Tag: Eligibility

Georgia Removes 95,000 Patients as Medicaid Eligibility Returns to Pre-COVID Standards

The Center Square

State officials have removed more than 95,000 from Georgia’s Medicaid rolls, but one Georgia group says the move merely returns the program to how it was administered for its first 50 years.

State officials said that of the 95,578 who lost coverage, 89,168 were removed because of “a lack of information received … to make an eligibility determination.” The state indicated it has information that more than 20,000 of those “procedurally terminated” would not have been eligible for an extension.

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Gov. Whitmer Signs Emergency Insulin, Education Bills into Law

The Center Square
Gretchen Whitmer

Gov. Whitmer signed a flurry of bills Thursday with topics ranging from affordable insulin to changing college scholarship metrics.

“I am committed to bringing Republicans and Democrats together to make real, lasting change for Michigan families,” Whitmer said in a statement. “For people living with diabetes, access to insulin is a matter of life and death. I’m proud to sign Senate Bills 155 and 156 because they ensure access to an emergency insulin supply for people facing an interruption of care, and require insurance to cover that emergency supply. I’m also proud to sign House Bills 4055 and 4056 – students should be able to afford a college education based on their overall scholastic achievement, especially when facing unprecedented obstacles to taking otherwise required tests like the ACT and SAT. ”

Senate Bill (SB) 155 aims to ensure access to emergency insulin supply at an affordable cost by allowing pharmacists to dispense an emergency supply of insulin to individuals with an expired but otherwise valid prescription issued within the last 12 months.

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Convicted Felon Ovid Timothy Hughes Told Metro Council Members He Was a Registered Voter

Julie Carr

Prior to his acceptance by Metro City Council members to serve on the Community Oversight Board (COB), Ovid Timothy Hughes asserted he was, in fact, a registered voter.

But records show that as a convicted felon, Tennessee law would have prevented Hughes from legally voting in any election without either obtaining an outright pardon from the sitting governor or successfully petitioning a court to expunge his criminal record.

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Trump Admin Works Around Congress to Raise Work Requirements on Food Stamps

Admin
Tennessee Star

by Tim Pearce   The Trump administration is proposing to limit states’ ability to exempt welfare recipients of abiding by the work requirements in the U.S. food stamp program, the Department of Agriculture announced Thursday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is pushing the reform to cut down on abuse within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With the U.S. unemployment rate at a near five-decade low, some exemptions and waivers are not longer needed. “Long-term reliance on government assistance has never been part of the American dream,” Perdue said in a statement. “As we make benefits available to those who truly need them, we must also encourage participants to take proactive steps toward self-sufficiency. Moving people to work is common-sense policy, particularly at a time when the unemployment rate is at a generational low.” SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, are an entitlement distributed by the Department of Agriculture. The program provides financial aid to low- and no-income Americans who meet income, work and other requirements. Perdue’s proposed change would limit states from waiving off some of the entitlement’s requirements for people living in areas of high unemployment, defined as either over 10 percent unemployment or the where there are…

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