Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Over a Thousand National and State Organizations Strongly Oppose Medicaid Cuts   Announcement at the NAMI web site - "In a letter sent to President Bush on January 12, 2005, over a thousand national and state organizations expressed their strong opposition to Medicaid cuts or funding caps that would likely shift billions of dollars in health care costs to state and local governments. The organizations composed of labor, advocacy, health care, education, children, elderly and religious groups, said it is clear that reducing federal funding would move policy in the wrong direction. The organizations believe that states need reliable and consistent federal Medicaid funding to sustain their Medicaid programs. The organizations oppose changes in the current structure of the Medicaid program that include converting the program into a block grant or otherwise imposing caps on federal funding."  
  

Billion-dollar deficits greet several states   Stateline.org story - "California sports the most red ink, with an estimated $9 billion budget shortfall, followed by New York and New Jersey with a looming deficit of $4 billion each. States confronting projected budget deficits in the $1 billion range for fiscal 2006 include: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, all of which have two-year budgets, and Illinois and Massachusetts, which have a one-year budget cycle. ..."  
  

The kids are all right ... or are they?(Nebraska)   Lincoln Journal Star story - "The 2004 Kids Count report, which measures the well-being of children in Nebraska for the previous year, shows things are pretty much status quo when it comes to the health, education, safety and home lives of the state's children. But they continue to pay a high emotional, physical and mental price for budgetary and policy shortfalls. ... Nebraska has the highest rate of children living in foster homes or out-of-home care in the nation, Bigsby Moore said. ... Also Nebraska is among the bottom three states in addressing the mental health care needs of its children and youth, she said...."  
  

Health and Welfare experts urge funding for drug, mental health programs (Idaho)   Idaho Statesman story - "Inadequate programs are hurting Idaho's ability to help abused and neglected children, and the one thing it may take to help resolve the problem is the one thing the state does not have in abundance: money. Health and Welfare leaders, judges, law enforcement and corrections officials urged legislative budget writers Monday to concentrate resources on drug and mental health programs — areas seemingly isolated from child abuse prevention but, in reality, absolutely integral. Child abuse cases tend to be tied to drug use, and drug use often accompanies mental illness, the group told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee."  
  

Consumers don’t feel withholding disability income helps adherence   Item in CMHA/Ontario's Mental Health Notes - " A majority of consumers say that withholding disability income through a representative payee would not help consumers adhere to treatment, according to an article in Psychiatric Services. Withholding disability funds as leverage may also be seen as coercive and undermine family or therapeutic relationships. The representative payee system empowers an individual or institution to receive the government disability income of a person with mental illness and ensure that the person’s basic needs, including food, shelter, and clothing, are met. It is used for individuals who are unable to manage their finances due to their psychiatric disability. According to the study, an estimated 800,000 Americans with psychiatric disabilities have a representative payee." An abstract of the study is available at no cost.  
  

The Mentally Ill as Frequent Fliers   New York Times editorial - "Pressed by rising costs, the states are scrambling for ways to keep millions of people who are released from jails and prisons each year from coming back. An obvious first step would be to abolish senselessly punitive laws that make it difficult for felons to reconstruct their lives, like those in all 50 states that bar ex-convicts from occupations that have nothing at all to do with their crimes. Another prudent step would be to create high-quality programs that provide newly released people with counseling and job placement. Perhaps most crucially, those who qualify need assistance in getting back their federal disability and Medicaid benefits; inmates typically lose such benefits when they find themselves locked up for 30 days or more. The loss of benefits is especially devastating for the mentally ill, who make up one-sixth of the prison population and who are particularly susceptible to recidivism. Most of them get psychiatric drugs and treatment for the first time in jail. They often improve quickly, but deteriorate just as fast when they are released without being re-enrolled in federal disability programs or Medicaid, which would give them access to medication and psychiatric care..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Tennessee Retreat On Medicaid Points to Struggle   Washington Post story - "On Jan. 10, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat elected in 2002 on a promise to rescue TennCare, announced he is cutting 323,000 low-income adults from the program and limiting services for 400,000 others. Like many other governors, Bredesen said that Tennessee's expanded Medicaid program is devouring the state budget and that he cannot afford what had been hailed as one of the most generous government health plans in the nation. ... The announcement sent shivers through health care advocates nationwide who see in TennCare's retreat the start of a bleak trend to scale back government-paid care at the same time the private sector is trimming benefits. A day later, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) proposed giving Medicaid clients vouchers for private health coverage, making Florida the first state to let insurers set benefits for poor clients. And this week, New York Gov. George E. Pataki (R) is scheduled to slash $1 billion from his state's Medicaid program."  
  

NIH Revises Plan for Quick, Free Access to Study Results   Washington Post story - "An ambitious proposal to make the results of federally funded medical research available to the public quickly and for free has been scaled back by the National Institutes of Health under pressure from scientific publishers, who argued that the plan would eat into their profits and harm the scientific enterprise they support. The initial plan, encouraged by Congress and hailed by patient advocacy groups, called for the results of NIH-funded research to be posted on a publicly accessible Web site within six months after they are published in a scientific journal. ... In the final version of the plan, however, the recommended six-month deadline for posting results has been stretched to a year. That change has angered many advocates of public access, who have argued it isn't fair that taxpayers must either wait or ante up to see the results of research they have already paid for..." [Viewing Washington Post stories requires registration, which is free.]