Shaquita Ogletree On Tuesday, April 10, the Greater Boston Food Bank and Children’s Health Watch hosted a briefing to discuss the financial cost of food insecurity and hunger. Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA), co-chair of the Bipartisan Hunger Caucus, has championed the health-related cause of hunger and food insecurity and called for his colleagues to focus
Congress returns this week, but the longest work periods are over for the 115th Congress, making it less likely anything of significance will pass between now and the election. Both houses will take a week off at the start of May, with the Memorial Day and July 4th breaks cutting into the rest of summer
Congress is behind on dealing with FY 2019 appropriations but before moving on those 12 bills, they may take a shot at cutting back on FY 2018. There were reports that Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the number two leader in the House, has had discussions with the Administration on using the President’s rescission authority to
Last week HHS released final numbers for health care enrollment through the ACA. Overall enrollment this year was 11.8 million, a 3.3 percent year-over-year decrease. A decrease that many see as undercutting claims that the exchanges are collapsing. Perhaps most significantly, the report shows that premiums did increase significantly but the offset purchasers received through
With Brittney Gerteisen One item the Senate may get to in the next month is the nomination of Lynn A. Johnson to be Assistant Secretary for Family Support, Department of Health and Human Service (formerly Administration for Children and Families). Last month, shortly before the break, the Senate Finance Committee took up the nomination. Chairman
A combination of higher budget caps tied to the defense budget and the increasing spread of opioid addiction combined into a final appropriation deal that resulted in some truly historic increases in children’s spending. Leading the way was the single biggest increase in child care funding history at $2.3 billion with an additional $600 million
The week started with the President in New Hampshire announcing his opioid abuse reduction plan and ended with Congress acting in a much bolder funding proposal. The President’s plan was thin on specifics but included a broad outline that included broad strokes of: • REDUCE DEMAND AND OVER-PRESCRIPTION: President Trump’s Opioid Initiative will educate Americans
In the end a fix for DACA was never really considered. Despite the President’s comments on Friday it appears that a DACA fix was never a serious point of negotiation. As one of the three key factions in any budget negotiation, the President could have drawn a line in the sand and demanded a fix.
There are five legislative days left before a government shutdown. Congress headed into the weekend with a lack of clarity on where Congress is going on the final appropriation for FY 2018. It is looking more and more likely that this appropriation will be the proverbial “last train leaving the station.” As a result many
The Senate Finance Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Tuesday on the nomination of Lynn A. Johnson to be the next Assistant Secretary for Family Support (formerly Administration on Children and Families). As the Senate was preparing to move forward on the Assistant Secretary position, the Administration was nominating Elizabeth Darling to be the