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"Every school building in the poor-performing districts is full of children who come to school hungry, with as many as 90 percent of them in some cases qualifying for the federal free-and-reduced-cost lunch program. In the high-performing school districts, only a handful of school buildings have even a third of children living in that level of poverty. Over the decades in St. Louis, we deliberately concentrated our poverty in specific geographic clusters and allowed school districts in those areas to bear the burden of dealing with the massive challenge of educating children dealing with the most difficult of life's circumstances. In some cases - not all - we have devised a system that requires them to get by on less."

"President Obama on Monday renewed his call to raise the federal minimum wage and to protect the right to equal pay for women as the midterm elections come into sight. In spite of opposition from Republicans, Mr. Obama said, addressing a crowd of about 6,000 people gathered in Milwaukee at a festival hosted by the local A.F.L.-C.I.O., his goal is to make sure all Americans can meet simple goals, like being able to pay their bills and send their children to school."

"Democratic gubernatorial candidate Donald Berwick has laid out some ambitious goals, among them ending chronic homelessness and eliminating childhood poverty. But his most sweeping proposal arguably the most sweeping proposal of the political season is moving Massachusetts to a single-payer or "Medicare for all" health care system. Eight years after the state became the first in the country to establish near-universal coverage, Berwick is reaching for an even bigger prize sought by liberals: shifting from privately financed care to a system funded by the government."

"In Pottstown, the obstacles Taylor faces in keeping her household together are hardly unique. Social-service agencies estimate as many as 30 percent of students in the Montgomery County town have to cope with what they call "housing insecurity." It is marked by frequent moves during the school year, doubling up on couches, living in motels, or occasional slides into homelessness. The new school year has brought a new social-services campaign to better identify families such as Taylor's and find creative ways to bring them stability, such as helping parents find work or deal with landlord issues and overdue bills."

"In spite of the numerous college access programs like 'I Have a Dream,' poverty remains the single largest determinant of whether a framed college degree will hang on the wall. Six-year bachelor's degree completion rates for students coming from poverty are lower today than they were in the 1970s, according to data from the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education. In 2012, 51 percent of low-income high school students enrolled in college in the fall after graduation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, compared with 81 percent of students in the top third of the income scale."

"Medicaid expansion is nothing new in the commonwealth. The General Assembly has been expanding Medicaid almost every year for decades. What has resulted is an unsustainable Medicaid program that consumes over 20 percent of our state budget, an amount that continues to grow. Studies show that the cost to Virginia taxpayers for low-income, uninsured Virginians not only includes over $1.2 billion in the past decade, but is also responsible for up to 10 percent of their health insurance premiums. Continuing with our current Medicaid system is no longer an option. Further expansion doesn't make sense. What is needed is reform. Everything from the expectations of those in the system, to how services are delivered, to creating a path off Medicaid, needs to be addressed and reformed."

"Last year Idaho lawmakers wisely decided that our state should roll up its sleeves and build its own health insurance exchange rather than defer to the federal exchange. The staterun marketplace has forced insurance companies to compete in a fair way and given 76,000 Idahoans access to affordable coverage. Many received tax credits to help pay for their premiums. Unfortunately, some Idahoans were left out. When they shop for coverage through the exchange, they learn that their incomes are "too low" for them to qualify for help. Meanwhile those with slightly higher incomes receive help with their premiums. Approximately 70,000 Idahoans fall into the "coverage gap." They earn too little to qualify for discounted coverage, but earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid."

"A federal waiver critical to the efforts in Massachusetts to pursue universal health-care coverage, rein in cost increases and deploy payment delivery reform is hung up in secret talks between outgoing Gov. Deval Patrick's administration and the Obama administration. In late 2011, when Patrick announced the current $26.7 billion, three-year waiver, he said more than 98 percent of Massachusetts residents were insured and predicted the waiver would help the state tame health-care cost growth. Now, as his time in office winds down and with the state's Medicaid rolls growing, negotiating details of a new waiver represents one of his biggest remaining responsibilities."

"For the past two years, Lynch and other Georgia doctors have received more money for treating Medicaid patients as part of a program created by the Affordable Care Act. Its goal: increase access to primary care services for the poor. The pay bump has enabled some doctors to see greater numbers of people on Medicaid, which doesn't pay enough to cover the actual cost of care. But the reimbursement hike --- fully paid for by the federal government for two years --- is set to end on Dec. 31 unless the state opts to extend the increase with its own money. Six states plan to do that, including Alabama and Mississippi. Like Georgia, both Southern states have refused to expand Medicaid as called for by the health care law. But Georgia leaders have not yet decided whether to continue the pay increase. Maintaining it would cost the state an estimated $70 million annually, state legislators say."