Tag: Medicaid

House Republican leadership has sent a letter to the Colorado Congressional delegation that calls for an end to federal Medicaid mandates. The letter from Speaker of the House Frank McNulty and Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R- Monument, calls on the delegation to work with the state to find a Colorado solution.

Among the many Republican-backed provisions to cut federal spending is a proposal to transform Medicaid into block grants. If enacted, some worry the change could leave millions without coverage.

At a time when many states are slicing services for people with disabilities across the nation, the federal government has come through with a welcome offering: $4.3 billion in grant money that will go to states--including Colorado--implementing programs that transition Medicaid beneficiaries out of institutions and nursing homes and into their communities.

The Colorado Health Institute, the state's non-partisan non-ideological non-profit source for health care information, is reporting that state and federal laws passed in the...

Today, Congress plans to vote to extend unemployment benefits, which have been held up in the Senate for an unprecedented two months. Lawmakers will reconsider H.R. 4213, also known as the jobs bill or the extenders package, as the vehicle for a $34 billion extension of benefits — retroactive to June 2, when they lapsed, and continuing through the end of November.

For tens of thousands of the nation's teachers, it is the start of an endless summer. In the past month, the Los Angeles Unified School District has sent pink slips to 693 employees. The Detroit school system has laid off 1,983 teachers, including Michigan’s 2007 teacher of the year. And Greensboro, N.C., has received national attention for firing or reassigning more than 500 teachers in a district serving just 71,000 students.

The failure of the unemployment extension bill, which also included additional federal funding for Medicaid and many more important provisions, will not...

Democratic leaders pushing health care reform this year like to argue that a vast majority of the proposals represent uncontroversial changes backed by most Capitol Hill lawmakers. And while that might be true, it hasn’t prevented some sharp disagreements between House and Senate Democrats over a handful of high-profile reform provisions.

WASHINGTON-- To hear Republicans in Congress tell it, the Grand Old Party is pretty much united against the deficit-spending approach to economic recovery. Don’t tell that to local GOP officials.

Faced with the most severe budget crises in decades, state and local policymakers from across the country — including a growing list of prominent Republicans — have been only too happy to accept the additional federal funding that accompanied last year’s $787 billion stimulus bill. Not only did that money prop up job markets, many say, but it kept social-service programs running strong during a period of greatest need. They don't see stimulus spending as indebting the future. They see it as an investment in the future.

Here’s a profound idea from California GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went after congressional Republicans yesterday for criticizing the Democrats’ stimulus bill one moment,...