Election day brought about one of the biggest single day state expansions of the ACA with voters in three states approving Medicaid expansion under the ACA and some new governors could push for more after they are sworn in next year. Voters in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah all had ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid coverage
On Thursday, November 8, the Ninth Circuit Court in California left in place a nationwide injunction keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program alive. The Court, responding to an action led by the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, found that former President Barack Obama’s creation of the program was a legitimate exercise of
On Monday, October 29, CWLA submitted comments on the Administration’s proposed regulation that would overturn or supersede the 1997 Flores settlement. On Friday, September 7, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a federal register notice that proposes, through the regulation process, to amend a court
On October 4, a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Brackeen V Zinke, Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is unconstitutional in its entirety based on the Equal Protection Clause and the 14th Amendment. The judge wrote that ICWA’s racial classification of children has
Shaquita Ogleetree On October 15, the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities co-hosted a forum to explore work requirements and the role of anti-poverty programs. The Hamilton Project released its economic analysis report on how work requirements in Medicaid and SNAP affect the goals of a social safety
On Wednesday, October 3, a new report was released, Evaluating State Mental Health and Addiction Parity Statutes: A Technical Report, ranking the fifty states A through F on whether or not they are providing parity access to mental health and substance abuse treatment consistent with the federal law. That law generally requires health insurers to
Shaquita Ogletree On Monday, October 1, the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth held a congressional briefing to discuss the Every Student Success Act (ESSA) and School Stability for Foster Youth. According to the most recent report from AFCARS, there were over 260,000 school-aged children in foster care, some of the nation’s most educationally disadvantaged students.
Last week the House of Representatives approved the Defense and Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (HR 6157) by a vote of 361 to 61. The President signed the legislation on Friday afternoon. By doing that he extends funding for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Education and Labor for the rest of the fiscal year
On Tuesday, September 23, a number of panelists addressed a Capitol Hill crowd on, One Year after Maria: How Children in Puerto Rico are Faring One Year After. The discussion highlighted how Hurricane Maria, one year ago, aggravated what was already a difficult situation for Puerto Rico’s children and families. A panel of experts described
The agreed to legislation on opioids (see below), HR 6, fixes a glitch in the ACA that mandates that any young person that ages out of foster care is covered by Medicaid to age 26. Through the work of Congressperson Karen Bass (D-CA), the provision was included in the House version of the opioids legislation