, according to a report released by a mental illness advocacy group on Wednesday.

Kentucky with 47 percent, Alaska with 35 percent, and South Carolina and Arizona both with 23 percent made the largest percentage cuts to mental health spending in their general fund budgets, which do not include federal Medicaid funding, the study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found.
"Cutting mental health means that costs only get shifted to emergency rooms, schools, police, local courts, jails and prisons," said NAMI executive director Michael Fitzpatrick. "The taxpayer still pays the bill."
"Some states are trying to hold the line or make progress, but most are cutting deep. This stands in contrast to the intense national concern about the mental health care system following the Arizona tragedy two months ago," he said.

via reuters.com

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Don't cut Medicaid, fund it better - CNN.com

Editor's note: Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the director of the university's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. He blogs about health policy at The Incidental Economist.

(CNN) -- You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about our budget crisis. We've also been told, over and over, that it's a problem with spending -- we're doing too much of it.

There's truth in that. Even if taxes were to be raised, it's nearly impossible that we can begin to tackle the deficit without addressing the spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Together, they total well over a trillion dollars in spending.

via cnn.com

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Budget Cuts Spell Crisis for Women with HIV « SpeakEasy

Rallies for workers’ rights in Wisconsin and other states have raised critical awareness about the potential implications — and targets — of budget cuts across the US. But in addition to the fate of unions and public sector employees at the local and state level — the majority of whom are women — the battle over budgets will also determine the fate of key social services, many of them on which women and children in particular depend.
Nothing makes this more real for us at the Ms. Foundation than when our grantees report how budget cuts will impact — indeed, threaten — their own programs and their own communities. For example, just a few weeks ago, the Washington Department of Health decided to cut funding for the state’s only women-specific HIV/AIDS education and support program — a program run by Seattle-based BABES Network-YWCA, our longtime grantee. This decision, BABES tells us, along with an additional funding cut at the county level, will result in a 75 percent reduction in their program budget — an untenable outcome that will leave hundreds of women without critical support services.

via blogs.alternet.org

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Despite Tucson Shooting And Rising Needs, Mental Health Given Low Budget Priority

By Amy Biegelsen
The Center for Public Integrity

It's been two months now since Jared Lee Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Ariz. shopping center killing six people and wounding 14 more, and what's come to light since leaves more than a few troubling questions.

In the days following the shooting, it was revealed that authorities had barred Loughner from Pima Community College, where he attended classes, until he was certified as fit by a mental health professional. Loughner apparently never sought professional help, and the questions the community college had about Loughner's state of mind still resonate -- what was going on with this young man, and is there anything the local mental health infrastructure could have done to change the horrible outcome?

via huffingtonpost.com

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Governors: Medicaid More A Budget Buster Than Ever : NPR

The federal government and the states have shared the cost of Medicaid, the health insurance program for some 60 million low-income Americans, since it was created in 1965.

They've shared something else almost that long — arguments about who should foot how much of the ever-escalating bill.

"Medicaid cost growth has been a problem for time immemorial," says Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.

But this time, he says, things are different.

For one thing, "the program is bigger, so growth on a larger base is more real dollars that's harder to find."

via npr.org

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Friday, April 1, 2011

Cuts Leave Patients With Medicaid Cards, but No Specialist to See - NYTimes.com

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Related

Arizona Asks to Set Fines for Health Risks (April 2, 2011)

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Two-thirds of states cut mental healthcare funds: advocacy group | Reuters

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Don't cut Medicaid, fund it better - CNN.com

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Budget Cuts Spell Crisis for Women with HIV « SpeakEasy

Friday, March 11, 2011

Despite Tucson Shooting And Rising Needs, Mental Health Given Low Budget Priority

Monday, February 28, 2011

Governors: Medicaid More A Budget Buster Than Ever : NPR

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